Under Coverage

Good to see, last Thursday, a legend for investigative reporters and whistle-blowers walk on the stage of the Seoul Digital Forum.

A movie was made about a key episode of Lowell Bergman's professional life: in 'The Insider' (1999), Bergman (Al Pacino) helps Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russel Crowe) expose the big tobacco imposture, before exposing himself attempts by his employer (CBS) to bury the story. In the end, truth and journalism triumph because Bergman breaks the 'every journo for himself' rule by sharing his story with competitors.

Thursday at the DDP, I couldn't help but feel sad, thinking how badly this region needs people like Bergman. Last year, I did watch, on the same stage, a Korean take at investigative journalism*, but Newstapa remains a bit too much data-centric and politically biased. To be fair, South Korean media are so overwhelmingly conservative and reluctant to mention certain issues, that liberal sources such as Hankyoreh or Newstapa tend to over-dramatize their own reporting.

Since it's hard to break truly valuable stories in a corrupt system**, some manage to emerge through netizen spheres... when they are not drowned in an ocean of hoaxes and wild rumors.

It speaks volumes that South Korea ranks now as the 'least bad' nation in the Press Freedom Index for a region where everybody regressed over the past few years (RSF 2015 vs 2010***):

• South Korea 60th (42nd in 2010, -18)
• Japan 61st (11th, -50)
• Russia 152nd (140th, -12)
• China 176th (171th, -5)
• North Korea 179th (177th, always second to last - Eritrea)

No need to comment on Kim Jong-un's North Korea, Putin's Russia, or even Xi Jinping's China, where hopes for change were short-lived, and censorship gets more pervasive by the day.

What strikes most - but certainly doesn't come as a surprise to us - is Japan's skydive from the 11th to the 61st position.

Shinzo Abe's attacks on press freedom, intensified after his outrageous State Secrecy Law, are seldom mentioned in Japan's mainstream media, and no one dare denounce them, except foreign correspondents that take the risk of being shunned by the government. Among the few local voices, Shigeaki Koga could only make himself be heard at the Foreign Correspondents' Club, or last week in the New York Times ("The Threat to Press Freedom in Japan" (Shigeaki Koga - NYT 20150520). Most Japanese citizens are kept in the dark, and obviously the "Effort by Japan to Stifle News Media Is Working" (Martin Fackler - 20150426).

To make things worse, the only significant media that (barely) challenged Abe's Nippon Kaigi-friendly agenda seems to have finally castrated itself. And since Fuji Media Holdings bought GPlus Media, I haven't read any significant story on that agenda in Japan Today (FMH also owns Sankei Shimbun...).

Censorship peaks at NHK following the nomination of a friend of Shinzo Abe at the helm of the broadcaster

Hopefully, Japanese citizens remain uncomfortable with Abe's attack on their peaceful constitution. But for how long? Public opinions are changing quickly, and the government fuels fear and hatred with some success... and what to say of America's failure to assist a Japan in danger (see ""History is harsh" and other sick jokes")?

Speaking of the devil, the US themselves are not on a very positive trend at the Press Freedom Index (from 20th to 49th between 2010 and 2015). The UK? Nothing to be proud either (from 19th to 34th). And if my home country France went up a bit (from 44th to 38th), it's bound to crash next year following the Charlie Hebdo massacre or the controversial 'Projet de Loi Relatif au Renseignement' it triggered.

But who am I to judge anyway? Do I need to remind you that my lousy blogs have been labeled Weapons of Mass Disinformation since 2003?

Seoul Village 2015
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* "Truth, Lies and Data" - Kwon Hyejin, Newstapa - SDF2014 - data and investigative journalism
** see also "Korea's media malaise" (John Power, Groove Magazine 20141103)
*** out of 178 countries in 2010, 180 in 2015
**** see "'Comfort Women': No Resolution Without Resoluteness. From Everyone, Please."


--- UPDATE 20150528 ---

This, from Human Rights Watch (about the National Security Act, a cold-war relic) : "South Korea: Cold War Relic Law Criminalizes Criticism".

Mens Sana in Computore Sano (Seoul Digital Forum 2014)

Unlike for the 2012 edition*, I decided not to attend SDF 2014 with a "Press" card, but to remain in the audience... which still leaves opportunities to chat with innovators, particularly when they are launching impromptu roundtables at the cafe**, like Alan Mycroft, the enthusiastic father of Raspberry Pi who succeeded in bringing fun back into computer science and students back to both schools and playgrounds. Needless to say, Mycroft wishes Korea's education system were less destructive for creativity.

