People are often confused or offended when I use the word hippie.

Some people either think the term is derogatory, or they think that hippies were something that only existed in the 60s, and that you can’t be a hippie today any more than you can be a flapper. These people haven’t spent enough time on the west coast lately.

Most of my friends in California are, as you can see, obviously hippies and I genuinely consider myself to be a hippie as well. I’ve even got some hippie buddies here in Hanoi, they do drum circles in Lenin park on Sundays.

I really can’t think of any other term to use to describe the ongoing social/cultural movement that I’ve been living in for most of my life. I don’t even like to call it a movement because it’s really not going anywhere, it’s just how a lot of people think and live. It’s more of a lifestyle philosophy.

The parts of hippie culture that resonate most with me are: the focus on a happy and healthy lifestyle, living within your means and enjoying what you have, eating well, being social, relaxing and taking it easy, being experimental and open to new ideas and cultures, being politically progressive and believing in peace and the environment, traveling, helping people, enjoying food, music, and art, but not necessarily by the same rules as the critics and experts. In short, living well.

On a Friday night, when my more mainstream friends are standing in line to see some stupid $9 movie, my hippie friends are having bonfires and potlucks, playing music and dancing, jumping in the surf at the beach or finding hot springs (or at least sneaking in to the movie through the back door).

And while a lot of people seem to have a natural tendency to forming fixed and closed off social groups,  most of the hippies I know are a lot more open minded and quick to make new friends and invite them along for the fun.

I guess if someone held a knife to my throat and demanded that I describe hippies without saying the word “hippie” I would say progressive, alternative, bohemians.

There are also some parts of hippie culture that drive me completely nuts: embarrassing and counterproductive protests, blind allegiance to all things alternative, chard. But what especially gets me is the prevalence of, and often militant belief in, poorly thought through political, metaphysical, and scientific theories. (How can someone concurrently believe in ghosts, reincarnation, and an afterlife!?)

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So what does this have to do with business? Well, they say the key to marketing is to find your niche. And many companies have targeted the hippie niche, as many hippies have a lot of money.

People often think that hippies having a lot of money is hypocritical, and to some extent it is, but it also makes perfect sense: It’s a lot easier to reject the traditional goals of career success and material wealth when you’ve grown up around a lot of wealth and you realize that big houses and fancy cars don’t really add much to the day to day quality of your life.

It also really helps if your parents pay for you to go to college. College today is hardly a full time endeavor, and my hippie ways were slowly built up over years of idle afternoons and long summer vacations. It’s hard to listen to someone explain the wonders of kombucha when you have to be at work in 15min.

In theory, hippies are supposed to reject consumerism. But some companies have created brands that really work for hippies. Two examples (out of many) are Moleskine and Nalgene.

Moleskine makes notebooks. Unlike other manufacturers they don’t sell their notebooks in the school supply isle of supermarkets and office stuff stores. They sell their product in book stores and airports, and they claim on the packaging that their notebooks are the same type as some used by Hemingway and Picasso.

Nalgene makes water bottles, another deceptively simple product. Their water bottles are very strong and were originally popular with climbers that supposedly have a problem with dropping and breaking their water bottles while climbing.

These companies have a lot of similarities. They make very high quality products. They use very subtle branding, but are definitely distinct enough to get you noticed by other fans of the brand. Most importantly though these products imply a certain lifestyle. A lifestyle where you travel around the world sketching and writing, and you spend so much of your time dangling from cliffs that dropping and shattering your water bottle is a serious concern. Normal notebooks or water bottles obviously wouldn’t stand a chance.

People love these brands. Fans have uploaded 3,169 photos of their Nalgenes and 74,755 photos of their Moleskines to flikr. There are even 49 photos that have both Moleskines and Nalgenes tagged in them, including a couple of people that decided to draw pictures of their Nalgenes in their Moleskines. (idiots)

Other hippie brands include: Dr. Bronner’s soap, Braggs Amino Acid condiment, Rainbow Sandals, and of course, Apple.

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For each of these successful brands there are a million little companies trying to catch the next wave. Many are founded by hippies that have followed their dreams and opened their own business creating something that was important to them, but a lot of them also tend to be total scams. The scams often take advantage of the hippie enthusiasm for silly pseudo-science.

So about a year ago I was hanging out with some of my hippie friends up in Homer, Alaska and I noticed a very silly bottle of water:

Since then I’ve made it a point to check out the bottled water whenever I pop into a local health food store or co-op.

“Real Water” vs. “Earth Water”…  That’s a tough choice. I guess someone figured out that hippies are especially finicky about their water.

