marginally subversive

The improbable that was not necessarily improbable in Mumbai

Taj Mahal hotel owner, accodin to CNN.com, had warning about the attacks in Mumbai - and specifically on their hotels.  He has this to offer:

The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, India, temporarily increased security after being warned of a possible terrorist attack, the chairman of the company that owns the hotel said Saturday.

But Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata said those measures, which were eased shortly before this week's terror attacks, could not have prevented gunmen from entering the hotel.

"If I look at what we had ... it could not have stopped what took place," Tata said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria that will air Sunday.

He continues:

"It's ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures," Tata said, without elaborating on the warning or when security measures were enacted. "People couldn't park their cars in the portico, where you had to go through a metal detector."

But apparently, these measures were removed or eased after the week's attacks.  The report also said that it seemed the attackers knew their way around - having gone through the backdoor and had the measures been in place, then these measures would have been, well, not effective.

But I don't buy it.

A friend of mine and his colleagues narrowly escaped this brutal event.  On the morning that we found out about the attacks, my friends were all concerned about him knowing that he's in India and was staying at the Taj.

And this is the explanation that we get from the hotel?  "We had measures in place - we were warned - we faltered - then they acted - too bad".

Is that supposed to mean "we did our part, too bad it didn't work"?  Is that supposed to mean "even if we did our part, it would not have worked anyway"?

He hints about the "woeful infrastructure" of the police and their response.  But wouldn't that have been a given in the first place - wouldn't that have been something that was a consideration when the warning was received and their preparations made?

Black swans, people... Black swans.

But in this case, it is not a ebony-black swan.  There was a warning, for crying out loud.  There was a warning and they were complacent - they lowered their guard down.

"We've been very complacent, because we've really not had this kind of terrorism inflicted upon us," he said.

And the warning was not supposed to be taken seriously?

Thomas Jefferson said, "The price of freedom is vigilance".

"el mas famoso" - or simply writing...

(The entry otherwise known as "Why I blog")

Blogging has been an interesting journey for me.  It somehow clears my thinking - and sometimes, whilst writing, I catch some illogicalities in my thinking.  (Although most of the time, I catch these illogicalities when I re-read and review my blog.)

At first, I thought blogging would be a way to become famous - to be "el mas famoso!" is not an entirely bad objective specially in a crowded marketplace such as my field.  But I realized that I was not really writing for anyone else but me.

It's for me to express my thoughts - to get them out of my system - and perhaps, instigate a conversation with someone who may or may not disagree.  A self-serving purpose, still - which I believe is neither good nor bad.  It is still a personal call - a personal goal - a personal blog.

And no, I probabyl won't hit my "el mas famoso" goal, but it is not so important as the power to express myself in ways that only I can do.

Seth Godin wrote about it today on his blog:

Who cares that you're not writing a mass market newspaper? The point is not to show up on a list, the point is to start a conversation that spreads, to share ideas and to chronicle your thinking. That's the work of an author, and I think rather than kissing author blogs goodbye, someone should just start a new list.

(Emphases mine)

Greed on Wall Street = Greed on Madison Ave

Image from Kagan McLeod from Portfolio.Com

Greed and Doom on Wall Street - National Business News - Portfolio.com. 
This quote from one of the unnamed interviewees caught my attention.  And it somehow got stuck in my head:

There’s a lot of big ego involved in my business; it’s about feeling smart. There’s an old cliché: Never confuse brains with a bull market. But it’s hard not to flagellate yourself when things unravel. Everyone’s very humbled.

Sounds like advertising to me.  And marketing.

When something goes really well, a brand manager or a marketing director comes to the fore and claims all the glory.  Or a creative director - or a suit - or a media planner stands up and claims that "it was all my idea, you know".

The only thing that's different is that I don't think there is such as thing as "self-flagellation" in the industry.  There's the blame-game, of course (and I guess that's pretty much the same in any industry - finance and investments included).  The brand and marketing people point to the agency.  The creative director and the team talk back and say, "The brief was bad!"  The suit says, "The creative team was prima donnas!"  And the media planner says, "There was not enough budget" - which is of course, the clients' fault.

Humbled?  I rarely see humbled ad or marketing professionals - although I do think that there is room for humility.  In fact, I think there is a need for humility in the advertising and marketing world.

Humility: I actually think it pays. 

And I honestly believe that "egonomics" - and the belief in "Brand You" - doesn't necessarily mean raising one's profile to rival that of celebrities.  Just because one talks a lot or travels a lot or has this posh office doesn't mean one is smart.  And gifted.  And blessed.

Humility.

Hmmm.

