Corporations as Persons in Society

Have just finished a book called A Declaration of Interdependence: Why America Should Join the World and just watched The Corporation.

Both are thought provoking works which bring the question of what a Corporation and its role / responsibility in society should be. In the most widespread capitalistic conception of society in which most of the developed world resides in, corporations form the basic type of business and are given tremendous rights as a legal person. In fact, the very notion of corporations as legal persons stem back to the American 14th Amendment which was originally mooted to provide basic and equal human rights to the slaves but had been successfully "hijacked" by corporate lawyers to allow corporations to also be enjoy these rights. In short, our society confers on these businesses, almost identical rights as any real human person. Except that corporations are effectively immortal, emotionless and are made up of tens to thousands of employees.

Given that, could we expect corporations to act in accordance to the social norms which the rest of us do? Legally, perhaps there is some pressure for companies to toe the line but these pressures ultimately are economic ones, threating bad conduct with financial penalties. How many companies have already begun to weigh the risks and penalties of bad conduct against the potential gains to be had. Ultimately, legal costs have also been calculated in the bottom line analysis, compliance is given only when it suits the bottom line.

Greater profits yearned by shareholders drive the market.

That is the truth of the matter in all things within a capitalist economy. Products for which there are demand will be created in the most profitable manner to gather the most returns for the shareholders of the company. Stakeholders (everyone else in society, or even other species in the biosphere) aren't in the equation for profit.

And it will not be until we can turn this situation around and by some means, render corporations to become "better-behaved" societal citizens that we can hope to achieve the continued growth, in mroe than just economic terms, for planet and humanity as a whole.

Handicapped Communication

The importance of communication cannot be over-stated.

In my view, every person holds within a perfectly sound conception of ideas and notions (Socratic influence perhaps). What is lacking sometimes is the tool that helps convey this meaning across with as little loss in integrity as possible. Words are such importance tools for intellectual transfer of ideas and yet we spend precious little time in honing them. It would not be unlike the painter who only has three or four colors to work with; you just aren't going to get as vibrate artworks compared to the artist with many more pigments to play with.

Case in point - when was the last time you tried to describe something which you could see vividly in your mind to someone but had to take longer than expected to do it? On the flipside, how many times have you had someone who just couldn't find the precise words try their darnest to explain something to you ?

It would appear to me that this vocabularic inadequacy is has become rather widespread. Maybe it stems from the fact that the very structure of our academic system has been formulated to encourage short-termed information retention and regurgitation over permanent knowledge gain.

Well, at the very least, here's how to start on a personal level and do some good (donating rice to the unfortunate) at the same time - FreeRice.

Did MDA just manage to go viral?

Wow ... MDA's rap video even managed to hit Techcrunch. They may have actually gotten something going for them here...

In spite of some critics denoucing them for making this video, I seem to think that it was done at least partially in response to some earlier comments made to them like "censorship is done by faceless people"...

In any case, I would have never believed that the word "KPI" could appear in a rap but yeah, I stand corrected.





(29-Nov Update : They also hit Neatorama )

Video: Money as Debt

A quick peek at where money really comes from and how monetary policy works:

UC Berkeley's Marching Band does Video Game Tunes

I can't decide what I like best about this, the creativity, geek culture, musicality or the level of teamwork involved.

Probably all of the above...





[props to : CollegeHumor.com]

Easy Peasy Chart Chooser by Juice Analytics

Cool... The folks over at Juice Analytics (one of my favorite sites for common-sense data visualization) has come up with a Chart Chooser tool to help even the densest of all people pick the right type of chart/graph to display what they want to show.

Hopefully, this puts an end to all those ridiculous 150 column bar-graphs we see all the time in presentations whose only reason for existence seems to be to compete for the "most data per square inch" prize.

Check it out here:
http://chartchooser.juiceanalytics.com/

Retail Price Search System?

Seems like a popular technological trend of late is the shift of power (in the form of information) from the few to the many.

Sure, Google helps us find the online information we need in general terms but perhaps more can be done in the niche areas/markets where we want certain special information/details returned in a particular and predictable fashion. In some segments, like that for job, real estate and airfares, there have been lots of movement already but it seems that's about it. Overall, a lot of attention has been placed on industries where consumer behavior is characterized by high-involvement purchases (which are also, unfortunately, once-off or infrequent mostly.)

Maybe its time to look into some mass market search which targets at lower-involvement searches, but adds value in other ways like ease of use and accuracy of information? Perhaps, something like a service which allows you to check the lowest price of certain items when you SMS the UPS of the product you want to the service?

