Interestingness Rediscovered

Editing in the 2010s 2/2

We, as (in the role of) editors, know that we have to change, but more often than not we find ourselves equipped with old thinking and tools to cope with the new reality. That is the biggest challenge.

Traditional editing guide is getting rusty

The Chicago Manual of Style is the definite style guide for many editors. Not all of its recommendations are successfully updated to reflect the latest technology and business trend. I will list some of the suggestions that seem to require serious update.

• Separate electronic files should be prepared for different elements (2.3, 2.19): many modern software successfully integrate various elements of manuscripts in a single file.
• Manuscript should be printed on one side of the paper only (2.8): Not only it is not eco-friendly but also ignores the fact that printing is not necessary at all in some cases.
• Sans serif font should be avoided (2.11): Most default font on a computer display, the primary reading platform nowadays, are sans serif font.

Also, the most updated version of The Chicago Manual of Style is published in 2003. Nowadays, a public database is required to be updated on monthly or weekly basis. Having no major update in seven years is not something that should be overlooked.

We need to do more with less time

Everybody is busy and yearns for extra time. In addition, most workers are required to be multitasking, spending less time on each project. Editors should not assume readers are experts of their field nor expect them to spend their time on a particular project each day.

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends editors to make contact with writers in early stages (2.69), but that is based on the serial model of the past, when writers and editors passed their work to each other when finishing each other’s part. These days writers and editors need to work together concurrently, exchanging information in real time. Early is not enough any more. We need to do things Now.

From local to global

English is no more the language of North America and Europe. For example, India has more English speakers than the rest of the world combined. As editors, we need to respect various understanding level of readers.

Put yourself into someone else's shoes

To summarize the challenges facing today’s editors, they are having, or going to have, hard time coping with reality that have changed forever, for better or worse. To overcome these new challenges, editors should adopt an “old” strategy: to place oneself in the other person’s position.

To rephrase it, editors need to do what writers and readers today do: use social media, write and publish online, multitask, and communicate globally. Since the new rules of editing has not been described yet (as the latest Chicago Manual of Style attests), the upcoming era serves both challenges to reinvent ourselves as editors, and opportunities to create new editing rules on our own.

Editing in the 2010s 1/2

The process of writing starts by composing but ends with editing. Most of us call the process a necessary evil. But because a piece of writing ultimately belongs to the people who read it, we must fine-tune our draft so that (almost) anybody will get it, sometimes even the author. Someone in Japan said that the definition of good writing is to write only what you can write in a way everybody can understand. The editor does the second part of that definition.

What editing is about

Editing on the surface looks simple. Correct the grammar, point out logical flaws--if possible also cop-out statements, omit unnecessary words. Most people associate an editor with phrases such as organizer, proofreader, or even grammar police. A giant panda eats shoots and leaves. It does not eats, shoots, and leaves. If it is true, the editor should point out that the object of the shootout is missing. *

Therefore, the editor’s role seems one of the slow-changing requirements in the fast-moving 21st century. Editing is shaping up our thinking and understanding process. How can such an essential, if moderately mundane, job requirement be in drastic changes like every other professions are these days?

Even editors (need to) change

The answer is both “Yes…but” and “But…yes.” Everything changes, and the position is no exception. How are the roles of today’s editors changing, and what challenges are awaiting them? Let's forget external requirements for contemporary editors that have changed in recent years–fluid workplace, increase in ESL (English as Second Language) readers as well as writers, and technological advancements. Here I would like to focus on one element that is the most challenging of all: an editor’s own attitude.

Today’s editors need to change their mindset from the traditional writer-oriented into the new reader-oriented. In other words, editors nowadays are required to work for the audience, not only for the writers with whom they have directly collaborated in the past.

Reader-oriented thinking (yet again)

The reader-oriented mindset has been required for a long time, probably since the beginning of the history of editing, but its importance has increased to the point that it is now the center of the attention. Why so? It is because readers and writers no more live in separate worlds.

Nowadays, especially since the beginning of the 21st century, everybody is a writer and a reader simultaneously. The Internet and associated services have democratized not only writing but also publishing. Many of us traditionally labeled as mere “readers” maintain blogs and write short articles on social media on daily, or even hourly, basis. When the world of writers and readers become together, there is not much point in focusing only on one side of the story. Thus, the reader-oriented mindset should really be called the writer-and-reader-oriented mindset.

Changing ourselves = biggest challenge

It is often said that of all the changes required in our life, changing ourselves is the most difficult of all. It certainly applies in this case. Editors have been the master of applying changes to others (=manuscripts) based on semi-timeless rules and usages. Now they increasingly find themselves on the other side, required to adapt themselves to the new reality.

What should they do? To be continued...

P.S.

* Some editors do a better job than what's listed there. The following is what I consider the greatest work from an editor. Penelope Trunk was wondering if high income women get more oral sex. The editor justified her statement.

“Let's assume that men give oral sex only because women ask for it. That's probably 95% true. Then who asks for it? Women who consider themselves at least equally deserving of that sort of consideration -the women who are going to be better earners because they are educated enough to know that they deserve it (both the income and the oral.) So I think they are coincidental, not causal. A woman who earns more has the self-confidence (and the self-worth, boosted by external factors like earning ability, education, etc.) to ask for oral.”

Our ever-shortening attention and the future of writing 2/2

(Continued from the last post) As the WebProNews article says, one way to survive the blogging red ocean is to be authentic - to write things with *cough* value. Right, we know that, thanks. Is there other way? Turns out there is. It is to see the new writing media to one's advantage, not as a threat. Here is an example: Twitter novel.

This attempt is intriguing because it not only combines texts and visuals but also makes the work of combination much easier than before. Aside from clever plot, good writing, and a modestly good-looking fake zombie images, this author does not need to prepare anything special. No software, drawing, printing, or -of course- publishing.

