Tag: Network Effect

disposable people

Industrial society once allowed to run its full course leaves behind many casualties: pollution, typhoons, unemployment and crime.

Kids with early exposure to the I pad and I phone, turn near-sighted if not bi-focal.

Adults with easy access to porn (free or paid) found real organic relationship something of a burden if not boredom.

Back in the early 70’s the US and its think tank already realized the limits to growth, disposable society, fail-safe situation…..

The resulting strategies were to outsource, M&A and mass production to shave off  some costs. Every attempt has been either to cope with the irreversible growth of the chip speed (Moore’s Law) or to increase subscriber base by capitalizing on the Network Effect (Facebook and Ebay), economy of scale (Wal-Mart) and logistics (Amazon).

People and diapers are disposable.

BPO now talks about Social Mobil Access Cloud.  What can be outsourced will be, first offshoring, then full automation.

First, cut down on the amount of pollution. Second, on operational costs. Third, mass production process has been much easier, thriving on the 24/7 economy to deeper penetrate foreign markets where the new smokestacks are located.

For the first time in their 200-year history, N America and Europe face a crisis loom large: the people are disposable economically, while constitutionally, they have more  human rights than any other time.

There lies the tension, the frustration and lock-jam. To keep up with population and information explosion, we will get to the point, like alcoholic or chemical-dependency people, who start selling everything to feed the habit. The irony of all is when color folks finally get to be heard, their social and economical platforms get shipped online or overseas, first to Mexico and S America, the so-called 2nd world, where Paulo Freire used to call “the oppressed”, then onto frontier and emerging markets of South East Asia.

Yes, the poverty level has been decreased in countries where BPO  is in full steam. But the industrial waste and social ills have also increased. You may call this a new form of colonization, or selective recolonization. The new bosses are the go-between, facilitating the flow of fund and the hunt for local talent. This is also a problem deserving a separate blog.

Meanwhile, poverty level is up in the West, especially Portugal, Spain and Greece, where young people are disposable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/opinion/kristof-where-is-the-love.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

Go East young men. Travel the world in 80 years. Take a bullet train, or bite a bullet. I have seen EFL “teachers” smoke pot in Vung Tau (VN) and God knows where (Thailand, Malaysia). They are the new Missing- in- Action, unable and unwilling to be reintegrated back into western society. Their voices are unheard and aspirations unfulfilled.

While primitive society disposed people of no or little economic values, in present day there are people who also by choice drop out of main stream. Call them the misfits, outsiders, the beats etc… But if their ideas can be monetized, then suddenly, they are one of ours. Charlie Chaplin first got exiled, then knighted. Sir Chaplin ably made fun of the social and psychological consequences of over-industrialization. His warning had barely been heeded when Foxconn‘s workers jumped from company dormitory. How many more suicides before we realize something is wrong with the way we conduct our lives and business, given all the machinery and software application. We dispose the diaper because it smells. Will we do the same with people once they are deemed undesirable and under-productive? Business leaders are paid to deliver results. At what cost? Empathy deficit disorder? obsessive compulsive disorder? Attention deficit disorder?

When a business runs afoul, it’s the leader’s inside that is eaten up. Imploded. And of late, there have been a few (JP Morgan 13 B fine, or Obama’s no-show at the Trans Pacific Pact due to government shut-down). Have you had the time to follow-up and see where those “reparation” billions go to? Food stamps? Perhaps not. Dreams crushed, career derailed and families torn apart.

And the house of cards got rebuilt, bigger than ever (having pac-manned Washington Mutual and a bunch of tier-3 banks).

It’s like asking Germany to pay for WWII damage done to France, but 2 million lives were somehow eliminated without a small echo from the mass graves. When in grade school,  I kept hearing it on the radio that this president got assassinated, and that the one who gave the order himself got whacked. Then the “I have a dream” orator also got shot. Then finally John Lennon “was not the only one” He was hoping someday we would join in. Then he got a bullet by Mark Chapman whose musical talent was almost nil, but whose name forever got associated with someone whose band once self-pronounced that “we are more famous than Jesus”.