By the way: this country would be a much better place if failures were recognized as an indispensable component of innovation. In the wake of the Sewol tragedy more than ever, we must learn how to learn from our mistakes, instead of just firing people before they accumulate experience.

And let's not deter those who are willing to try, or turn down a 15 year-old because he's 15 year-old. Let's keep in mind that at that ripe age, Jack Andraka invented his 3-cent cancer detector:

Andraka also called for a democratization of science papers, which should be available for free - knowledge as a human right - twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/469346406327529473

And Korea? Please stop looking for the Korean Steve Jobs. Remember that you have Kilnam CHON, who brought internet to Asia and cares for the billions victims of the digital divide. Remember that you never succeed by following the money, but always by leading in values.

1982, Korea's maiden internet network (the first outside the US). Meet its father, Kilnam Chon, at Seoul Digital Forum. twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/468913159601152002

An innovation literally brings something new inside a given environment, which means innovation shouldn't be considered without taking into account its impacts on the said environment, the time factor, the very process of "bringing". Ideally, innovation is simple, cheap, and democratic, and the innovator cares more about helping others than making money. The ideal innovator could well be Alfredo Moser, whose Moser lamp changed the lives of many among the poorest, but didn't change him (see "Alfredo Moser: Bottle light inventor proud to be poor").

Innovators need to be empowered, though, and that's what Mark Randall loves to do. At Adobe, he pushed the suggestion box to the next level by offering a "Kickbox" to all collaborators willing to develop a pet project. Nothing revolutionary, but a concrete message: we give you a process, some money, total freedom, so that you can give your best. And it works.

In any case, never forget to have fun. Like Guy Hoffman when he improvises on piano with his robot. Hoffman's take at anthropomorphy in robotics is not of the 'creepy' kind, like Hiroshi Ishiguro's*: instead of reaching for the most realistic humanoid, he focuses on human-robot interactions, UI/UX, and particularly body language, a universal, emotionally loaded language that speaks volumes.

Travis, Hoffman's latest cute bot was on stage at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, for a closer look and a more comprehensive understanding of his work, check his TEDx talk in Jaifa (more videos on his website - http://guyhoffman.com/category/topvideo):




As computers around us keep getting smarter, and as the best brains collaborate to decypher the human brain and make the next computers even smarter***, it's somehow reassuring to see masses embrace a technophobic human relying on his own intellect. But there as well, it takes a lot of work to make your creation look brilliant: "Sherlock" co-author Steven Moffat confessed that neither Benedict Cumberbatch nor himself were superior minds. And I presume that a robotic arm would have certainly come in handy for Moffat's book signing marathon - this waiting line tells a lot about Sherlock's popularity in Korea:

twitter.com/theseoulvillage/status/469293346062495744

Of course, not all crimefighters are created equal. And I'm afraid Homicide Watch DC's vibrant activism could be misinterpreted as crocodile tears. If I second all initiatives to make police and legal systems more transparent, I suggested to Laura AMICO that people who've been wrongly suspected should be considered as victims, not just 'dropped charges' in the 'suspect' column. The more experienced KWON Hye-jin (Newstapa.org - Korean Center for Investigative Journalism, the local partner of the ICIJ / International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) has tamed her passion for truth by keeping her eye on the ball: emotions are one thing, justice and journalism different issues.

Yes, there were a few dull talks too - but again, failures are part of the innovation process. And the young participants to the first Global Hackathon will learn as much from their failures as from their successes. Maybe the Australian leader of the winning team will even learn to share the stage more gracefully in the future - but he doesn't need that if he's looking for a Job(s).

The 11th edition of SDF is over but, as a famous cyborg said, "I'll be back".

Seoul Village 2014
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* see "Seoul Digital Forum: Return To The Future"
** I wish I had more time to chat with KIM Sangbae, a MIT expert in biomimetics who does amazing things by learning from geckos, cheetahs, meshworms or cockroaches (check the (vi)vids on http://biomimetics.mit.edu/videos). The following day, in his talk, KIM showed the part of BBC's fascinating 'Meat eaters' with the cheetah, pointing out the position and the role of the tail during the hunt, but what strikes me each time I watch this slow motion masterpiece is the eerie stability of the predator's head, like a Steadicam locked on its prey.

