Alvin Lai

Aren’t you tired of rummaging through drawers of stuff, finding things that you have no immediate need for but feel maybe would be useful sometime down the road?

I sure have.

From old physics textbooks that I might need to refer, perfectly cute looking empty containers that would make potentially nice containers for presents to downright ridiculous spare pen caps just in case I were to lose the one on my current pen (Yes, looking back it was plain silly).

Other than keeping things, there are other ways to get stuff like impulse bargain purchases to storing something you don’t use because it’s ‘too good’, like ‘good china’.

Finally, there is a logical reason to this seemingly absurd behavior.

One of my favourite essayists Paul Graham wrote about accumulating stuff and how it affects you and I today in several different ways:

1. Wastes time
2. Saps your energy
3. Costs you money
4. Chains you mentally

We overvalue stuff

Many things have gotten a lot cheaper, with advances in technology and mass production by the Chinese and Indian powerhouses. However our attitudes toward stuff have not adjusted correspondingly, thus we overvalue stuff.

Paul argues that this mentality affects the poor and I kinda concur.

When I first came to America on a budget with 13 other people, everyone had one mission – to get as much stuff free or at a garage sale bargain from Craigs List or from our seniors.

Fair enough, we saved a lot on the essentials like tables, mattresses, table lamps, and fans. However our garage soon filled up with stuff we got free which nobody really used, but thought would be useful in the near future. When our seniors had to vacate their apartments to return to Singapore, we saw all kinds of stuff being relocated to our almost full garage, for our batch to pass down to our juniors. Believe me, there were hardly any climbing space inside. When our juniors came to scavenge, I saw the same cycle happening :)

Having too much stuff around you is stressful

For the first time after getting rid of a whole lot of dreadful stuff in my room, I feel real peace and serenity in my own room to get stuff done … and blog!

Paul attempts to explain why:

I think humans constantly scan their environment to build a mental model of what’s around them. And the harder a scene is to parse, the less energy you have left for conscious thoughts. A cluttered room is literally exhausting.

Now I realise why my mom nags at me so much back in Singapore to get rid of stuff in my room – she finds it tiring and depressing with little room for people in a room full of stuff! My mom will be so pleased when I get back, finally she’ll be authorized to dump a whole lot of junk haha..

Is this purchase going to make my life noticeably better?

With all the fantastic bargain sites like Slick Deals, 1SaleADay, Woot within shipping reach here, it’s really tough resisting impulse buys. Likewise other retailers who have spent years figuring how to make the experience of buying stuff so pleasant that “shopping” becomes entertainment, or shopping therapy, stress relief, as my dear friend Trina would say :)

A few helpful basic guidelines from Paul to rational purchases:

1. Would I use it constantly?
2. Is it JUST something nice?
3. Worse, a mere bargain?

Food Wastage

Check out this carton containing 6 pint baskets of strawberries Colin and I bought for a mere $8 by the road side on our journey to Los Angeles. It was so fresh with a lip smacking tinge of sweetness that we had strawberry for lunch, a dinner side and supper :)

Maybe not as relevant to stuff in general, but I’d like to include the topic of food due to the similarities of not wasting food to hoarding stuff.

I’m not sure if it’s an Chinese or Asian thing, but not coming from an extremely well-to-do family might have a part to play in this.

I stuff myself because I feel guilty wasting food.

Asian kids might recall their parents chiding them not to waste food with the African kids got no food guilt trip or reincarnation believing grandmas warning us about being reincarnated into a poor desperate starved person (or animal) due to sinful food wastage in the current life.

As a result, I grew up with the habit of cleaning my plate, often stuffing myself to discomfort because of this guilt.

It’s silly, but not without a logical explanation.

Kids my time have little pocket money, and we generally relied on our parents for food. Eating out felt comparatively expensive back then.

As my allowance increased with age and now finally earning my own keep, coupled with the food wastage guilt trip, this mentality has not quite adjusted yet.

To make things worse, American food portions are huge, often twice the size and cost almost twice as much as compared to Singapore dollars.

