New Theme

Posted on May 16, 2009 by sinyaw

Like it? Thanks to Karen for her critique and suggestions.

Posted in Witness to my life | 3 Comments

EQ for Companies

Posted on May 14, 2009 by sinyaw

Bob Sadler introduced Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI) to a group of managers at Juniper. As he explained the concept, it dawned on me. This is the EQ for a team, or a company.

There are many ways to measure a company’s IQ, or its operational effectiveness. Most typically we have financial performance numbers, usually expressed as acronyms: ROE, EPS, CCC, DSO, EBIT, etc. Then we have measurements such as employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, new product successes, talent metrics, diversification in various ways, leadership quality, etc. Executives in modern corporation are obsessed with those metrics. In fact, some argued that senior management’s main job is to select the metrics and design the corresponding rewards. The cadre of managers will automatically deliver the rest.

Except when the company tries to change — a must-do every decade or so until it dominates an industry. Even then, companies perished when resting on their laurels too long. This is when EQ, defined as the ability to change, matters more.

OCI surveys a company and measures if the company is constructive or defensive. It further measure if the company is aggressively or passively defensive. A constructive company is humanistic, affiliative, achievement-oriented, and self-actualizing. An aggressively defensive company opposes changes; is competitive internally; over uses power; and is made of perfectionists that are overly concerned with deadlines and details. A passively defensive company hides behind approval processes, sticks to conventions, creates complicated dependencies, and in general avoids changes.

Bob said that he can pretty much predict if the change process will be successful or not by their OCI. He, over the 35-year consulting career, has collected tools for different kinds of companies.

Unlike IQ, people can change their EQ, so can a company if its employees choose to. There are books teaching people to get better at EQ. I wonder how would a company changes its OCI.

Would changing an OCI require a high OCI to begin with? Hmm…

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Kirk v. Wolverine

Posted on May 10, 2009 by sinyaw
Star Trek

Movie, 2009

Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Hugh Jackman

Don’t choose. Watch both, if you still have any doubt.

Star Trek is nostalgic as well as formulaic. It rekindled my passion for this old TV series that became a franchise.

Honestly, I stopped watching after the Next Generation. I never got into Deep Space Nine or Voyager. I watched Enterprise for a while. It did not stick. Not for the lack of effort, I wanted to become a modern trekkie. But none of them hooked me like the original series or Next Generation did.

Most Star Trek movies are second rated. The Wrath of Khan was the best. The Search for Spock was great. Nemesis was disastrous. First Contact was OK. Yes, I watched them all. This one is worth going.

Non-trekkies need not worry. You don’t need to know anything about Star Trek to enjoy it. It is simply a well made, action packed, sci-fi flick.

Wolverine touched me deeper. It is a poignant story of one fighting to hold onto self amid betrayal, exploitation, massive manipulation, and deep-rooted discrimination. We would watch Wolverine losing everything that was loving, kind, or descent. And we watched him trying so, so hard to stay true.

As a movie, however, Wolverine is not for someone who did not know X-Man. In a way, this movie targets the cult more than Star Trek.

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The Art of Persuasion

Posted on May 4, 2009 by sinyaw

The art of persuasion (rhetoric) has three elements: emotion (pathos), deference (ethos), and logic (logos). Imagine this attempt to persuade you to get a dog:

President Obama conducted extensive research and concluded that Portuguese Water Dog is the best choice for families of young children. When Sasha and Malia play with the puppy, no one can stop smiling.

Here we enlisted a respectful figure, presented data, and painted you a heart-warming picture. Studies showed that people are persuaded by emotions, deference, and data — all three, in that sequence. Over-using logos: data, statistics, facts, or logic, sometime to the point of ignoring the other two elements is a common mistake.

Modern knowledge workers, you engineers, designers, architects, and, yes, managers are frequently in the business of persuasion. You need to motivate your staff, make alliance with peers, and align your boss (it works both ways). Your career does not move without persuasive skill in your toolbox.

I interpreted ethos as deference, not authority. Deference comes from respect or trust. It is a powerful persuastive tool, sometime enough by itself. It, however, is completely associated with the individual and takes long time to cumulate.

It is dangerous to persuade by authority. Positional power is addictive, since it is effective, fast, and easy. But many argued it is not really persuation if commanded. Modern knolwedge workers must understand, agree, and communicate with others for the organization to succeed. Authority, best displayed but not used, usually does not work. It is also one tool easiest to lose.

