Academik

Reading this article on CNN.com about how Senator Joe Biden is receiving less press coverage – even though he is (and perhaps because) the most easily accessible to reporters – reminded me of how we think about launching products that have a long way to go before they’re ready.¬† Here’s what I mean. . .

When you have a great idea without a final product built you want to build hype, but you don’t want to give people too much of a look under the hood.¬† You want excitement about your vision, but vagueries on the specifics because many haven’t been decided yet.¬† In this case, media access to Sarah Palin has been restrictive and details have only trickled out.¬† Her views on energy have been widely documented, but I haven’t seen a lot of coverage of her views on healthcare, foreign policy, immigration, economic policy, and more.¬† My guess is she’s still getting up to speed on many of those issues (even if she has personal ideas on them).¬† Those will come with time.

This entire election I’ve felt pro-Barack, even though on many issues I differ from his opinion, because I want somebody who’s not an old white dude to be president.¬† I want fresh ideas that integrate technology and governance as well as a foreign policy that looks at the global impact of our actions.¬† I want someone who’s not afraid to meddle with the established corporate behemoths in this country if it means long term improvement (healthcare, automotive, and energy industries).¬† Barack Obama was that fresh face.¬† Now he’s old hat and this hockey mom turned VP nominee has the world’s attention.

So, as in the marketing world, the true test will be when both products are out on the market and available to the consumers.¬† That means political debate time.¬† For the moment I’m not too worried about the bad Disney movie scenario, but I’ll be watching the debates closely to see who can keep their version of the truth straighter ( was the lipstick on the pig’s face or on its delicious bacony thighs?).

At least this time we’re not deciding between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

On Sept. 11, 2001 I was sitting in the smoking lounge of my small college in Switzerland.
50 of us crowded around the TV, watching the planes crash into the World Trade Center over and over again on TV as if it were the latest scene in a Die Hard movie.

To one side of me was Abdul Aziz Bin Laden, Osama’s nephew. To the other was my friend Derek, whose father worked in the World Trade Center, and was later confirmed as one of the victims.

I walked outside onto the neatly manicured lawn with my best friend DeVon. We sat on the pinkish stone stairs and prayed. His mother worked at the United Nations and frequently had meetings at the World Trade Center. “All circuits are busy” answered the woman on the other end of his frantic calls.

The next week was difficult.

New Yorkers called over and over again trying to find out if their loved ones were alive.¬† The Arab club put up signs around campus expressing their sympathies.¬† Some kids got drunk so they wouldn’t have to deal with the emotions, but drinking only let down the walls they were using to hold themselves together.

That week, most of the people of our small Swiss Italian town didn’t make eye contact with us.¬† They knew there was nothing they could say to make it better, so we were left with brief glances that seemed to say, “We’re sorry.” The local paper sent a reporter to interview students about the tragedy.

Around the world, candle-light vigils began.  I believe we held one of our own.

For the next few weeks the school was patrolled by armed guards to ensure the safety of the student body which included royals, mafia, and wealthy heirs.  With two Bin-Ladens in the school, the guards were as much there to protect us from each other as from outside attackers.

For those of us who weren’t overcome with rage or loss, the attacks only further cemented the cross-cultural bonds the school hoped to instill in us.¬†¬† We felt less like Americans, Arabs, and Asians and more like human beings.¬† (forgive the cliche).

7 years later it strikes me that we still have a lot to learn about getting along and making the world a better place.

What do you get when you mix great music, a diverse and beautiful city, and some very creative people together with the support of City Sightseeing Tours? The Audiobus.

My good friend Justin Miller of Phonofly is plugged into the music scene and a very good judge of things and people (and if not, he’ll buy you a Newcastle) so when he mentioned some sort of “bus” show last night with local musician Goh Nakamura I was instantly intrigued.

Goh has gained quite the following from his Youtube video for Embarcadero Blues, and is playing shows on both coasts.¬† His fingers slide easily across the fretboard, and his voice owns its “fall in love again for the first time” feel without trying too hard.¬† Shegeek, Justin, and I arrived promptly late at 6:23 and were quickly waivered, signed, stamped with rouge stars and ushered into the upstairs of the British double decker bus from City Sightseeing Tours.

The back of the bus enshrined Goh as he played.¬† Patrons sat in pairs listening to the concert on headphones sprouting from the middle of the seats (I’m guessing the retro-fitting on this bus took quite a while to pull this off).¬† Odessa Chen, an acquaintance of Justin’s, sat down across from us.

As we prepared for the trip, the wind started to howl through our skin and I lured Odessa over to my seat with the promise of warmth.  She quickly hopped over and introduced herself and then we were off.  Goh began with a song from his first album as we started our journey down Mission street.

Right about the time that Goh started his cover of the Cure’s Just Like Heaven I noticed Odessa looking to the heavens – there was something magical about that moment, feeling like we were canoeing across the sky, the current turned to clouds as we meandered among the skyscrapers defining our route.¬† Soon after, we turned onto the Embarcadero and watched the Bay Bridge build its way across the way.

