Preludes to XML 2008 - Seoul
The Importance of Friends.
Spending some time in Korea is made much easier if you have a few wonderful friends to smooth the path for you.
So we were blessed that we already had a great friend to make some amazing connections for us, Ms. Soh Yeong Roh, the Founder of the internationally famous Nabi Art Center, [pictured] who attended the Singapore Lab last August.
So a few great friends, a lot of reading and research, and plain old “meeting as many people as possible” introduced us to Seoul. Plus my old fashioned favorite: get out and walk around.
Right up front, even on the train from the spectacular Incheon airport into the heart of Seoul, the ubiquitous digital networking was immediately obvious. The entire carriage was digitally connected to something, somehow. Some people were even commubicating via face-to-face speech. Radical!
Korea’s eminence in digital media hardly needs restating: world leadership in broadband internet connectivity, and internet speeds; in online communities; in massively multiplayer online gaming; in 3G mobile content and services; and in digital TV. All are World No. 1 – in Korea.
I am on the International Jury for the Interactive Emmy Awards. In last year’s judging, for the Best Interactive Channel, the Korean entry was so comprehensively far ahead of any other offering, it was an awakening.
A good summary book is definitely “Digital Korea” by Tomi Ahonen and Jim O’Reilly, who observe: “the virtuous circle of devices, users, high-speed networks, and new services … cause both a “push” and a “pull” effect, dramatically accelerating the usage, and [therefore] improving service development”.
Korean people (and especially the under-twenty-fives) are exemplifying the digital future: constantly connected, continually multi-tasking, instantly time slicing, co-creating and sharing their own content, with low- or no-cost transactions - and totally mobile.
Most young people in Seoul have never used email. And never will.
Korean students receive 2 hours compulsory instruction per school month on mobile phone ethics and etiquette (e.g., compulsory first question when making any call: “Are you available to speak now?”).
Korea is cool! Korean music, TV soaps, films, games, and virtual worlds fill North and South Asia. When I was back in Singapore last year, literally thousands of young boys and girls thronged the airport arrival lounge to go hysterical and faint over a Korean pop singer who flew into town for a single sold-out gig.
But it’s not just the content, it’s the platforms and applications that excel.
Korea’s Cyworld is the largest “virtual world”, full stop (US site here). Cyworld combines social networking, blogging, music distribution, Web 2.0, video sharing, instant messaging, and a host of other services.
Cyworld has more active users than Second Life has had total avatar registrations. The complacent, and complicit, Western media continually delude us about the relative levels of innovation. Western companies however are not so blinded: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and many others, have set up major R&D centers in Seoul to test themselves in the world’s most demanding digital media market.
But how come?
The Importance of Government and Infrastructure.
Why is Google only the third-rated search engine in Korea? How has Seoul become the world’s preeminent test-bed for digital media applications? Why, in Korea, has digital media spread into intelligent homes, mobile phone payment systems, rapid mass transport systems, eco-cities, and robotics?
Firstly, government leadership, and something resembling a national innovation strategy. Over many years the national government has designed and implemented a “co-operate in order to compete” policy, taking responsibility for rolling out world’s best infrastructure, and using the education system as the basis for building a national broadband network.
The Innovation Policy consists of creating a virtuous circle of infrastructure, test beds, R&D investment, joint ventures, and regulation that guarantees open access for competing on services.
Additionally, the government insisted on the principle of hypothecation – In South Korea, all revenues from telecoms spectrum licenses were strategically reinvested into IT and telecoms infrastructure development.
All of this is depressing enough for those of us who have experienced a “lost decade” of government and bureaucratic obstruction and obfuscation merely to serve existing vested interests, and ultimately, to do nothing.
How come time- and space-wasting bureaucrats aren’t tossed out along with the governments they abet? If you live by the sword of complicity, then you should die by it too.
As I mentioned, easily the best introduction to all this progress and farsightedness is “Digital Korea” by Tomi Ahonen and Jim O’Reilly. And anything by the digital media consultancy +8* who specialize in mobile and internet business consulting in Korea, Japan, and China. (The Founder and CEO of +8*, Benjamin Joffe, will be speaking at our “Digital Media ‘08” Conference Day on March 7th in Sydney).
