Tag: Google

Strange shores

I reward myself with strong coffee after my morning exercise.

It had been a month before I found out that Cam Ly, a Vietnamese famous singer – with her signature song “Bo Ben La’ (strange shores) live in the house next to the alley where I had my coffee.

Strange shores, strange circumstances.

When in the US, I listened to that song, thinking about being a stranger selling sea shells at a  strange shore (tongue twister).  Now, sitting here, next to her house, stirs strange sensation.

Ironic! Fateful!

The Vietnamese diaspora has come to terms with itself.

It’s been almost 38 years to date.

More than enough to heal old wounds, start new life and families, or reinvent one’s self.

Some even had new names: Tommy (not Hilfiger), Cindy etc..

But strange names might not guarantee same results.

The women seem to adjust better in foreign environment (manicuring trade).

Male expats (immigrants in this case) have receded to the far corner of vices (gambling, alcohol and homelessness – including many GI‘s).

The hyphen generation (Vietnamese-American) have fared better: doctors, dentists and designers.

But the third generation will ask questions: why do I look the way I do (slanted eyes, but white inside. Banana generation).

They will Google the Vietnam War, google The Last Day of Saigon etc…

They will search and research.

What legacy? what is there to be proud of?

Stranded on strange shores, what are their heritage? When they visit Vietnam, it will be strange shore to them.

Meanwhile, a new generation of Vietnamese students here are preparing to study abroad. I saw their eagerness to learn “when do we have that tutoring session you mentioned the other day?”.

I like it.

Learn, baby learn.

You will need to log in 10,000 hours to master a new skill set.

English has 2 million vocab and counting.

Co-location and forms vs functions will exponentially increase that pool.

Learn baby learn.

Then share it with others.

Be the Master.

Be the Master of your universe.

Be back from strange shores and share the spoil.

Bo Ben La, Bo Ben La.

I miss that song already, even when the singer is living right next door.

Maybe I can make off with a  ticket to hear her at live concert. Let me see if my diplomatic skill still works here after living in strange shores for so long. ” Hi, I am your fan who has traveled really far to hear you. Can you sign here…woops, I don’t have a ticket to the show for you  to autograph”.

Keep dreaming. Bo Ben La..

Something in the way.. of Vietnam

I just viewed a clip about Vietnam during the 40-50’s (French lady riding and reading the papers on a moving cyclo, newspaper boy wearing beret…).

Something in the way, she moves… attract me like no other lover…

A North Carolinian I picked up yesterday from the airport (for TESOL course) said “there is something about Vietnam I can’t get a finger on” ( I ventured to guess: adrenaline?).

He said yes, that’s it.

This morning, they withdrew a quarter of a syringe of my blood. Cholesterol level was pronounced good. Two eggs please.

But my jogging days are soon over (with the right knee needed extra oil – the doc suggested swimming. She did not say, dancing).

I was feeling down, when I saw a full amputee (lost both legs) hop down from a bus. Not only that, he then hopped up behind the xe-om (scooter taxi) for the last leg , no punt intended, of his trip.

Something in the way Vietnam moves…..attract me like no other country..

You have to be bold, to be wise and to be on your best to survive here.

The determination ensures the destiny of Vietnam.

Young students are aware that they have to start lessons in Mandarin among other things.

They know who is number 2 in world economy, and number 1 in proximity.

Same choice my family made when switching me from French school to English school.

Follow the money. Use all your resources.

Adapt. Two-prong plugs in a three-prong society (courtesy of Andy Rooney).

Or in this case, four-wheels are impeded in a two-wheel city (parking, fuel costs, security risks etc..).

Tonight, I have to go to the airport again to  pick up the last student of our upcoming TESOL class. Another American, in from Bangkok.

He will be in for a surprise. He will be at a loss finding the right word to describe Vietnam. Culture shock!

He would say, “Vietnamese women try to make it work”. Adrenaline all the way baby.

