The Korean media today has an obsession, and sadly this magazine is not immune. This obsession is a simple one, and yet also quite complex. Reporters all over the country are fixated on comparing Korea to other countries, and Korea's supposed standing in the global community. This is most easily illustrated in the way the Korean media reports on its own expos and conventions. And, like most obsessions, this one also harms more than it helps. Most obviously, it makes for boring news stories because all one has to do is count the number of foreigners, compare the event to a similar event in another country, and wrap up the report. It also makes for boring opening ceremony speeches - which can hardly afford to be duller than they already are - by the constant repetition of five year plans to become as good as some other event somewhere else. More importantly, this constant mental state of comparison, if it is maintained, will leave Korea in the position of always being second best, or worse.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. There was a major convention in Korea recently. Several foreigners were sighted as attendees. The event was larger than it was last year, with marked improvement from previous years. However, it was not as good as an equivalent expo in another country. There were not enough foreigners present, and the show did not receive enough international attention compared to another expo a few months ago in another place. The organizers promise that they will try their best to do better next year, and hope that in five years the expo will make Korea out to be a leader in this particular field. Korea is not yet to the point of other advanced countries, but it's trying to get there.

This is the standard news report from any expo or convention that occurs in Korea, whether it is the Seoul Motor Show or the Korean Display Conference. It's a simple, formulaic model for news which, while excellently capturing the zeitgeist, leaves a lot of interesting information out. It would be good to include more information about what actually happened at the event rather than yet another complaint about its lack of international standing. Quotations from a lot of participants explaining what they enjoyed about the show would be more informative than asking for judgment on the expo from most un-Korean faces floating around. If readers feel like they already know what a news report will say about an event before they even read it, then the news itself has lost its meaning.

Reporting is not the only aspect of conventions that is in danger of losing meaning. Officials at the events seem to also only care about this one aspect of the event - its international standing. Each event organizer seems to carry on his shoulders the reputation of his entire country, and think of it as a diplomat thinks of his responsibilities in representing his country. It is as if the event must show that Korea is the absolute best in each field, and yet this is an impossible task, because everyone involved in the event has already assumed that Korea isn't the leader in this field; that the title is already held by someone else. Speeches and comments by expo organizers seem to focus the majority of the time on this epic duality - both the burning desire to become the best and the insurmountable difficulty in doing so. This doesn't leave much time for actually talking about the particulars of the event topic.

This constant comparison takes up a lot of time and effort that can be better spent creating concrete goals and ideals to strive for in each field. The only real way to catch up with and surpass others in your field, whether you are an individual, a company, or an entire country's industry, is to have lofty goals for which to strive. And, becoming equivalent to other people in one particular field does not qualify as a lofty goal. Nido Quebin, noted business and motivational speaker, put it very well when he said, "Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people." If the Korean display industry, software industry, or memory chip industry wants to get ahead and achieve a high international standing, the only way to do this is to stop worrying about their international standing and start focusing on achieving great things. It's a little like the movie War Games, where the computer at the end realizes that the only way to win is not to play. The only way to win the game of gathering the most international prestige is not to play the game of gathering the most international prestige.

And, if Korea's only goal is to become as good as someone else, this will always leave Korea in second place. This other industry, or expo, or convention, no matter what or where it is, will definitely have goals to strive for as well. This means they will always be improving, advancing, and evolving to be better than they were before. If a Korean expo or convention has a goal to be as good as another expo or convention, and then they achieve this goal, they will fall behind in the next year, or whenever the other event starts innovating. Then Korean events will always be playing catch-up to whichever event they are trying to emulate. That's no way to run a convention, or anything for that matter.

So in order to avoid formulaic news reports, exceedingly boring opening speeches, and perpetually second-rate events - reporters, expo organizers, and everyone involved in this prestige-producing industry need to set goals that inspire them to be better, stronger, larger, and more interesting, and not focus on the competition so much.