When such a system is operational, retailers will be shaking in fear. Which is a good thing.

Thought of the Day

Every parent should let their kids break stuff ... It makes them either better at fixing things or coming up with excuses, both which are invaluable life skills.

Why someone should bring a long tube into Underwater World

The picture:


The news:
Underwater World's MAGIC Tank

The dastardly idea:



(PS: Don't do it.... )

(PPS: No really, don't ....)

Let loose the waves of knowledge

There has been a lot of talk going on constantly about the importance of education as a fundamental developmental catalyst for third world countries. The premise lies in the notion that if we were effectively able to propagate basic education and hence promote the pickup of basic life skills for the people (especially the young) of these said nations, there would be a much greater potential for these better educated youths to grow up to bring their country out of poverty.

But to further expand on this notion - that the bringing of an increased level of awareness and knowledge to people spurs development. Does it not also apply generally to all peoples of all nations that a further level of understanding of how various things work works in the long haul to improve humanity's condition? Key difference being that we need to stretch beyond what we take for sufficient and push the boundaries of what we want to know.

For most it seems, the quest for knowledge ceases at their penultimate educational milestone of a university degree (which has seen it value plummet somewhat due to educational inflation, but that's another story). Do we therefore only educate ourselves to the mere extent which is necessary to enable us to be identified as having successfully overcome this gauntlet we call the education system?

I believe that educational curiosity does still exist. But somehow, it exists predominantly within a very small population of intelligentsia made up mostly of professors who swap knowledge amongst themselves through journals, conferences and whatnot. Academic style and complexity being a massive hurdle for most mere mortals who wish to read these and comprehend them in a useful fashion. These knowledge then become trapped within ivory towers of the academic elite.

So here's the idea -- what if we could have a system of propagating these new found ideas and intellectual exchanges to a more massive audience, in a simpler fashion. My belief is that the infrastructure already exists in the form of the internet so why are we not making more use of it to push more information outwards?

Hopefully, with the freer flow of ideas and information, a widespread education curiosity can be re-sparked once more.

(To be continued ... ?)

Thought of the Day

Has meritocracy by irrelevant or obsolete standards condemned us all to widespread mediocrity?

Really Random Thoughts (aka Too Lazy to Write Full Blog Posts so ...)

• Materialism / Consumption is over-rated but its what drive the economy and keeps sucking undergraduate into banking jobs.
  
  
• Economy is good and people are complaining that they could have gotten a "better job" or "price for their house" or "prices are rising". Interestingly, these were the same people who also complain when times are bad. Trend? Hmmm....
  
  
• Too many people get caught up with the really petty things in life. Like grades .....
  
  
• So many online startups feel like lottery shots to me - low Cost of starting up, low individual commitment, low chances of striking it big and yet high payoffs if it really works. Perhaps these people would move over to gambling in our casinos when they open.
  
  
• Academically advantaged people love to debate with me about the usefulness of their theories. I wonder if its because I'm missing something here or that they have also figured out the lack of utility of what they have spent years to grasp.
  
  
• Instead of finding theories that work in real life (haha, oxymoron here), I've known people who spend all their time trying to tweak the real world to fit the theory.
  
  
• School (I hope!) must be the only place where a document prepared in 30mins justifies spending 2 hours choosing the right fonts/colour/background for the presentation slides.
  
  
• I love how you can "debate" which some people by keeping quiet and listening till they trip over their own arguments. It's really priceless.
  
  
• Never argue with idiots - they would bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience. (Ok, this wasn't exactly original)
  
  
• The amount of money/wealth seems to be a pretty good gauge of intelligence. Perhaps it was built in this way so that the really smart would get the means (it "flows" to them) to do the right things to make the world a better place. However, I haven't figured out how it applies to poor professors or rich rappers yet (wow, unintended alliteration!) .
  
  
• I wonder if Plato's cave had another exit that lead to an underground metro line, would it result in squashed philosophers or would they be able to think away the trains a la Descartes.
  
  
• Who says we haven't invented time travel? Isnt' the Internet a forward time machine that can shoot you into the future by a couple of hours each time. (oh my, where has all the time gone?)
  
  
• I wonder why I'm spending so much time wondering. I would totally ace Wondering 101 but I guess there's just no demand for such a course.
  
  
• I wish I had better memory so I can remember where I put my to-do list.
  
  
• Are plastic recycling bins made from bio-degradable plastics? Are carbon-credit certificates printed on re-cycled paper?
  

Recently, it seems that Starhub and EZlink has been running a trial of mobile payment technologies:

CELLPHONE users can soon pay for a train ride or a burger by simply tapping their mobile gizmos at the fare gate or cashier.
...
Altogether, there will be about 20,000 ez-link machines that can read these specially-made phones, which are loaned to the trial users for six months.