This guy wanted to know if there were a coffee shop or food stalls etc…

He will spend his nights toss and turn after a few cafe sua da. Then he will get hooked.

Something in the way she moves…..

If you are fence-sitting, Vietnam is not for you. There is the method to the madness (traffic non-pattern).

But then, the sweetest and the smartest are found here, mathematics genius, for one.

Then the sorriest of the bunch, as in the amputee I saw, is also here, hopping  on buses, trains and scooters.

Making it work!

If that man is mobile despite his apparent loss of mobility, nobody should be complaining about a knee-joint.

So I will shut up now.

Something in the way, he moves…..

Thanksgiving, tradition and technology

While almost everyone in the US gathers around the traditional meal, here in Vietnam, some people come up with a way to marry tradition with technology: ancestor worship online.

Its highway to eternity has 10,000 plots, already booked for burial and continued ceremonial service online (to accommodate overseas relatives and those who have resettled to urban centers).

Don’t be surprised to see an emerging generation of ICT engineers who ride the waves, from mobile payment to mobile commerce.

If their counterparts in Israel could come up with heritage.com, they sure can match it with ancestor worship online.

Or English learning to match Khan Academy for math tutoring,

English schools sprung up to meet the growing demand for talent infrastructure.

I-pad, I-phone, I-pod could be found at almost every street corner.

Banks are in a race to compete with traditional merchants of gold and hard currency.

One storefront builds out by adding another floor, its neighbors will one-up it ( even hiring away the neighbor’s security guard).

At lunch time (my version of Thanksgiving), I had to zigzag the busy streets to hunt for food.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my family in Virginia perhaps noticed that I missed the Turkey dinner.

A generation back, we wouldn’t know what a turkey tastes like. But I remember our grandmother staying with us, and not the nursing home. My  mom’s generosity spoke louder than all the lessons she had taught at school, whose  sign has always said “Tien Hoc Le, Hau Hoc Van” (First, learn respect, then literature).

With WordPress, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, I can now connect and be connected to thousands of like-minded professionals. Together we are linked for mutual benefits.

It’s an open race.

Occasionally, we pause to reflect on the past and tradition, like Thanksgiving or ancestor worship.

That too can be accommodated digitally. What can be digitized will be digitized. Except for the plot of land, where my grandmother rested in peace.

I had put down on my must-do list to visit her grave, out in the country side of Hai Duong.

But that too, might be digitally do-able.

Perhaps in the very near future, we in Virginia, can put up on the now-used-for-Karaoke screen, the burning of incense at our grandmother’s grave outside of Hai Duong. Then, it’s only a matter of the will because there already is a way.

Technology and tradition. One ushers you into the future, the other reminds you not to forget the past. Happy Thanksgiving!

Movements

In the latest  issue of the New Yorker we find a cartoon, showing two women with huge brand-name shopping bags, blurting out “I am going to start my own Occupy movement on 57th St”.

Scott Peck, on Organization, observes that organisations go through phases: honeymoon , chaos then, compromise before reaching full functioning.

Movements however are little bit different (spontaneous and horizontal spread) e.g. Ms movement.

Wonder Woman, shopping for Wonder Bread and raising wonderful children, although a few grew up to be “flower-children”.

If you want to understand the human potential movement, you need to see that “naked gestalt circle” in TIME. We were into breathing, feeling and (organic) gardening.

The thing about movements is that they morph and move on.

In their wake, Ms movement for instance, we have a whole generation of children grow up without close supervision from either parent (pre-Mr Mom era).

I was both fortunate and unfortunate to grow up with two sets of parents: one biological, and the other, already-grown-up siblings (who to this day can’t grow out of their surrogate role). With two women of the house being out of the house, I learned to grow up quick on my own.

While sorting through various upheavals, from the British Invasion (Beatles) to “the Invasion of the Body Snatchers“, I was mindful of movements, but always missed out on them by a few years (sexual revolution, de-apartheid movement, organic movement and computer revolution).

