Let me begin by admitting that I am naive when it comes to editorial integrity. As a child, I wanted to grow up to be Lois Lane. I wanted to be a reporter of high editorial authority and integrity.

I started my writing career over twenty years ago and have always been overly cautious to write the truth. Not only did I verify sources, but worked with additional editors whose job was to fact check every word that I wrote. The idea of putting my reputation behind falsehoods was beyond my ken. I owed truth to my readers; it is my responsibility.

When Propaganda became news

“Fake news” is the new term for misinformation. The practice of misinformation (disinformation, defamation, libel, false news — take your pick), has an incredibly long history. As early as the first century BC, political misinformation was used to overthrow Mark Antony in Rome. This is nothing new. Propaganda machines have inflamed elections, religions and opinions as long as humans have an agenda.

Not only written words but films have been used to sway public opinion. Just like edited video on the internet today, Leni Riefenstahl swayed sentiment to bolster the Nazi mission during World War II.

The term is attributed now to the media who have personal (or paid) agendas. Even when leaders are quoted, the quotes are appended or abbreviated to match the desired storyline. The news is no longer the subject, building the writer’s fame seems to carry equal weight. Media is now a vehicle for persons to build their personal brands in attempts to become highly paid influencers.

Reporting should be written to inform the reader of truths and facts versus being an opinion piece.

“Misinformation is not like a plumbing problem you fix. It is a social condition, like crime, that you must constantly monitor and adjust to.”

~ Tom Rosenstiel, director of the American Press Institute and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

Of course, “storytelling” is the word of the day; all the citizen journalists are using it as the pinnacle of fine writing. Unfortunately, it has extended to the news. False information, along with click bait, draws visitors to sites to drive traffic for ad revenue.

Our era of an information explosion; even verbal warfare

The posts on social media are generally there to promote stories on websites. There’s no governing body checking the veracity of what is written on the over 1.7 billion websites worldwide. The sad fact is that, according to a Pew Research Center report, 55 percent of U.S. adults now get their news from social media either “often” or “sometimes.” Any misinformation turns viral and is thereby weaponizes a biased point of view.

This all explains how Facebook became the pivotal player in enabling the spread of political agendas. Claims that any perceived enemy; Russia, China, Korea and more post politically charged posts on the site.

The rest of the news is received through various sources. The traditional media networks have also become a vehicle for entertainment (pandering to politically charged audiences) versus reporting legitimate news. Online media as well. Many of the famous newspapers that have moved online are in the same position. Legitimate sources can only be as good as the editors who fact check writers’ stories and in this era of constantly having to update pages (for more ad views), effective oversight falls by the wayside.

Media sources thrive on gathering more views and I wonder, how many of these people studied journalism? Even if disinformation makes it to publication, tradition required a retraction — or in the online world, an update of the story. Questioners of truth are often shunned and mocked when the truth doesn’t fulfill the narrative expounded by the writer.

“If it’s carelessness, you can tell someone: ‘Hey, you got it wrong; here’s the evidence.’ If it’s disinformation, they don’t care, they will just publish it again. Meanwhile, when you point out the problem, they might decide that you’re a target for harassment.”

~ Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder and Craig Newmark Philanthropies; focusing on Trustworthy Journalism and the Information Ecosystem

Eyewitness to misinformation history

As I write this, we’re in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and a tsunami of misinformation. Certainly, our goal should be preventing the spread of the virus and getting the truth out. This is a time that should bring us together.

As an example, In early February, headlines like “No, You Do Not Need Face Masks To Prevent Coronavirus” appeared all over the internet. Talking heads on the news were busy instructing their audiences that masks weren’t necessary.

This was all part of a concerted campaign to hoodwink an entire society to cover up a medical supply shortage. This time it wasn’t just the media — the advice even came from the Surgeon General of the United States and the World Health Organization.

Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
https://t.co/UxZRwxxKL9

- U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) February 29, 2020

Anyone who’s ever interacted with the medical community knows that masks do something. Yes, to be fully protected one needs an N95 mask; but the traditional disposable surgical mask does “something.” Even if masks have a modest effect on preventing infection, they do have the effect of not spreading the virus from a possibly infected person.

Traditionally, health authorities around the world have encouraged all citizens to wear masks in public to prevent the spread of disease, irrespective of whether they have symptoms.

The down talking to the citizenry has reached epic proportions. The backpedaling of this storyline is bordering on hysteria. Its not just “other” countries. Our own government manipulates its citizens by feeding us myths to meet their news cycle. If lying to your children isn’t good policy, how can lying to the populace be a solid practice?

How does this help us to believe anything we are told? Many truths are just rumors; who do we trust? Governments have agendas; talking heads have agendas; bloggers get famous; perhaps only eye-witnesses and those without possibility of financial gain can be believed.

Where technology fits in

We’re also battling for truth in technology. Technology is now the battlefield (or so we’re told) for national security and human rights. Truth doesn’t seem to muddle political opinion.

Globalization has caused a crisis in supply chains and security. Indeed, we outsource everything from plucking chickens to building cars. American companies bolstered profits by building factories aboard. It was easier to export labor intensive manufacturing to places where there was low-cost labor and laxer environmental regulations.

If someone is to blame for our fall from international strength, we need to look at ourselves.

Over my lifetime I’ve watched the U.S. turn into a white-collar society; offshoring the manufacturing ecosystem to countries who did it better, faster and cheaper. Steve Jobs desperately wanted to keep Apple manufacturing in our country (in California and Texas); wanting to replicate the success of Sony in Japan. But that was a failed fantasy. Manufacturing for Apple is now centered at Foxconn in China along with other electronics for the international market.

As of 2012, 40% of the world electronics manufactured by Foxconn. There’s a good chance that something you own or use was built by Foxconn Technology Group. It is the largest electronics manufacturer in the world. A subsidiary of Foxconn also owns Belkin (Linksys routers .. network switches, Wemo smart home products and Phyn smart home water management). In 2017 they announced plans to open a plant in Wisconsin, but that plan appears to be fizzling. Foxconn is a private company.

