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What’s So Special About You? (by Paul W. Smith)

Mountains are special.  “Climbing the mountain” is a long-standing metaphor for tackling a challenge in life, and reaching the summit is a common euphemism for achievement.  “The view from the top”, we are told, is priceless. If you can’t afford a home with an ocean view, a mountain view is the next best thing.  If mountains of paperwork overwhelm you, a weekend in the mountains may be just what you need.

The mountain of all mountains is Everest, positioned in the Himalayan chain with its peak on the border between China and Nepal.  In May of 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first humans confirmed to have reached the summit.  Twenty-five years later, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler reached the peak without supplemental oxygen, an astonishing achievement given the physical challenges of climbing at 29,029 feet.  Securing his legacy as the greatest climber ever, Messner did it again without oxygen bottles in 1980, this time solo.

Another 21 years had passed when Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person (and so far, the last) to summit the world’s highest peak.  Although I once had the privilege of chatting briefly with Erik at a wedding reception, I will never be a climber.  When we owned a ski condo in Colorado, just carrying groceries up one flight of stairs left me gassed.  The altitude was 9,000 ft.  I was too embarrassed to use supplemental oxygen.

Brand (un)Building for Dummies (by Denny K Miu)

For those of us who sell taps to government agencies to enable monitoring of data networks, the event unfolding since last week is very interesting.

One irony for me from both technical and personal perspective is the fact that while NSA was one of my favorite customers, the whistleblower in question chose to escape to Hong Kong where I had lived as a boy.

Among the many issues that the popular media got wrong is the assertion that Hong Kong is part of China, in order to support a possible conspiracy angle given how the leak occurred just three days before the premier of China were to meet our president.

Hong Kong is part of China but not an integral part. Hong Kong was a British colony until fifteen years ago when it was returned to China under the promise of "One country, two systems." Hong Kong has its own independent judicial and legislative system even though it cannot hold free election.

Choking Hazards (by Paul W. Smith)

After many months of preparation, anticipation, repetition, frustration and perspiration ad lassitudinem, it’s finally time for that coveted job interview (professional exam, audition, tryout…).  The best advice I can give you is this – “Take a deep breath, relax, and just remember one thing - your entire future hangs in the balance.” 

My father was a professor of speech and drama, and he would always advise me that a little nervousness before a public speaking opportunity is a good thing.  The additional adrenaline is nature’s way of raising your awareness and enhancing your performance, or so he would say.  The key is preparation and practice, which supposedly lead to confidence.  There are also dozens of additional little tricks routinely used by experienced presenters, although I can’t say that picturing the audience naked has ever done me any good. 

Speakers, test takers, athletes – everyone has experienced performance anxiety, and each of us has had some version of “That Dream.”  Mine goes something like this.  Sitting in a large audience, I am suddenly introduced as the speaker.  Accompanied by polite applause, I rise and walk toward the stage.  My heart pounds and my legs grow heavy as I realize that I don’t know any of these people, and I have absolutely nothing to say to them.  Frozen in terror, my mind is like a spotless white board, ready for an outpouring of profound thoughts.  None are forthcoming.

The popular term for this intense moment in time, where fight-or-flight hormones begin their checklist by hitting the erase button, is “choking.”  Sports are disgracefully fraught with examples of choking.  Teams lose games they are expected to win, often due to players muffing plays they should be able to make in their sleep.  One of the more famous examples is first baseman Bill Buckner’s choke heard ‘round the world in the 1986 World Series. 

 

Rocks, Hard Places and Everything In-Between (by Paul W. Smith)

 

In the opening scene of “My Favorite Martian”, the technical mojo of Caltech/JPL/NASA comes mano a mano with the ultimate objective, Martian rock One-One-Niner.  After conquering 352 million miles of space, the fictional Mars lander runs out of power just as it rolls up to its target.  As the scene wraps, the voice of Mission Control is heard rationalizing the 5 years and $3 trillion dollars that were spent.  We saw lots of nice little rocks along the way, the voice intones, so what does it matter if we came up short of the big one.  The titles roll, the camera pans upward, and a bustling Martian metropolis comes into view.

Rocks like One-One-Niner are a lot more interesting than you might think, even if you are not geologically inclined.  Rocks have been part of life, both metaphorically and concretely, for a very long time.   Clement of Alexandria wrote of a fellow named Simon, born around 1 B.C.  It seems that Simon was hanging out with a Jewish carpenter who decided to change this humble fisherman’s name to Peter.  Wisely, Simon went along with it.  The name comes from the Greek “petra”, meaning “rock”.  Simon, aka St. Peter, went on to become a legendary example of leadership and devotion. 

Since those days there have been many noteworthy rocks, including a wrestler/movie star (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), a movie about a prison (“The Rock”, starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage) and even a household pet.  There are numerous versions of “Rock of Ages” , including a movie (which Tom Cruise should be ashamed of), and a song title for both a Christian hymn (1775 by Reverend Augustus Toplady) and a rock and roll song (1983 by Def Leppard).  Without rock there would be no rock and roll, and Freddie Mercury would have nothing to do to you. 

5 Things Everybody's Looking For (by Paul W. Smith)

My 5-month old granddaughter has reminded me of more essential truths about life than I have room for here.  Like all humans, she has certain basic needs.  She also has a very limited set of communications skills.  When she is not crying, it is safe to assume that she has everything she is looking for.  When she screams, it is due to one of the following: 1) hunger, 2) a dirty diaper, 3) illness, 4) sleepiness or 5) insecurity.  As she gets a little older, we hope to eliminate number 2.