There is nothing inherently evil or good about movements. It’s an exploitable situation when people are seeking and open to change e.g. Jim Jones and San Diego suicide pact. One can easily be swept away in clashes and chants, in mobs and marches.

The very leaderless nature of a movement gives it both authenticity and vulnerability. By the time it fizzles out, we have no central figure to blame (or send city-sanitation bills to).

In Egypt, they had arrested a Google executive, but a few days later, he was surprised that the Arab Spring had taken hold during his detention.

Right now, the movement to go online (shop until you drop) has surely advanced way pass its honeymoon phase (dot.com) and chaotic phase (dot.com burst).

Web 2.0 is here to stay (Groupon was so confident that it had refused Google’s best offer) and to push to the Cloud (Facebook has just picked Sweden to anchor its large server farm). A digital joke: can your parent tell a server from a waiter? Or as in our New Yorker’s cartoon, Occupy Wall Street vs Occupy Fifty-Seventh St?

When it comes to movements, you need to zoom out and take a balcony view. While having less fun, detachment helps you see the DNA strand that runs through all : dis-contentment. History is made up of movements, large and small. In my short time, it just happens to be full of both. Now, where should we Occupy next?

Voice & Video

Via camera phone, satellite uplink and YouTube upload, we got pictures and sound of the upheaval in Libya up to the minute.

The golden gun (its now-deceased owner must have watched James Bond’s Gold Finger), the Club Car and female bodyguards.

When I was growing up, we were cooped up inside the house (curfew) while news of a regime toppling beamed through state-controlled radio.

One military leader after another read prepared statements after both Diem’s brothers got assassinated in Cho Lon, Vietnam’s largest Chinese enclave.  Then, there was counter-coup and counter-counter coup (I lost count).

Back in 1963, to listen to the radio, we had to put our imagination to work.  School was out (our version of “snow day”) while Marshall law took control of the streets. Fear and trepidation were in the air. Everyone felt helpless. In short, breaking events weren’t unfolded as neatly and with instant access as they now are.

Before digital, networks had to spend time laying  the control track (on the 3/4 inch video), then the sound track and finally the B roll (video track).

Now, we got Instant access via Web apps, today’s B-roll , from the desert.

Every revolution seemed to culminate in Occupy the Broadcast Station.

Hugo Chavez and his band of brothers once tried just that, only to find out it had been moved. They were captured and jailed afterwards (partly for not having a Google map update).

Speaking of Google which purchased YouTube.

Although the later barely is profitable, it adds value to Google’s central strategy (organize the world’s information).

Where else can cable news get their video source to show, for instance, a Chinese toddler get ran over twice ( Where was the Good Samaritan in number 2 economy?).

Or an inappropriate tweet (and later denial) which derailed a Congressman career.

Voice and video in our time.

ABC News digs up its archive to show Barbara Walter’s decade-old interview with the Colonel, who was,  in her words, “vain”.

She got a career boost after joining  Walter Cronkite on his MidEast trip to interview President Sadat (now, we have woman as Editor-in-Chief at the NYT).

Back then as it is now, foreign experience makes or breaks a reporter’s career ( Dan Rather, Peter Jennings both had their early start in Vietnam).

Today, we’ve got  Independent Television News and Al Jazeera that supply voice and video feed for our 24/7 cable news cycle. This empowers a generation of digital camera-phone owners to become amateur stringers. If Chavez had to do it again, he wouldn’t need to occupy the broadcast station: just press Record and Send. Voila! Voice and Video. However shaky the shots, speed trumps (broadcast) standard. Wonder what they have to do at the FCC to cope with information explosion. And it doesn’t end there with Google satellite and  street maps. The EU has just sent up a new horde of advanced satellites into orbit. It’s a classic case of dictator’s dilemma: when one can have (information) access, all, the opposition included, can too. To deny one is to deny all. Yet, in abundance of choices,  I just miss those radio days “when I was young, I listen to the radio, waiting for my favorite song…”; this “hot” medium forced me to exercise my imagination (e.g. visualizing a live soccer match) based solely on voice and no video .  Now, everything is put on display, even what’s inside a Libyan food freezer. Gory and Gold Finger.