I took a major, bold step last week:  Our big-boss, the holding-company CEO, wrote a memo addressed to all the staff of the company, highlighting the achievements of the company in the past few months, the challenges that lie ahead, and why our stock price is so down.  (I think it now is under-5USD.)  I responded and told him of my views of the year ahead.

Photo thanks to DWQ Online on Flickr.Com

I emailed back and said that "Sure, 2009 is going to be a challenge of a year - and who knows what's going to happen?  But there are opportunities still in 2009 and that we should use these opportunities to strengthen ourselves and look ahead to 2010."

I also said that I believed that our efforts from 2000 till now have positioned us to come out stronger should the US markets become even far more regulated - and that we are in a position to actually come out real strong.

(I checked the analyst's estimates for the next year: P/E is at 8.34 - which is comparable to the competitors, and PEG Ratio is 0.55, versus the industry's 0.83 - which I thought was good.  These figures were as of 23rd November.  Here's the link, should you be interested.)

But more than that, I think that the company is actually on the right track: we have the right people in place (not that I have met all of them - I am still stuck in middle management... - but at least the people in most of the countries that I deal with, I have a great trust in).

Which brings me to what Seth Godin said in one of his blog entries:

"Just doing my job".  What a bogus excuse.

If you take a job, you've bought into what the company does. You're responsible.

If you work for a company headed off a cliff, hey, you're going too. The fact that you're just doing your job doesn't make unemployment any better. And if the company is hurting people or the world you operate in, it doesn't matter who told you to do it, you still did it.

Seth Godin went on and said:

It's not just your job. It's a big part of your life. And you're way smarter than you're giving yourself credit for. Speak up, change things or get out. Whining later is a low-return strategy.

I like what he said.  Again, I agree with Mr. Godin:  If you accepted a job in a company, it's become your responsibility.  No one asked you to be a part of the company you're in - and even if you feel victimized by the environ, it was still your choice to be a part of that company.  Get over it.

Make yourself heard.  Or be the change - as perhaps, Mr. Obama would say - you want to be

Or get out.

Simple.

Oh well.

(Oh - and I got a response from the CEO!  A pleasant surprise - I guess I thought I would be going into the 'junk email bin' - but it got read.  And I got a response.  And a "thank-you".  Ahh.  Little pleasures.)

forever in beta - bad or good?

Jesus Diaz writes in Gizmodo that he's had enough of bad technology and is calling for a revolution against half-baked products that are released to the public - and are forever in beta.

He writes:

... We (us - the consumers and end-users) have surrendered in the name of progress and marketing and product cycles and consumerism. Maybe those are good reasons, I don't know, but looking at the past, it feels like we are being conned. Deceived because the manufacturers of electronic products have taken our desire to progress faster and even embrace the web beta culture as an excuse to rush things to market, to blatantly admit bugs and the rushed features sets and sell the patches as upgrades.

I can't really blame him for that.  I myself dread the yellow "chevron"-like icon on the bottom right of my Windows screen: it means I have to download more updates for my Windows OS and well, be unproductive for awhile and grab some coffee.

Windows isn't the only that's got this forever-in-beta thing going on.  My Mac OS-X also gets updated at least once in a month.  iTunes, for example, gets updated with things for the iPhone - something that I don't have and have no desire of buying any time soon (unless they come up with some stronger, more compelling reason for me to buy).  QuickTime Player which I rarely use also gets updated pretty regularly.

Forever in beta: Is it really all that bad?

Granted that the yellow-chevron of Windows or Mac's installers continuous exhortations to "System Update needs your attention" is an indication of imperfections, it is also - for me - an indication of continuous evolution.

The thing is, things change so fast in our world these days.  There's always some engineer or software wizard thinking how she could improve on something in an existing product.  True, they should have thought about this before releasing the product - but then again, we don't live in a perfect world. 

"Forever in beta" or "constantly updating" is actually something that I would welcome.  I don't think it is a sign of mediocrity - rather, I see it as a sign of constant - and consistent evolution.

Of course, there are downsides to it.

But I think given the fast pace of changes that are happening - and the constant threats of viruses and hackers and all that - we don't have a choice.

Rolling out a product - particularly a software product - in a perfect state is a great thing, but I don't think it's realistic.

So I welcome "forever in beta" and "constantly in evolution".

