Tag: Google Search

Wake me when October ends

Limits to power. Limits to growth. Speed limits.

We finally see ourselves in the mirror.

Dying, decaying, decomposing.

Long live Blue Jeans, T-shirt and Rock “n” Roll.

60 Minutes capitalized on their archive footage to show us the evolution of John Kerry.

Our evolution, from idealism to realism.

The aging process that takes a toll on a powerful nation.

Shrinking. Going private (BlackBerry, Dell) , going home fishing (Steve Ballmer) or going home (Jobs).

Wake me when October ends or when the government is back to work again (as of this, it is facing another shut-down).

My friend is worried about his pension.

I told him to get out and vote.

A country is strong when its young people feel like they can make a difference, or can affect change.

The options are now limited: voters drive, enlistment (not a good idea given Syria and the rise of soft powers), volunteer for  NGO‘s or work in the mill (Amazon is now hiring seasonal workers only).

When NGO”s are on the rise, more than private sector, we have a problem.

Instead of churning out paper money, the nation is better off with “greed is good” days on Wall Street.

At least,  people have reasons to get up in the morning and read the WSJ.

Now, it’s “wake me up when October ends”.

What motivates people are still the same (Maslow scale).

But the mechanism to bring it about seems to be broken: it’s one thing for young people to give up a Wall Street job for Peace Corps, it’s another not to have a job at all, hence, compassion fatigue.

Back in the days of Peace Corps, a generation vowed to “Ask Not…”.

Now, they stop asking, eye glued to the screen, playing war games.

Drone nation.

Everything is available in small sizes (USB, blue tooth etc…).

Digitized. Think in code.

Machine (Google Search) is learning semantics and contextual relations while human refuses to seek understanding (Iran, Iraq, what’s the difference?).

Wake me when October ends.

Let the brain sort it out while we sleep our way through October.

May it wake up fully recharged, reactivated for full-use.

Einstein only used up a tiny portion of his brain cells. Look where it has taken him and us. Imagine when all of us wake up by month end, start thinking in semantics and contextual relevance. A thinking nation is a dangerous one. Sleep tight!

Vietnam’s outsourcing factory

I have heard about TMA Solutions new building in Quang Trung Software Park, but I have never got a chance to stop by, until yesterday.

1,200-strong, TMA begins to look like an army of engineers (my friend and guide showed me a beehive behind the building, after we had toured their lobby where Vietnam‘s historical artifacts were on display, next to the museum of telephony).

“It is to show the stream of history, culturally and technologically, so our engineers could get a sense of where things might be going” said my friend.

I could relate to that.

Users and programmers don’t exist in a vacuum.

We live and breathe the same air as everyone else.

Honda got hit not once but twice last year, both in Fukushima and in Thailand.

While incubators and laboratories are necessary for concentration and collaboration, they still function within a larger ecosystem.

Users tend to move on to the next big thing more quickly than companies.

Two great benefits TMA could offer to prospective clients:

– its time-tested know-how

– young work force who can stay on for however long the project requires (end-to-end outsourcing).

Yes, we had a sort of working lunch and then marketing presentation.

But it’s the spirit of the group, the speed of execution and the spread of product (cloud computing) that will work in TMA’s favor.

If they grew  (at least no lay-off)  in hard times, how much more in good times.

I am afraid this is counter-intuitive. But organizations need to secure talent just as much as they secure property and product.

When all boats rise, talent can then command higher salary leveraging supply vs demand.

As engineers huddle in conference rooms and cubicles,  consumers are shopping for the greatest and latest.

In turn, these technologies (cloud, social media apps) enable new applications (e.g. Google + Search) which in turn reshape consumer expectations.

It’s the loop, of empathy, of hits and misses (Betamax) and the drive for perfection (Apple).

Outsourcing is just a phenomenon, but man’s search for meaning and connection has been around much longer.

Get to the bottom of this, you will get to the bottom line.

I like my guide’s side comment “look at Napoleon! he was so short, yet so imperial”.

I just know from seeing the beehives behind the building that worker bees are busy at work, coding and collaborating, and  in the process saving tons of money for clients. Clients who now can sit back and choose from a score of outsourcing factories. Let the game begin. Stay hungry, stay curious (Jobs’ commencement address at Standford).  Vietnamese engineers at TMA can discount the first advice and focus on being curious. This, their shrewd leader had already anticipated. He wanted to leave his legacy via the museum of  ethnology (past), and technology  (future).

Tang, Sanka and Google instant

Tang was well-known way back then, as the drink of choice for astronauts.

Sanka had been in every motel room, before the green de-caffeine (equivalent of conditioner that is coupled with shampoo) bags came to existence.

And now Google Instant, promised to be faster and more magical.

Can’t data mine faster than that.

The wisdom of crowd interacts with the wisdom of machine. IQ vs AI.

We were amazed at Luke’s drink (in Star Wars). Now we know why? The speed of everything has been quickened.

I prepared lunch for myself and my daughter today.

I found myself very impatient with the process: chopping, heating, eating and cleaning.

Would it be easier to eat out of  Instant Cup O Noodles? (which made the Noodle King richer than Burger King).

Nobody knows you are a dog on the internet. But you must be the top dog. Search engine and crawlers show SEO, be it the best or not.

Only the highest page-ranked items are displayed above-the-fold. With Linkedin Social endorsement, we have invented the online equivalent of “street cred” (the age of Lordship is back, albeit in new currency)

I remember browsing through a section of the library, just to see what’s placed close by.

Now with Google instant, I won’t get to do all that. It will “ping” right away displaying only the search term.

We are back to data silos, to our own “cubicle”. Hence the danger of isolation and the need for integration.

The Web gives us vast data pool, Google instant narrows it down. A personalized version of Google trend.

Ph.D. candidates are having a field day narrow down their thesis.

( Once you can articulate the problem and find no existing research done on the topic,  you are half way to the degree.)

I am glad for competition in Search and instant Search.

It’s tough enough having to deal with spam, and unsolicited mail (data deluge).

BTW, the NYT might stop to exist in physical form. It’s experiment on-line has been successful, so much that it threatens the print side.

The tipping point came when people bought more e version than hard-cover version.

Save a tree, save a buck , but not B&N.

No longer do we browse other books while shopping for a new release.

Save gas, save space and save time. Instant gratification. Boy oh boy, what am I going to do with my existing book collection?

Another “Tower” is down (referring to Tower Records, which went busted after MP3). I don’t think Goodwill will accept all the book donation in the future,

the same way it is inundated with tube TV‘s. We are witnessing  a near complete transition to digital, one which is overtaking our lives a zero and a 1 at a time.

My plea: be patient with yourself. And if you have to prepare lunch, try not to use the microwave. Not that it’s not fast, it’s just that with our current expectation, even microwave speed seems so slow in the age of Google Instant. Use those free minutes for a Tweet that might go viral.