Odessa and I pretended to be tourists in this city reborn before us, if only I had brought my camera! Pictures have never done her justice though.  We rolled through his stories from the Embarcadero to Dogpatch to Potrero Hill.  And just as the city arched its back to show us the beauty of her rolling hills, we descended quickly underneath the highway and up through Mission Bay.

At times, with eyes closed, I lost myself in the music; at others, I let my eyes lose me in stories I was creating for the streets and sky before me.  At the best of times, my brain took input from both and bound something within my chest that began to swell. It felt infinite.

Odessa’s Show: 08/08

It’s funny how there are people in our lives we always miss. Even when they are with us we know eventually they’ll leave. We know there will be an end to each conversation… each meal… each phone call… each car ride…each day and each night. If you’re smart lucky, you experience each goodbye as it comes. If not, you experience them all at once, over and over again.

The word ‘goodbye’ becomes a dull ache that drools across your lips; your lungs too weak to expel enough air to punctuate the space between now and then with anything more than longing. A longing your body feels like thirst or hunger; only ever temporarily satisfied.

I watch from both sides and take note.
Image from Deviant Artist Pesare

Thursday morning I’m heading to work as usual.¬† I descend the bus at Stockton and Grant and proceed on my leisurely stroll to the office.¬† There’s a Mont Blanc store at the corner of Maiden Lane and Grant that’s been under construction and so when I see a number of construction workers outside it’s no surprise…

One of them is fumbling with a stack of blueprints and right before I get to him he emphatically spits out “Fuck!”.¬† He looks up at me in a Navy Blue suit and tie and says “Sorry.”¬† A little perplexed at his need to apologize for speaking, let alone to me, I walk past thinking nothing of it. After I pass him and I am about to turn the corner I hear, “I thought that was the mayor…”

v

Perhaps… ?

So as I am embroiled in a battle with my employer and the IRS concerning taxes (read more here) I have once again come to the conclusion that antiquated systems are keeping us from reaching our full potential. What do I mean? The tax system in the US is RIDICULOUSLY complicated – overcharging those who can’t afford accountants or don’t have the education to understand it, and rewarding those who know how to manipulate it – how does this make any sense?

This takes me back to a previous realization that outdated entrenched systems keep us from moving forward. Telcos. Copyright law. our Oil-based economy. Healthcare. Taxes. They’re all systems that were set up a long time ago and then bandaged over and over again to catch up to modern times and now there is so much money invested in them that the people who are winning from the status quo are impeding our national progress.

These exploiters are spending millions of dollars to keep their system in place instead of spending those millions on R&D and the implementation of newer technologies. Telcos pilfered billions of dollars from the US government to build a high-speed fiber optic network in the 90s – then bailed and told the government it was too expensive. Link Here

The oil companies consistently battle alternative sources of energy (while highly publicizing their piddly forays into alternative energy) and higher fuel efficiency standards (thanks for sticking up what’s in our best interest congress & is there a reason why US car manufacturers have the worst fuel economy?). The price of oil affects the price of nearly everything that we consume because transportation costs and oil are directly linked : whether it’s gasoline for your car, food from your grocery store, your purchase from Amazon.com, or a CD from Best Buy – it’s price factors in the cost of fuel for the transportation that gets it to you. With virtually everything based on this one natural resource (that according to the Department of Energy 70% of our imports come from Canada, Mexico, Suadi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria in order of magnitude) why are we not putting everything we have into alternative fuel research – because the status quo is great for oil comapnies and they’d like to keep it that way.

Healthcare! Wow what an awe-inspiring disappointment that is. While providing better care than most nationalized healthcare systems for middle and upper class patients, many of our poorer brothers and sisters are slipping through the cracks. Due to the heavily weighted system we’ve put in place for Healthcare Insurance providers, normal people get screwed with ridiculously priced services ($80 for a 10 minute consult at my family doctor). It’s known to most people that doctors make a good amount of money, especially if they have their own practice, but what you may not realize is that the doctors are paying ludicrous sums of money to insurance companies to cover them. And what are insurance companies saying, “We [their clients] are using health care services more and more. Not only is medical technology improving, but people are visiting more specialists, more often.” (Blue Cross Website) As the baby-boomer generation grows older, those costs are going to go through the roof. Add to that the problems generated by Americans lack of exercise and bad diet and it’s no wonder we’re going to the doctor so much.

What we need is a revolution. John Edwards is calling for a nationalized healthcare plan which I think is doomed to failure due to the litigiousness of our society – if they can limit tort settlements (breach of agreements entered into involuntarily; IE suing your doctor for making a mistake) to non 7 digit numbers then we might have a shot, but even then… I had a friend in the UK who had 6 months to live and was on an 8 month waiting list to have the surgery that could heal him. Talk about an ineffective system. I know there’s a better way, but too many people are happy with the status quo to make a change.

Back to my original point about taxes – think about the number of people employed as tax accountants and IRS officials – now imagine what would happen if the United States had a flat tax or a stratified flat tax on net income. poof! Hundreds of thousands of jobs would disappear. Definitely not something the IRS or H&R Block want to hear, but is it right for a country to burden its citizens with this? Why doesn’t the government make it as easy and straightforward to pay our taxes as possible – this would make it much easier for them to collect and monitor the entire process and yet I feel like we’re still in the New Deal here, making up jobs so that people have work regardless of its cost to the taxpayer. AHHHHHhhhh!!! I will be filing my 1040, 1040SE, 2106, and 1040C-EZ sometime soon, or some variation there-in.

