Tag: San Francisco

message in the bottle

Cast away. Sending an SOS. an SMS. I hope that someone will get my message.

We are born to connect (our belly button testifies to this) with nature and others.

Yet marketers are telling us that in Retirement Ville, cruise ship (with sauna sound that reminds us of incubator) and virtual existence can substitute for the real thing.

In Japan, a generation grows up with comic characters and robots ( Miku, a 3-D virtual rock star got

her star treatment not unlike The Beatles).

Children in the West and BRIC nations will follow suit with what Neil Postman coins “amusing ourselves to death”.

If you look at the statistics on how we spend our time, TV and the Web are at third spot after sleep and work.

We in mail, g-mail, dropbox, chat, text, store, tweet, Like, blog, comment, delete spam, mass e mail etc….

As of this edit, Salesforce is buying another cloud-based marketing company at the tune of 2+ Billion.

To be social. To connect. To be human. It will be the first time in our human history that one can connect more than the optimal 120 (The Tipping Point).  This revolutionary change is the most significant since the 60’s.

Music is to be shared (Woodstock), the Earth is to be shared (Whole Earth Catalog), ideas are to be shared (Google), courses are to be shared (Coursera) and ride is to be shared (San Francisco). It’s not by mistake that San Francisco and adjacent Silicon Valley come out ahead in thought leadership.

It’s been a while since campus coffee-house (our 70’s version of karaoke, except you have to bring your own guitar).

Now we got Facebook to share a clip (ironically from Youtube, which is own by rival Google), a photo or an article.

All of a sudden, it’s like play time, share time. Everyone is an artist i.e. to let the world know we once exist.

Adults, retirees, and yes, even x’s, “friending” each other. Amusing Ourselves to Death.

The Genie is finally out of the bottle.

I send an SOS to the world…….I hope that someone, I hope that someone, read my message in the bottle…….

Listening across the cultures

Listening is hard to begin with (just ask a psychiatrist).

Listening across the cultures is doubly hard. It requires an extensive grasp of the others’ frame of reference.

As technology enables the world to shrink, more groups join the globalized market.

(The PM of Malaysia was on GPS telling Fareed that in the 60’s, Malaysia poverty rate was more than 50% – it is now under 3.5%).

Shop till you drop.

Yet, we don’t listen to what our constituents are telling us. The algorithm from Amazon seems to do a better job.

At least, it mined data of my past purchases, and recommended similar products.

Listening is hard work.

In The Empathic Civilization, the author touches on our increased capacity to empathize, as more and more studies on how the brain works are released. To listen is to engage, to comprehend and to visualize being in their shoes. In short, to empathize.

Beginners in Sales were often taught to “push” their products and to sell features and rates, all the while praying for the law of average (numbers game) to work.

Until the pipe line runs dry, and these feature salesmen hit a drought.

Who are the customers? What do they really want? What are their felt needs? How can we uncover those needs and wants, then to show that gap between need and solution which brings values. A sale is just a beginning of a life-long relationship.

I was fortunate to have worked in multi-cultural teams, serving the needs of a multi-cultural market place.

In our team, you can find Russian, Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Indian, Filippino, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hispanic and Vietnamese. We  catered to Arminian, Cambodian, and everyone else in between.

It forced me to be culturally sensitive. What’s underneath the tip of that iceberg? What should be left unsaid? What should be uncovered?

There will always be misunderstandings across the cultures (comedians have a hard time cross-over this gap). And this makes negotiation much more challenging (we revert to the path of least resistance, and assume – with arrogance – that we know what they want).

People in general speak through their body language.

To listen across the cultures,  one needs to listen with both ears and eyes. Ask open-ended questions, and watch HOW the person across the table answer those questions.

I walked across the street in San Francisco once, with two really tall Eastern European resellers. One guy had his head shaved, the other long hair (makes me look like Chow in Wolfpack) . Then I visited another Pakistanis reseller who was always in suit and tie. And finally, I sat down sharing a meal with our Chinese agent. Food makes for good camaraderie. In each case, I morphed to “mirror” the others (be brief with Westerners, and be relational with Asians).

People want low price. Yes, but they also want a range of choices, great service and reliability (or brand).

During this recession, it seems that companies like Costco, McDonald, Nordstrom all did well because they have listened to their customers (besides consistency across all location – trust factor).

US News and World Report joined the fate of Christian Science Monitor to downsize and limit themselves to just newsstand and special issues on Hospital and University ranking.

Those are obvious examples of listening to the customers.

