On a Business Trip in HK

Im on a business trip in HK. We have a moderately successful project that got our team invited to personally meet our Partners.

Learned a lot about the IT world of the Philippines and HK, and it allowed me to GEMBA / see for myself what is happening and where to go moving forward.

In Context my Dad did the same when he started his company but with the US. The Family Business is Data Centers, and its strange calling something like “Data Center Design, Build and Operate” Business a “Family Business” when we are trying to professionalize by getting ISO 20,000 and 9001 and bringing the mixed approach of my open communication, easy manner, with my Mom’s analytical, pragmatic, and grounded nature.

I wish I prepared better growing up to be in IT. Unfortunately I chose art and I will continue to pay that cost – by needing to study more to forever catch up and balance relationships and health more precariously.

What I lack in Technical Expertise I hope to make up with Dilligence, and the Passion to communicate what I learned and believe. It’s strange that you can be an IT director with basic IT knowledge – because the job is a Management Job – and Executive Planning and Business Development is the primary Function of being in a management position.

Anyway there is a Different Narrative here, one that I am able to follow because of my Chinese Studies. Where ASIA is in the center of the world and it is a very different world from growing up in the Philippines where we are very much in the Western Sphere of Influence.

Being Filipino means growing up with Western Ideals that do not match the Asian Reality, and being given Western Values believing they are the best and only. My Chinese Studies and appearance that can pass for non-Han Chinese or Chinese with Malay features, also makes me think about my place in the world. I am very much aware and reminded of my country’s “developing world” status and how barbaric it can be considered. I feel my “uncivilized” nature having no long tradition of business culture and protocol to draw from. Without any clear signaling tools, there is more confusion and market correction.

There are many worthwhile projects in the Philippines, but these projects are peanuts to Developed worlders who have x5-10 the cost of living and income as compared to a developing worlder. That creates a very big gulf of understanding. It’s strange it relates a lot regarding the declining Quality of Life in the West and the Improving Quality of Life in Developing worlds.

When we deal with other Developing Worlders it is a shared experience of a world without modern conveniences, superstition, and dangerous government. While I want to share that experience, I cannot ask anyone to appreciate being “poorer”. Tolerating greater injustice, greater scarcity, living with much less than the middle class of our parent’s generation.

To think about how complicated this world is, and the role of Technology. If westerners think technology is dangerous, imagine it without an Educated and Informed Democracy. I can already foresee the Impact of the Decisions of the Industry and the power Powerful Predictive and Invasive monitoring systems that are in development in the Philippines in the hands of the people who want to hold on to power. The way my fathers generation talks to “preserve” “values” and the strong ethnocentric and exclusive mindset that fuels it. The way these “Ideals” are being used to fund technologies that may affect our children’s future.

It’s Amazing to be in IT, and its Scary to know what power we are going to give Corporations knowing that if we are not the ones who are on the table when that Technology is developed the scarier and scarier the future can be for our kids.

With this blog my son and daughter will know that dad made bad decisions choosing art and the uncertainty of Philippines business that I can only hope I’m doing the right thing while making a living to raise our family.