Although Walmart, eBay and Amazon are giants in ecommerce, they are basically obliterated by the power of the Chinese company, Alibaba Group. They’re the world’s largest retailer and ecommerce company; expanding into artificial intelligence and media production. Alibaba Group is an internationally stock traded company.

Then there’s Huawei, who announced on March 31 that they had a revenue of $121 billion US, who’s humble start from four employees in 1987 to becoming the top telecommunications-equipment manufacturer in the world and the second largest manufacturer of smartphones.

Their unmatched investment of over $84 billion US in R&D has led their patent count to file over 85,000 active patent applications in 2019, as well as having over 96,000 dedicated to R&D; that’s 40% of Huawei’s total workforce. They lead the world in the development of 5G. Futurewei Technologies, a research-and-development subsidiary of Huawei employed over 900 people in the U.S. until the government made them the posterchild for protectionism.

Huawei is a private company. The Los Angeles Times visited the headquarters in Shenzhen and saw a printed registry on the company’s 100,000 shareholders; their employees.

Not one of these companies is owned by the Chinese government and is free to trade all over the world. For some reason, Huawei became the symbol of possible foreign interference in the U.S. Infrastructure. Articles like those in the Wall Street Journal led the way and piled on the theory that Huawei would support the Chinese government in a cyber war against the U.S. Their experience on cost effective 5G has been proven worldwide. They started with 4G installations in Norway (2009) and grew to service over 170 countries.

Our own country has insisted that other foreign countries not do business with them either — with no concrete proof that a backdoor to their products would be used. Some countries have directly pushed back. The British government decided to allow Huawei equipment in only “non-core” elements of its 5G network. They set up an independent Cyber Evaluation Center (The Cell) to assess the company’s hardware and software security annually.

I saw Andy Purdy, Chief Security Officer for the Huawei Technologies USA, address this issue on CSPAN. Requesting inspections and pleading to cooperate with our government.

It’s hard to trust technology when we can’t trust the people who deliver the message

This post is about misinformation in our world today, not just technology. Learn to separate journalism from opinion. As Huawei’s Catherine Chen said in her open letter to the US, “don’t believe everything you hear.” Let’s not make judgements on rumors or click bait posts. Let’s try to find quotes and information directly from the sources.

In your quest for truth, check out the work of the Craig Newmark Foundation and an Irish company, Kinzen. They’re working to rebuild trust in journalism. They deserve your attention and support.

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
~Edgar Allen Poe, 1845

Originally published at https://mcollier.blogspot.com.

On Sunday, January 16, 1994 it was what some call “earthquake weather.” When hot, dry Santa Ana winds scorch the Los Angeles area with temperatures reaching into the 80s by day and plummeting into the 40s at night. Earthquake weather is apocryphal, but those who live here believe in it, even vaguely, as there is no other explanation for why the quakes occur.

I was a single mother with a home based business; doing advertising and marketing for regional shopping centers and local businesses. The next day was Martin Luther King Day and my 12 year old daughter would have the day off from school. We had just come home from a mini road trip to Solvang, so she decided to spend the night in my bedroom.

At about 4:31 am (04:30:51 to be exact) on January 17, 1994, I woke up to the sound of my daughter screaming, “Mommy, mommy we are going to die!’ I opened my eyes with a start to see a 32” old school CRT TV (which weighed close to 100 pounds) fly up in the air and crash on to the facing wall. I reached for my glasses, while yelling to my daughter to roll off the bed and stay as close to the bed as possible (a highly debated safety technique called “triangle of life”).

On my way to the floor, outside the window, I saw a pole mounted electric transformer sway at least 3 times at a 40 degree angle until it loudly exploded. I told my daughter not to move and tried to reassure her it would be over in a minute — I while I blindly clawed the floor for my glasses.

There was a loud rumbling, as if a train was tunneling beneath us and the house came alive with sounds of its’ own. The wood frame groaned, pictures and mirrors were falling to the floors and breaking. Crashing of heavy objects could be heard from other rooms.

We held tight, shouting phrases of faith to each other that it will be over soon (for the full 30 seconds or so) until the shaking stopped. What we didn’t know then, was that our home was at the epicenter of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge earthquake. In a panic, we both tried to find our glasses in the pitch black of pre sunrise to no avail. After a few minutes we decided to make a dash into the backyard.

Then, at 4:39 am, a 4.5 aftershock struck. Aftershock is the term used by seismologists to describe the smaller earthquakes that follow the initial one. This was the first of 2,929 aftershocks within the following three weeks through February 6, 1994. It felt like there was one every few minutes. The exact data from Dr. Lucy Jones and CalTech can be seen here and here.

We froze on either side of the bed. The noises seemed to be dying down but we were paralyzed with fear. 4:40 am; another aftershock. This time a 4.8 and one minute later, a 4.0. I can only give true magnitudes from the CalTech data, because when you are on top of the quake you experience something you never thought possible. The earth was moving, this isn’t supposed to happen. Combine that with terror and you have a life changing experience.

There was a sliding glass door in my bedroom, leading to the back yard. I guess I didn’t lock it that night because our neighbors, three strapping Cal State Northridge University (CSUN) students, opened the door and yelled to see if we were all right. We weren’t. Neither of us could focus properly, as our glasses became part of the rubble that occupied my bedroom floor. They grabbed us both and pulled us up to run out of the house and on to the street.

Standing up and running was not an easy task. When the ground moves you can develop a wobbly type of motion (earthquake) sickness. When you try to move you sway as if the earth is still moving. This has been dubbed by the Japanese as “jishin-yoi” or “earthquake drunk” an unsettling feeling very much like the way some feel when they have stepped off a ship.

We ran, nevertheless, out on to the sidewalk which was beginning to overflow with neighbors in underwear and pajamas and their pets. Just in time for another aftershock.