Two questions boggle the mind though:

1) For the consumers, are the benefits of tapping to pay for purchases (over carrying and using a payment card) enough to make them give up their latest high-tech phones for these generic looking ones? Also, how many retailers will allow them to use these devices to pay?

2) For the retailers, are there going to be enough phone-totting customers to justify getting (and paying for) a new machine just to accept this new payment? Remember that even given the widespread use of EZLink cards, hardly any merchants bother to uses it as a form of payment.

Seems like a classic chicken and egg problem to me.

Somehow, this reminds me of the era when cashcards were predicted to bring us into a new cashless world.

[ More here ]

If you get this, you're a geek .....

Online Dress Code Guide

Finally a site that tells you how to decipher those incredibly esoteric codes which they call event dress codes:

http://www.dresscodeguide.com/


(PS: Note to self -- Use this more .... )

Official Launch Start-Up@Singapore 2008

• Date: Monday, 15 October 2007.
• Venue: SingTel Theatrette, Level 3, hello! Comcentre, 31 Exeter Road, Singapore 239732.
• Time: 4.00pm to 6.00pm. Registration starts at 3.00pm for the event.
• Guest-of-Honour: Mr Michael Yap, Deputy CEO of the Media Development Authority (MDA) and Executive Director of the IDM R&D Programme Office.
• RSVP: launch@startup.org.sg

How to get the essense of a book in a few hours without even reading it

For those who can't seem to find the time/energy/ insert excuse to read that latest book that everyone else is talking about, here is an alternative on how to grab its essence in a few hours. Of course, it wouldn't be like you actually read it but you should be able to grab most of the ideas pretty quickly.

1. Go find an online video where the author speaks about his book. I've found that folks at big companies like Microsoft and Google and even some universities love to put up free online videos of their speakers. (eg: You can find Tom Friedman talking about his book "The world is flat" on a NUS Public Webcast here)
   
   
2. After you are done with the video, you should be halfway there in terms of content for around an hour's investment. After this, go chat with someone whom you know has read the book. I've always found discussing about a book with someone the best way to learn about ideas (must have been influenced by Socrates and his dialogues). Bonus points if someone helps you apply the knowledge to local contexts, giving you a better understanding of it.
   
   
3. If you don't know anyone who had read it, find a friend whose birthday is coming up and buy the book as a present for him/her. Ask politely about the gift, say, 6 months later and you should get a quick summary out of them.
   
   
4. Alternative ways -- read blogs or articles online on the topic. If you can find the audio books/podcasts for title, try listening to it when you are on the move, say on a bus or walking around. I've found listening to books sometime superior to reading unless you tend to fall alseep listening to stuff.
   

Voila, if done right, it shouldn't take over 3-4 hours to get most ideas out of the book without even having to touch it.

And the best part is that you in the end you do get interested enough to pick up a copy to read, you'll find that you can read much fastest as you have already heard and understand the ideas in it, allowing you to use the reading process to crystallize the ideas in your head better.

:)

For Perfect Teamwork ...

Look no further the traditional art form of Lion Dancing.

An Inside Look At Google China

Kai-Fu Lee, Greater China President, visited the Seattle area Google office on January, 17, 2007 to talk about the current development of Google in China. He spoke about the challenges and opportunities facing Google China as well as collaboration between the Seattle/Kirkland and China offices.

Watercone - Simple Answer to Drinking Water Shortage in Poor Areas of the World

Love the simplicity of this:

A Product that enables anyone, in a most simple fashion, an independent, cheap and mobile solar Potable Water generation from sea water or brackish water on the base of condensation by solar still.

Simple, Social and Effective.


More : http://www.watercone.com/product.html

Generalship - Its Diseases and Their Cure

Just started reading this book by J.F.C. Fuller. Though a little dated, its offers brillant insights on leadership which are still relevant today.

Some interesting portions:

Courage is [the] driving force; for, if human history can be consulted, it will immediately be discovered that in the past all things worth while began their lives by some one man, or woman, daring to do what others feared to do. Fear has always ended in failure, and fear is not a personal emotion only, but also the product of a man's surroundings, the outcome of a system quite as much as a reaction to danger.

Many Generals in the day of battle busy themselves in regulating the marching for their troops, in hurrying aides-de-camp to and fro, in galloping about incessantly. They wish to do everything and as a result do nothing.

