Tag: Youtube

Lonely crowd

Back in the 60’s , David Riesman already concluded that “the more might not be the merrier”.

Social network researchers have come up with diverse conclusions about Facebook and Internet use.

Passive vs active participation makes a difference whether we are happier or less happy when using social media.

We have yet fully exploited this new social platform (democratized, groundswell stuff).

Social media and digital content not only have width (geographically), but also depth (time irrelevant).

THIS PLATFORM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY, ALLOWS US TO MAKE KNOWN OUR EXISTENCE ACROSS TIME AND SPACE.

Right now, these platforms are monetized, politicized and socialized.

But in time, they will also be memorialized and multiplied.

People of all races, creeds and generations can access and translate someone’s blogs and tweets into their languages,

and to understand what made someone react and respond at a particular time in history.

In other words, open platform.

Yes, if we passively participate (just browsing) in social network, we might feel lonelier. And vice versa.

Riesman’s Lonely Crowd again, even with Smart Phone and Wi-Fi (wireless on the beach).

Social Network is not a utility (Application layer, not Physical Layer). It allows each of us to create and share content i.e. collective cognition, not dumbing down.

Sort of what I am doing and have experimented with Liking, Blogging and Commenting (hopefully filming and video someday).

My Warhol‘s “15 minutes of fame”.

Neither Warhol nor Orwell could have predicted the rise of the Internet. Or else, they wouldn’t have staked their claims on

limited fame or state control, respectively.

Turns out that Riesman has been ahead of his time: we are social animal subjected to existential loneliness, a fate from which we can not escape with or without Facebook.

 

Poor substitute

We are so connected (Google Fiber) and disconnected (from people) at the same time.

Starting with TV broadcast which reduces viewership from a theatre like in “Cinema Paradiso” down to a nuclear family in their living room, to a Youtube video download for personal  use.

With smart phones, we don’t have people knocking on the phone booth for their turn or get listened in on party line In fact, the screen has taken over what used to be folded newspaper on morning commuter train..

In Asia, where technology-sharing is common (fridge, TV, rice cooker etc…) we now see a great divide between the old and new generation, of those who are low and  high-tech. Technological divide piling on top of generation gap.

It’s a lonelier place out there, although we “friending” more. Hello World! Any one out there?

American homes are connected via all sorts of devices: from set-top to desktop.

According to a study, per capita work space has reduced drastically since devices are getting smaller yet can store more data or because people simply work from home (no longer at Yahoo).

You would think we should then have more space in the office for a couch or extra chair, so co-workers can just pop in and chat.

It turns out, all those devices are poor substitutes for the one real need: human connection. No wonder English people now turn phone booths into pubs (third places). That is a good substitute and good use of industrial waste. If only we know what to do with those first generation big-screen TVs (intended as Lazy Boy’s Cinemas).

Again

Thought I saw the last of it. Snow again.

The element of surprise, overused, lessened with each encore.

I saw Paul Anka the other day on PBS. He did it “his way”.

And then another encore.

Again. The audience was on their feet, not wanting to leave.

But then, everything, including good times, has to end.

There are lessons about Exit.

When you are dismissed, no miracle can turn someone whose mind has been made up.

This gave rise to the Colombo close i.e. start leaving, then bang, turn around to play dumb (w/Lt Colombo’s slanted eye): “oh, one more thing”.

Then, start again, with the Summary sales pitch.

On YouTube there was a clip entitled “Passed on”. Something similar to a digital scrapbook,

to be seen and shared after you have died. That’s an “Again”, with tag line: “Love in the Digital Age“. An E.will.

I have had the opportunity to learn a few things about my very grown bother and sister.

These are non-digital people. So they won’t be recording stuff on Passed On or anything near it.

What they do show me was my parent’s death certificates, refugee camp exit papers and life insurance policies accounts.

It’s like attending my parent’s funeral again, without the distraction of relatives and visitors.

Exit with a small “e”.

No wonder the place has a smell of decay. Buried in the snow. Closure!

On the flip side and brighter side, I have met new-born babies of the clan, seeing them all grown.

Winter and death, as set-ups for Spring and New Life.

