Ego Libre

Maybe I am just paranoid.

Please go check out newly unveiled Microsoft Surface platform (via The Apple Blog). Cool, eh? Excepts that my first thoughts were “rip-off”. Surely Microsoft branding is reaching all time lows with their Vista, but this internal reaction surprised even myself. Why would I think that it’s a rip-off?

Because it looks almost exactly like Jeff Han’s multi-touch concept presented at TED. I feel sick to my stomach when I see a giant company like that do a product roll-out touting how ground-breaking innovative and unique their product is, especially when it is obvious that the geeks know better and this is done purely for the PR and laymen publicity. If the newspaper articles printed about Surface will not include a reference to Han’s multi-touch, I am going to be sorely disappointed.

But on the other hand, I am happy to see that Microsoft is taking this seriously. I have been saying for years now that we need to change the way we interact with computers and Microsoft surely has the marketing power to make that happen. But it’s Microsoft. We would have to wait four years to be able to be MS licensed Surface™ optimized Plays for sure tablet developed by Samsung or Acer and equipped with Windows Vista 2011 Portable Multi-touch Ultimate Edition to be able to enjoy all of it features.

Microsoft is not the answer. This is not because I am an Apple fan-boy, but only Apple can deliver such a revolutionary product. Not because they would be so much smarter, but simply because of their hold both on hardware and software to tie it together. And let’s hope they buy Han’s patent and give him proper credit when doing so.

And by the way, speaking of copyright, the Microsoft Surface™ is a protected trademark of Microsoft company and has been used here without the permission of the owner. If asked, I will take it down immidiately, I hope that no copyright holders are too annoyed about it…

I usually don’t tackle women’s problems. For one, I am not a woman and it always tends to turn into a heated debate with no clear outcome. Sex is a thing that in most cases we cannot change. Allegiance to our own sex is hard to break, but since our own perception of it is rooted in our ego, removing ego from the argument could mean that we could transcend this debate and look at it from a fresh and objective perspective.

I am not saying that I am capable of doing it, but I see the necessity of it. And how does it relate to the headline? A discussion with my girlfriend resulted in me thinking that from all that I know about feminist, they got some of their core ideas wrong. (I am not educated in specifics of feminist philosophy, so if someone is more knowledgeable on the topic, please feel free to correct me. I am mostly drawing on my studies of sociology and my general understanding and perception of feminism)

I respect all that the feminist’s have achieved in the past. Equal rights, universal suffrage, right to education and employment, these are great and respectable things. I just feel that problems started after WWII when feminist demanded equal salary. I am not saying women do not deserve to be paid equally, I am not trying to tackle the argument of unpaid housework or under-appreciation of their achievements, I just feel that the fight for equal salary is perceived as a fight for more freedom, whereas in fact, I am afraid, it actually means renewal of slavery with everybody being a bit worse off.

Now why would I say something like that? It all started after WWII in Scandinavia when labor shortages (and partly the feminist movement) has enabled women to enter workforce. Suddenly the economically active population has increased dramatically. Why? Well obviously women started to work in previously unreachable jobs and secondly others had to start being paid for watching other family’s children. Childcare has been outsourced to people who instead of doing for free and thus being exploited (in feminist words) did it for money. Fantastic plan. GDP started growing, everybody felt more equal and modern. So why should this be wrong?

Let’s jump 50 years in future. Suddenly the differences between men and women decreased even more. In fact, they are so small that many feminist have given up the fight being satisfied with the result (I do not have a direct quote, but still remember it from my Haralombos-Holborn Sociology, I can look it up on demand). But let’s apply economics here. What will inevitably happen if you increase supply of something (workforce) more then the demand (jobs available). Of course price will decrease. Furthermore, what will happen if you take two different products and homogenize them (decreasing the difference between men and women), the price for them will equalize as well. But if you follow the logic this leads to an inevitable trend - women will HAVE to work, because the salary earned by the former bread-winner will be now diluted by the respective employers between the husband and wife (in a standard relationship).

