OJT: Want an education? Get a job.

I sat with a group of waitresses the other night who were all working their way through university - one in business, another in marketing and so on and they were all going to private universities that were very small and had virtually no foreign professors, save for the English department and it brought me to think about the following question: What do you do if you've graduated from a fairly average university and still want to excel in your chosen field?

That's the question I was faced with just months out of school. Armed with my fairly average portfolio of reasonably outdated technique from a not famous at all design program, I realized that the people who were getting the really good jobs had gone to really good schools - The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Pratt, The School of Visual Arts, Parson's and the like. How could I compete with them? Or perhaps the better question was, how could I learn from them?

And so I set about studying and imitating and asking questions about the ideas behind the designs and rather than treat the competition like competition I regarded them more like professors. And I radically re-worked my portfolio for my three-year quest to get a job at the best advertising agency in town. I spent a summer vacation to fly to L.A. and visit the Art Center in Pasadena. I spoke with a counselor, looked at the more than impressive work and toured the beautiful campus high above the Rose Bowl on a small mountain. It was exhilarating - and expensive. $18,000 a year - in 1980. As much as I figured, even living with my uncle and trying to obtain California residency for a lower tuition, there would be no way I could ever afford that. And the program would be 2 years at $18k plus living expenses. In one instance I was inspired and in another despondent. It just wasn't possible. What to do?

So on my return to Dallas, I went back to work on my portfolio. And back to interviewing for a better job. I had an average job and probably a pretty good one for starters but nobody was doing the calibre work there that would make them, or me, world-class. And I wanted that.

Enter OJT - 'On the Job Training'. This is a term in the US that nobody in Asia seemed to understand when I used it with my staff in Korea. I put a producer on a plane and sent him to California to assist on some Kellogg's commercials so he could learn what a real Hollywood shoot was like. I took the whole creative team, writer, art director and producer to Chicago to film and they came back with an education that went far outside the dark studio we worked in all day. These exercises cost the company little (clients pay for production travel) and provided a real-world education to the staff on real business. OJT for sure.

Our producer from that job took a year off to work in Korean restaurant in L.A. so he could teach himself English. He then returned to production as a director for Korea's top film production house. I used to call him 'Tarantino' because he taught himself directing and editing by watching videos all day long.

Wanting to work in the graphic arts in some way, at 16 I worked for sign companies. I loaded trucks, mixed paint and learned how to paint signs from a man who had learned it in the Army. Next I drove a truck for a printing company. I delivered the final products - but I spent every extra moment upstairs in the design department talking to the creative director and designers. I'm sure they thought I was a terrible pest, but it was my job. It was my job to learn as much as I possibly could instead of flipping burgers or being a waiter, the other jobs on offer at the time - and it's not any different at all today for any other student.

I can't count the number of posts I see on LinkedIn, Facebook or Xing from people who want to know how to break "in" to a business. To be a stockbroker, a realtor, a writer, whatever. And the answer is never any different. Everybody has to start somewhere - so if you want to be a marketer, market a church event, or a school event. Want to write? Start a blog. Stock-broking for you? Start day-trading penny stocks today - plenty of housewives are doing it. Whatever it is you want to do, you have to make it your job before anybody else will ever make it your job for you.

Even at one point as a teenager, I wanted to improve my penmanship, so I bought an expensive German rapidiograph pen that would train me in respect for the craft of the written word, every single day I used it - and then I used it every day - as I still do today. The point being, that if you want to do something very well, better than others, you have to immerse yourself in that subject or craft as much or more than they do and make it not just a class, not just a job, but an integral part of your life - a part of your being.

How many guys want to be computer programmers but don't think of even programming the website for the restaurant they work for? The point here is that much of our education is waiting for all of us, outside in the real world - every single day. Why wait for somebody to start Facebook, become successful, write a book about it, and then have 1000 real genius college professors write books and lessons on that just so that they can 'teach' you something? That process takes 10 years, minimum, and by the time you get the education, the information is already old.