Merging texts and graphics = effective but time-consuming

Comics used to be the only media that can crossover between texts and graphics and still stand as "writing". It is not just about entertainment for kids (or adults) - Japan publishes hundreds of non-fiction books written in manga-style each year. Graphics help digest the texts effectively and make us turn the pages.

Inspired by the Japanese "business" manga publishing industry, Daniel Pink has collaborated with Rob Ten Pas, a comic artist and wrote Johnny Bunko, the first English business book written as a comic, as far as I know. Or if we stick to the zombie world, we have a brilliantly-executed web comic series, The Zombie Hunters.

The is one, a huge, problem with this comic publishing model. It takes an insane amount of work and time to create a book. It also requires years of training in graphic art; definitely not the media for everybody.

From text/graphic melting pot to salad

The zombie tweet novel bypasses that dilemma. Even without the images, this model works brilliantly (it might be better than having amateur photos). Can we adjust to, or come up with, more such examples? A writing is a writing.

Our ever-shortening attention and the future of writing 1/2

From the Top Trends Blog - People are now constantly distracted and find it difficult to stay focused on any one thing for more than a matter of minutes. For example:

In London a local council has experimented with cushioning on lampposts because pedestrians are walking into lampposts while they are texting. There are serious examples of semi-stupidity too. How about the truck driver that was looking at Google maps whilst driving on the M6 motorway – he ended up killing six people.

This story makes me scared, but not because people are hitting their heads instead of buttons. Because it reminds me once again that people are reading short texts more and - as a natural consequence - longer writings less.

Writing = red ocean?

After years of procrastination I have finally started to write regularly, on this blog. Then I hear the above-mentioned story. I get scared that I might have entirely missed the boat and end up writing with few audience, if any. Basically I write for the sake of writing, but even J.D.Salinger, who reportedly is putting his manuscript in his drawer after writing two historical books, will agree that a writer needs more than a handful of readers.

It used to be that when we hear the number of writers is growing we encouraged ourselves. We got comrades! No more - because everybody writes nowadays, more writers = more competitors, less readers. I might be exaggerating but that is how I feel. When I read non-celebrity blogs, I feel like I might be joining the writer's equivalent of mutual aid. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.

The traditional blogging has definitely hit a plateau - simply blogging about what you ate for your breakfast, lunch, and dinner doesn't attract readers. Well, it's a good situation for everybody, even for the writer herself. WebProNews describes the current blogosphere neatly:

There are as many reasons to blog, or not to blog, as there are people. One thing is for certain: we seem to be at a blogging crossroads. Sadly (but perhaps naturally), pivotal, transformational (and sometimes bloody) moments are often misconstrued as deadly ones. Blogging has reached a crucial moment in its evolution, one where competition for money, credibility, and attention has never been fiercer. The weak, those whose prime devotion is getting rich, getting famous, getting laid, or getting approval will be culled. In the end, as in the beginning, it’s about purity and (some type of) artistic integrity.

I know that I need to add value. Tell me something I don't know.

As the article says, one way to survive the blogging red ocean is to be authentic - to write things with *cough* value. Right, we know that, thanks. Is there any other way? Turns out there is. To be continued...

How to create an online sensation

Here is the recap of the animated showdown between Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno that became a viral sensation a while ago (in Internet time).

The original content was one of the video reportings done by the Taiwanese branch of Apple Daily - its web address aptly named NextMedia - a Hong Kong based entertainmedia (or medientertainment) company. Think of The Sun with a turbo boost.

Apple Daily is loved by boys because of the photos of ladies in pseudo-birthday suits. It is loved by girls because of the endless shopping information and advertisements (including underwear). It is frowned upon by older citizens, especially schoolteachers, because according to them the contents are all sensational but no intellectual (someone should ask them: how do they know it?). In short, everybody reads knows it in Taiwan.

They make dozens of such videos on weekly basis and put them online. They have been doing it for years. But this time, that particular clip went beyond the Asian borders despite the language difference (the Chinese-dubbed original version was the one that caught fire). Boing Boing picked it up. Conan used it in his own program. CNN talked about it. People tweeted and facebook'ed the video. All within several days.

The obvious question we, the wannabe journalists/writers/celebrities, have is - How?

I think the answer lies in the prerequisite: they make dozens of them on weekly basis. We should stop thinking about SEO, networking, and utilizing social media for a while. That video tells us the hard truth on sticking out: stop being a marketing smart-ass and create something worthwhile like a monkey.

We can continue dwelling on the technological aspects - timing, graphics, narration, so on. We can lament on the fact that most of us do not belong to the inner circles or not hitting the jackpot. We shouldn't miss the whole point though - that video showed us vigorously that great contents transcend boundaries. We should be empowered instead, and get back to what we have been doing, or should do, each day.

But still, we want a clue, right? What that video embodies is curiously similar to what Google believes in. Here are Google's 10 Commandments. I marked the ones that are applicable to the aforementioned video. Seven. That says something.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.

P.S. Here is another video about the Haiti earthquake done by the same creative force, prior to the above showdown video. Now you'll understand that it wasn't a one-time luck.

The value of stuff is overrated

As long as we live in the cities, we might want stuff, but do not need them. I live in Taipei, a modestly-sized city with around 3 million population. Here we can live a modern urban life  (that means we do not have to, like, grow grapevines out of the balcony to substitute air conditioners and to support our nutrition) without buying a truckload of physical stuff. Let's see if that is true.

House

We can rent. Buying a house is becoming an almost impossible mission for most citizens. On average, an apartment costs around 10 times (US$300,000) the annual income for a household (US$30,000).  Every time I ask an Taiwanese what he or she thinks of buying a house, they reply with something along the line of "My life is not complete until I buy a housing property." Sometimes I wonder what they mean is to complete their life by buying an apartment.