And that is where the problem lies. We end up with a situation where women used to fight for the RIGHT to work and ended up with the NECESSITY to work. Is that a more choice? Sure is. But is that the best possible outcome? I believe it is not. And that’s where I think the feminist have it wrong today. If more choice was their goal, they would not be fighting so hard for equal salaries between man and women, they would be fighting for the RIGHT to live a respectable life in any given household in any given circumstance. If one person in a household works, they should receive a higher salary then when both partner work. This is a true freedom of choice. Any partner regardless of sex may decide to work or stay at home freely without being forced to do so in order to pay their mortgage. I know that this is a very socialist view (and many will criticize me for it), but I also think that the current system is not adequate. I just believe that if the feminist start lobbying for more socialistic concepts, they would achieve their true goals more likely then with the course they are at now.

It is a very idealistic view, because it necessarily brings up the question of how to achieve this. Should the government pay partners (again, regardless of their sex) taking care of the household? Should the employers foot the bill and pay bonuses (as a proportion of a working partner’s income) to a family account? I do not know. If I would, I would start lobbying for it. The point is that I seriously doubt that equal salaries are a panacea to women’s problems. We are almost there and yet it only means that both parents must make more and more money to be able to pay for all the extra childcare, increased house mortgage and inflated food prices. Who benefits? The state with its higher GDP and economics power. What do ordinary people get? Being able to buy relatively more imported goods as a tradeoff for not spending time with their children. Governments are always looking for ways how to sustain and create growth, I just feel that feminist do not realize they are being used to achieve this goal. You give a little, you take a little…

No seriously, I understand that equal salaries will lead to more equality in general, but the truth is that from economic perspective it does not make sense to strive for it. Yes, many women’s ego will be pleased by the newfound equality, but for what price? Why is it that we have taken one of the worse thing about being a man - our famous selfishness and egos and put them as grand prices in the contest of professional life? If women really want that, they should feel free to take as much as they want. I am merely pondering if they realize what price they will be paying for it. Caveat emptor…

And if feminist’s goals is to become the superior power in this society, I say “go ahead”. Many men will sigh with relief since they will not have to be labeled as usurpers of the world and could live without the burden of collective guilt being pushed on them.

I know this is almost juvenile humor, but I just can’t resist. I have had to send an email today to a lawyer working for Morrison-Foerster. Their domain: @mofo.com

I love the fact that they had the balls to do it. Or did they simply not realize it? Maybe my favorite (yet to be created) women’s fashion brand “Vagina” still stands a chance.

Of course searching for it on Google will be a bit pointless. Maybe it should be Vaggina, it would even sounds like a Scandinavian brand

Yeah, right! Why is it that the horsepower of your car, the my-daddy-is-better-than-yours arguments, or even the size of your dick has been replaced by the number of your “friends” on MySpace or people in your LinkedIn network?

I am sorry to see this development. Not that it is anything new, but it gives the idea of a network even worse image than it had before. It appeared to me yesterday when I had a discussion with a friend on a topic of networking.

One of my Japanese friend’s is going to US for a year. I stressed to him the importance of building a network there. And the conversation turned awkward. By saying something like that, I am putting myself on the line, it is like saying: “Go ahead and be fake, pretend to be friends with people so you can use them to your advantage later on.” But that is totally wrong idea!

I tried to defend my thinking by applying statistics. Friends are rare. If you meet 100 people, 75 of them will be nice enough to talk to, 25 will be interesting enough to have a prolong dinner conversation, 10 will be nice enough to share a beer in a bar and feel at ease and if you are lucky, 5 might be interested in doing business with and finally 1 might be compatible enough that one day he or she might become a real friend of yours. And this is the key. How are you ever going to find that 1 friend, if you do not set up a network of 75 people first?

But here, I almost hear you argue: “Well if that is true, that means that if I have 4000 people in my network, I will have 40 friends instead of one, right?”

