Tag: Silicon Valley

Music as Motivator

Old Time Rock and Roll, Get Ready, I Just Want to Celebrate etc.. will “soothe your soul”.

Take time out to massage the affective part of yourself.

Ancient culture or atomized culture, we all need to gather around the “fire”, to warm up, to celebrate and to belong.

Music as equalizer, as motivator. A call to march forward.

At Inauguration, Presidents hold concerts, to celebrate. Good for the top brass, good for us commoners.

In college, students played in marching band (at Penn State, they travel a lot and play a lot at home games). Even at corporate events , we hear music which can really kick start an evening.

Work hard and play hard culture.

Fun, fast and flavourful.

Something about those beats that awake and arouse ancient genes.

We are meant to live in herd and hunt in packs.

No way around it but marching to the same drum beat.

(Incidentally, I found financial guys have the most fun at parties, even though it’s them who will process those payments a few weeks later).

Of course we need rah-rah sessions.

We need to be recognized, to be motivated. It’s not for the winners. It is to draw out the best from the laggers.

A few days ago, Thomas Friedman had a piece about the cultural differences between Washington and Silicon Valley. His central theme was Collaboration.

And how different the concept was perceived and processed in those two places.

I would add creativity and imagination to the mix.

What could be a better source to inspire and jump-start “out of the box” thinking than to turn on those good old-time Rock and Roll, theme songs and marching tunes of the Valley. I have run into a bunch of old acquaintances. The secret sauce has always been music.

Of course, exercise and diet are top of the list. But musicians tend to maintain that care-free, let’s-see-what-happens attitude. It keeps them young and fit. It keeps them upbeat (notice the positive term). At the very least, it draws out the inner child that refuses to grow up in this pain-filled world.

When in doubt, in stress, in trouble, just know You’ve Got A Friend.

Enduring trends

Technologists are enthusiasts. Their progress are documented in hockey-stick trends. Meanwhile  we as ordinary human are still reacting out of fear as if we were still living in caves. The reptilian brain vs rapid rise of chip speed, guns vs germs, technology vs anthropology!

As early as 1950’s, graduates would hear something like: “boy, you get that desk job, stay there, work your way up and cash out . You will be set, boy.” In short, seniority and being an institutional memory keeper equal “iron rice bowl”.

Not in the 21 century. Take Yahoo. A darling of Silicon Valley (I am still using yahoo mail, reliable), but increasingly, moving into the slot left vacant by AOL. (Facebook, if not careful, might fall into the MySpace hole).

When I took Science, Technology and Society at Penn State in my senior year, I realized then that not all technology were meant to take off, or were a blessing. They are both blessing and curse. (I must give the US Post Office some credits for converting its entire fleet to Electric Vehicles a years back).

These trends will stay with us:

– socks (short or long)

– jeans

– baby pics, mobile apps

– slow rock (romantic)

– sunset, virtual or real

– kind words, kind gesture, roses

– birthday cakes

– tomb stones or equivalent if cremated

– shoes, shorts and sandals

– contact lenses (as flat screens)

– vitamins, although God knows what they put in there.

The Economist has its cover story this week about our human body, as composed of bacteria cells.

But how come those bacteria got vibrated with Streisand’s Evergreen? With Nocturne? Chopin and Bach?

Until technologists learned that we are more complex than the mind can understand, then they get somewhere.

Invent only that which benefits mankind, stuff that people can use. Don’t chase lab stuff only. Solve  problems:

how to get your hair done the quickest way in the morning, how to get to work using the best route, nearest gas station that charges less (or use EV) glove compartment that can store today’s aviation sun glasses, games that kids can play and learn something while at it, profile  algorithms that make friends out of strangers. Science, Technology and Society. When they plugged in the electricity for the first time at the Chicago fair, many thought it had been Heaven. Now, we took it for granted. Let’s hope for some break-through, even when many will fail. Try again. Keep in mind, the reptilian brain. How we still react like cavemen. Still love like cavemen. And yes, jealousy still is a big part. Those are enduring trends you can bet on.

