Category: Developers

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Screw a Border Wall, Let’s Build a DOME

On By jcafesinIn aarp, atheism, atheists, change.org, dads, democrats, Developers, Engineers, Immigration, Kids, marriage, moms, money, muslims, parenting, politics, psychology, racism, republicans, science, sexism, Silicon Valley, sociology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My daughter came home last night from her first job as a barista for a local Boba Tea eatery, crying.

“They don’t like me, mom! I’m doing the exact same level of work that all the new kids are, and they keep calling ME out cuz I’m not Asian.”

Several other barista type jobs at various locally businesses to which she applied told her flat out they only hire Asians (which, at least in my neighborhood, includes Indians, from India). Since most of the fast food and convenience stores here are owned by Asians, this has severely limited her choices for simple, flexible, part-time work.

The first day of this job, a month back, she came home and said, “My manager called me their ‘diversity hire,’ since I’m the only White person who works there. It hurt my feelings. He made me feel like I didn’t get the job cuz I deserved it.” Every day since, she’s come home with other racist comments most of her managers continue to make.

Our daughter has a 4.3 gpa, is a hard worker academically, and socially. She is the only White person in her group of friends. She’s worked very hard, and continues to do so, to be a part of this Asian crowd, that is now well over 75% of her high school in an East Bay suburb of the San Francisco Bay area.

My son wasn’t so lucky. Boys going through puberty are all about bravado, one-upping each other. Girls are about connecting, communicating, building their community. Our son was excluded and bullied for not being “A”sian, throughout middle and high school. He had no friends at all, though he tried again and again to ‘fit in’ with them, from Karate to Robotics to Chess clubs and more. It broke his heart daily, and mine as well, watching my beautiful, open, kind kid ostracized for being White. He will likely struggle with a damaged self-image the rest of his life because of these formative experiences.

Yet, neither of my children are racists, like so many of their Asian friends and associates. My daughter gets bullied often, even from her ‘friends’ with thoughtless comments: “I only date Asians. I don’t find White girls attractive,” from the 4 out of 5 boys in her group. My daughter would love to get asked to proms, on dates. She watches her Asian girlfriends get asked out. She does not.*

These are REALITIES for all of us, Asians and Whites, here in the global melting pot of the San Francisco Bay Area, and yet my children are still not racists. Why, when so many are?

My husband is a software architect. He’s been creating and deploying SaaS offerings for over 25 years here in Silicon Valley. Every job he’s ever had in the software industry, and trust me, he’s had a lot of jobs, he’s worked almost exclusively with Asians. While offshore H1B labor has been brought here by the tech industry since 1990, this massive Asian influx globally was not anticipated. In the last five yrs, the companies he’s worked for, whether the staff is 30 or 3000, in IT, or any other department now—close to 60% are of Asian descent. And yet, my husband is not racist, though he’s been passed up for many position by Asians on work visas and H1Bs.**

I invited my daughter’s best friend and her family to our Thanksgiving dinner last year. I’d met Yi, the mom, only once before, but my daughter spoke of her often when she’d visited her BF’s home: “Her mom is really nice. And she says the same stuff you do. She jokes that you must really be Asian, the way you get on me about homework.” I was grateful my daughter found the humor in her comment, instead of the likely unintended slight. “You guys should get together. You can make a new girl friend, mom.”

The girls arranged a late January lunch, and the four of us went out for Thai food. Yi and I eased into a smooth dialog. Fifteen yrs my junior, she was quite express, articulate when I asked her questions, but she rarely turned my interest around, which I’d say goes for most people I’ve met. A tech-visa transplant from China in her early 20s, she’d been a single mom since divorcing her White husband a decade before. And while I did not feel a personal connection, with few common interests, a profound one existed between us. Raising two kids, a boy my son’s age, and a girl, my daughter’s best friend, Yi loves her children the exact same way, with the same intensity as I do mine.

She suggested we get together again at the end of our luncheon, but I did not pursue it, and neither did she. Thanksgiving came around eleven month later. The girls were having a school vacation sleepover celebration the weekend before the holiday, and my daughter’s BF told us her family didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. But she confessed she’d like to, as I served breakfast the next morning. Well, of course I invited her, her mom and brother right then. She was so excited she texted them, and the girls were jumping up and down, cheering, moments later with her mom’s response.