Should the General consistently live outside the realm of danger, then, though he may show high moral courage in making decisions, by his never being called upon to breathe the atmosphere of danger his men are breathing, this lens will become blurred, and he will seldom experience the moral influences his men are experiencing. But it is the influence of his courage upon the hearts of his men in which the main deficit will exist. Its is his personality which will suffer - his prestige.

During the fighting on May 6th, 1864, the Federal line was driven back and a panic resulted, in which an excited officer rushed up to where General Grant was sitting and shouted: "General, wouldn't it be prudent to move headquarters to the other side of the Germanna road [further from the battle field] ?" To which came the answer: "It strikes me it would be better to order up some artillery and defend the present position."

Halfway through ....

More random thoughts...

I just discovered a new oxymoron today -- "Entrepreneurship Textbook".

Credits to some textbook I saw in the NUS Coop today ...

Random thought of the day

One must always strive to remember the the goal of university is an education, not grades. And while the two are not mutually exclusive, it is all to easy to trip if one's eyes are set on the wrong target. Hence, let my interest to be educated lead the way and if good grades decide not to tag along for the ride, so be it, for I am no less without them.

There's Always Time to Travel

After having spent the better part of the last half a year traveling around in the States, I feel that I have in some sense taken on a traveler mindset. When traveling around different states in the US, I was always moving around with an attitude that I would want to take in as many new sights and experiences as possible. Because everything seems so different and interesting, it made me move around with much expectation but because of there, I felt that I had so much more to see and learn than if I had traveled around with certain ideas of what I wanted to do and with a mental checklist of the things I want to see. (My tons of photos taken on my travels can attest to that!). As I’m definitely not a “plan-in-detail” guy, a lot of the times, I was just randomly wandering around making up travel plans on the spot from whatever seems the most convenient. Everywhere I traveled to, I was armed with an open mind and a ready camera. Many times, I also picked up unexpected ideas and insights on my travels too. (A very crappy example would be when I was looking to see if there was a pinball machine on a cruise ship and suddenly understood why there wasn’t :P )

But, after returning to Singapore, it initially felt like “Gee, now that I’m home, this spells the end of my traveling experiences.” Or at least I thought for a while.

Suddenly, I thought, why not just be a traveler wherever you are? Even at home? Then I realized that being a traveler was not so much where you are than the mindset you take towards your life and experiences you have. I suppose its kind of like the difference between how a young kid looks at a new thing and how someone much older looks at it. The kid would probably be curious, turning the object around and around to look at it from all angles, thinking “I wonder if it can change it shape? Or color? Or make some sound”? I think older adults are constrained by experience. The experience that tells them not to look further beyond what something looks like on the surface.

The same goes with a traveler mentality. It’s the mindset that wherever you are, you bring with you a healthy overdose of child-like curiosity and openness to new experiences. There ain’t anything like learning or experiencing too much, no matter where you are.

That’s why I travel everywhere with my camera these days. Always snapping pictures of different experiences and sights.

Everyday is a new travel with new experiences. Live it to the max.

Random thought of the day

Giving funds away hoping to create entrepreneurs is like randomly strewing fertilizer in an open field hoping that there may be some seeds in the ground. Chances are good that you're just going to end up attracting flies.

Lego Waffles?

Wow .. Lego Waffles ?

Try telling your kids not to play with their food after you give them this for breakfast ...

Next Moves in a Global Economy: Podcasts from the 2007 Wharton Economic Summit

During the recent 2007 Wharton Economic Summit, Knowledge@Wharton recorded nine podcasts with speakers and panelists at the event, whose theme was "Next Moves in a Global Economy." The interviews are with:

• Jeffrey R. Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles Football Club
• Shellye L. Archambeau, CEO of MetricStream
• Ramkrishan (Remi) Hinduja, chairman of HTMT Global Solutions, together with Sashi P. Reddi, CEO of Applabs Technologies
• Marc Utay, managing director of Clarion Capital Partners
• Kenneth Shropshire, director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative
• Shiv V. Khemka , vice chairman, SUN Group
• Clark Callander, managing director of Savvian
• Amy Errett, CEO of Olivia
• William L. Mack, senior principal, Apollo Real Estate Advisors.

[Link to Podcasts: Knowledge@Wharton ]

8th Start-Up@Singapore Grand Finals Award Ceremony (30th May)

8th Start-Up@Singapore Grand Finals Award Ceremony
9:30am - 1:00pm, 30th May 2007
DBS Auditorium,
6, Shenton Way

Guest-of-Honour :
Mr. Teo Ser Luck
Parliamentary Secretary
Ministry of Community Development,
Youth and Sports

[Register Here]

Thoughts on reading after finishing "The Patton Mind"

I have just finished the book The Patton Mind - The Professional Development of an extraordinary Leader by Roger H. Nye. By any measure, Patton was an indefatiguable reader who never seemed to have stopped reading at any point in his life, even in the midst of wars.

