Tag: Disneyland

We can handle the truth

We here are people who fled Vietnam in various waves (pre-1975, 1975, and post-1975) and have settled in Little Saigon, Orange County, CA.

I have seen the strip transformed, from a few stores to be what it is today: patch work of mini plazas interlacing with mobile home parks, often times, reflections of the boom and bust times.

First was a State Farm rep office, with a pharmacy. Then a Mall. Then all that followed e.g. foot massage parlors (Chinese money) condo complex and French bakeries. Businesses traditionally catered to mainstream tastes e.g. 7/11, Burger King, Ralphs supermarkets were all closed. In their places are Pho (at a discount, like cigarettes), iced coffee, tea (Tastea) and trade-up Vietnamese restaurants.

It was conceived to be a hub for second migration (the first was engineered by the US Government, to prevent Little Havana type of cluster).

Little do we know (the same blind spot that the US Army underestimated the strength of the collective enemy), climate and community acted as push and pull forces for second migration.

We still can’t handle the truth (that policy makers don’t see beyond the immediate).

Now market forces are taking over after the housing boom and burst. High-margin businesses survive side by side with some flavors of urban America: the Vietnamese homeless (stateless to begin with).

On the other hand, we got talk show hosts, weekly pundits and Vietnamese Film Festival featuring up to 69 entries.

We can handle the truth. (I attended a showing last night at UC Irvine. The producer personifies self-reinvention: Silicon Valley engineer, Loan Officer, and now ethnic film producer that might eventually go main stream).

There is a torch-passing process although one cannot see the definite hand-off. The legacy and language, the tug of war between the generations and the acculturation rate (new comers would use Little Saigon as jump point, the same way ChinaTown has served this role for centuries).

Money doesn’t flow one way. It has started to flow the other way (up to 3.5 million Vietnamese tourists from Vietnam are now allowed to travel Westward, a one-to-one match up (and catching up) with those who have resettled.

More monks, more students and concerned parents visiting US campuses, more business and marriage brokerage eager to close deals.

By the end of this month, those who first came in their 30’s will have reached their 70’s. I walked by the Senior citizen center, once bustling with activities e.g. chess match, English classes, Tai chi. Now, the membership are dwindling, funds dried out.

We can still handle the truth.

If I were community planner, I would pay attention to the unmet needs of the touchscreen generation. How do we yank them away from the I-pad screens? What lesson in Vietnamese language and culture would attract them, and what value could we offer?

Meanwhile, tourism to America has reached its low point. Can Little Saigon be a small magnet on the way to Las Vegas and Disney Land.

What other business proposition we can offer to attract reverse money flow? How do we keep those brain power who are now educated on tourist/student visa? I guess it all boils down to quality of life. California has been hard at work to push for air quality.

Now the same zeal is needed to support and upgrade its ethnic base. After all, it’s the end of the West before Hawaii. And it needs to live up to that reputation, once known as California Dreaming. I am sure the Vietnamese homeless guys are doing just that in front of the Food To Go.

We can handle the truth., Mr Stockman.

http://thechairmansblog.gallup.com/2013/04/americans-cant-handle-truth.html

Turning Tragedy into Triumph

It’s on the Post. It’s on Linkedin. It’s in your face.

It’s about tourism to America. Or the decline of.

You would think people love to flock to the big Apple, to Disneyland and to Las Vegas.

But lately, it doesn’t happen (tourists prefer destinations like Turkey over the USA).

To top that, we got bad news like “they closed the White House tour”, ” the Monument is in repair” etc..

Tell that to those who are planning their family vacation to attend this year’s Cherry-Blossom Parade.

In Marketing, we seek to create a conducive atmosphere (to induce spending), like the Experience Economy which Las Vegas has mastered.

Wouldn’t it be counter-intuitive to finish rebuilding the Twin Towers at quicker pace, and use that as a draw.

Look, we were knocked down, but not out.

Come and see the resilience, the sacred history, and the undefeated spirit of a freedom-loving people (Discover American).

It would create high-paying jobs (using future tourist revenue), and not just for NYC.

Tourists would likely end up touring both East and West Coast.

