Tag: Mobile phone

See me, text me, group me, call me…

When I saw a near accident today (a beat-up car driver, on the cell phone, backing up and brushing my neighbor’s mail box – which pulled my neighbor out of the door, in the middle of a mobile call himself), I realized we were indeed in a different era (from one which people sat on the front porch, chatting face to face).

So ATT needs to go big infrastructure-wise (when bankers get in the mobile banking game, we know we are no longer content with just online banking from home). It essentially undoes the 1984 break-up back in the copper era. The strategy at the time was, whoever owned the “last mile” to the house wins. Mid-80’s happened to see the rise of Motorola brick phones which got more mobility and apps e.g. meet-up and mash-up.

Can you see me? Can you hear me?

If any group that needs to adopt latest tools for business development, it would be the porn and charity groups. The former has always been early adopters of technology (VHS, cable, and now .xxx domain), while the later, relies on donation to survive, hence, relying on the best tools out there.  I still am not getting used to seeing Red Cross signs which say, “Help Japan“. In my mental positioning, Japan was up there with best of the best. No offense, I wouldn’t think twice when the sign flashes “Help Haiti” or the like.

We indeed are ushered into the real 21st century, when our old mental maps don’t jibe with what’s out there (from Big Mac to Big Moon).

To top all this, Victoria Secret came up with a coupon which acts as a lottery.

The tag line stated that “even us, we don’t know what the amount is. It remains a Secret”. Oh well, chances are, it’s $10 coupon, enough to pay for shipping charges.

I am excited about apps like GroupMe etc… because we often are separated from the group, let’s say in Vegas, by chance or by choice.

GroupMe and the likes enhance our field trip experience.

Corporate outings can exploit this app or extended families, like mine, who are scattered across the country and world.

Blogs and posts are too passive. GroupMe satisfies the demand for immediacy and mobility.

Still, I like the Who’s line, when edited in slow motion (despite the constraint of audio connectivity, they did what they could to increase mobility, in this case, vertical jump to defy gravity itself)”..Feel Me, Heal me..through you, I can see the  Billions….” It’s Billions, with a B.

the Who

Powerful women

World’s oldest woman. 115 years old. Oldest man, from Japan, 116 years old. Life expectancy in 1900 was 47.

World population has increased drastically. (Bio tech century). At the nano level, we can detect early symptoms of all sorts of disease (nano pharma).

Ironically, as the West is more aware of health issues and is taking preventive measures (diet, exercise and environmental retrofit), China with a huge population has to shallow the consequences of rapid industrialization , urbanization, obesity and pollution.

Asked on ABC News why Chinese children are much fatter than early generation, Ms Lee replied “because of China’s increased milk consumption.”

Charlie Rose asked Yang Lan, coined Chinese Oprah, about her agenda. The reply: capacity-building and to realize a civil society.

I believe she will see it realized. After all, she commands 200 million viewers each show (compared to O’s 7 million).

BTW, she was among the speakers at Fortune 2010 Most Powerful Women conference. Being in Media, and being a woman in today’s China , she signed up with Creative Artist in Hollywood which helped land interviews such as Charlie Rose’s and a piece in Fast Company. In Vietnam, I heard a story that all three powerful media owners are females who got their start as receptionists of a hotel on Saigon’s main tourist hub.

Our 21 st century produces not only media moguls, powerful women as heads of state (see portraits here

http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Current-women-heads-of-state )

but also longer life (TIME Nov 15 documents a larger percentage of women making electronic purchase decision as well as watching NFL football).

In marketing, we calculate CLV (customer lifetime value). These numbers will only grow larger in both breath and depth. Who would have thought cell phone penetration as now is.. First, the voice call.

Then come the apps. The village ladies in India and Africa could walk for miles as mobile pay phones to make a small profit on each call. To them, it’s nothing, compare to whatever they have carried on their heads for centuries. Once every one has a mobile phone, these early adopters will have moved on to owning a coke stand then a beauty salon.

Three cheers for technology and globalization but also, for  women progress, for in Ms Yang Lan’s words, capacity-building to realize the Chinese dream. Amelia Earhart would have been proud. She would have been 116 years of age today.

 

cyclo in the time of google

By now, you can still see a few weather-beaten cyclos around albeit restricted to tourist quarters.

I still remember the sound of horse carriage in the streets of  old Saigon.

My kid will be lucky if she knows what a cyclo is.

She knows Google though.

Paperless and painless search. Now with semantic search.

My profile, age in particular, triggers online ads on retirement funds.

Each day, we clear out trash in our home office and online.

Meanwhile, cyclo guys paddle along, knowing that their trade is joining the ranks of old scribes, horse shoe makers and Kodak shops. And the cinema is about to close its curtain. My uncle’s cinema is now a storage.

I came back fully related to the character in Cinema Paradiso,  with nostalgia.

The underlining theme is still there: where is that old blind film projectionist/mentor ? Mine is a guitarist who has recently been out of work.

We both need a gig. Maybe it will work out for him since he has upgraded his play list on an Ipad. But not for the cyclo guy.

Perhaps the best they can hope for are a few passengers per day, hauling bulky merchandise. Cyclo and modern supermarkets don’t go well together. Instead, it is now relegated to being a ride to a colonial past: white folks and colored coolies, on a leisurely ride along smoke-filled streets packed with motorcycles made in China. Future shock has moved on to its Third Stage (Muscle, machine and Mind), from cyclo to moto-cycle and onto Google. People are making money by a click of the mouse, and not by paddling those three-wheelers, using 21st-century skill set and not primitive strands of muscle.

No turning back, or you will turn into salt. Gosh, I miss the sound of horse carriage at Ben Thanh market. I miss being skinny , vulnerable and trusting. Faith that can move mountain. That some day, I will see face to face, although meantime, only through a mirror darkly.

Wisdom comes from mistakes, not missed opportunities.

I’d rather tried and failed than failed to try.

Tell that to the cyclo guy, who ordered two glasses of sugar-cane juice, while I could barely gulp down one. All I did was googling, while he was cycling. Muscle man in the age of Machine.