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When my kids were little, my mother made my daughter a sock-monkey. Of course it was the fad back in those days for grandmothers to make these little creatures from some pattern that I imagine they all shared. It was a labor-of-love and my daughter was very appreciative when she first got it. Not so much once my son (who is 5 years older) started to make fun of it. Older brothers are very influential when it comes to likes and dislikes, especially when it has no value other than to harass his younger sister. My son, like older brothers wasn’t very concerned that it was hand-made and made as something that my daughter might want to keep to remember her grandmother. Of course as the years have gone by, the sock-monkey has gone from one storage box to another without being remembered or appreciated.

As I was looking for things to use to experiment with some short animation clips, I found the old sock-monkey (Winston) tucked away in a storage container with other memories of that same memorable time in our lives. Winston has lost some of his original color and of course one eye, but other than that, he’s the same old Winston. My daughter hasn’t seen him for many years, but she recently finished her B.S. in Nursing and has started to reminisce about her childhood. So Winston may again serve a purpose in her life and now without her brother’s influence, she may appreciate the effort and love that her grandmother meant when she made Winston for her.

Luckily, I kept a lot of things from my daughter’s childhood, pictures, dresses, dolls, doll house (she helped me work on) and of course Winston. Things from the past do have a place in our understanding of who we are and maybe a place in our grand children’s futures as well. Once my daughter is ready to have her own family, I think I’m going to make my granddaughter a sock-monkey, but I will remind her that she needs to keep it away from my grandson.

I try to listen, but it’s hard. Especially if I have to pay attention at the same time. It seems to get harder as I get older, maybe that’s just my gender excuse. Anyway, I decided that my inability to stay focused when more than three sentences were strung together needed an explanation or at least a reasonable attempt to defend it.

Valentine’s Day, yes it’s that time of year again, and I’m struggling more than ever to improve on my record. Cards, candy, flowers, check-check-check, good listening skills – OMG, not any better than last year. Soooo – here’s what I came up with – a short visual demonstration. In this series of photos you can see that I struggle with how to look like I’m paying attention. That is one of the mysteries that every male has to work on first. Show the visible signs of listening. Notice, I start with the most difficult hand positioning ”hand on my chin, index finger positioned in front of my lips “. I figured that was a sure sign that my focus was on the discussion and my attention was directly targeting the speaker. Unfortunately for me, I was only able to sustain that for just a couple of seconds. Next, I resorted to the perplexed look. That only works when something ”might” need some feedback to the speaker. Ultimately, these techniques follow the discussion at that moment, so you will need to practice with some partner who doesn’t really expect feedback – possibly another guy who needs to practice as much as you do. While I show this demo, you may want to mimic my gestures and get comfortable with these positions “before” you start to apply them.

Next, I resort to re-positioning my head with the neck stretch bla-bla-bla routine. Unfortunately, as you can see, nothing worked because I finally blatantly resorted to the dreaded “slump-over, head down” position which even with the most liberal analysis means, I failed! The only thing I can say at this point is “Happy Valentine’s Day”, I’ll try again next year and hopefully have better luck and I hope you do as well.

Recently, I  attended a panel discussion featuring attorney and former Independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler, Suzanne Fox of Fox Intercultural Consulting Services, Tony Kieffer of MaineAsia, LLC and Kwok Yeung of IDEXX Laboratories. They were there to share their wide experience from the front lines of business and educational exchange between Maine and China. They were all very knowledgeable with years of experience and personal connections to both Maine and China. All had lived in China and Maine at some point in their collective pasts and are working to develop a connection between the two economies.

As I pointed out during the interactive part of the discussion, my background and knowledge of China is somewhat limited, my knowledge of current economic exchanges between Maine and China are even more limited, but I’m concerned that the “average Maine-ah”, like myself, isn’t in on the fast track or on the future economic success train, only the “slow boat to China”. That of course is a joke, but I’m not laughing about our “average” Maine worker not being ready to meet the challenges of an expanding world marketplace.

I’m thankful that people like Eliot Cutler (who I voted for – I’m an Independent), is using his past connections and successes to recognize and bridge the opportunities between the Chinese and U.S. (Maine) economies. Unfortunately, like other “average” Maine workers, I’m not ready to fill the future demands of a multicultural work environment. OK, I’m not talking about going to China, but I am talking about communicating with and being able to recognize differences between our two countries. I could just accept that, as an “average” Maine worker, all I have to do is make something or grow something or catch something and I can sell it through a business vendor who will ship it to China and that’s that.

Maybe things work that way when languages and exchange rates are similar and cultural differences don’t matter, but I’ve been to Asia and South East Asia and I was born in rural “poor” Maine and unlike Eliot or Suzanne Fox, I don’t have the connections, resources, or successes to really profit from a slow but steady economic partnership. It’s clear that if you have money, you make money, but not for Maine’s older workforce – time is something we don’t have.

Part of the discussion highlighted the fact that our Maine culture (including our University system) is not ready to connect directly to the economic markets in China. Our university system has only one campus (University of Maine at Farmington) that now offers Chinese as a language option. Sad but true, that should change if our young workers are going to actively participate (at all business levels) in the future that “will be”. Businesses like Eliot’s will profit and help with some job creation, but I’m concerned that having a “middle man” economic strategy only improves the pipe-line to get products to-and-from each market economy, creates some jobs, but doesn’t go far enough to help “all” Maine workers.

We already have two Maine economies positioned according to geographic differences, our coastal and city economies and our rural economy. Having grown up in the rural “poor” parts of Maine, it’s clear to me that in order for Maine to become an economic market for all the people, we need to erase those “age-old” geographic boundaries and look at what each area of Maine has to offer and how to market not only products but solutions as well.

I work with e-Commerce “open-source” website development solutions and that work is geographically independent of where I live. What I have thought about after attending this panel discussion, is how I can “aid” in presenting our Maine economy “to” the Chinese economy in a way that assists with their ability to shop for Maine products, rural or otherwise over the Internet – from their own towns or villages. My solution is to build my website stores with a focus on multilingual marketing, I guess I should start with this website.