Clothes and costumes

Just about now, we start thinking Halloween costumes.

We have tried on cotton, polyester, paper, fur, animal skin (leather) and raw meat.

At work, the dress code has changed as well since IBM went “soft” (ware).

Gone are the blue suit, white shirt and red tie. Who wants to upstage their CEO’s at Facebook, Google, and Apple (turtleneck).

So the working men are out shopping for “casual”.

And the sales clerk adapts: “Do you want the I-pad carry-on with it?”

Salesmen are facing an identity crisis. Gone are the 50’s hats, and the 80’s suspenders.

Now, with robot wrestlers, robot cops and robot ads (pop up), the next outfit will probably be Star Wars’s.

Clothes don’t make men (appearance matters, though).

But it certainly goes along way to buff up what’s already there (or cover up some tattoos ).

If I were to choose, I would pick Mission Impossible for this Halloween.

In fact, they did just that at Dancing with the Stars last night.

First, it’s Hollywood that set the standard (for music and fashion).

Then, TV followed in (dancing) step. Finally, we saw tie-in merchandise and toys.

Hopefully, the raw-meat-as-outerwear trend doesn’t catch on (Bruce Willis appeared with a raw-meat toupee on Letterman’s Late Show).

In fact, the go-casual trend fits right in with the digital generation.

Poor dry-cleaner chain! (who needs their T-shirts dry-cleaned).

Now, even brief cases and PCs  don’t sell. Just sleeping bags,  T-shirts and tablets.  Campus life forever at Google Plex. No clear break at Facebook’s Timeline. One infinite loop in the here and now (A/C, 24/7 news cycle and global office with backroom in the Cloud).  There is talk that Mark Zuckerberg will be the next Steve Jobs (after all, they both were on TIME magazine cover). In other words, the (turtleneck) long sleeves has just been replaced by the short sleeves. Just don’t skateboard in every time you launch a product (Google). Gaga would have preferred to be carried in, inside an egg, with hatch opened. Ham and egg breakfast-wear.

Inching back to life

When we face a critical juncture on the road, we need to be decisive.

A liberal arts training doesn’t hurt either. Even when two people arrived at the same conclusion, liberal art thinkers insist that between A and B, a straight line might not be the best alternative.

Just the shortest.

As nature would agree, it favors the fittest, not the fastest among us.

We are having a leadership crisis. Our Job Czar, himself the best job outsourcer, says on 60 Minutes “I work for the shareholders” when asked about CSR (Corporate social/civic responsibilities).  Those shareholders might be Saudi sovereign funds, or  Chinese who couldn’t wait to get their hands on the secret sauce of GE aircraft engines).

The seamstresses and the toy makers who saved, end up owning the aircraft makers who overspent.

Remember, the problem of a declining America doesn’t happen overnight.

It is a confluence of factors, none of which favors the American work force (the missing middle class).

It would be easy if it had been a series of  A/B forced choices. I look at Steve Jobs timeline, and notice a parallel between his life and America’s:

starting from 1976 when he built his personal computer in a garage to the latest I-phone roll out.

At roughly the same time, America hosted Deng’s visit to Texas  and ordered a bunch of toys (remember Mattel then, Foxconn).

The rest as they say, is history: restless children play at stationary desktops, while dumb adults tinker with smart phones.

Light-weight, high-yield processors have upended America’s growth trajectory which began with heavy industries ( 50’s American autos are still popular in Cuba).

This shift doesn’t just level the playing field. It erases the whole map (employees carrying personal smart phones to work, hence, increases both personal and corporate productivity).

Now we have to crawl back to life, like in the Wrestler: feeling the rope and relying on muscle memories.

We need to inch back to life with new digital instincts. We need to be the fittest again before resigning ourselves to fateful and final acceptance of defeat.

