Tag: Silicon Valley

supply chain dilemma

First they outsourced to lower the cost of, let’s say, an I phone.

The guy (Chinese farm-to-factory worker) if not jumped out of the window from a Foxconn‘s dorm, wished he had because there was no way he could afford one. Even his counterparts in NYC had to get in line just to hand carry the same phone back to China for a profit.

Meanwhile, leaders are scratching their heads, trying to turn that same worker into a domestic consumer. So, he needs and wants a raise. Wage increases drive up production costs, making it less affordable for emerging domestic market.

Or, because of the innovator’s dilemma, product cycle, market adoption and planned obsolescence, consumers taste moves on to Galaxy etc…just as you adjusted your production strategy (Dell just-in-time, then went Retail, then went private).

It’s hard for young people in China and Vietnam not to want an I Phone. It’s harder to keep their wages down while aspiration is up. Meanwhile, the US needs jobs here at home. The same with European countries which can offer quality workmanship (even though for years, they haven’t had a decent manufacturing order to practice their skills ).

For IT outsourcing and cloud computing, it’s easy to “follow the sun”. But for manufacturing it is hard to pick up and move, then move back. Two trends seem to recently emerge in the US: resource-sharing (ride and facility), and reshoring.

A few workers jumped out of the window in China signals the beginning of many  to follow elsewhere.  Remember we live in an interconnected interdependent world where one-upmanship now spans the globe (Indian IT workers are seen partying just like counterparts in Silicon Valley during Happy Hour).

One CEO is nominated CEO of the Year (Netflix), two CEO’s going bankrupt (Blockbuster and MGM).

I got a Sixth Sense. I see dead people. The time, they are a’ changin.  The guy who hummed it (Bob Dylan) was featured in a WSJ article as slipping due to aging.

We got enough worries about the ever expanded and contracted cycles of long-tail product but short-term people.

Ford was quite correct to make the model T’s affordable to his workers (whose wages were quit high). That seemed to put the dilemma to rest in his time. Times, they are a changin, since Model T to I phone. Quite a gulf to cross from creators to consumers.

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…….

Our VHS future

Beta was more superior. Yet VHS won out.

The market (in this case, movies on tape) dictates the terms. At the present time, it wants all things mobile. In other words, our knowledge and skill set need an upgrade (But I thought technologically, Beta gave crisper resolution!?!! Sorry Sony.)

While on tour for his book “After Shock”, Robert Reich mentioned on Charlie Rose that despite Obama’s ability to synthesize every one’s opinion earlier in his campaign, he now fails to connect the dots i.e. to tell a narrative of America’s vanishing middle class.

Silicon Valley has reinvented itself once again, this time, into a Mecca of clean tech (just about time, because Chinese IT companies are forming clusters in TX to compete against India’s counterparts right in the heart of America) and mobile/cloud/social network (zynga-like). Between Detroit, Disney and Dell, America can still do it, with better choices and better counsels.

Again, the global market will decide winners in each group (VHS 2.0) and don’t be surprised if it might not be you, even when your mother thinks you are her most beautiful baby.

I have heard of re-engineering, reinvention, and recession. Then we came up with soft power, thought leadership and self branding.

Meanwhile, all attempts to dress up old concepts won’t mean a thing to the lady in Las Vegas outskirts who is the last on the block to stay in her house. Or the Lonely tenant in Miami condo high-rise.

I notice a significant drop in day laborers in Orange County. And I heard rumors that Vietnamese in CA now migrated en mass to Houston, where housing is more affordable, and unemployment rate lower (in the early 80’s, the movement was reverse due to Texas oil crisis). The story of Vietnamese immigrants in America is tied so much to the rise and fall of technology companies in the Bay areas (electronic and chip industries). As soon as those jobs got shipped overseas, America’s immigrants decide to go home (after Indian IT professionals who went home to India, or Vietnamese American applying for Intel recent facility in Vietnam). After all, the future belongs to automation or hybridized version therein.

It’s market demand which dictates supplies, including labor supplies. First shipping jobs overseas, then automating the marketing side of the equation. I have blogged about migration movement, automation and death of the salesman. In doing so,

I stumbled upon a narrative. It’s America’s. It’s the new America, whose future is staked upon its choice to go Beta or VHS, metaphorically speaking. And it has nothing to do with Beta’s superior resolution. As of this edit, it is facing a choice to arm to send boots to Syria. Soft or hard boiled? Since when it is easy to be King of the Hill? Good luck to those who “think out of the box”, instead of getting out of it altogether.