Looking down the street in pre-dawn light, I could see fires in the distance. There were sounds of explosions and emergency vehicles with sirens blaring. I held my daughter tightly. We hunkered in the street, not knowing what to do or where to go. Friends who worked at the university or the mall stopped in front of our house to be sure we were OK, and then drove off to see how their offices and buildings had fared.

About half a mile west was one of my clients, Northridge Fashion Center and a half mile east was Cal State Northridge. The mall sustained so much damage (a department store and parking structures collapsed) that they could only reopen with half their stores a year and a half later. The University sustained an unimaginable $400 million dollars in damage. They were up and running within months, though, see Cal State Northridge Earthquake Recovery Bulletin.

After we regained some level of composure by talking to the neighbors, the cold of the night before was making us shiver. I had to go back into the house to get blankets or something to keep us warm. A neighbor went with me, back through the gate and into the bedroom. After I retrieved our glasses, we ventured into the rest of the house to view the damage.

The wall from my bedroom to the living room had been a photo wall, covered with framed pictures for a length of ten feet. There were no photos on the wall now, just a hallway floor stacked with broken frames and shattered glass. The glass crunched under our feet as we walked.

Walking into the living room, it was clear that the furniture had skated across the wood floor. The contents of a bar spilled out and broken bottles had spewed liquor everywhere. Looking up, I saw the mantel had flown off the fireplace. I started to shake, perhaps I was going into shock, and my neighbor wanted us to go back out, but I had to see the kitchen.

“Seeing” the kitchen was all I could do. I couldn’t go in. The floor was covered with at least of foot of broken everything that had jettisoned out of the upper cupboards and pantry. The oven door was open and my (now almost empty) double-door refrigerator had fallen open and was precariously leaning on the wood dinette table. Its contents joined the cacophony of broken dishes and canned goods on the floor. I had made some ranch dressing from scratch the night before. I guess that bottle launched the furthest as ranch dressing was splattered all over the opposite wall.

I grabbed a portable radio, opened the front door and delivered glasses and blankets to my daughter. Several helicopters appeared, circling our neighborhood, going back and forth to the fires in the east and the mall to the west. Smoke and dust filled the air. We had no real idea of what had happened or what was about to happen. So sitting on the front lawn, I turned on the radio while sirens blared around us.

The news was in full emergency mode. Neighbors told us there was no electricity or phone and that we had no water. There were announcements on the radio to let residents know that “if” you had earthquake insurance (I did), that the insurance companies were setting up tents to help out the insured. I went into the house and got us clothes. We went to survey the damage.

A block away, the corner of Reseda Boulevard and Plummer Street was full of police and fire vehicles. We walked closer — this picture will be in my mind forever — and were struck frozen at the sight of rescue workers puling people from an apartment building. Residents of the first floor were crushed when the second and third stories of the building collapsed upon them. Some of the people coming out were moving, some weren’t.

The next hours, days and weeks are a blur. I know that we got in the car and took charge. Things I can remember?

• I walked around the house and took pictures of the damage.
• We went to the Allstate Insurance tent and they gave us emergency money. (I no longer have earthquake insurance because after the quake the deductible went up to $200,000).
• The REI store was about a mile north. We drove up there for emergency camping supplies. The ceiling of the store had caved in. The manager stood outside with another employee and a card table. I told him we needed a tent, sleeping bags and water purification kit if possible. He ran into the store and got us everything we needed and more.
• Looking for food, we drove to the supermarket. Their refrigerators and freezers were not working and they were selling food in front of the store. We bought an entire ham from the deli department (I figured it had plenty of preservatives)
• There was no water. Period. The Red Cross was taking care of their workers and we bought bottled water from scalpers who drove up from unaffected parts of the city. We paid up to $10 a gallon.
• When we went back to the house we saw that the half where the dining room and kitchen had fallen off the foundation. I don’t remember the angle, but a ball rolled very quickly.
• Our back block wall was at an angle and the city had contractors to tear it down. We went to the lumber yard and bought chicken wire (hey, no judging) until we could get someone to put up a chain link fence.
• News crews and their camera people scoured the homes on our block. I stood outside like a carnival barker offering “B-roll” of a wrecked house in trade for bottles of water. We got plenty of water.
• We camped out in a tent and cooked whatever we ate on a Weber bar-b-Que. I’ve been a Weber owner ever since. On the other hand I hope I will never camp out again.
• One of the aftershocks was so strong that, while sleeping, I flew out of a banana lounge chair on to the ground.
• The local “Northridge Pharmacy” pharmacist owner, Barry Pascal, realized his customers needed their medicine. He set up a table in front of the pharmacy, running in to get needed medicine and giving it to his customers that signed IOUs on a note pad.
• There was no coffee.
• Brent’s Deli owner, Ron Pascal, fed hundreds of emergency workers during the many hours after the quake.
• My clients who were not destroyed needed me to design some “Re-Opening” ads. I went into my garage (which had been professionally constructed as an office) only to find the ceiling had collapsed and monitors had strewn everywhere. I shoveled off a spot. Repositioned the computer (it all still worked — which is why I’m a fan of Sony to
  this day) and cranked out some work.

• T-shirt vendors became a common sight, selling commemorative “Northridge Earthquake” souvenirs.
• To defray some of my construction costs, I designed a logo to to go on a coffee mug for the drilling contractor and one for Northridge Fashion Center.

The city engineer crew “green tagged” our house, deeming it safe to live in. But major repairs had to be made. The repairs and interior damage totaled close to $200,000 in the end. We had to retrofit the house.

After repairing the house, (within a year) we moved to another home in Northridge. Prices had plummeted with people almost abandoning their beautiful homes on large lots. We purchased a severely damaged one and with the help of structural engineers, a 90 page engineering report and a great contractor we rebuilt the new house from the ground up. Our home is built on caissons with steel and concrete bored over 30 feet into the ground. This one isn’t going anywhere.

I figure lightning won’t strike twice. I hope.

