Sad, Borders is closing doors. This is inevitable as brick-and-mortar bookstores, as well as all traditional media distributors, are giving ways to Internet. Although I have largely converted to Kindle, I assumed that close-out sales will be great bargains. On this beautiful Saturday morning, Kid and I went for a bookstore adventure.

I have forgotten the joy of book exploration. When I was much younger, I used to spent many weekend afternoons in the bookstore district, where dozens of bookstores concentrated within a couple of blocks. I would browse, flip, and read until my legs are sore. I would make mental notes and came back whenever I have saved up enough. Delight was the surprise discovery of a good book or author.

There was also this used-book district that I practically visit everyday. I collected Charles Schultz, Reader’s Digests, classic comic books, and photographic magazines. I bought my first I-Ching from the used-book district and treasured that particularly one still.

And that was oh so many years ago. After I have “grown up,” I would enter a bookstore, went directly to the staff, asked for the specific title, and walked away with it in less than few minutes. Later, I became more efficient; I would have called ahead and pick them up at the counter. Recently, I bought books almost exclusively online. There is little browsing, or even looking at the “recommendation” by whatever artificial intelligence those sites put on my account.

The price of the book is the least of my consideration. Every books trades away part of my life, I cannot afford bad books. All my books are referred, reviewed, recommended, or at least written by an author that I had good experience with. But, I know value when I see one. Books are the definition of commodity, each copy is perfectly interchangeable with the other. There is no point paying more on the same book. Bargain hunting is fun.

That’s why this Border trip is a nice nostalgia. I found myself wandering among the aisles with a mild glee. Sci-Fi, graphic novels, history, travel, pets, even autobiographies. I have really forgotten this leisure mood.

Finally, partially based on “staff recommendation,” I picked up Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate. I was surprised to learn the close-out sales is only 10% off. Borders would sell me the book for $24, including taxes. Seriously!? A quick check found the Kindle version at $12. What would you do?

“No wonder Border is closing doors,” I left the store empty-handed. “Can’t even sell me at the close-out.”

I have been a loyal fan for Grey’s Anatomy since they aired 8 (?) years ago. This medical drama is set in Seattle. Like the boat house in Sleepless in Seattle, I wondered if the famed Seattle Grace Hospital, where the doctors and interns practiced, really exist. It turns out the boat house exists on the shore of Lake Union. I never found it and really wasn’t that interested.

Seattle Grace Hospital is really the Fisher Plaza, so I heard. Since this office building is within walking distance, I decided to find the famed entrance where actors making their dramatic exits at the end of many episodes.

I stood there, supposed to be THE place. Squint my eyes, tilted my head, tried very hard to imagine the modern cinematic technologies.

Nope. Meredith or Christina did not come out.

This really make me wonder about TV and movie technologies. How much do we see is computer graphics? Would Roman Holiday be filmed in, gosh, New York City, if done today?

Oh well, found it, picture taken, check.

This is a managerial topic, as in how to get your team to work more effectively.

Early in the managerial career, the training is about securing resources, practicing planning skills, and keeping things organized. On any day, I would be happy to take a solid manager who knew how to do these. In fact, many spent their entire managerial career honing their skills on them. These are the people who knew exactly how to do thing right:

Let’s have a through requirements written down, design it properly, think through all ramifications, reviewed it with domain experts, implement it with high disciplines, QA the hell out of it, and not ship it until we are absolutely certain that all requirements are met.

Sadly, they also spent years hoping that one day he or she get to do a project with all of the above. He or she will die a happy person knowing The Perfect Project really exists. Most of them retired sad, defeated, and sour. There is always something wrong the prevented them to do the project right. Someone would screw up the whole thing. “Had that guy give me one extra month, I would have… could have… should have…” Regret. It bites.

Face it. Everyone has learned the lessons from IBM on how to do System/360. You compete with hundreds who have also read the Mythical Man-Month. They knew how to do things that was taught. If you are merely doing the same, you stand no chance winning. You might as well just pack your bags and go home. Today, to win, you must be faster, cheaper, and better. In fact, you need to do that just to survive.

It is about taking the right risks and synchronize the whole team behind the choice. Once you have done that, you created an unique, and hopefully effective, competitive edge against others (since they chose other risks).

So what are the risks?

• Commercial failure: lost sales, missed IPO window, reduced income.
• Regrets: that you made the wrong choice.
• Damaged personality credibility: you did not delivered as you promised.
• Damaged legacy (resume factors): that you wouldn’t have anything to show for and couldn’t land your next dream job.
• Lost of peer respect: that everyone would know that you skewed up.

And fear is the emotion reacting to these risks. It cannot be reasoned with. The only way we human being know about dealing with emotion is to talk about it. The reaction to fear drive people to make different choices. Each member of the team would optimize differently. Although the project will still get done, since you are a good managers, it will not win, since other teams would have done it the same.

The most effective way to combat fear is to gain control over risks. A slightly less effective way is to understanding it. So in the “talking sessions,” strategize and discuss each risk and find a way to accept them, mange them, and, at least, understanding them. It sounds like a regular planning session and should be organized as one. As the facilitator, you must pay attention to the fear part, not the risk management part and bring them out to the open.

Final note. This whole process begins with yourself and your boss. Are you aligned with your risk appetite?

I have not figured out how to write blogs in Chinese after I upgraded WordPress version. If you know, please teach me. I am running WP 3.1.2, PHP5, MySQL 5.

