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Pretty fascinating video about recent studies of what motivates workers in today higher-skilled information-based workforce. Many of the simplistic rules of management and motivation seem to bounce up against the reality of studies that show people cannot just be bought or led around by a horse collar. Worth a few minutes, if not for the message than at least for the funny animation that follows.

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Hillary's Air Force

Ok, so that’s a bit of a scare headline, but I was struck by this story in the New York Times for two reasons.  First, it does report that the last US combat troops have left Iraq, but second, it mentions that the US State Department is going to be doubling their security contractors (upto nearly 7,000) and these civilians will be providing security, escort duty, quick reactions forces, even flying drones over Iraq.

Huh?

Just yesterday I wrote about the possible inefficiency in using US Navy ships in humanitarian efforts, and today I’ve got a bit of the opposite–using civilian military forces in place of the Army.

To move around Iraq without United States troops, the State Department plans to acquire 60 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, called MRAPs, from the Pentagon; expand its inventory of armored cars to 1,320; and create a mini-air fleet by buying three planes to add to its lone aircraft. Its helicopter fleet, which will be piloted by contractors, will grow to 29 choppers from 17.

The department’s plans to rely on 6,000 to 7,000 security contractors, who are also expected to form “quick reaction forces” to rescue civilians in trouble, is a sensitive issue, given Iraqi fury about shootings of civilians by American private guards in recent years. Administration officials said that security contractors would have no special immunity and would be required to register with the Iraqi government. In addition, one of the State Department’s regional security officers, agents who oversee security at diplomatic outposts, will be required to approve and accompany every civilian convoy, providing additional oversight.

Wow, really sounds like the kind of job the military might excel at don’t you think?

There is a reason–plenty of reasons.  Obama’s team can say “we’re out of Iraq” with shades of the “Mission Accomplished” banner far from their memories (deja vu?) and the Iraqi ‘government’ for lack of a better word can says ‘the US is out of Iraq’.  Of course the reality on the ground is probably a shade different than those two stories that both governments want to start spinning.  There are still 50,000 advisors in country, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more than a few special operations teams looking for this guy or that (and not afraid to fire a weapon if it comes to that).

Something tells me there are a few asterisks to the story of “the last combat troops leaving” that we haven’t heard just yet.

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Floods in Pakistan are a growing problem for the governments not only in Islamabad but in the US as well. The demand for helicopters to ferry supplies and rescue workers is being shouted from those suffering on the ground, and the radicals are certainly adding fuel to the fire by spreading the idea “they can use the helicopters to attack us but not save us?” Needless to say, it’s getting some traction. The US dispatched 6 desperately needed helicopters from combat operations in Afghanistan, but with the arrival of the USS Peleliu those six will return to be replaced by 19 USMC helos (eventhough, in an unrelated incident, the captain of the Peleliu was relieved of command last weekend).

Last year the disaster was in Haiti, and before then we had earthquakes and tsunamis all of which required a significant deployment of US combat capabilities in a humanitarian effort.  Sometimes these come at a cost, such as when our aircraft carriers were working with the Indonesian tsunami and we had to offload all the combat aircraft (carrier pilots need to land on a carrier every 21 days to maintain proficiency, which was nearly impossible with all the relief operations ongoing on the deck and the refusals of local governments for military aircraft to operate in their airspace).

While the military does a wonderful job assisting in humanitarian efforts, it’s sometimes like calling the fire department to rescue a cat from a tree.  Is the military the most efficient resource we can send to a humanitarian crisis?  Is there a better suited federal agency or group that could provide necessary assistance?

Perhaps it is time for the Peace Corps to develop a Navy.

