Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Response to Jun: My reflection of the past year in building FD
So my cofounder Jun recently did a vlog talking about his experiences in the past 1.5 years as an entrepreneur, and he wanted me to join in his conversation. I haven't been vlogging too much and as you can tell I don't have his extremely personal kind of charisma, but I thought I might as well treat it as a way to practice this. Being dead-tired after midnight doesn't help either. However, its fine. A lot of people out there, including a personal branding expert, aren't that great in presentations and talking in a slick manner, but as long as they don't let it pin them to the ground, they still create value and have a big following. Eitherway, enjoy the video and let me know if I should do more of that or just give up on it.
Quick Summary:
We made a big gamble for a big vision, and many things that are unpredictable happened that caused us to not be victorious. That's just the nature of hightech startups: with a lot of smarts and hard work, things will work out IF YOU ARE LUCKY. If not, its just a volatile game that you learn, grow, and have fun. Right now because the economy is not doing that great, our company is focusing on generating cash flow, convert it into a automated cashcow, and use that to support us in funding our other projects.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Crazy Stereotypes on Asians: intriguing results from my blog search traffic
So when I was a second year in college, I wrote a blog about why do Asian kids study like crazy. I claimed that its the culture and value systems that make the difference, not the actual race. Growing up in South Africa, Taiwan, Kansas and California, I would know something about cultural differences. Also, I am FULLY convinced that racial differences and stereotypes are a big part of our society, and the solution is not to taboo everyone that mentions such, but to speak about it in a civilized manner with the purpose of finding a solution in being open-minded, mutually tolerant and respected.
With that said (especially to get me out of trouble a little), this blogpost gathered tons of traffic from people searching on Google. You can see what people are searching for and trying to understand. A common theme you can see are: parents, study, math, school. This is partially funny, but partially horrible. Some of them are obviously asian kids trying to feel good about themselves, others are other ethnicities figuring out why their classmates have no life. It even goes as ridiculous as one person searching "is there anything wrong with a white kid liking an asian kid." Duh! Of course its not wrong! (as long as you like the person for the right reason ;) )
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to show this phenomenon to people, one for a good laugh, and two to see how people are privately exploring the racial topics when its so publicly taboo. The metrics are by this order:
Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Time on Site % New Visits Bounce Rate
Yea I know I have a high bounce rate, but that's only because I write super long stuff and no one wants to read it :) The fact that people still search about these things still exist.
1.
how to study like an asian
8 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
2.
crazy asian parents
4 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
3.
why do asians study so hard
4 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
4.
all the asian people are good at math?
3 1.00 00:00:00 33.33% 100.00%
5.
asian kid studying
3 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
6.
asians study hard
3 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
7.
how to study like an asian student
3 1.00 00:00:00 66.67% 100.00%
8.
study like an asian
3 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
9.
why are asians so successful
3 1.00 00:00:00 66.67% 100.00%
10.
asian kid gpa
2 1.50 00:03:12 50.00% 50.00%
11.
asian kid stereotypes
2 2.50 00:02:24 50.00% 50.00%
12.
asian parents ivy crazy
2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
13.
asian study hard
2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
14.
asians always study
2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
15.
asians and academic elitism
2 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
16.
asians study
2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
17.
study hard asian
2 1.50 00:01:38 100.00% 50.00%
18.
what do asian people believe about exam stress?
2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
19.
why do asian children do well in school
2 1.50 00:00:01 100.00% 50.00%
20.
why do asians stress education
2 1.00 00:00:00 50.00% 100.00%
21.
why do asians study so much
2 1.50 00:01:48 100.00% 50.00%
22.
"asian guy" brain "white guy"
1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
23.
"asian parents pushing kids academically"
1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
24.
"asians are climbing up the ladder"
1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
25.
+asian kids
1 1.00 00:00:00 100.00% 100.00%
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Hilarious!Help out the little congressman! Help out with equity in this country!
A great collection of Twitter apps and tools by airabongco
Airabongco created a super awesome squidoo page collecting and organizing Twitter Apps. Here's a sample of all the great tools you can use. Go on her squidoo page and rate her up! Also don't forget to follow her on Twitter :)
"
Find Tweeters like You
Directories and User Search Tools
- Twits like Me
- Find out people like you
- Twellow
- A Twitter directory sorted by occupation
- Just Tweet It
- A twitter directory sorted by interest
- Twubble
- This tool will automatically find people who are compatible with your interests. However, if you follow too many people, then Twubble may recommend some people that you already follow
- Twittie Me
- Search for similar users and advertise your twitter page
- Twitdir
- Search for words in usernames, locations or descriptions
Find out what is the latest trends on Twitter
Sites that tell the latest stories and trends on Twitter
- Twitter Search (Summize previously)
- Search for the latest trends on Twitter
- Twitscoop
- A search tool that tracks trends as well as certain events.
- Flaptor Search
- A search tool that can be installed on your browser.
- Tweet Scan
- Search keywords on Twitter
- Twitterment
- Search Twitter users and topics
- Twitbuzz
- Find out the latest links and conversations on Twitter
- Tweetmeme
- find out the latest Stories on Twitter
- Twistori
- Find out what twitter loves, hates, believes, etc.
- Twitturly
- Find out the most talked about stories on Twitter
- Twitterverse
- Find out what Twitter is doing
- GoodBadMe
- Keep track of the good and bad on the twitterverse
- Favotter
- Find out the most favored (saved to favorites) tweets
- Twitstat
- real time twitter analytics
Track Twitter Users
Find out who the top Twitter users are
- Twitterholic
- Find out who the top twitter users are
- Toptweet
- Find out the top twitter users on one place.
