Tag: tech and multi-cultural marketing

Roughly a quarter of ad dollars is spent on print where we only spend less than 8% of our time .

Meanwhile 8-10% of ad dollars are spent online, where more than 1Billion adults spend much more than 10% of their time.

There lies the mismatch.

Then, arrives the fast 4-G train with ads online. GPS, buzz, chat, and friend/store coupon locating.

Now we are talking.

I wouldn’t be surprised that one day, we will have a dumb phone (mobile virtualization) and cloud computing all-in-one.

Then we will no longer be desk-bound thanks to these mobile thin clients.

Just like what Centrex does: enable the CPU  to be hosted inside the Central Office, so office managers wouldn’t have to play telco and IT administrator.

No wonder Google put a lot of chips down on Android.

The giant sees far into a future, when phone users will pay for and download only those a-la-carte  functionality they really need.

(Just to underscore the importance, HP acquired Blackberry yesterday to ensure a seat on the train).

And by then, we can really program our utilities at the speed of thought (smart grid interfacing with smart cloud).

If the engineers could tackle Tivo, they can someday figure out how to get rid of the collection of remote (out-of-) controls in the house.

One phone does it all: opens the garage door, turns on the heater, activates the TV/Computer. Dock it, and we are back at our desktop. Home at last.

But not really, not until we are logged on.  Then we are truly home…..in the cloud, along and among many others who embrace virtual over earthly reality.

(IBM was holding conferences on Second Life, the same company which gave us the mainframe in the 70’s).

Hit me. But not until I stored enough hugs from my babies for the long journey. Hi-tech, hi-touch.

Cirque Du Soleil has been featuring Elvis, the King of Rock. Let’s twist again.

Soon this innovative company will “deep blue” once again with Michael Jackson, King of Pop.

Meanwhile, a new generation of high school students cannot wait for recess to snack on text.

I wonder who their idol is? Facebook founder? (When Bill Gates visited Bac Ninh, Vietnam, students there

said he was their most admired person at that time).

Whoever he/she is, I venture to say, he/she will be involved with mobile content, rich media, games online, Twitter, etc….

Geeks rule!

In Googled, the End of The World As We Know It, the author mentioned that Google is what it is today,

because the founders understand tech (or Apple with Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need a

translator during tech meets).

The medium is the message. And it has always been that way.

Short burst of data.  Mobile advertising. E-reading.

You ain’t seen nothing yet. Bullet trains in Europe were doing well during the volcano’s no- flight weeks.

(and perhaps mobile apps and e books were doing well in Europe during those few weeks as well).

The way of the future: fast moving data transport and fast moving cargo (including people) transport.

The  new Concord for the senses: eyes, ears and sense of touch.

Multitasking won’t even be an option. It’s a required skill.

Educators are worried that kids will grow up:

a. too obese to be recruited by the army

b. too introverted to be socially intelligent

c. too behind in their math and science skill as compared to Chindian peers.

I would add that Skype founders were from the old Soviet bloc. So is one of the two Google founders.

But point C is well documented, that high school students need to beef up on their math and science.

I am glad nobody is laughing at nerds and geeks today.

When today’s new role models are the likes of Twitter and Facebook, there are still hopes.

And before you know it, SMS will be passe, and just maybe, Cirque Du Soleil will have a new season of

“Let’s text again”” in honor of our current attachment to all things mobile, all things kinetic like I-pad and I-phone.

Since when those fat fingers found the key strokes so delightful, as if they were concert pianists’ at the Royal Concert Hall?

Remember “fax me” age? Now it’s “text me”. I am glad it’s not “let’s fax again”. Sound a bit obscene if not pronounced clearly.

If you flipped through A Brief History of the World, you would find our Informational Age just a blip.
Yet it is the  Age we are in i.e. algorithm, self-check out, no Saturday delivery of Saturday Evening Post.

Even when Google can translate a document into many languages, an editor is still needed since he/she can make sense of the by-then jumbled verbiage.

Glad to know human are still considered valuable.

And just to put more weight to defend the human side, it’s the engineers (human, and in some case, Ph.D. in anthropology) who tweaked the behavioral-targeted algorithms in the first place.

Sometimes, I wish we could put the formulas on trial, after the fiasco on Wall Street (the Ph. D. guy fled after refusing to be interviewed by the Rolling Stone, admitting no wrong doing i.e. I just invented the formula, but it’s up to Sachs and others to use it for whatever end they had in mind).

OKay.