My plan was to pick the best and the brightest who were working in my business at the time, (and they were not working for universities) and then let them be my teachers. And that plan worked - to the amazement of almost everyone who knew me. Almost overnight I went from being a somewhat cute and funny guy who worked for pretty unspectacular companies to being some creative wunderkind who had charmed his way past the line of graduates waiting to get into the most award-wining company in town.

So that's how I got into design. How I published my first novel is another story entirely - one I'm still writing today. Just don't let me say 'I toldja so'.

MBAs Growing on Trees?

I had an interesting experience this last year in Germany with an MBA acquaintance who was looking for a job. After a month of searching and calling she was only offered executive assistant work or possibly reception or other general staff work - and with 45,000 students and over 1500 Ph.D. candidates matriculating from LMU in Munich each year, it's no wonder that MBAs seemed to be growing on trees there. One of the world's most affordable tuition structures (EUR 500 per year) doesn't hurt either to get kids hitting the books and passing all the right tests. Plus, it's Germany's #1 rated university and in the top 100 worldwide.

But what is it really all worth when it's over if the graduates are only qualified to work in a convenience store once they have the sheepskin? What is it worth if the graduates just got the degree everyone else wanted for them and didn't study the things they cared about most?

Each year the Princeton Review and USA Today compile a list of "Best Value Universities" in the United States, and that list may surprise you - with Swarthmore college in Pennsylvania and Harvard leading the list of privates and the University of Virginia and City College of New York heading up the public institutions. Universities in the US are generally the most expensive in the world due to lack of public tax funding as one finds more common in Europe and even Japan and George Washington University in D.C. takes the cake as most expensive at $38,000 per year tuition with public universities rounding out the bottom at an average $15,000.

So what does it take to go to one of the best universities and how might one decide what universities those are? The logical take might be to decide first what kind of education one wants and then see who offers that, but the more predominant and somewhat disturbing take amongst many seeking post graduate business education, seems to be to choose the college that impresses others most according to ones budget. If money is no object, just pick the school that others tell you is the best. Who gives a shit what they teach you if the place is well respected by everyone?

And I've met two MBA graduates recently who have reinforced that question to me.

I imagine asking myself, what kind of advice I would give to my son or daughter in situations of this kind. Yes, I'm old enough to have done that already, but haven't yet, so I'll just have to imagine for now. How do I tell them to look for compassion, energy, love and excitement? How do I tell them to always balance statistics and logic with art and literature and a liberal dose of spirituality? Where can they learn risk tolerance and risk taking as equal pursuits or trend bucking and trend spotting as two sides of the same coin? How does one know when it's time to fit in and time to stand out? And if no one ever does anything controversial or is never called foolish, will they just be looked over like too many beautiful flowers in the garden - too many MBAs hanging from that tree?

And I wonder what I would have chosen for myself had those choices been available to me in university - because essentially, I learned all those things, at the hands of a small city college and the university chosen for me by the Illinois State Legislator's Scholarship program. Yes, I was a guest of the state, but in an institution quite different from what many of my high school teachers might have forecast for me. I was fortunate enough to get one of the few free rides available to college students in the US. A free ride to pursue my dream. But I wonder how many people, at no matter what the cost, ever really consider pursuing their dream as opposed to the dreams their family and society have laid out for them.

Shortly after my graduation and firmly ensconced in my fairly shitty first job I attended a lecture sponsored by the DSVC, the Dallas Society of Visual Communications. At this lecture was the designer of the very first Gap store's logo and I remember this speaker's theme, although I remain powerless in finding his name today. In any case, this day, he walked out onto the stage, with no slide show, no samples, and no hoopla - just a mic, and he said, "Today, I'm not going to talk about design. Today, I want to talk about love. Today I want to look at the idea of taking what you love, which happens to be design, and learning how to make a living, and a damn good living at that, doing this thing that you so love". And what an inspiring talk it was - one I don't ever recall hearing at university amidst all the supposed knowledge that was being thrown about. How to make a living, and indeed a life, doing something that one loved. I wonder if that is being taught at all in MBA school today?