- Twitrank
- a list of the top 150 Twitterers
Track certain keywords on Twitter
See keyword behavior on Twitter with these sites
- Tweet Beep
- Find out who is talking about you or your website through certain keywords
- Site volume
- Enter five keywords and see their activity on Twitter
- Tweet Volume
- A more personalize version of Site Volume
- Monitter
- Monitor Twitter conversations on three keywords. Good for catching the latest news
- Hashtags
- Track a certain keyword on Twitter
- Twemes
- See twitter memes or tags for Twitter
- Tweetchannel
- Find out what people are talking about through certain keywords called channels.
- Twitter Meter
- Find the trends of certain keywords
- Flaptor Trends
- Compare the trends of three keywords on Twitter
- Twitter Spectrum
- Find out the dominant keywords via a tagcloud generated.
- Serendipitwiterrous
- Search for tweets of a certain person using certain keywords
- Twittertroll
- real-time Twitter search engine
Twitter Links
Work with lnks on Twitter
- Twitter Buzz
- See the most popular links on Twitter
- Link Bunch
- Share more than one link on Twitter
- Tweetwire
- Sorts out links posted on Twitter into news format
- Twitterlinkr
- Find out the latest links posted on Twitter
- Twitturls
- Find out the latest URLs posted on Twitter
- Twitter Split
- Change the way you post links by adding your domain on the beginning of the link
Track Tweets Across the Globe
What do you get when you mix maps with Twitter?
- Twittearth
- Watch as people from different parts of the world tweet.
- Twitter Vision
- Watch Twitter in real time and see the location of Twitter users
- My Tweet Map
- A high tech map that tracks the location of a person
- GeoTwitterous
- Track a person across the map
- Twitter Map
- Same with GeoTwitterous
- Twitter Local
- Find out Tweets about a certain locale
- TwitSpy
- Another way where you can track the location of tweets
- Geo Twitter
- Another twitter location tracking site
- Mibazaar
- Shows current posts as they are posted on maps
- Twitter Atlas
- Find the conversations at certain locations
- Twitter Faces
- Map + Faces
Enhance your Tweeting
Some tools to add elements to your tweeting
- Twitter Keys
- Brighten your tweets with little pictures
- Twi8r
- Translate shorthand text to English and the other way around for easy tweeting
- Phweet
- Phone + Tweet, talk to your twitter friends through this online phone
Create Reviews via Twitter
Who thought 140 character won't make reviews?
- Micro Reviews
- Post reviews on Twitter
- Notches
- Submit reviews. A partner of Microreview
- Louder Tweets
- Have your reviews of certain products posted
Tweet Reading Tools
change how you read tweets
- Twitter Digest
- Read tweets digest-style
- Tweet2tweet
- Read the conversations between two people on twitter.
- Twalala
- Choose the tweets you wants to read. Mute people or mute topics that you don't want to read
All About Followers and Following
Track your followers as well as your own following behavior
- Tweet Wheel
- Find out which of your friends know each other
- Twitter Karma
- Find out who is following and unfollowing you. Have a mass follow and unfollow tool.
- Twitter Snooze
- If you have noisy twitter friends, you can snooze them for a certain time so you won't receive their tweets.
- My Tweeple
- Evaluate your followers through the number of dings (recommendations) they have from other Twitter users
- Less Friends
- Find out who unfollowed you using this tool
- Qwitter
- Receive the names of the people who unfollowed you via email.
- Does Follow
- Tells you if a certain follower is following a person or not
- Twitterless
- Receive a direct message when someone unfollows you
- Twitter100
- Find out the latest 100 posts of your followers
- Twitterator
- Follow a list of people all at once
- Twitter Who
- Invite lots of people in one go
- Twitterlex
- See your last 30 tweets along with your friends. Use on Mac.
- What's Up?
- Find out what people are up to
Use Twitter on Your Site or Blog
Tools that can integrate Twitter to your site or blog
- Add Tweets
- Make Twitter Update Widgets for site or blog using javascript
- Twitterfeed
- Post your blog to Twitter through your RSS feed
- Feed Tweeter
- integrate Twitter with Plurk, your blog and delicious
- Twitter Counter
- Display your follower count on your site or blog.
- Twit This
- Add this option so people can easily tweet information from your site or blog
- Twitter Tools
- A wordpress plugin that lets you integrate Twitter with your blog. You can send your updates to your blog as well as create tweets directly from your blog
- Twitter for Wordpress
- displays latest tweets on your blog
- Loudtwitter
- Ships your tweets to your blog
- Twitter Sharts
- 'Shart' your twitter status anywhere within your wordpress blog posts or pages
- Twitt Twoo
- plugin that will allow you to update your Twitter status right from your blog's sidebar.
- Twitter Updater
- automatically sends a Twitter status update to your Twitter account when you create, publish, or edit your WordPress post
- Twitter Wordpress Sidebar Widget
- a wordpress widget where you can send your tweets to your blog
- WordTwit
- a plugin that utilizes the Twitter API to automatically push a post to your Twitter account when it is first published.
- Comment Twitter SMS Notification
- plug in to be notified by SMS when a user post a new comment on your blog.
- Stammy's RSS To Twitter
- Not too many people have access to a Ruby-enabled server so the author decided to make a simple PHP script to get the job done.
- PingTwitter
- automatically update your Twitter Account when you publish a new blog post
Update Twitter with other Social Networking Sites
Post to different social networking sites at once
Twitter and your Favorite Websites
Integrate Twitter with other websites
- Twibler
- Update Twitter with your current ebay listings
- Twizon
- Twitter meets Amazon
- iTwitter
- iGoogle gadget that have ping.fm, twitter videos, twitter news, twitter tips, twitter tools and more.
