Thomas Chang | Idea: Behind Advertisement

It used to be that advertisers simply marketed their ads to as many people as possible in hopes that it would attract the most customers. Then as the internet developed, interest tracking became the most dominate method in reaching consumers most likely to follow the particular advertisement. However, the general negative attitudes people develop towards advertisement is just a surface level issue. Underneath, there is an underlying problem beyond what is easily perceivable.

Advertisements are more than just subtle posters, flashing backgrounds or funny commercials; they have the power to influence entire cultures - and not always in the right direction. The way some business schools teach people how to market is to reinforce the current popular culture. They teach to-be business leaders how to "analyze the markets" but what they are really doing is teaching them to blindly chase trends. Mere associations can have devastating affects. Most marketers are simply trained to frame and utilize a popular figure, image or culture in their ads to make an association between the influencer and their product as long as it makes them a profit. Consequently, when little concern for it's effects it has on society, they blindly amplify and reinforce a certain culture in association with what is followed that ultimately threatens the psychological expectations of consumers.

The widespread nature of corporate advertisements can put consumers at risk to conforming with what they perceived to be the overriding values. Though, that's not to say everyone person is susceptible to the negative influences of media. Understanding how to recognize these influences on our cognition can be developed. Those who lack that personal integrity are most prone to the influences of whatever they are hit with in the media whether it be that marketers hinge onto the value of physical appearance in women when trying to sell skin products by implying, "you must use our product in order to look beautiful and be loved as a person" or how marketers might market their beer products to men with the robotic subordination of women in a beer commercial. They are reinforcing and amplifying a negative stereotype creating yet another obstacle in society's positive development. By definition, a business's purpose is to make a profit so often times, this priority subdues marketer's concern for consumers. However, the most important thing to recognize is that doing good and making a profit are not mutually exclusive. So it takes more than strategy to be a good marketer; it takes morally-enforced strategy to make a great business leader.

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Psychology behind influence:

Individuals are more influenced by their social environments than most like to think. Human minds are programmed to experience cognitive dissonance when their mental states are not congruent with their behavior or the social environment. Two ways of solving this is either matching one's attitude with that behavior or changing that behavior to match that attitude. For example, if a student entered a new high school where everyone behaved a certain way in opposition to how that individual acted, he or she will most likely experience cognitive dissonance. For the sake of the case, let's say the school had a rude and aggressive culture while the new student came from a school that valued more and emphasized kindness. One way to reduce this inconsistency between the internal and external states is to conform one's attitude to the opposing behavior by believing that being rude is the appropriate way to act. Now, it matches with the expectations and one will no longer feel the distress of defying the social pressure. However, the other way is to match one's behavior with one's attitude. In order to do this, one must allow their polite behavior to remain connected with their their personal preference of kindness and acceptance. Likewise, for people who have circle of friends who don't use drugs, it is easier for them to develop a healthier lifestyle than those who are brought up in a drug filled environment.

Depending on how well an individual practices the decision making behind what is best for their well-being or other's well-being, it becomes easier and quicker with experience. Attitude to behavior or behavior to attitude, however, is not the static function of good or bad; it is the situation itself. It take analysis beyond face value. For example, if everyone at school were hard workers and kind people, it wouldn't hurt to conform in this situation because it supports one's well being. Likewise, it might not be the best decision to maintain one's lazy and rude behavior in match with the attitude that being uncivilized is preferred. Interpersonally, flocks or herds are more likely to survive if they all acted the same because it creates communal harmony. This is the same way human brains work but the counter is that the way everyone acts is not always for the best interest of that individual so it takes experience in judgement to decide what's best. This is the same reason why young children are most easily influenced because they have not experienced the challenges of deciding whether to conform or hold true to their personal health. In part, this ability to decide at a second level is one aspect that sets humans apart from the animal kingdom. Overtime, guiding and allowing children to make these decision will help them develop greater integrity.

Thomas Chang | Idea: 24/7 Production Shift, Eliminating Sleep-Daytime Compensation

Today, I was sitting in my dorm room reviewing some of the work my friend has finished over night on an online project and an intriguing thought surfaced.