Who is to blame? Machine or man? Math or Art?  Maybe both are not evil, but the situation we found ourselves in (e.g. it’s too costly for the FBI to keep highly qualified staff in New York for early detection). At this edit, SEC staff were found watching porno at work instead of being on the case (News organizations would insert Madoff picture here to illustrate the point, after showing porno picture to catch viewer’s attention).

Back to our defense of the “art” side in our Google age.

We still need people, in spite of  their weakness and frailty. Out of those shared conditions, human can empathize with others and sometimes can finish their sentences.

Yes, I know how you feel.

I felt the same way.

It’s the 10 percent rule (Presentation layer, tip of the iceberg, leaving the machine to crunch 90% of the analytic load).

Glad to be of help. Handshake. Smile. And goodbye, and good luck. And luck, sometimes determines the rest of the story, or human history for that matter.

Warren Buffet said the best deal was the deal we didn’t expect.

We are still just a blip on the radar screen, when looking back from the Omega standpoint. Yet, we are each unique, with our imprints

and fingerprints, birthday and obituary.  From cradle to the grave, we have acted, and reacted to forces uninvited.

And in between stimulus and response, as Covey reiterates Viktor Frankl’s theory, we have a choice. A pause, however short, to delay reaction or sometimes, in spite of ourselves, choose a civilized response, to put the Art in the Start, to show the 10% is still in charge. Try me, machine, I can and will unplug you.

35 years ago, I saw frequent planes leaving the Capital of South Vietnam, then called Saigon.

I sensed that something was coming down.

And that my life would never be the same.

It turned out that my hunch was correct: two weeks later, I stood across from the US embassy to watch

helicopters leaving from its roof helipad.

Mind you, I wasn’t one of the VIP’s (or my family for that matter).

So we had to settle for the river alternative. Sort of Steve Martin and John Candy’s “trains, planes and automobiles”  Christmas eve.

Had to board some mode of transportation. Had to get home (they even played White Christmas on the GI radio to signal withdrawal).

Hasty evacuation. President Ford signed the Operation Frequent Wings, which authorized a one-time sanctuary and humanitarian airlift

as long as it was within that 24-hour window (which coincided with 24-hour curfew imposed by the then-transitional government).

So me, Steve Martin equivalence, pulled one of those teary “father of the bride” .

The “bride”: my former hometown, Saigon.

The “father” of the bride: me, its faithful 19-year resident.

One last basketball game? Sure. I went dancing. And dance I did.

As if there would never be a tomorrow. (I also managed to raise some money from my freshman class for refugees who were pouring into the city. Ironically, it’s one of those barges they had been on, turned out to be mine a few weeks later).

When one actually was out to sea and looked back to the skyline that once was one’s city, through a veil of tears mixed in with rain and salty air,

one experienced that “death in the family” feeling. Perhaps it was my youth that got buried that day. Or innocence. Or forced migration.

Whatever the sociological depiction of this exile and exodus experience (five stages of grief?), I knew I paid a hefty price for something I hadn’t done, or worse off,

something I didn’t intend to do (like California Dreaming for instance). There was no time for reflections ever since.

Fast food. Fast lane. Fast refund.

Yet Vietnamese overseas have sent money home, at the current rate of $7B per year.

Not bad for a load of brain drain.

In fact, the only sound I did not seem to find while on my trips back to Vietnam lately was gun and chopper sound.

It’s peace time Vietnam now. And consumerism is gaining traction (you will find “com tam Cali” chain e.g. Fast Wok California).

Or a bunch of Viet Kieu (expats) opened  a chain of Hooters-like bars (whose names conveniently are the street numbers they found themselves located at).

So, next time, join me and cheers. Operation Frequent Lift (of beer cans).  Life is too short. And “we don’t have no time to drink that beer.”

I hear America’s Tin Man fading in, so it’s about time to sign off. But I must tell you, it has been a trip on ” Ventura Highway”, in the sunshine:

I have seen quite a lot ever since (not counting the Fall of Saigon and the burning monk): Three Mile Island, Boat People exodus, Rodney King Riot,

Northridge quake, dot.com boom and burst and recent Recession.

Quite a ride. And who cares about the view from the roof top. I am not one of the VIP’s. I look forward to my tax refund, still, after being here since 1975.

Can’t wait to see what’s the roof top view can afford me? Hope this time, the window of opportunity is longer than 24 hours, and the parameters larger than 100 kilometers (international waters, where the 7th fleet was waiting with my ride to America). Trains, planes and barges. Whatever mode of transportation that can get you from A to B. Again, Louis L’Amour is right: the problem with man is that he cannot stay put in one place.

It’s obvious, in your face and undeniable: Heineken rules, at least, in Vietnam.