With nature cycle, business cycle and yes, War-Peace cycle (Iraq 10 years on) I come away more  in-formed. Those who wait the cycle out will eventually see changes coming the other way. In the event one can’t hang on, digital services like Passed On can help with E.will. To be seen and heard, Again, albeit virtually and digitally. Paul Anka’s Papa would have been proud that his legacy was preserved and passed on. The footage should show “those shoes on my feet”.

Dance clips

My daughter went pro on YouTube with the Academy of Swag (Don’t Like, or Matrix, or World of Dance – International Hip Hop Competition).

Happy New Year!

She got my dancing genes. But more disciplined and better trained since the age of 6.

With every successive generation, we witness a shift in speed, style and sensation.

Those combination and permutation of the team’s choreography.

I saw a billboard about the three Blue Guys (Las Vegas show) now with Balls.

This year, we got electric vehicles, we got VW transverse platform.

Work smarter and harder.

THE CHALLENGE OF OUR AGE IS TO SHIFT FROM BEING A CONSUMER SOCIETY TO THAT OF A PRODUCER ONE.

We are expert users, but clueless at how to make things (even dinners).

Some people go through life never have to handwash their clothes, or ride a bike to work.

The machine has taken over. Dictating how we preserve and share our memories (Twitter 140 characters, and video clip, not too long. By the way, Twitter has just purchased some video company for product extension).

The “disruptive” guru Christensen predicted the coming demise of the likes of Apple and even Harvard.

King of the Hill for 15 minutes.

So my 3-minute of video on Facebook is now “disrupted” by my daughter’s 10-min YouTube clip.

It’s about time. Not to quit. But for both of us to keep on dancing. Until “the sun comes up from Santa Monica Boulevard”.

Self-decoding

Our gene distribution and mutation have a lot in common (survival instinct, reproduction, empathy etc…). But from there, each of us is different and unique: some poets, others warriors or both.

Haruki Murakami is both a writer and a runner (100 km race).  Richard Blanco, who will recite at Obama’s Inauguration, is both an engineer and a poet.

Leonardo Da Vinci was multi-talented. I am threading in Malcolm Gladwell’s waters here. What makes a person genius? How did they find that out? Early or late in life (Raymond Carver took writing courses late in life).

What if we are “outliers”, but go about life undiscovered, undecoded?

What line do we have to cross to “find ourselves”?

10,000 hours of doing the same thing? Solving problems at the same level they occurred has never worked. Just think of failed relationships (rooted in dysfunctional families, then manifest itself later in life).

A new generation of young Americans are defining themselves with acronyms (NYT latest on Annette Bening and Warren Beatty kids).

Being first-wave immigrant, I serve as a bridge, for my American-born daughters to cross-over.

They are on Facebook and Twitter. They wear jeans and use I-phones.

They text (while I twist, well, not that old. My brother did) often times with abbreviation and speak a language of their peers.

While I enjoyed lengthy 20-minute long CCR’s O Suzie Q and Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love, they watch viral  YouTube’s clips.

I belong to a generation that enjoyed getting blasted at, while theirs is an uploading one (one-to-many vs many-to-many communication).

They can “read” someone instinctively (gene mutation?), decoding people rather quickly. I meanwhile grew up learning how to  entertain guests, give them benefits of the doubt (not three-strikes-you-are-out).

They speak in short bursts and shorthands. My prof’s however spent a lot of time setting up a theme before getting to the heart of their lectures.

We learn to comprehend and communicate bound by technology of any given time (a tweet lasts only 140 characters, with some buffering).

I remember sending post cards home when doing relief work overseas.

Before I get to what I wanted to say, I ran out of room. Overseas long distance phone calls were quite prohibitive. Even now, to call back to the US from Timbuktu is quite daunting.

Life is a crash course in understanding ourselves and our surroundings.

It might end abruptly, and there are no final exams. We will have to rely on others to “see” for us (director’s cut or uncut, novelist, poet and priest).

Born with this inability to see ourselves with our own eyes (only reflection in the mirror), we are humble and eager to discover more, to surprise ourselves at times: we have more courage, flexibility and nobility than we know. Only when we are in good company, in danger that a better version of ourselves emerge.