Taking a few amphibious assault vessels out of the reserve fleets and turning them over to the Peace Corps might be an interesting approach.  Staffed with Peace Corps volunteers, professional (contract) pilots, and merchant mariners, we could develop a small fleet of emergency assistance vessels that would patrol the worlds oceans providing medical assistance to impoverished lands and responding to natural disasters with their own fleet of specially suited rescue and logistics helicopters.  Without the ‘US Military’ label that goes on some operations, countries might be more willing to accept assistance.  Take the Chinese earthquake in Sichaun in 2008.  Existing Chinese military units were vastly overstretched, but national pride prevented initial requests for international assistance.  Had an amphibious ‘rescue’ vessel been offshore or in Hong Kong the response from the US could have been non-militaristic and immediate.

Of course given the budget deficits and the fact that humanitarian dollars flowing to the Pentagon help to offset some of the operational expenses of the forces, I don’t foresee this happening anytime soon.  C’est la vie.

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For those who missed the launch here is a nice collection of iPad videos from neonpunch.com‘s coverage of the Hong Kong iPad’s release.

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Strange things were afoot at the Starbucks.

Two men next to us were sitting at a Starbucks table in Times Square, not a cup of coffee or even a bagel in sight. They were surrounded by stacks of paper, boxes, and empty shopping bags piled high. Next to them were several carry-on suitcases stuffed to the breaking point. And there in front of the one man was an iPhone 4.

Now if this was an airport or a train station or any other place on any other day, you’d probably think nothing of their setup. But today was iPad day in Hong Kong, and we were just about 100 feet and 1 floor up from one of the largest resellers of iPads (with the longest lines) in the entire city. Something just didn’t seem right.

Photo from neonpunch.com

One of the men looked up quickly when a gaggle of teenage girls cautiously turned the corner. They gave a quick nod over toward him and he jumped up immediately. He walked over and they handed over plastic shopping bags with large Apple logos on the side–two bags per girl, along with the receipts. In exchange each girl got $100HK (about $12 US) per bag. The girls promptly blended into the crowd of other shoppers and the man was busy stuffing boxes into his luggage. He then rolled his suitcase back to the Starbucks where it was stacked with other luggage, looking quite like a traveller ready to go on a journey.

“Dude” I whispered to my friend. “These guys are iPad smugglers.”

We had seen the mules in the line. Folks wearing masks, sunglasses and hats who were very shy when it came time for photos. People kept turning around, hiding under newspapers, even opening umbrellas to shield us from our cameras. The Bloomberg reporter told me “those kids are Triad members (Chinese mafia) who will be selling their iPads later today in Mongkok”. With that bit of warning we were both a bit hesitant to talk to the guys in the Starbucks, fearing they may be the ringleaders of some violent Ax Gang from a hard life council flat in rundown Kowloon.

“I wonder if they could get me an iPhone 4″ I thought to myself.

The man came back from the girls with eight bags filled with iPads. His partner pulled out a legal tablet and made some check marks. The page was filled with dozens of check marks. 16gb, check, 32 gb, check, 32gb 3G, check, check.

Of course, looking over to our table was probably just as confusing for the two smugglers. We were frantically busy uploading video of the iPad launch to Youtube and had two Mac laptops, a mifi, an iPhone 3G, a Sony HD Camcorder, a Canon Digital SLR and a dried out danish. They noticed us noticing them or we noticed them noticing us (I can’t remember which came first) and finally I just had to break the ice.

“Do you like the iPhone 4″ I said with a smile, sliding over to get a better look.

“Yeah, it’s great” he said with barely a hint of an accent. “The screen is great”.

So we started chatting about the phone and the screen and whatnot. He got it in China he said, but it was originally from the UK. I finally got around to the meat of the matter and said “pretty crazy day” pointing over to the reseller nearby.

“Yea, I’m going to be here for hours”

“Getting an iPad for your friends?”

“More than a few friends. I have $2 million RMB I have to spend today (about $300,000 US). My boss sent me down here and we’ve got dozens of people in line. There are five other guys in other parts of Hong Kong doing the same thing.”

“Good business I guess”.

“Yea, but it’s not our main business. We have a factory in China making (this and that). That’s our core business, it’s just this opportunity arose and the boss wanted to take advantage of it. It’s much cheaper for us to get the iPads here in Hong Kong than flying over to the USA and bringing them back.”

