This past week I was up at corporate headquarters in New York for set of technical meetings to try and bring three groups together to come up with our product strategy for 2016. There were about 25 of us there from all over the world representing at least 10 different countries. My main concern was that it would be hard come to consensus on our strategy as each group would want to promote their ideas over the other groups.
That turned out to not be the case and by Thursday afternoon we had a clear strategy that everyone could support. Some people may think that when you get a bunch of tech geeks together they calmly discuss the pros and cons of different technologies and come to a conclusion based on logic and reasoning. The truth is technical people tend to have as many turf wars and political maneuverings as executives in corporate board rooms or politicians in committee meetings.
As part of this trip I got to spend some time outside of work with the people from these other countries I normally only talk to by phone. Its nice to get to know them on a more personal basis and get their views on the world. Of course the conversation eventually lead to the recent set of attacks in Paris and the US.
If you haven't seen John Olivers comments on the Paris attacks you should check it out on youtube. In his moment of profanity he correctly points out that these attacks are not carried out by a group of radical Muslims but by just plain "Fucking Assholes" following an outdated ideology of assholery. I support the governments efforts to track down these people and do what they can to prevent these type of attacks but am concerned by some ideas certain politicians proposed to solve this problem as they amount to nothing more than blatant racism. I explained to my colleagues that the ideas of these politicians do not really reflect the opinion of the people and are just grandstanding to energize their base. They all understood since their politicians do the same thing.
One of the outings we had after work was to travel to Times Square where the Statue of Liberty reminded me that what makes America successful is our ability to integrate many people from different parts of the world with different beliefs so that they can participate equally in our society
One only has to spend a few hours in New York to understand how rich and strong our culture is because of our diversity. And it makes for a lot of good food too. (Although as my Chinese colleagues point out what we call "Chinese" food is not really what they think of as Chinese food and the same can be said of any ethnic food in the US although it all tastes good )
The politicians may try to have you believe that our society is under attack and we must take dramatic action to prevent "These people" from taking our way of life from us. However if you look at demographics and actual facts you will see that the world is getting safer. More than ever the different counties of the world depend on each other economically and need to get along. We still have disagreements, of course, but more of these are solved through trade agreements and treaties as oppose to wars.
The main thing that divides us is the hate that is bread out of fear and fueled by politicians and those who want to benefit from this hate. It is important that we don't get consumed by this. As I walked with my colleagues through Rockefeller Center and saw all the people enjoying the Christmas season it is easy to believe that people from different places with different backgrounds and beliefs can get together and find solutions to common problems. My conversations with my colleagues this week have continue to confirm my belief that if we learn to understand and respect each other we can solve the problems that face us and live in peace.
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