The undercurrent

Got jolted last night. 4.1 shock. And this morning, some more aftershocks.

It reminds me we share a vulnerable surface: ozone layer all around and a sea of lava underneath.

While we receive pictures of Mars surface, we are reminded of Earth surface as well.

It takes some getting used to, living in California.

But it’s here where talents come, from Silicon Valley to San Fernando Valley, from Redwood to Hollywood.

This is as “West” as you could go. Even waiting tables out here is like “acting”, or pre-acting (waiting to be casted).

Everyone wears shades. Expensive-looking ones. You got games. Got to have that “player” look.

Billboards on Sunset are huge, in-your-face.

and you are forever in need of a better T-shirt.

If you happen to put on Tennis shoes, make sure you don’t look like that little-old-lady.

Gotta have that Air Jordan feel, whether you play basketball or not.

Girls wear pajama pants. But it’s a statement, not garment.

It says “I don’t give a damn”.

I don’t need to put on a suit, to look like a male to get by.

In fact, nobody, at least in the summer, puts on a suit in Southern California.

Let’s not forget about Summer Concerts in the park. Wonder where those bands were coming from.

But they are here, getting paid to play.

Music is in the air. The Earth gets shaken every now and then. And people continue to move out West.

Running away from God knows what. A wet winter? A bad relationship? A need to reinvent oneself?

Even waiting tables out here is not just a job. It’s a part, a role. You are on-stage, waiting for the next “gig”.

Got your head-shot? Underneath it all, you can take off the facade that is required back East, but then, you will have to put on another, just to play the part (an extra). It comes with the territory:  nice weather mix  in with earthquakes.

V for valley

Silicon Valley that is.

Palo Alto. The hype, the anticipation and burst.

Dream and dread.

It’s here for the taking. You game?

Pine trees and even banana trees.

Years ago, one would see Vietnamese technicians and Indian engineers.

Now, the work is mostly outsourced and off shored.

The design and creative work are still here. But it takes fewer people (Google, for its revenue, would have required nth time current headcount had it been a 20-th century company).

Still, there is something about V.

Peace sign. Victor. And even venture funding.

As long as you don’t lose that entrepreneurial spirit.

Can-do attitude.

Work is now anywhere and anytime.

Are you gamed?

You can do it here or you can do it elsewhere.

But something about the Valley.

Its ethos, egos and yes, eco-conciousness.

A bunch of old classmates are attending a funeral today.

Cremation.

Dust comes to dust.

But the spirit lives on.

In the valley and on the hill.

That spirit that says, Yes we can.

The shoreline is not the limit. Neither is the sky.

Take it to the next level, next shore line and skyline.

Start here in the valley then move up the mountain top.

If you don’t stand in opportunity’s way. If you don’t sabotage yourself.

No one can stop a man or woman whose mind is made up.

Whiter shade of HP

“The crowd call out for more…”

Procol Harum’s one-hit wonder, with his indelible organ solo, still mystified many on YouTube.

Legacy companies in a mature industry such as HP, have moved too far away from their roots,

hence, at great risk of being irrelevant or turning into wax (Icarus paradox).

In HP’s early days, Bill and Dave pulled together their resources, built their own road around the farm,

and of course, started to fill small orders for test instruments or whatever people wanted to trust them with.

Wall Street is still using HP calculator, a testimony to an American enduring icon.

I am a fan.

But so were many Pan Am loyal customers. They are the ones who, as of last night, watched Pan Am

the TV series. Vintage and nostalgic. A remembrance of time passed, American way.

The Economist’s winding topic “Is America a Third World Country” still sees people weighing in almost every day.

What used to work might not work again.

Not at today’s scale and speed.

With a bunch of acquisitions, most notably Compaq, HP exerted its reach beyond its core competencies and watered down its culture.