- Be Twittered
- iGoogle app that automatically updates every 3 minutes
- Twitter Facebook App
- Integrate Twitter with Facebook
- Friendfeed Twitter client
- Update Twitter through Friendfeed
- Twitku
- Twitter + Jaiku
- Buy Later
- Receive tweets when an item comes back in stock at Amazon
- Twitter Yedda
- integrate Twitter with your Yedda account
- Twitget
- gadget for Windows Live. Displays your tweets
- Twitter Planet
- Windows Live gadget that features the public timeline on the planet earth
- Twitt
- Import links on your tweets to delicious
- Twitter Viddler
- Integrate Twitter with your Viddler account
- Drupal on Twitter
- This module provides twitter notification for new posts. Each user can use their own twitter account to post updates too, as well as have a custom format string.
- Googlereader Twitter Script
- Add a Twitter button to your Google Reader
- Twitter King Widget
- Widget for Netvibes
- Your Minis
- Twitter widget for yourminis website
Twitter for Groups
Effective when you want to only talk to a particular group
- Group Tweet
- Tweet with only a particular group of people
- Live Twitting
- Host Conferences or conduct interviews on twitter and record it in an organized fashion
- Crowd Status
- Find out the status of a certain group of people on Twitter
- Twitter Groups
- Tag your followers into different groups
Twitter as an organizer
Remind yourself of certain activities you have to do
- Timer
- Set an alarm for things you have to do
- Retweet Me
- A reminder tool that sends a DM on your scheduled activities.
- Remember the Milk
- Manage tasks on Twitter as well as set notifications for yourself
- Twittercal
- Integrate your Google Calendar with Twitter
- My Chores
- Track your chores
- Planypus
- Make plans and export them to Twitter
- Server Mojo
- Monitor your server with Twitter
Schedule your Tweets
Auto-tools to schedule tweets. Use wisely. Do not use for spam
- Tweet Later
- Schedule tweets, auto-follow and auto-welcome people
- Twittertise
- Schedule your tweets. Very useful when you are advertising.
- Tweet Ahead
- Schedule your tweets on Mac
- Twit Response
- Imagine Twitter + Autoresponder. Send tweets automatically.
Find answers to your questions
Think Yahoo Answers meet Twitter
- Lazy Tweet
- Find answers to your questions by posting "@lazyweb" or "@lazytweet"
- Toanswer
- Easily get answers to your questions by posting "@toask" and "@toanswer [question ID]"
- At Answer Me
- Another question tool
- Twitter Answers
- Another question site with a nice layout so you can easily get answers to your questions.
Polls on Twitter
Very useful for research
- Straw Poll
- Create and answer polls on Twitter
- Twitter Polldaddy
- Create a poll on polldaddy and tweet it
- Poll Tweets
- Participate in the latest Twitter poll
- Twittpoll
- Join some twitter polls and receive the results in 24 hours
Track Yourself Through Twitter Statistics
Check out your status on Twitter
- Tweet Burner
- Track the links that you post on Twitter
- Twitter Grader
- find out your twitter grade. Computed based on how complete your profile is as well as the number and influence of your followers.
- Tweet Stats
- Graph your tweet activity
- Twinfluence
- Measure your Twitter influence through tweets, reach of followers as well as second-order followers
- Tweeple Twak
- Track your friend gains and declines
- Twit Graph
- Graph your tweeting activity
- Tweet 140
- Track your direct message and tweet frequency
- Twitter Ratio
- Find out your friend to follower ratio.
Make Money with Twitter
Ways you can use your twitter account to earn money
"
This is not even HALF of what she has on her list. Go check it out to fully realize your Twitter Potential!
Outside the Comfort Zone: The Harmless Dragon
Networking is tough, mainly because you are forced to cross through your comfort zone. Engaging and talking to strangers can be rather intimidating. However, the fear of reaching out is essentially based on illusions. In reality, there is really nothing that could be lost (assuming you don’t need to interact with the person in the long run, in which reaching out isn’t necessary for that person anyway). You might feel stupid (you don’t have to) for a few minutes if you mess up, but if your networking was unsuccessful, always by definition, you will never interact with this person again anyway. Nothing is lost. Fear in this case is a dragon, lashing its claws and teeth at you, breathing flame that seems like it could fry up your nerves. However, it must be realized that you are invincible to the dragon. Knowing that the dragon cannot hurt you, you must forget the scary look of the dragon and go out and slay it. Rewards come for
those who try.
One way to realize the harmlessness of the dragon is to think in other peoples’ shoes. If you were at a professional event and someone approached you to ask some questions, what would you think? More often than not, you would smile, try to answer the question, and not think much about the other
person right? Sometimes you would even be a little anxious if you might not be able to answer the question, but very rarely would you think anything negative of that person.
Now you think of yourself as that person who approaches. When you approach someone and start talking confidently, that person is probably thinking what you would have thought if you were in his position: not
thinking much, maybe even a little nervous. Why should that be a little scary for you? Now you might think, “That person is a highly accomplished professional. I am not. Obviously due to his high position he will have a different mindset than I have. If I was CEO of a large firm, I wouldn’t be nervous or anything!”
That’s partially true. But you also must think; this CEO might not be so different from you. Imagine you continued your career, promotions after promotion over a few decades, and one day you become a high executive or CEO. Do you think if someone approaches you, you will really give them a hard time? Or would you still be rather content that people reassured your importance? These are people too, they cried during childhood, had crushes in high school, worked somewhere or another, and due to a lot of hard work and/or luck got to their position. That doesn’t make them untouchable or sacred. You smile
and approach them, and unless they are douche, they’ll be ok.
If that person is simply too busy to give you the warmest response in the world, so be it. You live your life, and he will live his. (I recommend you try again when you have the chance.)
You must not let the harmless dragon scare you away.
My Epiphany from Diablo II that started my Entrepreneurial Life.
This is the origin of the FD Lifestyle, living real life like a hardcore gamer, and I want to share it with others to see if anyone wants to join in me in the passionate path of leveling up and completing cool quests that make a difference in this world.