*** looking forward to the findings and applications of the Blue Brain and Human Brain projects (Henry Markram - EPFL)... and to tasting the cherry-mushroom mix recommended by Cognitive Cooking (Rob High - IBM Watson).

SDF 2014, the program:
Wednesday May 21
09:00-09:10    Opening Ceremony & Keynote Address Opening & Congratulatory Remarks
09:10 - 09:30    ‘‘The Beginning of ‘New TIME’”
09:30 - 10:00    [KEY1 ‘Connect’] CHON Kilnam
10:00 - 10:30    [KEY2 ‘Capture’] Luis von AHN
10:50 - 11:10    [KEY3 ‘Resonance’] AN Yongil
11:10 - 11:30    [KEY4 ‘Unprejudiced’] WI Euiseok
11:30 - 11:50    [KEY5 ‘Wear’] Eric FRIEDMAN
12:50 - 13:10    [KEY6 ‘Programmable’] Alan MYCROFT
13:10 - 13:30    [KEY7 ‘Working Together’] Lia NAVARRO
13:30 - 13:50    [KEY8 ‘Borderless’] Tony LYU
13:50 - 14:30    [KEY9 ‘Simply Brilliant’]Alfredo MOSER, Illac DIAZ, Claire RIGBY
15:10 - 15:35    [KEY10 ‘Universal’]Sylvia CHAN-OLMSTED, RHEE June Woong
15:35 - 15:55    [KEY11 ‘Empathy’] Laura & Chris AMICO
16:00 - 16:20    [KEY12 ‘Emotional Innovation’] Kwame FERREIRA
16:20 - 16:40    [KEY13 ‘Understanding’] Simon Seojoon KIM
16:40 - 17:20    [KEY14 ‘Radical Connectivity’] Nicco MELE, YOON Youngchul
Thursday May 22
09:00-09:50    Keynote Address
09:10 - 09:50    [KEY15 ‘Uncommon Sense’] Steven MOFFAT & Sue VERTUE
09:50 - 10:10    [KEY16 ‘Brain-reading’] Henry MARKRAM
10:10 - 10:30    [KEY17 ‘Mind-reading’] Rob HIGH
10:50 - 11:10    [KEY18 ‘Moving Design’] KIM Bongjin
11:10 - 11:30    [KEY19 ‘Cure’] YUN Kyongsik, CHO Dongcharn
11:30 - 12:00    [KEY20 ‘Communication & Reflection’]HWANG Kyung-Sig & SON Wha-Chul
13:20 - 13:40    [KEY21 ‘Bridging by Sharing’] LEE Sangchul
13:40 - 14:00    [KEY22 ‘Creativity Within’] Mark RANDALL
14:00 - 14:20    [KEY23 ‘Unwalled Curiosity’] Jack ANDRAKA
14:20 - 14:40    [KEY24 ‘Seeing without Seeing’] Pete ECKERT
15:10 - 15:30    [KEY25 ‘Truth’] KWON Hyejin
15:30 - 15:50    [KEY26 ‘Learn from Nature’] KIM Sangbae
16:00 - 16:20    [KEY27 ‘A Duet’] Guy HOFFMAN
16:20 - 17:00    [KEY28 ‘Amplify’] Daniel Dae KIM, CHANG Tae You, KIM Younghyun, PARK Sangyean
17:10 - 17:50    [KEY29 ‘Hope’] The 1st Global Hackathon Ceremony (“善 Challenge”)
17:50 - 17:55    Closing Remarks · The End
Alternate programs:
SDF DeepDive I - Gaming as Illness and Social Remedies by Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST (14:30-17:00 Wednesday May 21) - LEE Dongman, SHIN Yee-jin, PARK Juyong, DOH Young Yim, KIM Huy Kang, SONG Gil-young, Jake SONG, LEE Wonjae, Park Jun Hyun, WOO Jae Joon
SDF DeepDive II - The 1st Global Hackathon “善 Challenge”by AppCenter with SBS Foundation (For 4 days & 3 nights Monday-Thursday May 19-22) - 100 contestants from 16 nations
SDF DeepDive III - Master Class for Media Writing: The Formula for Successful Storytellingby Korea TV & Radio Writers Association with SBS Foundation (14:00-18:40 Thursday May 22) - Steven MOFFAT, Ekuni KAORI

Seoul Digital Forum: Return To The Future

Over the past quarter of a century, I've survived countless seminars and conferences on innovation, most often as an attendee, sometimes in a different role (organizer, speaker, moderator...), but never with a "Press" badge hanging from my neck. I did just that yesterday. Just for a change, and for fun. What I didn't expect was a trip down memory lane.