Wherever you are, whatever you do, don’t let antiquated systems (or mindsets) stand in the way of progress.

Images above taken from following:
Zebra Field from Flickr: Liumorse
Iranian Oil Field from Flickr: The Original Mozzy
Syringe from Flickr: Wakalani
IRS Logo from Aerojockey.com

technorati tags:telcos, oil, healthcare, AntiquatedSystems, outdated, economy, US

Blogged with Flock

A colleague mentioned relationships in the US are different than in France. Apart from the myriad of obvious reasons this is true I asked him to explain. “Americans marry their best friends. Europeans marry their lovers.” I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I don’t know if I have an answer, but I’ve definitely got some ideas…

In America I was brought up to believe that men and women are essentially equal. Sure there are the general observations about women being more emotional than men, men being physically stronger than women, women having longer endurance than men, and perhaps even being able to take more pain than men (not taking into account Jack Bauer). But all of this is generally irrelevant because we don’t interact with general ideas of each other – we interact with people who come in all shapes, sizes, mentalities, abilities.

What equality really means is that every man and woman has the same possibility to become something. CEO, homemaker, entrepreneur, athlete, accountant, musician, artist. Whether they attain these positions or not is up to them. There are too many physiological differences between us to really be considered the same -I mean seriously, women have the ability to create life inside of them, birth them (squeezing a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon), and feed them using milk their bodies make! I have a penis. End of story.

But this idea of equality has changed our vision of gender roles and relationships… Simply by having the option to become anything we became something else. We have, in some ways, convinced ourselves that we are alike, regardless of our physical differences and our instincts. This re-interpreted vision of ourselves has had a direct impact on the way we view relationships.

The reason I bring this up is that I spoke with a woman who said she married her best friend (seemingly ideal) and eventually just got bored and they divorced after 8 years. This is something I’ve heard several times, but never really explored until now. I wonder if the ebb and flow within a natural relationship is necessary to retain interest? Perhaps somehow by marrying someone that you are so close to, sharing everything with – you actaully take away some mystery in the relationship and thus some of the interest and attraction as the years pass.

I say there are three things that must be present for a good relationship: physical attraction, mental attraction, and chemistry. People throw around that last one a lot, but I think it boils down to sexual tension and the way in which we parlay our physical attractions to each other. There should be a good amount of all three in a healthy relationship. By placing an extremely high priority on mental attraction (or how well we connect) and downplaying the physical / sexual side of the relationship, perhaps we upset the delicate balance of the relationship… I just don’t know.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this because my mind is certainly not made up.

I’m a Communications major, so maybe I understand the way communications work a little better than everyone else, but this principle seems to escape so many of us – close the loop by providing feedback. Below is a basic illustration of communications.

Ignore the part about click a button, it won’t work. So the basic idea here is that there is someone “sending” the mesasge, there is the way they’re sending it (the channel), there’s the message itself, and someone receiving it. There can also be “noise” which distracts the receiver from the message (think pop-up ads on a web site, noise in the street during a conversation, etc.), there can be encoding and decoding necessary for the message to be understood, and there can be feedback.

Now this model works for nearly any type of communication you can think of:

This website, for instance, is the channel for my messages to reach you, the receiver. You can give feedback via e-mail or by leaving a comment. The phone is another channel for us to transmit voice messages to one another. Our feedback there is simply talking back to the person on the other end of the line. The TV is a channel for TV stations to transmit video/audio messages to us. We don’t have the opportunity for feedback via this channel, but we can always call or write to the station.

In the business world, this is an important concept because empires rise and fall on good / bad communication. Rome, good communication (thanks to lots of roads and messengers) – AT&T customer support, bad communication (thanks to foreign accents and frustration). Sometimes we get e-mails that are simply meant to let us know something – no feedback required – others require our immediate reply. The same is true for phone calls and voicemails.

A large part of my job is coordination between multiple people and without feedback the process becomes a nightmare. So I’m begging and pleading with all of you – close the loop- provide feedback! Even with salespeople, people you don’t like, or things you’re afraid of – if you return their calls/emails/voicemails/letters to let them know that you’re not interested you are giving them no reason to call you again – and believe me sometimes the salespeople would rather check you off their list than continue to have to keep calling.

Personally, when you are writing emails or leaving messages for people – make sure to think about whether or not you need a response – and let the person know it. I have experienced this repeatedly – the people who are at the best employers in good positions, will always respond quickly to a request – even if it’s to let me know that it might be a few days before they can really get back to me. So start looking at the world through this model and ask yourself – am I a good communicator?

Begin to think about what you need from your receiver, what is your real core message and what’s the best channel to send it through. Quit leaving voicemails that simply say call me back. Let the person know what you’re calling about and when you need to hear back from them, or send them a text – it’s a lot easier than having to check your voicemail.