Tag: Peter Jennings

Two front teeth

Tom Wolfe in one of his quirky observations mentioned that “New York got knocked out of its two front teeth” (in reference to 9/11).

It was a dark day for all.

Even today, as we remember it.

It jolted us our of our slumber.

Neighbor comforted neighbor. Don Dillon mentioned “the jumpers” in his novel.

I, on the other hand, will never forget Peter Jennings whose death was tied to that event.

We can eulogize, theologize and philosophize to death what actually happened.

But we cannot deny there were all elements of humanity there: hatred and heroism, harmfulness and helpfulness.

From today’s vantage point, we know that revenge exacted and relations strained (mistrust and mishap in the ME).

9/11 was the pinnacle of events. A confluence of technology and terrorism, miscalculation and precision (except for the United 93 flight whose passengers gave their lives to contain the damage).

Yes, two front teeth got knocked out.

But the body still stands.

A bit wobbling, but still on its own feet.

The phoenix shall rise.

And we are all the stronger albeit scarred.

Teeth could be replanted.

But our psyche has yet to heal.

Hence smiling reluctantly, thinking there still were some missing teeth somewhere.

It matures us quickly. All the emotions spent (anger, denial etc..). All that is left is a sense of reluctance, even to start another war. Warring doesn’t bring strategic benefits, even when tactically, it delivers. It’s time to think like a father, a mother, and not tactician or technician i.e. plane to fly on family vacation, and not as weapon, building to shelter from the storm and not tombstone for world memorial. New York, say “cheese”.

Slippery Saigon

I went out for my morning jog in slippery Saigon.  I was hoping for cooler weather. Now that my wish was granted, I begin to have second thought: if it’s cool here, it means somewhere up North, people are freezing, or boats and houses destroyed.

We live in a connected world and leave behind carbon footprints.

A cigarette tossed into the wild could ignite a forest fire. A harsh word, ill-thought-out and unsolicited comment could damage a child’s self-esteem.

Should they be protected, insulated and shielded from the pain-filled world out there?

How much “reality” should a show depict to open a child’s eyes?

When 9/11 happened, my then 10-year old could not comprehend its magnitude.

Now, my second kid and I are “following” each other on Twitter. Cool!

Back in my time, my parents hardly ever sat down with me, much less “follow”. I am a product of multiple generations, where an uncle, a cousin, an aunt and now nephew, all chipped in with unsolicitated advices. It’s our version of social compact.

But when this social compact broke down, it’s quite ugly e.g. to pay down gambling debt, a father/mother would offer their daughter(s) as payment (to be an unpaid maid or concubine – a phenomenon not unheard of in the bordering towns near China and Cambodia).

WE HAVE A BIG 21st CENTURY PROBLEM: TECHNOLOGY IS MOVING FASTER THAN OUR CAPACITY TO ABSORB IT, WHILE OUR CULTURAL MORES STAY IN THE BACK WOODS OF EMERGING COUNTRIES.  People are still auctioned off, raped, murdered and mutilated over a fake I-phone, for instance. In India, gangs raped bus passenger or Swiss couple who camped out.

Our Western liberal mind screams out when hearing about these incidents.

Then we shrugged it off when the Mafia in Chicago make their extortion route.

Hollywood even made money on these film-noir genre. Hypocrisy? Absolutely.

Who am I to judge? Who am I to carry the chip on my shoulders (Hey Jude).

In What the Dog Saw, Malcom Gladwell pointed out that although imaging and images have better resolution, our capacity to read them (intelligence) will have to increase ten fold to make it effective.

So we need to keep up with our own invention. The tool has become the teacher. This begs a related topic: our capacity to reflect. To think about our mistakes (committed or omitted), to change course. This integrative skill differentiates us from mere technologists (repetitive) order takers (reactive). Back when the 3 networks (TV) ruled, the anchor who could ad-lip was highly sought after. He/she had the skill to see and describe reality in context and in step with what were happening  real-time. Peter Jennings did that during 9/11. After having a smoke, he died of lung cancer. He crossed that journalistic line, from being an observer to being a participant of that same drastic event.