Think like a tourist. What would you be looking to do and see? (the Dakotas?)

What differentiates the US  from the UK and other EU countries?

Teach a short course in English, with terms like Filibuster, Sequester etc…

I would stay away from visiting a house in disarray and disagreement which induces more stress than spending.

Corona did a good job showing pristine beach front, under the shade of umbrella and 2 beers in the foreground.

Now, that’s vacation away from stress and strain.

They can do that with two bottles, how much more can we do with two buildings, rising from the ashes.

Turn Tragedy into Triumph. Build and they will come.

They always will. Just need to be nudged.  Call out Hollywood, line up the stars (our new ambassadors).

I remember that one time, when Quincy Jones called everybody to leave their egos outside the door. Outside, they might be stars in their own rights. Inside the studio, We are the World. And they ate it up. The synergy and energy of first-class vocals, in harmony and collaboration. Build it and they will come. From very afar, to rediscover America and American, people who can turn tragedy into triumph.

The things they still carry

The war novel with similar title was surprisingly good. I have known about it for a while, but couldn’t get myself to “carry” it home. Until now. Until it’s translated into Vietnamese.

It’s the opposite of reading Bao Ninh‘s The Sorrows of War in English.

Both novels had the same setting, same period, same conflict, same ending (went down with whatever they were carrying, on their bodies and on their minds).

Sorry winner and lucky loser.

All the while, the sound track for that same period was Proud Mary (you don’t have to worry, for people are happy to give).

In The Things They Carried, supplies were chopper-ed in (chocolate, cigarettes and C-rations). The military industrial complex was “happy to give”, from Hartford, from MN etc…

Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.

I could barely get through the first few chapters, reading about the members of this fictitious company as they went down, with the things they carried (one of them even carried sleeping pills – for eternal rest).

We can now look back, with recognized names like J. Kerry, J. Fonda etc… at a  safe and rational distance, away from the heat of Kent State and Watergate and My Lai.

I have seen the things people here in VN carry, on their shoulders, on their scooters.

But inside, unless they sit down and tell me, the hidden things that they still carry are scary.

Those with vivid memories are dying one by one, on both sides of the Pacific.

We got scholarly volumes and doctrine (Powell) on the conflict.

And we eventually got Burger King and Dunkin here in VN. It’s like the tunnel is finally closed  with sign which says “Go away, leave the past alone”.

For here or to go?

It’s Future Land now. Happy Land. Disney Land. Dream Land. It has to be.

Yes. Young students carry a lot with them today: book bags, smart phones,  eye glasses, cigarettes, lighters, even IDs. No dog tags. No Zippos. No memories.

Just a bunch of “nic’s” and passwords. Everything is in the Cloud. On Facebook. On Drop Box and Mail Box.

To search for them. Easy. Just Google. In Vietnamese, or English. No translation needed. Sorrows of War or The Things They Carried. Instant access.

Perhaps that war, Vietnam that was, was the last  “hardware-driven” conflict.

No wonder, the things they carried, seemed awfully heavy and burdensome when viewed from a light-weight I-pad.

Jobs’ off switch

Steve Jobs hated the on-off  switch. Perhaps more so because it was a relic of electricity (Edison) and automobile manufacturers (Ford). He did not like old wine in the same wineskin, given our always-on Cloud Service in  A/C data centers.

Apple chose North Carolina as a site to store music, video and the rest of its customers’ files. The FCC recently allowed the roll-out of White Space, wi-fi on steroid, also in NC.

Who needs the on/off switch! It had some utilitarian legacy (activate and deactivate) when hardware used to rule.

Now, software eats your lunch.

Of BMW’s  thousand components, a large portion are software-controlled. From Buggy to Beamer, the engineers have made a giant leap.

Jobs was quoted as saying (this was counter-intuitive and anti-academic):

“if Ford had asked the customers what they wanted, they would have said,

faster buggies”.  In short, it’s categorically different with revolutionaries.

Think different!

No on/off switch.

Just the dial.

Circular motion.

The experience economy.

Control the product from end-to-end to make every touchpoint with the customer an iSee! (Disneyland).

Progress , like time, waits for no man.