Also, real estate in general has ended its historical role as a financial asset thanks to the meltdowns we have experienced multiple times in recent decades. Decreasing number of kids accelerates the downward price trend of real estate. Right now the reason for owning a house in Taipei exists only in one's mind - for keeping the tradition or personal satisfaction. Recently I read a local newspaper, 自由時報, and counted the number of real estate advertisement. I found no less than ten full-page ads. In a day. Obviously they are not selling well.

Car

Taipei has one of the finest metro systems in the world. If that is not enough, buses with fixed rate of US$0.3 - 0.5 run everywhere. In Taipei, a car is something that you drive into the downtown, not away from. Each driver must acquire finest driving skills to maneuver the narrowest streets in Taipei with a humongous BMW/Mercedez to maximize the chance of showing their cars off without scratching them. I know, for male, owning a car is equal to having another girlfriend. We can leave that part to disillusioned businessmen.

Furniture

Many apartments nowadays come with a set of built-in furniture. Washing machine, fridge, cooking utensils, bed, sofa, and TV. What do we need more?

Gadgets

Days of desktop computer and the endless list of computer accessories are dead. What is left now is only the screen, and it is no coincidence that Apple iMac, essentially a display with DVD drive, CPU, and hard drive, is one of the most popular personal computers. Also, CDs - yes they do exist - are already stuffed into iTunes and then into iPod or iPhone.

Now that leaves us two category of stuff that we still own: clothes and books. At least one of them is going to be squeezed into a tiny space in the near future: Books.

Books

Amazon Kindle is turning into a one-for-all platform for reading books. If that still takes space, Audible (now part of Amazon) is making books even more compact: MP3 files in your iPod. The upcoming Apple Tablet will squeeze newspapers and magazines into a flat panel.

Do you think the reading experience is much better on paper than on screen? Answer: you're old. Check Lucy Knisley's web comic about the crash between old vs. new on screen texts. She is in her 20s, reads way more than older generations - on screen.

Conclusion

According to the above predictions, we will soon all be living in a tiny apartment with large closet. Maybe not.

P.S. What I have listed above is based solely on the daily needs. If you want to be buying or keeping less because of environment concern, then check The Story of Stuff. They tell you all the reason why. Bonus: the subtitles and voice come in various languages.

Ebooks and the true potential of the PowerPoint format

I was enjoying reading an e-book from Riverfork Consulting titled A Brief Guide to Change by Design, which talks about implementing a series changes in our life by acquiring the "just do it" attitude and reframing (=redesigning) our habits. Sounds overwhelming, but the techniques introduced are easy to implement and allow us to discover more about ourselves on the way. It was also compact, consumable in 15 minutes or so. As the title says, it was well-designed, similar to a Powerpoint presentation. In a good way.

Powerpoint is long considered a tool for stage performance, Steve Jobs being the most effective and drastic example of all: his presentations are just one-man stage shows backed by numbers. Powerpoint is also a strong tool to hide from stage performance for many people, including yours truly. Paul Graham says:

For example, the stated purpose of Powerpoint is to present ideas. Its real role is to overcome people's fear of public speaking. It allows you to give an impressive-looking talk about nothing, and it causes the audience to sit in a dark room looking at slides, instead of a bright one looking at you.

Therefore, the standard advice for formatting Powerpoint slides has been to make them simple. Guy Kawasaki famously declared the 10/20/30 rule: a powerpoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain font no smaller than thirty points.

But live performance is not the only usage of Powerpoint. I have seen people using Powerpoint slides as substitutes for complicated documents, again including myself. Whenever someone prepares a presentation for project status report or new product introduction, we always ask the copy of the slide for reference, print them out, and reuse in other reports. The original Gantt chart and product specifications are usually left down in the network hard drive, managed only by the original author.

Why keep reusing Powerpoint slides? Because they summarize the key information. The irony is, the more sloppy (=wordy) the slides become, the better summary note they turn into. Non-sophisticated presenters tend to use their slides as executive summaries and THAT's what we want to read. Presentations from master speakers such as Seth Godin are sometimes too simplified as documents.

The presentation-format reading files are aptly called e-books, pioneered by Changethis, who utilized the presentation style and converted it into an e-book format. Even the aforementioned proponents of simple presentations seem to admit Powerpoint style has merits for reading; for example, the above-mentioned Guy Kawasaki has published on Changethis platform.

There is another strong backup from the hardware side: the tide of e-book readers. Sony experimented it, Amazon nailed it with Kindle, and Apple is going to expand it to mass market with the upcoming (as of today) Tablet.

As reading on screen becomes our norm, the book format will slowly drift away from the traditional, vertical, wordy format into the presentation format: landscape orientation, consumable in less than 30 minutes, oriented for computer screen.

The followings are other Powerpoint-style free e-books I strongly recommend. Both are terrific reads.

• Hugh Macload: How to be creative (Changethis)
• Seth Godin: What matters now

Being freelance: we will be treated the way we treated others

Many of us think about going freelance one time or another, especially in economic downturns. Thousands of people have done so, and for some reason all of them want to recommend others to follow suit. Some even establish their freelance life by teaching how to be a freelance. (I have no idea why Bernie Madoff suddenly popped into my mind)

Then why aren't we, office workers, rushing into freelance life? We have no shortage of complaint about our life as office-politicians. Freelancers, in general, are not sorry about their career choice. Are we holding ourselves back because we don't know what will happen, as many of us paycheck receivers say in unison?

I think it is the opposite. Office workers do not become freelance easily because we know, or we think we know, what freelance means, through how we treat freelancers (=contractors) from our cubicles.

If you have worked in a 9-to-5 office for more than a few years, you might have had a chance to work with contractors and freelancers for short-term projects and subcontracting gigs. Maybe you might even hired them. Then try to remember how you treated them. Do you want to switch positions?

From an established company's point of view, freelancers = fillers. Companies hire them to fill voids created by schedule mismatch and labor shortage. In other words, they need contract workers because no one in the office wants to do that job.

