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How cosmopolitan is cosmopolitan? (or) how cosmopolitan can cosmopolitan get?

At the point when folk join organizations to be part of teams, they are reminded that they have left all their cultural biases, if any, of colleagues from diverse backgrounds, behind them and are now part of a cosmopolitan workforce. With globalization, we have also reached a stage of cross-cultural sensitivity or so we like to think not just within nations but also across nationalities and continents. So, whatever may be one’s assumptions about another’s cultural background we just don’t exhibit them in the work space. This is ingrained and is possible by and large, the corporate sector especially in multinational organizations (which are all part of the globalization process) where any communal sentiments could damage the interests of the organization which is controlled through several methods and checks and balances. The moot question is whether cosmopolitan values need to be learnt at all or can we assume that families, schools and universities take care of them?
However, if we took a glance at India and the world, how much has the opposite of cosmopolitanism (i.e.) hate speeches or prejudices or stereotyping really come down? How much do we judge our neighbors and colleagues less by their caste, communal and racial backgrounds? Obama’s  leadership and that of several others on these issues has been welcomed by all those positive thinking and well-meaning among global citizens.  The purpose of this post is however to consider the sources at which the child, the teenager and the adult picks up assumptions and notions of the ‘cultural other.’ Socialization by parents and teachers plays an important part in this process.

If and when the parent warns the child in the following terms: “I told you not to play with this those dark-skinned fellows (sic)” can go in for a lifetime of a sense of clear-cut difference, if not bias against those who look black. This point is globally valid. Apart from parents and teachers, the next source of learning could be the peer group. Being teased by a peer-group for belonging to a particular community or hearing the peer group extolling the strengths of a community or perhaps downplaying them could also be a contributory factor.

While all of the above are manageable factors because people unlearn or relearn what they have picked up in their early years so long as the weightage of these values or biases is not too strong. Among the most dangerous form of socialization is that which is performed on  innocent young minds by a socio-political organization or movements.  A brilliant imagery of how mindsets can be modified by groups is demonstrated by the 1997 film . Another major source of prejudice, to state the point briefly, is of course. repeated media coverage of social groups with certain slants/steretypes  which engenders stereotypes of its own.

About a decade or two back it was not uncommon to hear the unselected candidates who emerge out of public service commission interviews complaining that people of certain castes/communities alone were selected. The private sector was largely held free from such problems as it rewarded merit and talent alone, regardless of the cultural background. A large part of the grouse regarding these issues or the hurt felt used to be swept under the carpet. At the highest levels of governance, citizens of various countries are reminded that they ought to think of their nations first rather than the regions or other parochial units among them.

It is here that commonsense understanding militates against social science perspectives of the issue. First and foremost, the primary unit of existence or what is considered as the parochial or the region or even case or community for that matter cannot be denied at all. It is a reality and people very much relate to it on a day to day basis. In social science language we call this the relationship between the UNIVERSAL and the PARTICULAR. There are several particulars and one cannot deny them. There are several primordial sympathies if not affiliations such as caste, community, religion, region, race and so on. So, what then is the UNIVERSAL. The managers of a large country such as ours would consider the NATION as the universal. We then have to draft the equation between the Universal and the Particular within the nation. The moment the individual moves into the globalization process as a member of an MNC, then even the nation becomes a particular in the economic sense and the globe itself becomes the universal with national economies becoming interlocking units into the globalization experience. So, when what unit becomes a ‘universal’ and a ‘particular’ remains a question mark?

It is therefore important that we respect all the so-called ‘parochial’ units or ‘particulars’ as I have redesignated them. It is not the rejection of the particular that is the solution at any level but the transcendence of the particular for a higher goal. The idea of denying the specific or parochial is a polemical method or dominant discourse that seeks to mandatorily define the universal as a certain set category as for example either the region or the nation. In a globalised word, identities are always in a state of flux and so to typecast and straitjacket various levels is a really loss for understanding social, political and economic relations in the globe.

A very old and classic tension is related among Gen-X several of whom opted to learn western pop music. Immediately, among their elders was a hue and cry about how Indian classical music was being abandoned. While there have been real interventions in the form of movements from the 1980s which have taken this perception seriously and tried to popularize Indian classical music, what is important is to notice that right afterwards western music too or its local strains like Indi-pop became very popular. Why is it necessary to think one in exclusion or opposition to the other?

