photos interpretation exercise

was invited to join in the mgmt retreat today and the day’s “break the ice” event was to make a choice of 2 photo postcards which reflects the self, and the self’s view of the organisation. these are my choices:

image

the bottom reflects my view of life. life is like a theme park, it’s 多姿多彩, just like the many different rides you can experience. you may want to take some fast rides at certain time during a visit to the park,  and switch to a slower ride during other times. this is somewhat like the paces i have taken in my career so far, rapid at times and creeping like now. for those of us who have visited a theme park, it’s probably not difficult for us to identify the moments when we look at a ride, but never had the courage to try it out. we will go to the rides that we are comfortable with. stepping out of comfort zone is always difficult, but one wont know what one have missed out until one try it out. i have stepped out of comfort zones (big n small) numerous times, and i am currently on my 7th ride in the park, the ferris wheel (:

the top photo represents a helicopter view of any typical organisation. there’s different depts making up the whole. while we are working towards establishing our reputation as a “mountain”, it’s good to know that there’s always another mountain out there. 山外有山,天外有天。we should always keep our eyes and conversations open so as to better ourselves. a reminder for managers though, while having a top overview is important, but watching a NatGeo documentary on TV will tell us that we have seen nothing in a helicopter. the details and beauties only reveal themselves when the helicopter landed. therefore, as managers, we should not forget to have eyes on the workings on the ground, for every detail could enhance or spoil the whole picture, and therefore the progress of the organisation/dept.

5-7 words + 3 sentences

that’s the amount of words one should keep to when communicating important ideas according to Lim (2014). applying to a most recent communication need, the 5-7 words would be “e-learning outdated; blended learning the way”.

the 3 sentences can come another day :p

学以致用 (:

cultural forum

the next cultural forum (aka 精品文化论坛), co-organised by sccl and ci (both belonging to NTU), is coming up on 6th Sep. am preparing for a sharing for the event. will be touching on “Knowledge creation ∙ Education ∙ Information & Communication Technology” and am still in the process of figuring out how to fit everything together for the audience. wish me luck (:

140821-Sep 6 Cultural Forum

the power of introverts

Susan Cain’s TED talk in 2012 – The power of introverts

although we may argue that introvert-extrovert is a spectrum, many at times, introverts are expected to perform based on extroverts’ measures. it’s no surprise that fewer introverts are in leadership positions, cos a key mechanism for assessing someone’s suitability for a position is most often, interview. i’m not sure about other introverts, but i am definitely a fish who feels that it is a (monkey) climbing the tree test an interview is to me. Cain (2012) called it the Extrovert Ideal which all of us are expected to perform towards or under (:

2014-08-08-Susan Cain 2012 look inside
[acknowledgement: Amazon Look Inside of Susan Cain’s Quiet]

us prepaid sim card

if you are looking to buy a prepaid SIM card to be used in the us (united states, or usa), AT&T is one choice, and you can get it shipped to you in advance and activate it according to this guide by datago.co.

you can buy it from datago.co, or do a search on ebay if you like to compare prices from other vendor. good to do buy it at least 3-4 weeks in advance to allow time for (slow) shipping (:

PSX_20140526_230158