I was on the phone conducting a MeetInnovators interview when the earthquake happened. My office rocked quite violently, and it felt like a 5.0 quake to me based on past earthquakes. We saw on the news that it was in Haiti, and immediately there were tsunami warnings. I was pretty concerned since I live on the water in Santo Domingo and would have been directly in the path. I took a photo from my balcony about 20 minutes after the quake — which got 4800 pageviews.

In the end the tsunami warning was cancelled. Apparently we did get a tsunami, 12cm big. We survived.

I’m about a 5 hour drive from Port Au Prince and have visited Haiti twice, so watching the news has been horrifying. To know that so much death and destruction is happening just a short distance away is pretty shocking, and worse that there’s nothing you can do about it. I have one friend living in Port Au Prince, but she and her family are fine I did some relaying of messages between her on facebook and calling people around the DR as emergency supplies were brought across. One girl I met in Santiago a few years ago had her mother killed. Its also been disturbing since I’ve spent a bit of time in Haiti and really like the people.

The DR and Haiti have a tense relationship. We have a lot (1m+) Haitian immigrants living in the DR and they don’t contribute much. But the DR stepped up and got a lot of supplies into Haiti quickly which was impressive. This was a lot of work for a developing country like the DR, but people really came together and worked hard to support our “brother” country.

Also impressive has been the efforts of Jeremy Johnson and Nathan Kinsella from Utah who flew some planes and helicopters in.

Less impressive was the international effort – its unclear to me why professional aid agencies like the Red Cross don’t have thousands of paratrooper style teams like the 82nd airborne who can get quickly into a disaster zone during the initial critical moments and save lives. These are professionals with very large budgets.

WARNING: This is not politically correct, but I need to share this. My views are shaped by living in the Dominican Republic since 2001.

Its about time to question whether Haiti should continue as a going concern. Did you know the Haitians buy american cement, then water it down? You wonder why everything fell down so quickly?

We’ve had NGO’s in Haiti for the past 40+ years and things continue to get worse (I worked for an NGO for 3 years, including at the international level).

Check out the GDP of Haiti vs the rest of the world, so you can see the result of billions of dollars of NGO investment for yourself.

And now with so much money coming in, its like a dotcom boom for NGO’s. Each NGO is saying “wow, now we can get into Haiti and do it RIGHT since now we have lots of money”. Yikes!

Some will say Haiti has been mistreated by various countries or bad luck. I say Haiti has a culture which doesn’t teach people to take risks and become leaders. Unfortunately I’ve been told I’m racist, ethnocentric or that Haiti has no strategic advantages. Yet the DR does fine on the same island. Cuba is embargoed by the USA and does ok, as do the other various islands and cultures in the Caribbean.

Here’s a some quotes from a haitian guy inside Port Au Prince on Twitter in the first days after the earthquake:

Mr President Stop Giving us The Victim Speech! We Need A Leader Right Now!

No Food, No Water, No Medications, Nothing! And Our President says he’a victim as well! How long we have to wait?

Mr Preval, we need 2 hear from u! Take ur responsability. Do ur job like those ppl in the streets helping each other! It’s been 4 days now

Cultures CAN be changed — in the USA people were trained not to litter. Germany has changed its culture multiple times over the past 100 years. China has seen immense changes before, during and after the cultural revolution.

Its not about education – what is needed comes before education. They need the culture instilled into them which truly values progress. Haiti feels like an NGO driven version of socialism, and as someone who has visited North Korea and Cuba, I’ve seen the results of socialism first hand.

Right now Haiti is a tax on the world — billions of dollars are going into a bottomless pit — of just 9 million people! They need capitalism now. The rest of the world needs to have use of their money to support their local communities instead of sending it to Haiti.

So my suggestion for you is:
- support the basics of the Haiti rebuilding effort as I’m sure you have.
- don’t support NGO driven projects in Haiti — even so called sustainable programs. These still start out with handouts and effectively teach generations of Haitians not to lead. The exception would be programs which encourage real true grass roots entrepreneurship like microfinance.
- Look for top down initiatives which force true cultural/motivational change on the country
- if you know people considering cancelling their holiday to the DR, please convince them to come. The DR is 100% fine and could use the economic help especially after supporting Haiti. Your friends will have a great holiday

Further reading:
NYtimes: The Underlying Tragedy
FoxNews: Haiti Should Merge With the Dominican Republic
NYtimes: “To Heal Haiti, Look to History, Not Nature“:

“..the United States and other donors could make a formal undertaking to ensure that the vast amounts that will soon pour into the country for reconstruction go not to foreigners but to Haitians — and not only to Haitian contractors and builders but to Haitian workers, at reasonable wages. This would put real money in the hands of many Haitians, not just a few, and begin to shift power away from both the rapacious government and the well-meaning and too often ineffectual charities that seek to circumvent it.”