From an office worker's point of view, we pass the least desirable works to contractors, or witness our coworkers do so. Forget all the glorious readings about the fabulous freedom outside the cubicle; our own action teaches us loudest about what kind of life exists outside our mental prison. One reason why we want them to be "external" contractors is because we don't need to face them.

It's easy to say that we need to remind ourselves that we need to treat everybody the way we want to be treated. We like that phrase because it gives us temporary moral boost while changing nothing about our behavior.

Information anxiety leads to winner takes it all

I wanted to know whether to say "overcharge customers" or "overcharge for customers" so I turned to our everlasting frienemy Google. As a good adviser, it encouraged me to add the word definition so that queries from online dictionaries would come on top. They did--with a vengeance. The following snapshot shows why Google can be our enemy at times. Too much.

I caused a mild panic. There are eighteen too many answers. I should have picked one easily, since they are all supposed to be authority - but I couldn't. Instead of choosing one, I turned to a distraction to calm myself down (= writing this blog entry).

This is exactly the situation depicted in The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz. It is a brilliant read, which still can be summarized in a sentence: we don't feel happier by having more options to choose.

I decided to pick one dictionary that was supposed to be the best, or one of the bests, and stick with it. I selected dictionary.com, hoping such a great website name be run by guys doing an excellent job, or bought by such people. Pick up the best and stick with it - many people would do that too. The aforementioned book says:

Perhaps that's the reason consumers tend to return to the products they usually buy, not even noticing 75% of the items competing for their attention and their dollars.

...which leads to the "winner takes it all" syndrome created by our avoidance of facing the consequence of missed opportunities. In my case, I spent a considerable amount of time (a few minutes) and picked the best, not only because I wanted a good dictionary but also I didn't want to spend time thinking about missed opportunities. From a Wikipedia entry summarizing the book:

Missed Opportunities. Schwartz finds that when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity's potential. Schwartz maintains that one of the downsides of making trade-offs is it alters how we feel about the decisions we face; afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision.

There were times we innocently believed that more options will not only make us happier but also provides opportunities for everybody. We know better now - more options certainly improves the quality of the given service, because everybody is dying to grab users' attention. But they do not necessarily lead to our increased happiness or distributed opportunities. Winner takes it all, and even though we lament the increasing brutal society we live in, we are choosing so through our actions.

Appendix: the word "overcharge" does not need objectives. Thus I should say "the customers are overcharged."

Case study: rubbing salt in the wounds - Palm

Palm is the inventor of PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). I feel obliged to spell out PDA; it's been that long since its entire market had disappeared. But their position in the history as one of the godfathers of smartphone--the other the Newton from Apple--is cemented thanks to the fact that many current smartphones resemble the original Palm PDA by having the combination of large screen, Home key, and shortcut keys.

From Wikipedia: doesn't the button alignments of the original Palm Pilot resemble the current generation of Android phones?

These days Palm is in trouble. By that I mean we do not hear about them much. Their supposedly messiah, Palm Pre, is not doing fantastically despite the initial fanfare. Just because they happen to be the proud owner of one of the longest living mobile OS in history, they cannot join the Android bandwagon either. Their application store carries a serious problem too: there is almost nothing to sell.

The first thing to do in a bad situation is try not to make things worse. Alas, someone inside Palm did not listen to the ageless wisdom, none other than its CEO (introduced by iA Tokyo's Twitter feed):

Rubinstein said - during an on-stage interview with All Things D’s Kara Swisher at CES - that Palm really doesn’t “pay that much attention to Apple” and that he himself has never used an iPhone.

How come just a "slip of the tongue" from an executive be a potential stroke to an ailing company? Because it's a lie. How come a former Apple executive in charge of building iPod hasn't used an iPhone yet? How come a CEO hasn't studied the biggest threat to the company's earnings, or even survival?

I think a CEO in general has only two jobs: motivate others and make decisions. This interview squashed his reputation by violating both - he made poor decision by lashing out to the reporter waiting to blow every quote out of context, and he de-motivated employees and shareholders by saying he does not care much about the single biggest obstacle to the company's future.

Still, it's the board team of Palm that made the initial mistake. Hiring a grudging executive from a competitor was probably the source of this trouble. By dissing Apple, Rubinstein was trying to shoot something back to his former employer - only that he ended up shooting his allies, and we now probably know why he had to leave Apple.

Cram schools help create less xenophobical future 2/2

So in the last entry I wrote how the Asian students fleeing overseas will do a favor to almost everybody involved in the process. Cram schools can proudly show their achievements off to attract more income generators (parents). The students themselves start enjoying what is called "independent life". The parents have one less daily burden to shoulder and theoretically become engaged in social activities more.

In reality, it's not quite a 100% win-win situation. Cram schools are struggling to find prospective students because the number of kids is dwindling. Taiwan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world: according to the latest research, a Taiwanese woman bears only 1.07 child in her lifetime. That is even lower than Japan, the golden sample of aging society. The cram schools are likely happier keeping the students in their cage rather than letting them free.

The students learn that the promised land has serious drawbacks: life in a foreign land poses a threat they are not familiar with yet - mystery. According to Malcolm Gladwell, we have two types of problems in general - puzzles and mysteries. Puzzles have a fixed set of solutions and can be solved by having more information. Most of what we learn at schools are treated as puzzles: math, physics, grammer grammar.  Mysteries, on the other hand, cannot be solved by having more knowledge. To reach a satisfying conclusion, one must learn how to get rid of unnecessary details and focus on issues that matter. It is true even in fictions. Did Sherlock Holmes have more information than the cops?

The youngsters must solve mysteries. They must unlearn what they have acquired over the years, including academic knowledge, habits, and thinking process, and relearn them altogether. Although it's a necessary lesson to be learned - post-school life is more or less a series of mysteries - it is never easy for anybody.