The speaker went on to describe that all the time we were at university slaving away at becoming the perfect projectionists of culture upon society, that the rest of the students, the geeks in polo shirts and dockers, were busy learning business - and that now, it was time to turn our attention to the business of learning business - and that in turn, would teach us how to make our living doing something that we loved - doing something that we were passionate about - profitably.

He said that every artist out there had a much better chance of learning business than a business person ever had of learning art - and I have indeed found that to be true. You will find far many more people educated in the creative arts succeeding at some sort of business than you will find business people succeeding professionally at art - and as much as even I too love Warren Buffett, we are much less interested in hearing him play the guitar, which he does.

But my old boss at Leo Burnett, Michael Conrad, has found a twist on the whole idea of the need to foster more creativity in business. At Steinbeis University in Berlin, the Berlin School of Creative Leadership has assembled an all-star squad of current and former advertising creatives to shepherd and lead an EMBA program for working professionals - people schooled in all the proper "T" crossing and "I" dotting of MBA programs who have realized the need for passion, serendipity and the value of doing just enough more than usual to create the kind of "happy accidents" that all great lives and businesses so need to stay vital. How important it is to know that we are not perfect, but to be imperfect often enough to let the law of averages take over and produce something that is just absolutely perfect, every once in awhile - even if only once in a lifetime.

Another recent MBA grad I met recently wondered openly whether her new corporate job would allow her to exercise passion in her life - a question probably far better asked before spending the 70 grand on that prestigious MBA program - a question probably far better asked before half of the people in the world attempt a marriage - a question probably far better asked every single day of our lives, before we don't answer it and end up regretting for forgetting to get that one quiz question absolutely correct - no matter what your GPA might have been.

We're all being eaten alive: June 22nd, 2010

We're all being eaten alive. And so that's what I've been taught by my 54th birthday. "Dammit David, we taught you to play by the rules, we sent you to a Catholic school, and you still don't learn. You must be stupid - or the enemy", said society.

The enemy of a good idea is complacency. No idea at all. The enemy of good is not evil, but inaction - the art of going nowhere for years without ever taking a stand. Without ever knowing where you want to go. Our schools breed this in us.

"Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps."
~ H.L. Mencken

And I have not yet met a communist who has had a good idea. They have all been bred to believe the same old ones. Mao Tze Tung had good ideas when he was young, but his party institutionalized them and he was not allowed to adapt them to the present, although he tried. He died an unhappy old man, ostracized by the government he created.

"Every man is a reformer until reform tramps on his toes."
~Edgar Watson Howe, Country Town Sayings, 1911

Last year I met a woman who talked me out of getting a regular job, she even helped kill one for me, for the proposed valor of starting something new with her - and then she left that idea and me, when it proved difficult - because she needed a regular job and a regular guy, like 99.9% of the world. She had a creative idea, and then killed it herself, or let her society kill it for her. Trouble was, I believed in her at the start. Who was wrong?

"When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear. They asked me which one is different and does not belong, they taught me different was wrong."
~ Ani Difranco

An internet entrepreneur, recently, backed me off the idea that we should try to solicit advertisers for a site but what he didn't have was the money to support his idea through years of no income. People forget that Google and Twitter were started with piles of venture capital. Piles of money.

Being an individualist isn't worth a pile of shit if you can't afford it - rather society will take some other conformity and package it as maverick vision. And women who once fell in love with your individualism will abandon you for it in favor of what society tells them is correct.

"Every society honors its live conformists, and its dead troublemakers."
~ Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

The trick seems to be balance. How can we be creative and original without being victimized? How can we be responsible, without being complacent? And how can we find a partner who values and supports both?