There probably are no great solutions for Haiti, but to let it go back to where its been seems like such a waste of humanity. I feel like we have a global responsibility to try something new.

I’ve noticed some momentum building around the web for a startup visa. I love the idea. If it had been around 10 years ago, it would have changed my life.

My dream since I was 12 (~1985) was to move to the USA and make a startup. Having grown up in Australia with the Commodore Amiga, I was amazed by the idea of a group of dentists funding an intensely smart group of engineers who ended up building the Amiga. We were blown away by companies like Epyx who made incredible games and utilities. I didn’t know it back then, but many of these companies were based in Silicon Valley.

So I followed my dream, and in 1999 I was working at Oracle in Silicon Valley. But I found the life in a big corporate machine was really not for me. I really, REALLY wanted to be in the startup world, building my own startup.

As an Australian citizen working in the USA with an H1b visa wanting to make a startup, I found 4 options:
1. Join someone’s startup, sponsored under an H1b. The problem with this approach is that if their startup fails, I have to be re-sponsored for a new visa. And, obviously I am not building my own startup this way.

2. Make my own startup. But with an H1b visa, this was going to be difficult to arrange. H1b visas are better for employees with minority ownership, not founders. And again, what happens if the startup fails after 3 months?

3. Leave the USA and move to a country close by which would enable me to use the infrastructure of the US, but avoid the visa issue entirely. (I didn’t want to return to Australia since I didn’t feel the startup culture was very strong there, and the timezone makes online work difficult).

4. Stay working at a big company until my greencard was issued. This would have taken 3-4 years. Maybe I should have followed this approach, but I really, really wanted to be out doing something on my own.

In the end, I chose #3, and now live in the Dominican Republic. I’ve done reasonably well and am quite happy here. But the problem I face locally is the lack of a startup scene and technology talent. I can’t build an ebay or a google from the caribbean. I’ve had to become extremely good at building a network remotely; thus I run http://MeetInnovators.com

I can tell you that if there had been an option of a startup visa, where if I raised $1M in funding I would be granted a visa to live in the USA and build a company, I would have put 100% of my energy in making that happen. And, if a visa category like this is created, I may just go ahead and do it now, even though I’m now considered old by startup standards (37). (Its considered the most successful startups are built by people in their 20s). So this would have been a perfect fit for me 10 years ago.

One last comment: I’m comfortable with risk. So make the visa performance based! Give the entrepreneur 3 shots at making a company work. And if they can’t, send them home. Thats pretty rough, but it would be a much better option than I had back in 1999.

Here’s all my north korea content from my trip from June 2009.

If you want one set of photos to look at, this is it:
http://photos.adrianbye.com/Asia-Pacific/North-Korea/9324440_ufPDF

My writeup of general perceptions:
http://adrianbye.com/2009/08/24/thoughts-from-north-korea/

North Korean People photos:
http://photos.adrianbye.com/Asia-Pacific/North-Korean-People/9367206_FDEQs

Bizarre things from North Korea photos:
http://photos.adrianbye.com/Asia-Pacific/North-Korea-Bizarre-Photos/9373831_Qg5Pv

Videos:
Military type guys training for something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHtVBcuhN18

A female traffic police directing traffic (they don’t use traffic lights even though they have them):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXe-BI_fjrc

Driving around Pyongyang so you can see how it looks, along with an unusual story from our british guide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLz1stvLg4

Performing the Haka (a rugby dance from New Zealand) to our guides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpcD45Rlrww

A children’s show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqjAqQTq9X4

How you can influence north korean kids to be more positive towards westerners:
http://adrianbye.com/2009/09/05/connect-with-korean-kids/

And, the 1 hour long video of our entire tour. This cost additional at the end of the tour and came on DVD. Watch this if you’re serious about going to North Korea — it will show you exactly what you will see while you are there. For anyone else, take a look since its quite funny, but it is rather odd.
http://vimeo.com/5851173

Want to know how to connect with north korean kids in a meaningful way – even if you don’t speak the language?

How about a way to — in a very small way — diffuse some of the tension between North Korea and the west? A simple way to show them we’re not really as bad as they’ve been taught?

North Korea doesn’t have western style advertising – in its place North Korean kids are fed massive amounts of propaganda about how terrible the West is (and not just the USA). The kids are bombarded with hundreds of thousands of anti-western messages by they time they grow up into adults -this is something which has been going on since 1953. As I found out on my trip to North Korea, by the time they are adults they are taught to literally hate you and wish you were dead.

On my trip I found a simple thing was very interesting. As an obvious westerner in North Korea, I started handing out bags of chocolate to North Korean kids. It wasn’t easy, and about 50% of them were scared of me and wouldn’t accept it, while the others only tentatively did. But the later reaction of the kids who accepted the chocolate made it absolutely clear this was the right thing to do — they had HUGE smiles, and were waving and very friendly. The change only took a few minutes and was dramatic.

