What’s the point of killing innocent people that came from influential countries? Don’t those terrorists know the provoked retaliation might lead to their own demise? This is the country of Gandhi! Why this insanity?

Think as if you are them.

You are the leader of an absolute minority, you believe in an extreme cause with your whole life, and you are willing to do whatever-it-takes to advance that cause. What’s the most efficent way of achieving your goal?

Your problem is not the other side, but those in the middle, who do not have strong opinion on your cause and are willing to accept a reasonable compromise. When reached, your cause is defeated.

To prevent that, it is logical to generate spetacular events and force the other side to respond to your agenda. The responses first legitimizes the cause. The usual intensivity of the counter-attack will then polarize the population, drain the resources of the other side, and help you with new recruits. In a strange way, the counter-attack galvanizes the morale, legitimize the cause, and weaken the other side at the same time.

Now switch to the other side.

They (the terrorists) are forcing the agenda. Their size is puny and resources extremely limited. They got way too much attention than they deserve. They are annoying. We cannot ignore them. The public demand responses and swift actions. What to do?

The existence of annoyance is actually sometime good. The extreme terrorists justify extreme means that are convenient for stamping out oppositions or cultivating power-base. When dispensing massive amount of resources to fight against those terrorists, many friends can benefit from the process. Weak governments, strangely, need extremists to help them gain strength.

Strong governments simply destroy them in a fast stealth strike. When that is done, they tell the world that you have dealt with the problem and that’s how the next incident will be handled.

Switch side again.

Which government would you choose to provoke?

I have always been blessed. I have good enough genes for a normal life. I grew up without any hardship or struggle. I have rich life experiences and good friends throughout my adulthood. I have a great family: a wife who indulges me just enough and daughters who tolerate their dorky dad. Oh yes, a dog who competes for the most spoiled status in his weight class.

I have always been quite fortunate career-wise. When I got out of school, the job market was so bad that I escaped into a graduate school in the US. It did not get better when I got my master’s degree, but I found a job as a software engineer. Who knew that not only began a career, but also a hobby and passion? Many terms later, I ended up in China as a VEEPEE! Never in my widest dream. Had I made the wrong term, I will be submerged in anxiety like many of my ex-colleagues. Yet I landed on this youthful and energetic company that reinvigorated my spirit.

We bought a recliner the other day (indulgence). As I fell asleep in a lazy weekend afternoon, I thought, “That’s a lot to be thankful here.”

Zzzzz.

Tokyo is probably among the most covered area in term of cell coverage. And it is just wasted among the commuters. No one talk on the subway. They text like mad or just stare at the screen. (Later, I found their cell phones actually play TV programs.) Tokyo’s public transportation is quiet, a stark contrast to Beijing.

In this capital, and other large cities, of China, everyone talks all the time: on the street, in the restaurants, on bus, on subwy, in meetings, and even in the theaters. I was very annoyed in the beginning. After a while, I got used to it. Then I came back to the US.

Social protocol here demands respect to privacy. People step out of the room or find a quiet corner to talk. On bus, the rule seems to be keeping the conversations short, “I am on a bus. I will call you back later.”

That why I was surprised the other night when a fellow rider practically yakked all the way during my 40-minute bus ride home. Not only he talked non-stop, he was loud too. This Caucasian suit talked about he being on the bus, about his day at work, about his daughters, about politics. The whole bus listened and threw him an occasional disapproving glance. He was in his zone. It was annoying.

That’s worse than Beijing.

Human societies are obsessed with membership. In a way of looking, that’s all we do: going to the church, climbing the corporate ladder, moving into the right neighborhood, buying the season tickets, joining the gym, etc. We work hard to hang out with the right people. This behavior started at kindergarten and continued until the day we die.

Almost all those memberships have clear self-centered reasons: economic power, social status, information access, business opportunities, etc. Some memberships exist, however, for only prejudicial reasons: Jews pollute human race, color-people are dirty, women have smaller brains, etc.
Of those, the most ridiculous one is the ban on gay marriages.
What is the harm for them to be married? Who get hurt?

I have several gay/lesbian/bi/trans friends. They are nice, smart, sensitive, and over-all good people. Their “divorce” rate is generally low. Some adopted kids who all grow up perfectly heterosexual. They managed to have legal rights akin to marriage through a myriad of legal transactions. The only thing they do not have is a piece of paper certifying them as such.

The membership of “marriage” is completely symbolic. It has social-economical purposes only to those who married to each other, and no one else. Whoever believes marriage should be defined only as a man and a woman please explain why this membership should be so strict. By the way, human beings did not practice such for thousands of years and God did not say so in the Bible.

Sun’s massive layoff plan hit the news and my phone started ringing, “Have you heard? Rich Green left Sun.” I couldn’t wait to talk to my wife on those juicy conversations. She, as usual, upstaged me, “There is a shooting in Santa Clara. A laid-off worker, Chinese, killed 3 people.” I was stunned. John Fowler’s strengthened position lost much of the conversational attraction.

