Tag: Sony

Less is more

In reading Steve Jobs, a theme keeps emerge: less is more.

He cut out the fat and all its distraction.

(being a veggie, he stayed true to form).

His closet was full of the same long-sleeve stretch shirt that defined his personal brand.

His take on wealth and money was also consistent with his 60’s philosophy.

Steve could be nice when he chose to, but working for him must have been a nightmare.

His current replacement was quoted as saying “someone must take charge and fix the problem in China i.e. suppliers”. Half an hour later, he turned to see the man in charge still sitting there “why are you still here?”. That man drove to SF airport and bought a ticket flying East.

It’s true that our world is better and certainly more beautiful with technologists like Steve who also doubled as art lovers (I-pod).

If life consists of only 0’s and 1’s, we would all be automatons.

Lucky for us, we got both Bohr and Beethoven, Newton and Nicholas Cage.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Yet people keep acquiring, acquiring, acquiring.

And the longer I live, the more I see this isn’t going to end.

The pursuit of happiness has meant the pursuit of things (think of exercising equipment for home you saw on night TV).

All I can recall from a Hermeneutic class was “a priori “(we read into a text what we had already thought it would say).  We have consitently misinterpreted the meaning of happiness. In fact, advertisers have done this for us (driving a Cadillac is cool. Hence, to be cool, you must own a Cadillac).

Those text-book writers managed to make complex something very simple.

Urban gangs could say “yo man, m..f…is a racist”. That would say it all.

In the age of Wikipedia, if we want to go in-depth about a topic, just click it and scroll down. The spread of information will multiply even more quickly than Gordon Moore had anticipated (IBM has found a way to save space in transistors, call it magnetization, as opposed to polarization as traditionally used). Devices will get smaller with longer battery life (Acer’s thinnest laptop).

But convenience and comfort don’t equate to happiness. Life has gone on for centuries unassisted by today’s accessories. A tribe in India (island) is still functioning without modern amenities. (Tourists tried to bribe them to “pole dance” for YouTube , raising the issue of “human zoo”.)

The happy countries index often lists Costa Rica and other S American countries.

Yes, quality of life index listed Scandanavian countries such as Norway and Finland. They got the oil, but equally distributed unlike Lybia. But happiness doesn’t confine to just Costa Rica as opposed to Costa Mesa (where South Coast Plaza Mall is located). Perhaps Steve saw something while living in India (My Sweet Lord).

Perhaps we too should reexamine what are the core things that make us happy.

Beauty is found in wild lilies and the grandest scene recurs at every sunset.

Sometimes we missed those moments of happiness, only to recognize them after the fact. Would it be simpler to give happiness the initiative to seek us out. I bet you it work out better that way.

Team building

I invited a new classmate to join our volleyball team. Thought I kill two birds with one stone: we could use a tall guy, and I couldn’t bear seeing him unfriended during recess. Turned out he couldn’t play well, but we got to be friends for life.

We pitched in to buy a professional ball. Took it out for a test-drive.

Before I even got my chance at that spanking new white ball, it bounced to the street, ran over by a car, and voila! Memory of shared disappointment.

But Team!

Then we went out and had some lunch. The neighborhood gangs there just walked up and started to punch each of us to the ground. Back then, one of our oldest classmates had a brother in the army. He went home and took out an M-16 to scare away the hoodlums. Team!

Later in life, I have always been a team player: my brother got married, OK.

I would take care of mom, heck with my broadcasting career! Team.

The Boat People died at seas? I stood up and joined two other graduates. Together, we rolled up our sleeves, and spent our summer in hot, crowded and often times, violent (due to cramp living) prison-turned-refugee camps.

Team!

When it was my turn to lead, a joint Chinese and Vietnamese team (historically at war as nations) I made sure we spent a lot of time around food,

sharing meals and sharing deals. Team.

Families broke down because they forgot that Team came first.

Great teams just don’t happen by accident.

It needs everyone to commit to a common goal, and yes, it needs to define clearly who it is competing against (Apple vs IBM, MCI vs ATT or Samsung vs Sony).

Team needs various personalities to achieve optimal results.

But personality conflicts cause headaches.

Team leaders should embrace diversity of opinion, temperament and  ( emotional and social) intelligence.

Let conflict boil to the surface. Team’s fiber could withstand some strains and be made stronger as a result.

You know your team is fully functional when it moves as a unit: each knows his/her SWOT. Team leaders are not always right. They just know how to draw out the best in each member.

Team has its learning curve and maturity as well.

Even the best team can’t stay together forever. When you get teary at goodbye, you know you had a good team experience.

I would trade a B teammate over a A lone wolf any day.

No wonder Southwest Airlines consistently outperform its nearest competitor.

People who work there seem to and do have fun. They sing to, they smile at and they serve you as if each flight were their last. Because of this, we have yet seen SW last flight since their opening day.

We did not choose our families. But team does pick you as much as you let yourself be changed by it. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished without great teams. And no rewards greater than that of a team bringing home the first prize. Esprit de corps. That’s what it is all about. The high-fives or the tap on your shoulder when you are down and out (World Cup Final).  Come on! Focus! Next play!

Ask my tall classmate whose first handshake ends up lasting a life time.

Traffic turns attraction

Crunch time in Ho chi Minh City. A nuisance for many yet a photo-op for tourists.

Millions in ponchos, helmets, dust masks, sunglasses fighting for every inch (centimeter here) to get  home in the pouring rain, while tourists leisurely strolled the colonial side walks in shorts, sandals and Sony cameras trying to record their trips. Who is looking at whom?

These skinny people all wrapped up to protect their skin?

Or these fat people are not afraid of getting sun-burn?

Three years ago, I switched role by playing expat in Hanoi, studying among other expats

from US, UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland. I got a glimpse of how the natives were viewed, perceived and more often than not, judged: English school across from a dog-meat stance, ballroom-dancing in the park and to top it all, a 60’s Berkeley-style stripper family on the streets begging for money to cover health care costs (per recent Yahoo news).

One of our lessons for teachers of English as a foreign language that morning happened to be “soliciting money online from friends to cover shopping debt”.

It struck me that the Western girl in the lesson and the lady out there on the street were doing the same, one with wireless, the other voiceless.

Three years have passed since that morning.

A lot of bank bail outs are now behind us.

Bank buildings got renamed, CEO’s booted.

During the upturn,  people drink and smoke their lives away.

During the downturn, people drink and smoke their lives away even faster.

Always a vicious cycle, a race to the bottom. Vietnam spends 38% of its income on food, Mexico 23%, France 13% while the US a mere 7% (subsidized infrastructure).

I found myself in sudden tears at lunch. This was after I had heard that a friend with cancer would have only six months to live.

What would I do in his shoes?

Dzo (down) the Ken (Heineken)? Visit Yellow Stone Park? Eiffel tower?

My grandmother’s grave? (we’ll meet again soon anyway).

What would you do?

Fighting for another inch in traffic?

Every moment is precious especially towards the end .

“There is a pause in between life and death,” said my friend.

I saw it once with the burning monk. The rising flame was both his baptism by fire and his cremation.

To enter that next ring of eternity, he must and did leave all things behind.

To dance to another drummer’s beat.

After two weeks in country, I have learned to cross the streets without the usual reflex which I found counter-productive. And I definitely resist any impulse to take pictures, because someone else’s stress was not going to be my sensation. Not just Vegas, but also Vietnam, where what happened here, stays here. Traffic is to me, a distraction not attraction.