Great shot…

Wikipedia is doing some cool things with photos… I found this one on here

It is pouring some hellish kinda rain with thunder, lightning, the works. Doesn’t come down like this in Portland. In fact, I’ve not seen a sunny sky like this picture shows in all the days I’ve spent here. I don’t think this time of year lends much hope.

Good facts on Hong Kong’s complicated history here.

I’ve chosen the food and nightlife of HK over Shenzhen at the price of a 100 minute commute for meetings with our manufacturing partners. Worth it so far. Quite easy actually. I take the KCR fron Tsim Sha Tsui to Lo Wu, then go through HK immigration, then China immigration, then a quick 5 minute walk to the Shangri La Hotel lobby to meet a company car that takes me to the factory. In the process, I’ve got an Octopus card, a stash of Entry-Exit forms for both China and Hong Kong that I fill out on the train, which all serve to the make the commute quite manageable. Helps that my Blackberry lets me keep up on email through it all. I also picked up a new SoftBank 3G phone that will keep me connected whereever I roam in Asia. So I am more or less getting connected enough to get around.

Had some great Korean food today. Go figure. Also, the Starbucks on the corner is like an Asian filter. You walk in there, and the demographic mix instantly seems more Chicago, than Kowloon.

Navigating…

So my posting hiatus has largely been driven by my manic state of living of late.  After getting back from my Asia-hopping tour in February, I spent about a week sick in bed recovering from some kinda nasty bug, no doubt contracted by bad Taiwanese Pizza Hut, or too much airplane cabin air.  Either way, it was unpleasant.  I still haven’t quite figured out how to completely avoid the bugs when in Shenzhen or Taipei.  Guys at work have taken to call me the Asia-Boy-in-the-Bubble… wishful thinking!

So I barely recovered from my bug, and the jetlag, and then I had to go back to Tokyo for a week.  Just returning a few days ago.  I love Tokyo.  So much great stuff to do there.  I miss the big city.  My good bud from college lives in Tokyo now, so hanging out there, meeting many smart, cool folks along the way is a refreshing addition to the work.  Speaking of the work!  Holy cow.  So much fun.  In and out of some of the largest and most famous consumer electronics giants.  Scoping opportunities and generally spreading the word about our company.  For a guy who spent most his childhood lusting after gadgets, pulling them apart (and never getting them back together), and definitely respecting the overall design and build quality delivered by the Japanese giants, it was just plain fun to be in there and meet the engineers who make the magic.

It’s amazing how one does business in electronics these days.  The marketing models vary so much product to product, company to company, country to country.  The involvements to nail down a design win for a chip company today include a mix of retailers, product managers for branded OEMs in North America, development managers for the branded OEMs’ Asia branch offices, manufacturing reps, distributors, contract manufacturers, ODMs and their partner ODMs and CMs… yikes!  Each deal requires engagement of a different mix.  It’s an education to be sure.

It is tough being a young company in this ecosystem.  One should try to identify the big opportunities to try and leverage ones limited resources.  But at the same time, one is compelled to diversify opportunities with respect to time-to-market and risk.  So inevitably, it’s not long before one ends up touching all the possible parties anyway.  Effort elasticity is high.

Some product categories would really benefit from some value chain optimizing.  As technology trends have shifted, centers of design expertise tend to get spread among increasing parties.  Often the interfaces of these organizations span the globe and are wrought with inefficiencies.  I hope to write about some particulars in the future… but for now, I still gotta work a few things out.  Which is why I will no doubt be back over there in the coming months.

Shenzhen has a lot of good things going on…

but it’s microbe density is too rich for my blood. I’ve been there 3 times, and it’s gotten me three times. Projectiles in all directions… nuff said.

I’m trying to get some work done before the New Year.

Saturday, I am leaving on a romp around APAC. I’ll be hitting Hong Kong, Shenzhen China, Tokyo, and Taipei. Just a couple weeks before Chinese New Years, it’s a chance to sure up some projects and make sure the hiatus doesn’t make efforts stale.

I’ll be able to visit some customers, some suppliers, and some sales folks. Should be a good tour. Anxious to get out there and kickstart some cool products!