Statistics:

• Time: 4:31 am PST
• Date: Monday, January 17th, 1994
• Magnitude: 6.7
• Epicenter: 11.5 miles beneath the San Fernando Valley along a hidden fault.
• Aftershocks: 2,929 occurred during the next three weeks.
• Deaths: Believed to be as high as 72
• Injuries: Approximately 9,000
• Damages: estimated at $25 billion.
• Damage occurred up to 85 miles from the epicenter
• Felt 220 miles away in Las Vegas, Nevada

If you have a Northridge earthquake story — please add it in the comments? I would love to read them.

© Marsha Collier — You are welcome to use photos. Please attribute to Marsha Collier and link back to this post.

Originally published at mcollier.blogspot.com on January 16, 2014.

One day in the future (or maybe it was yesterday) you’ll walk by the mirror, pause, and do a quick double take. “What’s that”? You draw your face close to your reflection and run your finger over your face. “Hmm, that wasn’t there yesterday.” Or look at your hands?

As the months and years go by, no matter how careful we are with nutrition, our skin ages. A December 2018 study from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine proved what we suspected to be true, skin loses the ability to form fat as we age. Once that discovery is combined with what we already know about diminishing collagen, skin becoming thinner and depletion of hyaluronic acid (which keep the skin hydrated by promoting collagen production), the prognosis is obvious. Our skin becomes more fragile and thinner. The effects of environmental damage take their toll too. Escaping aging is impossible.

Believe me, I see this conversation happening across every channel and within all generations.

We’re obsessed with the youthful, natural glow we attribute to health, wealth, and happiness. I’m sure you’ve seen the hashtags: #selfhacking, #selfstarting, #selflove, #selffocus, #selfempower, #selfcare, #workingit. These powerful hashtags posted from positive people, symbolize that they’re doing things to improve themselves and their lives. Doing something proactively to help yourself, albeit mentally or physically is an admired state. We know we need to take step to give ourselves the extra push to give ourselves more confidence to power forward. It’s what we do. It’s all good.

Aging not only affects lifestyle, it affects our careers. In a recent ProPublica study, it’s proved that older workers, even with stable jobs, are pushed out of work. Many a consultant I know that’s creeping towards 50 has confided in me that they have tried various methods to look younger. Ageism is rampant in our culture and there’s no denying it. Several social media firms have even discontinued their “50 Over 50” list.

Most everyone I know tries to look younger.

Not everyone admits it, because everyone has medical privacy. In today’s world people don’t often admit to plastic surgery or use of injectables. Natural beauty is a symbol of self-care, and who is to be the judge of how it happened? Yet there’s so much judgement that people feel the need to deny that they care enough to make a difference in their appearance. Is anyone denying they use filters or Facetune on their selfies?

Genetics will have a lot to do with how you age, but certain things just can’t be changed. The old axiom, “If you want to know what your wife will look like when she is older then look at her mother” is truer than we believe.

While not everyone is lucky enough to have “good genes,” we all want the confidence that comes with turning back the clock on aging skin. Confidence is everything.

I started my third career in the late 90s when I wrote my first book “eBay For Dummies.” I knew then that I had a new life and a new audience. It was important (to me) to keep a fresh face and to keep that image as long as I could. I recently posted a “sizzle reel” from my early career on Facebook. No one noticed that in that video, Matt Lauer still had a full head of hair, the brilliant Star Jones (now half the woman she used to be) was just starting out and Barbara Walters had just launched “The View.”

What many people did mention was that I looked better today. I admit to have had nips and tucks, not to change my appearance, but to keep everything where it belonged. It gave me confidence to face a new world, it’s a mind/body connection, I guess.

Today we have more options to enhance our appearance.

Certain aspects of aging are still best handled with plastic surgery, but a great deal can be accomplished with injectables. Both Botox and Dysport (different formulas) can smooth the angry furrows between our eyebrows and other products can be used to replace lost volume that inevitable comes with age. As you age, cheeks, lips and hands lose volume and skin thins and stretches. If you haven’t experienced it yet, it will happen. The most important steps you can take to delay the onset are to follow good nutrition practices, keep your face out of the sun and listen to your body.

I decided to go full in for a collaboration with Galderma (pharmaceutical company specializing in the research, and development of dermatological treatments), and go to an expert (I’ve personally never felt that medical procedures should be bought with an online coupon). I went to Blanka Orloff, M.D. in Burbank California who is a master of esthetics. She and her husband, plastic surgeon, Dr. George Orloff, have been making faces beautiful in Southern California for many years. Adjacent to their practice, they own Skin Matrx, a state of the art aesthetic medicine center.

Although I have been to a highly respected plastic surgeon, I had never looked into the possibility of injectables. My feeling was that I didn’t want anything foreign in my body. When I learned that Restylane products were made from hyaluronic acid, which is naturally present in our bodies, I decided to give Dr. Orloff free reign since injectable-grade hyaluronic acid binds with water to revolumize skin.

I learned many things.

In the hands of a talented medical professional, hyaluronic acid injectables can perform amazing changes. (I’m not talking about collagen or silicone here). I’ve learned that:

• Not all lips need to end up as a trout pout (unless you want them to)
• Foreheads don’t need to look paralyzed
• You can restore a natural look to laugh lines without losing facial expression
• You can even restore a youthful look to wrinkled, veiny, hands
• Injectables don’t have to hurt, Restylane formulas include a pain killer (lidocaine) and Dysport is injected with a very fine needle
• The effects of injectables can easily take up to two weeks to show
• Hyaluronic acid injectables can be reversed should there be an undesired reaction

The effects are accomplished by the use of different formulas of hyaluronic based Restylane.

• Lyft: approved by the FDA to correct volume deficit in the back of the hands, for cheek augmentation and the correction of age-related midface contour deficiencies, as well as the treatment of moderate to severe facial folds, such as the nasolabial folds (smile lines).
• Refyne/Defyne: integrates with your skin to help smooth out the lines that run alongside the corners of your mouth (nasolabial folds and marionette lines) and the flexibility you need for natural-looking movement and expression.