It all began in 10th grade. I was a hardcore Diablo II player and would spend a lot of time figuring out how would I build my character, assign the right skill points, assemble a team, and conquer difficult quests. Then it came a time when my friends started quitting and moved on to something else. I quit too. The problem was, I was in that transition phase between quitting a game and moving on to the next one, and I felt extremely empty.
I realized that I had I spent thousands upon thousands of hours getting more experience, leveling up, getting more money, getting better gear. And now I have nothing. My account will be deleted after 3 months of inactivity, and a big part of my life is wasted.
So I started to think, what kind of game can I play that a lot of people are playing, and people can’t just quit when they are bored? The conclusion I reached was: it’s pretty much the game of life.
So, if I was my own RPG character, I wouldn’t stay in town all day, be idle, and walk back and forth, back and forth. NO, I would go out and kill monsters, get more experience, level up, and conquer cool quests of course. So everyone is playing this game, but not everyone knows it, especially when they are in high school or college. When they are still in town just being idle, (watching TV, partying, not doing much with life) I am already out there getting more experience, meeting high level characters, assigning important skill points, and leveling up. Then one day they will realize (out of college) that they are playing this game too, and they will need experience to level up to overcome whatever quest they feel they should conquer with their lives. By then, I would be at level 16 or so, with a strong head start.
Ultimately, my goal is to be the strongest player on my server.
In most MMORPGs, You know how a high level player can help lower level people level up faster? That’s what I have committed my life to do too: get people to realize they are playing this game and help them level up to my level or even higher, and so we can help each other out in life(in FD, we call this Vertical Networking).
So I want to be the strongest in my field, and team up with all the strongest in the other fields. Together we can complete cool quests to solve problems that the real world face. In a game, the quest could be killing a monster, or building a large army. In the real world, a quest could be solving global warming, making a better search engine, or run a successful non-profit The beautiful thing about this particular game is, when you play it, it can be just as thrilling, and it actually makes a difference in this world. You would have made a positive impact in peoples' lives, and you would be wealthy and famous. Sounds like a good deal.
In FD, we also call people who just want stability and comfortable lives NPCs. NPCs become the environment instead of living passionately. They live everyday to support their existence and buy cool stuff on the side. If you think about it, this doesn't make sense. Why do you make money? You make money to increase the quality of life. But you spend so many hours in your life working anyway, that IS your quality of life, and it makes little sense for people to pay a lot of money for you to be miserable your entire life. It makes a lot more sense to get paid a bit less, but have your whole life do what you are passionate about and play your entire life.
So this is what I do. I work over 90 hours a week. I also play over 90 hours a week. People I have FDtized also spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to become a stronger player while accomplishing amazing things for their age. Because I feel like I have a better life than most people without necessarily being better in person, I want to bring the philosophy of combining work and play to people, whether through myself, my company culture, or the services/products that it provides. I want people to have fun when productive by doing what they are passionate about. I want those who are extreme in what they do (like hardcore gamers) to be extreme in what truly matters in this world. So for those who want to play their entire lives and possibly become wealthy on the way, I welcome you to join my FD Lifestyle. Lets ally up.
The Three Pillars of Leadership
Throughout my career, I have been leading people who are older than me. In some occasions, these people can be more than a decade older. It wasn't always like that. When I was a younger, I was the kid who everyone makes fun of while I worked my butt off to try to become accepted by people. The process had to start all over again whenever I moved, as South Africa, Taiwan, Kansas, and California all had very different cultures. The turning point was when I started a chess club in high school, and during my sophomore year, was elected President. With a new sense of responsibility, I realized that the whole organizations success was dependent on my shoulders. I spent 4 hours a day making sure the young team is growing, and a culture of participation is maintained. And eventually the team became State Champions in my Junior Year (the team maintained the title for at least 4 years afterward and finished strong nationally). From that point on, I have been leading groups of great people, and accomplishing exciting things that make a difference in this world. After all, it's all about making life more meaningful.
Leadership is, almost by definition, not something everyone has. It is like good writing: most people know how to write, but only few people can do it professionally. Most people know a little bit about leadership, but only a few know how to do it professionally. Some of the most intelligent people in the world are not good leaders, but merely fit to be advisors of the leader. Robert Kiyosaki says that, to be an entrepreneur, leadership is the only skill you MUST have. Being very young like I am, I cannot say that I am anywhere close to being the best leader I could be. However, I have put in a lot of thought into the issue, and have boiled down good leadership into 3 Pillars.
Before I dive into the 3 Pillars, I want to clarify that these are not the first 3 steps in being a leader. I believe the first step in being a leader is to feel comfortable about it. If you can't even convince yourself that you are worthy to lead the group, how can you convince others? The second step in being a leader is being comfortable with others leading you, even when you are the leader. That means you need to trust peoples' core competencies, be able to delegate, and believe in your team when you are the only person who supports a plan. In my opinion, a cohesive team with the second best plan will always beat a broken team with the best plan. Alright, now that your eyes are already tired, lets go into the Three Pillars.
1. A Leader must have vision, and an unwavering conviction towards that vision. A leader must know what direction the team is headed towards, and what is the absolute goal people want to achieve. It is essential to have a strong sense of certainty because as long as you are doing something difficult or complex, team members will become lost in an ocean of tasks, distractions, variables, and uncertainty. This is when they look to the leader to bring them back to the big picture and understand where the group is headed towards. This also means that the leader must be very logical and be able to see the big picture. Members will challenge you with whatever they are uncomfortable about when they feel lost, and if you do not have the logical skills to justify everything the group is doing and connect it to the ultimate goal, you will fall apart too, let along convince the team. Finally, if the leader is not the most adamant and passionate person in the project, no one else will be. If the leader has a conviction of 10 towards the vision, his team members will have 8-9, and people working under them will have 6-7. If the leader has a conviction of 7, then the whole group falls apart. Know where you are going, and be sure of it.