Pathos need not be Hallmark-style dramas. Just stay connected to your audience. Find points that they care. Have eye contact when you deliver the message. Smile and show that you are a human being, not a voicebox that happens to be carbon-based.

This is persuation 101, the basics. Those who have finished this class may proceed to Robert Cialdini.

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Sick!

Posted on April 28, 2009 by sinyaw

I paid good $10 for a flu shot this year.

Saturday morning, I woke up to the routine: fed dog, brew coffee, walked dog, came back, and turned on the computer. Hmm, was that a cold sneaking up on me? I decided to take it easy and not run my usual Saturday 5 miles.

Sunday, I woke up, thinking of the routine, then went to bed, thank you very much. Sunday night, I sent this message to work:

The throat was shearing hurt. I couldn’t talk or swallow. I did 5 to 6 times of salt water garglings Monday and drank lot of medicinal teas. Monday Night, another message went out.

Tuesday was an in-and-out day. I dozed off at the recliner 3 times and went to bed early. I bravely gave my status at FaceBook: “Sin-Yaw Wang is crawling back from a 4-day sore-throat and fever episode.”

Wednesday morning, I assessed, “Hmm, may be I am OK now.” I went to work.

Wednesday night.

Thursday afternoon, after post-lunch nap, I replied to Steven:

Then I dozed off around 4:30pm. Woke up hungry! It is so great to feel hungry. Wife made me congee, traditional Chinese comfort food. I had 3 bowls!

Thursday night’s me was a sedentary couch potato. After CSI, I went straight to bed.

Woke up Wife in the middle of the night, coughing myself to the point of choking. Felt my way to the kitchen for the cough syrup. Contemplated its taste while realizing the time was 2:30am. Waited for the cough to subside in the darkness. Felt my way back to the bed. Unconscious after.

Ran, Monday evening, 2.5 miles, slowly.

Ran again, Tuesday afternoon, 2 miles. Weighed myself in the gym. I lost 2 pounds. It was a nice, warm, bright and blue day. Wonderful.

Posted in Witness to my life | 3 Comments

What Happens to Japan?

Posted on April 25, 2009 by sinyaw

Jared Diamond pondered on why society chose the path to demise. Biologically, all life forms exist to propagate their genes. If a society, without external interferences, enacted a deed that lead to its extinction, such decision would be highly unnatural. Sociologically, a community will be strange to choose a path that lead to poverty, slavery, irrelevancy, or other suffering for its offsprings.

Why would Japan, currently the 2nd biggest economic entity in the world, chose to do such thing?

New York Times reported that Japan is essentially evicting foreign workers. It is one of the countries least friendly to foreigner (GaiJin). You can live in Japan for decades, raising a family, speaking fluently, making good money, paying taxes, but not allowed a citizenship.

Not that this small country is teeming with youngsters. Japan suffers an aging population for years. It has an almost upside-down population pyramid: the result of having the lowest birth rate in the world, and living for a long, long time. Japanese live to the average 81.6 years, 4.5 years longer than Americans.

Let’s see. An island country that is aging, without much natural resources, used to rich life styles, and expeling immigrants. Wouldn’t this lead to the eventual collapse?

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Catz on Sun

Posted on April 21, 2009 by sinyaw

Safra Catz, Oracle’s President and right-hand person for Larry Ellison, commented on the Sun acquisition, with a slight on Sun’s current management. From New York Times.

Sun is a modern technology company that outsources nearly all the manufacturing, assembly and servicing of its hardware.

We will be able to run Sun at substantially higher margins. first year.

Under Oracle the Sun businesses would be able to achieve operating efficiencies far in excess of what Sun has done to date.

Ms. Catz estimated that Sun’s operations would generate an additional $1.5 billion a year in operating profit, and add 15 cents a share to Oracles profit.

Sun, for the latest quarter (ending December, 2008), had 1.8 billions in gross margin and 21 millions in operating profit (if we exclude “non-recurring expenses”). What Ms. Catz said translated to 375 millions a quarter in operating profit. That’s 354 more than Sun’s current performance. What could she do?

Oracle is not experienced in selling servers and that industry is fiercely competitive. I do not believe Sun’s server sales will increase drastically. Sun probably can contribute to Oracle’s software and service sales, but I would be conservative and keep the revenue part of the equation flat. Ms. Catz will, then, basically cut 354 millions, per quarter, from Sun’s operating expenses: part from its 411 millions R&D and other part from its 916 millions SG&A (selling, general, and administration). Note that Sun’s R&D spend (13%), although high for server companies, is quite similar to Oracle’s (12%) and Microsoft’s (13%).