As a result I put on a whole lot of weight in the first few months I came to California. Now that I’ve kinda settled down, I’ve been jogging almost everyday (weather’s real good here!)

Wow!

It’s great having a peace of mind again and being able to blog effectively. The related thought on food wastage came to me spontaneously as I was finishing off the point about “Is this purchase going to make my life noticeably better?”, isn’t it amazing? Blogging about a topic and having relevant thoughts just appearing out of nowhere?

Superfabulous! :)

It can be frustrating when things do not go as planned — miscommunication, technical difficulties, unexpected long waiting times you name it.

It is right for the service provider to test his system, but not at the expense of the waiting customer, who is already miffed at the problem.

The tipping point comes when the customer receives an insult in exchange for an attempt to seek redress for the inconvenience.

The business would not only lose that customer, but potentially hundreds that customer would recommend against the service.

A mistake a startup cannot afford to make.

-

Frankness is good in many aspects like maintaining healthy relationships to attaining better understanding.

But when it is used as an excuse for reckless venting, it might be better to remain silent about it in the first place.

One good rule of thumb when addressing an issue frankly is to ask yourself, am I using this privilege of being frank as an excuse for anger?

Some good silent thought process before a frank encounter goes a long way.

My professor John Nesheim challenged us to blog what we learnt each day, so there'd be a nice log of 365 entries by the end of the year to reflect upon when I get back to Singapore, so here's the first.

1. You can patent the non-obvious process.

2. It's not easy for big corporations who have established their brand name to emulate you and do a me-too — because it would only cannibalise and hurt their existing brand.

Image from virginia.edu

Chancing on the Financial Times article published in the Straits Times titled "Bluffing's the name of the game", by author Lucy Kellaway, I thought it would be timely to discuss the whole process of remembering names. Especially since it was personally relevant at a barbecue as recently as last evening.

The author Lucy aptly highlights the importance of remembering names as a form of courtesy and career advancement, since business is all about relationships.

I believe that it would be highly relevant to you, my reader too :)

Some of the points suggestions cited were:

1. Repeating the name - may help, she says but it feels very American and even hypocritically 'fake' in an asian context. I personally disagree. When you repeat the person's name, you are actively making an effort to ensure that you get his/her name right the first time round. This not only shows a sincere interest in the person but also saves you further embarrassment when you reintroduce him/her to another with a wrong name. A sincere interest in others transcends all cultures. The former American president Bill Clinton nicely portrays this with his sincere interest in others coupled with two handed handshakes and elbow contact. A similar CNN excerpt illustrates this.

2. Using mnemonics - Lucy suggests taking the first letter of the name and associating it with a suitable animal beginning with the same letter. Not only is it difficult to hold an intelligent conversation while deciding if this Steven's a snake or a stork, but what's to stop you from confusing him with a Simon or Shawn in future after you've decided that he's a stork? Mnemonics have been a powerful tool in helping me remember names, and the trick is not to restrict yourself in using animals or any single category per se. I would never be able to remember Chinese names of brief acquaintances I've met during Japanese baito without the use of mnemonics. One example would be a funky guy called Yong Zhong I met. As funky as he could get, it was difficult to remember Chinese names, but just mentally picturing him in the middle of 2 pillars allow me to come up with a mnemonic "always middle", which also relates to Yong Zhong in Chinese. A whacky memorable mnemonic goes a long way. Controversy helps.

3. Other tips - include associating a person with a body/facial feature (which doesn't help if he/he doesn't look too distinctive), logging stuff into a PDA (looking weird if you're attempt to enter the name on the spot or easily forgetting to do so right after and back to square one) and of course eating healthy, exercising regularly, sleeping well for a healthy body mind and memory.

So what's the best way?

I've found a combination of points 1 and 2 to work well. By repeating the name and enunciating it several times, not only do you exude an interest in the other person with an effort to get his name right, it also serves to help come up with a mnemonic. Similarly for Chuan Yun, whom I met last evening, just reiterating the name a few times made me think of her donning a FedEX uniform delivering a parcel as Chuan Yun sounds like "pass transport" when literally translated from Chinese.

