Tag: Ted Turner

Don’t jump the gun

It started with interchangeable parts in a gun factory, then “re-engineering” in the auto-assembly plant to full automation (former Secretary of Labor Reich said that if workers lose their sense of optimism, then there is no replacement). In NY, the manufacturing sector employs 40% a century ago, now it stands at mere 4% (conversely, a decade ago, only 5% of US adults joined social network, now 50%).

A separate Harvard study showed 2/3 of workers don’t feel engaged at work. The “showing-up” economy is nearing its end (not when machines had been at work all night long).

Whatever left for the US based workers ( to protect patents, marketing and sales, or the experience economy like casual dining and Disneyland, licensed-based like massage and health care) to do, ought to be of high-value, high yield. In short, being indispensable.

ATT and other big firms are re-shoring call center jobs as a trade-off for tax rebate.

The T in EBITDA is now split to T1 and T2, offshore tax haven and in-shored tax rebate, respectively.

Consumers win thanks to global competition and cheap technology (since when can people talk-and-ride, productivity level once reserved for first-class train passengers between Connecticut and NYC – where WSJ copies were on everyone’s lap).

Inter-changeable parts, inter-changeable markets/regions, inter-changeable skills (at follow-the-sun call centers). In short, tradeable services (Michael Spence).

We see the emergence of 21st-century self-help guru who urges us, e.g.the 4-hr work week, to outsource everything (so we have time to build our 4-hr body).

Civilization and its discontent.

Penny-slot nation.

Native American reservations open to everyone at all hours.

It history is of any guide, we are reverting to a 21st-cent version of aristocracy (instead of land, it’s machine owners vs workers) albeit Sino-Indie centric as opposed to Euro-centric.

Speaking of land, Ted Turner owns a vast amount of land in the South. He apparently wants to have a portfolio mix between the air wave and estate value. Common sense tells us we can only substitute the real with virtual for so long.

Human interaction takes time. It’s called building trust. Indispensable and non-interchangeable. Just don’t jump the gun on things that are human.

 

Thought acquisition

Chinese shoppers and students are coming. Here is the list of top 10 countries whose students are enrolling in the US.

http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Education/2010/11/87223/ The stats also shows Mexico at number 9 (CIVET’s countries predominantly present).

Rodeo Drive and Las Vegas aside, I want to play campus tour guide.

First, the weather. Deal with it. It is world apart from the rainy and dry seasons where you are from.

It ain’t cool to carry an umbrella to avoid the sun. Tanning is in….until you get skin cancer (watch out Desperate Housewives from Atlanta!).

Second, homesickness. Yes, you will miss your friends, and occasionally your families. You will miss the food as well.

Deal with it.

McDonald has stuck to its success formula, from milkshakes to McRibs. Go there not only to use the bathroom, but also to see the efficiency model, about which Jacques Ellul has termed “technique”  (RFID, containerization, supply chain and supersizing). The rise of McDonald was credited to a milkshake maker who could make multiple servings at one time.

Third, clash of cultures. This process will have to be confronted head on. As you changed, so will the larger society you  interact with. It’s called cultural reciprocity. Don’t bow your head here. It ain’t cool.

Learn the high fives.

Do lift weights. Students coming from Asia are too small, thus come across as weak. Pick up on the sports page, and glance at People magazine.

You will forever be a minority in a predominantly but ever-changing USA (often times, with internal conflict, culminated at the Civil War, but only tugged away during the Cold War, never fully resolved ).

Lucky you, since you will be moving about campus, where blue jeans and book bags  are your uniforms.

Everybody is here to learn, to thought-acquire and to grow.

It’s a homogeneous environment, although you can feel the difference between a senior and freshman (the former occasionally wear suit-and-tie to interview on campus).

You arrived here in the US both at a right time and a wrong time. Right time because globalization is finally materialized this way by your presence (and your parent’s purses). Wrong time because the US is experiencing a prolonged downturn. Hence, don’t take it personally that everyone seems to be subdued (involuntary austerity). We have yet shaken off the effect of Madoff-ization.

I see that you have chosen to major in Business and Engineering. Great. Among the global top 10 universities, 8 are located here in the US with Harvard at the top (BTW, both MIT and Harvard are presided by women).

I know you will be selective with your time, your major and the company you hang out with (connection). Develop your social skills, and forge connection since these are and will be your soft asset. Join a club, and volunteer to be in a leadership position ( I used to “man” a book table in between classes, and play guitar at lunch time in the International Student lounge. Just to expose myself to passer-by).

Those early activities led me to be a member of the media, an international relief worker and to finally pursue a career in multi-cultural marketing and sales. Even when you came up with the best invention, you still need to convince VCs to fund your project.

Learn soft skills. Ask around and see who would be willing to be your mentor. When I started college, I got dropped in cold (Operation Frequent Wind).

Clueless and without a role model. (A bunch of us, refugee students from Vietnam, grew long hair like James Taylor – Right, you’ve got a friend !).

If I have to leave you with a parting thought, it is this: focus on your intellectual development i.e. learning to learn. That is the one thing that cannot be taken away from you (have you heard of brain stripping if you defaulted on your student loan? They do that with auto repo and home foreclosure, but not learning).

And one more thing: when you finally repatriated, could you leave behind your drive-and-ambition playbook so  America can pick up on that. After Ted Turner of CNN, and a bunch of internet giants , the US doesn’t seem to encourage any more risk-taking ( banks don’t give out loans lately).

We had been number one before dropped down to number 11 in competitiveness. Still in denial.

While you have everything to gain, your presence here has everything to give. Thanks for coming. And don’t get lonely during the holidays. I wish I can have each of you over for eggnog and apple cider. And cranberry sauce too. See, I start living in the past, back to Pilgrim’s days. I need you to help me visualize the future. It will be a crowded one with 7 billion of us in all. At this rate, we will have to send our grand kids to study on Mars. Now, that will be a shock. Future shock.

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.

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