I’ve observed over the years that everyone has unique needs that seem to determine how he or she behaves. Some are pleased just to get their 8 glasses of water each day, while others of us need chocolate and red wine.  Some people need to be socializing all of the time, while there are those of us who are perfectly satisfied with a quiet night and a good book.  Some people always seek control, while others go with the flow.   There are those who are satisfied just to make it to another day, while some sense that there must be more.

Sweet dreams are made of this

Who am I to disagree?

I travel the world and the seven seas

Everybody's looking for something*

Long before Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart made this musical observation, American psychologist Abraham Maslow published his trademark “Hierarchy of Needs.”  For Abe, the psychoanalysis du jour began with the assumption that everyone is basically two pounds of symptoms in a one-pound bag.  Maslow believed that people aren’t just mindlessly responding to various inputs, but are truly seeking something greater.  Healthy humans, he observed, will instinctively prioritize five basic categories of needs in a pyramid of goals, starting with the physiological essentials and building toward the pinnacle of the sublime. 

If you never have to deal with human beings in or out of the workplace, you can stop reading here.

Geeks and Toys (by Christian Reyes)

If you miss today's show, you miss history in the making. We started the show with the idea that we will focus on #geeksandtoys and as usual, everyone had prepared their own slides. Halfway through the show, we realized that we would never be able to get to anyone else's slides. We spend more than an hour talking about only what +Christian Reyes had learned from the recent #mobileworldcongress. So next week we will play a new game, combining Russian roulette and musical chairs. +Christian Reyes will point his finger and decide whose slide to present but everyone would have to be equally prepared.

Your Future is Not What You Think (by Paul W. Smith)

Time is one of those things that is always on everyone’s mind.  We never have enough, we fret about wasting it, it passes slowly when we are bored and flies when we are enjoying ourselves, and we have no idea when ours will eventually run out.  We talk a lot about making time, which is absurd when you think about it.  Einstein bundled it into space-time and secured his place in history by writing equations that everyone admires, but no one understands. 

Time comes in three varieties, each with its own unique persona.  The past plagues us, giving birth to things like regret, and rarely teaches us as much as it should.  Historians make their living recording and observing the past, while time passes slowly for those compelled to study it.  Dwelling there excessively can lead to expensive 50-minute consultations with a trained professional.

 The present barely exists at all; it is a brief flicker dividing past and future, both of which are infinite and unique.  It is like the limits we struggled with in freshmen calculus - a threshold where past collapses into future until there is nothing to separate them.  People who make their living motivating others exhort the benefits of living here; there is seductive power in a “now” that sells over 3 million copies. 

 The future torments us in its own cruel way, inflicting worry and anxiety over stuff we cannot control or predict.  The earth will turn, the sun will rise, and Monday will give way to Tuesday.  God only knows what will happen in the meantime, and He’s not telling.

 The ability to see the future is a persistent theme in the movies.  In It Happened Tomorrow (1944), a young newspaperman comes across a magical source of the next day’s edition.  He is giddy with excitement over the limitless potential of his newfound discovery, until one day he turns to the obituaries and finds his own name.  Seeing the future is risky when we feel powerless to change it.

Sunday Buzz: Think Indifferent (by Denny K Miu)

It wasn't that long ago, about fifteen years, after Steve Jobs had triumphantly returned, that Apple was still a dying company. Only less than 3% of the personal computers sold annually were made by Apple. Michael Dell famously said that if it were up to him, he would simply “shut the company down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

But yet, as true then as it is now, Apple had devoted followers, especially among the self-appointed elites who were willing and could afford to pay the premium, otherwise known as the "Apple Tax." It was something that the rest of us who hadn't drunk the kool-aid would never understand.

Back in the mid-90's, I was struggling with my first startup and I had to constantly visit venture capitalists for possible investment. One day I was in a VC's office and I noticed that he had an expensive Apple portable computer, a PowerBook, sitting inside a cradle on his desk and connecting to an even more expensive large monitor. To start conversation, I asked him why he would use an Apple computer as opposed to Windows alternatives which were cheaper, faster and had more available software.

Cyber Safety for Kids (by Haley, Dillon and Dwayne Jones)

This video was produced by Man'ority Report

As Casey (+Emory Mullis) said after the show, the days when parents could protect their kids by simply saying NO are over. This is especially true with Internet. What makes #cybersafetyforkids an even more difficult subject is that most parents themselves are not familiar with the danger and the proper safety measures. It would be like teaching our kids gun safety when we ourselves have no such knowledge or worse yet, when we don't even believe in having free access to such devices. This is an important and interesting topic and one worthy of continuing discussion. To that end, we have started a Google Plus Community. Please join and allow us to educate each other.

Life's a Pitch (by Mike Le)

Live interview with +Mike Le, creator and co-producer of K-Town.

We talked about many things today: passion, enthusiasm, vision, communication, perseverance, sincerity, authenticity, dealing with rejections, victimhood, discrimination, success, opportunities, immigrants, reality TV, etc. Interestingly, we never used the phase "entitlement". How did he survive in Hollywood? +Mike Le was less than a year old when he came to America. His parents escaped communism to built a new life in America. Mike grew up as the token Asian in Minnesota. He was a model minority until he decided to drop out of college. How did he rebound from the daily rejections? Simple. He never felt that he was "entitled." For more, visit manority.tv.