There are a few other specific factors contribute to South Korea’s success. Firstly, geography, it’s comparatively small and roll-out is far easier and less expensive that vast countries like Australia; amazingly, almost half the population of South Korea live in Seoul (though once you’re sitting in the traffic, this is perfectly believable). Secondly, language – Ahonen points out that multinationals like testing new products in Korea: the infrastructure is world-class, the consumers highly selective and very knowledgeable, and lastly, if the product fails, well, the rest of the world will never know! Thirdly, the Chaebol structures of government and business that make an integrated approach to business and R&D somewhat easier to co-ordinate than elsewhere.
Indeed, to me, the microscopic dimensions of digital technologies together with the giant scale of the Chaebol’s represent the two ends of life in Seoul. In almost any district, it’s easy to find and get lost down the infinite alleyways of beautiful restaurants, boutique fashion shops, geomancers, and art houses laced like capillaries in between the vast highways and mind-numbing conurbations.
The Importance of Culture.
Korean culture of course is the hottest in Asia. Korean music, film, TV soaps, internet innovations, and mobile apps etc are widely consumed, and much copied.
If I can hazard a guess: it’s like the rigidity and hierarchies of social structures and interactions are somehow balanced by an astonishing freedom of creative expression in the arts.
I mention balance – Korea, of course, has the Yin and Yang symbol emblazoned on their national flag!
Formally, (and generalizing beyond my qualifications), Korean people like to quickly calibrate age, gender, family, hometown, into understood hierarchies that regulate the flow of conversation. This is not unusual. In fact, when you experience it elsewhere, it should serve as a reminder as to how effectively the same kind of calculus is at work in our own dealings and relationships.
What is striking is that this rather strict Confucian ordering of the world from the perspective of the father, the male, the family, and the home outwards, is met with a kind of absolute freedom in the arts, including in digital arts and innovation.
In music, dance, fine art, architecture and elsewhere, the highest admiration is reserved for the absence of order, the unstructured, the non-programmed, the unexpected, and the aleatory.
In music, dance and theatre, the traditional frameworks are designed to create a free space where extemporaneity can occur. For example, in Sinawi, a traditional form of Korean folk music, there are no written scores; the music is fully improvised ensemble playing based around the instrumentation, only the tempo is set. The idea in Sinawi music is to arrive at moments of beautiful spontaneous harmony, while each musician is playing individually. This love of a “free jazz” format would have delighted John Coltrane!
In these arts, the performer’s own interpretation is more highly valued that imitating a master’s style.
In dance, superb technique is not valued highly. The effective expression of inner emotion is the highest value. The traditional dance is even called heoteun chum, “loose dance”, in which there are no restrictions or rules.
In the fine arts, spontaneity, eccentricity, blemish, asymmetry, randomness, and “intentional intentionless-ness” are what constitute a Korean aesthetic. Straight lines are to be avoided.
I strongly recommend Choi Joon-sik’s brilliant and beautiful introduction to all these themes in his book “Understanding Koreans and their Culture” (although, as a dutiful Derridean, I always pluralize … i.e., “Koreans and their Cultures”).
Indeed Professor Choi’s closing chapter is on the remarkable history of appropriation and localization of religious practice – the ever-present but underlying Shamanism, the best-practice Confucianism (admired for it’s ritual purity even by the Chinese), Buddhism, and the amazing post-war contagion of legions of Protestant sects (which curiously combine a revivalist shamanism with DIY, big business, churches - complete with US-style tele-evangelist profits … and scandals).
Our many thanks to the amazing people who smoothed out path and patiently explained the why’s and wherefore’s, and made the trip such a pleasure: Young Joon Hyung, the Founder of Cyworld; the Director of International Relations for Ohmynews, Jean Min; Soh Yeong Roh, Founder and Director of the Nabi Arts Centre; Dr. Song Yee Yoon , VP of SK Telecom (voted one of the world’s Top 50 Business Women by the Wall Street Journal); Professor Kim Jin-seo, Director of the Korea Content Management Institute; Professor Kimn Ha-Jine, Director of the Digital Media Association of Korea; many others; and of course, our guide, translator, and friend, Sarah Kim.
Here's a couple of Korean tech blogs well worth subscribing to:
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Next Stop: Dubai, Oman, and Doha
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