I also gave Yang Jun, also known as Steve a controversially alternate add on name - Stiff Steve, which brought much joy and laughter to the Japanese Studies Society club we're all in, just simply because it rhymes.

Remembering names can be fun too!

It's unfortunate that Lucy has to decide that bluffing's the name of the game of remembering names (oops haha), to always bluff, play around and wait for a clue to jog your memory for the person you've met not too long ago.

I think honesty's the best policy here. When you sheepishly admit that you've forgotten a name, not only the accompanying guilt helps you better remember the name, but it also shows that respect the person, not taking him on a ride, treating him like a fool and playing along with him just to get clues of who he really is. It's far worse to be found out and trust me, it's not worth the risk.

What's the trivial difference, you might ask.

I've been reading Ian Ybarra's blog, for quite some time now and his posts are usually chockful of lime fresh goodness that strike you in your tracks pondering self reflection.

This one's particularly good, and he summarises it darn well:

1. You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

2. We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!

3. Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.

The original text is based off a chain letter and here's an excerpt, without the forward to 20 other people or God will hate you kinda thing.

---

The first day of school our professor challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.

She said, "Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?" I laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!" and she gave me a giant squeeze. "Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?" I asked.

She jokingly replied, "I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids..." "No seriously," I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

"I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!" she told me. After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this "time machine" as she shared her wisdom and experience with me. Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor. Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, "I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know." As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, "We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success.

(1) You have to laugh and find humor every day.

(2) You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!

(3) There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change.

(4) Have no regrets. The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets."

She concluded her speech by courageously singing "The Rose." She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago. One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.

You can check out the original post here

It's been a while since I've last blogged and apologies for the lack of updates. As some of you would know, I got myself a 9-6 job, and other than getting involved with the a group fantastic guys who are planning a major tech conference next year that aims to bring the tech student community to the industry, I've met up with up with the local Singapore Ruby community, not to mention undertaking freelance web projects and even meeting a brilliant IBM sales executive!

You could imagine how little time I've left after the routine work day, evening jogs, project management and squeezing a short period for quiet time.

TGIF and having some time on my hands after finishing 2 mini projects, I thought it would be only appropriate if I blogged my thoughts, analysis and important bits that I've learnt along the way during my absence from blogging.

You see, I've been a firm believer in carrying a paper notebook around, doodling whatever thoughts I might have in the interim. It might sound trivial, but it really helps in brainstorming and connecting the dots of whatever points on paper. This happens something along the line, like when you have the points on paper, your brain don't have to keep the points constantly in your head. Very much like Random Access Memory (RAM), once I've cleared and transferred whatever thoughts from mind to paper, ideas pop up easily, connecting the dots, which is pretty enabling to see new things that would never have materialized by mere mental idea bouncing ninjitsu.

One of the recurring thoughts I've been having during this period of working a day job (which was interesting in its own way, no doubt) and doing stuff you would normally classify as "extracurricular", is:

Would I want to work for someone else all my life?

Why do a startup?

Are startups for me?

In the process of blogging about this and referring to the thoughts I've jotted in my notebook, I hope to form a clearer picture regarding this issue. Feel free to comment, or blast me in anyway. I always welcome constructive feedback! Honest!

I made this a draft 1 as it's really a huge topic that would only get better with time and continual revisions. Feel free to comment and give suggestions for a better version 2!

Here goes.

Self Accountability

In a big company, you are inevitably accountable to your boss, and your boss is accountable to his boss and so on. Everyone is accountable to somebody else and are usually working on stuff that would matter to their boss. I'm not saying that you'll be working on pointless assignments, just stuff that would matter more to your boss in place of stuff that would really matter.

Work on Stuff that Really Matters

Why can you work on stuff that really matter in startups? It's pretty tied up with the previous point on self accountability. When you are accountable only to yourself or directly to a small group of people (and vice versa), it would be easier to bounce your idea off 3-4 people rather than whole hierarchies of hundreds or even thousands of people. Why? Again because an important decision would affect them and their bosses. This would inevitably result in dilution of the original plan, taking a less risky route with less potential pay offs.