Wrong! You are forgetting Marginal cost curve. (Getting into even more trouble to apply economics on friendship creation? I guess I am a lost case

How did you meet your friends? A lot of them probably in school. In your class, which became your network. Yes, it was forced down upon you by external causes, but it was a network none the less. You had things in common, which allowed you to talk to establish a connection and subsequently have a chance to build a relationship.

And networking (virtual or real) is the same. It’s about having something in common with people and working on that thin thread of connection to build a lasting relationship. You can have a common cause with 30 people in your class, you might even pull it off for 100 in your company, but what do you have in common with 4000 people? How diluted your interpersonal connections will become?

I think networks are crucial, but be careful. Having 1500 people in your addressbook is not a network, it’s bullshit. You are past the bottom of the Marginal Cost Curve. I believe that you should have in your network only those people, that you might potentially create a stronger connection with or those that you have something in common. If you have 4000+ people in your Linkedin network, what do you have in common with them? How many personal connections can you establish? I say that if you have gotten to a point where you have several hundred people in your profile, you’d better start deleting. Select and re-think what people you really want to be surround with (even virtually). Nothing screams at me “opportunistic hooker” as a person with 4000 people in their “network”.

And God (or any other omnipresent entity) knows that I met my fair share of them. I can’t wait until one of these “friends” asks for a favor. Oh yes, my friend no. 3789 added on May 25th 2006, I would do anything for you. What’s in it for me?

It has been long time since I have elaborated on my Life Inc. The reason is not lack of inspiration, but lack of time, or more precisely prioritizing time to different projects (studying two universities is taking its toll). Today however, is different. Today, I have had another fantastic lecture, another example of exactly the thing I came to Waseda for. We have had a CEO from Livedoor Group coming to my Media Economics class today. No, of course not the infamous Horie-mon because he is in prison, but his successor Hiramatsu Kouzou.

These speeches can vary from incredibly dull through egoistic rants to enlightening experiences. Today’s lecture was on the enlightening side. Not for some ground braking information, or first hand reports of the exciting arrest and subsequent turmoil, but more on a touching personal level. It is quite refreshing to meet a Japanese CEO who is talking about hordes of suited office workers as indifferent nuns and stresses the importance of uniqueness. Please note again that this is a Japanese manager, operating a Japanese company in Japan speaking on a Japanese university.

One of the high-points of his speech was his complete dismissal of the Japanese HR practices. Apparently he never hires new graduates and instead sends them off to Sony to work there for a few years and then come back. His message in general was: “use the companies. They give you education AND they pay you for receiving it!” and added “the more companies you work for, the more educated you become. Change companies whenever necessary.” Again, this is almost shocking to hear in Japan! His focus on education was apparent throughout his speech, when he said that even though he has been CEO of many companies, he always sees it only as a learning process. It does not matter if you are a graduate or a CEO of a publicly traded company, the point is that they will give you education and money at the same time. The only difference is that when you reach the top, you should not forget to keep learning from the people below you. I am sure that working for Japanese companies such as Sony and Livedoor combined with American ones like AOL or American Express sets Hiramatsu-san apart from an ordinary Japanese managers, but still, this is strikingly counter-intuitive in the given culture. A bit like Livedoor itself…

However the main reason why I am writing all this is that Hiramatsu-san’s key life philosophy is:

I am a product. I run company called Hiramatsu Kouzou Ltd. where I am a primary shareholder and employee. I am responsible for the well-being of this company. I have to develop products, improve on them, market them and receive profits. That is the never-ending circle of life.

The steps are therefore the same as in any product development:

1. Set goals
2. Derive several strategies (A,B,C…)
3. Create actionable steps (A’,B’,C’…)
4. Execute
5. Assess
6. Repeat process in case of success, variate strategy in step 2. in case of failure.

I am sure that you can see some parallels with my own derived philosophy of progress. Once again, it teaches me one thing. I thought I was special…. I was wrong again
But that never stopped me before.