No more the old self-reliance, can-do attitude and (autonomy) tight-knit group (the original founders took yearly vacation together).

If only HP could recapture some of its former glory e.g. divided into start-up units w/micro-funding and yes, making engineering hip again (back to the garage).

It cannot put old wine in new wine skin, the way A Whiter Shade of Pale being played by a symphony orchestra.  Somehow, it gotta to be heard in its original unadulterated electric organ.

Ms Whitman will have to double up as a CCO, i.e. orchestrate  organic growth, and plant the seeds of self-disrupt (all the while, still getting paid $1). She did it with multiple sports. She might be able to pull this off again, after E-bay magic.

Nowadays, we feel disheartened with titles like “That Used to Be Us” .

It’s good that the incoming CEO had a taste of defeat, and spent some time at Valley’s most famous Venture group.

She is now tasked with rekindling the fire of rugged individualism, who once conquered the Wild Wild West, and

spreading it into the World Wide Web.

There will be many misses and a few hits. Most of all, she might have to live with one-hit wonder and try to milk it . It’s a long-tail economy which favors low-cost softwares, leaving hardware heavy weights like HP with grandfathered products.

With bold statements like “the importance for Silicon Valley, for the nation and the world”, our HP new chief has just put on more chips on her shoulders.

Just make sure the company keep its ink division. You don’t want a whiter shade of print coming out of my computer at home.

Noodle cultures

Imagine you can slurp a spicy, mouth-watering noodle bowl on a rainy night.

Even when it is instant, thanks to the King of Noodles (they even have a noodle museum in Yokohama).

Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thailand and Vietnamese; all love this staple.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/marketing/259168/tf-eyes-vietnam-for-noodles

Take the Korean and Vietnamese samples.

Both are known for North and South.

Both seem to have become what they fought against (Korean industrial might resembles Japan’s rising sun in the 80’s, while post-war Vietnam is defining its multi-polar identity i.e. Chinese, Franco-Russian, or APEC).

These emerging blocks interact and influence one another: young Vietnamese love Korean soaps and stars (Rain), while the Korean invest heavily in Vietnam’s young workforce (who might not endorse the 55-hr work ethic, due to the lingering French laissez-faire  35-hr work week, with coffee and cigarette breaks).

When these cultures export themselves, they stake out block by block, with the Korean districts in Wilshire District (LA) and Garden Grove (OC); similar pattern emerges as the Vietnamese found work in Silicon Valley or  Camp Pendleton near Little Saigon enclave.

Korean cinema, meanwhile, has drifted in the direction of its former enemy ( Japanese) by exploring the grotesque and domestic brutality ( the dark side of an industrial culture coming of age.)

The threat that ties all these disparage cultures (island-apart, literally) is the string noodle, originated in pre-Marco Polo China.

Even Samsung started out as a noodle company.

The Asian retail gal might be in suit, in compliance with industrial codes, but at lunch time, reverts back to her larger cultural codes (segregated, slurping and spicy).

Those culture groups now come face to face with modernity, under the disguise of free trade. Samsung or Sony? Toyota or Tata? Coke or Pepsi (wherever there is Pepsi, there is music, but not “the real thing”).

I used to work on the same team with my dear Korean colleague, and our markets were literally side-by-side (geographically, but culturally apart, just like Tijuana and San Diego).

Companies which try to expand to Asian markets need to understand these deep divides, the same as found in Europe or Latin America.

At least, shrewd observers can count on a set of common denominators i.e. food, fun and festivities.

Cultures are moving targets. But underneath, there are forces at work . The average person on the street just know they have changed, slowly, to becoming what their parents and grandparents had once detested (leaving the local village for a global one).

The collective self is giving way to the individual self (see Last Train Home, where inter-generational conflict was played out on their annual journey back to the village).

Consequently, you can take any of the above folks out of the noodle shop, but you can’t take the noodle away from them. Not on a cold day, or rainy day.