First of all, let's set things straight:
0) (to those who knew me in my previous lives) I'm not missing the old times, simply enjoying it, as I've always done ever since I was a teenager. When you're into innovation, you always learn from such fora. And as usual I'm not as much interested in new gizmos (SDF is not the kind of vehicle for that anyway) as in the evolution of the ecosystem, and particularly how it is perceived by its key players, by newcomers, by outsiders.
1) I didn't steal that badge. This is the 9th Annual Seoul Digital Forum, and I happen to blog about Seoul (SeoulVillage.com) as well/poorly as about innovation (mot-bile)*. Besides, ever the caring city for its own diverse ecosystem, Seoul Metropolitan Government recently appointed me as a friendly neighborhood media. For good measure I even brought my old camera (I spared you the press-card-in-the-fedora-hat-band part).
2) I'm an author and a conceptor, not a journalist. I'm not covering an event, just feeding my poor brain with stimulating bits that, at the other end of the system, usually come out as junk as silly and useless as K-pop, only less entertaining, and with more traces of biased opinions in it. If you happen to read it, that's your problem. And if you like it, that's a problem for your shrink to solve.
3) As it turns out, when you have a "Press" badge, your body is also fed with stimulating bits in a cosy Press Room. But you quickly burn the said bits between levels B1 (Vista Hall, Keynotes) and 4F (Art Hall, Press Conferences). And perks are balanced by the fact that if you want to get a good spot, you apparently have to wake up in the middle of the night. My initial spot was really really bad: believe me, you don't want to have Steve Ballmer so close to you.

Seoul Digital Forum 2012 delivered the goods, kicking off with an impressive roster**. Day I started with a guest star who, for a reason that still baffles me, was dubbed a "visionary". Of course, Steve Ballmer is by no means a visionary: this hulk of a boasting salesman is more into products, functionalities and business management than into human beings and vision. Not even convincing as an industry (ex)leader. But life is unfair: nowadays, targeting 450 million devices doesn't sound that sexy when 900 million people are already familiar with the Facebook interface.

Steve B. left to a certain Brad McCabe the Steve J. part of his sales pitch for Windows 8. Tough Jobs, even if Android and Google are the main competitor, not Apple. Brad sounded very happy when he mentioned brand new apps "right out of the box"... but that's precisely a vocabulary Microsoft should ban in places like this. You're not supposed to be shipping boxes anymore, and you don't want people to visualize Skydrive as a UPS truck navigating the cloud (with Google Sky or Google MistView?). That said, Windows n does propose interesting features that Windows n-1 didn't have, starting with the 'blue screen' part of the demo (now a classy grey signals the usual glitch). That was my first stop down memory lane.

I certainly didn't expect disruptive points of view from Warren EAST (ARM) or Mike HARRIS (Gartner) either, only a fair and balanced appreciation of a very wide array of sectors where both maintain a now exoticly limited role in the chain. Both specialists confirmed the obvious market trends (did I mention the cloud?), except of course their own shrinking businesses. For this second station along memory lane, I thought about all those players who managed to survive in such an evolutive environment without really evolving themselves.

Bell Labs also lost some of their luster over the past decade, narrowing their scope to remain competitive in key areas in spite of a struggling mother company (Alcatel-Lucent). But Bell Labs remain a very special player in RD, with a focus on vision and values. And here, at a time when pure research is sacrificed on the altar of short term profits, talent is still measured by surprise more than results. This may sound like happy hypey talk from a Silicon Valley youngster, but Jeong KIM is a bashful, soft spoken leader, truly willing to promote well being at all levels (physical, mental, societal). Yes, technology does save lives, but it's also becoming ever more pervasive (and even intrusive, for instance with somatic network implants), and generating an ever increasing volume of information. All this means a bigger impact zone, higher stakes, higher risks of privacy breaches at the micro level, or massive destruction at the macro level. As an echo to the Big Data promise of managing the unfathomable, KIM quoted Asimov: 'science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom'. In that context more than ever, a sound education proves crucial. Memory lane station 3: in the eyes of Mr KIM, I saw the wisdom I met in so many researchers who really care.

