Tag: Science and Technology

Motherhood, Madness and Meditation

Seeing a photo of a grey-hair guy, on bike and  backpack, riding home with bouquet of flowers in the front basket, reminded me of International Day of Women.

There is no doubt, according to an Australian’s observer, that women are bosses here in Vietnam.

Tiger Mom.

To punctuate this point, I was sitting at an outdoor cafe at 7:30 AM, when three different women, on bikes, taking turn showing up for work across the street.

Despite traffic congestion, pollution, heat, and child-care, they were on the dot.

In fact, I did not need to verify this point.

I lived with a few: mother, sister, cousin, nieces and wives.

The women I know have been remarkably strong, resilient and yes, slightly masculine in the sense that they did not mind the menial work.

Now, with I phone, I pad and scooter, they are on a level playing field.

multitasked, multi-talented and multi-facet.

Women respond to stress much better than men.

Phone companies love female customers: they chat, text, and send pics.

When e-commerce fully takes hold here,  we can be sure that women will spend a chunk of  change online.

Still at early stage of mass market, Vietnam , and its female consumers, are well on the way to fulfill life’s dream: motherhood, madness (shop till they drop) and yes, meditation.

My mom showed me that these two extreme can co-exist. In fact, they need each other to balance out a person, a woman at that.

On this Women Day, let’s salute that we all come from the same Womb, and Technology finally erases the inequality of the sexes (caused by agrarian  culture and industrialization).  Two Vietnamese women came to mind: one at the Pentagon, invented heat-seeking bomb, and the other, in the US Air Force , known for precision strike.

I wish a lot of luck on those husbands whose wives have out-achieved their dreams. May they seek comfort in the company of good men who do not succumb to madness, but to meditation.  A woman’s glory is also a man’s joy. Just have to update your version of software. Think different. Collaborate and not compete.

Culture decoding online

The Great Gatsby got another round of remake, this time in 3-D.

With help of steady cam, we are invited into his mansion of many rooms.

This should give a feel for the place and Gatsby’s desire to revenge through success.

We too ,with IT 3.0-enabled, can take our “Monte Christo” acts online.

For years, we were passive recipients of others’ content via radio, Morse code, newspapers, magazines, text books, letters, phone calls, television, record players, juke box and boombox, car radio, CB radio, telegram and fax , overhead projectors and film projectors. The list is long and crowding out the museum of invention, just like copies of content fill our home library.

Unless you are into retro and antiques, then be content with whatever current devices you are using.

But the narrative has shifted. We are to reinvent ourselves online, with new tools (mobile) and technologies (social media).

Any change will directly impact a few people at first, then the majority.

40 years ago, nobody got a cell phone. Now, almost everyone got one.

The laggards in this case are our parent’s generation, who experience both culture and digital divide.

Don Tapscott has kept a tap on this topic with his decade-long research.

Digital generation definitely are multi-taskers who live a double-life on and off-line.

Lecturers will have to double-check their notes to make sure they are up to date. (as of this edit, they just came out with a software to help teachers with grading, to concentrate more on face time with students).

Their values no longer stay in the realm of information transmission.

Instead, the best contribution a trainer can do is to zoom-out, to show historical trend, and to help bridge the analog-digital as well as technology-society divide. Leaders shouldn’t be curators or gate keepers.

They are meant to be Chief Knowledge/Culture decoder.

We have moved beyond the state of data-deprived to data-deluge.

No firewalls can stop data from hopping node to node. No network can claim exclusivity and monopoly of domain.

What we won’t find in life can now be found on-line e.g. self-reinvention, self-branding, self-fulfillment.

Gatsby had failed the first time to impress his lover. So he came back, in 3-D, right across the lake.

Whatever was missed in the first version will be self-correcting (e.g.Google translation algorithm.

While the writer is analog, what you are reading is digital.

And you might be reading this in 2050 and beyond. Try to decode that!