The Big Corporation Image

Working in a big corporation, image, and standardization matters a lot. Putting the military example aside, big companies understandably have to uphold standards too, as it speaks something of their professionalism. As with word "big" in big companies intrinsically meaning many people in the organization, there are bound to be stuff that needs a consistent feel to everything, be it for productivity purposes (for massive collaboration/information exchange), or for branding. You might argue that the initial standardization can be handled and maintained by an administrative staff, thereby "outsourcing" the standardization task, apart from the knowledge workers. But don't the standards somewhat come across as rules that might be restrictive?

Cubicles and Zones

Been quite much of a knowledge worker myself, I know what it feels to be in the zone. Being in the zone would roughly mean in a state of high productivity, a certain momentum where you just keep on producing, be it coding or designing an awfully creative piece.

The catch is, it's easy to be interrupted exit the zone. Research has shown that it takes 15 minutes or even half an hour to get back in.

Cubicles, in my opinion, are quite bad for knowledge workers who need to be in the zone to get stuff done. Here's an example I got from Paul Graham: Imagine programmer A and programmer B in cubicles.

A forgot how to use a certain piece of code. He has 2 choices. Spend 30 seconds reading it up himself or spend 15 seconds asking B in the neighbouring cubicle.

Naturally the latter would be an attractive option, since it would save A 15 seconds. However when A interrupts B to save 15 seconds, B is interrupted from his zone, and it would take him 15 minutes to re-enter it.

So there you have it. A saves 15 seconds while B wastes 15 minutes.

If both programmers were housed in their own rooms, it would take A more than time to get out of his seat, open his door, walk to B's room, open B's door and ask him than to check up the code himself.

This results in increased productivity too.

I'm not saying that knowledge workers should always be left alone. They just need a period of uninterrupted time and a private area to work on their stuff.

Communicate all you want and get the info you need, then be able to retreat into your own caves and zones to churn out value.

Averaging

With bureaucracy, understandable risk adversity going on in big companies where safety and accountability is of preeminence, everyone is going to take the surest safest route to doing things. When you discard things that are potentially disruptive (yet valuable), the most capable employee would naturally be averaged out, because they can't do risky stuff that can potentially make them shine.

Get Done with Making a Living

Reading Paul Graham's article, thinking of a startup not in terms of a way to get rich, but to get done with making a living earlier. Compressing 30 years of work you love into a short span of 4 years, earning all the money you need to make a living.

What happens next?

You can then continue the work you love with a slight difference, you are no longer hard up for the cash. You can afford to drop bad clients.

All this rather than drag the whole process of making a living over a span of 30 years, a slightly different route which can be seen as risky as your rice bowl is controlled by someone else.

Constraints

This point is probably the biggest red dot, bundled with the previous points of self accountability and averaging.

Personal Bubbles

With all the talk about accountability, constraints and rules to adhere to, staff in a big corporation would naturally have a personal bubble, to protect their self interests. There is only up till a certain point where you can ask them about stuff, suggest improvements, get things done differently with the mere intention of really making things better.

How about startups? Because the survival of the startup depends on the founders, they often have to step out of their comfort zone to make sure they have the competitive edge for the startup. This results in better acceptance of change, again linked to the point of self accountability.

Motivation, Productivity, Reward Cycle

If you're sincerely passionate about stuff that you do, you'll tend to do a good job. Sometimes in order to do stuff the best way, you'll be better ready to take risks.

When you're allowed to do so, you'll see results.

This results in motivation to do even better, increased productivity and even more rewards.

And it repeats itself.

Some Lessons

Hierarchies

You must know where you stand in a big company. Be aware of personal bubbles, read body language and don't get carried away in exploring possibilities when it could potentially be unpleasant for someone else.

Big Companies are Here to Stay

Big companies are everywhere and with an emphasis on safety which results in steady progressive growth, they are here to stay.

Have to Work with Them

Even startups would have to deal with them at some point or another. So it would be wise to learn how to interact with employees of big companies.