On a lighter note, Phil LIBIN announced that he'd just signed the lease for Evernote's Seoul office, and that new talents were welcome. His 4 year old start-up keeps gaining new fundings and new users (32 millions as we speak), and the founder himself seems to have gained a few kilos in the process. Can LIBIN's "second brain" (that's how he describes Evernote) keep growing at a faster pace than his body? I was almost wondering when I heard him disregard competition as something he should not worry about - a diplodocus kind of reasoning if I ever heard one (and boy did I hear some as a former strategic intelligence nerd - memo lane station 4). But Evernote's CEO seems to be developping new synapses and neurons (or, as he puts it, A.I. as in "Augmented Intelligence") all right, and particularly in Korea, where a local cellco could soon follow NTT DoCoMo, and where a partnership with a major manufacturer covering a wide array of devices could help him develop an even sexier and more seamless user experience. When I asked him up to where he wanted his second brain to grow, LIBIN answered that Evernote would help users think smarter, that soon suggestions would come to them. And as I pointed out the risk of giving in to Big Data, he said, in substance, that it was not compatible with Evernote's DNA. Let's see how Evernote evolves, evolution being a process relying most heavily on genetic mutations.

Speaking of a major Korean manufacturer covering a wide array of devices, Samsung was represented yesterday by CHANG Donghoon: the head of the design team that delivered the Haptic or Galaxy series is confirming the user-centric approach of a company willing to make the most of foldable displays (remember flexible AMOLED?), sensors, context awareness, invisible and transparent technologies, seamless transitions, natural interactions... That brought me further down memory lane: we'll always be staring at exciting stuff, like what Pranav Mistry does at the MIT Media Lab with his Sixth Sense prototype, and for the magic to work and the engine to rock and roll, there must always be some level of reality we've not quite reached yet.

Reality hit home a long time ago for mobile operators, so I was surprised to hear SK Telecom CTO BYUN Jae-woan mention as something new the fact that cellcos were not at the center anymore, and that they had to abandon their telco mindsets, to reconsider their environment, the way they defined themselves. Memory lane, continued: I really enjoyed working on it in the late 90s for a major player, and was saddened to see SKT waste their considerable advance in the middle of the noughties when they forgot to adapt to a more open environment.

Yesterday, the moment I really felt home was when Ben CERVENY (frog design) pleaded guilty: yes, plays and games are major drivers for innovation. Yes, tech design IS game design, and yes, futility can lead to utility (and yes, to achieve that it takes a lot of work and energy). Memory lane: the first start-up I survived (back in 1993-94) was the French leader in online gaming, and the ultimate lab that got me ready for everything that came after. As it turned out, the same company popped up a few stations later: our marketing used to rely on both Big Data and anthropology, and here was Intel's Genevieve BELL, an enthusiastic anthropologist, showing pictures of both the idealized and the actual home environment of TV viewers. One one side, an impossibly neatly sitted Ingals family smiling from their sofa, on the other a pot-bellied couch potato staring from a jungle of a room. Genevieve commented on the way electronic devices were treated very much the same way our anthropologist pointed out the location of the Minitel in a customer's messy living room.

A good forum on innovation must be spectacular and entertaining, and we had the right people for that:
- Hiroshi ISHIGURO and his more or less humanoids (Geminoid, Telenoid, Elfoid, and, as the ultimate alien, Ishiguroid himself),
- Aaron KOBLIN (Google Creative Lab) and his worldwide web of artworks,
- Marc ABRAHAMS (Ig Nobel Prize) and his Miss Sweetie Poo. Note that all forum organizers should use this major innovation: have a 8 year old girl come to the speakers each time she thinks they talk too much, repeating "please stop, I'm bored" until they give up. Low tech, but kawaiily efficient.

Even more spectacular?
- Josh NESBIT's low tech smart(and caring)phones,
- Mikel MARON's grassroot initiatives to put marginalized communities not only on the map*** but behind and all around it (Groundtruth Initiative, Open StreetMap...). Note how, on this photo, Mikel's body language speaks volumes the above mentioned Steve will never read.





Empowering people, making a fair democracy possible, filling all kind of gaps... that's what smart networks should be all about.