Also, Dysport is proven to help smooth the appearance of moderate to severe frown lines between the eyebrows without changing the look or movement of the rest of your face.
When you look for a professional to help you rejuvenate your look, remember this, you’re paying for the injection and the talent of the injector — not the cost of the product. There should be no shame in being proactive in #selfcare so that you can feel confident every day. When you’re confident, you can do anything.

Liked this article? Please click the 👏 to see more of my work in your feed and ensure others see it too! 💋

FTC disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I only work with and showcase products, events and/or companies from which I believe my readers will benefit. I have not received payment, but did accept medical services. All thoughts and viewpoints are mine. This is disclosed in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Originally published at mcollier.blogspot.com on January 7, 2019.

I was recently in Shenzhen and was invited to access Huawei’s campus. I know I didn’t see it all, but I saw enough to get me thinking. I had heard lots of stories, but reality was even more interesting.

Seeing and talking to the people gave me new insights. I’d heard that in China, tech employees worked 10 hours straight a day. Not quite a reality. The offices, campus and the university (yes, a University where all employees study) are perhaps even more modern and inviting than many I’ve seen in the United States.

It was hard to take in everything, but I was fascinated by the fact that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei’s office overlooks a most exquisite man-made lake. This lake is open for anyone to walk and enjoy. Most interesting was the fact that black swans were imported to live in the lake. It wasn’t until I had returned home that I realized their significance. Black Swans!

Upon reflection, China’s Huawei is the ultimate black swan. Rare and unexpected, its employee owned (privately held) status allows it to disrupt common business models and even technology. There are no outside shareholders to answer to and they foster the philosophy of “we’re all in this together” as well as collectivism. Huawei looks at the world considerably different than the majority of the Interbrand 100 companies. (In 2017, they were number seventy on the list and are the youngest technology manufacturer on the list.)

Founded in 1987, they’ve risen from obscurity to one of the top growing brands in the world. According to the 2018 China RepTrak® study, conducted by the Reputation Institute, Huawei has been ranked as the most reputable Chinese corporate brand in their home country. In the study, “How to Win on Reputation in China: Understanding Chinese vs. Multi National Companies,” they out-performed Apple (a one time a classic black swan) in terms of transparency and open communication “Compared to Apple, Huawei is 2x more genuine”. They are clearly the fastest rising 31 year old startup.

Black swans catch the competition by surprise. Huawei began their journey as a small telecommunications supplier, but quickly grew from home spun to acquiring major contracts. The black swan strategy is clear in their progress. Rather than going after telecoms in economically advanced major cities, Founder Ren chose to go after rural areas where competition was small and need was great.

At a time when The Art of War was a popular tactical and strategic philosophy, he chose to “surround the city with the countryside.” Huawei would cover the provinces with employees to support and service their equipment, signifying their devotion to a customer-centric philosophy. After being hugely successful in the countryside, they soon conquered the metropolitan cities.

Black Swan Trait: Innovation and disruptive cost structure
Their growth was bolstered by their offering significantly lower pricing than their competition and to overcome the “made in China” quality stigma. They were able to undercut competing vendor prices by almost 12 percent.

After conquering the China market, they moved through Thailand, Brazil, South Africa then Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius, Morocco, Congo and Kenya by 2006. They then ventured into the developed markets offering upgrades that could be done by software, rather than forcing telecoms to purchase new hardware.

Before attempting inroads in Europe or North America, They built part of a French network free of charge (and allowed it to operate for three months) to demonstrate its viability before final purchase. Here was a “big business” competing like a startup; a fairly unthinkable strategy in the early 21st century.

One may argue that growth like this needed to be heavily financed and only the government has money for loans in the billions. True. Governments in all countries back business expansion with loans and incentives to carry on international trade. Take Boeing for example; they recently signed an agreement to sell 300 planes to a China company (retail price, $37 Billion). A visit to the Boeing corporate site shows that Boeing Customer Finance is “proactively engaged with the U.S. Export-Import Bank.” According to Wikipedia, the Export–Import Bank of the United States is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government. By law, the EXIM is directed by Congress to set aside not less than 20% of its aggregate authority for small business (so perhaps your startup can be a black swan too). On Twitter, @EximBankUS offers insights into how they work.

Black Swan Trait: Research, Development and patents
From the beginning, Huawei invested their profits back into research and development, having more employees in R&D (500) than in production (200) in 1990. Today they have over 80,000 employees engaged in development. Innovation is key to climbing the ladder from startup to becoming a top technology brand.

Since then, the company has invested billions of dollars in R&D. The spending ultimately rose to almost $14 billion in 2017, outspending Apple, Microsoft and Intel. This could be their most sustainable advantage; developing their own technology (software and hardware) in house.

To defy those who question Intellectual Property, Huawei is the possibly one of biggest filer of patents. As of December 2017, Huawei had 74,397 patents, of which 64,091 were in China and 48,758 were foreign patent applications (of which, 90% were invention patents) is a solution to a specific technological problem and is a product or a process.

Black Swan Trait: Corporate Governance Paradigm
Unlike the standard corporate structure, in 2013, Huawei instituted innovation in management. Perhaps preparing for the retirement of the founder, the company elected three executives who took turns acting as CEO. This is a unique strategy which can bring talents from different areas of the company to the fore, thereby breaking down silos and maintain a collaborative effort. This creates a diverse environment where different perspectives can be tested and evaluated. Three deputy chairmen act as CEO and rotated in the position every six months.

Always adapting, this year, the rotating CEO system will become a “rotating chairman” system, with a fixed CEO position held by Ren Zhengfei. The overhaul will leave the company with rotating chairman at the top, and a single CEO.

Black Swan Trait: Global Vision for the Future
The reason I was in Shenzhen (and had my black swan epiphany) was to attend the annual Analyst Summit. Here Huawei laid out their Global Industry Vision 2025 report, (#GIV2025) a window into Huawei’s thinking regarding roles and opportunities for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the intelligent world. Note this is not what they will do this year, but how the company has a long vision for future business in 2025.

