This world seems to have too many of certain things but too few of others. For example, there are dozens of different brands/models of cell phones, MP3 players and cameras – almost every consumer electronics company makes some. On the other hand, for a good conference phone, there’s only ONE.
I’m talking about full-duplex speaker phones that you see typically at conference rooms. Normal speaker phones are so called half-duplex, which means the up-link and down-link take turns to function, when you speak, you don’t hear. So if you make some noise when the other side speaks, it gets cut off. Conference phones are very useful in that it delivers the same high-quality as if everyone is holding the handset to their ear/mouth yet it requires none of this hand holding at all. You can even walk around and it still sounds crystal clear.
All conference phones are made by one company – polycom. So they can charge a premium. The most basic model retail for $499, the high-end model costs north of $1300. Thank goodness for ebay, I was able to buy one much cheaper at around $100. But I had to settle with the most basic version and get a used one.
Archive for August, 2005
Conference phone
Monday, August 29th, 2005Expectation vs. Reality
Monday, August 22nd, 2005I’ve found an interesting phenomenon in business – expectation is far more powerful than reality.
It sounds counter-intuitive, but in business, a million dollar in the future is far more powerful than a million dollar today. Let’s say you have a vendor that want to get $1 million from you, they will do everything possible to please you. However, the moment you actually pay them, is the moment the situation changes from expectation to reality. There’s the $1 million, no more to be made. Bye bye.
A potential of growth, a potential to gain big business, a potential to build great things, these are the magic phrases to get people mesmorized, justified to spend spend spend. A business target hit, a piece of equipment bought, a promise actually delivered, on the other hand, become doomed as “the past”, “sunk cost”, “yesterday’s home run doesn’t win today’s ball game”.
This also applies to those hot-shot high-tech companies, their stocks were worth billions while making no profit whatsoever. However, the moment they announce that they are profitable the stock tanks. Why is that? Because at that moment all the unrealistic expectations die. So go back to our $1 million question. It is always better to pay your vendor only half million or less, so there’s the “promise” of more to come. Of course, vendors always want to sell you more than you need (an extra pair of shoes, an extra year on your contract). Why? It’s really not about getting more money from you. But rather, they want to saturate you and forget about you so that:
1) sellers can move on to the next prospective client;
2) there’s no worry that you are going to any competitors – customers who have bought three pairs of shoes are much much less likely to buy another pair.
Badminton World Championship
Saturday, August 20th, 2005This year, for the first time US is hosting the Badminton World Championship. So when Qing told me this, I found there’s no excuse not to move my butt over there to take a look – I’m so glad I did!
The IBF’05 Championship is hosted in Anaheim stadium – a great facility meticulously adapted to the badminton events. For example, all the entrance hang heavy double wool curtain to prevent unwanted draft from entering the center court. Then of course there’re lots of police cars and security checks, the usual American hospitality.
Badminton is very popular in California, even then, it is nothing like football or basketball. So my friends and I can still enjoy the luxury of strolling to the venue half an hour earlier and get the best seats for only $40 a piece. Those are nice seats, only about 10 meters from the court!
The afternoon events are 5 semifinal games in Men’s single, Woman’s single and Mixed double. All are really great games. The last event, the semifinal between Lin Dan of China and Peter Gade of Denmark is the pinacle of the afternoon. I’ve never seem such unity of Chinese people in US, supporting the Chinese team. It’s a very well played and well balanced game, with Lin Dan’s familiar power-play style and Peter Gade’s surprising net-play finess and overall tenacity. The game lasted three sets and more than two hours, with the whole stadium boiling through-out all three sets. In another semi-final, Taufik of Indonesia beat Li Chong Wei of Malasia with his superb control and smoothness, despite my cheering for the young Malai player.
On the way out, I took a picture with some members of the Chinese team (Fu Haifeng and Sang Yang):
Science Bvilding
Friday, August 19th, 2005It’s not a typo. It is the building title of the old Tsinghua 科å¦é¦† – on the west wing-side of the å¤§ç¤¼å ‚.
You can see it is a “v” instead of “u” in the title. When I was there we used to do Physics experiments in that building. I was very curious about the spelling and too shy to ask the English teacher – what if he doesn’t know about it. I was also a bit embarrassed to advertise this to the people outside the University – what if it is a typo.
Anyway, the typo theory doesn’t hold well because I know this group of buildings are the original Tsinhua buildings designed by the Americans. If you don’t know already, Tsinghua was “donated” by the Americans using our (Qing empire) money. The empire had done too many of those embarrasing things in the early 1900 that the last emperor was over-thrown the year Tsinghua was built.
It was until after I left school, about 8 years ago that I finally solved this little puzzle. I start to see “v” used much more often in ancient English and suddenly realized that “w” was pronouced as “double-you” instead of “double-vee”. It’s all clear, “v” was the “u” in the old days, there wasn’t the letter “u” even less than 200 years ago.
Tsinghua – old and new
Thursday, August 18th, 2005After nine years, I went back to Tsinghua campus again.
I spent the whole afternoon walking familiar roads – fortunate for me, all the old roads and old buildings are still there, even though the whole campus has had many many changes – mainly additions. Tsinghua now has become a major tourist attraction in Beijing, there’re quite a few organized tour groups just came to Beijing to visit the campus. I’ve met many people asking for directions – I suddenly felt like old and new at the same time.
That is my feeling about today’s Tsinghua – a seamless collage of old buildings and new; an intersection of old tranditions and new style; a clash and reborn of old and new value systems. Being always a testing ground for party leaderships and new thoughts, I’ve noticed subtle signs of reviving old traditions such as the Confucius sculpture transported from His birthplace by manpower, the old Tsinhua mottos on top of the post-liberation communist slogan…as a country, aren’t we all searching for new belief system from our old traditions?
China
Monday, August 15th, 2005I’ve been in China for two weeks. First in Beijing, then Hangzhou.
Everytime I went back to China, there’re big changes. This time is no exception. Tremendous wealth has been created in the last a few years, especially in big cities in coastal area. The emerging upper middle class is becoming much wealthier, to the point of running out of things to buy. Automobiles of all makes and models are jamming the streets and parking lots. Highend apartment buildings and even luxurious houses and townhouses are mushrooming around town.
The problem with only a few percentages of elite class getting richer is that the overall living standard can ‘t really keep up with them just yet. It also creates potentially dangerous social unrest with the widening of the wealth gap.