2. A leader must have empathy towards the team and be able to connect with all the members. As a leader, you must emotionally and psychologically connect with all your teammates: what motivates them, why are they doing this, what do they care about, what are they insecurities etc.. You wouldn't dare market and sell a product if you didn't understand the demographics and psychographics about your target market, how could you lead a team if you don't have the same information? When you sell, you understand the customer so you can effectively persuade them do something - buy your products. When you lead, you need to effectively persuade your team members to do thousands of tasks HAPPILY (bitter teammates are bad teammates), so there's even more reason to know every little detail about them. With that knowledge, you can create the right culture and environment where everyone does things the best with the highest morale. The leader's job is to make everyone else better. The best leader's job is to make everyone make everyone else better. The environment is so essential to a productive team. I have seen extremely competent people become unmotivated and perform poorly because of the environment, and I have seen otherwise weak performers become highly competent in the right environment. Some people just need a "good job!" after some hard work, some people are interested in non-monetary incentives, and some people just want to tackle the hardest problem they can find. If you know how everyone feels and thinks, you can have everyone do what they want to do in the way they want, resulting in better productivity. At the end of the day, when your teammates know that you care about how they feel and what they think, they will give you their work, trust and loyalty. The smartest math genius in the world might be able to solve the most complex equations, but still have no clue how to please one person without pissing off another. You as a leader must.
3. A leader must know exactly what needs to be done to get the team towards the end goal and make absolute sure of progress. Now that the leader understands the far vision and knows everything about the team members, the final pillar is to get the team moving towards the goal. The leader needs to be the person who is accountable with execution, driving the group forward. In Good to Great by Jim Collins, Collin states that the best leaders (Level 5 Leaders) are usually not the charismatic ones, but often are very humble and non-exciting people. That's because the charismatic leader always wants to do new projects and get everyone motivated and excited, but the Level 5 Leader keeps saying the same things over and over until it gets done. At the end of the day, if you don't have stuff done, it doesn't matter how great the plan is or who is participating, everything becomes meaningless. A lot of people have a tough time building a bridge between goal and the status quo. Many Y-Gens I know care about their career greatly, but never seem to understand what does it take to get them to their career goals. As undergrads, many people neglect getting good grades, internships, and self-development due to games, parties and the fun distractions you can find everywhere. As professionals, many people do the least they can do with a bad attitude, and become bitter when their "over-achiever" co-workers are getting all the promotions. Bridging reality to goal is not something everyone knows how to do, but that's something a leader must master in order to become effective. Getting things done and focusing on action items is one of the concepts that don't have libraries of how-to literature on, primarily because it is so simple and straight forward. Make sure everyone is accountable with their tasks and start executing! It's that simple.
A lot of leaders out there possess 1 or 2 of the three pillars here, but VERY few of them have all. Some leaders are extremely passionate about the vision, connect well with all the members, but drive progress very slowly. Some leaders understand the direction very well, and are very good at driving progress but sometimes at the expense of pissing off team members. Fortunately, this is the type of leader that still produces results, but may not be the most effective in the long run (as people are not motivated both in work and commitment). Finally, you have the leader who connects with each member well and can drive progress, but has no longterm vision of where the group is going. These are often elected leaders who are simply picking up the past leader's inertia.
Again, I am no where close to mastering any of these three Pillars of Leadership. However, I understand them enough now that I can continuously look at my own life and focus on improving these skillsets. Collins emphasizes on recognizing the Brutal Facts, and a leader must understand himself well in order to constantly improve himself and the group. Lets include "understanding him/herself" in Pillar 2.
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.
Only hire those who you don't mind working under.
A lot of organizations and companies I have seen hire people to fulfill a certain role (sometimes grunt work), and when the company grows, these people get promoted, and they become managers. However, they might be bad managers and it completely ruins the culture of the company. Therefore, Future Delivery is applying an interesting hiring philosophy:
Only hire those who you feel comfortable working under.
This way we will make sure that, as the company grows, we will still be able to attract and hire people like ourselves, thus preserving the culture. Afterall, a huge amount of whether one likes her job or not, is the people she works with.
The other philosophy regarding firing is a lot more common in theory but a lot harder to execute:
If the company becomes very successful, and this person leaves the company and wants to come back, would you rehire him? If not, fire him now.
This philosophy is good in the sense that, the only mistake bigger than hiring the wrong person is keeping the wrong person on board for too long. However, team morale is an incredibly important issue, and if you suddenly get rid of people with less-than-justified reasons, morale will be low and productivity will decrease. The only time this works out is if the person was dragging down the team, and everyone would cheer if he is gone. After all, having a person not pull his weight without consequences would only discourage those who do pull their weights. So our concluding philosophy on this issue is:
Fire those who wouldn't be rehired by anyone else in the company when the company becomes successful.
That is the FD way of human capital.
The FD Guide to Resume Optimization
neglected by many. Your resume is the piece of document that
creates a chance for recruiters to consider you as an employee. It doesn't matter how amazing you are
at interviewing or how brilliant you are for the job, without a good resume, you have nothing. I have
reviewed and edited over a thousand resumes, and most resumes are nowhere near their full capacities.
In fact, most resumes that I have seen are only about 10?15% of their actual capacity. People fail to
recognize that resume building is a craft. A resume is a one?page representation that lets the company
know that, given your GPA and experiences, can you:
1. Create unique value for the company
2. Fit within the company culture
Take your resume seriously
A resume is like a brochure for yourself. Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and months
of expert work to finalize on a brochure that can represent the company. The average student only
spends a couple hours piecing vague descriptions together without considering what effects it will have
on their recruiting process. Your one page resume is extremely valuable real estate, and everything you
put on it must have a purpose. If a sentence does not create value in the recruiter's mind, you should
take it out; if a word does not create value, you should take it out. With a well?optimized resume, you
would be able to get interviews even with a less?than?competitive GPA.