There has never been a better time to live in terms of comfort e.g. electricity and emerging technology. Yet there has never been a worst time to live as far as managing one’s expectations i.e. we want more but enjoy less, got treated less humanly (try to get in line at a Wal-Mart in Long Island this Black Friday, be sure to bring some pepper spray),  breathe worse air and have fewer or no friends over during the holidays.

Having said that, I wish you Happy Holidays with your loved ones, those kids whose constant companion has been the I pad and I phone. And be sure to have their eyes checked out. Who knows they already need glasses, like, yesterday. Just don’t buy them disposable.

 

Connect and Respect

I often go first to Home Page on LinkedIn to see who is connecting with whom.

The Network Effect assumes people are inherently decent, deserving respect and reciprocity. Society continues to work on that basis. Not random shooting, nor indiscriminate mass slaughter.

We have learned invaluable lessons in collaboration: WWII, internet peering, crowd-sourcing and job networking.

We have also learned invaluable lessons in ignoring our intuition: derivative bubble or work-life imbalance. For every new member we are linked with, newer 2nd-degree acquaintances also joined our circle indirectly.

Connect and Respect.

We honor their transparency (completing a profile), their professional experience and background, and their access to “friends in the high places”.

At the base, we respect people as fellow human beings, sojourners in this pilgrimage called Life, of which Work is a big part.

Each person brings a unique set of skills and circumstances. If asked, each has a story to tell, a lesson to teach us.

I refuse to speculate about why a PhD Student decided to get firearms and bullets to shoot down people randomly.

Nor do I try to explain away why higher-ups at Penn State Higher Learning decided to cover up the shame, which only worsens as time goes on.

When we feel that those were grotesque, instinctively we are for decency,  respect and want to connect.

Each person is sacred in his or her own right. Each person has a lot to give even if by being just a connector or memory keeper. The more the merrier. Keep them coming. Seek first to understand, more than to be understood (courtesy of the late Steven Covey).

Thank you for connecting and respecting.

Both sides now

ABC News last broadcast of 2009 featured some celebrities we have lost, among them, one of its own: Peter Jennings.

Peter’s most memorable quote:: “when I look at a coin, instinctively, I want to flip it to see the other side”.

He used to take a bunch of books to read on plane rides, according to his biographer.

The inquisitive mind. Intolerance for ambiguity. Searching for a whiter shade of pale.

Toffler recounted a conference he had attended, where a man essentially said that he had done manual labor all his life, and then, just wanted to die an educated man.

Learning to learn.

From the vantage point of “the other side” , we can now afford to look back at the Digital Decade. A the macro level we got Health Care and Homeland Security. At the human level, we rediscovered bravery: rescue on the Hudson, fourth plane over Pennsylvania, and most recently, a Dutch passenger over Detroit.

We continue to underestimate our own capacity for good and evil.

Something is hard-wired in our brain (positive wiring, and negative wiring). That’s nature. Managerial conclusion ranging from aristocracy to meritocracy, from X to Y and Z. Post-industrial society pushes its manufacturing model (plants and machine) to the Far East (China is outsourcing this down to Vietnam, end of the supply chain). This made all the debate over NAFTA a waste i.e. Samsung digital TV made in Asia vs analog TV set made in Mexico, inter-America trucking vs intercontinental shipping.

Apple has its server farm in North Carolina, 19th century home to the textile and furniture industries.

Waltham, Erie and Pittsburgh all get a life extension, thanks to post-industrial reinvention, from factory to fab.

If Peter Jennings were alive today, he would still be flipping the coin to see what’s out there.

(being from Canada, and stationed overseas in Vietnam, the Middle East and England , he apparently saw it all).

Maybe the imminent phasing out of newspaper is not bad (NYT goes global today).

In Network Effect, the Economist concludes that people still need the news, even if they don’t need newspapers.

People once thought telegraph spelled death to newspapers. As it turned out, telegraph helped speed up the news.

One thing is certain: with broadband, more people will get their news and get it fast.

Speed, survival and self management ( a term used by Peter Drucker in this knowledge economy e.g. to learn, to mutate and to adapt.) To die an educated man, let’s flip the coin to see the other side.