Yes, time is hard. It will weed out companies and consultants who did not research and respond to a diverse customer base. First seek understanding, then to be understood. The shotgun theory is out. Now is time for engagement, collaboration (across the cultures) and value creation.  If it’s too late to learn another language, at least you should try to “read” the non-verbal signals.  80% of communication is conveyed via body language (as of this edit, President of the US and China, both met “informally” near Santa Monica, without wearing a tie). Nail that, then you are ahead in this global market place. Watch YouTube where the world is trying to say something. Unless you preferred to stick with the old model T when consumers now have a choice anywhere between a Leaf and a Nano. Listening is hard because it requires you to change a hard habit in your formative years. To start, just pretend to be everyone’s psychiatrist, without the pay.

Then you might get your pay day on top of becoming a great listener who knows the what and why of the conversation across the cultures.

Where have all the salesmen gone?

Algorithm rules. Pop-up ads and SEO.

Sales automation. Who needs a firm handshake, the smell of splash perfume and sincere eye contact!

Users know everything about the product and the industry anyway.

There is no need for more information. Only the recommendation part, which they rely on friends and families.

Strangers knocking on doors and pushing product don’t seem to work as it once did during the industrial era (Death of the salesman).

Willy Loman takes off his hat, and resigns to his fate. Ours is an age of logistic and automation. May the best route win.  User-generated content, user-interphase, user-comment. We call this empowerment. Democratizing the web.  Everyone logs in, surfs and is glued to the set.

And we barely scratch the surface. Since mobile penetration is faster than desktop’s, designers beef up mobile IP and liberate users from their “desks”.

First the “brick” phone, then the I-phone. We should hold memorials for boombox, Walkman, brick phone and mainframe computers. Products are smaller, cheaper, easier to ship. No manual needed. No demo. No need for salesmen. Click here, enter there, and UPS or FedEx will ship to your door (it started with Amazon, Ebay and Priceline until it grows on you). Or more conveniently, swipe your credit card, punch in the vending selection, and transact with a machine.

Every start-up now enjoys lower barriers of entry (open source software, cheaper hardware, increased bandwidth and labor surplus). San Francisco is witnessing a Renaissance: game companies, Twitter etc… Let’s play. Let the game begin.

Excuse me, I just got interrupted by an automated sales call by a machine. At least, it is accent-reduced. So the choice now is speech recognition or live, but from far off-shored call centers. Which one do you prefer? Can’t afford to send a rep. He would fumble despite having rehearsed his elevator speech. He already forgot how to tie a knot. It’s a lost art from a lost species. Where have all the salesmen gone? Long time passing.

 

My list of Influencers

Despite their flaws (who doesn’t have one please cast the first stone), these are the people I look up to:

– President Carter with his commitment to build housing for the poor

– President Clinton out of that place called Hope

– Jim Elliot, the late great missionary who died for his cause

– Danny Devito who despite his “short-coming”, managed to secure a starring role in Taxi

– Nelson Mandela, there is no need to elaborate here

– Cheryl Crow for touring and making it as an artist in a predominantly male rockers club

– Norman Mailer for speaking out and writing up monumental pieces of literature

– Charlie Chaplin, who saw the inhumanity of the system, and in the process makes us laugh without a need for words

– Robert Redford who started Sundance Festival to encourage young film makers to step up to the plate

– Kevin Costner whose ambition has been unmatched, and he has lived out his role in Water World (not oily world)

– Hillary Clinton who personifies multitasking, self-reinventing and America itself

– Steve Jobs who got booted out of corporate America, but somehow, turned crisis into opportunity, the Yin into the Yan

– John Travolta, the comeback kid to become the star that he meant to be in Pulp Fiction and still counting

– George Harrison and Eric Clapton, to have their sweet guitar “gently weeps” for Bangladesh flood victims

– and most recently, senator Kennedy, who could have just kept quiet and sailed around the world for 40 years.

Each one of us take a play page from the many “sparks of divinity” without knowing it.

They inspire us, and show us new heights.

No, they are not naive. They know the costs and consequences of their action.

But they also know the opportunity cost of their inaction.

While  TIME and Forbes lists are updated annually,

Our pantheon of the gods need daily update.

Like our heroes, we are to use talent and technology for social change.

In the process, we better ourselves,.

Silicon Valley has come to you. It’s up to you to start meeting “gentle people” online.

No wonder TIME People of the Year a few years back was YOU. The burden is now on YOU.

Become my new influencers as I yours. We do need each other to make it through this world and leave behind a better one.

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.