Tag: Harley Davidson

Micro Trend, Macro World

Economy of scale, strength in numbers, linear growth.

Out of the 7 Billion of us, almost half live in the cities (hints: pollution, traffic congestion, high crime rate, time crunch, shrinking quality of life, more opportunities but unsustainable).

I read about China’s sewer cooking oil, crocodiles roaming the streets of Bangkok, and tent city on Wall Street.

In Micro Trends, the author mentions niche markets like knitting, which command 1 percent of the larger market.

Harley Davidson is now targeting women (empty nesters whose OK’s are critical before husbands can “buy to be wild”).

Near where I live, a new store has just opened. It is called “Halloween Express”.

They cherry-pick the 7 Billion-dollar seasonal costume and candy markets.

Or, take virtual Job Fair. More candidates can visit the “booths” while HR and recruiters can make the most of their day. Fewer people are working and those who do, handle more work. The net effect has been productivity increase.

99% of 6 Billion in 1999 is less than 99% of 8 Billion in 2025. Too many people living too long creates capacity crunch. To solve this, we have to move to virtual world  (social media and rural broadband are in).

Population grows linearly, while  tech has shot up in hockey stick curve, creating an ever widening “digital divide” (lady old lady, driving while texting???).

Enter the rising costs of health care. A nightmarish scenario.

I don’t believe  Social Security will pay out as planned.

They will move the lamp-post, in the hope that those of us who don’t go to the gym will die before the first checks are cut.  Even when they did arrive, the adjusted for inflation amount will barely be sufficient (I read about a retiree couple relocating to Nha Trang and getting by on their meager income).

To find the silver lightning, we must look at new comers to the party.

They are eager, enthusiastic and resourceful. Our next billion of knights will have arrived by 2025.

Not long ago, when Bill Gates made his visit to Vietnam where young students said they all aspired to be mini-Gates.

I hope the same can be said about Steve Jobs, whose penchant is in product design, where Art intersects Technology. Design something people and yourself would want to have. New thoughts for a new world. Micro trends for a macro world.

Forgetfulness is necessary

In clinical terms: selective memory.

Speak ill not of the dead, for instance.

Auto-biography is another version of selective memory (before actual amnesia).

For me, to see Dow Chemical opens a polymer and acrylic factory in Vietnam, roughly 40 years after Agent Orange got sprayed over the same landscape, is a great example of collective amnesia. Vietnam must be a very forgetful country, or a forgiving and pragmatic one.

Intel, Samsung, Canon all set up shop there. These names are not attached to any controversy we know of.

IBM and Coke got their own black eyes in the past.

But one must move on, travel the globe to seek bed partners never thought possible 40 years ago (I may have repeated what Secretary of State Clinton said in her recent remarks about Vietnam).

The President is in India. I thought I saw in passing his test-driving a nano car.

(In an ironic twist, he is a de facto CEO of GM, checking out a foreign competitor, in this case, Tata).

After India, whose stroke of luck continues after Y2K, the President will take a walk on memory lane: Indonesia, home of volcano and the largest Muslim population on Earth.

One cannot schedule a better get-away from gridlock than this. While things seem to jam up over here, everything explodes over there.

I alluded yesterday about how long it took Detroit to build smaller cars (began with Pinto) . And now, Harley Davidson has made-in-USA parts assembled in India (that way, the nouveaux riche in India and China can join in the chorus of “Born to be wild”. It’s expensive to be wild!

The pendulum finally swings to the opposite : “Small is beautiful” is adopted here in Detroit, and Harley in Mumbai.

“I want to hold your hand”, the Beatles sing. They went to India 40 years ago for R&R. Now the seeds finally took hold here in the West. This time, albeit not reversing “the British invasion“, off shoring to a former British colony via broadband links and Harley parts (tattoo stickers not included).

I wish I can be forgetful on demand. The time calls for it: a healthy dose of amnesia. No context, no frame of reference. Just do it. Do not think too hard and too much. Go with the flow (of information and money).

 

Dentist and Disney

Christopher Shaw, winner of the most recent Power Ball lottery, said he would go to the dentist and then Disney World. (this is a retweet, a year later. Not much has changed, except for Chris’ dentistry).

I guess that’s how winning feels: being on top of the world, full of positive forces that lift you up, brushed by a stroke of luck.

He will have plenty of time and money to look his best. Good luck with beginner’s luck, and with investing.

The rest of us can look forward to another work week, another mortgage or rent payment, and another long summer.

The decoupling of stock market (on the uptick since April 09) and unemployment figures (still quite upsetting).

We have stretched productivity and inventory to the max. It’s time to venture out of the cocoon, to bounce back from

the “creative destruction” period.

Texas has been spared. Michigan has not.

Newsweek‘s Daniel Gross argues that America is making a comeback, unlike Japan in the 80’s.

In other words, there won’t be a Lost Decade after this Recession (which if cyclically predictable, will swing back up for a roughly half a decade of prosperity).

Let’s hope he is right. After all, we already lived through a lost decade (2000-2010) since the Y2K scare.

Cannot afford another one. Numbers don’t add up on Wall Street or Main Street if we keep spending away the future.

Harley Davidson is cool. Facebook is cool.  Zappos is cool.

These are examples of companies which can still survive with solid deliverables.

And to put the icing on the cake (or cream on the latte), Starbucks reported strong Q1 earning.

Hello, welcome to Starbucks. What’s your name? (reminds me of Cheers, where everybody knows your name).

And from there, the behind-the-counter man/woman in black starts “pouring his/her heart into it” (Starbuck’s motto).

I am supposed to use this as a canvass for reflection. After all, I have lived here for 35 years.

I have seen things come and go (Pinto? Yugo? Datsun?) and things which stay and stick (Post-it, Ben and Jerry, J&J).

One thing I know, I wasn’t happy when first arrived due to the extraordinary circumstance of my evacuation from Saigon.

No expectation, no deliverable. In VC’s term, I wasn’t ready with my business plan. Just float, like on a boat.

Each day is a bonus. Even on those days when I witnessed (on TV) the blow up of the Challenger, the Twin towers, and  Three-Mile-Island nuclear reactors (in person).

And I also found myself out of work, at the exact downturn  87, 93 and 2009.  Tell me how can one stay a bystander, unaffected.

My journey is America’s.  It just happens to be personal, but with tragedy and triumph nevertheless. Like Shaw, it involves both dentist and

Disney, pain and pleasure.  OK, I feel lucky just to: 1) stay alive 2) be here in the US 3) live through the past Recession. I am going to buy a lottery ticket

this week. Need some wind on my back. Maybe I too, can win. And maybe I too, will go to Dentist and Disney (World). Got to show up to win.

Staying alive, as the Bee Gee would sing at the top of their lungs.