Several key ideas come to mind after :

• Annote books with ideas/views/comments
• Summarise and distill key information
• Think critically and do not be quick to accept everything; Do not be afraid to disagree.(Patton occassionally scribbled "Bull" next to ideas he did not agree with)
• Re-read good books to gain more insights
  
• Read biographies and papers to understand the authors personally
  
• Study history to avoid past mistakes and apply discovered lessons to the present
  
• Don't waste time on fiction, it is far more important to grasp facts.
• Never stop reading
  

Going to hold myself to these ideas.

Top 10 Warren Buffet Quotes

A collection of some of my favorite quotes from the famous Omaha Investor. I like to think about them as a way of peeking into how he sees things:

1. "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." (To his son Howard)
   
   
2. "Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you should look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence , and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it's true. If you hire somebody without the first, you really want them to be dumb and lazy"
   
   
3. "I gave a talk last year; some student at Harvard asked me, 'Who should I go to work for?' I said go to work for whoever you admire the most. I got a call from the dean about two weeks later. He said, 'What are you telling these kids? They're all becoming self-employed.'"
   
   
4. "I want to be able to explain my mistakes. This means I do only the things I completely understand." (On Investing)
   
   
5. "Do a lot of reading" (On how to determine the value of a business)
   
   
6. "If they need my help to manage the enterprise, we're probably both in trouble." (On how he expects his managers to run the show)
   
   
7. "Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule. No. 1" (Investment Philosophy)
   
   
8. "The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable."
   
   
9. "Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."
   
   
10. "It has always been a fantasy of mine that a boatload of 25 brokers would be shipwrecked and struggle to an island from which there could be no rescue. Faced with developing an economy that would maximize their consumption and pleasure, would they, I wonder, assign 20 of their number to produce food, clothing, shelter, etc., while setting five to trading endlessly on the future output of the 20?" (Poking Fun at Option Traders)
    
    

(From : Warren Buffet Speaks - Wit and Wisdom from the World's Greatest Investor)

(Picture Credit : Mark Hirschey)

NY Stock Exchange Moves to Unix / Linux

Just caught this on Slashdot - NYSE is undergoing system migration to Unix and Linux.

I would suppose this marks a major leap in the use of open source software, and the decision by NYSE definitely has not been a simple one to make. Given the complexity and importance of the Stock Exchange systems, the risk/benefits analysis must have been

But it would seem that the major reduction in cost of operations was the main driver of the switch. Francis Feldman, the vice president of the shared data center for Securities Industry Automation Corp. (SIAC), the NYSE's technology arm, estimates the move will halve the cost of transactions, and though he wouldn't detail how much that would mean on a yearly basis, he said it is "serious financial savings, very serious."

It also underscores the industry acceptance of open source software and elevates its to becoming on par with commerical software in terms of the critical factors of realiability, robustness and security amongst others.

[Read : Full Article]

Singapore Owns more of Australia than Australia?

Wow .... I didn't know that, but according to the article the figures are :

Australian Government:

• 17% stake in Telstra: $9.6 billion
• Australia Post: $5 billion
• Medibank Private: $1 billion
• Australian Submarine Corp: $200 million
• Total: $15.8 billion

VS

Singapore Government:

• Optus: $10 billion
• Alinta energy assets: $4.3 billion
• Victorian electricity transmission monopoly: $2 billion
• Old Texas Utilities Australian portfolio: $5.5 billion
• Property: $2 billion
• Australand stake: $1 billion
• Total: $22.8 billion

I guess you do learn a new thing everyday ...

[From : Crikey - Singapore Owns more of Australia than Australia]

My Reading List, now on BookJetty!

Been playing around with BookJetty lately and think its a great way to keep organised on your reading list, especially if you are a voraiously reader like me. No more having to tell your friends "Yeah, I just read a book on [insert intersting subject] the other day which I think you would be keen on but I can't for the life of me remember its title ... "

So, I've gone and created a booklist in BookJetty to organise my reading and well, if you're keen, you can see what I've been reading instead of my schoolwork lately.

Thanks for the great site, Herryanto!

How to Become a Creative Genius

Just read this over at LifeHack.org.

Basically, the thing you can do to achieve Creative Genius-hood are to :

1. Keep a Notebook and Pencil on hand at all times (Ideas like fleeting renegades which are hard to catch.)
   
   
2. Ask Questions.
   
   
3. Be a Voracious Reader (Can't agree with this more, especially to read beyond the bounds of your normal scope as different disciplines offer totally different viewpoints and modes of thinking.)
   
