I have no idea that Tuck and Patti's last visit here was 12 years ago, time flies, no wonder during the performance, I turn on my PDA and write down " Youth, get off now ", this is a romantic concert, national concert hall is a great theater, hosting artist like Tuck and Patti is unique; as I attended the showcase 12 years ago, so, it trigger me to buy tickets for the show, the empty seat occupied by " Prada suitcase ", what a lucky bag sit next to me and enjoy the sound from Heavy, it's nice to bring Prada with me, as he will not complain, talk even eat, I am easy with him for the entire performance.
I love 3 numbers from the show " My romance " " take my breath away ". " time after time " and the guitar solo by Tuck, the 3 songs are all slow ballad, it's light and pure, it talked about love , the power of love, one man one woman, one guitar one vocal make the room so rich, this is one of the rare experience to most of the audience in Taiwan -- include me.
Time after time is a cover version , originally from Cindy Lauper, the song remind me of 8 years ago, when Cindy held concert in Taiwan, we had a party after the concert, I booked the Tahiti restaurant " Trader Vic ", and we share time together, she is glorious, a woman with brain, totally understand what she's doing, throw out opinion about social event, racial problems and sex discrimination, the untold part of Cindy's knowledge impressed me, talking to her is like exchange idea about the world and problem we are facing, she will tell you how she see the problem and what's the counter-action we shall take. the song time after time have been covered a lot, Tuck and Patti's version is the choir version, Patti asked audience to sing with her, with open heart and will blessing, the song carried the message of love traveling around the world, I think all the audience had a good time there.
Train magazine interview went quite well, as the reporter study me before interviewing, she raised a lot of good question, this cause me to produce energy and attention, the interaction is so good that I did some of the great expression , the 60 minutes runs so fast, to quote What I said and will be the ending of the interview " the whole life of human is making decision, everyone shall learn how to make good and proper decision " I am really expect to see the article come out in next 2 month.
junior high school classmate Mr. Lin Tung Chai called this morning, it's a bit far away, he don't have a email address, but eager to know the whereabouts of classmate, we haven’t seeing each other for 30 years, nostalgia , curiosity, hoping, I think I am doing the right thing to organize this reunion, the date is Sep. 27.
lunch with roger is fun, I didn't know that the appointment is arranged by Vincent, the professional consultant who we met 10 years ago, he got to know roger couple of weeks before and by checking the English name - the found the mutual friend -- me, another roger in town. this is like another casual gathering, Vincent is a funny guy, he show us the life goal via his power point presentation and expressed how he see life and how to develop his career according to his dashboard.
the benefit from lunch is obtaining Drew's contact and get to know his coming wedding, those Wharton guys are really something unique, they bound to each other so tight and supporting one another in both personal and professional life, I do envy how they build the strong relationship. I met they through M. who was my superior back to 10 years ago, the first time I met roger was on the after concert party with Cindy Lauper. M brought him to the party, and we met a few times afterward, most of the time at concert scenes. Drew is the buddy to M who speaks Mandarin as fluent as a native Chinese, he is married to a Shanghai girl, whenever he is in town, we chat and talk sometimes even longer then M. his father is a famous Doctor in Harvard Medicine School, I red one of his book " how we die " and bought the second one " the wisdom of body " recently, a nice and smart guy.
The winds record speech keeps me busy for the afternoon, Henry comes and we did a conference call to Shanghai, the preparation for my trip is required, I am thinking how to position myself in the role and fit the conversation with China Mobile, young and promising future for smart kid in China, the boy scout Henry recruited is qualified to lead the trend and build the empire. I am looking forwards to seeing them.
