Ed Dixon in Georgie
Photo: Carol Rosegg

When devising a one-man play about show biz, it is understandably helpful to choose a famously crusty, famously crotchety, famously charming scene stealer as your subject. Ed Dixon–himself one of those weathered show biz types who has gone from chorus boy to character man, while also writing plays and even a memoir detailing his off-stage struggles with addiction and homelessness–has chosen to memorialize his friend George Rose, who easily fits the descriptors above. But whose life also brings a built-in problem and not an inconsequential one: a secret course of action which he was never made to pay for, until one fine day when he was bludgeoned to death.

How do you make merry of such a man? And is it even proper to put him in any sort of spotlight?

The magic of Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose is that Dixon was and remains clearly tortured by his discovery of Rose’s dark side. A loving and comedic stage portrait of Rose might be seen as dishonest; how can you paint a bright picture and ignore the unspeakable beast lurking behind the façade? What makes Georgie a remarkable theatre piece–and what saves it from those who might ask how can you under any circumstance celebrate such a monster?–is Dixon’s portrayal of his own shock and dismay as he discovers the true Georgie. How could he have been a confidant of Rose? And what was there about Dixon that made the famously private Rose bring him into the heart of his secret? Rose died–or rather–was hacked to death–in 1988. One imagines that Dixon has been struggling with the relationship for decades, and that it took this play for Dixon to finally make sense of these deeply personal questions.

Ed Dixon in Georgie
Photo: Carol Rosegg

Rose was a British actor who worked at the Old Vic with Gielgud, Olivier, Richardson and other stage legends. His success in the major role of The Common Man in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons brought him from London to Broadway in 1961, where he remained thereafter. By 1966 he was starring in musical comedies, most notably opposite Katharine Hepburn in Coco, opposite Kevin Kline in The Pirates of Penzance, and in Best Actor Tony Award-winning performances in the 1976 revival of My Fair Lady and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Those who recall his Penzance or Drood will recall that once in the spotlight, Rose became an insatiable, unstoppable clown

Dixon linked with Rose in a 1973 pre-Broadway tryout of Sigmund Romberg’s The Student Prince which never reached Broadway. They remained comrades until Dixon visited the house Rose bought in the Dominican Republic in 1984, using his salary from the film version of The Pirates of Penzance, and recoiled in horror when he discovered what Rose was hiding. We don’t reveal this here, although you can easily find the facts on the Internet. Given that we highly recommend Georgie, we pay deference to unsuspecting theatergoers so that the reveal will be as shocking to them as it was to Dixon at the time.

The play is all Dixon, mostly sitting on an overstuffed divan against a backstage pinrail. Eric Schaeffer, who originated the play at his Signature Theatre in Arlington VA, repeats his direction and does a capital job of it. (While the production is properly spare, we must add that the new space they call the Loft at the Davenport receives instant high marks as perhaps the most ramshackle and least comfortable playhouse in New York).

Ed Dixon in Georgie
Photo: Carol Rosegg
Dixon mimics Rose, naturally, but also many others who play a part in the tale (Rex Harrison, Noël Coward, Gielgud, Burton, Edith Evans and more). The combination of the stories, the characters, and Dixon’s own persona make Georgie an evening of charm and delight. That is, until the shattering and brutal truth comes blustering in, as it must.
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Ed Dixon’s Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose opened February 1, 2017 and runs through April 15 at the Loft at the Davenport Theatre

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, Aisle View: Charismatic Clown (with Ghastly Secret),

So, I had an epiphany today.

Last week was the start of another semester of my Organizational Behavior course at a local Business School. And of course, I didn’t start to really prepare for the course until a few days before it began because…well, I have taught it before and I’m used to the sequence of the material. But last week I decided to change it up a bit. Yes, I am still covering the material I’m supposed to, but the sequence is changed a bit. Now, of course, my students don’t know this but I do and it keeps it fun for me

And so, today, I showed Brene Brown’s TED talk on Vulnerability In previous semesters, I had waited to share this video – waited to get to know the students a bit better; waited until we covered more material; just waited. It is one of my favorite TED talks and even though it was recorded in 2010 it is still relevant today. Actually, given the current climate in America – maybe even more so.

After the video, we had a really great discussion because the premise of her talk was perceptions – how we perceive ourselves, actually. I shared the video because I wanted to students to hear from someone other than me that we are all more alike than we realize or may want to realize. There are varying degrees, of course, but at our human core, we crave connection. And vulnerability is an amazing vehicle to gain that connection. Easy, no. Painless, definitely not. But vulnerability is necessary if we are going to share ourselves and connect with others.