Jawaharlal Nehru spoke about Indian culture or heritage being a palimpsest in which the older strains don’t get wiped away. Rabindranath Tagore whom both Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru hailed as ‘Gurudev’ was among the most cosmopolitan personalities that India nay the world had at the beginning of this century. He had the passion for art and literature both European and Indian, the cultural travels and synthesis both Indian, European and East Asian. Most Indians associate Tagore with barely the national anthem but I would consider his name as synonymous with cosmopolitanism. So was Mahatma Gandhi who argued that if we were all “true believers” of our respective faiths, we would never even speak ill of other religions. Nehru with his agnosticism and mighty international statesmanship directed us to look for oneness beyond the immediate boundaries.

We don’t need to look further than these three heroes for the relationship between the universal and particular and transcending all of them to build that sense of togetherness which is what cosmopolitanism is all about.

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Is the Learning Experience Different in Arts and Aesthetics vis-à-vis Formal Education?

While living along the East Coast Road in Chennai, India one gets to see the spectacle of many Europeans and north Americans dressed in Indian attire, several of whom are students of Kalakshetra, the legendary school of music and dance. One can’t but admire the dedication with which these learners have come from far-away lands to appreciate, imbibe and own up Indian cultural traditions. On the question of imbibing, which is the subject matter of this post, one wonders if it’s any different for those students who come from abroad and those who are originally from within India. Because after all art and art forms know no boundaries. In the last decade or so, south Chennai has seen an efflorescence of music and dance schools of all forms – hip hop, latino, salsa, disco, free style – you name it, it is all there in addition to what schools like Kalakshetra conventionally offer in the classical Indian dance mold.

Sport and sporting skills is often a reference point in learning and development traditions not to miss our national obsession of cricket. Military practices of precision timing and endurance are also a source of precedent. I have however a different interest in drawing upon learning and development traditions: that of the arts and aesthetics. From school days onwards I had gotten to know that ballet traditions like the Bolshoi theater acquired their participants between their age of 7 and 9. Numerous have been the cases of child prodigies, musicians and performers who started out at a very early age and made it big in their chosen fields of art or aesthetics. For example, the legendary violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin started his instruction at the age of three. The mantra here seems to be “Catch them Young.”

When we refer to the arts and aesthetics, what do we have in mind? Broadly these are Singing, Music, Dance, Drama/Theater/Cinema, Art/Painting/Sculpture. Participants in these fields learn these skills in an atmosphere different from that of formal education. Increasingly in the Indian public arena, individuals are discovering what they most have a talent for? Doctors on completing their medical education are leading full time pop/rock bands and engineers on completing their education or even mid-way are moving to theatre or social work or civil service as their vocation. There is an interesting trend of many senior advertisement industry professionals participating in writing lyrics for movies, poems, theatre activities (the latter something that has always been there) but the blending of spheres is increasingly taking place. Creativity, Innovation, ‘Out of the Box thinking’, words that the formal sector swears by and finds hard to implement come naturally to those in the field of art and aesthetics. Generally, the skills that go into assimilating arts and aesthetics would be dubbed as ‘right brain’ activities where a lot more intuition, holistic and poetic meters are called for. What is different about the atmosphere of the learner in these fields? The learner is enthusiastic with the instructor or facilitator that he should get it right. Remember the famous scenes in “My Fair Lady” based on George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’ when Eliza tries to cultivate an accent with the help of Higgins and Pickering.

What are the differing motivations of the learner in art and aesthetics as different from formal education? One common thread is there is often in art too a strong commercial incentive. There are several performers who make no bones that they are in it for the money. There are other motivations like “Art for Arts sake”, “Transmitting tradition” (preserving heritage) and sheer satisfaction of the performance as a musician or a stage artist. The emotive space is higher and the participants pack the punch in their performances. The participant is more driven and the competitive arena is very different. Peer group pressure or competition often becomes peer group support in the shared feeling of a group or team to get it right. The urge to synchronize/synergize learning energies is strongly present and takes on a form very different from that of formal education. A group of dance performers in a synchronized performance cant get it right for the group until each one of them gets it right.