The company built a brewery there as early as 1990. And this preemptive move has paid off quite handsomely.

As people in Vietnam say, when you are sad, you toast, when you are happy, you toast, and when you feel neither,

toast anyway.

And Heineken (Ken for short) they toast: 1,2,3 Dzo, Dzo. Dzo.

The only thing left is for KFC to join forces. Colonel Sanders, as he was teasingly called, was just about to give up.

It’s his 1099th time knocking on doors. One last stop. The bar man said he was not interested in fried chicken.

But if the Colonel had been willing to add more salt so he could push some beer. Being old and retired, the Colonel

wouldn’t personally prefer a saltier diet. But to please the prospect and “what do I have to lose” before

throwing in the towel, he complied.

So we have KFC . And in Vietnam, as in China, his emblem (long bow tie, beard and glasses) has

been quite recognizable. Here, he could put even more salt  to partner with Ken, his 1101th cold call, to have people pop open a Ken or two.

And preferably they come in large cans.

You know you product is selling when they have knock-offs.

And in Vietnam, people start staying away from bottles, which are more easily be copies.

You go figure how a nation with almost bottom GDP per head, could afford to pop and toast Ken at all hour of the day.

I have seen it on many trips, and even outside of my boarding room where I stayed and taught English for three months.

People seem to be happy (2nd happiest nation on Earth).

And I suspect Ken has something to do with it.

Dzo.

I heard that no two top executives at Coca Cola are allowed to fly together on the same flight.

And that they hand-carry the secret sauce (just like the White House “football”).

Maybe their risk-averse strategy should serve as a cautionary tale for our time, especially after today’s crash which took out

most of Polish government.

Succession planning.

Companies large and small these days have to deal with myriads of issues, among them HR and pension plan.

GM paid out a large chunk to clear out their Union obligation.

I hope their Volt can compete with the likes of LEAF.

A life cycle of a company is getting shorter and shorter.

So is its institutional memory (this is because they laid off experienced – translated as expensive – workers, who happen to be depositories of

its DNA and mythologies).

The MCI comments about its culture have run quite long (the largest group on Facebook), just to show how deeply ingrained we are to our work place, especially if it gave us our sense of identity,

satisfaction and recognition.

Every once in a while, we got a winning company, product of its time, but also brainchild of its founder.

For now Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon rule the tech space.

Behind each company, we find a strong and dynamic personality (ies): Jobs, Larry/Serge/Eric etc..

I hope they don’t travel together too often.

I encountered turbulence on my most recent flight. And it was an unnerving experience.

You question your priorities right then and there: have I been paying attention to the wrong things?

What if????

I am sure the Polish leadership team was praying (Catholic). And now they are prayed for, globally.

God rest their souls. Such solidarity, in life and in death. They were on their way to commemorate a historic event.

Now, it’s a double-tragedy Memorial from here on. What if this is our last moment of staying conscious? What is the most important thing

in our lives? Do we have a succession plan in place? I would work backward, like Mozart, from my funeral back, so I can finish my life symphony.

Wouldn’t you?

The pollen are out.

The Claritin are in.

And the cherry are blossoming, in Japan, and in DC.

What a thoughtful gift!

TIME documented a photo “Spring time in Japan”, dated 1989. It shows office workers lunching,

in optimism, with cherry blossom in the background.

Now, more than 20 years later, things have completely changed for this once Number 2 Nation.

A surprising stat I came across yesterday in “When China rules the world”, is that by 2050,

Vietnam will surpass Canada in GDP. Perhaps because of its young and growing population.

For now, a lot can go right and wrong in the next 40 years.

A plane failed to land, took out the Polish president.

A 7+ magnitude.

Or just a pedal that gets stuck.

Yahoo features a story on what your friends posted could harm your career prospect as well.

Some friends!

Might as well blog and be held responsible for your own comments.

Just like second-hand smoke. I prefer smoking myself than inhaling someone else’s.

I pick up The Empathic Civilization again. The author pins a new label on our current Age: the Age of Empathy

(vs the Age of Faith, the Age of Reason – Augustinian vs Descartes).

We participate, therefore we are.

Back to our Spring time. I don’t know when the government of Japan gave those cherry trees to Washington

(just like the Chinese who sent over Panda on loan). But, every Spring, the city is beautified with a new coat of life.

And the two bombs couldn’t even stop the seasonal recurrence of beauty and grace over man’s violence and destruction.

There is no secret that our journey at its most primal state ia a journey back to Eden: with trees ( creation) and recreation.

And pollen too. Ah chut!