Tag: Wikileaks

Transparent trail

I saved up my visual history in 3/4 inch, VHS, slides, prints, CDs, hard-drive, flashdrive and cloud.

Not so much for me, but for my daughters .

That collage documented my fits and starts.

Each person is a narrative whose ending remains a mystery ( ‘in my end, is my beginning”).

In the Year of Magical Thinking, the widow-writer kept wishing that her husband would return (hence, magical ),

and refused to give his stuffs away.

The hard part about closure is to get through denial.

We have come a long way, since Watergate (White House secret taping) to Wikileaks.

The best way to avoid having some thing bad traced back to you is not to leave one in the first place.

What is whispered shall be announced from the roof top.

I blogged about de-clutterization. But this time, it’s not about our hoarding habit (fax machine?).

It’s about using whatever format or latest update (Adobe) as tool and transparency as policy.

Companies spent enormous amount of time, energy and money to whip up great-looking “About us”.

Until prospective customers detected incongruity and inconsistency  (reputational lag).

We live our digital lives one day at a time in open-source mode, with myriads of combinations to collaborate and co-create (the sharing economy).  We will have to relearn TRUST as online currency before Web 3.0 can happen (co-create).

The twin brother-in-law of Congress woman Giffords said on CBS: “from space, I saw this beautiful planet and I wouldn’t guess there were so much – bad things such as random shooting – going on . We can do better “.

Out in open space, with no one watching, one presumes, like Nixon, that misspoken words are not coming back to haunt.

But in cyberspace, the opposite is true. We do live our virtual lives with more-real-than-real-life ramifications. We leave behind our digital fingerprints and carbon footprints, together form a narrative, to be mined years from now by “bots”. Faint-of-hearts need not apply! (as of this edit, Apple just purchased a company whose software can pinpoint where we have been i.e. GPS plus past footprints to predict our next likely frequent stops).

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.

Super shoppers

Super computing power arms super shoppers on Super Saturday w/ price updates.

Retail outfits such as Best Buy might have to be renamed the age of Dollar Stores.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019691769574496.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_RightMostPopular

Tri Tang of Orange County was holding up his Smart Phone to do some comparison shopping in real-time. Faster chip speed (compressing more data into less space),  improved supply chain and lean manufacturing from world’s Super Factory in our post-recession era gave birth to Super Shoppers.

I went out to buy a car yesterday (I did my part). As a consumer, I found old media (classified ads for loss leaders and radio commercials) irrelevant. With Autocheck, Autotrader, Carfax and Carmax (super store), shoppers are now more informed than the sales person whose answer is “let me check and call you back”.

Super shoppers ask questions not to seek information. They ask for a confirmed response. Stores and “associates” will have to do some acrobatic like Cirque du Soleil‘s to survive.

Super shopping pits not only brick-and-mortar stores against each other (Target vs Wal-Mart), channel vs direct (Apple stores vs Apple web site) but also online vs online (Amazon vs Overstock.com).

No wonder Best Buy is under pricing pressure, which not long ago, took down Circuit City.

Female super shoppers, a majority of whom are now heads of household, shop for electronics and cars (once alpha males’ domain). Stores like Carmax milk these customers’ life time value by improving “impressive first impressions” and rely on economy of scale.

Disney staying power testifies to shopper’s early imprints. Randy in the Last Lecture referred to his childhood visit to Disney World in one of his chapters.

Super shoppers not only shop for price but also for convenience, quality and a positive shopping experience. The only thing left to worry about is “how to lug around an Ipad”. Tri Tang in our story didn’t carry an Ipad. He wielded around his smart phone inside the store, locating signal strength, looking for the best deal.

Truth in advertising has been around for a while. But the mechanism to enforce it has just arrived in the hand of the Super Shopper near you.