I end today's rant with a clip of Todd Rundgren's 60th birthday bash two years ago. Todd and I share this day but also a number of ideals. He's raised two pro-ball players, another son in college and Liv Tyler as a step-dad, yet remained a rock star and a creative spirit at heart. And he maintains a successful career.

Toddstock Birthday Montage from Ed Vigdor on Vimeo.

Who the hell is thinking that at this age I should give up my ideas of being interesting, intellectual, creative and yes, profitable? I've had a life of all of that and can't imagine that it would ever be a good idea to turn a card and become a soldier - so much as others might want me to do. A lyric in a Todd song says, "Choose your heroes and choose them well, they could be leading you straight into hell".

"We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone - our parents, teachers, analysts - hypnotizes us to "see" the world and construe it in the "right" way.

The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we become undeaf, unblind and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meanings in the new book of our existence. Be careful in your choice of hypnotists."

~Sidney Jourard

May I be "18 at 80" and loved for it, instead of discarded for it before I even get there, at 54.

"Do our schools kill creativity" - Sir Ken Robinson

I talk about creativity, often - and education, sometimes - because I make a good part of my living from teaching creativity, in all aspects, much more than just the artistic. But rather than me going on about it, this talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED conference in 2006 does far better than I could ever do. Give it a look.




"Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009."

I wonder about the SDM conference coming up this week and had they thought to have gotten a speaker on this level, with an actual relevant topic, it might have provoked far more interest and excitement than the bulk of industry salespeople and hijacked model they've assembled instead - and been an educational networking experience, well worth the money. Thanks to Hugh MacLeod for reminding me of this film. Hugh has been a long time proponent of "Social Objects" - created things that get conversations started. This talk by Sir Ken is a bona-fide social object. It will get you thinking, then talking, and hopefully doing - digital or otherwise.

For more on Creativity, Education and the like, check below:

"Do Our Schools Kill Creativity?" - Sir Ken Robinson
Brand Marketing and Staff Training in Vietnam
2009 Marketing Predictions
The Language Barrier - An Asian Business Conundrum

Vietnam's second proper Advertising Institute

Today, with a small flourish, I am happy to announce the formation of Vietnam's second Advertising Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, ARTI - the Advertising and Research Training Institute of Vietnam. I was able to meet with the director and key staffers yesterday after their opening ceremonies and can't tell you how happy I was to be in a room surrounded by storyboards and prints of absolutely excellent conceptual design work as we spoke. This is an atmosphere that has been sorely lacking in the business environment here. Their website follows, but is unfortunately only in Vietnamese at the current time: http://www.arti.edu.vn

Hopefully, as time passes I will have an opportunity to bring my WPP Advertising Educational Foundation idea and this school together. I'll have more reports to follow for sure.

For more on Brand Marketing Training in Vietnam, go here <.

Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"

