Digital Talanoa : Resolutions

New year resolutions are definitely a highlight of my year. If I make and break a resolution, I only have myself to blame. I’ve had many resolutions over the years, a number of them seem to appear repeatedly. It provides me some warmth for me to see my old favorites on my list year after year.

Here are my top New Year resolutions for 2007:

Digital Talanoa : Broadband, Fiji-style

I’ve written about ten of these columns now for the Fiji Times. After each of them, I’ll receive a few emails from people commenting on what I wrote. It’s always nice to get feedback and I appreciate it. When I wrote a positive piece about Fiji two weeks ago, I received more mail than ever before. Many of the letter writers were from abroad and had read the column off the Fiji Times website. All of them seemed to agree that if nothing else, it was nice to read something that wasn’t grim and negative.

Coup Update

Amazing to see the way things return to relative normality after just a week. Sad to see some of stories now emerging about the military's alleged behavior.
Ken Zinck, a former minister in Fiji, apparently went through the following as reported by the FijiTimes.

Mr Zinck said at the QEB, he was made to run around a sports field while four soldiers ran behind him with guns pointed at his back.

Along a similar vein...

A group of armed men are alleged to have broken into a democracy shrine, on Saturday night before tearing down banners and damaging the property.

These events might simply be the behavior of a random group of soldiers and men, respectively, but still do point to a bigger cause for concern. This is not, however, representative of what daily life in Suva is right now. The place has calmed down and very much appears to have returned to normal

The underlying threats of violence, however, are still there.
Hopefully, they will just remain as threats.

Death of a brand

Being all the way out here in the South Pacific, I often find myself way out of touch with some of the things that happen back at home in the US. Was saddened to see the death of the Lucent brand just recently. Lucent now merged with Alcatel? Jesus...where have I been?

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/

I loved the old Lucent logo. Perhaps it's the Asian inside of me that adores absolute simplicity and I giggled at the variety of nicknames the brand attracted. From the "coffee stain" to the amusing "devil's asshole", Lucent certainly stirred some emotion.

Rest in peace, great brand.
Incidentally, very impressed with Alcatel-Lucent's "User-centric Experience" piece living in their site navigation. For UE to get that level of attention on a major corporation's website is significant, even if their logo looks more like a big-Pharma brand.

Blogs and coups

In the midst of a military takeover of a democratically elected government, I sit scratching my head. It's not my first coup, though. After all, I was living in the states during the election of 2000.