The trouble here is the expectations. No one has taught them to become partially disillusioned about how they had grown up before truly adapting themselves to a new form of life. Even though they understand the importance of change, at 20 years old or so they know they aren't as flexible as they had imagined any more.

The parents also find themselves that the post-parenthood life is not as exciting as they have imagined since day one of their son or daughter. Having idle hands, they face their spouses much longer than expected which sometimes lead to sad realizations. It is not a coincidence that divorce rate in Japan is increasing among retired or semi-retired couples.

But painful as it might be, living as a foreigner is now becoming the norm. It will not stop being difficult, as The Economist says, but it is the future. "FOR the first time in history, across much of the world, to be foreign is a perfectly normal condition. It is no more distinctive than being tall, fat or left-handed. Nobody raises an eyebrow at a Frenchman in Berlin, a Zimbabwean in London, a Russian in Paris, a Chinese in New York."

Cram schools help create less xenophobical future 1/2

It looks like sending kids to schools which start when the schools end is required by law in all Asian countries. Kids releasing their evening energies in cram schools are one of the cultural connections that unite East-Asian countries like Taiwan, China, Korea, and Japan, along with chopsticks and the combination of geeky hairdo with black-rimmed glasses. We Asians downplay our similarities in general and emphasize countless news headlines on border disputes and "sovereignty", in a manner not dissimilar from Mr.Universe competition. Do we see difference, if any, among the participants?

Cram schools are optimized for a single goal: to get kids into better schools, sometimes another cram school. Here in Taiwan, ultimately it means sending them to other countries with better educational institutes, notably the United States. My friends in the US are vocal about how their educational system is being dysfunctional beyond repair, but what matters for the cram schools (and rich parents) is the top tiers, not the average. As Hollywood has proven, the United States is still the best in the world in terms of attracting top talents.

There are even companies that "assist" students writing essays for entering U.S. universities and grad schools. Here is an excerpt of an original manuscript, collected by my friend working in one of those editing services: An issue of international concern that is important to me came after knowledge I got about global warming from the famous film "The Day After Tomorrow" by former VP of U.S.A. Gore. (I see the point: according to reviews of An Inconvenient Truth, the two films aren't that different in terms of scientific authenticity)

I feel sorry for the kids. But although the practice seems horrible, they do the hosting countries a big favor. Once those kids learn different cultures and thinking (along with diploma), it becomes impossible for them to see the world in black and white as they had been doing until they started their new life on a foreign soil. I think the biggest negative effect cram schools have on students is the idea that every problem has a single solution.

They tell the academic version of Disney fairy tales--The princess met the prince and the two lived happily ever after--through countless exams. But by living on their own for the first time, the kids learn the real rules of the real world: there is no black or white, only shades of gray. Most problems have multiple solutions with different trade-offs. We frequently see two contradicting truths which are both correct.

So are they all coming back to their homeland with a re-educated, international mindset? Not so fast - we still live in a "real" world full of contradictions. To be continued in the next entry...

From outsourced to outsoftwared

Another year, another TechCrunch article. This time they talk about an iPhone application that helps filling tax returns by taking a snapshot of the paper form. It is probably the most awesome software of the year so far (well it is still January) utilizing the fact that the U.S. federal government is working in 19th-century mindset by providing paper-based form. Another country does that too.

One of the many insightful anecdotes in Thomas Friedman's magnum opus, The World Is Flat, tells us how U.S. tax returns are effectively handled by Indian service providers literally overnight using the timezone difference between the two countries.

Jaithirth "Jerry" Rao was one of the first people I met in Bangalore, and I hadn't been with him for more than a few minutes at the Leela Palace Hotel before he told me he could handle my tax returns and any other accounting needs I had - from Bangalore. No thanks, I demurred, I already have an accountant in Chicago. Jerry just smiled. He was too polite to say it - that he may already be my accountant, or rather my accountant's accountant, thanks to the explosion in the outsourcing in tax return.

And now they are talking about taking a photo of the tax form, which will be sent to a light version of a software called Turbotax, and...

The tax filers then correct any mistakes, enter additional data not on the W2 (such as interest income), answers a few more questions, and they are done. They can even file electronically from their iPhone.

Goodbye India, welcome back Silicon Valley, although there is no people to greet you (or be greeted) any more. The world is flattening once again, this time it's no more The West vs. The East. It's Software vs. Us. A handful of software developers just eliminated a portion of, or even a whole, industry.

If this "softwarlizing" trend goes on, we are forced to invent new types of industries that will never be done without software or robots. Jobs that only humans can do. Which are...

Horrible Jobs - A must see Prsentation if don't like your current Job

View more presentations from googling.

How to make a ballsy PR move

One of the more authoritative British media, BBC news has declared that fat people with distorted self-image were expelled from an elite dating site.

"As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld," said site founder Robert Hintze.

"Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded."

I am not sure if we are supposed to be angry at the racist behavior of high-class snobs or laugh until our jaw drops off. I guess the writer aimed the former with the intent of the latter. Whatever the reader thinks, the news article is doing a huge favor to beautifulpeople.com. What makes that site different from 1000+ other dating services is its exclusiveness, and the founder knows it. We don't need you is their business operation mantra. Isn't that every entrepreneur's (secret) wet dream?

Here is a banner from the website. A List Apart has a collection and analysis of the greatest copy ads ever written. Usually I support whatever stuff is written in that site, but this time I am not 100% positive just because Too ugly to sign up? is not included.

I clicked.

P.S. Here is a snippet from the A List Apart article. Doesn't copy ads look lame when stripped of context? When it rains, it pours! / What we want is Watney's / Does she or doesn't she?

If someone says these phrases to me I would gaze into their eyes to check if there is any sign of focus. Which will encourage them.