“Are those people in line friends of yours?”

Photo from neonpunch.com

“No, we hired a ‘hat gang’. One guy is the top hat and he goes out and recruits all the kids. We pay them $100HK per iPad, and some of the kids will go to another store later today to get in line again. Better than them doing nothing all Summer just goofing around.”

Just then a runner came down, a skinny kid in a crooked oversized baseball hat, and reported to the other man some news. After he left I returned to our conversation.

“Was that the ‘top hat’?” I asked.

“Ha,” he said. “The top hat is VERY big and watching the kids closely.” Each kid was holding essentially $10,000 HK in cash ($1,200 USA) so the top hat was to make sure the kids didn’t get any funny ideas.

“How are you going to get these into China?” where the tax rate is about 20% on imported items like this.

“Not my problem” he laughed with an expression that said ‘thank god’. “I’m to take these to a shipper in Hong Kong later today and he will deal with that. You know China–a bit of money to the right person can open up a channel” he said. “Only about 50% will go to China. The other 50% will go to folks in Hong Kong who couldn’t be bothered to wait in a line.”

“I actually have two cars down in the parking garage right now.” he said. “When the first is full it will head over and I’ll take the second one later tonight. I think I’m going to be here for five hours or so.”

“All your men are at one store. Why don’t you use the other store (which had significantly shorter lines) just around the corner”

“That store opens the box before they sell it to you, ripping the plastic and making the iPad less valuable on the resale market”.

His phone rang and he hurried to answer it. After a few words in Chinese he hung up and turned back to us.

“The order has changed. Originally it was the 16gb wifi–the cheapest one that we were supposed to focus on, but now the boss says get whatever we can. I guess it’s selling out pretty well all over Hong Kong.” He then turned to his friend who had to communicate the order back to the gang leaders and their underlings still in the line.

We got up and said our goodbyes. It was a pretty fascinating look at the process of smuggling, from the outsourcing of the lower end jobs (line sitters) to the handoff of the significant risk (the cross-border entry). With a markup of about 100% for the street price in China, this guy was going to bring in about $200,000 US in profits for just a couple days work sitting in a Starbucks.

Maybe we’ll see him again on Friday when the iPhone 4 goes on sale.

Here is the video Neonpunch.com shot showing many of the mules who were waiting in line.

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Had my video cam with me the other day playing tourist. Here’s some video from the Star Ferry.

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Yea, just another day in the life…

Actually I was helping a friend by videotaping the launch of the AR Drone / iPhone helicopter project. We headed over to TST where they had a press conference with quite a few models and Hong Kong celebrities in tow. I spent most of my time behind the camera, and most of the weekend is now being spent hacking it together (with varying degrees of success). iMovie is quite a headache when dealing with HD video.

Here’s a snippet. More to come from neonpunch.com.

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Interesting story in today’s Washington Post about a World War I doughboy who was fell in action but was listed as MIA for the last nine decades. Private Thomas D. Costello of New York City was killed in action in France near a place called Bois de Bonvaux. His remains were located by a private MIA foundation who searches in France for the missing. As chance would have it, when they found the remains there was an official US government MIA team in the area looking for a missing in action soldier from a World War II tank engagement, so they were able to bring their high tech sensors and skills into recovering Private Costello.

His descendants attended the funeral, though they did not even know the story of him being missing. Said his relative (Frisbie):

…had no idea he was a relative until he was contacted about two years ago by a Pentagon genealogist, said he believes that Costello was his great-great uncle. But the distance of the connection “doesn’t matter,” Frisbie said. “He’s a fallen soldier, and if I can honor him, that’s great.”

The French embassy also sent their military attache to attend the funeral and say thank you on behalf of the French people. You can see the video below.

The US spends nearly $105 million a year on finding missing troops. The CNN article on this story also has some interesting quotes from the family.

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