1) He told me to take the #4 on return from the meeting, but on a hot city street with all the busses going in same direction the #104 looks just as good to a man longing for a little aircon with a misguided sense that he understands this grand flowering plant that is Saigon. It is, of course, the wrong bus. I simply rode it until I could recognize some sort of roundabout or landmark that would give me some bearing. And in a city literally choked with roundabouts, Temples and skinny four to ten storey buildings, real landmarks are few and far between. The first one I saw took about an hour to pop up, so I popped out and made my way home from there, an easy 10km off my mark. 2) One would never think to choose Vietnam as the place to decide you wanted to become a connoiseur of gnochi gorgonzola but I have oddly become one and just blocks away from my house. I can't imagine who taught them how to make the stuff. Was there an Italian contigent in here helping them to fight off the French after WWII? Or maybe just the chefs fleeing a war-torn Europe. In my case today the portion comes served in a big bowl with a side of shaved parma and another side of very nicely done bruschetta. The gnochi, never a standard size or consistency from restaurant to restaurant, seem homemade and today's entry has been garnished by me with a little hot chili oil from the "goodies" basket that accompanies each order. Damn that's tasty. As good as I ever had in Chicago with Capone's decendants manning the kitchens. 3) Been thinking about WWII recently and the reasons so, so many people died before America entered and finally put an end to things. I've also been thinking about the conditions imposed on the Germans at the close of WWI and considering how logical it would have been for the German people to have supported somebody/anybody who was promising to end the misery of paying off the reparations of the Treaty of Versailles. The Versailles Reparations came in a variety of forms, including coal, steel, intellectual property (eg. the patent for Aspirin) and agricultural products, in no small part because payments of that magnitude were just impossible. As it were, currency reparations were forcast to 1988 already. All this I have been thinking in light of having read the first few pages of Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (2003)" recently, as a friend has been carrying around a copy - and all this love we've got going on in America over our upcoming fair and Democratic elections takes on a whole lot less of a lustre. But rather than lecture or get on a soapbox today, I'll just suggest a little real reading into America's motivations over the previous century and wonder about the future - a century with a distinct Asian political element, economically missing from the last one. 4) Nobody is really sitting around waiting for HBO to put "Field of Dreams" on at 2am but today is Vietnam's Independence Day celebration so I had nothing better to do last night when it came on. And lo and behold, it was oddly just what I needed in a week where things are professionally transitional and less than assured - a movie that highlights making the impossible possible and giving hope to those some of us who have made rather serious past life decisions with reasonably less than serious research and quite possibly just a sketch of where it was we thought we were going when we made those decisions. I slept quite a bit better for having seen it and wondered quite how the producers were able to get the legal permissions for the writing of the Terance Mann character, until I read that he was not real but only based loosely on J.D. Salinger. 5) I finish today with the beginnings of an idea I'd like to get WPP to be a part of - the idea of involving itself corporately and quite seriously in the beginning of putting real media and education programs into the Universities, not just here in Vietnam but also in the many developing markets where they are serving and growing. As many corporations are asking themselves how they can better serve the communities in which they harvest some sometimes very large fortunes, it seems that the idea of education is not only corporately honourable but ultimately beneficial to all involved. The countries need modern education and WPP needs future, well trained employees. The math is easy. Google the letters WPP, along with the words Education/Scholarship or University and you won't come up with much. A huge opportunity awaits the smart companies methinks.

P.S. As a sign-off I'll provide a clue to the meaning of the opening sentence to this post from Noam Chomsky. It seems to be exactly what the American government has been doing in regard to the positioning of our involvement in Iraq - speaking in a gramatically correct form, but not making any sense at all. Click the blue for more info...

For more on the "Perspective" or "Little Things" series, click below:

My Morning Wake-Up Call - Perspective XX: The Little Things XII
We'll Have A Gay Old Time - Perspective XIX: The Little Things XII
"Rolled Foggy Disposed Ricepaper" - Perspective XVIII: The Little Things XI
Joyeux Noel - Perspective XVII: The Little Things X
Lunch With Obama - Perspective XVI: The Little Things IX
One Motley Crue On The Bus Today - Perspective XV: The Little Things VIII
Attraction vs. Conversion: How To Power Your Blog - Perspective XIV: The Little Things VII
A glass box full of deep fried chicken heads - Perspective XIII: The Little Things VI
Seoul Searching - Perspective XII
He Would Have Shot Me 40 Years Ago - Perspective XI: The Little Things V
Chomsky on Colour & Sleep - Perspective X: The Little Things IV.2
Running With Scizzors - Perspective IX: The Little Things IV
Henry Miler II - Perspective VIII : The Little Things III.1
Henry Miller - Perspective VII: The Little Things III
Big Brother - Perspective VI: The Little Things II
This Carnival of Life! - Perspective V
The Art Walk - Perspective IV: The Little Things
Bentley #5 - Perspective III.2
Bentley vs. Vespa - Perspective III.1
Bentleys Invade Vietnam - Perspective III
Death Of A Colleague - Perspective II
Perspective

Boom, Boom, Boom, Baby! The Education Market In Asia: WAZZALA WINS!

