Could the Next Steve Jobs be Asian

Could the nextSteve Jobs be Asian? @benjaminjoﬀe

DISCLAIMER"•  This is a newer, richer version of my TEDx talk “Could the next Steve Jobs be Brazilian”. –  It is not about STEVE JOBS ( just a bit) –  Its purpose is to change YOUR views on cultures, Asia and innovaMon. •  Comments welcome at benjamin@plus8star.com

Quiz"Third-Culture Kid?! Do you know what a third-culture kid is?

Third Culture or Trans-Culture" “A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a signiﬁcant part of their developmental years outside the parents culture.

Third Culture or Trans-Culture" “A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a signiﬁcant part of their developmental years outside the parents culture. The TCK frequently builds relaMonships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any.”

12 years abroad – my cultural DNA" I spent most of my working life (11 years) overseas, especially in Japan, China, Living in 8 Korea and USA. My cultural DNA has become rather cgot enriched South countries and 4 civilizations, my cultural DNA omplex.

Trans-Religion"I spent most of my working life (11 years) overseas, especially in Japan, China, I have also been exposed to several religions South Korea and USA. My cultural DNA has become rather complex.

Trans-Class" Working Class BourgeoisI spent most of my working life (11 years) overseas, especially in Japan, China, And myorea and USA. My cultural DNA me become rather complex. South K social background makes has a sort of “Trans-Class”

Digital Innovation from Asia"My consulting work is about “trans-market” innovation (or “arbitrage”)

100+ Keynotes in 18 Countries"I shared ideas at a bunch of events – book me at benjamin@plus8star.com!

Advisor to Startup Incubators"I also advise startups in 5 incubators in 3 continents

Investor in Global Startups in Asia"

Since 2011" DayDeed.com “One good Deed a Day” (or “Facebook without the crap”)!This is my new project: feel free to join, it will make your life better!

My PlanA talk has to have a target!

CHANGE your ideas on Asia Nationality & Innovation FOREVERMine is to change your views fundamentally on a few things not “Obama-style”"

THE WEST! THE REST!This was my view of the world when I grew up.

30% of Earth’s land" 60% pop (4 Bln)"Turns out Asia was a bit more complex than it sounded.

China! Japan! Indonesia! Iran! Israel! North Korea! Philippines! Turkey! Singapore! Russia! …! (48 states)" Russia? Turkey? Iran? This is Asia too! Actually, another deﬁnition isA state must have a permanent populaMon, a deﬁned territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relaMons with other states (Montevideo ConvenMon, 1933) on your model looking at “Eurasia” as a whole – it only depends

Wikipedia Asia – a toponym dating back to classical antiquity – is more a “cultural concept" incorporating diverse regions and peoples than a homogeneous physical entity"Wikipedia says Asia is a “cultural concept”

Wikipedia Asia – a toponym dating back to classical antiquity – is more a “cultural concept" incorporating diverse regions and peoples than a homogeneous physical entity" Asia diﬀers very widely among and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical Mes and government systems. WTF?!? But then it says it is a mish mash of cultures varying widely

Culture Event the “Culture” part only lists a very Western-centric view: Nobels!

Wikipedia Asia was originally a concept of Western civiliza<on. It down to this: an outdated Western concept.

What fascinates me"The Life of Ideas!My hobby is looking at how ideas migrate

One useful example: the movable type!

Europe! Korea! China!Gutenberg (1450)" Metal (1230)" Bi Sheng (1040)" Invented in Europe? Not quite: 400 years earlier in China!

#0" What you know can be" wrong!First lesson is: millions of people agree on mistaken things

#1" Ideas don’t have a" nationality!Is the printing press Chinese? Lucky they did not patent it!

#2" Things can be invented" more than once!Gutenberg apparently did not know about the Chinese or Korean types

#3" Time gap can be" bridged!What would the world look like if the Chinese type had come to Europe?

它山 #4"之石 Foreign stones!， can polish !可 your jade!以攻玉 less characters, the type is more usable in Europe than China! With

Other examples!

Magniﬁcent Seven Seven Samurai (1960) (1954) Hollywood has no problem lifting ideas from other places

How about this one?