Mr. WU JingHua (吳敬華) is a 47-year Chinese QA engineer working for SiPort. He was fired (not laid-off) early in the day. He came back to work in the afternoon and requested a meeting with the CEO, COO, and head of HR. He looked normal and showed no sigh of threat. Four of them entered a conference room. Mr. Wu shot them dead and left the building.

The 2nd day, Mr. Wu was arrested in South Bay. Clearly he did not even try to escape.

Sun said they will layoff 6,000 employees. That feels heavier than yesterday.

Quantum of Solace Daniel Craig 2008

What happened to, “Bond, James Bond” followed by the familiar music? What happened to “Q” and gadgets? Where are the dashy, sexy Bond girls? The only difference between the new series of 007 movies and the Die Hard series is the accent. Is that enough?

We have a complicated plot, a villain, lots of emotion but little class from James who runs, fights, and shoots. He also got lots of cuts, bruises, and blood on him. Old James Bond was charming, witty, dressy, smart, naughty, and not like John McCain (the police main character of Die Hard) at all.

Even with that, I will probably still go see the next Bond movie. It has become a tradition.

Saw 4 Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman 26 October 2007

The original Saw was so curiously terrifying. It reminded me the original Omen. Both haunted me for years.

Until I pumped up myself to see Omen sequels, and, I guess, Saw 4. Both effectively unhaunted me. Thanks. (I skipped Saw 2 and 3.)

Not that it is not a good movie. Serial killer movies are among my favorite genres. The perpetrator masterminded the crimes, the most hideous one of killing for no good reasons, and the good guys raced against time to rescue and catch the bad guy. Most of them come with a surprise at the end.

Among them, Saw 4 is pretty good. I was not disappointed. Just that it did not live up to the horror of the original.

They seldom do.

News of RIF and re-orgs trickled in: they were let go, they got a new boss, cut, cut, cut, things look bleak. Sun Microsystems, that is.

It is sometime hard to stay in the group when people talk about Sun, a company that I was associated with, and proud of, for many years. A place many of my personal friends work. The source of my many Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections. My memory for Sun will stay for the rest of my life. The years I worked for Sun were also those I grew and learned the most in my career.

That’s why it is hard to hear what people say about Sun. They use the same words I use against companies I would never want to be associated with. It hurts.

What’s going to happen to Sun? I don’t really know. The company experienced the lost 80% of its value in a year. Its stock price is less than the book value. Annually, it has a healthy 6.4 billions of gross margin, yet it lost 1.7 billions in the previous quarter. History provides very few options for Jonathan Schwartz, the pony-tailed CEO blogger. As it did for Scott McNealy in 2006.

Jonathan can convince the board to let him plow on. His strategy (best system level TCO) is still sound, the product portfolio is strong, and the economy may recover. He could tidy up the house, improve efficiency, and prepare for the arrival of the good time.

With KKR on the board, LBO must be on people’s minds. Can the management raise enough money to take the company private? If this is the plan, mind you, it works better for the management if they preserve cash, reduce debts, and keep the stock price low.

Merger has been in the rumor mill for many years. Pundits examined all possible suiters: HP, IBM, Dell, Fujitsu, even Lenovo and Acer. I remembered when Compaq acquired DEC as a trophy. That was in 1998, merely 10 years ago.

Every several days, I would log into Facebook. Frequently, my friends from Sun have some feeds into my wall. I will read them, feel for them, and sometime leave a comment. I will also get invitations from LinkedIn. I read Sun blogs, but have culled those who use it only for marketing.

This has become a complicated world, hasn’t it?

There is the traditional corporate-style change management: get senior executive endorsement, socialize with stakeholders, build early successes, prepare for communication, etc. We are in the era of blurred line between employees and community. New change management must embrace both approaches: the tipping point style and the corporate style.
Read more…

Management is about delivery. There are many, many ways to achieve the same objectives, some more effective than others. At the end of the days, managers need to deliver, or else. In today’s Internet world, pace, not size, wins.

Above the basic level, organization design is almost all about communication: striving for the shortest latency, highest fidelity, and lowest overhead. Since human brains (at least mine) can only attend to a small set of things, a manager must design this carefully — too deep the organization, the messages don’t come through; too flat, the brain overloads.

To make matter more complicated, the senior manager also need to design for those managers who work for him. What’s their capacities? How do they communicate? What’s their latencies? The entire organization must be optimally balanced.

Then there is the human factors. Some consider the distance to the boss a status symbol. Others crave for the power associated with a large staff. The fact is: rapport is a precursor for promotion, not reporting structure. To establish rapport, deliver first.

It is important not to over-engineer the problem. Focus on the impact of delivery. Deal with human factors as secondary consideration. Optimize for 12 months (adjust for the pace of the organization). Each re-organization disrupts the productivity temporarily. Allow time to make up the lost with the extra efficiency with of the new structure. Don’t do this lightly.