I went from being a scary western white guy to a provider of SUGAR!!

No, chocolate isn’t the most healthy thing to be giving out, but the kids love it, and will remember it for a long time. Starvation is a real issue inside North Korea (in the late 90’s about 2,000,000 people starved to death), so some extra calories certainly won’t hurt even though the kids you’ll meet in Pyongyang are the best fed in the country. Luxuries like chocolate aren’t a common treat in a country where people have disposable income US$5 – US$10/month and luxuries like these are not available to the general population.

“Breaking The Ice”

By doing this, something incredibly powerful is happening — you’re showing the kids that westerners aren’t scary people. By having a personal, different experience it may help a little towards undercutting the propaganda messaging of the current regime — while the kids continue getting negative messages from their government, they are receiving chocolate they love from westerners. This will force them to think through the contradiction for themselves. Its a small thing, but small things can lead to big things.

Even if much of the anti-western sentiment in North Korea is towards the USA, and you’re not American – they still think YOU are american, as they consider anyone who is not Korean to be from the USA. Obviously if you are from the US, this will be even more impactful.

Big doors swing on small hinges

Suggestions for handing out chocolate:
- Give big bags of individually wrapped chocolate/sweets/candy so one child won’t eat it all by themselves. This way they’ll be more likely to share it with their friends and talk about what happened, this is a form of viral marketing!
- Don’t ask for anything in return (eg photos). Just give them the chocolate, smile, then walk away. It must be an unconditional gift.
- If the child bows after receiving the bag, make a big smile and a friendly wave back without bowing in return. I believe its better to reinforce that we are not Korean and not part of their culture, yet are still their friends and respect them and their ways.
- Approach the child with a smile and look friendly. Remember they are surrounded by almost 60 years of propaganda causing them to be scared of you.
- Chocolate is very cheap, about US$1.50 for a huge bag in most local stores. You can buy lots of big bags everywhere. Hand out an entire bag to each kid.
- Get some shopping bags to carry around with you during the day as you go sightseeing. Try to keep lots with you at all times — sometimes kids will turn up when you least expect it.
- You may want to consider bringing higher quality western chocolate with you, however it may not be so easy to carry in and won’t be brands they are comfortable with. Chocolate is very easy to buy at hard currency stores inside the country.
- Give the chocolate to kids who aren’t somehow connected with the tourism industry as this will make the biggest impact. You’ll have plenty of opportunities as you walk around parks and go to shows.

Keep The North Korean Guides On Your Side

When you’re travelling inside North Korea, you will see things that are absolutely insane by western standards. Don’t criticize them in front of the guides — you need the guides to be on your side and to help you out. If you are unsuccessful in handing the chocolate out yourself, ask the guide to do it. I was successful 50% of the time in handing out the chocolate – the guide was successful 100% of the time. She simply went to the child, asked in Korean for their name and asked them if they liked chocolate. If the guide asks why you’re doing it, tell them you want to help the kids and show them we are their friends.

The North Korean tour guides who will accompany you on your trip will be full of vague, unclear information. When I asked them why the kids often didn’t want to accept the chocolate, they told me kids were taught not to talk to strangers. Having visited Cuba and talking with people there about the socialist system and how people take care of each other, I’m not convinced by this explanation. My general impression in socialist countries is that there is an environment of people trying to take care of each other. Thus handing out chocolate shouldn’t be a scary thing.

I believe its because they are fed lots of negative messages about westerners. Also remember you may be the first westerner they’ve ever met — North Korea is one of the most homgenous countries in the world.

I gave away $30 of chocolate on my trip to 15-20 kids, had I been properly prepared I would have given away at least $150 worth — it would definitely have been possible. Thus I’ve put up this page so future tourists to North Korea can consider the idea.

And by doing this, you’re helping show in a small way that people from the west aren’t all bad. You may even connect with a child who will end up as a future leader of the country and help shape their thinking.

And even if none of that works, at a minimum you’re helping a little with the very real problem of starvation.

North Korea is a fascinating place to visit.. Definitely one of the more memorable trips I’ve taken in my life.

My trip to North Korea made me appreciate my previous trips to Cuba. Effectively this was just a propaganda tour – we had little to no contact with local people. We didn’t have real conversations about how people live or how the country works. For example we didn’t learn how much things cost or the truth about how much people earn each month (appears to be around US$5/month, with the government covering all expenses). In Cuba I was free to go wherever I wanted, talk to whoever I wanted, and talk about anything. I engaged very deeply with local people and learned a lot about how things work there. Not in North Korea. Anyways, onwards…

The North Korean style is to be quite reserved and polite, avoiding any kind of conflict. Add on top of that when you have a language barrier and guides that are told by the state to only show the positive side of the country, and you don’t get much real engagement. When I’d ask more probing questions, they would either say they didn’t understand or get distracted with something else. After a few days of this it was quite obvious what they were doing and I was disappointed by it.