If you keep standing on the track, you will likely get run over.

Not a single word in Jobs biography states directly that he was a  futurist. Yet he could intuitively sense what was coming – his biography itself was well orchestrated (momenti mori) and ironically open-sourced (counter-culture life style, but proprietary business model).

In fact, religious zealots did take a shot at him for his views.

I wonder if those people secretly borrow an I-pad from friends to touch and feel (where is the on/off switch?).

I wonder what their legacies are as opposed to Jobs’?

And their destination : paradise or purgatory?

Jobs took his son to a business meeting (antennaeGate) mostly for I-phone IV damage control . “It would be a two-year worth of Business School  education” said he.

His biography, which offers more than a two-year worth of B-school, is a must-read for technologists, marketers and culture critics who want to understand the Valley ethos.

When arts (music in this case) found new venue (I-pod) and revenue (I-Tunes), it is unchained melody for the mass (unbundled as singles not whole album).

Be spoiled with IT 3.0 (cloud and social media) but also be thankful sitting on giants’ shoulders

An image evokes in my mind was that of Cinema Paradiso, where the kid got a ride home on the bike’s frame, wearing his mentor’s hat and chatting up as a fee for the ride. However long, enjoy the ride. That’s our reward . As Southwest Airlines would say, please collect your items to ensure faster turn-around at the gate.

Unfortunate guy and the happiest place

I still remember Sang. He helped me set up sound equipment on the weekend (my attempt to crowd-source and create an open-air coffee-house for refugees), and attended my class on weekdays.

Sang was in that transition camp in Hong Kong, on his way to Norway, his new home.

I was feeling sorry for him, an unaccompanied minor, who only knew the seas and spoke no other language besides Vietnamese.

Now he is in the happiest country on Earth perhaps with a fully paid house and a steady job.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/10/happiest_countries/index_01.htm?chan=rss_topSlideShows_ssi_5

You will never know.

I thought of Nordic countries as being very cold, isolated and their languages incomprehensible. While in Hong Kong, I was taken to New Territories, on my day off , for a peek at then inaccessible China. That same view, today, looks out to Shenzhen. Back then, it was the equivalence of standing at the Korean DMZ.

Back to Sang.

He got to Norway safely, I learned from a few letters, one of which had a picture of him with sun glasses and cigarette.

Cool!

I was impressed with Norway then, because they took on Sang and others in their most unfortunate of circumstances.

Norway had nothing to do with the wave of Boat People, risking pirates and prolonged processing at camps.

Yet they pitched in because their ships picked up refugees at sea.

And now, it’s voted the happiest country on Earth.

A lot has changed since. Back then, I read the Boat People story on Newsweek. It struck me.

The ordeal and the odd (1 in 2 survived. Survivors might resort to cannibalism at worst,

or got raped along the way, at best).

Now, Newsweek itself got sold off for a token $1.00

And “Ladies and Gentlemen on both sides of the aisle” actually sat together, from senior level on down (Kerry and McCain).

Sang looked up to me, naturally. Now, it’s my turn to envy him.

I wish I were the happiest guy in an unfortunate place instead.

So he projected himself on me, and I, with a delayed reciprocate response years later.

Back then, CNN was a novelty. Today, the President takes his Q&A on YouTube.

My hope is for the last of those “boat people” to find their happiest place this New Year (another wave has ended up in Australia).

Many have posted sweet memoirs about Tet and places they once loved.

It’s a culture which holds high regards for the collective memory (sticky-rice cake, moon cake etc…).

Allegorically, those symbols resonate even and especially for those who now live comfortably in Nordic states.

It will be so strange, if one day, I ran into Sang here in the States, or Vietnam.

And we will exchange notes, how much (the price) we have paid for progress.

We know there is not much room at the top (the Mayan pyramid steps got smaller as you climb higher).

And the way down has always been much scarier, because it’s counter-intuitive for us to ever look down.

Who wants to go back to school like that laid-off textile lady at the age of 55. We were toilet-trained and mentally trained for a one-way race. No one seems to be able to recall more than three top winners in each sector. Hence, it’s more than necessary to attain and sustain the top place.