Advantageous to

Knowledge sharing is good, as you rarely can hardly get anything done alone these days. When you can contribute to the big companies in a manner they are comfortable with, it often leads to win-win situations.

Better EQ Skills

Since not only employees in big companies have personal bubbles, everybody has their own bubbles to certain extents where change would be uncomfortable. It would pay to understand body language better , understand unspoken feelings and signs. Then complement the situation accordingly.

The user centered soft approach works most of the time.

Thank You. Please Try Again.

Back off if appropriate. Thank for opportunity, don't get discouraged and try again later.

• Waiting for Great Idea
  • Excuse for not doing anything - dangerous!
  • Waste time
• Success
  • Never comes from mind-blowing idea
  • Comes from a basic idea executed amazingly well
  • Rarely found by thinking
  • Are found by doing
• A great idea is a myth
• Now what?
  • Do better than most people
  • Stop searching and start doing
  • Identify a broad, high-level goal - an industry, lifestyle or financial outcome
  • Identify things you like and dislike - be brutally honest
  • Identify opportunities that open up more doors in the right area
  • Avoid jobs/projects/opportunities that lead to dead ends
  • Take multiple steps to reach a goal
  • Eliminating choices
    • Internships are like free trials at a company
    • Chalk up now-I-know-I-don't-like-that category
  • Start doing
    • Finding the right people to talk to
    • Finding out what people actually need
    • May be lacking in style, but doesn't matter
  • Remember
    • The Myth of a great idea is a great way to think yourself into oblivion and failure
  • At our age
    • Nothing wrong with not knowing what we want to ultimately end up doing
    • Stop feeling guilty
    • But there's something ENTIRELY wrong with not actively trying to find out exactly what we want.
    • Trying, not waiting.
    • Experimenting, not "thinking about it"
    • Give it a shot.

Abstracted from IWillTeachYouToBeRich

Since I'm going to start on yet another major coding project in the next semester, thought I'd just accumulate resources on project management all in 1 space in the blog here. Hope you'll find it useful too :)

Got this article from Lifehack.Community Beta. Pasted it here for convenience. Enjoy!

In my experience, projects must; actively involve all the group members, have excellent communication and access to project information, have a shared desired outcome, have specific dates for completion of tasks, and have all the required tools (when needed) in order to finish.

If there is no enthusiasm in the group, your project is dead or doomed to be incredibly dull and tedious.

It’s all about very simple questions; what, where, who, how, when, how much, and fixing specific dates and commitments from the group members. The key to success is the leadership and maintaining the level of enthusiasm of the group members, mixed with the correct resources and tools available on time, and a shared sense of urgency in order to bring the project to completion.

Here is a simple outline that may help in organizing the project and the participants.

16 Steps to a Finished Project

1. Determine the objective and specific desired outcome. Write it down.

2. Identify and organize the people who might be interested or are required in order to bring the project to completion. Ask them to participate, and comment on their level of enthusiasm or belief that the project can or will be successful.

3. Identify a project leader and coordinator, this should be accepted by all involved in the project. No consensus, keep trying.

4. Begin “brainstorming” and create scenarios on how to achieve the desired outcome (this may have be broken down into sub-tasks). Make a date when all this creative thinking will be finished and a written draft can be printed and shared.

5. Identify factors that influence or limit the project that are beyond your control (global economic forces, natural disasters, competition, etc.) and factors that are in your control (capital invested, personnel, prices, etc.). Identify the risks or warning flags that might surface. Write this down.

6. Determine and identify the tools (capital, equipment, machinery), the people (administration, sales, suppliers, customers), and the time required to complete the objectives. Write this down.

7. Organize the people involved in the project. Review the proposed project, the factors of influence, the tools, people and time. Determine the best path, tools, time frame, and write it down.

8. Organize the tasks and sub-tasks in chronological order. Write it down.

9. Ask each participant if they are committed to participating in the project, completing their tasks on time and reaching the final outcome. If there is no commitment, find out why and resolve.

10. Develop a list of initial actions and outcomes that must be started and completed. Identify the responsible parties and dates. Write it down.