At this point in record [January 21st, 2011], my friend is currently in Vietnam, near Ho Chi Minh City. He's been visiting his family for a few weeks since December but we didn't let that stop us from working on our project. I would eventually find that our loathed separation actually helped us progress significantly faster than if we have had worked in the same location. That is, speaking for the particular phase the project is currently in which requires long hours of individual work. And large credit goes to the miracle of the internet which allowed us to collaborate while at opposite ends of the Earth. Here's how:

I am currently set in Eastern Standard Time, exactly 12 hours behind my friend in Vietnam. What this means is by the time I go to bed at night, he wakes up to start the morning and vice versa. We naturally took advantage of this obstacle by trading off daily assignments while the other slept. Thus the project was being worked on non-stop with no time wasted. In addition, we also frequently had about 2-5 hour overlaps where we were both awake, depending on when we decided to sleep or wake in suit of the project's needs. However, being both awake for these brief overlaps offered us the perfect opportunities to brief each other on what was accomplished that day and what tasks were next in line. So as my friend went to bed for his well-deserved rest, I was fully rested to pick up his work. By night, I would finalize my tasks while he woke for the next morning in Vietnam and we'd again, trade the baton.

At the time, I didn't realize how awesome this system was. What we had unknowingly created was a considerably effective tag-team effort despite our obnoxiously remote locations. Our project was being worked on 24/7 and we never lost any sleep over it; that is, other than the days we intended to stay up late to continue working. All in which, the malevolent grave-shifts were never necessary. In prospect, I thought it would be pretty rad if this system was applied to how some companies operated in the future to maximize productivity without compensating or interfering with an individual's natural day-night circadian rhythm.

This tag-team system would work best in projects that are transparent in nature because most business operations require physical human presence. Rather, this system could be most applicable for projects that involved, for example, software development, architectural designing or in operating a 24/7 customer service line. As well, this system's not a stretch because companies like Cisco are already beginning to develop communication products that allow people from different parts of the world to collaborate seamlessly on projects through virtual technology.

It can easily be expected that in the future, our collaboration tools will be significantly more advanced in allowing people around the world to work together, seamlessly. And if a company had multiple headquarters in different areas of the Earth, this would allow efforts over one project to continue around the clock. All in the while, a tag-team on other side of the world would be readily available to carry on the efforts as the other slept.

Thomas Chang | Dream: Pathological Invasion

Today is Saturday, January 15th, 2011. I unintentionally slept through the day until 6pm in the evening and this is what I dreamt:

I seemed to experience the whole dream in a constantly, intertwining alteration between a third-person limited

perspective - the way you would experience a movie - and 1st person narrative where I experienced the events through my own senses. I was at home and there were explosions and sounds in the sky. My perspective seamlessly transported to a view of the Earth with swarms of shiny black and purple particles being shot towards everywhere that had land or people. I don't think I determined the size of these shiny black and purple objects or particles though they seemed to be in various sizes from thin dust to boulders the size of houses. Back to 1st person perspective, I watched the things shoot down from the sky but before they hit the ground, they exploded into a marvelous array of purple and white light like fireworks. I was seeing this while standing in my backyard. These explosions cover the entire sky. As the things exploded, they turned into smaller pieces and crashed into the sides of houses and crumbled on roof tops. Apparently, I video taped the whole thing and later watched it again.

Then, the scene changed seamlessly to me running around in a large, city-like, modern campus alongside other students and professors in chaos. It was daytime. We seemed to be running aimlessly, not sure whether to panic or continue with our daily functions. I suddenly jumped back to the view of the Earth with black and purple things being shot towards Earth but a close up of the particles showed bacterial-like substances that lurked. Then the perspective jumped back to 1st person and I thought, we need to find what that black and purple stuff are. My thinking was that it was possible this invasion was in the form of chemical warfare. I reasoned that on Earth, during the Cold War, countries agreed amongst each other that they would not use chemicals weapons in ----------- battle because it could threaten the health of the human race, all together. However, whatever the aliens were intending to do, they were not bound by such agreement. Most everyone seemed physically normal despite the current chaos and terror but I thought, maybe the things from the sky were slowly affecting us internally without us knowing. It didn't seem to be a direct extermination but rather, an invasion to control or utilize the resources of our world. Throughout the entire ordeal, the image of actual the actual aliens or agents causing this event never surfaced.

I was then set out to do one thing and that was find someone who knew how I could contact UC Berkeley or Stanford University to tell them to analyze the stuff that fell from the sky and make a diagnostic on how it might affect humans. If we were endanger of a chemical attack, we had to find a cure and keep the people who were not yet exposed to the black and purple explosions, unexposed. The first person I called on my cell while running around, aimlessly, was a friend of mine that currently studies at Stanford. He picked up and plainly said "what's up." I tried to explain the possibility of a chemical invasion and he had to find biologists and chemist at his campus to conduct experiments and diagnostic tests on the black and purple substance. However, the phone connection seemed to break up and he didn't hear. I then resorted to finding someone running around who knew someone at Berkeley. I found a random man who did and gave me the reference number but the person on the other line didn't pick up. I kept trying and found a female student who suggested the professors in the biology department might know so I followed her as we ran through long building hallways to reach the biology department. When we arrived, several professors were present, composed but surely apprehensive what might happen next. I quickly asked them for a number and an elder male professor immediately, without initial context, vocalized the digits of a phone number as I dialed. It rang a few times but again, no one answered.