While one cannot say that learning and development traditions in art and aesthetics are “unstructured”, the shackles are much lesser. Again, does it mean that just because it is art and aesthetics the rigor is less and the training can be taken for granted? If not anything just the opposite, it is even more exacting and demanding because the self is propelled as the best critic and that judgment as we know is even more difficult to make or compromise upon rather than when others stand in judgment over our work. One would have heard several times what sound almost like clichés today, “bring out the best in the student/trainee.” It is often the instructional methods of the arts and aesthetics that succeed in doing that through various methods: making mistakes is not wrong; serendipity is to be encouraged; there is latitude of time; enjoy the task of learning and training (no one compelled the learner to be there); push the envelope/work harder for that Michael Angelo achievement, “Trifles make perfection”; even better a sense of solidarity with the learning group: take other learners with you in the path of knowledge.

The central question that folk in formal education would like to take away from art and aesthetics is the pedagogy (or instructional methods) of the latter and apply it to the former. What makes the learner tick? Is it all about right or left brain activity? As a friend expressed, people seek out right-brain kind of activities to break the monotony of continuous left-brain work. Its that monotony that formal streams have to shatter if they seek to make a breakthrough in adapting learning methods from one type of activity to another. Art and Aesthetics sound more fun. Are these the learning spaces in society where one lets one’s hair down? Whereas formal application and a lot of it are drudgery? Why is it with an increasing growth of extra-curricular activities, the child is finding the going in curricular work increasingly difficult. We have remained a society where we see the coming generations becoming mainly doctors, engineers and at the most CA’s/MBAs. However, a large part of society does live its life as doctors, engineers, CA’s/MBAs, lawyers, civil servants and so on. The effort made to learn on the beaten track has been the predominant effort.

Conceptually, to my mind, it is the concept of CRAFT that unites the learning around around formal education or that around art and aesthetics. Craftsmanship is common to both formal and the aesthetics streams. How many times have we not appreciated a store salesman who does his job of packing goods well? Likewise are the thousands of weavers, potters and toy-makers who are artisans, take pleasure in their tasks and earn their livelihoods from them. For in the final analysis, we are all artisans doing our bit to engender wealth and aesthetics both at the same time in this world. Artisans, history bears us out, have played a powerful role in both European and non-European histories but that is a different subject. What is of interest to us are their instructional methods in transmitting their skills from generation to generation.

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The Great Indian Rope Trick – Election 2009

Updated: For people that want to understand the manifestos of the key parties, this single page PDF from The Hindu is a good source. Some people on Twitter seem to think we didn’t read the manifestos.

The biggest circus of 2009 – the Indian Parliamentary Election – has ended. The decisive mandate has left many stunned & speechless. I measure my feelings by the Richter scale – so I’m – devastated. We are inundated by claims from Talking Heads that Indians have voted for Stability, Secularity or Pro-Nuclear Deal. All that bunkum has left me slightly nauseous.

To my utter consternation, Sukumar Rajagopal is pleased as punch. Since our reactions are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, in the true spirit of democracy, we had a discussion to understand each other’s perspective. For Parliament literally means, “Speak Your Mind”.

Priya: I’m extremely depressed by the election results. But inexplicably, you’re as happy as a sun-bathing cat.

Sukumar: This is a positive vote for Stability. It allows the Congress to pursue their policies without being hobbled by the Left. What bothers you so much?

Priya: Well, I expected a change. So many things are hopelessly wrong today. And now, tomorrow won’t be any different. Doesn’t corruption bother people any more? Billions of $$ were gobbled up by the DMK goons in Spectrum Allocation. Congress let Quattrochi escape – and here’s the cropper – our Prime Minister almost apologized for putting him through “all the trouble”.

Sukumar: I agree, corruption is an endemic problem in the Indian system. I wonder if anyone can clean it up. As for Quattrochi, what did the BJP do when they were in power for 5 years? They could have easily put all the Bofors scamsters behind bars. What prevented them from doing it?

Priya: So, nothing will clean up India – short of a miracle? I don’t know, I think there are clean leaders in India, that can make a difference. Such as Modi or Nitish Kumar. How about Homeland Security? Terrorists attack us with impunity. Take the ghastly attacks in Mumbai, the nerve center of India. I think Congress – while not exactly soft – isn’t hard enough on terror.

Sukumar:Terrorism is an international scourge. There’s no easy solution. What did BJP do during Kandahar, Babri Masjid or the Godra riots? That doesn’t inspire confidence, at least not mine. Will wonders never cease? You – of all people – are rooting for Modi? Talk about a volte face!