Samsung vs. Taiwan

The Taiwanese version of Business Weekly (商業周刊) says Samsung Electronics has turned from Taiwan's ally into its enemy. To be precise, the article's title says so. 全球抗韓流，三星成科技業公敵! (The whole world protests against Cool Korea - Samsung has turned into the public enemy of (Taiwanese) high-tech industry)

Sensational title aside, the article suggests a series of practical insight and advice. They can be summarized into the following:

• Samsung is going to be the world leader in electronics. (Wikipedia says it already is)
• They are even moving into, and taking over, Taiwan's traditional expertise such as semiconductors.
• Resistance is futile. Taiwan should seek niches to co-exist with Samsung.

It is not a sexy strategy, but who cares? What matters is that everybody with modest workability would be able to put food on the table. We can still ask, though: has Taiwan lost its balls to compete with Korea (Samsung), the once-blood brother comprising the Four Asian Tigers? I think the answer is, it never truly mattered. People in Taiwan, including me, are in awe with Samsung, but we don't want to be like them.

Many researchers have pointed out that the weakness of the Korean high-tech industry model is the relative scarcity of middle- or small-sized companies compared to famous conglomerates. You are either working in (or married to) one of the big players (Samsung, LG) or you are a loser. It creates a sharp contrast compared to Taiwan where even its most prominent companies are relatively unknown to consumers. Does anybody know Hong-hai, TSMC, Quanta? (though HTC is quickly rising as a global brand thanks to its partnerships with Google and stylish smartphones, it has only less than 6,000 employees and US$4billion revenue. Samsung is nearly 50 times as large in terms of both)

Years ago when I visited Samsung Electronics as a technical support, one recently married engineer told me that he dated his wife only 12 times prior to their marriage, all happened on Sunday afternoons; it was the only weekly time slot he wasn't working. After getting married, his wife slowly realized the reason behind that odd behavior and was understandably getting annoyed, which he told me as-a-matter-of-factly. In the morning, company buses picked up workers from surrounding suburbs - some of them aptly called Samsungtown - and dumped them right in front of the company cafeteria for breakfast. Impressive, they had cafeteria which provided three meals a day? Wrong - it provided four meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snack.

I won't say it's wrong or right - if you ought to be the number one, you have to sacrifice something. Many Japanese companies followed similar habits too (some of them still do). But I can safely say that in the five years of working in Taiwanese hi-tech companies, I have never seen or heard such extreme practices. Here, unhappy workers move to another place than stick with the current employer. It is probably because there are many mid- to small-sized companies and each career move is not directly related to "downgrade" or "upgrade".

In the end, the strategy to create niches around the core - Samsung - sounds not only practical but wise because it allows Taiwanese mid-sized companies to thrive and their employees to keep the income while maintaining relaxed workstyle.

Screw you customers, you aren't even paying yourself

From CBC News via The Business Ethics Blog: the MBA program director of University of Ottawa is upset that business class fliers like him are getting overcharged by Air Canada.

Mike Miles, director of the MBA program at the University of Ottawa, said Air Canada offers frequent flyers, like him, coupons to upgrade their flights to business class. However, travellers have to purchase their tickets at a higher fare to qualify for the upgrade.

Miles said because much of his travel is for his work as a business professor, those extra costs would be passed on to the university, and it's unethical for the airline to put him in that dilemma.

I am reading between the lines according to the reporter's wish: this should be his point. Screw it, we all know you don't pay a dime yourself. The real patron is your employer, so who cares?

Mileage collection is probably one of the biggest employee benefits not stated in the contract. Several years ago, the accounting group of the company I worked for issued an "official" requirement that flight tickets must be purchased without the mileage benefit to cut costs. Not a single executive I knew of followed it, even though they preached around the importance of cost-cutting in every occasion.

Mileage collection is also one of the biggest employee benefits that are not talked about. The usually pushy and talkative executives strangely keep their mouse shut on this subject. It is because the benefit is huge. Free access to airline lounge complete with cushy sofa, free lunch, fast Internet access and (almost) free access to Business class with all above luxuries plus in-flight entertainment PLUS attractive flight attendants who call you by your name. For men, especially older men, those are equivalent of adult entertainment for teenagers. Everybody is afraid of losing them by bringing them up into scrutiny, by such as--a female director of the accounting division.

I believe the reporter did enough damage to the quoted professor by simply allowing his employer to rethink about the whole upgrade plan. Good job.

As the protégé says in Up in the Air, "Guys don't grow up, it's like you need to pee on everything".

How to create an effective ad

The photo below is a close-up of a life insurance found on the wall of a subway station. Something told me it is out of touch with reality because the very people that fit into the bracket posed by this ad, the riches and the haves, might likely not buy into it at all.

They buy insurance recommended by their inner circles, not from watching an advertisement posted on the walls of subway stations. They probably do not even know that this advertisement exists, because the riches are sort-of required to drive cars and not use public transportation for commuting, even if their offices are located in top-notch areas right behind major subway stations.

Insurance companies in general are very stingy, especially in this age with less young people (their income) and more old people (their expense). They know exactly where to spend the money, therefore this advertisement must be aimed right at the target demographics. Who? Think this way: who wants to be...

• Working in big corporations which require wearing suits, ties, and - namecard
• Having pretty, young, and non-threatening wife

The answer: young guys, who are dreaming of career advancement, feeling threatened by peer girls (the lack of military service allows girls to have career advantage over boys in Taiwan), and having no other way but to use the subway. Most of all, due to years of spending time in cram schools and military service they do not have connections (yet) that recommends them truly useful insurance nor life experience to tell good deals from bad ones. They are likely more easily seduced by advertisement.

So after all, that ad might be working effectively, covering 99% of young or not-so-young male in Taipei.