If you were Ms. Catz, where would you find that $354 millions?

Posted in Peek into my mind | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Goddesses

Posted on April 19, 2009 by sinyaw
Goddesses

Linda Nagata

SciFi.com

“As of Friday, June 15, 2007, SCI FICTION will no longer be availabe on SCIFI.COM.
SCIFI.COM would like to thank all those who contributed
and those who read the short stories over the past few years.”

The entire novella, a winner of 2002 Nebula Award, can be read on http://www.mythicisland.com/e-book/goddesses/, or wherever you can google. I read it on traditional book format. It is kind of sad that paper-based publishing is fading away in front of our eyes. Guess a few years from now, I will be crouched in the sofa holding a Kindle5 or flipping pages on my iPod.

This is a powerful and unusual sci-fi. The setting is pretty much today, or just a decade or so in the future. The poverty, pollution, old cultures, etc. are omnipresent and accellerating. A group of people, each scarred in the past, backed by corporations that strive to “do good while do well” are talented, skilled, and enthused to save the world.

It is not feminism, but gently and unapologetically convincing.

Linda Nagata’s use of technologies are so cool. She imagined Internet, drone airplanes, virtual reality, etc. just a bit out of reach for the currrent state of the arts. Alright, maybe a decade or two ahead. Technology geeks will be so jealous of the tools available to the heroes in her story.

Her depiction of India is horribly similar to Slumdog Millionaire and White Tiger. I reflect on the recent news on Iran’s new law on women’s rights. Maybe Linda Nagata was a bit loud, but women, particularly in India, Iran, and maybe other places, do need a voice for them.

Posted in Books & Reviews | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

How Big is 1.5TB?

Posted on April 16, 2009 by sinyaw

My laptop has a 100GB disk and it is almost full.

My own data take about 45GB and Microsoft uses the rest. All my email and their attachment use about 1GB. I am very diligent in pruning email messages. In fact, I systematically delete old messages once in a while.

According to iTunes, my entire music collection takes up 17GB. That will be 3,610 songs (roughly 4MB each) playable in 10.9 days straight. Honestly, I have not heard all my music yet. I am listening to an epic audio book. There are 328 episodes, each one roughly 30 minutes, or 25MB each. This means the entire book, listenable in 164 hours, takes up 8GB of storage.

I keep all my pictures too. There are roughly 11,000 pictures of my recent life. They consume less than 9GB. I shoot pictures mostly in 2048×1536 resolution, or 700KB each. I found this resolution good enough for practically all my purposes. I print out roughly 30 of them every year to put in a traditional photo album.

Once in a while, I would download a TV episode or two. An hour of HDTV program takes about 350MB, very viewable and enjoyable on my computer or iPod Touch.

I use an ISP for my web presence, this blog part of it. They charge me $5 each month for 120GB of storage. I now have used 12GB, hosting 4 blogs, two web sites, and photo sharings. My largest blogs, this one, has 250 posts since 2005. Its entire database takes up 40MB of space.

When Wife came back home from Costco and told me the Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB home storage unit. I was flabbergasted.

1.5 Tera Bytes! That’s 32 months’ of continuously playing music, 225 thousands full-length movies, or 768 years of photos. It takes months for a decent broadband connection to download that much data. For all practical purposes, that’s infinite amount of storage for me.

Yet, I said the same thing when 640MB hard disk came to existence.

Posted in Peek into my mind | Tagged | 2 Comments

LISA: Where Does Taiwan Go From Here as a Global Outsourcer?

Posted on April 11, 2009 by sinyaw

Rebecca sent me this message:

In this issue of the Globalization Insider, we delve into the challenges now confronting Greater China and the rest of Asia that are being discussed this week during the LISA Forum Asia in Taipei. There are wonderfully candid interviews with the high-level business and government leaders who attended the LISA Executive Roundtable on April 6, along with specific advice for Taiwan (‘bite the bullet’ and ‘it’s time to wake up’) and insights from Cisco, Silicon Valley veterans, iSoftStone, hiSoft, Symbio, Welocalize and Taiwan’s Institute for Information Industry. I suggest that you start with Where Does Taiwan Go From Here as a Global Outsourcer?

Enjoy!

Rebecca Ray
Managing Editor, LISA Business Data

I was not on the round-table, but she was kind to publish my thoughts on this subject. If you wondered, the picture was me in Beijing imitating the posture of a lion statue (not shown).

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