My epiphany – blame. What it is, where it comes from. All because one of my students caught onto her definition of Blame. Brene says that:

BLAME = DISCHARGING OF DISCOMFORT AND PAIN

NOTE: Here is a great short video where Brene is talking about Blame specifically

The student who caught onto the blame definition said:

“I have been on the giving and receiving end of blame. And I have seen and read a lot of blame over the past few months, too. What if we had less blame? What would that look and feel like?”

Wow…what a great question. And not just for today, given our political climate and our divided country. Not just because people in power – notice I didn’t say politicians – act like toddlers and call each other names. Not just because my boys keep asking ‘what craziness happened last night?’ and not just because I am concerned about what type of country my children will have in 4 or 8 years…

No, it’s not just all of that but it’s how I function as a human being and how people function around me.

And I came to realize that while I have shared with my kids and clients and myself that blaming is “wasted energy,” that we need to take responsibility for our actions and decisions it’s more than that. It’s talking about accountability and what I am doing and will do. What others are doing and will do. And our expectations of ourselves and one another.

If you are blaming, there is no accountability. You are too busy discharging your discomfort and pain on others and not looking at yourself or those around you. You may feel a short-term feeling of release but that’s all it is…a short-term release. With no accountability, there is no one there to ask “why?” or “how did that happen?” There is no reflection so there is no awareness, no recognition of what happened to learn from and so it happens again..and again…and again. There can be a level of almost addiction to the cycle – build up, release…build up, release…and so it goes.

If you are blaming, you don’t see the full picture. You are reacting and looking for control. And almost never finding it.

But what if you don’t react. What if you sit with the discomfort and pain.

Maybe sometimes we just have to sit with that discomfort and pain.

Maybe sometimes we have to ask ourselves “where is all of this discomfort and pain coming from?”

Maybe we have to, as Jessica Williams shared with me today, let it RAIN [Recognize, Accept, Investigate and Nourish], which comes from a Buddhist teacher who teaches Radical Acceptance.

See what’s going on, accept that it’s happening, investigate why it happened and/or where it came from and then nourish your body, your mind and your soul. The more you can give yourself pause, the more it RAINS!

Or if all of that sounds like too much, maybe just start with stopping the blame game.

Start with taking a breath.

Start with not pointing a finger at anyone.

Start with YOU.

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, The Blame Game,

Show floor at the first CES in 1967

As the psychedelic swirls of Sgt. Pepper streamed from radio and hi-fi speakers in late June 1967, 15,000 manufacturers, distributors and retailers checked out 100 exhibits during the first Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at the Hilton and Americana (now Sheraton) hotels in New York City.

The 2017 edition of CES, which convenes this week in Las Vegas, marks the 50th anniversary of what has become the largest trade show in the country. More than 165,000 attendees will pour into Sin City, taxing the city’s infrastructure and the patience of drivers, to visit more than 3,800 exhibits in multiple halls and hotels across the city. And what happens in Vegas this week will definitely not stay in Vegas, considering the swarm of media covering the show and the thousands of new gadgets about to be unveiled.

As part of the CES 50th anniversary commemoration, in my role as newly-minted historian for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA, the industry and lobbying group who produce CES), I’ve helped collect around three dozen historically significant gadgets for display, from 8-track, compact cassette and record players that Beatles’ fans played Sgt. Pepper on, through the first cell phones, the first VHS VCR, the first GPS portable, the first DVR – well, a whole host of first gadgets.

If you’ll be attending CES, come see the exhibit in the Venetian, Level 2, Ballroom E/F.

Of course there have been a lot of more than three dozen historically significant gadgets released during the CES era, the most prolific new technology period in world history. So I had to make some editorial decisions about what historically significant products to include in the display, tempering that judgement with what historically significant products I could actually procure.

This process got me thinking. Of the myriad gadgets introduced in the last half century, which was the most historically significant, the most important, the most impactful?

There really is no objective criteria one can use as a measuring stick to make these selections, except, maybe, for sales. But some important/impactful gadgets didn’t sell particularly well at their genesis, and other gadgets are based on earlier products. I also differentiate impactful products from impactful technologies, and therefore didn’t consider the first product in a new technology wave, such as the first of many CD or DVD players from a host of suppliers.

Given these considerations, here is my own Top 10 most important/impactful products of the last 50 years. Obviously feel free to disagree and discuss after you’ve perused my choices.