P.S. Fareed Zakaria‘s article on TIME featured “How to restore the American Dream”. At least, he listed a few pointers worth considering e.g. “benchmarks” which are take away from other countries’ policies. After all, other countries have tried to reverse engineer the American way of life for decades. Upon CNN 30th anniversary, I saw an ad for Singapore. When CNN started out in Atlanta, Ted Turner couldn’t even conceive its network celebration would be underwritten by Singapore, then an emerging country. One must wonder about its 40th, if there will still be a Cable News Network. What a struggle between television and telephony. The jury is still out for whoever can be on the go, with better softwares.

Continue reading Our VHS future

Tech rules again

We all saw Google’s numbers surge. I remember the last time I feel this way was a decade ago. Something is in the works. The market responds. New apps, new ways of accomplishing things.

This might be it.

Just like a line in “It Might Be You“, a theme song in Tootsie.

Maybe it didn’t come in the shape or form we were expecting  i.e. green shoots. But it seems right. A surge in productivity, efficiency and confidence. We barely scrap the surface of Web 2.0.

Just as Wall Street and the old guards found more dirt in housing finance, Silicon Valley struck new gold via better apps. Somehow, as a system, we are self-healing, thus ensuring species survival.

We will soon have to do away with yesterday’s vocabulary, such as “the  engine of the economy”, “ramping up” etc.. all belong to the Industrial past.

In their places, let’s talk about “intelligent search”, “smart appliances” etc….

We will come to understand ourselves, with higher IQ, EQ, social intelligence, and cultural intelligence. The deeper the degree of automation, the freer we are to learn and grow.

In short, minimize chores, and optimize passion.

This 90/10 equation was once enjoyed by aristocrats now available to the common man whose hands are holding smart phones i.e. all-in-one information and data sources.

The faster the processing speed, the more available information, the quicker the decision.

The gods must be crazy (remember the coke bottle dropped out of the sky  into a primitive tribe?). Via GPS alone, human now get bird-eye-view, lifting his gaze way above earthen sky.  Advances in medical technology and environment will push life expectancy even more. It used to be 47 back in 1900. Now it is easily in  the low 70’s and counting.

World’s median age is now 28. But in a decade, this median age will change dramatically. Future aging world population.

(Imagine summer concert full of old rockers, wearing golf shirts).

However it turns out, we celebrate the triumph of human imagination, invention and innovation. One day, the machine will finish this blog for me.

It already knows based on a year’s worth of data what I am going to say next.

So I can go fetch my second cup of coffee. Have a great weekend.

 

Up the value chain

China is dreaming up its own Silicon Valley.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127742250&ft=1&f=1017

Its young are flocking NE universities in the summer, learning about American culture and history.

While in San Jose, they visit Tech Museum.

Are ideas and innovation moving offshore?

I was told to “follow the money”.

Does anyone know what time it is? Doesn’t anyone even care? (Chicago).

Actually, they have been nickel-and-dime, with rising costs (of wages, inflation pressure etc…).

Either they move South to Vietnam, Cambodia etc… or up the value chain.

Moving of the mind instead of moving the factories.

In crisis, there is opportunity. (Inida after 4 decades of leapfrogging the manufacturing step, end up with inflation).

30 years ago, China did it, out of necessity (with obvious consequences such as wage pressures and pollution).

This time, it is forced to go beyond dorm-room refrigerators to solar panel and software development.

Already we saw Baidu. And cities which offer high rebates for film makers (free extras). Watch out Bollywood!

If history taught us anything, it is this: China made a huge mistake by burning its world-class vessels back in the 16th century.

It drifted away and distracted itself  with opium and orthodoxy. Now China wakes up, moves fast and away from its progress-resistant mode. It has no time to eat or spend its money.

Money and success feed themselves. And each Chinese is moving up the Maslow scale. So is the interior country (with each province’s RFP and coordinated initiatives),

to catch up with Coastal cities such as Shanghai. The latter have been on steroid, while the former adrenaline.

Turns out, China is doing what exactly anyone in its place would: follow the money because its leader said “to get rich is glorious”, in this case, optimizing the value chain and use all its resources (which means it will soon have to outsource, offshore and build Tech museum as well). The force of nature favors survival of the busiest. And China is busy building its own Silicon Valley.