Outliers know this early in life. Others just focus on one or two things they are passionate about. Runner-writer, engineer-poet. What if you are better in the kitchen than in the boardroom? We call them chefs and not chiefs. And it’s OK too, given today’s technology e.g. YouTube. I hope your secret sauce go viral. Just make sure you speak in short bursts when targeting younger audience.

Twitter and Tolstoy

My new-year resolution is to get through Tolstoy‘s monumental “War and Peace.”

The characters and ethos were deliberate and elaborating (everyone wants a piece of the inheritance while the man was dying etc….).

Visitors were announced at the gate (no intercom), received at party etc….

Tolstoy’s imperialistic people have time on their hands. We don’t. We tweet, text and retweet.

But man’s nature remains the same: greed, exhibitionist, illusion of grandeur.

Trapped in their place and time, would we be doing any better?

How much is man a product of nurture vs nature?

With chip speed doubles every 18 months and Google Kansas City SuperFast Broadband, where do we go from here (or do we wish to go on to infinity?).

The I-pod cannot get smaller (Shuffle).

A tweet cannot be shorter.

If someone could think of something to debunk Facebook and YouTube, they probably would.

Faster, more efficient and more savings. All fine. But that doesn’t explain Newtown, 9/11 and gang rape in India. (as of this edit, it has just happened again, this time, to a Swiss couple).

Stuff that Taleb coined “black swan” in human nature.

It’s a vicious cycle. We think like this because we are taught to reason, to ask question (Socrates). But then we are inside the system, like cog in the wheel, unable to have the bird-eye’s view, to see the weakest link.

With new Congress sworn in this week,  I sincerely wish the freshman class have fresh eyes, and hopefully, committed hearts.

May they live out their terms and their years with honor and worthy of our votes. Just hope that while they tweet, they would remember Tolstoy. We still live reflexively as cavemen, with Black Swan and blind spot. Our blindness is built- in, and should not be viewed as a weakness. Just is. (no one has ever seen their eyes with their own eyes). But then, we need someone to point that out. We need a team. A partner. Someone who is both prophetic, yet pastoral. Condemn and console. Yes, we are imperfect products of our times. Just as Tolstoy’s people, of theirs.

Marconi and Marcom

In the late 80’s, PacTel Cellular boasted seamless connection from San Francisco to San Diego. That is, if you had a battery pack to power the wireless devices (MicroTac? Motorola).

Remember this was pre-Twitter days.

Now it’s 12/12/12 and the Mayan’s calendar is soon running out.

Back when Marconi was experimenting with sending signals across the Atlantic, skeptics had a field day (light and signals traverse in a straight line, and thanks to Columbus, we know the Earth is round. Good luck Marconi!).

Those guys obviously did not play pool (angling and bouncing).

Putting all these elements together. We got Marcom.

The art of positioning your company, your brand and image for the longer term.

Many-step flow. Diffusion of innovation. Crowd-source and users’ Likes.

It takes time for people to adopt.  When MCI tried to attach a piece of equipment to the ATT network, it got stalled and deterred.  Jack Goeken did not give up.

He was trying to help truck-to-truck short-way communicate from St Louis to Chicago.  And in Marconi’s case,   ships-to-shores communication. Both faced hard resistance (today’s equivalence of “Who killed the EV?”).

That was before peering, inter-operability and other engineering agreements.

Currently, we still have to “unlock” an I-phone.  People were put in “voicemail jail” etc… Technology and man’s freedom.

IP issues and the trajectory of human achievement and advancement.

Think back to the age of gramaphones. And fast forward to the i-pod Shuffle.

Then you can see the full sweep of tech (just in sound recording and reproduction).

Marconi sent signals across the pond. Bell asked “Mr Watson, come here“.

Now we got Youtube and “Concert for Sandy Relief“.

Put together a Marcom plan for yourself, your family and your company.

It’s our modern-day equivalend of yesterday’s black/white photo albums. Our heritage in the making.

Enjoy your Christmas wireless experience. Don’t forget those trailblazers. It’s heart-throbbing to finance those expeditions, today’s equivalence of Tesla and Virgin’s space tourism.