A few weeks ago I referenced Nick Marx's Wazzala site as a site to watch in the TechCrunch50 and here we have it: Wazzala has made the first round cut with my buddy Nicholas Marx at the helm. Wazzala is an idea that helps Asian students prepare for English college entrance exams and if you have any understanding of the 30 billion (that's a "B") dollar worldwide education market, you understand how bright, and right, this idea is. Here's the letter they sent to him, informing him of Wazzala's forward motion: Way cool.

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"So I got this email inviting me to an interview from the TechCrunch50 conference. Even if I don't make it, I know now my idea has legs." = Nick

Dear TechCrunch50 Applicant:

We hope you're ready! Would like to invite you to select a time to demo your product using use the link below: With our Final notification date coming son on august 11, these are our final 3 days for Round I demos so we thank you for making yourself available. This will be a very brief, 10 minute demo overview where we would like to see your technology demonstrated using a web conference, screenshots or video of what you can do. The total time is 10 minutes, so please use your time wisely. Your Reviewer will contact you at the appointed date and time so also make sure the contact and demo information are correct on your Application under "How to Access your Demo" section. Also, please use all time slots available, no additional times will be released past Wednesday. For help in preparing your presentation, visit our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page at www.techcrunch50.com or e-mail us at Schedule@techcrunch50.com


Good Luck!
The TechCrunch50 Team

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...and good luck Nick! I'm just gettin' warmed up for BarCampSaigon!

Boom, Boom, Boom, Baby: The Education Market in Asia

Spend just a tiny amount of time in Asia and you come to realize that the shape, size and growth of all sorts of markets is radically different than those of more mature western economies. Where the average American is whinging about the cost of a gallon of gas, the average Vietnamese, Indian or Chinese doesn't see that to be much of an issue. They don't drive many cars. And where Americans may go on about the sub-prime mortgage crisis, (five banks failed to date, and counting...) you don't have that problem here. Affluent Viets and Chinese have had their houses given to them by their governments and even democratized South Koreans tend to pass family property down to eldest sons, negating the need for mortgages altogether. So what do the Asians spend all their money on? Where does their discretionary income go?

Well, two things – in varying degrees: Food & education.

In South Korea, the largest expense is food and drink in restaurants and cafes, as their homes tend to be smaller and ill-suited to entertainment of friends and colleagues, and the government heavily subsidizes education, thus reducing the financial burden on parents – but in Vietnam the largest expense outside the home seems to be education – although I can't find a government number to prove that. I just look at all the students being picked up on motorbikes after school and wearing the smart uniforms of their private institutes and have come to the same conclusion as Nicholas Marx of www.Wazzala.com.

Just last month Nick entered his business plan for Wazzala.com in the Techcrunch50 and I think he's got a real shot at securing venture capital for his idea. For all the foreigners who come in here with some "brilliant" idea for an e-com business, Nick's is the only one where the numbers make any sense. Why set up a website to appeal to 250,000 foreigners when there are 78 million Vietnamse chomping at the bit for not only a web identity, but an education as well. With the average age in country at 26 years old and the number of Viets on the web growing from 20 million this year to 36 million in two years, Vietnam is the perfect proving ground for Nick's model – providing free educational services over the net to prospective students and generating revenue by selling advertising to universities and testing services aiming at students. And if the numbers in Vietnam aren't impressive enough, just take a look at China. This year 15. 5 million will graduate high school, 5.5 million will have a college degree and all will seriously try for education in a western country. Currently 200,000 Chinese will study abroad, but that number will continue to dwarf itself every year that China increases in affluence and international travel opportunities. Vietnam, being smaller and more nimble than cumbersome China or India will post faster growth in the international educational market.

Here's Nick in his own words, "My idea is simple: attract an audience of international students with my free and custom study guides at http://www.wazzala.com/. These study guides help people prepare for English certifications such as TOEFL and IELTS. Then sell adverts to universities so that they can showcase their programs to these students who want to study abroad. "

Take a look at both Wazzala.com and the attached Newsweek article. Numbers don't lie. With the both the Internet and demand for educational services growing faster in Asia than anywhere else on earth, can a group of smart investors from Silicon Valley do the math? I hope so...