10. Magellan NAV 1000 GPS Receiver
Available: May 1989
Original Price: $3,000

In the wake of the Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986, all GPS satellite launches stopped, stalling all commercial development on the system – except for one company. Magellan, founded four months after the shuttle explosion by entrepreneur and pilot Ed Tuck, who wanted a portable device to help him navigate to small airports, and two early GPS experts, Don Rae and Norm Hunt, went to work instead. In May 1989, the company started shipping this first-ever portable GPS receiver, more than three years before any competitors, which established a revolutionary way to get from Point A to Point B without having to fumble with maps or stop to ask directions.

9. TiVo PTV100 DVR
Available: March 31, 1999
Original Price: $499 plus $9.95 monthly service

This first-ever DVR, invented by TiVo founders Michael Ramsay and Jim Barton, made it easy to archive and locate hours of recorded shows, pause live TV and “time shift” our TV viewing. While it would take five years, when cable companies started to incorporate DVR technology into their set-top boxes, to accelerate the demise of the VCR, it was this recorder that triggered the change of how we watched TV.

8. Panasonic Plasma View TH-42PM1 TV
Available: October 31, 1997 (Japan)
Original Price: $12,499.99

While the Fujitsu Plasmavision 42 ($13,999.99) was the first plasma flat panel display to go on sale, this Panasonic was the first large, wide, flat screen TV – in included an integrated tuner – that consumers could buy. At 3.5-inch thick it was a fat set by today’s standards, its 852 x 480 resolution and composite video inputs was ultra high tech for the time, and its price was insane, even by today’s standards. But it made fat tube TVs as anachronistic as black & white.

7. Apple iPod
Available: November 10, 2001
Original Price: $399

While the Diamond Rio PMP300, released three years earlier, was the first commercially successful MP3 player, Apple’s iPod brought digital music to the mainstream, especially once Apple matched it with its online iTunes music store on April 28, 2003. This first iPod could hold 1,000 tracks in its 5GB memory, and could play for up to 10 hours. Before long, everyone was leaving their suddenly antiquated cassettes and CDs at home.

6. RCA SelectaVision VBT-200 VHS VCR
Available: October 1977
Original Price: $999

Sony introduced the first VCR, the Betamax, in February 1976, which established the whole notion of home video recording. Hollywood wasn’t pleased and sued, but the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly decided we had the right to record TV shows. But the Betamax could only record for an hour. So RCA countered with this Matsushita-made VHS SelectaVision VCR, which could record for up to four hours, enough to record an entire football game, and triggered the establishment of the home video market.

5. Sony Walkman TPS-L2 Personal Stereo
Available: July 1, 1979 (Japan), June 1980 (U.S.)
Original Price: $199.99

Listening to music was something we only did at home or in the car – until the Walkman. Imagined by Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka and designed by engineer Nobutoshi Kihara, Walkman ushered in the age of personal and portable music listening, to let us listen while we walk, while we work, while we commute and while we exercise. All personal cassette players that followed were referred to as a “Walkman,” regardless of manufacturer, much to Sony’s chagrin, but the idea of portable audio changed how we find, buy and enjoy our music.

4. Motorola DynaTAC Prototype Cellphone
Introduced: April 3, 1973

This first cellular phone was one of two hand-assembled working prototypes (the phone on the left in the photo), demonstrated by Motorola executives Martin Cooper and John Mitchell to an astonished media in the penthouse suite of the New York Hilton – the site of the first CES six years earlier. These DynaTACs were the culmination of a crash six-month project, meant to convince the FCC not to give AT&T a monopoly over the new cellular service. However, with no cellular network to connect to, the demo DynaTACs were also the first cordless phones. In either event, these prototypes led to the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x (right, in photo), the first commercially-available cellular phone which went on sale 11 years later, and triggered a communications revolution.

3. Magnavox Odyssey
Available: March 1972
Original Price: $99

In 1966, Loral researcher Ralph Baer patented a ball-and-paddle game designed to be played on a home television, which he licensed to Philips’ Magnavox, which then introduced the Odyssey, the first-ever videogame console. The Odyssey came with six video game cartridges, including Baer’s original Tennis game, which Nolan Bushnell turned into Pong three years later, which included on-screen scoring. But it was the Odyssey that started what is now a multi-billion dollar industry that rivals Hollywood’s revenues, a professional “eSports” league, and occupies way too many of our leisure hours.