The intelligent world will be defined by two immovable truths: Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become a “general purpose” technology and that ICT will be the foundational infrastructure.

They predict mass innovation that will tap into a new, digital economy valued at $23 trillion. Not just large enterprises will benefit, there will be opportunities for startups and unicorns.

They describe this era as being the fourth industrial revolution. The first, second and third being Industrial, Electrical and Information technology. The new era is founded on ICT and enabled by AI. The recurring theme is that all things “will sense, be connected and be intelligent.”

As this evolution occurs, AI will be the infrastructure that will power the intelligence provided by ICT. 5G, cloud, video, IoT and blockchain will fertilize the ground of the era of the intelligent economy. This convergence will bring disruptive change to every stage of our lives and our businesses. If you consider that by 2025 there will be 40 billion smart devices and 100 billion connections, there will be no more information silos. We will have a cascade of data at our fingertips and #GIV2025 lays out the groundwork for how we will benefit by these great technological advances.

By 2025, we will see 180 ZB (one zettabyte equals 1 trillion gigabytes) of new data generated each year. For contrast, a study in 2013 reported that 6.9 zettabytes of data were accessed in the U.S. in the previous 12 months. The bulk of this data is currently untapped. Data only creates value when it is connected; and the cloudification of all data will enable business to leverage it.

Right now, over 95% of data is unstructured and most data is not being analyzed or used. Intelligent algoritims will enable this data to become useable.

“Data will become an inexhaustible resource. Intelligence will decide how the value of data is transformed and delivered. Connections will carry massive quantities of data, and enable exchange of data and smart value creation.”

The GIV 2025 report is designed to be a valuable reference to industries:

• Helping industry leaders better understand how ICT can enable and guide the direction of industry development, popular technologies and applications, and best practices
• Helping decision-makers and organizations better understand the routes of development and investment directions in the industry
• Assisting those working on the frontlines of ICT to better understand customer needs and explore new models and room for development in ICT
• Helping other stakeholders such as analysts, opinion leaders, the media, academics, and think tanks by sharing the latest industry news and information.

Black Swan Trait: Transparency
During the Huawei Analyst conference I was able to interview Gregory Fox, Huawei Vice President of Corporate Marketing to get the short version of #GIV2025.

Originally published at mcollier.blogspot.com on May 29, 2018.

Today’s smartphones are so full of features that its hard to distinguish one from another. They’re all great. But what I’m looking for is innovation. Features that will actually make a difference and add value to this tiny computer we all carry everywhere.

I received the Huawei Mate 10 Pro at the launch event in Munich last year. I didn’t review the phone then (since so many people did). I wanted to live with the phone and give it a real, hands-on, daily driver report. (As an aside, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro was named as the best Android phone of 2017 by Android Authority.)

While I appreciate a sexy phone and a great screen, innovation is my primary reason for selecting a smartphone. The Pro model I tested adds features of an OLED screen, 128 GB storage (no Micro SD card slot) and 6 GB of ram.

Without giving full specs (read on the Huawei website), you should know the basic firepower behind these phones is powered by amazing engine, where all parts work as a SoC (system on a chip) :

• Kirin 970 (5.5 million transistors in a space measuring a single square centimeter)
• Octa-core CPU (4 x Cortex A73 2.36 GHz + 4 x Cortex A53 1.8 GHz) + i7 co-processor
• Mali-G72 MP12 GPU
• NPU: Neural Network Processing Unit

I’ve had really good computers with less power than this phone (as a matter of fact I’m writing on one now). The Kirin 970 chip has an embedded, groundbreaking Security Engine. The security engine of the Network Intelligent Protection (NIP) analyzes and recovers network traffic intensively and protects vulnerabilities from being exploited by drive-by downloads and social engineering attacks.

They have been addressing security for years through their NIP. For the nerds among us, a fascinating Huawei technical white paper on the subject can be found here.

Here are my favorite features of the Huawei technology (besides the lightning fast speed).

Battery, Smart Power Management and SuperCharge Technology

While we can all argue what’s important to us on our phones, I believe that battery life is the most mentioned pain point. There are no worries about battery life with these phones. The 4,000mAh battery (unbelievably) can carry me through a day and a half to two days of use. Now I don’t charge my phone overnight, I merely top off during the day. The Smart Power Management is powered by the phone’s NPU (Neural Processor). It learns over time which apps you use and allocates resources as needed so that power-waste is minimized.

SuperCharge technology is just that. Super. I’ve found that a 100% charge on my Mate 10 Pro can be accomplished within an hour of charging. According to Huawei, it’s 300% faster than wireless charging. Initially, this gave me pause, but the 15 layer power safety system is certified as safe by TÜV Rheinland, an internationally recognized testing laboratory. (If you’re curious as to whether a device of yours has been certified, you can search the brand name on the TÜV Rheinland Certificate Database here.)

Desktop mode operation

There are solutions from other handset vendors, but I’m not all about spending over $200 in additional equipment for a complex connection. I much preferred spending $10 on a USB-C to HDMI cable. With the Mate 10 a simple cable enables a mobile desktop from the phone to an external display (which is pictured at the top of this post).

I don’t bring my laptop with me when I travel as I used to. I find using a tablet suffices when I’m away for a few days. But there are times when I get an urgent email from an editor and I need a keyboard and a larger monitor. Also, last minute PowerPoint changes are often necessary.

There’s a virtual keyboard that appears if you open an app that needs it. There’s also the ability to connect both a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard.

Microsoft Office products work well on the phone and it’s easy to use them on a larger screen. I haven’t, but can’t wait until I use, the phone to present a PowerPoint when I’m speaking by tapping the screen. (By the way the phone knows that you’re presenting, and won’t interrupt with notifications). When you’re in desktop mode, you can use the built in mobile touchpad in place of a mouse.

Also I’m not a fan of holding up my phone to show a friend pictures; it’s a clumsy task. If your friend has a USB-C to HDMI cable, you can entertain your friends in style with a slideshow from your latest trip (or family photos) on their 65” TV.