At least, those yellow-chevrons on my Windows OS do indicate I got more time to have some coffee in the morning before I dive into my emails and the day's tasks.

in defense of the quiet and the seemingly meek

in the Philippines, we have a saying that says "an empty can makes the loudest noise when it gets kicked".  (ok, that was a really bad attempt at translation.)  i guess, somewhat akin to it is "still waters run deep".

i have been told that this is a dog eat dog world - and there 6billion people in the world.  one had better get heard.  in the cacophony of people wanting to be noticed and heard and listened to, one had better have a strong voice and staying power.

somebody told me several months ago that "this is the age of egos - my ego against your ego against other egos.  the bigger it is, the better the chances of succeeding and getting it your way.  the louder your voice, the better."

no wonder, we have more than 1/3 of the population of the world living on less than 1USD a day - they are the voiceless.

and no wonder that we don't get where we want to be.  because we think that it's the loudest, the biggest, the strongest, the widest, the meanest that will dominate.  "it's darwin's survival of the fittest... we've never escaped."

but isn't it time we did?

don't we ever get tired?

will we never get tired?

From Wired - Google May Roll Out Features That People Actually Want

From WIRED.COM: Google May Roll Out Features That People Actually Want | Epicenter from Wired.com.

"What typically happens is it is just a load of engineers producing a load of things and then refining until it finds an audience," said Stewart Smith, the strategic planning director of Google's Creative Lab in New York. "What they have never really done is to look at audiences and understand audiences and say 'perhaps there is a need over here -- let's meet that need'. Now I think they have seen an opportunity to come at it from an audience perspective and that is part of what any planners' job is -- to understand audiences.

True.  But sometimes, the audiences don't know what they want until they see it.  And that has been the Google magic: to create stuff that we never thought we'd use - until one day it becomes a part of our daily lives and we can't live without it.

Is this "business-speak" for making R&D and engineers more accountable?

I honestly hope that this doesn't stop Google engineers from being creative.
 

Singaporeans Bunker Down for the Global Financial Crisis

56% expect local economy to perform better than our neighbors

Singapore, November 6, 2008: The global financial crisis has become an omnipresent spectre for the people of Singapore. No one can escape the overwhelming media coverage of the billions of dollars being poured into the world’s financial systems by governments desperate to avoid a meltdown of their most fundamental institutions.

What does this all mean for Singaporeans? How do we feel about the crisis and what does it mean to us? What are we doing about it? What do we think will happen?

Universal McCann, a media communications agency, surveyed 400 people aged 20 to 50 years to find out some answers as we move towards the end of 2008. The survey was conducted between October 20 and 25^th.

Key results:

· 72% of the Singaporean residents expect the global economy to turn for the worse in the next six months. Only 12% were upbeat in their expectations of the global economy, believing that it will be better, and only 16% believed that it will remain the same.

· Their perspective on the local economy is pretty much correlated with this belief: 67% of the 400 Singaporeans aged 20-50 that were polled are of the belief that the local economy will also turn for the worse in the next 6 months, with only 19% believing that it will remain the same and the rest (14%) believing that it will be better.

· These negative perspectives are in line with people’s expectations of the local stock market’s performance: 68% believe that the local stock market is yet to hit rock-bottom, turning for the worse in the next six months, with only one in three (32%) believing that it will remain at least the same or grow.

· 71% say that job opportunities are going to be tighter in the next six months, and close to 60% believe prices of household and food items will be a challenge in the next 6 months.

· In the real-estate sector, 69% of people expect a decline in value in the next 6 months as the economic downturn takes its toll in Singapore.

 

Rays of Hope

While there is some negativity in the market, there are signs of confidence and hope among Singaporeans: About 64% expect their personal financial situation in the next six months to be the same or even better. Close to 70% are secure in their household financial situation, with opportunities of getting slightly better in the next six months.

In fact, Singaporeans believe that the local economy is better poised than our neighboring countries to weather the economic storm. More than half (56%) of Singaporeans surveyed believe the economy is going to fare better than its neighboring countries.

Against major economies such as the US and the UK, the epicenters of the global economic slowdown, only 21% believe that Singapore is going to perform worse than these economies. Twice this amount – 40% – believe that Singapore is going to fare better than these major economies.

 

Technorati Tags: Singapore,Economy,Economics,Global Crisis,Recession,Singaporeans,Universal McCann,Consulting

The Immediate Future of Web2.0

From Henry Blodget's latest entry on Morgan Stanley's Mart Meeker's presentation on the immediate future of Web2.0:  Blodget summarizes it as follows

Bottom line? Economy bleak. Online ad outlook bleak. Inventory glut bleak. Mobile, video, social networking, and other "undermonetized" platforms less bleak.  Eventually, dollars will follow eyeballs online and improved targeting will drive CPMs back up. 3G at tipping point. Amazon strong. A handful of companies should survive.

Here's the presentation of Mary Bleeker:

Mary Meeker Web 2.0 Presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: meeker tech)

A World of Hope

 

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there."

And with those words, I hope that indeed we create a world of filled with hope.  Hopefully, Barack Obama will be the catalyst of change that we need.  And whether we like it or not, the US remains to be one of the strongest pillars of the moden world.