Suddenly, the scene changed to an abandoned shop with glass walls. I was inside while everyone outside were still running around in confusion. I sensed that aliens were in the area, secretly kidnapping individuals so I hid in the corner where there was an old piano, dusty office chair, some construction materials and large rugged towel. I climbed under the piano and scooted everything in front of me to stay under cover. Peaking out, I saw people outside the glass walls, still running around but gradually, everything seemed to calm down as the government officials on the news told everybody we were not in significant danger and to calm down. While everyone calmed, I seemed to telepathically be urging a message for people to consider the fact that the chemicals may be doing something to our bodies or brains at this moment and we had to find out. What happened next was unclear and confusing but I imagined people were beginning to show the abnormal health signs from breathing in the black and purple dust particles earlier; their skin became thin and sunken. Their eyes darkened and their behavior seemed incoherent. I then imagined a chemical lab where people were analyzing the black and purple things in petri dishes, flasks and graduated cylinders. The scientists concluded that there was a strange reaction when the black and purple dust particles were mixed with human fluids. Specifically saliva and urine.

I suddenly woke up in a frightful state, lying on the floor, in my dark room, next to a heater on my bare stomach. Then I abruptly panicked at the thought of someone or something standing behind me so I quickly turned around to look. No one was there, just the contours of my dark room. I slowly got up off the floor, looked around and made sure I wasn't still dreaming. I have covered my windows with thick sheets from the other night so I couldn't tell whether it was light or dark outside. I checked the time and it was 6pm in the evening, having unintentionally slept through the day.

*The pictures, lined vertically on the upper right are pictures I've selected that closely resemble the visuals I saw in the dream. They are chronologically ordered.*

Thomas Chang | Utilizing Mass Property, Roads and Solar Panels for Future Energy

I thought this installation was really cool. I came across this parking lot during my visit at Palo Alto University. It took me a few rounds around the campus to find the right building so I decided to take a quick snap shot to make use of my aimless driving. What's cool about these solar panels is that it's multi-purpose; it shades from sun, covers from rain and harvests power. Plus, no additional property is required for installation because it's used in the preexisting parking lot. With this, I'm also looking forward to seeing solar-panel "roads" in the future as a ubiquitous feature to our infrastructure. It's exciting to propose the amount of power we can generate from the roads, alone. Maybe even to the extent were nuclear power plants, oil fuel, coal or dams are no longer unnecessary. Engineers are already on their way to developing a "wireless" power source for electronic devices like laptops. If that is possible, it would be a great gateway for cars to also be simultaneously powered while driving on the road. Possibly a "Mutual-Energy Trade" between the millions of pounds of kinetic energy highways endure everyday from cars driving over the cement (which can be replaced with micro-solar plates, bi-functional with UV receptors while converting oscillating pressures into electricity from the moving vehicles above). The"wireless" power transference between internal power transmitters installed underneath the road and the vehicle power receivers can simultaneously trade off. It would become a self-sustaining energy system between road and car. That would be awesome.

Thomas Chang | Personal Book Review: Dr. Gary Small's, "The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head"

Without this one book, I would have been assuredly bored during all the flight delays and my waits at the airport and train station. I wanted to recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in psychology. Though the title is a bit strange (I suppose to simply provoke initial interest), I think the author, Dr. Gary Small, did an amazing job expressing his first-hand experiences in the field, offering personal and insightful lessons he has learned throughout his medical career. Beginning from his first-year residency, training at Harvard's Medical Clinic to his work at UCLA's Hospital, he describes his personal development as a med-student, transitioning to psychiatry, trying his hands on research, becoming a husband, father and friend. With humility, humor and compassion he expresses his pursuit to help others through the most mysterious and interesting cases including his own - there's something intimately human about this reading because he dives beyond the magic and 'mind-reading' misconceptions of the fairly-new field of psychology by explaining exactly how he approaches and analyzes each individual's unique case to finding the logical key to their healing.

As shown in the photo above, the book is titled, 'The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head' by Gary Small. They sold it for about $25.99 at Borders & Books. Well worth the purchase :)