cool global BIZ

A New Era of Globalization, Cross-Border Business & Cultural Diversity

 

 

"Woman to Woman" by Julian E (Julian Escardo), under a Creative Commons license on flickr. Julian E is a photographer based in Los Angeles.

 

CoolGlobalBiz is a non-partisan blog that explores the nexus and cross-border fusion of business and culture. Feeds and links to CoolGlobalBiz can be found on Guy Kawasaki's online news directory Alltop (economics or small business), on publishers' Web sites powered by digital news curator daylife, and elsewhere. Every few generations, we're rocked by economic and cultural upheaval, from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Now we're at the cusp of another major epoch, an era of quickening change, innovation and global diversity. The seasons are turning, turning. This ain't your Daddy's economy. The world: curved or flat? No matter, the convergence of business and culture won't wane. For better and worse, the new world is here.

 

Author Neil Gaiman to College Grads: Break Rules, Make Good Art, Enjoy the Ride

 

 

Commencement address by author Neil Gaiman at the University of the Arts Class of 2012 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Video courtesy of the university. First saw this on TheStoryofTelling blog by brand strategist Bernadette Jiwa and in the blog of marketing author Seth Godin.

 

WERE YOU MOVED by the Stanford University commencement speech by late Apple CEO Steve Jobs a few years back? Then you'll love this one by author Neil Gaiman, speaking recently to the University of the Arts Class of 2012 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. His words ring true for college students and working professionals alike. "And now go," Gaiman said, "and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art." (Full transcript.)

 

On balancing his dreams and the realities of life: "Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be . . . was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal. And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain."

 

On pursuing work that he loves: "I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an adventure, and to stop when it felt like work, which meant that life did not feel like work . . . Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and reminds me . . . The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality, have never let me down, and I've never regretted the time I spent on any of them.

 

On risk and failure: "You need to be thick-skinned, to learn that not every project will survive. A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back."

 

On the problems of success: "The problems of failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder  . . . I watched my peers, and my friends . . . and watched how miserable some of them were . . . because now they had to earn a certain amount every month just to keep where they were. They couldn't go and do the things that mattered . . . and that seemed as big a tragedy as any problem of failure."

 

On creating unique, life-saving art: " . . . whether you are a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a designer . . . you have one thing that's unique. You have the ability to make art. And for me, and for so many of the people I have known, that's been a lifesaver . . . Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health . . . And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art."

 

On listening to your voice and vision: "Do the stuff that only you can do . . . Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision . . . The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right."

 

On enjoying the long journey: "I worried about the next deadline, the next idea, the next story . . . And I didn't stop and look around and go, this is really fun . . . That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places."

 

(Photo, above) Author Neil Gaiman. Photo courtesy of Neil Gaiman, on Wikipedia under a Creative Commons license.

 

 

Workplace and Career Transitions: Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em

 

 
 

"layoff conversations illustration" by HikingArtist, under a Creative Commons license on flickr. "Hiking Artist" is Fritz Ahlefeldt Laurvig, an illustrator in Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

LIVING 7,000 DAYS on the carbon-choked planet as a business journalist, writing more stories than I care to recall, qualifies me to say this: Companies rock. Companies suck.

Companies rock because they create jobs, wealth and boom economies, raising the quality of life for hundreds of millions of people. I love their brains, talent and energy. We'd be drinking well water and riding horse-drawn carts if it wasn't for the fabled capitalist drive, work ethos and innovation.

Companies suck because they're soulless creatures, snuffing those same people in their drive for earnings growth, market share and greater stock-market value. I hate their unbridled greed. And in the brutal global economy, it may get worse before it gets better.

As a former workplace columnist, I'm still disturbed by the part about crushing their troops like so many bugs. Especially when companies cultivate armies of good, faithful employees, then gut them seppuku-style and toss the bodies.

What's worse is when good, faithful employees profess to believe in their bosses or businesses. And when they get chopped or demoted, many are devastated. Why? Because many still believe in those old-fashioned virtues (loyalty, honesty, hard work, selflessness), while companies and some bosses play by different rules, a crueler game (ruthless cost-cutting, careerism, personal gain).