It’s still slippery outside. I promise myself not to slid and slide in the rain. Now is the time to reflect on slippery Saigon. On our capacity to keep up with modern technology. Just have to stay away from the clans who somehow manage to crawl on Facebook, trying to “friend” you with unsolicited postings. Something isn’t going to change, or avoidable. Just like the wet weather here today.

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.

The future, never in past tense

Peter Jennings took a smoke break, his first in years, from 9/11 live coverage. It was the beginning of his end. The Canadian co-author of “The Century” must have studied the Wright brothers, whose invention could lift itself up into thin air albeit for just a few blocks. But he had never seen anything like the two planes that aimed low that morning.

In the decade since, from Steve Jobs (the I-series) to Steve Chen (Youtube),

from Facebook to Twitter founders, we have seen a new breed of inventors.

Instead of fixating on the hunt for an old man, wrapped in blanket with a remote control, watching makeshift propaganda videos of himself (BL), these digital natives followed the trail to the future.

They limit data transmission to short bursts (140 characters) or miniaturize play-back device (I-pod) while charging only 99 cents per song. Search has evolved from generic to semantic and shopping from global E-Bay to local (Zagat).

Rattled? Yes.

Deterred? Hardly.

Five stages of grief, processed in one fell swoop (in less than a decade).

What evil didn’t plan, was for the very invention in the West, be used against dictators in the MidEast.

(Arab Spring propagated and went tweet-viral in Egypt, birth place of caliphate).

You can take down a building, but not its blueprint.

Yes, there were people who ran down the stairs to safety, and stayed there in the past.

But there were also 343 heroes who ran up the stairs, 43 more than at Gates of Fire, to “fight (fire) in the shade” .

Just as the analog stairway (Encyclopedia Britannica, book stacks) shows the way down, the digital one (Wikipedia, Skype) points to “the sky is the limit”.

In the decade since, we have started “friending” each other, made possible by another Harvard drop-out, whether we were from NYC or not, just because we all share in a future, that will never be conjugated in past tense.

How I wish to have “followed” Peter Jennings on Twitter to read his post-9/11 reflections!

If you could read me

You would find that I am surprised by the number of employees Google and Apple employed only 75,000 combined (compared that with HP, GM or US Government‘s).

You would find that I still remember “the jumpers” on 9/11, and that we lost good men and women on United Flight 93, as well as Peter Jennings of ABC News.

You would find that after the ATT and T-Mobile proposed merger (or blocked, if DOJ won), I would be at a total loss in a post-telecom world (now they call it Information Technology, once convergence is completed). if Bill Gates, then, at the top of his form, couldn’t see the relevance of the Internet, then who would? Now, people are rolling out 3-D TV‘s and Google glasses.

Speaking of which, the price of contact lenses never dropped in the 30 years.

If you could read my mind, you would say I am crazy to be bothered with world events.

With technology and its ever-shortened cycles (Editor of Techcrunch even stepped down to handle CrunchFund), we need algorithms like Summl to sort out relevance for us.

I forgot to plug-in the landline wire after the Cable guy had installed my video, broadband and phone. It’s a sign that I am so used to wireless devices.

If you could read my  mind, you would know I long for “Yesterday” , not so much for the brick phone (Motorola) with accompanied battery pack. A lot of people still enjoy having their 2500 phone set, with its loud and reliable ring tone for incoming calls (for outgoing calls, the ringing  was “manufactured” by the phone company while waiting for the call to be connected). BTW, a friend noticed that in the US , graves sites are often hidden among well-manicured lawn. Yes, it’s a country that looks forward to  the future, unlike in Italy, where there is a profession called Restoration (Art).

If you could read my mind, you would know that I respect my colleagues who day-in-and-day-out , post relevant and professional tips that pay-forward.

If you could read my mind, you would know that I have never been good at being a fake, so I might as well be authentic.