2. MITS Altair 8800
Available: January 1975
Original Price: $439 (kit), $621 (assembled)

The home personal computer revolution began during the summer and fall of 1977 when, in succession, the Apple II, the Commodore PET 2001 and the Radio Shack TRS-800 were introduced. But none would have been developed without this breakthrough device. Featured on the cover of the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, the Altair 8800, invented by Ed Roberts, and manufactured by his Albuquerque, N.M., company, may have lacked a keyboard or screen, but it inspired a fertile hobbyist culture in the San Francisco area and the development of every PC that followed.

1. Apple iPhone
Available: June 29, 2007
Original Price: $499 (4GB), $599 (8GB)

No, admittedly the iPhone was not the first smartphone – not even close. But the iPhone provided the basic form and function for every smartphone that followed, and today the smartphone is, by far, the best-selling gadget in the world, perhaps of all time. As noted by Steve Jobs in January 9, 2007, introduction at MacWorld, iPhone absorbed and integrated a host of the historic technologies documented here – portable music listening, video player, internet communicator, personal computer, portable navigation and, duh, cellular telephony – wrapped in an operating system designed from the ground-up for a touchscreen phone. iPhone’s popularity not also ignited sales of all smartphones that followed and sparked the sale of billions of cases and accessories, but also birthed the billion-dollar app economy.

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, Top 10 Gadgets of the Last 50 Years,

By AsiaToday reporter Jina Koh -“Millennials are unprecedented.” As former MySpace CEO Mike Jones said, it’s hard to define the millennials.

Whether you love them or not, you can’t ignore them. As things are little tougher for millennials than their Baby Boomer parents, they are often described as lazy and self-centered generation that desires reward with minimal effort, and has unrealistic expectation of working life. However, they have experienced more innovative and evolving technology than ever before, giving them unique and distinctive characteristics.

And they create a new economy, media, and lifestyle.

‘Lazy narcissists.’ Millennials are the creators of this age.

▲ New media economy

– Social networking service and power bloggers

Social media-based services such as Facebook and Instagram have become megatrends in the millennial generation. A social networking service (SNS), where you can share your lifestyle with others and communicate with each other in real time, is a must-have personal item in the 21st century.

A recent study conducted by Kantar TNS surveying the online behaviors of 70,000 people across 57 countries revealed that the use of Instagram and Snapchat rose to 42% and 23% respectively, up from 24% and 12% in 2014. The Asia-Pacific region is led by Naver’s LINE with global usage jumping to 91% in Taiwan, 92% in Thailand, and 31% in Japan.

[Snapchat and Instagram penetration in Asia Pacific / Source: Kantar TNS]

[Snapchat and Instagram penetration in Asia Pacific from 2014 to 2016/ Source: Kantar TNS]

Along with LINE, KakaoTalk and WeChat focused on expanding to Asian countries, creating a rival tension with WhatsApp and Facebook messengers. They lead the market in a variety of ways that connect with consumers through a platform strategy that delivers content and services beyond mere functions.

The social networks that millennials use have higher growth rate than conventional industry-based companies. They expand business and receive investment based on an enormous number of users across the continent. Their user data is the most important growth engine for them.

As a result, power bloggers, who run their own blog or social media accounts, have emerged and their role has expanded. China’s “Wang Hong” marketing is now widely used in many other countries.

Wang Hong refers to online power users who have a lot of fans, and they have recently become stars of China’s e-commerce industry as the products used and recommended by Wang Hong create a strong advertising effect, leading greater sales. Not only they promote and sell products, but also get involved in launching a new product. They also get profit from their fans.

– Big hands of IPOs

Due to a number of geopolitical shocks, the number of global initial public offering (IPO) in 2016 fell 16% year-over-year to 1,055 and capital raised down by 33% to US$132.5 billion. 2016 was the weakest IPO year since 2013. However, there have been 185 IPOs in the technology sector, leading to unprecedented growth.

In particular, Asia-Pacific region continued their busy activity with 638 IPOs, which accounts for 60% of total global IPOs by volume. The explosive use by millennials, who have become the mainstream of the media, also let social media go public.

[The logo of Snapchat displayed above Times Square in New York./ Source: Wikimedia]

Snapchat, one of the most popular mobile video messaging and social media apps on the market, is inching closer to an initial public offering. If Snapchat goes public, it would be valued between about $20 billion and $30 billion, making it the biggest US tech IPO since Facebook’s public debut in 2012.

Naver’s LINE, which boasts 218 million global monthly users, made a successful IPO debut on July 15 in New York and Tokyo. On the first day in Tokyo, LINE closed at 4,345 yen, 32% above the initial public offering price. The market capitalization reached 921.4 billion yen. The IPO raised 1.5 trillion won, making it the year’s biggest tech IPO. LINE’s users are mainly in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.