Text and Voice translator

It’s not magic, the phone has the first fully neural “on device” translation with the Microsoft Translator app for Android, customized for the Huawei Mate 10. Since I travel Internationally, I have tried translation apps before, but this app functions fully without an Internet connection. Prior to a trip, I can download any of over 50 offline language packs right to the phone.

The app combines Microsoft’s neural machine translation (NMT) with Huawei’s Neural Processing Unit (NPU) for accelerating AI computing tasks. This results in dramatically better and faster offline translations as compared to existing offline packs.

You can easily instantly translate from typed text, spoken words (conversations too) or from a sign.

Professional Camera

With all the AI happening, you probably don’t even need to do anything but point the camera in the right direction. Even if you have shaky hands, the Optical Image Stabilization saves the day.

The NPU (once again) drives the camera (along with a f/1.6 aperture lens and laser focus) to take great images. Huawei taught the NPU through machine learning to identify what you are taking a picture of and adjust for the best parameters.

It recognizes about a dozen different scenes, Below is a screen grab from Flo Kaheli’s video review of the phone. Notice the little knife and fork in the corner indicating that it’s taking a photo of food. When I take pictures of my cat, a tiny cat appears aside of the image. I’ve seen symbols for portrait, trees, sunsets, mountains, food and people.

Both the Mate 10 and the Mate 10 Pro have dual Leica 20-megapixel monochrome and 12-megapixel RGB rear, 8-megapixel front.

Everything you need is in the box

When you get a Huawei phone, they don’t skimp. There’s no running out to buy additional accessories before you use the phone. The Huawei Mate 10 Pro came with a SuperCharger, a clear silicone case, earbuds, and a connector..

If you’re curious as to how this phone holds up against the iPhone X, take a look at Diana Adams head to head review.

It’s really sad that AT&T backed out of the deal to sell Huawei phones just prior to the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show. Huawei is the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world and this would have been a big step for them.

At CES, when Richard Yu took the stage for his featured keynote, he gave a solid presentation about the features of the phone and then, at the end of his presentation, a single slide appeared, entitled “Something I want to share.”

Mr. Yu spoke honestly about how he felt about AT&T pulling out of the deal. He had two memorable quotes in his deeply personal aside:

“Everybody knows that in the US market that over 90 percent of smartphones are sold by carrier channels. It’s a big loss for us, and also for carriers, but the more big loss is for consumers, because consumers don’t have the best choice.”

“We win the trust of the Chinese carriers, we win the trust of the emerging markets… and also we win the trust of the global carriers, all the European and Japanese carriers. We are serving over 70 million people worldwide. We’ve proven our quality, we’ve proven our privacy and security protection.”

The phones will still be available unlocked in the United States through Amazon and Best Buy.

Originally published at mcollier.blogspot.com on January 15, 2018.

If you’ve had a business for any length of time, it’s easy to muse about looking towards the future. Even when you’re successful, you wonder “I can be bigger, I can be better.” There’s a lot of soul searching for every startup and business founder.

We live in a world of marketing marvels, businesses proclaiming the huge successes, but where’s the meat? These days many businesses don’t make profits, they’re funded by investors who bet on their future. The individuals behind these stories are legendary are an inspiration to many.

However, getting funded is more than likely not an option for most individuals I meet who are setting up to start a business. From experience, I can assure you that there are lots of growing pains and lessons to be learned prior to such steps. In the everyday world, becoming profitable and being able to draw enough salary to support yourself and your family is job one. Once you’re profitable, you can reach out to investors to grow if you want, or reinvest the cash and bootstrap your growth. If you seek out investors, you no longer own your company in its entirety; and you have other people to answer to.

Not many startups or home-based businesses have to face this reality. What they first have to decide is whether they have what it takes to get there. Exactly how many personal sacrifices are you willing to make? Having a profitable small business can be a very good thing; but expanding can take a toll on your lifestyle, depending on your needs.

To illustrate, I’ll use an example of an impressive company I’m very familiar with to show you what it takes to grow, thrive and enjoy sustainable growth while innovating.

Recently, this company came out with their Annual Report and some numbers were somewhat below expectations. But looking deeper, there are a lot of powerful facts in it. The company’s net profit margin was 7.1 percent ahead of last year, down from 9.3 per cent in 2015 (although their revenues exceeded $75 billion). One might understand that this would be unsatisfactory to their investors; except that this company is privately owned by its employees. Considering we are our own harshest critics, this must be a pretty bitter pill to swallow. What was the reason?

This company has been in business for thirty years, started in one room of the founder’s apartment in 1987 with funding of about $2,500 in startup funds. Now, they’re number 129 on the Fortune Global 500 list, and have ratcheted upwards on that list for seven years.

For their first twenty five years in business they grew with approximately 500 networking and communication technology clients. They were a pure B2B infrastructure play. Five years ago they pivoted and entered the consumer market. Today they are the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, having shipped 139.3 million units, or 9.5 per cent of the global total in 2016.

I’ve written about them here before, this is a Chinese company, Huawei. One of the reasons am fascinated with them is because of what I’ve learned of their business culture. After meeting scores of their employees at several conferences, I’m convinced the tenets of their business model are their keys to success. When I speak to some (from clerks to executives), language is somewhat of a barrier (although they’re most excited to practice English). One thing they all exude is strength, focus and intelligence. They’re playing a long game with customer centricity and the determination to tackle insurmountable problems.

“Resources can be exhausted, only culture endures. Huawei does not have any natural resources to depend upon. What we do have is the brainpower of our employees. This is our oil, our forest, and our coal. Human ingenuity is the creator of all wealth. — — Ren Zhengfei

There’s something important to be learned here. While enabling the organization is an essential goal, with transformation of company culture, employee empowerment and internal efficiency becomes a big factor in making any company operate. Huawei has big ambitions, and I see a lot of these ideas even in their back end operations as they try to make this happen.