But then, without the likes, we would still be listening to each other from those gramaphones.

(You) Tube and Toast

The English had their toasts (toasters) thanks to electricity. I’ve got my music thanks to Youtube. Each generation tries to outdo the previous one. My daughters would read about Mars, not Moon (I blogged about the excitement of waiting in line for hours to see that rock brought back from the Moon).

Thanks YouTube. The three founders I believe who invented this medium.

It brought together a platform made possible by broadband and algorithm (perhaps you might like to listen to this…..).

Don’t give up on us baby, then If you leave me now, or Adieu Sois Heureuse.

“Lord knows we’ve come this far”

“We went too far to leave it all behind”.

Innovators, don’t give up. Lord knows we have gone this far. We can’t change the way we are.

Push forward.

Science at the forefront of change.

Let’s tweet again.

Politician and musician will follow suit.

As long as scientists and technologists don’t give up.

I know you are more intimate with your sleeping bags than your spouses.

But for generations to come, you have us forever grateful to your “prototypes”.

A VoIP call, a clip we share, a link we paste.

How can this be?

I started out my Telecom career throwing a tin can with string attached across the alley to my neighbor’s house.

Despite the heavy rain, we communicated without shouting.

But it was “wire line” then. It’s wireless now. And not just voice. It’s the apps era.

Here or To Go?

When we grew up in Vietnam, at the height of the war, we stuck our noses into our neighbor’s window to catch a glimpse of Vic Morrow‘s Combat, or Wild Wild West. Large crowd, small screen.

Now I see small kids, watching large screens.

The time, they are a’changin, as Dylan would say.

To close this blog, I want to draw our attention to a very controversial character: Insull, who died in a Paris metro with a ticket in his hand.

Insull would make the Ebbers of the world look like they are from Junior League.

Insull left behind the electricity meters and business model we see today.

It made possible the electrifying of the English toasters and todays’ Youtube.

Insull rode the ups and downs of an entrepreneur life. And he died riding the subway in Paris a homeless and wretched man. But Don’t give up on us Baby.

We have come thus far, can’t we stay the way we are.

We have come too far to leave all this behind.

I enjoyed my toast and tube this morning. Feel like a million-dollars.

Thanks to those guys that went before me. On shoulders of giants we stand, we sing and we soar.

(You)tube and toast. Let’s toast to the spirit of innovation and creativity.

Think of something new and bigger than yourself today. Even the moonlight.

Before the ground claims us all to itself. Vic Morrow has died, in accident, and not in Combat. The  point is, fight for every inch against complacency. Read Ron Paul‘s parting message. Appreciate the liberty we are given to pursue dreams and discovery. I have blogged about the payload. All into it, except for those outliers. Then the world will join you .. the way they are hunting for an I-phone 5. VoIP, data and video, on the go. Beautiful apps, wonderful world we are living in.

Your story

During the 60’s, when computers were too limited for personal use, Andy Warhol had already predicted that in the future (which is NOW) each of us would have 15 minutes of fame (just like his signature Campbell soup ).

Naturally, he couldn’t have predicted the rise of social media  which upend traditional broadcast media, turning it around from one-to-many (old) to many-to-many (new) forever and free (Cloud computing + mobile + social media).

Unrestricted and unleashed i.e. texting while driving (we have yet come up with an acronym similar to DUI).

We “Like”.  We “tag”. We “tweet”. Yahoo now bets big on Mobile.

We prepare to lay ourselves exposed: photos (even pictures when we were babies), home-recorded songs and secret sauce.

We learn the art of filmography and biography e.g. story board and story line, scripting and screen playing (Youtube).

We share lessons on sewing and  selling.

It’s quite an open world and open society.

It used to be that the only time someone asked “tell us about yourself” was at a job interview.

Now, we tell them about ourselves even when not asked. “They” here means the World Wide Web:

Facebook, Google + and more.

A narrative was supposed to have a beginning, middle and end. Since we keep discovering and reinventing ourselves, our personal narrative evolves. Every day, we put on make-ups off line and  make-over on line. Some even called this “the start-up of you”.