I soon realized that the crazy bottled water market was turning into a serious arms race:

Here are some quotes from my favorites

“H20 Vortex, Activated Water: spin cycle process with ULTRA OXYGEN”

“Borba skin balance water firming contains a revolutionary cultivated bio-vitamin complex along with a scientifically designed blend of nutrients intended to promote the skin’s natural support system, helping to nourish and tone the skin. Borba skin balance water is formulated to work with your body’s chemistry to promote healthy skin. This on-the-go, skin care-infused beverage combines simplicity and nutrition with the goodness of water. It’s water with benefits”

“HiOsilver Oxygen Water: Spring Water TurbOcharged with PURE OXYGEN (TM), 6 times the oxygen (50 ppm) of ordinary water, Glass bottle retains oxygen, Made with spring water, pH 8.4, naturally alkaline, For fresh breath, No sodium”

“New studies at a leading American and European Medical University have found that there is a water that not only fully hydrates, but may also be a pure antioxidant that neutralizes free radicals in your body. That water is Penta. – Penta water is first cleaned using a state of the art purification system that removes all impurities. No other bottled water is as pure! The water then goes through the patented penta process that spins the water at high speed and pressure for 10 hours. This unique process energizes the water to be a pure antioxidant that neutralizes free radicals in your body. And, unlike many antioxidant supplements and beverages that use synthetic additives, Penta has no additives so it is fully absorbed by your body maximizing its antioxidant effects.”

“e-water: A revolution in refreshment! Full Spectrum Electrolytes with fulvic acid.Stimulates metabolism, Increases absorption of key electrolytes, scavenges heavy metals/free radicals, increases enzymatic activity”

“AQUAVYBE’S pure, smooth taste comes from a unique formula that combines natural, bio-energetic minerals from Original Himalayan Crystal Salt (TM), with quantum science, creating super-hydrating, energizing water, with naturally occurring electrolytes.”

“E2 – Electron Energized (TM) water is the most advanced water available today. Through a proprietary process, E2 water is stably enhanced in two very important ways. First it is alkalized and second it is negatively ionized. Most bottled water is acidic which according to many nutritionists is unhealthy. E2 water helps the body become more alkalized  for improved health. Second, Nearly all water is positively ionized because the water molecules have been stripped of valuable electrons. This causes the water molecules to share electrons and clump together. These clumped molecules are not easily absorbed on a cellular level. With E2, the water molecules are negatively ionized. These negatively ionized water molecules contain free electrons and unclump so that they can be absorbed quickly on a cellular level. As an added benefit, the free electrons act as an anti-oxidant to neutralize free radicals. So to truly hydrate on a cellular level, use E2 – Electron Energized (TM) water. You will taste and feel the difference! Oxidation Reduction Potential (OPR) of -50 Guaranteed!”

One water bottle brand is the clear winner of the bullshit war.

AquaHydrate: The Ultimate Hydrating Fluid! Aquahydrate is the purest, health promoting water available anywhere. Some waters are purified, some are alkaline, some have organic trace minerals, some are micro-structured, and some have proper electrolyte balance – AQUAHYDRATE has it all!”

This is like when a little kid, after being asked what he would wish for if a genie appeared, thinks to say “I wish for infinite wishes.”.

I wish for infinite water awesomeness!

Genius.

In defense of my hippie side and hippie friends, I’ve never actually seen anyone buy any of this silly water. Well, except for the Egyptian geometry one. But come on, Egyptian geometry? That’s a pretty cool thing to put in your water.

update: yes I know that people are now boycotting Nalgene in favor of Klean Kanteen on the basis that Nalgenes use toxic plastics and make restraints for animal testing. This is just the next step in a long line of trendy water holders. I remember the bygone eras of Bota Bags and Camelbaks. Like I said, hippies are finicky about their water.

Vietnam completely shuts down for the week of lunar New Year (we usually call it Chinese new year, the Vietnamese call it “Tet”). Everyone gets the week off to go visit their families. All shops close, all commerce stops, the streets are empty. So a friend and I went on a quick trip over to Thailand.

At some point we visited a small city called Chanthaburi in Eastern Thailand near the Cambodian Border. The city is famous for gem trading. The streets are lined with gem shops and are normally filled people haggling and looking through magnifying glasses, except during lunar New Year. Here again, most stuff was closed. Which suited me fine, I was just happy to be away from the noise and chaos of Hanoi.

So what was everybody in Chanthaburi doing instead of trading gems? They were at the local festival, sticking gold stickers on monk statues and watching matches of my new favorite obscure Thai sport: Sepak Takraw.

The game  is basically volleyball, except you can only use your feet, and half the time you’re doing crazy back flips.