Priya: About Kandahar – BJP freed some terrorists to save 184 passengers. What would you have them do, let a bunch of innocent people die? I don’t have to be a trident wielding, saffron clad Hindutva activist, to appreciate Modi’s administrative prowess. He has indeed reduced corruption in Gujarat. As an honest person that longs for a cleaner government, its hard not to appreciate Narendra Modi for that. But yes, I’m unable to shake the bad taste in my mouth that the Godra riots have created.

Why do you support Congress? What have they done?

Sukumar: If Modi is loved in Gujarat, how did Congress win more seats in this election than in 2004? Even the margins of victory for BJP have come down in Gujarat!

You have to remember, Congress came to power on the Aam Aadmi plank. Their NREGA is  a damn good program, that guarantees employment for the rural poor. But what is more heartening to me is – they continued Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan – BJP’s well-thought out education program.

Priya: Now that you mention it, Praful Patel has performed stupendously by privatizing airports. Laloo Yadav turned the creaking, groaning, inefficient Indian Railways around.

Sukumar: Patel did that in the face of severe opposition! Turning around Railways was thought to be an impossible task. Almost, a Labor of Hercules!

Priya: Still, they had strange bed-fellows. They made CBI their hand-maiden, so that murderers like Shibu Soren could go scot-free. And how about the two-faced Communists. According to them, supporting the United States is unpatriotic. But, they’ll readily sell us to China! “Isms” of all shades disgust me. Not to mention the despicable DMK. Congress never even let out a squeak when Karunanidhi insulted the sentiments of the Hindu majority, by stating that Ram & Sita were siblings. Just so a DMK minister could execute the Sethu Samudram project & line DMK pockets. But, no one was taken to task.

Sukumar: Yes, DMK shouldn’t have done that. You & me, we are non-believers, but we respect the beliefs of others. But, DMK? They are just hypocrites who wouldn’t dare question the beliefs of the minority. I’m certainly glad that they don’t trample on the sentiments of at least some pockets of the society!

Communists were the fly in the ointment for the Nuclear Deal. That’s another achievement of the Congress-led UPA. They resisted all attempts by the Left to sabotage the deal. They stood their ground.

Priya: I still have some grievances around River Water Sharing. Mainly, Cauvery Water. They couldn’t enforce the Supreme Court’s order on Karnataka. They were impotent even when SM Krishna’s Congress government was in power in Karnataka. What’s the use of a National party, if it won’t abandon petty regional interests?

Sukumar: Could BJP make it happen, when it was in power? No one wants to jeopardize their vote banks. I’m happier with a moderately competent government, that is peace-loving & non-threatening to communal harmony. Rather than a potentially competent – yet, rabidly communal government! The latter can cause severe harm to India’s stability as a society.

Priya: Let’s cut the bull, Sukumar. The lower strata of the society voted in droves. When I spoke to some of them, they didn’t even realize that voting for the Parliament (Center) & the Assembly (State) were different. None of them knew about the Nuclear Deal. Most didn’t care about corruption. So how did BJP botch this election? They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!

Sukumar: I don’t think the Common Men & Women are too disillusioned with Congress. BJP mismanaged their campaign. Advani never proposed good schemes. He didn’t attack the astronomical prices of essential commodities – even though their prices have gone up by 30-40% or even 100-200%, thanks to galloping inflation. That’s a hot button issue for the lower strata. BJP never addressed such basic concerns. Instead, they reopened Ram Janma Bhoomi! Clueless of them.

Priya: I guess you’re right about the Center. But, what about the state? Why didn’t people reject the puke-worthy DMK? I’m shocked that they didn’t face a stronger anti-incumbency wave. Their blatant, shameless promotion of their family members is scary. When Azhagiri’s faction reportedly burnt down the Dinakaran (Newspaper) office, 3 innocent people died. No action has been taken so far – Diddly Squat.

Sukumar: Yes, that is indeed deeply troubling. However, there has been a significant swing of 15% against DMK. Unfortunately 10% of that went to DMDK, Vijayakanth’s party – whose sole reason for existence seems to be to split the ADMK vote! What was Jayalalitha thinking, when she gave so many seats to PMK, MDMK & the Left? Had ADMK contested on those constituencies, it might have changed the outcome of this election, at least in Tamil Nadu.