I never know an America that is fatalistic. In its short history of warfare, its people always take up arms when challenged. In that spirit, let’s reverse course, inch by inch, back to health. It might have been a step back, but who knows, this will end up with two steps forward.

Success always rewards itself with more. It just that we haven’t tasted it lately to remember how intoxicating it once was and can still be.

Web and Cable experience

In the early days of the Web,  I asked my friend what he did online.

The answer: ” I just browse from one magazine to the next (static), and listen to ethnic radio channels “.

This was pre-YouTube era.

We have spent an enormous amount of time curating content that is put out there: radio signals, spam mail, junk mail, DMs (Direct Messages), mobile spam, cable programs and channel surfing.

Clearly, whoever can invent a multi-platform  TiVo-like device will rule.

From Death of Distance to Death of Device (cloud computing and

“thin client” booths).

Of course, the counter argument will be, “but it ‘s the Googlization of everything” (including restaurant review and flight search).

The filter bubble! (seeing and hearing  only what we want to see and hear).

Forever “being there” inside an echo chamber, without a specter of  contesting or challenging view  points.

Can’t handle the truth, in my time or in your time.

Sink or swim in a digital deluge (the computer revolution has been diffused to the mass via trial-and-error). At least, before Cable, we got the big Three networks and a mass media audience for  Super Bowl, the Evening News and the Oscars.

Now, like my friend said, “just browse, from one paper to the next, and listen to one station after another”.

Quantity trumps quality.

Television finally faces serious competition from online media.

ABC World News got a new boss while Yahoo is looking for one (as of this edit, M Mayer is now a CEO).

Disney Channel replaces its CEO, while BoA is contemplating the same. James Carville advised the President to look for a new team.

Reshuffling the deck.

Rearranging our priorities (as new entrants alter existing choice architecture).

24/7 News cycle covering candidates recycled – Romney.

Financial pushes short sales,  hence, forces flash crash.

Airplanes keep pushing the limits. Hence, flight crash (Reno, then W VA).

NASCAR and NASDAQ always pushes the bleeding edge, the former claimed a few lives in Daytona, while the later crushed many dreams.

When it comes to choice, we have only a few : capital, land and labor.

With Web and Cable, we got more access (Le Monde anyone?).

In Russia, they long for a return of the Soviet command and control style. At least, they got bread, albeit a long wait.

In short, freedom is frightening. Can’t count on that same Wikipedia page a few months from now.

Dynamic web.

When I bought the coffee-table book entitled “Knowledge”, I found that’s  printed in China.

Western Civilization, printed and shipped from China.

And I know before long, they won’t even print the revised version there. It will be online. For my friend to browse and sneak peek.

Amazon’s “puppy-dog” sales “Search inside the book” to “publish and read the entire content”. Penny talk extends from wireline to wireless phone, then onto Skype for free.

Too much democratizing of technology, and not enough in analog spheres (food, fuel, clothing and shelter) where scarcity still rules.

Steve Jobs’ is credited with saving the music industry (99 cent song).

The next century belongs to folks who can monetize and monopolize attention, influence and customer experience.

Gone were the days when companies could  just throw a bunch of channels or web pages at people, and hope it will stick (shotgun approach). Maslow says it best, “first survival and eventually self-actualising“. Using this need pyramid as framework,  we can see that we are still at the survival stage (of the data deluge).

But years from now, we will develop the capacity to filter and fashion the Web in our own image (hybrid between buffet style and a-la-carte). Like the proverbial Russian bread line, all it takes is the waiting (for more  mobile apps).  And my friend, the one I asked in the early days of Internet, the most patient person I have ever met, doesn’t mind waiting. Le Huffington Post, anyone?.

Xerox, Yahoo and Google

With the exception of Yahoo, we can pretty much use the other two as verbs i.e. to Xerox s/t or to Google it.

When your company is a household “action” verb, you have it made.