The seven of us ate turkey, and stuffing, and shared stories of thanks around the table that night. We played Pictionary after dinner, and laughed and laughed. When the kids exited the scene to play video games, Yi, my husband and I spoke of politics, religion, crossing all social lines of decorum. I was pleasantly surprised how open she was to dialog beyond the surface. And though we have radically different perspectives, the exchange was engaging, educational, and thoroughly enjoyable for all three of us. Even better, the kids bonded that Thanksgiving, and since have established a once-a-month excursion.

Globalization is a REALITY. It’s happening, right now. Most first world nations are being inundated with immigrants looking for that illusive ‘better life.’ Like it, or not, global integration is here, and, as my husband, and our kids know, it is mandatory, simply must happen, for humanity, and our very small planet to survive us.

“One wish,” my mom asked my sister and me on our drive home from elementary school back in the old days. “Anything you want, what would it be.”

“World peace,” I’d said. It was the mid-1970s, and a common catch phrase, but I meant it. Without war, or economic disparity, I believed in our creative potential to problem solve, and our unique ability to work together to realize our fantastical visions. I didn’t know about the hunger of greed then, insatiable, and colorblind.

It has been particularly hard on my kids, this globalization process. It deeply saddens me that they must suffer the slights of blind prejudice, just as the Asians in past generations had to suffer the racism of the ignorant Whites here. It terrifies me—the global competition for fewer jobs my kids will be competing for after college. Yet, I still advocate for globalization. This very small planet must integrate, or we will perish, and likely take much of the life here with us, with the destructive technology we’ve already invented.

My daughter worries she’ll never meet anyone to date, yet alone marry, but I assure her she likely will. And it’s even likely that man will be Asian, since 36.4% of the global population are Asian*** and more than half of them are men. “It doesn’t matter where someone came from, what their heritage, or place of origin on the planet,” I’ve preached to my kids. “Choose to be with someone kind.”

A border wall surrounding the U.S. entirely will not stop Asians from flying in from China and India, Korea, Viet Nam, Indonesia and other emerging Asian nations. Nor will it stop the Middle East, South Americans, Cubans from coming here. Seeking to keep us separate is a fool’s play. Communication is key to build bridges over our differences, allowing us to meet in the middle and mutually benefit from our strengths. Ignorance and mistrust breed with distance. Nationalism is just thinly disguised racism.

Asians, Latinos, Syrian’s, and Palestinians, are all different cultures, not separate races from Caucasian. We are one race, the human race. Globalization—the blending of cultures—is hard for everyone, scary, new, threatening to our social structure, but a must if humanity is to survive, even thrive. The beauty of interracial marriage is the same thing that bonds Yi and I, as parents. We both passionately love our kids. She can’t possible hate Whites, since her children are Asian/White. Combine two cultures, at least on a localize level, defeats racism, as most every parent loves their kids with intensity Yi and I do. It’s one of our best bits about being human—the magnificent, spectacular, all-encompassing love we get to feel for our children.

—

*Regardless of the sociology, it is unusual in the extreme to see an Asian man partner with a White women (though common the other way around), both here in the States and abroad.

**Hiring offshore for less money, now being exploited by every social network from Facebook to YouTube, to Mr. Trump’s summer staff at his Mar-a-Lago estate, lowers the pay rate for all of us. It’s no wonder U.S. income levels have been stagnant for years.

***As of July, 2019, there are approx. 1.43+ billion Chinese (in China), or 18.41% of the global population. Indians (in India) are a close second, with approx. 1.37+ billion, or 17.4% of the total world population. Combining just these two Asian cultures, their world population is 4.1 billion people, or 36.14% of the world population, and that is just within their respective countries, not actual global numbers including visa work-holders and undocumented immigrants abroad.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/

How to Start Up Lean

On By jcafesinIn Busiess, careers, Creativity, dads, Developers, ebook, education, educators, email, Emotional Intelligence, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Facebook, growth hacking, Intellectual Property, K-12, lean startup, Marketing, money, Patents, psychology, Publishing, sociology, stanford, startup, STEM, teachers, technology, UC Berkeley, Uncategorized, Venture Capital, west coastLeave a comment

Entrepreneurs,
This is one of the most useful business-related book series you’ll ever read.
Lean Startup Entrepreneurial Series makes starting and marketing a business doable, in 3-steps, step-by-step—Marketing PROCESS, not theory or startup stories—the practice of marketing a business to thrive: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732543100

Good luck on your startup journey!

