Aftershock…

I’m in Narita airport on a layover to Singapore.  I slept about 8 hours on my flight here from DC, so I am only moderately loopy at this point.

Happy to report at least the area here shows no ill effects from what was otherwise a serious rattle.  Brings to mind a great Murakami collection, After the Quake.  Again though, a giant battle between Frog and Worm doesn’t seem looming to keep me from boarding my next flight.

Personally, this will be my first trip to Singapore.  A short one.

Mother of all business trips coming to an end

For me, this was easily the longest business trip I’ve had.  Probably one of the more interesting as well.  Since March 27th, I’ve roughly split time between Hong Kong and Tokyo.  About half the days in Hong Kong included a day trip in and out of Shenzhen.  All in all, we kicked off a few new customer designs, and furthered our engagements with a couple new, key, manufacturing partners.  Momentum is starting to build in the marketplace for our products, which means it won’t be long before I am back again.  I’ll probably have some time back in the states to recover from jetlag, and catch up on my mail/bills/expense reports.  Then it’ll be another tour back in these parts.

I can feel the weather starting to transition out of Spring and into Summer.  HK is sticky once again, and Tokyo is on the brink of monsoon season.  This was the perfect time of year to be travelling throughout Asia, probably won’t be able to say the same about next month.

Canada makes a case for the argument that size matters

My favorite ski resort is going mental, in a good way.

Whistler-Blackcomb is building a ridiculous gondola that will connect the two peaks of their gigantic resort.

Some facts that make this yet another man-made marvel:

1. 11 minute ride peak-to-peak
2. 3.5 time longer than Golden Gate Bridge
3. Higher than 4.5 Statues of Liberty
4. Peak altitude above ground 415 metres
5. Longest unsupported cable-span, 1.88 miles.

Can’t wait to go up there and shit my pants.

The knack for bumping into sports greatness…

My long-time friend, Adam, and his wife Danielle, have this uncanny knack of bumping into sports greats, and somehow being non-creepy enough to snap a photo with them.  Just today, I get this emailed to me, because Adam knows for me growing up, Cal Ripken, Jr. was the MAN.

That’s Danielle, his wife, and their lovely daughter Ilana (who looks thrilled by the way).  Wow, Cal looks… er… uh… mature?  Seriously, I am one to talk…  you da man, Cal!  Please buy the O’s, manage them, and bring some joy back into Baltimore Baseball… please!

But that’s not all, just over a year ago, Adam sent me this…

Once again, Danielle, and HER hero, Doug Flutie.  This time in Logan airport.  Flutie was also one of my dad’s favorites… he wrote about this snapshot, and more here and here.

I also have a funny story of Adam giving a shout out to Eric Davis in the airport from back in college… funny.  But Eric was only so good, so no photo for you!

But this post ain’t all about Adam and his trigger-happy photo-finger.  I have my own brush with sports greatness, not that I am one to get star-struck… seriously.  But I was passing through Rio de Janeiro with some friends and we bumped into none other than…

Ronaldo… yeah, that Ronaldo.  Very cool guy.

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!

I am a post-CES-zombie

Just got back from CES.  Vegas, baby, Vegas.  I have about 2 parts love, and 20 parts hate for that town.

With three and a half days of intense presentations, technical discussions, and sales & marketing mania, I can honestly say that this is going to be an amazing year for us. The feedback we received on our technology was mind-blowing. What can I say, when you have good stuff, people notice.

So for four nights, I totalled 15 hours of sleep. I am wrecked.

In the coming days I will post some impressions I received about what technologies and trends will be fueling the user experience for the next year or two. There is a lot of noise to sort through after the show, but I can think of a few concepts outright that stuck with me…

1. Internet in, satellite out – I just don’t see any compelling reason for satellite radio or satellite television any more. It’s an expensive network, and there is nothing defensible about it’s content… It’s dead. Goodbye. Portable audio players with wi-fi, and connected speakers and radios that access internet radio and online media are the future. See Sansa Connect. Zune should follow.

2. Wireless in, wires out – Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will continute to be in everything, PCs, mobiles, portable audio players, cars. Mind you, Bluetooth still promises more than it can deliver, but the marketing machine is too powerful, and the mobile handset numbers are just too attractive to speaker-makers and automakers. Also, Atheros, Marvel, and Broadcom are making 802.11 chips with less and less power consumption, and applications for audio and video transport are compelling, if not a bit pricey for now. Like it or not, standards are useful. My only appeal relates to my next point, and that is, if you are selling me a device that does audio and video… and includes one of these standards… don’t underdeliver what its capabilities promise… if you use a standards-based wireless technology, give me the benefits of its bloat. If you give me BT, make it do headset, A2DP, and data… seemlessly. If you give me Wi-Fi, make it do streaming audio/video, VoIP, and feed-widgets, seemelessly. If you can’t offer me this, I am paying too much, and getting short changed on experience — by definition.

3. Killer-experience in, feature-spam out – Consumers demand a good experience. Ease of use. Robustness. There is fatigue and cynicism now about devices that are long on features and short on “f*ck yeah!” great experience. Stuff has to just work! Product makers, quit yanking our cords… more on this in future posts…

Shanghai Maglev

One of the more surreal things I’ve experienced. This puppy connects Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport with downtown’s Longyang Road Station, and in seven minutes transports you over 30 km. It tops out at 431 km/h (267 mph), which this video I took proves.  Yes, that is normal speed.  I know of no other system that lets you experience this kind of speed, on the ground.  You could approach it with something like a Bugatti Veyron or F1 car, but for $6???  No way.

It’s a little unnerving when you realize you are basically in a missile, and free to walk around without being locked down in a five-point racing harness.

For a more in depth article, check out  Wikipedia.