Companies exist, for better and worse, to make money. Many employees know this, but don't really understand it. Corporations are legal entities, not loving, caring people. Your relationship with companies is a simple contract, not a blood oath. You work, they pay you.

Unfortunately, many bosses -- even well-meaning ones -- are corporate proxies who work for the lesser good. Whether they like it or not, they're beholden to the profit gods, if anything to preserve their jobs. They may be fine, wonderful folks away from the office. They pay taxes, go to church, buy Girl Scout cookies. And that's really neat.

But in the office, those corporate proxies will do almost anything to survive. You may be a talented, hard-working bee, but you're dead meat to them. You're a big salary with a target on your back, not a good person playing by fair and honorable rules. You can't bring spirit to work in a spiritless workplace. You can't bring meaning to a business without soul.

The employees who find it hard to transition to the next stage? Those who delude themselves into believing their smooth-talking bosses and their high-flying companies. Your employer is not a "team" or a "family." Your boss is not your friend, not even an "associate." When your time comes, don't fall into that trap, that conceit. When your time comes, know when to move onward and upward.

 

(Illustration, above) "Akashi Gidayu, No 83 100 Aspects of the Moon Series" by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (1890). In the public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Asian Artists Explore Spiritual Realm in Asian Art Museum's "Phantoms of Asia"

  

 

Sun K. Kwak, a New York-based artist born in Korea, works on "Untying Space" for the exhibit "Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past" at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (May 18 to September 2, 2012). Video courtesy of the Asian Art Museum, shot and edited by Lorraine Tuchfeld Goodman.

FOR SOJOURNERS SEEKING inspiration amid the daily slog, get thee to the Asian Art Museum in downtown San Francisco to see "Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past," an exhibition of 60 new works by 31 living artists (May 18 to September 2, 2012). Much museum art is musty, dusty, static. But this globally-inspired exhibit is a dynamic blend of centuries-old tradition and Internet-era modernity that should entice young and old art lovers alike.

Korean artist Hyon Gyon explores Kubla Khan-like the mystical power of female shamans -- their flashing eyes, their floating hair -- in her oil paintings and installations. Adeela Suleman is a Pakistani artist who fuses old family tales with the horrors of her war-torn land. Her "Peacock with Missiles" is a wall sculpture of steel, showing birds and flora amid missiles rising to the sky. And Thai video artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook lectures real cadavers in a classroom on death and the afterlife. I grew up praying for the safe passage of spirits during Buddhist memorials, plus worked briefly in a mortuary, so her piece is one of the more haunting works I've watched. (See a few exhibit photos in this SF Weekly blog post.)

Allison Harding, assistant curator at the Asian Art Museum, writes in an exhibit display that the art objects should not be viewed as relics, but as phantoms whose spiritual messages can "open us up to new ways of seeing" in today's world. She also told the San Francisco Chronicle's Jesse Hamlin at the exhibit's opening in mid-May: "Where do we come from? Where are we going? . . . What is the nature of the universe, and what is my place in that unknowable expanse?"

Mami Kataoka, guest curator form the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan, writes in an exhibit display that "Phantoms" looks at how "ancient Asian understanding of the cosmos, nature and spirituality" find expression in artwork today. By opening our dormant sensibilities, she notes that "we can tap into the vast cosmological realms that extend far beyond everyday life."

Sadly, the San Francisco museum, in the heart of the beautiful city, was nearly empty when I strolled through on a recent afternoon. Even on weekdays, there should be lines of visitors. Every museum needs to jazz up their exhibits in a huge way, lure hordes of people with sexier events, and persuade older collectors that their art will die, at least in spirit, without new eyes and fresh blood. Curators already know this. Let's hope they keep public art from vanishing, so our kids can take their kids to see exhibits such as "Phantoms."

 

Marketing Pro Seth Godin: Eating Our Peas, Dancing on the Edge of Finished

 

THIS SETH GODIN kid has a future in the writing industry. Someone give him a shot. A bald-headed buddha of business, with his damn koans and Zen-like aphorisms. There you go. Title for his next best-seller: Business Buddha: How to Find Peace and Profits in a Greed-Driven World. Godin's current blog post, "Dancing on the Edge of Finished," cuts too close and dead-on to many of us, including this mad perfectionist who's never happy with his work. "The cycle of never-ending" -- nice:

 

"Before, when your shift was done, you were finished . . . Now, of course, there's always one more tweet to make, post to write, words with friends to complete . . . And that's the dance . . . For the marketer, the freelancer and the entrepreneur, the challenge is to level set, to be comfortable with the undone, with the cycle of never-ending. We were trained to finish our homework, our peas and our chores. Today, we're never finished, and that's okay. It's a dance, not an endless grind."

