Tag: Susan Boyle

Winner takes all

We will hear a lot of ABBA‘s Happy New Year this week. But “the Winner Takes It All” speaks directly to our zeo-sum society.

You lose, I win.

There are only limited “chips” on the table. Scarcity causes rising values. Hot air also rises. Like New Year’s champagne bubbles.

It’s time for a 2012 wrap up. To tabulate and look at the bottom line while drinking bottom-up. Swallow the strong drink and let go of the past.

Time flows only one way.

And the winner takes all. It’s the name of the game.

People and companies are urged to give and give to anyone, any cause, except to Uncle Sam.

Budget short fall.

Remember that one year when the IRS actually refunded the extra tax?

Fair game.

It’s only numbers. And it’s pure math.

As if numbers exist in thin air, unrelated to society and people (who are hurting).

There have been a lot of discussions in academic circle to “humanize” the business schools (courses on ethics, communication and inter-cultural communication) after what happened four years ago. Even Medical schools realise their future doctors need some human skills when interacting with patients in the real world.

In short, those who earn the most feel the least for their clients.

By now, even the least sensitive of them should realise that when people are hurting, they don’t make for good clients, if they still show up at all to use their services.

Politicians ironically are aware of their shrinking tax base, at least every four years.

That leaves the job (of drawing our attention to society’s weakest link) to priests and pastors, who, couldn’t tell one acronym from the other. The cultural divide. Work and Life, faith and science.

It’s another bookend, year-end. We have survived a couple of perfect storms that knocked down the house of cards. The winner did take all. That leaves us, losers.

Be not sore. Lick not those wounds, and give them not the satisfaction. Instead, look forward to a future where all are winners. It’s possible. As long as we take turn, or else, it’s another version of Utopia. Yesterday’s winners might very well be tomorrow’s losers (the Innovator’s Dilemma). That’s why VC‘s keep hunting for new and upcoming talent.

That’s why we expect the next big thing around the bend. Keep our blood pumping. “If we don’t, we might as well lay down and die”. Champagne anyone?

Being Here-Being There

“Being There” was first released years ago.

Peter Sellers portrayed an illiterate gardener who had been walled in all his adult life.

His only window to the world was through the TV screen. Hence his speech and demeanor replicated sound bites and screen gestures (awaiting for a “cut” to commercials).

Shirley McClain played a society lady who picked him up and “My Fair Lady-ed” him.

His gardening analogies propelled him into being a Washington insider (political pundit).

I thought of this movie when I read about a homeless man turned business man yesterday. Ted Williams from Cleveland streets with a voice-over talent got discovered and given a hair cut for a second chance in life.

I wonder how long that baritone voice last without a script.

We are living in a complex and over crowding world. The audience is fragmented, and their ability to cross check is up to the minute.

It’s nothing like in the days when newspaper men had to stand at the dock side waiting for the shipping news.

Yet speed aside, we expect in-depth analysis, and historical framework to place news in context (for instance, Tea Party, is it a new Moral Majority? Iran new American hostage, a return to Carter-era crisis? Wiki Leaks, another Pentagon Papers? Gaga, Madonna reincarnated? Ted Williams, the American answer to Susan Boyle?)

Twitter and Tumblr, fact checking and spell checking.

It’s the age of “being here” not “being there”.

It will take more than a pretty face, and a Bloomingdale power suit to make a man or a woman, gardening analogy or hunting analogy. I hear the floor director yell “cut”.

Nothing is new under the sun. Only once in a blue moon, we got an eclipse (merger). As of this edit, Yahoo is making bold moves.

Take a step back historically and contextually, you’ll see that it’s just a new spin on an old script. This time, even sound bites might not capture digital natives’ attention. You gotta to have video bites, sort of Being Here. Peter Sellers and his butler’s hat is now old school.

He needs a mobile strategy. Where ads appear simultaneously for a multi-tasking generation.

I want my Skype call!

By now, we all know about our right to make a phone call when being arrested.

That phone call usually is placed from a pay phone (soon to be a museum piece).

Skype has been down (and slowly back up to full speed), and 26 million users worldwide felt the pinch.

VoIP. Conversation chopped into tiny pieces to be reassembled at the other end (with some help from the listeners to “guess” and fill in the gaps).

The process is called quantization which creates a digital graph of an otherwise analog waves used in landline telephony.

Skype helped sell a bunch of headsets for sure.

And it has been disruptive to incumbent Penny-talk services (Skype could be called Zero-cent talk).

With Facebook founder visiting China, we can expect more E commerce apps. How about Facetalk, with caller’s profile and friending list.

People communicate in whatever way they deem convenient.

Skype and Twitter just happened to be King of the Hill at the moment.

Until the next innovation comes along. No wonder there are titles such as “First, break all the rules”. Who would have thought that which was intended for Data transmission (Internet protocol) can be used for voice and video. Even Google which already “got it” more than Microsoft, seemed to have missed the boat when it comes to Web 2.0. If only they paid attention to the human side of users, who are made up to be social animals (hence, the rise of home networking, which caught the attention of Cisco, now Linksys-Cisco).

Sometimes, the market trickles down (IBM mainframe to Texas Instrument, to Xerox then Atari/Apple computers). Other times, it’s the reverse (Social Media and Mobile apps for the work place, business casual attire etc..).

Whatever the case, I admire the distribution channel: they always make sure we have new stuffs to buy for Christmas e.g. Susan Boyle CD, Wall Street DVD (first, it cheated investors out of their money, then the fictional film version is taking Main Street pocket change), Ipad and Blu-Ray. It’s not a new century at all. It just happens to be the most crowded one. Translation: lots of gift wrapping: toys for tots, text for teens. Skype for all..