The Matrix Ghost in the Shell (1999) (1989/1995) Visual style (and more) copied from a Japanese manga and movie

Kimba the White Lion The Lion King (1965) (1994) “Even our lawyers are not that good” – a Disney animator (rumor) Hollywood loves Japan it seems

Pi (1998) This movie made Darren Aronofsky famous

Tetsuo (1989) …its visual style is heavily inspired by this Japanese indie movie

InnovaMon goes back and forth! •  Nike (USA) and Asics (Japan) •  Feiyue (China) popular in Europe! Nike used to import Onitsuka Tigers (Asics) before starting its own

California Rolls! (now served in Japan too) Japan now eats California rolls too :-)

Mobile Augmented Reality (AR) This is a mobile AR company I consulted for

Where did the idea come from? What could inspire those Dutch guys?

(Hugo Award, 2006) Science ﬁction (and very recent!)

Denno Coil / Computer Coil (NHK, 2007) And a Japanese anime series

AR Glasses This dog does not exist in the physical world Denno Coil / Computer Coil (NHK, 2007)

Dutch guys inspired by Japanese anime and US science ﬁction

#1" Ideas don’t have a" nationality!Is mobile AR Dutch? Japanese? US? Does the question make sense?

Alibaba | China’s #1 e-‐Commerce Planorm •  1999 Alibaba by Jack Ma + 17 others –  Mission: “ To make doing business easy” •  2001 Savio Kwan hired as COO –  17 years GE Medical Systems –  Target: “Sustainable long-‐term cash ﬂow” •  2010 More GE than GE? –  “The GE spirit is alive and well at Alibaba” David Wei, CEO of Alibaba.com Ideas are not just “products” but can also be management style.

Western Framing of InnovaMon The “West” hijacked the idea of “innovation”

Western Culture? •  Ancient Greece / Rome •  Chris<aniza<on (Jesus from Nazareth, in today’s Israel) •  Renaissance •  European empires •  Experiments with enlightenment, naturalism, romanMcism, science, democracy, and socialism And what is “The West” anyway?

Summary •  Ideas are everywhere! •  Asia contributes too •  Stereotypes get in the way Unlearning is the hardest part

Civilizations"Western! Chinese! Muslim! Indian!Orthodox! Japanese! African! Latin American! The way I see the world today: civilizations & ecosystems

Emergence of"Digital Civilizations! And the emergence of “digital civilizations”

Foreign vs. Natives" Baidu" Softbank" NHN" Yandex" Google" Alibaba" Rakuten" Nexon" Mail.ru" Facebook" Tencent" DeNA" Amazon" Netease" Gree" eBay" Sina" Priceline" Yahoo!" Salesforce" Zynga" Liberty Interactive" LinkedIn"The majority of the largest 23 Internet companies in the world are not US and don’t care about US!

Rebranding of Innovation" YES" SIMILAR?! COPYCAT!! NO" DISMISS! YES" SUCCEED IN IT’S AMERICAN!! USA?!Anything not successful in US is dismissed, or rebranded if successful

Nationality is a BRAND" Made in > select country <!Yep. “Designed in Cupertino” by people from everywhere!

No Direct Equivalent!The reality is that even “copycats” are always different: brand, marketing strategy, payment system, design, etc.

Local Champions" Which gives a chance to local champions to beat “global” ones

Advantage: Locals" . Cultural ﬁt" . Market knowledge" They have 2 key advantages

5C’s of Innovation™" 1.  Copy" 2.  Competition" 3.  Constraints" 4.  Combination" 5.  Context"And can innovate due to ecosystem factors

Learning from the Game Industry"The gaming industry is pretty dynamic and interesting to look at

Tencent’s QQ | Made for China" Tencent is a great example of “5C’s” at play: IM with virtual goods and prepaid cards

Leapfrogging"Differences in ecosystems allow leapfrogging

MODERN is not WESTERN And modernization does not equate Westernization

Micro- Multinationals"Another opportunity is for tiny companies to be global from anywhere

Skype made in Estonia, Spotify from Sweden, Angry Birds from Finland

UberStrike by Cmune | Made from China" Top 3D Game on Facebook and Mac OS!"