So far the story all makes sense right?

Well, except for one thing. All their jerseys have big AIG logos on the front.

AIG, or the American International Group, is a huge American corporate insurance company that also deals in financial services, telecommunications, ports, and aircraft leasing. They’ve been in the news a lot in the last few years over a big fraud scandal in 2005, and as one of the major financial bailouts last summer.

It’s not uncommon to see international brands in developing countries. Coca Cola and Pepsi have managed to get their logo absolutely everywhere. It seems like they must do this by subsidizing or fully sponsoring the manufacture of signs for restaurants and shops, and including free signs and placards with their deliveries. This would be pretty easy for them as Coca Cola and Pepsi have vast networks local bottling and distributing companies that they work with.

And it makes sense that Coca Cola and Pepsi want to build an international brand, especially in emerging markets.

But did a bunch of local Sepak Takraw players in an obscure Thai city end up with AIG logos on their custom team jerseys? I can only imagine two possible explanations:

One explanation is that AIG actually had such a large scale and long term global strategy that they thought it was important to really really get their brand out there into every corner of the earth. I doubt anybody at this local Thai lunar New Year festival had any business purchasing insurance or renting jumbo jets from giant American corporations.

The other explanation is that maybe AIG has been sponsoring major sports teams internationally, as many big global corporations do, and that the local business that prints up the jerseys for the Sepak Takraw teams figured they wouldn’t look legit unless they had some corporate logo action going on – in which case AIG is getting free advertising.

I wish I had thought to ask them about it. Either way it’s pretty silly.

Followup1:  Googling “Sepak Takraw AIG” came up with a bunch of references to AIG: the Asian Indoor Games, which is the big annual tournament for Sepak Takraw. I guess that this suggests a variation on the second theory: the AIG logo was borrowed because their stupid three letter acronym (TLA) has a separate special meaning in this context. Ha!

Followup2: Upon re-reading my post I realize it sounds somewhat condescending and ethnocentric: “These naïve villagers couldn’t possibly understand the meaning of this American brand, how quaint, har har har!”. I should explain that the copying and misuse of brands  is everywhere here and you can’t help but wonder about the stories behind it sometimes. Yesterday I got a ride from someone who’s motorbike seat said Dolce and Gabana all over it. Thailand is a major business center and I’m sure lots of people know what AIG is, but there’s still something a little off about the AIG brand showing up on sepak takraw jerseys.

So it worked.

I finally got a job.

I am the new co-director of a currently non-existent strategic consulting division at a major Vietnamese finance firm. I have a desk, my own phone extension, a new bank account with Military Bank, an extended work visa, and one week to finish a presentation of my initial financial and strategic analysis of 3 publicly traded Vietnamese companies and a plan for how to build this new department.

I got the position thanks to the help of two friends I have here (in addition to taking the time to send the company my resume, put on my suit, and come in to meet the boss). So I got it through networking, although not really the kind I was writing about. Rather it seems to have come about totally independently of most of this running around I’ve been doing. More so just the normal kind of networking where you naturally hang out with people similar to you.

It seems like luck. I happened to meet two American guys my age, with similar tastes, preferences, and tendency towards furious nerdy argument, that live about two blocks from me,  and were just put in charge of hiring some fresh meat for special projects at their finance firm. But I guess getting lucky sooner or later was the plan all along.

So now the three of us are building a plan to create a division that has to overcome a lot of challenges. First and foremost it would have to be able to offer genuine, insightful, useful, and practical advice to Vietnamese corporations. This means that we will have to have better insight into the markets, competitive dynamics, competencies, and potential for these firms than the people running them do. Then the real hard part is going to be convincing the firms to pay us to do it.

It would also have to be accepted within the complexities of interdepartmental firm politics; not taking business or power away from anyone else.

Our only tools are PowerPoint, Google, a Bloomberg terminal, our education, and our wits.

We present our analysis and our plan on Monday. If we succeed the new department we create will be our jobs. We’re bargaining to get our own office space upstairs and we might even bring in our own interns.

For me it’s really the perfect job. It will be my duty to spend all day thinking really hard about strategies I think businesses should peruse, and then to design and present them. It’s like making a cat the chief officer of finding sunny places to nap.

There’s a sad irony to all of this though. This should be triumphant success of my experiment in entrepreneurial travel which I’ve chronicled in this blog.  All this time I’ve been worrying about my suit, my business cards, my resume, and my contacts, running around, trying to find an opportunity like this. Finally I do, and after just two days of working (8 to 6 today) I feel as though everything is already changing.