Kathy Sierra of “CPU” antes up worthwhile questions… I’ll bite

Creating Passionate Users, usually thought provoking, poses some interesting questions that more marketers, friends, individuals should know about others. Rather than the normal survey blather, questions like these can tease out something you didn’t know, but maybe ought to…

Seems to me like an interesting thought exercise, which is about as complicated as I can muster in the wee hours…

0) What’s your name and website URL? (optional, of course)

Micah Collins, http://alivematters.wordpress.com

1) What’s the most fun work you’ve ever done, and why? (two sentences max)

Defining an innovative new product for my current company during its startup… because I was able to learn, draw on experience, and work on product that my family and friends will use (very soon).

2) A. Name one thing you did in the past that you no longer do but wish you did? (one sentence max)

Play baseball.

B. Name one thing you’ve always wanted to do but keep putting it off? (one sentence max)

Build a race car and race it.

3) A. What two things would you most like to learn or be better at, and why? (two sentences max)

(1) Surfing, so I could be in better shape and have a bona fide excuse to live near the beach. (2) Practice patience, so I wouldn’t drive myself nuts so often.

B. If you could take a class/workshop/apprentice from anyone in the world living or dead, who would it be and what would you hope to learn? (two more sentences, max)

Tough one… hmm… what does this say about me that I can’t answer quickly… ok, seeing as I was already fortunate to learn how to be a good man from my dad, I would say, I’d love to chill with Jesus for a bit to see whether he thinks the world today is really just tied up like bollocks…

4) A. What three words might your best friends or family use to describe you?

(1) Funny. (2) Smart. (3) Handsome. What can I say, I know they love me.

B. Now list two more words you wish described you…

(4) Happy. (5) Respected.

5) What are your top three passions? (can be current or past, work, hobbies, or causes– three sentences max)

(1) Family. (2) Making difficult things look easy. (3) Having a good idea early.

6) (sue me) Write–and answer–one more question that YOU would ask someone (with answer in three sentences max)

What would be two things (one practical, one fanciful) you could observe in your lifetime that would restore (or sustain) your faith in humanity?

(1) Practical: Landing a man on Mars.  (2) Fanciful: Free market solution to eliminating demand for fossil fuels.

Cheers.

Kaboom… in Beaverton, Oregon

There’s been enough stories about the power outages in Washington and Oregon related to our recent winter weather.  An explosion occurred at a switching station in Beaverton last night to, literally, add fuel to the fire.  Repercussions from the disruption led to power outages stretching from surrounding areas, all the way to downtown’s Pearl District.

This picture, taken by a coworker was a view of the aftermath from our office’s parking lot.  About as dramatic a sight for suburban Portland as you’ll find.

I’m a fan of gapingvoid

If you haven’t read Hugh MacLeod, you are missing out. His cartoons are cutting, and often times brilliant. There is a pulse he feels that resonates strongly with this author.

His articles How to Be Creative and the Hughtrain, are must reads for anyone in marketing or involved in an entrepreneurial venture. They are worth reading if you seek an intelligent laugh too.

He’s been getting quite some nods recently, and his blog gapingvoid is as popular as ever.

His thoughts on viral marketing are crisp, and his focus on authenticity and transparency are inspiring. Relavent ideas for the times.

Is blogging habitual?

For me?  Not sure.  I’ve dabbled with blogs now for over three years.  My first blog used Blogger in the Summer of 2003.  I used it mainly as a travelogue to share my intership experiences with my family and friends, and to geek out while documenting my impression of living abroad in a interesting place, Brazil.

Then about a year later, I helped outfit my dad with a blog to satisfy his writer’s itch.  A gift he had, and made a living from, but since entering retirement, needed an outlet, an audience, and his Typepad blog proved just the thing.  For two great years he wrote quillnews, and boy was he terrific.  It inspired me to help him tweak and adopt the latest layout tricks of the trade, as well as establish a professional looking site that developed a loyal readership, and created a few homerun articles that to this day still appear high on the Google search results.  His punditry was balanced with a good natured edge and savvy that ended up being a unique and welcome voice to many readers.  My father passed away earlier this year, but a big part of his legacy was his written works.  I continue to host quillnews, and one day may decide to contribute to it.

For now, I will press forward on WordPress.  Again to satiate my inner geek, but also to see what I can make of this newfangled blogging apparatus.  So I hop out of the navigator seat, and back into the pilot’s roost.  Perhaps some years gone by and some challenges that stretch out before me will inpire my blogging effort to be less geek and get to chic.