BoomZap | No ofﬁces!"50 staff making casual “point-and-click adventure games”. No ofﬁce.

One (million) more thing(s)!!

Mass Customization"Beyond the web, there is tremendous opportunity in new products

Product Innovation" . Design" . Financing" . Production" . Distribution"Crowdsourcing, Kickstarter, online stores are changing the way things are invented, made and sold

Asia do it for the kids.Being in a emerging market has the enormous advantage of optimism

Advantages?!What’s left in the West? We often hear about education…

I think it’s largely over-rated

But the “cheering culture” of the US is a very strong advantage

Whereas in France we like to criticize, and in Germany even make fun!

Pop Quiz!! Yeah!

Who is this?

Freddie Mercury Born Farrokh Bulsara (GujaraM: ફારોખ બસારા‌) in Zanzibar The Queen frontman grew up in India.He brought Bollywood style before we had a name for it!

How about this guy? Looks somewhat middle-eastern, eh?

Steve Jobs Son of Joanne Carole Schieble & Syrian born Abdulfatah "John" Jandali (Arabic: ‫ )ﻋﺒﺪاﻟﻔﺘﺎح ﺟﻨﺪﻟﻲ‬ Well, he’s half-Syrian by DNA

If you read it, it’s for you." “China searches for the next Steve Jobs” “Why the next Steve Jobs will be Asian” I picked a couple of articles talking about Asia and Steve Jobs

China searches for the next Steve Jobs?" = “China is coming and it scares us”" = “At least we are still more innovative”" What is “China”?" What means “us” and “we”?" What is “innovative”?" The FT one is mostly reinforcing US scares of China, and delusions of “owning” innovation

Why the next Steve Jobs will be Asian" The United States is losing its near- monopoly on entrepreneurship by forcing its educated Indian and Chinese immigrants to return home. = The next “Steve Jobs” is going to be US-educated"= Country of origin does not matter" The Inc. one is mildly better, as it recognizes immigrants as a key source of US innovation

Why the next Steve Jobs will be Asian" –  “Steve Jobs lectured Obama on how much easier it was to stat a business in China than in the United States.” –  “The U.S. near-‐monopoly on entrepreneurship is over. The next entrepreneur to lecture a President may well do it in Mandarin or Hindi.” = Importance of ease of starting a company! = Still stuck in the “national” mindset and numbers!But it is still stuck in a weird mindset: US-educated foreign entrepreneurs will speak perfect English on top of Chinese, Hindi or whatever else is their country of origin.

4 Unusual Things I Noted" About Steve Jobs!I found 4 things I believe were very formative for Steve Jobs

#1 Calligraphy"Calligraphy (incl. “Asian”) formed his esthe<cs “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had mulIple typefaces or proporIonally spaced fonts.” Exposure to non-tech stuff, and esthetics

#2 Trip to India" He went on a long trip in a special place Jobs lew India awer staying for seven months and returned with his head shaved and wearing tradiMonal Indian clothing. A long special trip that helped open his eyes and expand his views

#3 LSD" He experimented with new percep<ons "Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life.” “Bill Gates would be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once.” If you don’t “drop acid”, try drawing or playing music by ear :-)

#4 Meditation" He meditated a lot Jobs also was a serious prac<<oner of Zen Buddhism, engaged in lengthy meditaMon retreats at the oldest Sōtō Zen monastery in the US and maintained a lifelong appreciaMon for Zen. He took time to let his ideas calm down and stronger ones emerge

How to be a Steve Jobs (draft)" . Curiosity" . Unusual experiences" . Opportunistic" . Minimalist comfort" . Do!"I believe those are key elements to become a Steve Jobs

“Let a thousand Steve Jobs bloom!”! 史蒂夫运动"I actually think there will be not one but 1,000 Steve Jobs soon. Will we recognize them for what they are?

Thanks!"DayDeed.com will bring you love!" benjamin@plus8star.com! or @benjaminjoffe! Drop me a line if you have comments- Sign up to DayDeed to help your friends!

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Could the Next Steve Jobs be Asian

by Benjamin Joffe on Feb 05, 2012

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