Others in our tour got the impression that people liked us in North Korea. But I suspect thats because they didn’t get very close to any North Korean people. At one point I broke through with one of the North Koreans I met on the trip and was told just how much they hate the USA – and are extremely happy that North Korea has the ability to strike back via nuclear weapons and that they will destroy anyone that stands in their way. I won’t say who it was that told me this because it could get them into real trouble. Actually I was very glad this conversation happened because it was a rare moment of clarity and directness on the trip.

Photos were also a real problem, we were not allowed to photograph military who where everywhere, we couldn’t photograph signs of poverty or certain areas relating to the leadership of the country. Please keep this in mind when you see my photos, I’d estimate about 25% of the photos would be different had I been allowed to take more of them.

We were taken on a fairly standard tour of major sites in the country and the two groups who were always present were North Korean military and school children. At one point, in the military museum where we were seeing captured vehicles from the Korean War, there was a scary moment.. I was surrounded by 300 military I was just alone with my guide — in general military have extremely unfriendly expressions on their faces towards us, but this time it was worse. I didn’t understand why, until I realised later that this was the musuem where learning about all the bad things that happened to them during the Korean war!! And there I was, the representative of all the bad stuff!!!

The food was mediocre – it seems that we were given very high level food for within the country, we noticed a few times that the waitresses were extremely happy to be serving us, it seemed like they felt it was an incredibly special occaision for them. For us it was healthy food, but extremely low fat and little meat. As I’m returning to China I am really looking forward to eating some pizza, hamburgers and a nice steak with baked potatoes! Surprisingly the beer was outstanding in the Yanggakdo hotel bar – they have a microbrew which is from a UK brewery that was acquired by the North Koreans and the entire brewery was moved to Pyongyang. It was a world class microbrew which would be well received in any major city around the world.

The level of cultism around the leadership was astonishing. As a long term student of psychology and sales they used every element of psychology I’ve ever seen plus a few more. The result is that the population appears to be strongly aligned with the leadership of the country. We visited the international friendship hall, which is a collection of gifts given by foreign leaders to the North Korean government. The size and scale of it was astonishing, they literally have 100,000+ gifts laid out museum style across several buildings. For information starved North Koreans it clearly gives the impression that the entire world is supporting North Korea and its systems. But the most shocking part was when we went to a special room containing a beeswax statue of the “dear leader” (as he is always referred to by our guides). We were made to smarten up our clothes (zip up coats, etc), be extremely quiet and one guy who was in a wheelchair had to stand up and walk in to the room. We went in, saw the statue in a room with soft background music, perfect lighting, and even a fake breeze fluttering through the leaves on a tree in the background. We lined up in front of the great leader and all made a bow, before then exiting. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.

Visiting the DMZ (demilitarized zone) was the highlight of the trip. I’d seen photos before of the shared area between the UN and North Korea, but it was something of a shock to see US military on the other side. I felt a lump in my throat like I was in a place I really didn’t belong.

All in all, the trip to North Korea was a fascinating experience, but I doubt I’ll be back any time soon. I hope they open up more and engage more with the west. Hopefully over time as technology becomes more advanced this will happen.

If you’re interested in a simple way to help improve things with North Korea, I’d encourage you to visit this page:

I just got back from a 2 month trip of travelling. When I arrived back, my primary computer wouldn’t work anymore. Nor would my network. Even my music setup had problems.

It ended up taking a full day to update most of it and get everything working again — the way it was working before I left for my trip. And today I finished updating the final piece, my music system called Sonos. The network went down as one of the components was updating, and it now looks like that box has been corrupted and will need to be sent back.

If i have to send this box back, it will cost me $50 in outbound postage, and another $70 to receive the replacement. The box itself cost $400.

And what did I get for all these updates?

Nothing!

Absolutely nothing at all! It was just the things required to get my systems functioning.

The worst software I’ve found so far is Jing, a screencapture software for the mac. I use it every 2-3 weeks. Each time I run it, it won’t work because a “critical update” is needed. So I have to stop my workflow and update it so it works again. Every single time!?

I think the software companies are abusing easy updates online. They are concerned about the bad PR they’ll get for security vulnerabilities. So they push us to keep updating everything.

Its time this stopped! We don’t need so many updates. Schedule a date every year to be update day, say June 1. Update all your latest versions then at the same time and we’ll handle it all together. Make the security patches available to those who are compromised meanwhile. The human time cost for managing all these updates is just getting too high.