The more interaction on-line, the more detailed our social graph, the richer our narrative. Fresh content generates higher Search Engine Optimization. This process also creates Digital Addicts or DigitAl-holics  who cross-comment  and follow each other. A band of brothers, only more inclusive and extensive (coincides with austerity).

This domain used to be exclusive for professionals e.g. product improvement and placement now laid bare for all (design your T-shirt contest etc…).

Now, people are the product (sold to advertisers). Their tweet or post could go viral, to the tune of a million hits.

Self-branding.

Self-aggrandizement is in. Self-effacing is out.

The modesty of Asian mystique faces serious challenges, perhaps more so than last century’s cultural invasion of the West e.g. China and Japan with men eventually do away with braided hair or Samurai tradition. This time around, the invasion is technology-enabled, a spontaneous explosion of personal freedom and expression second to none (including the 60’s Flower Power. This time, it’s trans-cultural and trans-continental in nature.)

As a result, we need to put up personal “firewalls” to protect our privacy and safeguard our brand.

To trade ourselves up. Tier-One (as in Premium LinkedIn accounts etc..).

Sort of like LV who refused to offshore the manufacturing of its handbags. Planned scarcity.

We first expand, then contract our circle over time.

This retrenching was mentioned in The Tipping Point (maximum 120 in your circle to have a meaningful conversation and community).

In the early days of Social Media,, we enjoyed new-toy stage (friending everyone).

Then Google + came out. By then, we became social-media fatigue.

Once  you lost that first-mover’s advantage, it’s hard to play catch-up,

Good luck yahoo, with revamping.

Yahoo was late in Search, and Social.

I wonder whatever else it could do to innovate and leapfrog competition. Perhaps with the yCloud? or Ymobile.

Meanwhile, we still want to find new ways to connect, to share and to show off.

We are members of a digital country club, where strangers suddenly become intimate i.e. know more about our personal stories, or at least, more quickly, than family members . These are our intimate strangers.

So, if you share, learn to show and tell properly. Learn the 2-minute summary like our presidential candidates just did tonight. Tell them what you are all about, your hopes, fears and dreams, all scripted and rehearsed (elevator speech). And maybe, someone out there, can identify with your vulnerability, your shortcomings and your humanity. Maybe they will endorse you, adopt you as family member, and you then become  “famous” for 15 minutes. Warhol would have never guessed someday (today) we would be showing off our secret sauce, while he, could only photocopy the (Campbell) Soup he touted as arts.

Reading Idea Man

What would you do if you hit the PowerBall jackpot?

Paul Allen, Idea Man, had several ideas: space travel, mind mapping and music.

What would you do if you had no money at all?

You would day-dream (travel inside your mind), visualize what you would do if  you had money (like Charlie Chaplin, leaning out of the window to eat his home-grown grapes) and of course, go on free YouTube to listen to your favorite songs.

Rich and poor, we share the same hopes, fears and dreams.

The yearning to better ourselves.

Some do it the hard way (monk self-immolation, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela prisoner # 46664), others the ideal way (Bill Gates and Paul Allen).

I like the new tech billionaires.

They are more eco-friendly, more hip (recording studio on Octopus, world’s fourth largest yatch).

They got out of the tech boom and bust, while we continue with the real estate bubble.

Now when I hear of construction build-out, I got flashbacks.

Our next frontier lies in understanding the brain, the diseases and how our psychological make-ups (sub-conscious) dictates or hinders our choices.

We barely understood creativity. How one idea sparks another.

Paul’s best line in the book: often times, failure carries with it the seed of success.

Every so often, someone came along, did or said something that made us think .

We thank them for it. We are challenged by them. We build upon their shoulders, and yes their failures.

Paul Allen isn’t the only Idea Man. But he one who puts money behind those ideas he thinks might work. Ideas and action.

All along, he enjoys coding, playing music and reading. A classic American guy growing up in the 60’s: high-tech and high- touch (Jimmy Hendrix). Jam on. Even in between two cancer surgeries. That’s what life is all about.

Always between chapters. Always being rewritten and revised. Always tried and failed, then try again. Idea  Man. Action Man.