11. Request specific (realistic) dates for the completion of tasks, sub-tasks and objectives. Write it down.

12. The leader must follow-up on all dates and compromises. Make this information public to all others involved in the project. Communicate all deliveries of sub-tasks, or lack of delivery with the group.

13. Make certain that the group knows the status of the project at all times, everyone should either be waiting for information or the outcome of an ongoing activity, or actively working on obtaining information or finalizing an activity.

14. If a group member is unable or unwilling to finish tasks on time, discover why and take immediate action to support or replace the member.

15. For any major problems or setbacks, get the group together to work out new scenarios and dates of completion.

16. Celebrate the big milestones and victories.

As many have found Paul Graham's articles too lengthy, here's an executive summary of salient points for you, which would also serve as a reminder for myself.

From Paul Graham, Hiring is Obselete

Market Rate

1. Undergrads can start successful companies
2. It's cheap to start a startup
3. Undergrads are undervalued
   • Tend to be evaluated to the "mean" - not too high
4. Especially productive 22 year old
   • Bypass company, go directly to users
   • Company only acting as a proxy economically
   • Can opt to be valued directly to users
     • Start your own company
5. Market is more discerning than any employer
   • Completely undiscriminating
     • No one knows you're a dog on the Internet
6. Both purchaser and startup owner can benefit from acquisitions

Product Development

1. Big companies stifle product development as they have their own agenda
2. Disruptive technology are developed by disruptive people who:
   • have no power
   • are outnumbered and outmaneuvered by yes-men
   • have comparatively little influence
3. Big companies build only 1 of each thing.
   • Many alternatives but cannot diversify
4. Bigger incentives for startups - they work harder
5. Startup personnel are forced to do everything - they learn things, understand and improve things.
6. Startups can get things done faster - no bureaucracy

Trend

1. Trend of acquiring startups (at an earlier stage) increasing.
   • Pay 1/20, guess 1/20 as well
2. Fusion of simultaneous recruiting and product development.
   • More efficient together - people are more committed working on their own stuff
3. Already have good teams that can work well internally with each other

Investors

1. Companies getting cheaper to start
   • Hackers don't have to depend on employers
2. Pumping more money != quality code produced quicker
3. A good sales force is worth its money, but getting irrelevant with the internet.
   • Anything genuinely good will spread by word of mouth
4. Investor placed business guys
   • Likely placed as COOs instead of CEOs

The Open Cage

1. Economic cage is open Quick prod yourself you caged animal!
2. Route to success is to build something valuable
   • You can do better on your own
3. Younger, should take more risks

Risk

1. Risk and reward are always proportionate
2. Young, have the time to invest
   • Have time to take insane career risks
3. Stability is going to cost you
   • People pay more for stability on the market
4. Riskier career moves pay more on average
   • Less in demand
   • Not much competition
   • Huge prizes at stake
5. 90% failure rate of startups
   • Fail, but get smarter
6. What better time to do a startup at 23?

The Man is the Customer

1. Why are undergrads conservative?
   • Spent too much time in institutions - familiarity, monotonous comfort
2. End of school - fulcrum of life
   • Transform from net consumer to net producer
3. You're steering
   • Stand back and understand what's going on, rather than doing something default
4. What customers want - more important than employers
   • Customers give $ to employers to give you

Grad School

1. Connected with other smart people
2. More time to work on your own stuff
3. Tolerant advisor
4. Try startups first. If fails, tanks fast.

Experience

1. Experience not intrinsically valuable
   • It changes something quicker in the brain
2. Startup requirements
   • Good people
   • Make something users want (experience changes this)
   • Don't spend too much money
3. Go find some users and see what they need
   • Don't sit around making up priori theories
4. Successful startups do something specific AND solve some problems people already know they have
5. The "thing" that experience changes
   • Learn that you need to solve somebody's problems
6. Employees are proxies for users where risk is pooled
7. You can go figure out what people want yourself
   • You're young - don't need to pool risk too

The article has warned you. Don't drop out of school. But be alert lest you miss opportunities.