That’s what triggered the invention of instant ramen. Our noodle King saw a need (why all these people have to stand in the rain, waiting their turn to order noodle). That solution has been the key to unlock a kingdom, where modernity (speed, efficiency and technology – food processing) was married to tradition (childhood memory, communal activity and uncompromising taste). It’s all in the spices. At least, it was one of the triggers for Columbus to set sail and discover a rounded Earth. The end of all journeys it seems, is to come home and learn to know the place for the first time. That place, for a lot of people, has noodle waiting albeit in instant packages.

Chinese CEOs are (also) quitting

You know you got it right when others tried to copy your every move.

An Apple-like store in China, a Sony or Microsoft retail store in the same mall (Galleria, Houston).

Steven Jobs, the enchanter, is quitting as Apple has reached its apex, once surpassing Exxon (Google also had this Everest experience).

Maybe some Chinese CEOs like Jack Ma will get a similar idea (in their case, they aren’t going to take a calligraphy class. Instead they want to drive around in gold-plated automobiles).

Something, like style, just can’t be copied.

Design and innovation, like brand, is in you.

Zoom out from history, you will find clusters of creativity, among which Silicon Valley in the late 80’s.

Guy Kawasaki briefly mentioned the secrecy and partitioning at Apple. Planned self-disruption.

In that spirit, I am sure they had a succession plan in place at Apple.

Not as at HP, where the tablets are on sale for $99 (not for Third World charity).

We do live in a different era, when songs are downloaded for 99 cents, and tablet sold for $99.

We will soon get cheaper versions of the I-phone, perhaps via Sprint’s private-label re-sellers, such as Metro PCS. (as of this edit, T-Mobile is rolling out the I Phone 5 for $99 w/out contract).

Perhaps the Chinese CEO’s are calling it quit. After all, their society couldn’t make up their mind: to abandon their naval fleet (ancient history), or to build aircraft carriers (modern technology)? To build luxury car lines, or to buy Indian’s nano autos? To move up the value chain, or to expand overseas?

When emerging nations beat Chinese at its own game (cheap knock-off using cheap labor),

it’s time to quit. Oh, one more thing. At least Steve Jobs advised Standford grads to stay hungry.

Not to flaunt their wealth by driving gold-plated cars around. One high-tech start-up owner in the Valley did just that (crashing his Lamborghini and died after having sold his company just an hour before). Know when to hold and when to fold. It’s Steve’s secret sauce. Try to copy that.

Austin

Tech campus turned Mall (still keeps the “DOMAIN” name).

Borders out of business, but Apple store is thriving.

Austin, ranked as most tolerant city in America, saw Chinese Graduate students hang out leisurely on a Sunday afternoon, complete with rocking chairs, very well be made in China.

Welcome to America. Welcome to Starbucks. What’s your name buddy? My name is Buddy.

Howdy Buddy. Wait over that line for your gourmet latte.

It’s the one spot in the middle of Texas where even a native feels out-of-place.

It could have been a page right out of the San Jose playbook.

Silicon Valley meets Silicon Hills. If only they can pull off a Chinese New Year Parade as does annually in San Francisco.

Fifteen years ago, there was little of the town as far as Asian groceries and shops.

Now there exists a large, newly built compound, unmistakably Asian with names like  Pho Saigon, Saigon Baguette, Chinese barbeque. There even is a Chinese bank at the corner, as well as Chinese church at the T section of Braker and Dessau.

The Recession made strange bed fellows, at times, literally (interracial couples seen walking down the street, forcing senior citizens to pause and be puzzled: are we at war with China? The last times Asian girls seen walking with white guys, was during war-time that brought them together were during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.).

So, there it is, a new Domain, complete and transformed from a once overhyped dot.com era.

Yes, Austin is thriving and aggressive to win over California businesses and elsewhere. UT students are benefited from this microcosm of the larger world.

Gaming and software companies are source-coding every minute of the day and night. It’s fitting that 24-hr gyms pick this city to expand.

