Chinese Fancypants

Tonight I attended a dinner and awards presentation at the Four Seasons in SF. The dinner was part of a group called the Committee of 100's annual conference. Although I didn't know much about the organization before the event, the evening was interesting and fairly enjoyable. And there were yummy desserts.

The Committee of 100 is a Chinese American interest group, promoting cultural exchange, advocacy, and discussion on US-China relations. Membership is by invitation, and they seem to seek out Chinese Americans who are leaders in their fields. Some members, including Lisa Ling, Jerry Yang, and Jenny Ming, were at tonight's dinner. (So how did I get to go? A family friend's company is a sponsor, so they had some comp tickets.)

Also present was Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut I met when I was in second grade! I have a photo clipping from our newspaper, of second-grade Stefanie sitting on a step in the auditorium of my elementary school, listening intently to him and rocking some 80's style. (Well, not really rocking and not really fashion, more like too-short pants and an Otter Pop sweatshirt or something.) That was back when he was just beginning astronaut training and hadn't been in space yet. Since then, he's flown on four space missions, the most recent being a six-and-a-half-month stint aboard the International Space Station. Neato bjeato! I wanted to try to find him during the dessert reception, but couldn't find him. Oh well. Instead, every time I turned around, there was Jerry Yang. He has really puffy hair.

Thomas Friedman, a writer with the New York Times, was also a guest and honoree at the dinner. He's currently working on a follow-up to his book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (which I haven't read), and mentioned a list of eight "middle class jobs," which he said would replace those that are currently being digitzed, outsourced, and automated. While the list isn't Brand New Information or anything, I thought it was a nice, succinct list of traits for competitiveness:

1. Great collaborators - people who know how to work across
organizations, countries, and populations.
2. Great leveragers - (I'll give him a pass on using the stupid L word) - people who know how to use technology to increase efficiency and productivity.
3. Great synthesizers - people who know how to bridge trends and technology to create new markets.
4. Great localizers - people who can recognize a trend/technology, and apply it locally in a small business.
5. Passionate something-or-other McPassionatepants - ok fine, I became momentarily distracted by a tiny creme brulee in a Chinese soup spoon and I missed this one. But it had something to do with passionate people and local something or other.
6. Anything green.
7. Great explainers - people who can clearly explain and model the perpetually more complex world.
8. Great adapters - people who can always anticipate and stay ahead of the digitization, outsourcing, and automation.

My initial thoughts: go go green, and go go SBDC! Makes me excited again for our Economic Summit. Also, the list made me feel good about myself for the silly reason that I think I'm at least half of those things. Half's not bad! Thank you to Vincent and Grace for the invitation.