If you could read my mind, you would know that you and I have been bystanders watching systemic and structural changes (outsourcing and automation).

It happened even when we were asleep. It’s like when your kids all of a sudden need new uniforms, a set of bras, a larger pair of shoes. Before you know it, the frog could no longer flex its muscles having enjoyed a slow-heated bath for too long.

If you could read my mind, you would know I dread the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

I can’t explain to my kids what Post-traumatic stress is e.g. exiling from home, a marriage break-up, a job disappearance etc….  I might be over-protective, but I know they grow up with situation awareness, limited options, forced choice, like the jumpers’ on 9/11 as they escaped the towering inferno, even for a brief few seconds of free-falling.

Wonder if we could read their minds on that fateful  day!

Lehrer and Hart

The list goes on and on. As if they could fit another Vietnam War memorial wall, but this one, for broadcasting.

Someone observes that on campus, the dorm lounge during news hour is a quietest place to make a phone call.

I still remember when Peter Jennings, Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson  shared the ABC newscast.

NBC got two anchors, PBS two and CBS, just one. That’s 8 talking heads sharing pre-CNN Evening news prime time.

America has always had an appetite for news (and TV dinners) besides eating while driving.

Over-the-top pay services such as Netflix and soon, Apple and Google will take us, the audience, further down the road of our self-initiated programming. Combo number 1 (Panda video, consists of hard news, soft porn and targeted advertising etc…).

This paradigm shift is telling us that even seasoned broadcast journalists still can’t command digital native audience. TV viewing used to be a family affair. Now, news is what being sent and recommended by friends. We are transitioning from broadcasting to narrow-casting,

one-to-many to many-to-many (“followers”). Bin Laden raid was announced via a Tweet by, of all people, an engineer who wanted to take a vacation away from it all “can I catch some sleep now”!

My guess is we will end up getting the information via aggregators like Facebook or Alltop.com, the new priesthood of the information age.

BTW, LinkedIn starts publishing its own news headlines.

Black-and-white TV used to be the only “game” in town ( I grew up waiting for the sign-on at 6PM. The whole country turned on their TV sets to warm up with the Indian-head poster – I found out later, used by studio engineers to calibrate their white balance, and align broadcast signals).

As portrayed best by William Hurt in Broadcast News “what do you do when your life exceeds your dream”, we can now wish farewell to those veteran broadcasters with “what do you do when your retirement exceeds your entitlement”. They know when to hold, and when to fold. After all, they are the ones who have set the tone and the pace of conversation in America. Now the burdens are on those who try to sell soup, soap and cereal to know exactly which half of their marketing dollars fails. Again, someone observed that they should at least try Gagaville, a private-label site from Farmville before having bouncers on the set like Jerry Springer .

Before signing-off, I just want to quote Ishiguro through the observation of Madam (dean of “clones” in Never Let Me Go) “When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world.And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.” “That’s the way it is” once a nightly sign-off by Walter Cronkite,  America’s most trusted man.

Justice we can use

Some people go through life without experiencing love.

But today, we all experience justice. Put the economy, the environment , and the bad debt aside.

It’s the kind of justice we can use. Black and white kind of justice. Not just the American way. It’s universal. It brought closure to the 3000 families and a plundering decade.

Like you, I can still see the inferno in my mind as if it just happened yesterday.  It actually killed Peter Jennings who was anchoring ABC News at the time.

Mr Jennings also co-authored The Century (America 1900-2000). He must have examined in-depth the multitude of stories: the good, bad and ugly. But 9/11 dealt him a knock-out blow. (He took up smoking again, which eventually ended his life).

Since Bin Laden denied thousands of innocent people their rightful and productive lives , his was finally revoked. I wish Mr Jennings were still here to deliver that ABC news brief.

Justice is surpassed only by love, according to St Paul. This weekend, we got a glimpse of both : from the wedding in England to the takedown in Pakistan. I know it’s been painful: the agony, anxiety and anger. Finally we can use some justice. Not a moment too late. To be human among a sea of humanities at this moment is a privilege. I will always remember the night I read this news. My “where were you when they shot JFK moment”. Not every day is the same. Not in this Century. I am sure the next co-author of 21st Century will have to include this night’s (5/1/2011) as very noteworhty.