Few seconds to establish a connection
One thing to note is that most recruiters only spend around 10?25 seconds on each resume. Therefore,
your resume must not only have good information, it must "feel" impressive. Within those few seconds,
you need to already have made a connection with the recruiter. Having a high GPA is obviously the
fastest way to do that, but I have seen resumes with extremely high GPAs get rejected simply because it
was not put together in a way that makes the applicant seem valuable.
Build a holistic image of yourself
Recruiters are trying to figure out if you are a good person to be on their team. As a result, your resume
must reflect you as a person, not just a brain. You must show that you are a well rounded, qualified
individual as an employee, coworker, potential leader, and someone to hang out with. A very important
concept to pay attention to is Diminishing Marginal Image, which means that if seven lines on your
resume say you are good finance person, the eighth line that says you are a good finance person would
mean little in the mind of the recruiter. Instead, say that you are a team player, an organized person, or
did something creative, even though your next experience might still be dealing with finance.
The Ins and Outs from an experience
When you are building your resume, keep in mind that your goal is not to say that, "I am impressive
because I had so?and?so experiences." Your goal is to say that, "I am impressive because WHILE I had
these experiences, I did so?and?so things that others would not have done." In essence, ten other people could have the same position in the same company, but your resume stands out because you went
above and beyond your daily duties and actually accomplished great things. This brings us to the topic of
Ins and Outs. Ins are what you absorbed through an experience, such as the financial skills and the
softwares used. Outs are what you did that created value in that organization. Companies are more
interested in Outs because it clearly reflects you as an individual, instead of simply the job title of that
experience. Ins are often reflected within your position already, such as "treasurer," "web development
analyst," but it is your Outs that ultimately define you as a person.
Four Phases of optimizing your resume
Optimizing your resume could be a year?long process. Some people have spent hours every week for six
months, and still only reach around 55% of its capacity. This is mostly because they do not have a
systematic approach in improving the resume, and as a result work on the wrong things. If a student
does not build her resume correctly from the beginning, she could spend months on it, and still need to
start from scratch to obtain all the interviews she deserves. In order to truly optimize one's resume, it
needs to go through four phases.
Phase I: Formatting
Remember, a recruiter only takes 10?25 seconds on each resume. In those precious seconds, your
formatting is extremely important in giving them the right "feel" of your resume. Bullet points are the
most efficient way to present what you have done in each experience. You should allow enough space
for each bullet point line in order to put in as much information as you can. Make sure that you do not
waste any space, and everything is consistently formatted. Inconsistencies in your resume could
instantly ruin your chances with your dream job. You can easily find sample resumes and templates
online, so make sure that these key points differentiate you from others.
Phase II: Strategy
Strategy is one of the most ignored parts in resume building, which is costly for students. Most people
just think about what they did in each experience, list them out, and move on. To optimize your resume,
you must first come up with a list of the skills and traits the company is looking for. Then you must list all
the Ins and Outs from your experiences that show that you have these characteristics. Finally, you
should strategically plan out which experiences will convey which characteristics. This is where you
should apply Diminishing Marginal Image. You must decide which experiences are the best at conveying
which qualities, and make sure they are in the order that builds value in the recruiter's mind.
Phase III: Wording
Wording in a resume is the most technical part of a resume, and is what most resume building sites
cover. However, they usually do not cover enough. They will tell you to use action verbs and focus on
results, as well as use quantitative examples. I want to add that for each bullet point, there are four
things you can include: what it is, method, result and impact. Most people rush to write about what they
did at their job, but in actuality, that is the least important thing to list on your resume. This is the order
of importance:
1. Result
2. Method
3. Impact
4. What it is
If you said you "doubled company revenues by spearheading an innovative marketing campaign and changing the distribution channel," (result, and then impact) the
interviewer will ask you what position you had in the company and then you can tell them what your
responsibilities were. Also, try to word each bullet?point in a way that they all end at the end of that line. That way you will form organized "rectangles" in each experience.
Phase IV: Optimization
This is where you refine your resume so everything becomes a holistic image of who you are. At this
point, you will notice you don't need to change many things, but tweaking a word here and there,
rewording some of the sentences, and rearranging some of the bullet?points. These tweaks are also
often company?specific, as every firm looks for different things from each applicant. If you get to Phase
IV, you should already have a resume that is over 80% capacity, and the rest fine tuning specifically to
meet the company’s needs.
Creating a resume is a journey. You will learn more about yourself, what you have done, the values you
have created, and will also help you do better in an interview due to stronger stories. You already spend
so much money and time in college just to get a good career. Why get lazy when it comes to actually
applying for one?
Octalysis: the business analysis system I created in college
Thinking through all the necessary elements of a business can be a complex and intimidating feat. Most people have no clue where to start, what questions to ask, how to structure things, and how to tackle the problems. Even when you have studied those frameworks, the 3C, 5C, 7S, Porter's Five Forces, you still don't really know what to do once you lay out the structure.
Worry not! When I was a third year in college, I created this business analysis system for my consulting firm, and I have found that it can be adapted to conquer the case. The tool is called Octalysis, as it is a based on an octagon shape. It is an analysis system that divides a business into eight sectors: Finance, Customer/Client, Human Capital, Market, Competition, Resources, Technology and Operations.
1. Finance is pretty straight forward: profits, cash flow, pricing and the bunch.
2. Customer/Client is everything that deals with the customer, ranging from Marketing, Lead Generation, Lead Conversion, and Client Fulfillment.