#business #venturecapital #startups #founders #entrepreneurship #startup #entrepreneurs #mompreneur #smallbusiness #MVP

Your Job Suck? Make Your Own!

On By jcafesinIn Busiess, careers, dads, Developers, ebook, education, email, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, growth hacking, Intellectual Property, lean startup, Marketing, Patents, psychology, science, scientists, sociology, stanford, startup, STEM, technology, UC Berkeley, Venture CapitalLeave a comment

Have an idea for a product or service, but have little money, and no clue how to create a business? Perhaps, you are currently marketing an offering that isn’t selling much, and you’d like to get more attention from your marketing efforts?
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Lean Startup Marketing teaches the RAF Marketing Method of turning ideas into offerings of value, for profit. This three-step process gives you practical, doable steps to build a sustainable business, and get the greatest response on your marketing efforts, at launch, and beyond.
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Bestselling author, and Stanford marketing instructor, J. Cafesin, takes you on the journey of your professional career—creating your own business—from idea through launch, at little to no cost. 
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LSM Workshop 1: PRODUCTIZATION, is the process of getting intimate with your idea, or developing product. Neglect to productize your offering, and at best, your marketing efforts will get little traction. At worse, ignoring Productization leads to startup failure. Productization must happen before BRANDING (Workbook 2). Implementing the steps of Productization, in order, allows you to produce tightly targeted marketing campaigns that motivate viewers to click, try, or buy your offering.
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• MBA to marketing novice, Workshop 1: PRODUCTIZATION provides all the marketing you’ll ever need to know to become proficient at marketing…anything.
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• Create Productization Lists filled with content to use in your branding, marketing and ad campaigns throughout the life-cycle of your business.
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• Identify Target Markets and Users who will likely buy your new offering.
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• Construct an Elevator Pitch to succinctly chat up your new venture.
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• Perform Competitive Analysis, and find differentiators that make your offering unique.
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• Choose an effective Profit Model to make money on your offering.
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• Project Horizontal and Vertical markets for current and future offerings.
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LSM is not marketing theory. Each workbook, filled with slides, challenges and assignments, is a step-by-step guide you’ll refer to again and again, to assure you are on the proper path to building a thriving business. The LSM series provides specific, low-budget, actionable steps for marketing your offerings, to sell directly, or launch your first offering as a profitable startup. It’s time to become your own CEO, and create a career you love.

LSM Workbook 1 is available here:

In Print (recommended): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732543100

Ebook (slides appear smaller): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L9LC8NS

You Are Not Safe

On By jcafesinIn addiction, ADHD, Busiess, copywriter, Developers, education, Emotional Intelligence, Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Facebook, Intellectual Property, lean startup, Marketing, psychology, Silicon Valley, sociology, Uncategorized, Venture CapitalLeave a comment

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the world wide web. It was 1995. I was in my rented townhome in Alameda, a small island on the east bank of the San Francisco Bay. I already had a dial-up modem plugged into my Mac LC that I used to send graphic files and documents to my lithographers and commercial printers through FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

I don’t know where I heard about Netscape, probably from a business associate. But I remember the afternoon I logged on for the first time. The interface was full color visual, the first I’d seen, since FTP was only black text on a white screen and no images. The Netscape logo—the uppercase N sinking into a black globe against a starry aquamarine sky, was…beautiful. Once I registered, the next screen had bright, colorful illustrations of a spacecraft, a construction site, a radio tower and more. Under each drawing white text against the black frames said, “Explore the Net. Company and Products. News and Reference. Community.” I was floored, drop-jawed. The interface gave me choices to go anywhere. Netscape was a portal to news sites, business with ‘websites,’ online communities, a virtual store, and reference libraries from around the world.

I called my roommate into my bedroom/office space to show her what I was seeing on my screen. “This changes everything,” I practically whispered, sure that this portal was the beginning of a connected world I only dreamt of as a kid.

As I sat there clicking on each navigation link, then exploring each site the Netscape browser delivered, I recalled when I was 8 or 9 years old, sitting in the back seat of my mother’s huge Chevy, while she drove me and my sister home from school. “One wish,” my mom asked us spontaneously. “One wish. Right now. If you could have anything you want, what would it be?” She often came up with non-sequitur like this to fill the void of silence after she’d asked about our day at school and got, “Fine,” back from both of us.