   
4. Seek out new Experiences (Don't fear the unknown but instead seek to challenge it)
   
   
5. Become a Whole Brain Thinker (Work with mental techniques like mind mapping that make use of the power of the brain as a whole.)
   
   
6. Have Imaginary Dialogues
   

Read the rest of it here.

Steve Job's Customer Service?

Just read the following article, where some guy apparently emailed Steve Jobs after getting sick of waiting for AppleCare to respond to his cry for laptop repair.

Pretty interesting and though I can't really verify it, but on the surface it seems that while Apple may not have such a good frontline customer support (sometimes?), an email to the top man himself kind of boosts their speed.

In any case, good publicity mileage for Apple.

[via : Consumerist]


(PS: Kind of interesting also because I just read from somewhere that a study showed that only 11% of most senior executives' time is spent on sales and marketing related activites, the crux of any company's survival.)

Is Toshiba Also Going to Sell Computers Pre-loaded with Open Source Software?

Just read a story that "Toshiba Italy reportedly is considering offering pre-loaded Linux in its Tecra, Satellite, Portege, and Qosmio notebook lines"

Interesting that it comes right after my earlier post today about Dell's plan to do something similar. Would this be the start of a trend by PC manufacturers to preload opensource software into their machines and move Opensource computing into becoming a mainsteam option?

[Full Story: DesktopLinux.com ]

Dell Thinking About Changing its Business Model?

In the face of increasing competiton and slower sales, it seems like the folks at Dell are seriously considering if a shift in their business model would be a positive way of increasing performance.

"It is the first time that Dell or any other senior executive has publicly conceded that the business model that was crucial to the company's success could - and should - be altered. Until now, the company responded with an adamant no when Wall Street analysts or customers asked whether the company would consider other ways of selling." -IHT, April 29th, 2007

Also interesting to note is how Dell has also jumped onto the open source bandwagon by beginning to provide desktop/laptop configurations that come pre-loaded with Ubuntu.

[Full Story : International Herald Tribune - Dell thinking about changing the way it markets ]
[See Also :PC World - Dell to Offer Ubuntu Linux on PCs, Laptops]

Singaporeans prefer NUS to Harvard?

Just saw the news that NUS has scored a platinum award in University catergory (first time this has been measured) in the Reader's Digest Trusted Brand Awards 2007.

Many congratulations for this accolade for NUS, however, there are a few queries that remain unsolved in my mind:

1. Did Readers Digest only base the Survey on "7,000 responses to questionnaires and telephone interviews from across Asia." Is this a representative sample and is the spread of respondents distributed equally across the countries?
   
2. Where does the Straits Times deduce that Singaporeans prefer NUS to Harvard as put boldly in their headline?

The Reader Digest website seems a little unfinished to me, wonder if they will update more information (especially about the other countries) soon.

[via : NUS Press Release - NUS scores Platinum as a trusted brand ]
[Straits Times Article, 26th April - Forget Harvard, Singaporeans prefer NUS ]

Is there Value to be had from "Unofficial Distributors"?

Just read the news that somehow, pirates in China have managed to release bootleg version of the Spiderman 3 movie 2 weeks before the official debut date in the US. Given the fact that this came right after news that Windows only managed to sell 244 genuine copies of their latest Vista Operating System in China, it seems to give a solid indication that there is a large underground network,in China at least, of people who are to rapidly lay their hands on digital material, reproduce them in massive numbers and then re-sell them.

But a discussion of the ethics of this phenomenon is not the focus of this article. Instead, I think that there is a hidden value that can be tapped onto here. Looking at it from a highly positive light, it seems that there is an entire self-motivated system of distributors (of digital content) who seem to be able to re-produce digital content on massive scales and then push them out through their underground networks in record time.

This brings me to the case-study which concerns the relationship between Japanese Animation Studios and their fans (with absolutely no intention to compare them to be pirates but rather to broadly look upon them as "unofficial distributors") who actively help them to sub-title and then distribute their productions online (mostly through p2p networks). Once again barring the legality argument of the whole situation, one cannot help but see the value that these dedicated fans bring for others who want to watch the animations but are not able to because they are all in Japanese and typically only sub-titled in English. And for most part, the Japanese Studios do not seem to actively pursue the issue. Some reasons why this may be so are because (1) these fans who do not understand Japanese and English would not have purchased the original product anyway had not be subtitled, and (2) this correspondingly increased fan base actually helps to drive the sales of complementary products such as figurines and hobby kits. This effect is vaguely similar to the effect of popular cartoons in the 80s which drove to increase the sales of the toys based on them, but now imagine that all the producers have to do is to create the content in one language and an underground network of people value-add to this by translating that original work in all languages. (Could this be akin to open-source content which drives a secondary industry?)