India + 1 cafeteria

I ordered an iced coffee with milk, this time not in the to-go cup.

I just want to sit down, and take it all in. No I am not in India.

But close. I am in formerly known as Saigon. On the  8th floor. REBOOT CAFE.

The LogiGear building. Offshore software testing center. Young engineers

might as well be in India, where I read so much about (their call centers offered training in accent reduction, their corporate night-out etc…). As of this edit, there is a sister branch in DaNang 200 testers strong.

Back packers who are first timers in Vietnam often cocoon in Ta Hien or De Tham.

From that standpoint, they observe  people walking the street in pajamas and cone hats.

Here I am sitting on the 8th floor with back-up generators, CAT5 running up the stairways, and engineers test all sorts of things, from TRANSFORMERS the game to Steven Covey‘s Habits-forming software.

Sure, who wouldn’t suffer from the economic downturn.

But young Vietnamese engineers have somewhat been spared. They have grown up not demanding too much space for oneself.  Here, on the 6th floor, they can play a game of ping-pong, sing a song like they would at school recess.

It’s not Electronic Arts, and it’s not India. But it’s something that has potential to take off. Everybody is on the path from pajamas to tuxedos.

Some of us got as far as shirt-and-tie. Others in uniforms.

Most perhaps will never own a tux or wear one.

But one thing for sure, online, no one knows or cares if you wore a pair of shorts underneath (Peter Jennings used to report from the balcony of the Continental Hotel with sport coats and tie, wearing shorts).

After all, Facebook Mark wore his pajamas to a Venture capital meeting.

I don’t condone such practice. But take heart. A nation will advance not only from its broadband built-out, but also due to its young and thriving work force. Here, I see ingenuity, commitment to excellence and team  work.

This morning, I saw a candidate, perhaps in for an interview.

I held the door for her, and can’t help seeing the sweat on her forehead.

It’s hot here in Saigon, and perhaps, she carries a mixture of cold sweat as well.

I wish her luck. In the western sense, luck is something you can control,

first by showing up. She did that (90 percent down, 10 to go). See you at REBOOT CAFE.

Not India. Just India + 1. Vietnamese are used to delay opportunities, as long there were any at all.

No wonder the nation still stands on its own legs, after having driven out the giant in the North (then pleaded for peace throughout its history). It’s less insulting to title this India+1 (high-value service driven economy) then to call it China+1 (manufacturing driven and less sustainable).

 

the art of showing

In Impressive First Impressions, author Vu Pham introduces the concept of “reset”.  By that he means, we constantly need to reset our first impressions according to each context and situation:  at work, at play, at home.

The same guy.  When he was at the top of his game, generated a different impression than when he is at the bottom. Still, in either case, he needs to press reset. (He who appears to be a winner often has the ball passed to him).

As Jackson Brown Jr. puts it, “opportunity dances with those already on the dancing floor”.

Showing up is difficult. Woody Allen went even further to ascribe 90% of success to showing up. The” Road Less Traveled” opens with a single sentence ” Life is difficult”.

When the book came out, it was a sensational bestseller.

Before the screen (first, second and third screen) permeates our lives. Another book came out to advocate a screen Sabbatical. e.g. turn off your TV, your computer and your phone on Saturday, for instance.

Our addiction to the screen fueled the economy of Asia Tigers, just as our addiction for oil, the Middle East nations.

These days, we don’t talk about being telegenic (reserved for the likes of  Peter Jennings). Instead, we talk about web presence,  our digital footprint, our online reputation etc..

As men traveled through the centuries leaving behind traces and tracks on the sand of time, so will our descendants with their digital fingerprints.

This is an exciting time to be alive. To show up, on and off-line. You need to press reset every time, to cultivate that impressive first impressions. Here is our chance to self-reinvent which only made possible this side of the web.

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.