Wannabes

The situation so far: Apple brought out the iPhone and it already sold 6 million pieces. Even in SIngapore where it was not officially launched yet, more than 60,000 sets are already been used by die-hard followers or curious techies. Apple unveiled a more advance version last week but the delivery of the phones only start on 11 July in some 22 countries and progressively to the other 65 countries later the year. Singapore's Singtel will launch it later, rumor has it that it will on its National Day on 9 August.
Meanwhile, HTC launched its much awaited Diamond a couple of weeks earlier. Samsung also launched its Instinct in the US recently. [Update: Samsung will also be launching the Omnia (Latin: Everything and Arabic: Wish) this weekend in Singapore, an upgraded version to Instinct.] Others are following suit.
When one is successful, others want to imitate. While industry products' imitators were launched to rival the successful originals, why would people want to imitate another successful person?
In ancient Chinese kung-fu stories, martial arts exponents passed on their skills to potential successors. However, not many would teach every kung-fu strokes to their disciples for fear that they would rebel and thereby kill their masters. So kung-fu masters were known to secretly keep the potentially most lethal part of their art for self-defense. In time, the martial art died a natural death.
Industry products are guarded aggressively, patents and legal rights put in place to safeguard their originality. Success is never meant to be shared.
Yet, in order to build a stronger society, we need to be unselfish in passing on what we know unflinchingly to the next generation. Our goal is to produce the best we can with what we have in the best way we could. What do you want your wannabe to become?