I feel like my weekdays, amounting to five sevenths of my life, will simply disappear to another universe; a surreal looping indoor universe of wake, commute, work, food, sleep, repeat, occasionally interrupted by menial errands.

I worry that I won’t have the free time or extra energy to devote to my writing, my photography, or my health. I’m really scared that I might not be able to put in all the time I have been into keeping up my relationships with my family, my friends, and my girlfriend. Maybe those were all just the temporary luxuries of unemployment.

I feel like such a baby. Wah wah, I have a job. I can’t keep sleeping until noon, exploring temples all day, and playing on my laptop all night like I have been for months. Poor me. On the one hand I got exactly what I wanted. On the other I feel like I’ve fallen right into the life that I came out here to escape. (the third hand is holding a duck)

I guess it’s all relative. I’m incredibly lucky and thankful to have the opportunities that I’ve had, and it’s certainly not an appropriate time to complain about having a job, especially in finance. And maybe the simple sadness of growing older is seeing your life turn from an imagined spectrum of possibilities to one single path.

I could write more about it but I have to go to sleep. I’m tired and I have work in the morning.

I have a friend who has always been excellent at expressing complex ideas clearly. He has a background in business and politics, loves to argue about history and philosophy, and at the time I knew him he was writing the dissertation for his doctorate in ethnomusicology. A really out there guy, but smart as hell.

When he moved away to Finland (where else?) I inherited from him a book about writing which he highly recommended. The book is called Style: towards clarity and grace, written by Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb.

I’ve been carrying it around since then, for about 2 years, meaning to read it.

I finally started and it’s fantastic.

The authors explain their theory on how we experience writing and what sorts of problems cause writing to seem awkward, confusing, and unclear (or as they really like to say, turgid).

They show many subtly different ways of writing similar things and explain why some express the idea more clearly than others. They also suggest different methods for improving your writing.

A funny part of the book is in the introduction where the authors quote many previous authors that have also written about clarity. Ironically, these quotes aren’t clear at all. This shows the real difficulty in actually writing clearly, even when you’re really trying.

“The utterance of a gentleman ought to be deliberate and clear, without being measured… Simplicity should be the firm aim, after one is removed from vulgarity, and let the finer shades of accomplishment be acquired as they can be attained. In no case, however, can one who aims at turgid language, exaggerated sentiments, or pedantic utterances, lay claim to be either a man or a woman of the world. “ – James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat, 1838

Orwell couldn’t pull it off either:

“The keynote [of such a style] is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill, a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purposes verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render. In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination instead of be examining). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the –ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un-formation.” – George Orwell from his essay “Politics and the English Language”

Even the authors of this book get caught in some serious sillyness:

“Finally, some of us write badly not because we intend to or because we never learned how, but because occasionally we seem to experience transient episodes of stylistic aphasia.”

What?

For me it was watching Obama’s inauguration speech that really solidified my current excitement about the power of clear communication. He uses all the ideas presented in this book very naturally in his speeches.

The authors start with simple sentence level issues such as expressing actions and conditions in specific verbs, adverbs or adjectives. So instead of saying “The intention of the committee is the improvement of morale.”, it would be clearer to write “The committee intends to improve morale.”. Rather than making strong rules against things like passives and nominalizations, they explain why these structures exist and when they are appropriate to use.

The book then moves on to worrying about where ideas appear within a sentence and how this placement links sentences together. The authors  continue to expand the scope of their concepts until they are discussing where in paragraphs to introduce new ideas and how to build on them, and finally how to structure whole arguments and papers.

The focus is mostly on the writing of complex or technical prose.  So while I started reading the book with the hope that it would help me in writing this blog, I find it’s actually helping much more in my ongoing work revising the business plan for the health communications company that I’m consulting for.

Here is an example sentence from the business plan I’m editing:

“In the near future (within the next 2-3 years), CCRD will continue to mainly source for contracts from programs managed by the GOV and international donors the scope and clienteles, and thus, the market share of CCRD will be expanded as a result of capacity building and increased experiences which will contribute to CCRD’s improved reputation and recognition as an unique health/development strategic communication expertise;  And its gradually entry into new markets, i.e.:”  [followed by a list of markets]

This is my best attempt at fixing it.

“CCRD’s success in expanding capacity and increasing experience have improved its reputation as a dependable source for health and development communication expertise in Vietnam. Because of this CCRD has seen an increase in both its market share, and the scope of its clients.

In the near future (the next 2-3 years), CCRD will continue to mainly source contracts from programs managed by the GoV and international donors, while also beginning to gradually expand into new markets, including: “

The real hard part is going to be when I have to boil 50 pages of that into a clear, convincing, and professional 8 page executive summary.