Yahoo got a head start, with strong brand recognition.

But it flounders (even MySpace, as cool as it once was, couldn’t escape this mayhem).

AOL, Yahoo and MySpace belong to Web 1.0 era, the Valley’s equivalent of Big Band music.

We are commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

And candidates from both parties are now running for 2012.

Get a move on.

Don’t believe me? just Google it.

The speed of data processing and forced “choice architecture” results in shorter attention span.

We can’t recall but the top 3 (Incidentally,  World Economic Forum ranked the US as number 5 this year, after Switzerland, Singapore and Sweden).

Here in the US, we can’t even use the old Avis motto (We’re number 2, we work harder).

What belong to the previous decade stays with the previous decade.

No one could predict the rise of Singapore back in 1967 (or China in 1978).

In fact, much of the criticism was about its attempt at social engineering (match making its college educated).

Now, it’s number 2 and keeps working harder.

If I were to draft US policies, I would Xerox its road map, after Googling it.

This tiny country in Asia miraculously catapults into the big league.

If you understood how culturally advanced Sweden was, you would be able to appreciate the enormity of Singapore accomplishment.

Its secret sauce, turns out to be a right mix of social control and laissez faire .

Throw in a strong-handed leadership doesn’t hurt (remember Clinton had to plead so the gum-thrashing kid wouldn’t get spanked).

I wonder any of the folks who were on TV last night, purported to hold a recipe for recovery,

had ever set foot on this tiny island called “Sing” (short for Singapore)

or known precisely where it was.

Thank God for Google Map. Now, xerox it.

the acceleration of nearly everything

Time heals, slowly. It makes for better wine.

But it also shuts the window of opportunity.

The moment we leap (even before we look), we defy fate.

No regrets.

In “Blink”, the author presents a clear case for intuition and conclusion.

It’s the opposite of SWOT with no action =  slow-burn effect that kills the frog (paralysis of analysis).

Most life-altering decisions are made not by (analytical) choices, but in a “blink”: a parent who picked up an added burden (hence, less time to spend with the kids), the first televised Nixon-Kennedy debate whose viewers favored the telegenic over the “tricky”, a leader who was reluctant but refused to disengage from someone else’s war ( Hey, hey, LBJ) at the expenses of his beloved Great Society .

If history is of any guide, we will eventually relegate what is now known as the internet to its proper place as we have treated its counterparts (radio, TV, phone book, encyclopedia …)

We will know that it’s there, accessible at any time, any place. But the novelty will soon wear off, or co-opted by corporations or back to the government (ARPANET started there anyway). In fact, contrarian already felt that our privacy and freedom are in jeopardy.

Internet, like everything else, will face its own “valley of death” before being adopted by the Rest. I still remember how excited everyone was with Skype and Netflix 5 years ago.

Meanwhile, it has done its job: the classification and acceleration of nearly everything.

Someday, when Search is complete with behavioral targeting, we can do away with “I am feeling lucky”. For now, if you…

Want to know about s/t? Goolge it.

Want to view and hear s/t? Youtube it.

Want to call somebody (or group w/ them), Skype him.

Although It doesn’t bring neighbors closer together, it offers us a tool to “google” them, or “verify” his/her online brand.

Something just can’t be rushed: your pot roast, your wine, and the cheese.

Or reputation, trust and friendship.

My classmate was excited upon hearing about a long-lost friend. Who wouldn’t want to see ourselves as we were once seen!

Maybe social networking is here to stay.

It connects people like the tie that binds.

Friends know what we like (that’s why they are on our friending list in the first place).

In the foxhole, we stay and fight, not out of ideology or conviction, but out of camaraderie.

Viva friendship and its enduring legacy, which can’t be rushed up.

It’s an age of acceleration, but only of nearly everything. Not of everything. A time to dance, a time to reflect. A time to die, a time to live. Still, I don’t forget those first few seconds, of  people I met. And I know they mine. The blink moment that lasts a lifetime!