3. Operations is everything behind the scenes, including logistics, manufacturing, and distribution.
4. Human Capital is everything dealing with the people, including the usual hiring and firing, compensation, management team, but also things like management strategy and culture.
5. Technology is divided into two fields: the technology of the product, and the IT systems of the company.
6. Market deals with issues like the economy, supply and demand, political stability etc.
7. Resources are the intangibles of the business: partnerships, intellectual properties, reputation and such.
8. Competition is what the competitors are doing and how to respond.
Depending on how deep and specific you want to go into the business, Octalysis can be derived into three layers. The octagon with the eight categories is the first level, and each of the sectors branch into the second layer, and even deeper into the third layer if necessary. However, most cases that you will tackle will not need the second and third layers, so you just need to make sure you understand Octalysis in the first layer.
The key to Octalysis is to analyze the branches separately, derive the strength and weaknesses onto the octagon, and visually see which part of the company should we work on. For instance, take Viralogy Shirts, a fictional t-shirt company. After analyzing all the separate sectors, one can plot out the level of each sector on the octagon with a dot extending out from each sector. The 90-degree corners where two legs meet (trace the dotted lines) would be considered normal performance. If it is plotted under the dotted-line intersections, then the company is performing poorly on that sector; if it is plotted over the dotted-line intersections, then the company is performing strongly.
After we have plotted out all eight sectors, we connect the dots and see the company "shape" based on how strong they are at each sector. If the shape cuts into the original octagon, that means there are very weak points side-by-side, and it raises a red flag for improvement. For presentation sake, we can then add the strong and weak points onto each sector. Here is an Octalysis example of Viralogy (click to see text clearly).
Note that the top sectors are the Active Sectors, as in you are able to change these things within a business. You can change your pricing, your marketing strategy, your operations, etc. The sectors on the bottom are the Passive Sectors, since the company cannot really change them. A company cannot change much of the market, their competitors, and can only change its intangible resources very slowly.
The sectors on the right are External Sectors: things dealing with the customer, the employees, the market, whereas the sectors on the left are Internal Sectors: things that deal with the operations, the technology, and the resources of a company. Understanding the nature of the sectors yields a great amount of information regarding a company. If a company is strong in the Passive Sectors - things they cannot change - but weak in the Active Sectors, this means that the industry and market is good, but the company is operating well and needs to improve. However, if the Passive Sectors are extremely weak, this means that factors that the company cannot change are doing poorly, and the company probably should not even be in that industry!
Similarly, if a company is strong in the External Sectors but weak on the Internal Sectors, that means the company is great with the people side of things -the customers, the employees, and the market- but weak on the operations, technology and systems aspect of the business. This is when they should consider upgrading their infrastructure, systems, or invite outside consultants to improve their operations. On the other hand, if a company is strong in the Internal Sectors but weak on the External ones, the company is probably filled with bright engineers, lots of money on infrastructure, great business systems, but lack the human touch of selling to customers with great service, creating a empowering culture where everyone wants to do the work, and too product-focused instead of market-focused.
Keep in mind that in case interviews for consulting firms, do NOT use the whole Octalysis structure as your framework. There are too many sectors to be covered in a 30 min interview, and the interviewer will be looking for very specific things. Rather, use Octalysis as a guideline to derive your own framework. Use it to ask the right questions, jot down notes, and organize your thoughts. When you have finally laid down the framework and structure, it should just be the 3-5 essential factors of the case. If you would like a more in-depth explanation of how to use Octalysis in a case interview, email Yu-kai at yukai.chou@fdcareer.com.
Now that you know the basic structure of Octalysis, you are already ready to tackle some free thinking business cases. In later guides, I will go over the second and some third layers of Octalysis, primarily digging into the eight sectors, benchmarking the strength and weaknesses, and utilizing a numeric rating system to help hone in on the sectors that a company should focus on. A guide will be released for each sector to help obtain an in-depth view of all the elements of a successful business. I hope you tremendous luck and ability in leveling up and growing in the path of the businessperson!
100 facts you did not know about me
Since my co-founder Jun Loayza wrote a post about the same topic, I figured I need to write one too just to be cool. I mean, people have a lot of different opinions about me, but few can deny that I'm a pretty unique/weird guy, so I'm sure I can beat Jun in being more interesting:
- I can write different things with both hands at the same time
- I have a scar with 26 stitches on my lips because it split in two when I ran into a metal trashcan at the age of 3
- My father has been a diplomat for Taiwan for over two decades
- My mother has Master's Degree in Chinese literature
- I was born in Taiwan, but grew up in South Africa (6 years), Taiwan (7 years), Kansas (5 years), and California (5 years)
- I started my high school chess club and I spent 4 hours a day learning so I could coach the team
- My high school chess club won the State Championship in my Junior Year, and won the championship for the next 5 years. They also finished strong nationally.
- I secretly admire my girlfriend's workaholic discipline and how everyone likes her (schools, jobs, guys)
- I tutored chess, violin, Chinese, English, and Math to over 12 students between the ages of 8-20
- I can play the violin at the back of my head
- I can beat many of my friends in chess without looking at the board (shout the moves)
- When I was little, my dream job was to be a factory worker in a ramen factory
- When I was little older, my dream job was to be either an actor/singer, or a professor at anything
- I thought I was going to be a Biochemist during high school. I applied to schools with chem majors
- In South Africa, my favorite pet dog is named Icy
- Icy was smart enough to press the doorbell when she was locked out of the house on accident
- Before I was 17, I was constantly working to be accepted by others. I was a pushover
- When I was small, I felt that I had an obligation to be happy because people around me are sad. When I cry, I do it secretly and shamefully
- A huge chunk of my education was derived from business podcasts
- On my iPod Nano, there are no music but 4 gigs worth of podcasts
- I graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Economics in 3 years while running my businesses to save my parents money
- I became a devoted Christian when I was in 10th grade, after rejecting a church invite from a friend six times.