 

Disclosure: This blogger/journalist does not know well-known marketing expert Godin and has no financial interests or ties to his enterprises.

 

OECD: More Education, Entrepreneurship for Women Equals Stronger Economies

 

 

A new report by the Paris-based OECD reminds business leaders and policymakers that more educational and entrepreneurial opportunities for women will lead to more vibrant economies around the world. Video courtesy of the OECD. See: oecd.org/gender.

 

Have a Happy Weekend: Herb Alpert's Classic Jazz and Pop Hit "Rise"

 

 

Herb Alpert's classic instrumental "Rise," a huge global cross-over hit on the pop, disco and jazz charts in 1979. Written by Andy Armer and Randy Alpert. Courtesy of frugola92's channel on YouTube. Buy the tune on Google Play, iTunes, and Amazon MP3

 

SWEET. BABYBOOMERS SEEKING Proustian moments may recall their folks slow-dancing in the kitchen to "Rise," Herb Alpert's huge pop-jazz hit from the late '70s. Ah, Moms and Pops. Everything is perfect in this one. Who is the smiling, dancing woman? Herb Alpert's wife, I assume? And why is this video so entrancing? At 1:18, they're moving as one, in perfect rhythm and repose, until she breaks the beautiful stasis by suddenly leaping into his arms. The photographers and onlookers can't help but whoop and laugh in joy. That instant. Grace? Harmony? Equipoise? The "secret chord" that Leonard Cohen sings of, the precise moment of embarking:  "It goes like this / The fourth, the fifth / The minor fall, the major lift . . . . * So we aim for this in our real writing, to trace that still point with our clumsy little words. We always fall a tad a bit a little short, but the fun is in the trying. Happy weekend.

* KD Lang's version of "Hallelujah" during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver is an even more moving illustration of that near-transcendent rise, the swelling of voice and intent, between the fourth and fifth chords. Her voice is powerful, angelic, other-worldly.

 

 

 

Mexican Writer Carlos Fuentes Dies at 83: "If You Do Not Name, No One Will Name"

 

ROLE MODELS IN literature and journalism were scarce for me when I was growing up. Even through my 20s, as a young reporter out of college, few writers who reflected my reality were published widely in U.S. mainstream fiction and non-fiction. At first I read John Cheever and John Updike, as far from the 'hood in L.A. as I was from soirees in the Hamptons. Homeboy, Run. Then I read global writers based in other countries for inspiration. Strong, bold voices such as Salman Rushdie, Yukio Mishima, James Baldwin. One of those writers, Carlos Fuentes, the renowned Mexican novelist and journalist, died on Tuesday. If you wanna blow your mind, try reading Terra Nostra, his epic global novel to end all novels. Oddly, that morning I was digging through musty boxes in the closet when I found an old, yellowed manuscript that I hadn't touched in 21 years. Big psychological block there. The epigram I had chosen to guide readers into the manuscript was by Fuentes. It goes:

 

"What is your name? What is the name of this mountain, this river? Who are your father and mother? Who are your brothers? . . . If you do not name, no one will name."

 - Carlos Fuentes, "The Novel of the Americas: Dreaming in Spanish."

 

• Paris Review, "Carlos Fuentes, the Art of Fiction No. 68," interview by Alfred Mac Adam and Charles E. Ruas.
  
• Daily Beast, "Carlos Fuentes, Mexico's Universal Man of Letters, Dies at 83" by Mac Margolis.
• NPR, "A Fleeting Memory of Carlos Fuentes" by Linton Weeks.
• LATimes, "Carlos Fuentes dies at 83" by Reed Johnson and Ken Ellingwood.