Just make sure, you have ownership of the climb. For Sang, then, it was a very sad journey he took to transit camp and onto NORWAY.  As it turns out, he was an unfortunate guy in the happiest place on Earth years later.

 

Aimy Telephony

Aimy’s birthday is this Friday.

She was born in Burbank, while I was still trying to close a telephony deal (Centrex or “cloud telephony”).

Phones get smaller (from brick phone to pocket phone) while Aimy grows bigger.

She went with me to many direct sales events, Daddy and daughter singing “We Are the Champions” to psych up for  sales training and rah-rah session.

Now she is nearing adulthood while telephony is nearing zero (pricing).

It seems as if the 60’s movement for social change could only do so much in one generation.

Technology picks up the slacks and pushes the envelope (Moore’s law and eco awareness).

Things have gone from a moral approach to a viral approach , from “the Death of God” to “the Death of Distance”. Amazon, Salesforce.com and EMC are offering data warehousing and data mining service (clean tech not smokestack, time-saving not labor-saving). I just got winked at by an online-degree ad girl on Yahoo homepage.

Voice mail, SMS, Twitter and Facebook help usher in the reputation economy (prosumers’ advertising), where each of us is either the spreader or receiver of viral message (Have you seen the trailer for Amelia?). Distributed worker bees.

As of this edit, Facebook fans are protesting the new “recommended” feed, in place of the old Live Feed.

Telephony and computing converge to give us crisp and clear data streaming transmitted at lightning speed. Our next frontier will be peer creation (Web 3.0), Blu Ray on steroid.

Aimy created her mySpace page at a very early age. Daddy can barely catch up with “friends” on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Amelia flew in the air onto the unknown. Aimy “hip hops” on the ground and online. All the powers to her. There is no better time to live, on this side of medical breakthrough (TB, Polio and cholera, all curable) and on the crest of technological invention (Twitter, Google glasses, I phone). As long as she gets it, that one is to live life as if one were dying. It makes every bit (no punt intended) all the more sweeter. War, Recession, Terrorism can never weigh us down. We are the champions!

Go to Disney Land, Aimy. Or see Amelia. It’s your life now. No permission is needed. My struggle is your strength. BTW, Aimy and company won US Championship in Hip-Hop. (How about that for subliminal persuasion).

I think I am going to text her on Friday. It costs much less now with “all you can text” deal. Near zero pricing Triple Play.

co-ding

It’s been an amazing contest. Netflix 1 million dollar prize was awarded to the first team of coders.

The second team came in, with equally good stuff, just 20 minutes after the deadline.

Data rule.

Organized and monetized data, that is.

The information age is here to stay. Symbol recognition and manipulation.

Pretty soon, we won’t have to tell websites what we want . They will have the ability to hold up the mirror, and help us see ourselves, our preferences, remote or immediate .

Concierge Age. Both for advertisers and for shoppers.

“Those who shop for this, tends to buy that”. Agent of influence.

I had my share of buying Amazon popped up suggestions.

In the age of Long Tail, companies like Netflix base their models solely on buyer’s known preferences.

There is no need to pay for store front, stocks are almost at zero cost if you consider Digital publishing or DVD copying (just-in-time.)

With Red Box, I feel sorry for the video pirates. It’s already a dollar for each new release. Who need to go to the alley,

risking an arrest, to purchase a poor quality (perhaps made out of home videotaping in the theater) pirated copy?

Back to our winning team. At the end of Market Place interview, they said they wanted to catch some sleep.

These guys don’t go to Disneyland. They like to code.

What I learned from the interview was that they collaborated with people from a different team, as long as they

can generate new ideas and together, come up with solutions. The runner-up also said that while working on the project, they already applied their new learning to help their clients. The reward had already been reaped before they handed in their project 20 minutes after the deadline.

These guys must be made of a different cloth. Their concept of teaming, winning is as radical as their approach to coding. I mean, since when people came up with Open Source, i.e. letting others see their recipe.

The answer lies in what Chris Anderson said all along in Wired: it’s the abundance mentality whose Tail is long.

Come and join us. Share the land since  the harvest is abundant. 24/7 around the globe. Just code.