How to do what you love

1. Realize that you can love work
2. Most of the time, a college student would be wrong about knowing what he loves - working on severely limited information
3. Seek jobs that let you do many different things, so you can learn faster what various kinds of work are like
4. Constraints give your life shape, remove them and most people don't know what to do - lottery winners
5. Always produce
6. Do a good job to make sure you're not using dissatisfaction as an excuse for being lazy - gets into the habit of doing things well.
7. Finding work you love requires discipline.
8. Don't be distracted by prestige and money.

Salient points from Paul Graham, founder of ViaWeb

Meetings are very much part of life for the average knowledge worker - be it a student doing a school project, a business leader managing a team or even a government leader debating policies with his ministers.

Sick of meetings?

How often do we find the meeting we chair disoriented, vague, draggy, downright boring and a total waste of time?

A project tight deadline coupled with a succession of ineffective meetings would only prove detrimental to both human relationships among team members and stress level.

While drafting this post, I realised that planning and having a successful meeting somewhat mirrors good project management techniques, so here's my take on the 6 points to an effect meeting!

What constitutes an effective meeting?

1. Meeting purpose - if you aren't even clear about why you are chairing this meeting in the first place, don't expect the mist to clear, ever. It is much easier to discuss a clear objective in mind.

2. Meeting preparation - ever went through 5 minutes into a meeting and realise that everyone forgot to bring a laptop with the project notes? Well I have, and it was a major source of distraction having to retrieve it, not to mention time wasting and morale busting.

3. Meeting agenda - sounds very much like a meeting purpose, but the agenda is a broken down list of, hopefully, small and addressable issues, which is light years way nicer to address than an amorphous blob of something.

4. Meeting action items - a meeting is not a meeting when everyone leaves it unsure of what to do thereafter. Clear and direct actionable items with deadlines assigned to team members not only allow for good project progress tracking, but also indirectly benefits the team members themselves as they are clearer of tasks expected of them, contributing to lower stress levels and better self esteem, knowing that they are needed, part of the team and effective.

5. Meeting reminder notes - a meeting's pretty much a waste of time if your team does not remember the salient points that were raised, right?

6. Meeting follow-up - successful meetings build up from successive meetings. Knowing when's the next agreed meeting at the end of a meeting cuts down co-ordination time. Since all/most project members are already present, it's actually much easier to agree on the next time to meet in person, rather than having a single person making phone calls to everyone later and struggle to make out the mish mash of timetable clashes.

I found a nice meeting organiser/planner template for all you templating folks, which can be downloaded here.

Credits to Studentlinc for this blog post's inspiration.

Ever been in a situation where you're with a group and suddenly everyone starts talking about an unpopular person?

"He's a good guy, but someone needs to tell him how how insensitive he can get".

*or*

"He's a great leader, but he needs to better his people management skills".

And most of the time, no one wants to play the bad guy in letting the poor guy know about it..

It's only human nature, living in a high-context Asian culture doesn't help too.

Think about the potential

Ever wondered what kind of information went around you, stuff that you really need to know but no one is willing to tell?

Questions like:

• What dumb, avoidable things do I constantly do?

• What disturbing or even hurtful behaviours I have displayed that I do not even know about?

What a better and self-aware person I would be if I got to know a fraction of all those unspoken truths about myself.

So what can I do about it?

Blogger Scot Berkun has a blog post on how to better access these unspoken truths about yourself and I think it's pretty well rounded up.

In short, 4 points:

1. Ask for it - you have to start at some point and you have to make the first move and graciously handle and evaluate everything that ensues.

2. Reward those who give it - other than family, it's very rare to have friends who tell you things no one else will say. Go out of the way to emphasize how important you value this quality and reward them for their feedback.

3. Act on it - If someone goes all out to risk his limbs and friendship to express his frank opinions then see nothing happen, they're unlikely to take that risk again since advice has fallen on deaf ears. If you can act on the advice, even in a small way, you would have built a stronger relationship with that person.

4. Make a pact - reciprocation works best and having a pact in place to try and tell the other person what they should hear works wonders.

In the end, humility and graciousness gets you reaping the most :)