The point I'm trying to make is that regardless of whether we view these "unofficial distributors" in a positive or negative light, it seems that they are here to stay and are undoubtedly an integral part of the current global business environment. So, what I'm putting forth is perhaps the controversial notion that instead of trying to clamp them down and then run business in a model that totally ignores their presence and impact globally, but to acknowledge them as an inevitable actor in the international business and think of business concepts and models where such forces are present.

Who knows, there may just be some symbiosis where these underground networks will be able to generate livelihood for their "employees" in the way they know best and at the same time, businesses gain an additional, massive distribution system for free?

[ A more detailed explanation of the fansubbing phenomenon can be found on Wikipedia]

The Legal Paradox of too much Marketing Success

In the world of branding, it is often that the ultimate goal that marketing wants to pull off is to turn their product brands into a ubiquitous household name. To some extent, a number of brands have managed to pull this off. Firms like Google, Photoshop and Xerox come to mind as they have been so well-known. These well known names have even become verbs with the meaning "to search online", "to manipulate digitally" and "to make copies". In fact, there is an online database filled with examples of such proprietary eponyms.

However, at the same time, the legal teams of these companies are freaking out as they see this as an improper usages of their trademarks. possibly detrimental to their brandname's integrity? They are beginning to set guidelines for the proper usage of their brand names, like Adobe is doing for their Photoshop product. A blog post regarding Google's trademark also appeared in the The Official Google Blog. From the legal perspective, the danger lies in that if the brand name becomes to generic and becomes accepted by people in such a manner, it would cause them to become generic names that are not owned by anyone. In order to avoid losing their multi-million dollar trademarks in this manner, companies have to show that they are actuvely trying to to stop their trademarks from gradually becoming generic and some possible avenues are to run advertisement campaigns to stregthen their brand names or to urge the public at large and sometimes writers specifically to make use of trademarks properly.

But, there is some doubt as to the effectiveness of such guidelines on external parties. Within these companies, it would be sensible and very possible for them set protective rules on how these elements of their corporate identity ( like logos and taglines) to present a coherent and consistent image of the company. A sensible first step which any company should take.

So, paradoxically, what is probably the greatest measure of marketing success for companies may in fact turn out to be a great legal problem for them.

[ Also : Digg - The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a Verb ]

Thoughts on Virginia Tech

As the news of the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech unfolded over the United States in the last couple of days, the public outpour of emotions and sentiments has been overwelming. Some mourn for this great lost, others question the effectiveness of the establishment's reaction and some have irresponsibly taken up this event as fodder for their own political agendas.

And yet, as people around the nation hold virgils and services for Virginia Tech, an simliar but much more massive support group is rallying online both through individual blogs and through social community sites like facebook, where a new group called "Today we are all Hokies" has been created and promptly amassed a large community of over 15,000 who come together to share information and support those in grief. The online medium has been used as a great support mechanism both for people from VT to pour out their emotions online as well as for others around the nation to read and gain more insights from the students and staff who are actually on the ground as a alternative to the repetative news updates from the mass media.

As the nation questions this incident in disbelief, colleges around the United States have been once again awakened to the possibility of such incidents occuring on their campuses and taken measures to prevent or mitigate the situation if it really did occur.

Being that the gunman was of Korean descent also sparked an outpour of reaction, partly due to his portrayal in the mass media. Some Asian-Americans are beginning to fear irrational retaliation due to this incident.

But in all the waves of heightened emotions and uncertainty, one thing is sure -- To all of the Virgina Tech family and those affected by this great tragedy, our hearts go out to all of you.

The Luck Factor

Just read this book called The Luck Factor, which came highly recommended by a friend . It was such an interesting book that I managed to finish it in less than a day.

Briefly, it follows Dr. Richard Wiseman's journey to explore what causes some people to be lucky and others to be unlucky. And whether there are any controllable factors that can change the outcome of luckiness / unluckiness for people. Interestingly, the experiments he conducted showed that between groups of people who thought themselves to be lucky and those who thought otherwise, there are four factors which can affect outcomes for people, and they are (roughly):

1. Maximize your Chance Opportunities - Be active in reaching out, meeting new people, taking chances and giving new experiences a shot. You cannot win that competition you didn't compete in or make friends with that stranger across the room whom you didn't bother to say hi to. No one knows what may come out of such opportunities but not taking them gets you nowhere. Be friendly and sociable with people.
   