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* among other nonsensical and poorly written blogules (nothing serious, it simply has to come out of my system).

** program of Day I:
Opening Ceremony and Keynote Address: WOO Wongil (Chief Executive Secretary, Seoul Digital Forum / President and CEO, SBS)
Congratulatory Remarks: LEE Kye Cheol (Chairman, Korea Communications Commission)
Keynote Address:
-"A New Era of Opportunity" - Steve BALLMER (CEO, Microsoft)
-"Technology and the Opportunities for a Better Society" - Jeong H KIM (President, Bell Labs / Chief Strategy Officer, Alcatel-Lucent)
-"The Future of IT: Learning from Coexistence Leadership"
- Warren EAST (CEO, ARM Holdings)
-"Enabling Equal Information Access to All Users" - T.V. RAMAN (Research Scientist, Google)
-"Technology, Film, and the Future" - Chris COOKSON (President, Sony Pictures Technologies)
-"Personal Cloud: The 'PC' of Tomorrow" - Mike HARRIS (Group Vice President, Gartner)
-"Shaping New Hopes in the Smart Era" - PYO Hyun-Myung (President, Mobile Business Group, KT Corporation)
-Special Address - PARK Won Soon (Mayor, Seoul Metropolitan Government)
-"Appropriate Technology: Simplicity brings hope to the digital age" - Paul POLAK (CEO, Windhorse International / Founder, International Development Enterprises - IDE), YOO Youngje (Professor, School of Chemical Engineering, Seoul National University / President, Scientists and Engineers Without Borders) - moderator CHANG Soo Y (Professor, Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, POSTECH / Codirector, Sharing and Technologies Incorporated)
-"Smart life enabled by mobile technology: an industry ecosystem will enable user experience" - BYUN Jae-woan (Head of Technology Innovation Center and CTO, SK Telecom)
-"Big Data and our future"
."The key to popular understanding of data is play" - Ben CERVENY (Founder and President, Bloom Studio / Founder, Experience Design Lab, frog design)
."Extending Humanity with technology" - Aaron KOBLIN (Creative Director, Data Arts Team, Google Creative Lab)
."Making one world through Big Data" - LEE Bong-gyou (Professor, Graduate School of Information and Director of the Communications Policy Research Center, Yonsei University)
."Interface: the window that changes the world" - CHANG Donghoon (Senior VP, Head of Design Group of Mobile Communications Division / Head of Design Strategy team at Corporate Design Center, Samsung Electronics)
-"Interface and Humanity":
."Genealogies of anxiety and wonder: our past and future with computing" - Genevieve BELL (Director, Interactions and Experience Research, Intel Labs, Intel)
."Devices, platforms, and a new way of life" - Phil LIBIN (Founder and CEO, Evernote)
.Initially scheduled: "User Interface Designed to Fix Personal Health" (Aza RASKIN)
-"Robots, games, and humor"
."The future life supported by robotic avatars" - Hiroshi ISHIGURO (Director, Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University)
."Behavior-change Games and Habit Design" - Michael KIM (Founder and CEO, Kairos Labs)
."Research that makes people laugh, then think" - Marc ABRAHAMS (Founder, Ig Nobel Prize / Editor, Improbable Research / Columnist, The Guardian)
-"Technology, Humanity, and Collaboration":
."Expanding the reach of technology" - Josh NESBIT (CEO, Medic Mobile)
."Mapping the invisible: Open Source Mapping and Visible Communities" - Mikel MARON (President, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team / Codirector, Ground Truth Initiative)

*** note that yesterday, Seoul Mayor PARK Won-soon also mentioned a collaborative use of the map (on trial before the monsoon season): citizens spot problems, locate and report them on the map to shorten delays and improve accuracy.

---
UPDATE 20120524 (photos) ---
UPDATE 20120525 (dang, forgot Phil's pix as well)

The Thing

This hulk of a man (actually, more a Ben Grimm than a Bruce Banner) stood just next to me earlier today, and I'm still feeling kinda shaky.

Luckily, I was not alone in the room with Microsoft CEO Steve "The Thing" Ballmer, who minutes later howled his usual pitch on stage at the 2012 Seoul Digital Forum (W Sheraton). The theme today? "Coexistence". As if you could coexist with this kind of player.

Now I'm comfortably sitting in the press center, waiting for a second round of power hitters. More about it later.


Seoul Village 2012
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