China’s popular selfie app Meitu chose the Hong Kong stock market. The IPO raised $629 million, the biggest by a technology company in Hong Kong since Alibaba. The company now has a valuation of $4.6 billion.

– A new renaissance for startups

The ever-evolving information technology (IT) becomes the driving force of all the economies that millennials create. “Asian startups are going through a renaissance,” said Vishal Harnal, 500 Startup partner.

China and India are one of the biggest tech start-up hotspots in the world. The number of new startups coming out of China’s Silicon Valley rose to 2.61 million in the first half of 2016, a 28.6% jump from 2015.

India has more than 4,200 start-ups. The number of start-ups in India is expected to triple to 12,000 by 2020. Startup funding totaled about $6.5 billion in 2015, tripling from $2.2 billion in the previous year.

Southeast Asia is a new frontier in the digital economy. Its digital economy is expected to reach $200 by 2023, making it a popular investment spot for foreign venture capitalists. 500 Startup expanded its Southeast Asia start-up investment by launching the ‘500 Durian II’ fund in 2015.

The Middle East is keeping up as well. Saudi Arabia showed its Silicon Desert ambition as it prepares itself for the end of oil. Back in October, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund announced its plans to team up with Japanese IT and telecommunications giant SoftBank to launch a new tech fund, dubbed the SoftBank Vision Fund, that will manage as much as $100 billion.

▲ New money economy

– Intangible currency

Millennials, who are poorer than their parents, are building a new money economy by taking advantage of social commerce benefited by technology.

Mobile payments are growing fast as they provide cheaper price than offline market, fast delivery and spread of smartphones, gearing towards a cashless society. Millennials don’t have to deal with notes and coins thanks to mobile cards. They also get payment points that provide special benefits. The function of real cash has virtually disappeared.

As a result, Southeast Asia rather than East Asia, which underwent traditional web-based e-commerce economy, is emerging as an attractive market as it is introducing social commerce economy.

[Retail e-commerce sales in select countries in Southeast Asia, 2016 (unit: billions dollar). Source: eMarketer (left) / Bitcoin. Source: Pixabay (right)]

According to market researcher eMarketer, social commerce in Southeast Asia accounts for 30% of total digital sales. In particular, total social commerce sales for six markets in the region – Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines – reached $14 billion last year. It is expected to show double-digit growth over the next four years.

– Virtual currency Bitcoin

Virtual currency Bitcoin is a major achievement of the new money economy. With the trading being reached around $11.7 billion in value, Bitcoin is in the center of the new money economy.

According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the November trading volume reached 174.1 million bitcoins, the highest level ever, surpassing the 148.6 million bitcoins of the March trading volume. The transaction value was about 15 trillion yen.

China is a major bitcoin trading country, with the major three bitcoin exchanges representing some 90% of the global trading volume. Bitcoins with new technologies are coming out one after another. South Korea will see its first virtual currency based on blockchain system by February. The new digital currency called BOScoin, which, it claims, is an improved version of existing virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

▲ Sharing economy

The birth of ‘sharing economy’ eventually began with poverty. The term, which refers to short-term labor in the digital market, emerged globally due to its advantage of earning income in a short period of time for millennials who suffer from lack of full-time jobs, creating a new concept.

The fruition came from start-ups. The success of Uber and Airbnb sparked new markets such as office-sharing, store-sharing, and house-sharing markets emerged. Now the sharing economy has generated heated controversy as it can lead to more precarious jobs and induce unfair competition.

However, it is in the growth phase. China’s Didi Chuxing that defeated Uber in China, and the birth of second Uber such as Grab, Ola, and Go-Jek is still ongoing. And they evolve and adapt to local conditions.

The Philippines, which is made up of thousands of archipelagos, has a local player named Xend that relies on motorcycles and boats. Indonesia has Go-Jek that rearranged the logistics industry. India’s Grab provides customized service with cash payments.

[Uber and Airbnb/ Source: Wikipedia]

– Trusting strangers

And there is trust. The key of the sharing economy is putting your trust in complete strangers. The intangible trust built on digital platform has become a brand itself and new economy. In the end, they’ve been communicating with us through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other types of social media.

You buy things through e-commerce websites, and communicate on Facebook. You use Uber to take a ride and book a place on Airbnb. The digital platform is a commerce society that creates intangible money to share with others. Trust in strangers itself has become a value chain.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

, Millennials Are Creators of New Economy,