That’s why all my Chinese blogs are garbled.

Stay tuned.

Do you know where Bruce Lee was buried? What? You don’t care?!?! Man!

Volunteer park is tucked away in Capitol Hill and has a conservatory and a small Asian Arts Museum. There is an interesting sculpture that overlook the Space Needle.

There is a cemetery right next to this park. Find the entrance and look for the only plot, roughly directly facing the entrance, that has scrubs surrounding it.

Both Bruce Lee and his only son, Brandon Lee, also a KongFu movie star, were buried here. Those of us who grew up with Bruce Lee as our own super-hero would stand here, sigh, and give him our respect. Of course our female companions would not understand and would impatiently tolerate our sentiment.

“I don’t promote man to management,” my friend, a CEO of a 100-employee company that does trading and services in Asia, said to me. I was astonished. “What if one is very good at management?” “Their failure rate is too high for me to consider,” he said. “Besides, I would never know, since it takes years to become a good manager and I never gave them the chance to begin with.”

This CEO is a man himself. He later explained that men used to make great managers when business was more combative. The intensity and drive of the male gender won wars. As the society moved to require more coordination, communication, and collaboration, men began to fail. He also observed that boys were more babied and sheltered. (It is the corner of the world that favors boys.) Girls tend to be tougher, dealing with stress and criticism better, and have better work ethic. He adopted that “woman only manager” policy about 15 years ago. It was, of course, an unwritten one. His staff, except of the head of sales, are all female. For the entire employee base, it was about 50-50 in gender split.

Usually, managers that discriminate end up losing, since better employees won’t work for him and his competitors do not discriminate. But my CEO friend, who is clearly discriminating, may end up winning, since if he is right, he will be more efficient. He may also have better managers than those managers who are fair.

That is. If he is right.

If so, does it make it right?

The boats congregated into a roughly square formation in the middle of the lake. The gathering started very early in the morning and quickened after noon. At about 4pm, there are about 400 boats; I can imagine people hopping from one boat to another. Only smaller ones and water police could move around. From a distance, they behaved like an audience at an outdoor theater. The stage, probably several hundred feet in front of the square, is the barge that has waited for a couple of days by now. I can feel the excitement building in the air. Something spectacular is going on in this Lake Union.

Across the lake is the Gas Works Park. Everyday, it sits pretty displaying lush green grass. Today, around 10am, people started to blanket the grass. At about 2pm, with a powerful binocular, I saw a page from the Where is Waldo book, people everywhere. Scanning the shores of the lake found the same theme repeats. What’s with Seattle people willing to wait more than 12 hours for a firework show that starts at 10pm?

And I just perched at this high-rise balcony with a smirk. Man! I am going to sell tickets next year for this vantage point for July 4th fireworks at Lake Union.

My most unforgettable fireworks will have to be the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The opening of Giant’s foot steps redefined fireworks for the rest of the world. That show was meant to be watched on the TV screen through an air-borne camera. Beijing Olympic fireworks were also very directional: there are patterns that were not symmetrical, like simple pictures. Then again, I cannot really expect the City of Seattle to compete with the Country of China that intended to impress the world.

A couple of years early, I was in ShangHai during the Chinese New Year. At midnight, we stepped into the 10th-floor balcony and were assaulted by a city seemingly at war. Everywhere we looked, there were countless fireworks lighting up the sky. Conversations would be futile. I discovered that fireworks were generally designed to explode at about the height of 10th floor. Yes, they were literally in my face. The brightness was blinding and the sound was loud. We were mesmerized for a good half an hour and escaped back into the house to calm ourselves down.

Several minutes after 10pm, the sky above Lake Union lit up for about 20 minutes. First time, I watched fireworks over water and the play between reflection and sky was truly nice. Those on the boats would have a closer-up view. But I also cannot imagine the long wait even for this great show.

Jose Vargas proposed that if an illegal immigrant came into the country since young age and stayed long enough to earn a bachelor’s degree, he should be granted legal status. He did not do this out of altruism; he is one such person himself. This Pulitzer prize winning journalist came to the country at 12 and used fake documents to gain employments and other necessities of life, such as getting a driver’s license.

He clearly, and admittedly, broke laws. USCIS, formerly known as INS, has the right to deport him back to Philippine, where he came from. Americans are proud to be the land of the laws and usually righteous. Jose did wrong and it is as clear as black and white. On other criteria, though, he is clearly an asset that any country would love to have. His contributions to the US have exceeded many, many legal residents or citizens.

The US has this dichotomy on immigration. Every year, millions of Mexican cross the border and enter into the generally lower rung of the service labor segment. At the other end, at a much smaller number, wealthy, well-educated, or highly skilled people tried, legally, to enter the country and got rejected. The US has the general attitude of everyone is trying to take advantage of this country, exploiting its social welfare system, get free education or medical care, or to under-cut its orderly labor market with unfair competitive tactics. “Immigrants do not play fair,” many think. “Therefore we cannot compete with them.”

Jose Vargas epitomizes this contrardiction. A disadvantage young boy worked his butts off to stay in this country and ended up a top-notch journalist. Many of his fellow Americans were well shielded and needed not to work as hard. Statistics show that first generation immigrant disproportionally achieved higher in the US. It seems obvious that without immigrants, there won’t be those high achievers and the society will ended up lowering its average. Right?