- I brought Jun to the Way of the Sub
- I once lost 13lbs in 3 weeks after declaring that I wouldn't shave until I lose 10
- I am a co-founder of Bruin Consulting from UCLA
- I once rejected sex from one of the most attractive girls I know
- I became an entrepreneur when I was 18
- My first business was on eBay, when I "coincidentally" won 2 football tickets by drawing myself from a raffle
- I started four businesses, one non-profit, and one student organization before I was 22
- My goal in life is to make people around me successful
- I can beat Jun at Super Smash Bro Melee
- I used to be called Eric
- My best friend when I was in South Africa was called Luwazi, although I don't know how to really spell it
- I put ice cubes in my fried rice
- I have eaten an eight-by-eight at In'N'Out and thought it was nothing
- I met my girlfriend at Aikido Class
- In middle school, I was obsessed with martial arts and would spend hours a day practicing/reading about it
- I was a heavy Starcraft and Diablo II player
- There is nothing in my life that I truly regret up to this point
- I have about 1500 friends
- I am heavily involved in the green/sustainability movement
- I was one of the 100 young leaders in California that was invited to the Governor's Global Climate Summit
- I took a dump in a bush outside my college apartment once and wiped with leaves because I lost my keys
- I look smarter than I actually am. I was impressed by a guy when he said he is as smart as I seem to be.
- I had the worse phobia for earrings until I wanted to prove to my girlfriend phobias can be overcome by love
- I joined the debate team the first year I came to the states. Got slaughtered without knowing much English, but made it to varsity my junior year
- I literally eat four times faster than some of my friends
- I used to write string quartet music and perform in a group call BoPo MoFos
- My first relationship was opposite attract. She was pessimistic with low self esteem
- I have global expansion plans: LA, SF, Shanghai, Beijing, Taiwan, London, Argentina, Brazil, Dubai
- I used to be addicted to this online pure text strategy game called Utopia
- I have very awkward body language
- My violin's name is Marian. I named her after a Danish girl I liked in high school.
- I had one of the most important epiphany's in life from Diablo II
- My favorite movie is Brave Heart. It made me cry ever watching it the 4th time.
- I think I am pretty impressive for my age, but am always shocked when others think I'm impressive
- I created a business analysis system in college called Octalysis
- I prefer living in a triple than a double. I would pay a bit more for a third roommate
- I have never smoked cigarettes or done drugs
- I can only bend down to touch my knees
- In South Africa, my family received a certificate from the government, stating that my family is honored as the equivalent of white people. Maybe not so honorable.
- When I was in 5th grade, I led a team to clean the restrooms used by kids with special needs. I can confidently say that I was the No 1 poop cleaning expert in my school (being a pushover in everything else)
- I feel that a leader should take care of the grunt work while the team focuses on what they are best at
- I can make a strange eagle cry noise that no one I have ever met can reproduce
- One of my new hobbies is to hulahoop and DDR at the same time
- I can beat the entire Mocap Boxing game in arcades within 2 tries
- When I was younger, I was obsessed with ninjas
- My brain makes connections between things that most people think are random
- So far people seem to think that I'm a good leader
- I realized that Twitter has the potential to take over my life
- I swam varsity for my high school team
- I shaved my head twice, one for swimming, the other because of girlfriend
- I have a $8 budget a day for food until my startup generates good revenue
- I took Spanish for three years, but didn't learn much
- I am trying to really learn Spanish
- I am into promoting acupuncture
- I love my girlfriend a lot and am stunned by how beautiful she is over and over again
- I am not a sentimental person. I only look forward, not back
- I am trying to lose 20 lbs. I starve myself sometimes for that
- The first thing I check out when seeing a girl is her hair
- The most important physical trait of a girl to me is her eyes
- I look for non-emotional girls who share the same interest as me
- I am a co-founder of Future Delivery TV
- I have my own reality show called Living the Startup Life
- I speak in explanations, not in sentences
- Jun says I look like a Panda, but I think my animal would definitely be Dolphin
- I do not care about living a luxurious life, but I want to make the largest impact possible
- I think it is better to live in a small house and eat well if I did become wealthy
- I often needed to do penalty problems till 3AM in the morning when I was in third grade because I just moved from South Africa to Taiwan
- I have about 7-8 best friends in this world, all separated by geographic area
- I made hundreds of people motivated and level up in real life
- I wrote a Chinese novel that is 190,000 words with three years of effort, and only 20% done
- My dream vacation is to fish and play chess at the same time with an attractive and smart woman
- I am a typical O blood type Taurus
- I once faced death and smiled, thinking that I lived a good life
- I like to sing, but sing horribly
- The worse drink that I ever had was a Durian Smoothy
- I believe that one day I will be the leader in one or more industries
- I am appreciative of my teammates: Jun, Jason, Alesha, Jason, Joseph
- I'm not sure if creating this list is a good return on investment in time or not
Really cool presentation about FDCareer.com to Disney Interactive Media Group
We finally posted our last episode of Season 1 for Living the Startup Life. Jun made an ultra cool presentation about how can a company use FDCareer.com to attract and recruit top talents. This one is specifically geared to Disney Interactive Media Group, a very cool company to work with. Anyway, check it out!
Living the Startup Life: Episode 11 - The DIMG Presentation! from Future Delivery
My New Episode on FutureDelivery.tv!
Haha, when I visited LA, I finally go to bust Jun out of his seat and take over his position. However, Jun did not let me sit tight as he dances across the screen. This is the video version of my previous post: 6 Core Concepts of Networking. Check it out for yourself!
More videos of this sort can be found at FutureDelivery.tv
Testing the blog posting function at Ping.FM
This is my second paragraph. I hope it is alright. Lets also try html links. This should link to my main blog
OK. Launching.