"You have a very interesting resume"

That means the interviewer thinks you are strange. And what is strange? Strange means you are not like them. It means they do not understand you. It means they are looking for someone more like themselves.

Excerpts from Wild Wild East:

"Webster says: A STRANGER. 1a: of, relating to, or characteristic of another country : 5: having the quantum characteristic of strangeness synonyms: STRANGE, SINGULAR, UNIQUE, PECULIAR, ECCENTRIC, ERRATIC, ODD, QUEER, QUAINT, OUTLANDISH, meaning departing from what is ordinary, usual, or to be expected."

Strange means you may have been to places and know of things that they don't so the word interesting is inserted instead. It's not a form of curiosity - unfortunately - it's more of a criticism, a way of pushing back from the table.

"One look at all those descriptions and it’s easy to tell why people from other countries can be misperceived or misunderstood. Strange, outlandish, eccentric and odd - queer, erratic, and peculiar – these are certainly not the words we want to describe the person who’s coming in to manage your company. So maybe there’s a basic problem in using the word foreigner to describe people from other countries – but in Korea you will be a foreigner, like it or not.

Many of my expatriate friends have experienced the initial shock of being labeled foreigner and they tend not to like it, but Koreans, being from a homogeneous country with a Confucian value system, where everyone has a place in the hierarchy of the group, don’t see anything wrong with it. To Koreans it simply means that that person is not part of the group. And that is exactly the point:

The first thing one needs to learn in moving from a Western to an Eastern culture is not who you are, but who you are not."

Talking with friends and relatives back home is a little bit different. At any gathering or cocktail party you are obviously the zebra in a room full of horses and they are all very curious to learn how and where you got your stripes – for about twenty minutes. Then their knowledge of Korea or Vietnam turns to MASH and Apocalypse Now until it finally wanes and the conversation jumps to Bob's issues at the country club or Bert's new Lexus.

How odd to have been the foreigner when I initially moved abroad and now to be one again when I go back home or deal with American's there.

A few years ago I had a speaking invitation to about 250 Korean graduate students who were all planning to study abroad in one field or another. My subject was marketing. Reading through my resume and reviewing the Powerpoint it became obvious that most of the information was just gobble-dee-gook on paper. Couldn't I tell the story better in pictures? I gave a 2 minute run-through of my credentials...blah, blah, blah – university this – big agency/big client that, blah, blah, blah – and then said, wait – "All of that data on paper just tells you what things are. I want to show you how it all feels." I then proceeded to show the following film. I've edited the ending a bit to reflect the last couple of years just to keep it current for new audiences.



"The Guild of the Infant Saviour on East 86th Street in New York in 1956 was approximately 6885 miles and exactly thirty-nine years away from Seoul, Korea in 1995. Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis would play their last comedy show together at the Copacabana just a few blocks away that year and Elvis, singing Hound Dog, would electrify the Ed Sullivan show in the same city just a few months later. But things were reasonably less grand at the Guild of the Infant Saviour, a home for unwed Catholic mothers just a few blocks south of Gracie Mansion on the East River and adjacent to what was then Misericordia Hospital at 531 East 86th. It was here that Shawn Michael Everitt would begin his journey"

How does one get from New York to Illinois? From Illinois to Texas? From Texas to DC? From DC to Chicago? From Chicago to Korea? From Korea to Vietnam?

"I would be asked in Korea much later, how it felt to be a foreigner in a strange land and my response was simply this: When you’re adopted and have traveled by car from Jersey to Illinois at the age of three, you’re already a foreigner – doing it one more time is just no big deal."

Now the thought occurs to me that I should edit the film one more time – to explain to Americans about my time in Asia – or just make a whole damn new movie. Or write a Book?