 

 

Photo credit: Carlos Fuentes at the Miami Bookfair International, 1987. Photo courtesy of MDCarchives, under a Creative Commons license on Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

Need More Media & Business Role Models Like "The Voice" Winner Jermaine Paul

 

Singer Jermaine Paul wins "The Voice" reality show competition. Winner announced at 6:00 minutes. Video courtesy of NBC.

 

HEY, SOMETIMES THE good guys win. Jermaine Paul, a former backup singer for Alicia Keys, was chosen by America as winner of NBC's "The Voice "on Tuesday night. The man goes for broke, taking his last shot as a solo artist in the big time. He played the grace card, looking to the heavens after each song, but he did it humbly. It didn't hurt that Paul's pretty wife looked like a preacher's wife, and his cute kids looked like preacher's kids. I'm sure many of the show's 15 million viewers got misty-eyed, just like my family, when his name was called and he got too choked up to sing "I Believe I Can Fly" as the credits rolled. Sappy and sentimental? Sure. Uplifting? Yes, too. On the show, at least, he appeared to be a fine and selfless man, sharing credit, praising others, uplifting his teammates. We sure need more global role models like that in business, politics and the media.

 

• MTV, "Jermaine Paul Crowned on The Voice Finale" by James Dinh. 
• Reuters, "Jermaine Paul Crowned Season Winner on The Voice" by Andrea Burzynski. 
• Rolling Stone, "Jermaine Paul Wins Season Two of The Voice" by Dan Hyman.

 

Bellissimo! Christina Aguilera and Chris Mann Belt Out "The Prayer" on NBC's "The Voice"

 

Christina Aguilera and Chris Mann perform "The Prayer" on NBC's "The Voice." Video courtesy of NBC, on YouTube.

  

AMAZING PERFORMANCE OF "The Prayer" by Christina Aguilera and Chris Mann on NBC's "The Voice" Monday night. One striking note rarely heard on non-PBS, primetime TV: half of the moving lyrics (by Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster) were in Italian. I feared that the song might be sung all in English, given the way that networks water down everything for the masses. More, please. More genre-bending, culture-clashing, Gaga-busting, Glee-defying, Yo-Yo Ma-ing, cross-pollination. Even if it's only the lyrics. I hum Disney and Katy Perry songs while I drive. I worry about our youth. Pop tunes on YouTube get a gazillion hits; "The Prayer" only 30,000, even with Aguilera's star power. Here are the opening lyrics to "The Prayer":

 

"I pray you'll be our eyes, and watch us where we go.
  And help us to be wise in times when we don't know,
  Let this be our prayer, when we lose our way,
  Lead us to a place, guide us with your grace,
  Give us faith so we'll be safe . . . ."

 

 

 

The earlier version of "The Prayer" by Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. Bocelli and Aguilera also perform "It's Impossible" in Spanish, also on YouTube here.

 

 

 

An extraordinarily gifted Jessica Sanchez singing "The Prayer" on "American Idol" in late May 2012. All the more poignant because her military father just left to serve overseas. Video courtesy of Fox and "American Idol."

 

Chinese Visual Artist Bo Wang Looks at Cultural Clash of Tradition, Modernity

 

INTERESTING PIECE IN the Asia Society blog on Bo Wang, a Chinese visual artist with a photography project ("Heteroscapes") on his hometown of Chongqing, China. The megacity illustrates the clash of traditional culture and Western-style modernity, writes Dan Washburn of the Asia Society.

Wang has called the 2,000-year-old city of 31 million "a battlefield of transition," and the same clash likely is surfacing in every transcultural city in the world's emerging economies. The question of the 21st century will be the question of the culture line. (If you Google Bo Wang and Heteroscapes under an images search, you'll find many artists' blogs commenting on Wang's work. Good stuff.)

Last fall, the Asia Society and top-flight U.S. artists, including Yo-Yo Ma and Meryl Streep, visited China for performances and master classes. Censorship of Chinese artists and other cultural rebels has been a critical issue for decades, with little progress even as China opens economically to the world. Hopefully, walls will fall as China's markets evolve, and as a new generation of political and business leaders rise to power.

 

• Art in America, "Censorship in China."  


• New York Times' "China's President Lashes Out at Western Culture." 


• Committee to Protect Journalists, "China Shuts Out Al-Jazeera English in Beijing."