   
2. Listen to your Lucky Hunches - Gut Feeling and Intuition sometimes stem from sub-conscious shortcuts your mind takes. Following those hunches sometimes may lead to unexpected success.
   
   
3. Expect Good Fortune - This one is about how pessimistic behavior lead to undesirable self-fulfilling outcomes. Having an optimistic outlook helps to set you in the right direction and mindset to fulfil your dreams and ambitions.
   
   
4. Turn your Bad Luck into Good - Bad Luck happens to everyone from time to time. But the key is to learn to see them in a positive light and not dwell on them. You can also take constructive steps like learning from mistakes of the past to avoid similar situations from occurring in the future.

Though the book is pretty much aimed at the general audience, I do believe that there are a lot of take-home lessons which are key to entrepreneurs who want to succeed. It fills in a lot of the "soft" skills which seem to create favorable settings for success.

So, if you are interested in it, grab it for a quick read!

OODA Loop

The OODA or Observe-Orient-Decide-Act Loop is an interesting decision making theory which has it roots in the miltary. The brain-child of Col. John Boyd, it emphasizes the need for quick decision making in a continuous process which pays attention to the reaction of the opposition. Broadly, the four step loop goes like this:

1. Observe - To be aware of the situation in the environment and factors around oneself. This step involves being observant enough to identify objects of interest and to be experienced and discreet enough to pick out only essential elements for the decision making process.
   
   
2. Orient - With the situational information gathered, apply past ideas, cultural background, experience and analysis to gain understanding of what all these elements of the environment mean. Also, trying to understand the opposition (in some cases) and how their decision making process may work given the same set of situational factors will also enable a better decision in the next step.
   
   
3. Decide - Based on the first two steps, select a best fit option to be implemented. There may be several alternatives present in theis stage and some limited mental hypothesis may be used to select the most appropriate one.
   
   
4. Act - The implementation phase itself to put the chosen alternative into action. In some cases, the action may be a limited ones used as a means to test out the effective-ness of complete commitment.

And the cycle doesn't stop here, it continues again as the last action taken affects the situation and one has to start at the observation stage again.

This is a pretty interesting decision making process and probably one that can become faster as one gets used to the schematic framework of this. The resulting increase in decision making speed should be a tremendous advantage in many situations.

( Further Reading : Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War )

Fourth E27 Unconference: You Are the Media!

E27 4our: You Are the Media!
When: Feb 15th. Thursday 7 - 11pm.
Where: SMU, School of Economics & Social Sciences, Level 4

New Multitrack Unconference Format!

1. Startup Demos

2. Branded Conversations

3. User Generated Sessions

RSVP FREE! at: http://entrepreneur27singapore.wikispaces.com

Top 10 Patton Quotes

Strange that we don't see colourful figures like this anymore:

1. "You are not beaten until you admit it"
   
   
2. "Lack of Orders if no excuse for inaction. Anything done vigorously is better than nothing done tardily"
   
   
3. "We received a number of replacement captains. I had initially assigned them to companies under lieutenants until they had learned the ropes. While this is not authorized in the regulations, I did it in both this and the First World War, and it works." (On training tactics)
   
   
4. "Do not take counsel of your fears" (Letter of Instruction No. 1, issued to Corps, Division and Separate Unit Commanders)
   
   
5. "There seems to be an unwitting conspiracy [by higher command] to make me lose my self-confidence, but so far it has failed"
   
   
6. "I don't want to get any messages saying 'I am holding my position'. We are not holding a goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding on to anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under or through the enemy." (Speech to Third Army)
   
   
7. "I have studied the German all of my life. I have read the memoirs of his generals and political leaders. I have even read his philosophers and listened to his music. I have studied in detail the accounts of every damned ones of his battles. I know exactly how he will react under any given set of circumstances. He hasn't the slightest idea of what I'm going to do. Therefore, when the time comes, I'm going to whip the Hell out of him" (On the importance of knowing your enemy)
   
   
8. "It is always best, when practicable, to drive to the front, so that the soldiers can see you going in that direction, and to save time, fly back by Cub plane so that you are never seen going to the rear." (On Leadership)
   
   
9. "May God deliver us from our friends; we can handle the enemy" (On the fatal ineffectiveness of SHEAF, High Command)
   
   
10. "I have taken Trier with only two divisions. Do you want me to give it back?" (Telegram in response to an order from SHEAF not to take the city of Trier anything less than three divisions, which was ignored and promptly conquered with two divisions)