Using advertisement to build new identity

Michelle Yeoh is advertising milk. Shiny photoshopping does not entirely hide the fact that she is wearing a hideous tee and housewife hairstyle, surrounded by a design devoid of subtlety in any sense. And what's that pointing-at-the-product-with-a-forced-smile? She is definitely onto something, but I am not sure if that's what she wants to admit in public.

Here are theories on why this advertisement exists for real:

• Money. A milk company paying a price high enough to justify her presense?
• Patriotism. She wanted to do some good for Chinese companies (technically she is from Malaysia).
• Hidden relationship. Which explains why she remains single to this date.
• Design. She wanted to recreate 1960s retro atmosphere.

As always, Google search reveals the secret. Turns out the milk company exists for real, and they shot two versions of commercials: one for male, one for female.

The Male version (might also be the West): Michelle Yeoh as we know. She kicks-ass.

The Female version (might also be the East): The new face of Michelle Yeoh. She is a mom-like figure.

Probably the truth is that she wants to promote a "family-safe" version of herself, especially in Chinese-spoken market. In non-Chinese territories she will forever be remembered (rightfully) as the queen of martial arts. There is no way to avoid it because being typecast is the key to survive outside one's homeland, especially in Hollywood - countless actors have learned that lesson the hard way. But in South-East Asia, she can still be 楊紫瓊, in other words, herself. Also it doesn't hurt to learn acting that does not require kicking as she inches toward her 50s.

The milk advertisement suddenly started to look more tolerating. Even the clunky design might be a calculated move to make people feel more closer to her. Spend some wild international fame abroad, and quietly retire in home turf. Sounds like a great plan.

Virtual reality = Yet another advertisement

Everybody above 3x years old remembers the first encounter with the hologram technology: Star Wars. Back then (legend has it that it happened a long time ago), hologram was used as a communication device. Watching the movie, we were collectively in awe with George Lucas's vision of the future. That's how we will be going to communicate!

(The hologram had to be updated because the antique film was severely damaged)

More than 30 years later, it has finally arrived. In a glorious pyramid shape, in colored format, titled HoloAD, stored in a coffee shop.

Some customers took a look for 10 seconds, then moved on with their chat, food, or homework. Yours truly is the only one who took a photo. Otherwise, the box is sitting still in the corner, showing repeated rounds of messages, figures, and the globe (why is it always the globe?). Aren't we supposed to get excited with the new communication tool? It feels strangely odd to meet the future that has arrived with a collective yawn, including mine. We are ignoring the potentially groundbreaking visualization tool turned advertisement, and return to our voice channels and text messages. It's not because the technology isn't awesome. It is because it is used as an advertisement machine.

This is not the first time that an innovative virtual reality technology quickly turned into an advertisement platform. AR = augmented reality is one such thing (though we still have hopes for more practical usages).

The irony is that here, a 21st century technology (virtual reality) is used in a 20th century thinking (advertisement). By all account, advertisement is certainly producing billions of income for Google. But we no longer buy things because of marketing pitches; nowadays we buy something because we already know it works, thanks to endless Web2.0 services, Twitter rumors, and online reviews.

If an offering is that good, somebody is already using it, and telling everybody so. That message might start as a personal opinion, but thanks to the inevitable publication of our personal accounts, it propagates beyond our social circles. We all are broadcasting stations, and when anybody can say anything and can reach anywhere, genuine and accountable message matters most. That is the only way to distinguish signal from noise.

Another groundbreaking prediction made in a movie, Minority Report, therefore should (I hope) see the same fate as the hologram. Die a quiet life as an advertisement scheme, and live a prosperous life as something else.

How to effectively put a warning sign

Thousands of organizations, corporates, and government agencies pour millions of dollars to teach people what to do, or what not to do. Don't stand on the gangway, buckle your seat-belt, throw away your water bottle before boarding (but you can buy the US$5 certified Evian on the flight).

Some of them are becoming so common we hardly notice. Warnings on cigarettes and beverages is one such thing--the same old sterilized warning message tucked at the end of the advertisement. I believe these safety warnings turned into safe warnings phenomenon are due to the contradiction that the government, this case Taiwanese, plays both the merchandiser's role (they sell cigarettes directly and collect tax from alcohols) and protector's role (they build hospitals and health care system from money made by selling cigarettes and alcohols). Ultimately, they want more people to buy beverages. Who can blame them?

Therefore, on locally-produced cigarettes we do not see that much of warnings as a logical consequence. Looks like it's a different story for imported cigarettes. The government has slapped much harsher warnings - with a dose of creativity - on top of their packages. Ladies and gentlemen, our government has stepped up their actions to protect the good citizens from the harmful influence coming from imported cigarettes. Let's see if those evil companies change their policy, stop importing the toxic goods, and start producing them locally.

Let's take a look at a pack of Pall Mall Silver from the US. First of all, a close-up photo of a pregnant woman's belly has been placed on top of the package. By doing this, I believe the authorities have succeeded in scaring at least 50% of the potential total population. My theory is that threatening pregnancy and children works for women as much as grabbing balls for men: game over.

 

That wasn't the end, though. Considering the dismal number of female smokers compared to the male counterpart (I will be enough of a gentleman not to dig up the real statistics), the authorities decided that another warning signal with a broader appeal was necessary, something that appeals to everybody no matter what. So on the other side of the package, they inserted this photo of a ruined heart. That works (apparently not for my smoking friends).

Doesn't it also remind us one of the many classic scenes from Clerks?

Maintaining the status quo by chasing the dream

New posts have arrived from two of my favorite bloggers: Hugh Macleud and Aaron Swartz. Their entries are always inspirational (though I still don't understand what Hugh's drawings are about) and today, one of them inspired me with an excellent question and the other answered with an equally brain-teasing reply. It is a rare synchronization moment realized by the RSS reader.

Hugh proposed a painful but practical suggestion: don't research your evil plan. Do it.