Priya: I’m grief stricken that the anti-incumbency vote in Tamil Nadu was only 15%. Law & Order has gone to the dogs. DMK distributed money openly to buy votes. Electricity or lack of it in Tamil Nadu, has been nothing short of a disaster! So many small industries went bankrupt thanks to the inept handling by Arcot Veerasamy, the Electricity Minister. How did people forgive DMK?

And while we suffered from Inflation, Terrorism, Rowdyism & Shortage of Electricity, the DMK Supremo fasted for foreigners – Srilankan Tamils. I’ve never felt more insulted before.

Sukumar: IMHO, the most important reason for ADMK’s failure is Jayalalitha’s inability to propose solutions that provide hope. Right now, she merely criticizes DMK on every single thing under the sun. I would accuse BJP of the same foible. Neither parties had a proposal that could galvanize people to rally around them & vote for them.

Priya: When will this change? Are we doomed to put up with Congress & DMK?

Sukumar: BJP & ADMK have their work cut out for them. They have to understand the pulse of the Common People, think of Bold Policies to energize the masses. BJP has the unenviable task of finding a replacement for Advani. Will it be Modi? They better get cracking on cleaning up his “Minority Baiter” image. Not that Advani has a clean image either, what was he – an innocent bystander when Babri Masjid was destroyed?

Readers – What do you think? We’ve reached an impasse. Is there any hope for India? Is BJP our ticket for better governance? Or is it the Secular Congress? Tell us! We’d love to hear from you.

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Why Twitter maybe at the vanguard of a tectonic shift?

Updated Aug 15, 2009 10 PM – Here is a recent techmemed post that contemplates some similar ideas about Twitter.

Updated May 16, 2009 6:15PM – Mark Cuban says most of his traffic is now coming from Twitter/Facebook and less and less from Google!

FTOTW

We restarted this series in my previous post.  First, Nancy Dixon, a top expert in Organizational Learning has a brilliant post on the history of KM.  Hal Sperlich will be proud of this – 619,284.5 Miles on a 1971 Mustang and still going strong. Sean Platt has a great post on Creative Inspiration. SP Rajeshwaran has a great post on being a Code Monkey .  Brilliant article on what goes on inside a baby’s brain by Jonah Lehrer in the Boston Globe.

Prolog

I have been on Twitter for the past 1.5 years and I have been smitten. Given my interest in social technologies, i have been thinking about why Twitter is an important development. There have been several rah rah posts about Twitter recently, but i am not satisfied with the inferences.  Like all series starter posts i have done in the past, this post has some thoughts from me to get the community started. I promise to analyze and publish the wisdom of the community, as always.

History

To really understand the power of something, i believe that we should delve into the history a bit. There have been several perspectives of the Web including the highly popular 1.0/2.0 view.  In my view, that classification does not help us understand the Twitter phenomenon adequately.

Therefore, i decided to categorize the web into 3 eras as captured by the diagram below:

In the first Algorithmic Era, most of the focus was on using algorithms to tame the web, Google’s brilliant citations-based (or incoming links-based) algorithm being the chief amongst them.

Then came the Crowd Era, which saw the launch of several crowd platforms like Digg, Flickr, Youtube etc. which allowed us to use the crowds to make sense of the web content as well as to add fresh content.  I included Blogs also in this era because it is very difficult to tame the massive base of 40+ million blogs.  Though bloggers do have an identity, the massive size of the blogosphere reduced bloggers to a crowd [Inside the firewall, we have managed to create a powerful community using blogs  which is difficult to do on the internet due to the crowd effect].  Even the highly popular Wikipedia is a crowd phenomenon – you still don’t have an easy means to understand who the top contributors are, their reputation etc.

In the next era, which i decided to call the Community Era, we have 2 major categories – Facebook, Linkedin, Orkut  etc in what i would term a closed category and Twitter in an entirely new open category. The open category i think models the real world better and that is why it is very powerful.

Three Real World Parallels

1. Asynchronous Friending

If you look at Facebook or Orkut (i use both of them), you need to friend someone first and only then can you exchange anything.  In fact, Facebook won’t even allow you to look at someone’s profile before friending them.  Whereas on Twitter, you can follow anyone and if they like they can follow you back  and if they don’t like you at all, they can block you.  The twitter model is more akin to what we do in the real world.