Here’s some more impressive facts from the 2016 Annual Report. In 2016 their carrier units were up 24% and their relatively new consumer group, up 44%. To the end of sustainable growth, a few things have to happen in any business. In this case, they chose to invest 14.6% of their 2016 revenue on research and development.

R&D is one thing, but entering a consumer market dominated by a very few rich companies takes some marketing savvy — and money. At a recent analyst event, Consumer Business Group CMO Glory Zhang, was quoted to say that consumer awareness of the brand is on the rise, but still has a way to go to catch up with Apple and Samsung. Currently Huawei’s brand awareness stands at 76 percent globally, compared with 98 percent for Samsung and 93 percent for Apple.

So what does all this mean for you? I read a couple of books (translated from Chinese) about their core competencies and culture, which is built upon their values of “Customers First, Dedication and Perseverance.” Their human resources management philosophy was proposed by the founder, Ren Zhengfei, and is part of the Huawei Charter and heart of their culture. Here are a few of my takeaways from them on business:

• The most basic goal of an enterprise is to survive, and to survive sustainably.
• The role of culture is to help people move beyond their basic material needs, pursue higher level needs such as the need to fulfill themselves (sic), and unleash full potential.
• The goal of any enterprise is to make itself more competitive, build trust among its customers, and survive market competition.
• The only criterion for success is achieving business goals.
• Our sustainable development relies on whether we can meet consumer needs.
• We need to emphasize the role that knowledge and entrepreneurship play in value creation.
• A steady growth rate is necessary to inspire passion across the company.
• Integrity and competence are the basis for long term employment at Huawei,
• You can succeed as long as you try. If you don’t try, you will not have a chance because fortune favors the bold.
• Huawei only exists to serve its customers.

I only wish I’d studied all of this before I started my career and taken it to heart. While great business and legal minds (also even gamers) draw strategic inspiration from the writings of Sun Tzu, Mr. Ren lends some no-nonsense tactics to business success. His philosophies have enabled his business to grow from one to 180,000 employees in a market when obstacles are many.

If global commonalities between businesses prove true, consider how the above tenets might help your business grow.

Originally published at mcollier.blogspot.com on April 22, 2017.

What happens when two well educated women with creative backgrounds meet up and decide to start a business? In the case of Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo, you get www.ofakind.com, an ecommerce company with a higher purpose.

Claire Mazur always seemed to have an innate attraction for the arts. After a random meeting with Donna Karan, she landed an internship at DKNY at 16 (her AOL screenname was DKNYClaire). In college, she shifted her focus more broadly to the arts. Claire received her Master’s degree in Arts Management to work with art collections and individual artists.

Erica Cerulo had a successful background as an editor at Details, the fashion and lifestyle magazine, and later at Lucky (one of my favorite magazines in its era) which translated haute couture designs into more affordable fashions for young professionals.

In 2010, these two fashion forward women got together and founded their company. Claire saw how the art world was changing and saw the internet as a new distribution channel. The internet enabled a broader scope of people to have access to art. Erica was motivated by the idea to drive and build something from the ground up. This new company gave them a sense of ownership.’

The site name, “Of a Kind” represents the philosophy of the site. Some of the creations for sale may only be available in limited quantities, because they sell exclusive, emerging design fashion. They seek out upcoming designers and give them a platform, making their wares available to a broader audience.

Since the site’s inception, they have featured over 350 of America’s most promising new makers in fashion and the arts. Designers get a start here and many have grown into their own brands, like Clare Vivier’s “Clare V.” The web site has become an incubator of sorts; the founders believe in the designers, and they end up supporting each other and growing together.

Claire and Erica had a dream of bringing art and fashion to everyday women. They scoured previously untouched sources such as designs accessible from small boutiques; young designers that weren’t currently represented online. They gave these makers a platform to sell their goods.

To curate the fashion, they find things that they would want to wear themselves — things with a little bit of a twist. This approach appeals to their audience in the fashion discovery phase and they sell the designs at reasonable prices. The core of the Of a Kind shopping experience is facilitated by Erica’s expertise in storytelling. It’s the way they engage their customers with the products they are buying. It gives a sense of meaning to the pieces they are selling. Each designer represented on the site has their own page that’s filled with personal stories alongside their bios. The editorial portions of the site are strongly tied to featuring merchandise. It makes buying easy — that’s their secret sauce.

Initially, Erica and Claire ran the company out of their respective apartments. Some merchandise was stored with Claire, other merchandise with Erica. There were advisors and interns to help out and they grew by bootstrapping the business; reinvesting what they earned to grow the company. Shipping proved to be a challenge. It was done from their apartments, where they went through the trials of learning “how” to ship. Some items required boxes while other pieces could be shipped in envelopes. The goal was always to deliver the best possible customer experience. Success meant getting their hands dirty with all the nitty gritty aspects of running the business.

They learned that customers appreciated knowing that there are real people behind the business. The founders have been transparent about their story and who they are now. This storytelling expands throughout the site via well written editorials and fanciful photography. Personally, I went from page to page — just to read the tips, stories and the news. The web site is incredibly sticky and engaging.

There are many costs tied to shipping out a box. They try to keep prices reasonable. Currently their website features free ground shipping on orders over $75. Normally, they charge a flat $9.50 for each package, which is sent via FedEx Ground® service. Overnight orders are also available, sent via FedEx Standard Overnight® service for $19.50. Orders are shipped the same day they are received when placed before 2pm ET.

These days shipping is done through a family-owned warehouse in Maryland. The team in Maryland took the time to learn the business and the culture of the customer experience. Packages are sent out with a personalized touch — with certificates of authenticity and handwritten thank you notes. They maintain their loyal customer base by keeping in contact with their customers through a wildly popular newsletter called “Ten Things.” There’s also a podcast on the site.

From creative, unique sourcing to superior web design, Of a Kind has broken new ground combining culture, shopping and the personal touch to create a customer experience that’s appreciated by all.

Passion and Profit was originally published in Beyond the Storefront on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.