One thing that was left out in The Rise of the Creative Class. Austin, although ranked as most tolerant city in America, is also home to most allergies in America. I knew it’s too good to be true from the Chamber of Commerce web page. It is now a certified truth that one needs to walk the ground as well as see things from afar. GPS alone can’t quite do the job.  Onward, adapt (euphemism for step back), then onward again.

Starbucks knows it best. Until the McDonald guy catches on. He asked for my name (first time in 36 years). I gave it to him too. My name is Buddy.

Moore’s Law for Tech Giants

If Rip Van Winkle woke up today, he would be surprised to see Facebook. If he had waken up a decade ago, he would have read about Google.And the decade before that, Microsoft.

Except this time, Mark Zuckerberg is much younger than the other founders, dominated the media landscape quicker . And he donated part of his earnings to charity, much earlier (Bill and Melinda Gates took off to India a few Window versions later).

In short, everything (concept to contribution) seems to follow Moore’s Law which was first applied to the speed of chips.

When Microsoft opened its Silicon Valley branch, and Facebook its first summer frat house on the West coast, we know where Mecca for techies is.

One can only hope the rise of Facebook inspire others, despite its floundering IPO.

Tech year, like dog year, ends quickly. It just seems like yesterday, when Bill Gates

tried to size up Netscape, or Murdoch MySpace and WSJ mix.

Today, half of the staff  are clearing their desks, leaving behind half of My Space For-Lease. Moore’s Law is ominous when applied outside of chip manufacturing.

Where have they gone?

Subtitle “Time to remember”.

When I was in high school, the consumer society began to take shape in Vietnam: beer, cheese, cigarettes, toothpaste and vinyl music albums. Then we moved on to AKAI tape.

By the time I got to the US, the first item I purchased was a portable cassette recorder

(to record music from home, not knowing that someday, they could be digitized, compressed and downloaded).

We used Super 8mm for home filming, and Sony 3/4 inch field recorder for news gathering (some stations still hung on to 16mm film, but this required dark room, which slowed down news processing) while college roommates wouldn’t let their  8-track player out of sight.

Audio Editing back then required one to cut the tape by a razor and scotch-tape it back.

And computer time at the lab meant sitting in the hall with punched cards in hand. Those equipment are now museum pieces. Gone also were names like Zenith and RCA. (BTW Samsung is getting into Medical Device space ).

We have tried so hard to deliver goods and services from point A to point B.

Encoding and decoding the content, medium-agnostic e.g. tin cans, message in the bottle, pigeons.

(in today’s term,  “dumb” phones).

Learning in an analog age was cumbersome e.g. researching a subject (Dewey system) and tabulating the findings.

I posted a BBC clip about the Joy of Stats. The professor was able to show case 200 years of progress in 4 minutes. Comprehensive and captivating.

3-D holographic presentation sure beats the transparencies of the overhead projector (whose bulbs got hot and burned out quickly, often times, in the middle of the spill).

Or the slide trays which “sync” pulses on music tracks, and we called that multi-media.

It is hard for today’s teens to comprehend the pre-Google pre-YouTube age. And just for amusement, we can show them a picture of mobile movie box (often on bicycle). I spent a large chunk of my allowance on those Charlie Chaplin clips with head stuck inside the dark drape.

The kids I hung out with, Pierre, mixed French and Vietnamese, Ali, Indian and other half-breed French kids in the neighborhood. where have they gone? And the technology and tools I was used to, where have they all gone as well.

To be sustainable, we will have to do away with resource-intensive tools.

And to accommodate a larger crowd on spaceship Earth, we will have to learn to negotiate in this new economy of hope.  In San Francisco, they are now testing a car-sharing model with many benefits e.g. help pay the bills, reduce CO emission and require less parking space.

If you come to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

And marvel at the Golden Gate Bridge, which still stands uncontested throughout the rise and fall (and reinvention) of Silicon Valley. That I found reassuring. A bridge from point A to point B . It’s still there, so is my resolve to cross it.