me, 2.0: some more thoughts about KL

me, 2.0: jose nazario beauty and the street

some more thoughts about KL

http://monkey.org/~jose/figs/kl-hotel-window.jpg

a composite image taken from my KL hotel room showing part of the city. everyone i met in KL has been kind, generous, gracious, and truly interesting. they have so much to offer on so many levels, share it freely, and for it i am luckier than i could have imagined. a big thank you to everyone.

if my thoughts after this recent trip to malaysia and reading on global economies are right, our economy wont survive, the american dinosaur will simply follow that same path and become extinct or simply outmoded. dinosaurs had tiny brains, and damn if we don't have a teeny one as a nation as well. economically speaking, i think america is akin to a large, giant business like IBM, Xerox or general motors. these are all striking examples of businesses that failed to adapt quickly and faced failure, some closer to that total failure than others at various times. granted, an economy like malaysia or taiwan is smaller and can afford to be more nimble, but they're well funded, smart and have the intelligence to recognize, to borrow a phrase from wayne gretsky's father, "where the puck will be". just like a well funded start up with minds to match can excel, so can these nations and regions.

i have seen the future, and it looks a lot like KL, and much more so than tokyo does. KL is culturally diverse yet these features are preserved at the root, technologically savvy on all levels, and the usual great disparity between rich and poor still exists. it looks less and less like america every day, and the stale model of being xenophobic simply will result in failure. people in KL (and indeed most of the rest of the world) are very global in thought. the region is shaping up to be far more important than as an "emerging market", a view that itself shows western arrogance. the future may lie in economic regionalism, far beyond NAFTA and the EU, but to succeed cultural security will have to be preserved. that's a point poorly articulated by terrorism, but just as important i think. and one totally misunderstood by most of the western powers.

some of the people i've already talked to about this, most i would say, think i'm sort of paranoid doomsday fanatic. i'm not. i'm not saying "go out and learn mandarin, your next boss will be speaking to you only in mandarin ..." i remember in the 80's when we were all told to learn japanese, they were going to directly run our economy. i'm not saying that sort of thing at all. i'm only saying that people who understand the true implications of globalization and where the power is likely to ultimately lie will succeed. everyone else will fail, insisting their failed world views are still valid.

these are the sorts of things that are on my mind after this last week. we'll see how i continue to shape them, learn, and use that information in my personal and professional life.

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