2. Fine-grained Relationships Dominate

In the real world, all of us participate in many communities  – our neighborhood, our relatives, our coworkers etc.  We have relationships in these communities of varying degrees of strength.  Most relationships are built over time based on a number of fine-grained interactions (low amount of time per interaction) over time – meetings, get-togethers, parties, games, religious/social gatherings etc.  We also have coarse-grained (high amount of time per interaction)  interactions with a few people like our immediate coworkers, supervisors, immediate family/close friends  & close relatives. But most of our network growth comes from the fine-grained relationships. You can analogize a tweet to a fine-grained interaction with your followers.  Additionally, a tweet is very simple and consumes little effort. This is why using blogs or youtube or flickr to build networks is harder because to produce a good blog post or a good photo or a good video takes significantly more effort.  Additionally, the followers also need more effort to appreciate a blog post or a photo or a video.  The problem with Facebook or Orkut or Linkedin is the lack of a tweet-like simple fine-grained interaction mode (although lately Facebook has been copying twitter heavily).

2. Asymmetric relationships

In the real world also, we have asymmetric relationships – the strength of the relationship with someone that we perceive maybe different from the strength of the relationship perceived by that someone.

To make some sense of a large number of relationships – Orkut allows you to grade the relationships. But that is not how we do it in the real world –  our perception of the strength of the relationship is subconscious and is based on perceived quality of  interactions and the frequency of interactions we have.

In Twitter, you can do the same thing, the Twitterers you interact with subconsciously grow on you over time, which could lead to a mutually rewarding relationship. In most

Are there other ways in which Twitter resembles real world community-building?

Epilog

Do you agree that Twitter marks a fundamental tectonic shift? If  so, what impact is it going to have on the web?  That is what i am trying to contemplate. I have some thoughts. Look forward to yours. I would also like your views on Facebook, Linkedin, Orkut etc.

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Why American kids don’t take up science & technology careers?

Updated 2 May 2009: Received some wisdom from twitterers – @Shogun1947 @priyraju @akumaran

Prolog

On my internal to company blog i had introduced a new idea a few months back – in the prolog section of every blog post, i provide a link to interesting posts i had read that week. To my surprise, this has become very popular. This is somewhat like the FTOTW (fine tastings of the week) series i used to run on this blog. I decided to try the same idea on this blog also.

FTOTW

First, A. Prem, one of Cognizant’s Social CRM experts, blogs regularly about Social CRM on his blog. He has a tremendous grasp of the subject. He writes one of the leading blogs inside the company as well.  Rachel Laudan, one of my food anthropology blog friends, lives and blogs from Mexico. She has some great updates on the Swine Flu epidemic.  Bob Sutton paraphrases Scott Berkun to explain how managers become a**holes. How Apple Cofounder Steve Wozniak gets things done.  Saraswathi, a former colleague, who now works in the social sector, had written a brilliant post on relationships a while back. must read.

Science  & Technology Careers in America

As someone who had lived in the USA for 10 years, i feel sad about the fact that American kids don’t take up science & technology careers as much as America needs them to.  The huge skills shortage that America faces is either filled by immigration or by outsourcing to other countries like India and China.

The stats from graduate programs and PhD programs also don’t bode that well. As of 2006, over 51% in grad programs in EE were foreign nationals and 71% in PhD programs were foreign. I don’t know how accurate these stats are. But the general perception in America is that Americans don’t like science & technology careers.

Paradise of Science

During our time in America, we used to wonder about, the kind of resources that are available to an American kid that Indian kids can not even dream. Every small city has a well-stocked library, a science center in the vicinity, several museums.

Even if one is a wee bit scientifically minded, there is plenty of resources to tap into.

By contrast, a city that plays host to over 6 MM people, Chennai, India does not have one well equipped museum or science center or library.

But Indian middle class kids, are taught right from when they are in the womb, that science  & technology careers are the be-all and end-all of living in this world.  Yes, this does create a large stereotypical population. But hey, how does that matter? When we want to find folks for science & technology jobs, we can find them easily without having to import them.

I am trying to find out, why American kids consider science & technology careers boring or geeky or nerdy or whatever?

What can be done to change this attitude of the American kids?

Epilog

If i am lucky, i may get to work in a project to improve American kids’ attitude towards science & technology careers. Please help me with your wisdom.