Tag: CNBC

800-GOT-PCs

Even the machine is toast.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2091333,00.html

I remember tuning in to CNBC last year to watch Steve Jobs live.

The event: the I-Pad.

Steve sat leisurely on stage, showing us on-screen all the touching touchy features.

The Apple II inventor inadvertently declared the death of PC (not right away, but it’s the beginning of the end).

However you look at it, once consumers are “spoiled” with lighter, faster and cheaper products,  there is no turning back. (Since when do we go out and buy a boom box to listen to music?).

Enligtment soon turns entitlement.

Perhaps someday, PC’s will turn vintage.

Even rustic. To be nature-preserved, in the Pacific Northwest, to load Win 10 and beyond.

In the age of Google Docs and cloud computing, mobile and jet engines, Cat Stevens just needs to pack up a tablet in “I am leaving, on the jet plane,…”

Seeing an opportunity in high-tech waste, an entrepreneur started collecting e-waste:

800-GOT-JUNK fleet.

He probably followed HP news closely, especially when the later announced the unraveling of its earlier merger with Compaq.

Junking a lot of mice, key boards, monitors, CPU‘s and speakers.

Even paperback books can’t seem to compete with E readers.

Summer reading on trains and planes will never be the same.

Richard North Patterson benefited from E-revision of his latest, The Devil’s Light, upon the news of Bin Laden.

If anything, we can all feel a relief that cumbersome hardware and E-waste will be less taxing

on our ecosystem.

Computing is evolving and has gone mobile.

It’s all 1 and 0. So, why bother with all the weight or Wang?

Computing at the speed of light.

It is to show how fast the adoption curve has been since the Mini-Computer (whose inventor just died last year) to Personal Computer (whose inventor just died last week),

and even machine can’t escape its own cycle of birth, life and death (and rebirth, which is the euphemism for going vintage).

Just make sure you junk them responsibly. Call 800-GOT-PCs?

strip tease

A Canadian lady, on her insurance-paid leave for mental distress, walked into a bar. Not just any bar, but a male strip tease bar. And she posted her excursion in Facebook to share with “friends”. Among the uninvited  “friends” was the Insurance adjuster. So, her insurance checks stop coming. Reason: “we have joy, we have fun, we have seasons in the sun”, now back to work.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091121/wl_canada_afp/lifestylecanadahealthinternetfacebook_20091121190842

Yahoo News has “denial” theme today: claim denial (Canadian) to Communion denial (Kennedy).

Huge companies are probably up for another round of Stimulus . The Beast got a taste for blood. Should that be denied also?

V-shape recovery? Here is a portrait of a nation, according to Garp.

More people are “discovering” Thrift Shops. More people are buying Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Black Friday pre-sales, soft opening etc…Long Island or nation wide, Walmart doormen now have plan C, with color-coded alert taking a page from Home Land Security.

Less people on the payroll= less tax revenue=tuition increase.

Berkeley students protest , this time, not against the Law professor who argues for torture, but against the U system that seeks to turn torture closer to home: on their own students.

Instead of “Hell No, we won’t go”, it is Pink Floyd’s ” We don’t need no education”.

Some have argued for a 3-year college sysrem. Others went overseas to obtain nursing degrees (cheaper).

I personally went to Hanoi, to obtain my CELTA , a taste of Edu- tourism.

There is a growing field if one really wants to get a job: negotiating for a lower national debt in Mandarin. That’s what our Utah ex-governor was doing in China.

Or you can claim extreme stress, and wants to be depressurized in a strip bar. Just make sure you are thorough with your Facebook privacy setting. Out of fear, we settle for the lowest common denominator, and end up with triviality, and plasticity. Facebook turns Filebook full of self-incriminating evidence instead of peer recommendation.

Everything you post may be used against you in the court of law. There, you have been warned.

In social history, every time we were told to shut up, we ended up with a movement that changed history.

I can’t wait to see what’s next. But first, let me go get my Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.

P.S. I feel for California college students, among them, my daughter. Give peace and Aimy a chance.

You don’t want both Daddy and daughter “backpacking” in Vietnam, on an extended eco/edu tour, do you?

I am just being proactive, in case the US needs a bi-lingual debt negotiator after I am gone. I got a succession plan in place. Today’s freshmen are tomorrow’s congress person. Treat them right, and do not provoke them, Provost!

Ireland and India offered free education, and look at where those two countries are today.

P.S. 2 we need a new policy to protect online sharing, that way, people are less vulnerable to preying and prying. The insurance claim specialist was probably enjoying his/her moment of “gotcha!”, thinking he/she was en par with CNBC special investigation.  I hope the lady (even posed in bikini lying on the beach) gets her checks. And this time, don’t spend it all in Chippendale.

 

Smart brand

Given everything that has been going on, recent news that Ford turned the corner on North American market was quite remarkable.

Ford, as American as Coca Cola and apple pie, has done a number of things right:

– it cross-pollinated ideas and markets (Smart in US vs Fiesta in Europe)

– it stuck out while competitors rightfully took the easy way out of bankruptcy (early on, it was the first auto manufacturer to pay high wages for its assembly workers)

– it believed in the intrinsic value of its brand and the resilient consumer market (not without government incentives).

That’s said. Three cheers for Ford, because it’s been a tough fight (Michigan unemployment is at 15%).

The tougher it built its F-series trucks, the longer it takes for people to return to the showroom.

Inadvertently, it creates its own self-victimizing cycle (especially if its customers are not into the latest and greatest).

No more planned obsolescence. Not in this globally connected environment, where a Tata is sold for less than $3000.

Or a Hyundai carries a 100,000 miles warranty.

Yet, somehow, the flag is still flown high at Ford, if not in Detroit, than else where around the world, where people can’t wait to own a Ford (symbol of American prowess). Perhaps the best way to experience this is when you are an expat,

living in China or Vietnam, and can’t wait to get inside of an A/C building, or be driven in a Ford when it’s pouring out.

These days, Made- in- the- USA is hard to find, but Made-in-somewhere-else  quite ubiquitous.

I still remember the feel, popping up sound, and sizzling taste of my Coca Cola in Subic Bay (my first sales reward). There has not been anything quite like it. (Chicago has been known to copy CocaCola font for its CD). Incidentally, CNBC will broadcast a series of report on Coca Cola the brand.

Perhaps the eye-catching sight of Ford’s Smart will slowly erase the negative imprints of those rolled-over Explorers ( its tires controversy).

Last week I believe once again in the power of brand: its consistency which  assures consumers in uncertain time. Forward enough so we don’t feel left behind, yet (emotionally) connected so we can find our anchor. When faced with an array of choices,  one tends to cling onto “the security blanket”: the nearest rock in the stream, an immediately recognized face at Chamber mixers. In social connection, trust is our personal brand. No wonder Ford chose a Ford’s descendant to be its spoke person, to show continuity which began with the Model T. It’s been a smart move that paid off.