So ins­tead of get­ting on with it, they spend the next few years kee­ping their Nowhe­res­vi­lle day job, whilst spen­ding their eve­nings sur­fing the web, scou­ring the trade maga­zi­nes, researching everything like crazy, trying to get a tho­rough, small-time Outsider’s view about what the big-time Insi­ders are currently up to.

He points out that Larry and Sergey, the world's most famous geek duos, probably knew nothing about how the glamorous advertisement industry worked prior to the launch of Google Adsense, the world's biggest advertisement agency as of now. (This example is too "far off" our world but it does keep our attention)

He has a point, a huge point, but is not telling the whole story. Knowing that excessive research is nothing but realization of fear, why most of us stick to it, or even sometimes staunchly defend the value of drawing up meticulous blueprint before stepping out to do real actions?

So here comes Aaron Swartz for resque. This time he writes up about how unreliable our idea of intuition and morality is, and how we are easily affected by the surrounding culture, taking the accepted value as "the truth".

Imagine you were an early settler of what is now the United States. It seems likely you would have killed native Americans. After all, your parents killed them, your siblings killed them, your friends killed them, the leaders of the community killed them, the President killed them. Chances are, you would have killed them too, and you probably wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with this....

...I grew up eating animals. I saw nothing wrong with this. My parents ate them, my siblings ate them, my friends ate them, people on TV ate them, the President ate them. I doubt I stopped to think about the morality of eating animals any more than I stopped to think about the morality of brushing my teeth. If you asked me for my intuition, I would have said eating animals was just fine. It was only when I stopped eating animals that my intuitions began to change.

In other way, we do what we do without much question because everybody else does. We treat non-usual activities including following our own evil plans as anomalies, probably even as necessary evils. Looking back on my experience in Japan, getting off the socially accepted roles were all bundled under the label "adventurous" including starting one's own mom-and-pop store, working part-time to persuade theater projects, and living in a foreign country (cool) but burning the bridge by working in a local company (which I do). Each activity is unique with varying degrees of risk and rewards, but how come they were all tucked into a one-dimensional label?

It was not only because they knew nothing about those seemingly exotic activities, but also because there were only a handful of "normal" lifestyles accepted in Japan, and everything else was treated as "different." The belief that the accepted lifestyle speaks not only the norm but the truth is so strong, even now a majority of Japanese think Japan lost the "lifetime employment system" sometime in the 1990s due to the market crush. The truth is, even in Japan's economic heyday only 40% of all workers worked in companies big enough to provide the "open-ended" employment agreement.

We still tend to be fearful when thinking of *actually* following our dreams rather than thinking it out, even though statistically 100% of parents encourage their kids to live their dreams. But the eternal procrastination might have to do more with our standard lifestyle which is still based on adapting ourselves to our surroundings, than with our seemingly hard-wired fear.

The above thinking process lead me to an uncomfortable conclusion that after all, we won't be aware of our habits until we break ourselves out of them, which means we need to work on our evil plan sooner than later.

A happy new year

I wish everybody a happy new year. The first decade of the third millennium, which started as a bang and ended as a bust, is over. Welcome to a new day, a new life.

January 1st is one of the few occasions when slacking off is overlooked, or even encouraged, just because it happens to be the right timing. That includes taking a day off (it's a holiday anyhow), leaving cat poop in the cage (not overlooked by the cat - they poop on the bed as a revenge), leaving the toilet seat up (not overlooked by anybody with two Y chromosomes), and writing a blog post with a lame title and predictable content (as a proud writer I will graciously overlook this shortcoming).

Enough said, it's time for us to compile the new year's resolution.

For us Taiwan lovers:

1. Visit remote islands.

Taiwan has truly beautiful and exotic islands off the coast. They are almost unknown to tourists around the world, compared to places like Ko-Samui in Thailand or Bali in Indonesia. They include:

• Penghu
• Orchid Island (Lanyu)
• Green Island

Taiwan hasn't put much energy on inviting tourists on these islands*, and fortunately it has worked for us who prefer beautiful nature and (relatively) calm environment over endless parties and ruined corals. I have only been to Green Island off the above three. A true shame considering the five years here. Green Island gave me one of the greatest scuba diving moments including the first sea turtle experience. The diving spots are literally walking distance from the beach. The whole saga can go on, but it should be written in another blog entry.

* They did consider building a casino on Penghu. That plan was rejected thanks to the locals who were wise enough to avoid ruining the beautiful environment and brave enough to refuse tons of (if somewhat dubious) monetary offerings from the authorities.

2. Eat more exotic fruit.

Taiwan has quite a range of tropical fruit, all delicious, if somewhat creepy-looking. If there is one thing I urge everybody to try, it is Buddha's head(佛頭果)*. Inside the rocky-curly hairdo, a creamy-white brain with a sweet aroma and rich taste awaits you. Buy one, crack it open, and scoop the inside.

Doesn't it look like a real human head?

* Somebody already named it Sugar apple. Sometimes English is so boring.

3. Learn Taiwanese.

Learning Mandarin Chinese is so tired. While everybody is rushing for Learn-Mandarin-in-24-hours books*, we can take one step ahead by learning the Taiwanese, Hokkinen, 閩南語, or Fujian dialect spoken daily in informal conversation, especially in the South.

The best place to start catching the Taiwanese (without taking formal lessons) is on the TV, the daytime soap opera. You might have a chance to watch them while riding on a taxi or inside a noodle stand.

* It is one of the most outrageously arrogant book title one can ever think of, regardless of the language. What are the Chinese 憤青 doing? Why aren't they protesting against these tyrannial ignorance, or even better, writing a "proper" language learning material on their own?)

Personal stuff:

Here are my resolutions.

• Wake up at 6am (I made it on Dec 31st. Beat it!)
• Flush negative thoughts down at first thought using an imaginative toilet (I might be catching imaginative diarrhea all day).
• Keep one posting a day (+ at least one rewriting).
• Transform the body. Into this.