I answered instantly. “World peace,” and I meant it. My brother had come back from Vietnam a wreck. PTSD. Clinical depression. I’d watched war on TV nightly. And I’d felt war all around me, growing up in the late 60s, the anger of the Blacks, my working mother, and most all women suffocating under our servitude to men. “I wish that everyone would be nicer to each other, and take care of each other instead of fighting all the time.”

“That’s a stupid wish,” my sister said, sitting in the passenger seat. I cowered in the back seat, and shut up. “It’ll never happen. Violence is part of our nature. We wouldn’t be here today without it, since we have no other defenses like other animals on Earth.” She was 2 yrs older than me. Surely, she must be right. She wished for a new purse.

“This changes everything,” I’d said to my roommate as I browsed the internet that first time. And I believed it. A portal to the world would let us see how others lived, and let others see what what possible. In 1960s – 1990s U.S. most of us had a place to live in, and enough to eat every day. Most kids were vaccinated from horrific diseases, and didn’t die from the flu. We got a free education, through at least high school, and 20 – 30% of the population got a college education as well. And in California, college was cheap, making it accessible to most anyone.

My roommate stood over my shoulder staring at my screen as I went from site to site. She seemed unmoved by what we were seeing, and in short order went back to her room. I stayed online the rest of the night, into the early morning hours, amazed. I pursued news sites, read articles from all over the world. We could never again pretend that Holocausts weren’t happening. We’d find out about atrocities taking place anywhere, instantly, and the United Nations would have to stop them! The privileged would no longer be able to turn a blind eye on poverty or disease, even in the most remote places in Africa or the Middle East, seeing it daily on their computers. We could talk to people around the block or in other countries we’d never meet, but share ideas, and feelings. We’d see how similar we all are, how we all feel sad, or happy, or mad at times. We could connect 24/7, and never feel isolated or lonely again. The internet was a window to the world, and the view would surely motivate all of us to care for each other like never before.

This is the argument I gave to my dad at Saul’s, eating bagels and lox a few years later. As a lover of technology since childhood, he too was on the internet, one of the first adopters in his advanced age group. He shook his head and gave me his indulgent smile.

“The internet changes nothing. It is a tool, like a screwdriver. It won’t change human nature. And it won’t save us,” he said. “We’re going to have to do that. Until we learn to care for each other beyond ourselves, we are doomed.” He took a bite of his bagel and savored the mix of salmon, onions and bread, satisfied in the moment.

“You’re wrong, dad,” I exclaimed with certainty. “The internet is connecting the planet. For the first time in human history we are becoming one world.”

“One very small world, which everyone wants their piece of,” he said. “We’ve invented technology we can’t handle, from the Bomb to this internet. Getting bombarded with information isn’t going to change how we react to it. And the more technology we invent, the more likely we’ll implode with it.” He sighed, looked at me lovingly. “You can’t change the world, baby. Best just to focus on taking care of yourself, and your family.”

It was 1998. I had no idea what was coming, how the internet would evolve into the marketing platform it has become. But I left Saul’s that morning sure my father was wrong.

As it’s turned out, he wasn’t.

Sick of Rejection because of Ageism?

On By jcafesinIn Busiess, careers, Creativity, dads, Developers, education, educators, Entrepreneurs, Marketing, moms, money, Silicon Valley, stanford, startupLeave a comment

Then start something! J. Cafesin: #StartUp @ 45: http://jcafesin.blogspot.com/2014/07/startup-45.html

…I responded to an ad for a Traffic Manager position at an ad agency in San Francisco a few years ago. Downtown, in one of those glass monoliths. Eighteenth floor. Made me nauseous being up there. I couldn’t help consider the notion of an earthquake as I sat in the lobby waiting for my interview to begin, staring out the floor to ceiling windows at the city far below me.
An older gentleman, at least 20 years my senior, sat in the lobby with me. Probably in his mid-50s, receding hairline with only a tuft left on top of his head, but the sides were still full and more salt than pepper. His bushy, though well-groomed mustache was equally gray. He wore a wedding ring, black slacks and a white shirt under his gray suit jacket which did not conceal his slightly protruding belly…
UC Berkeley