Tomorrow, Tack and Patti in town, a night to relax -- double.
today is a busy day, arrived at the office, my morning itinerary is vacant -- it suppose to be a free morning for me, when editing my speech outline for next week, H knock on my door and said she would like to report one thing, I send her in and she burst out crying, said she will resign from current job and returning to HK by end of Dec. I am not shocked or surprised, as the over-qualified project leader and system designer, coordination and communicate are her major task to perform, she feel frustrated , tired and upset; I listened carefully and try to balance her emotions at the right moment; company issues for me is not a hardship job to handle, when it come to a mix issue such as getting marries and return to hometown with family, I can really exercise; I emphasis on how important she is in the organization and tell her the improvement she make lays significant remarks for entire operation, since there's no records and measurement for this function, so , her contribution wasn't easy to identify, I also tell her to raise the overall company quality will neither be a one man show, nor a over night magic, it takes time, and collective effort to drive the company, to give up now is half way down, for me, this is not the issue of retain her or not, but to let her know people like us should not surrender at the challenge moment; the support was not granted by us, or we overlooked trivial but important thing around us, then, we will deploy our resource and well craft the company.
I favor her point and to show my empathy when conduct the conversation, but I worried about her leaving will cause the " who should be blamed " question and raise unnecessary change of organization behaviors.
after the conversation with her, COO come to my office and mentions to me instead of H, her direct supervisor and the other manager will resign to support her ( this is my interpretation ), so, we had a crisis, me and COO sit down and talk how to minimize this risk, what we can't agree with is her supervisor's resign and demonstrate the unbalance power again us, this is a wrong message to us, executive shall be 2 layer above his or her position and balance the company best interest, not to support in a corner and put the top management in difficulty, I urged COO to talk with other manager and retain H , then figure out how to handle the director, but before action on the risk management, we shall deliver a strong message of how we value the quality control process and serious about the wrongfully dispute company resource ( time, man power ), the instruction must conduct in a arranged time for serious announcing. COO will do it follow my idea.
Lunch time is good time, old old friend Hustler Wu come to see me, we haven’t met for 10 more years, we were best buddy in the institution days. that's the break between high school and university, when you fail in the entry examination, you get the second chance to attend the test follow year, the window is where the institution business grows, almost all the high school graduate who fail in the university exam will enroll in this one year transaction study, for boy, this is the last chance before calling for military services, Wu and I met there and became the best friend. his career follows a marketing trace, launch a few successful campaign but retire from the job market 5 years ago and running his own ideal kindergarten, now he is back to the job market and re-entry the marketing field, he is helping one of the oldest ice-cream producer re-shape it's business, the interested idea from him is to move the current manufacture / factory and remodel / renovate to a " ICE City ", I told him this is pretty much like the Hershey Chocolate town's story, we exchange some marketing idea such as the street of local favor special and the street of nostalgia product, and the idea of how to build a clean / decent recreation spot in southern Taiwan.
Henry called to arrange conference call to Shanghai, schedule in today, but postpone to tomorrow. he tried to borrow some money from me, this is something unusual, even for pocket money, I can smell that he is in financial crisis, I will lent him 10,000 from my own saving , but carefully observe his business operation, no matter how genius a person is, short of capital, all the great idea will in vain. Tomorrow, I will like to check it out.
Cheer magazine did a follow up photo shooting for " elite of tomorrow ", I thought this is a joke, but it carry out this assignment, at lease common wealth is rated " Good " in the periodicals, I dress up for my virgin show as the product endorsement person - for Monk Blanc , I am curious about how it looks when it turn to a printing ad. Just wait and see.
Call up Fang on my way home, she was surprise about I am not calling for help, Oh, my impression to her is someone always calling for assistant, not calling for greeting, I shall refresh on this miss-led impression.
I send one article for Sonetter -- our internal publication , an online magazine to communicate internally, the editor in chief is our PR Head, who asked me to contribute " Word from CEO " each time, since last version, a new chapter was launched, we welcome free contribution for any article , as head of PR asked if I am interested to write one, it trigger my blood for casual writing. the short story I wrote is about an legendary Jazz virtuoso who lead the Taiwan Jazz scene for decades, via one of an senior drummer, we met in crossroad where I become the witness to the dying of an Super artist, this is a true story, but I re-write it to a novel like story. I spend a couple of hours reshape and polish this work, it's been a long time since I write something in literary.
I had an idea to publish a book in conjunction with my personal history and to link it with music as background, I even give the book a title, called " 100 songs ", this is an ambitious goal for me, to write 100 story about me and to decorate it with music, the story must be touching and the history should not boring. due to the sonneter contribution, I may speed up the writing and hopefully to publish the book by end of this year.
Lunch with Itoh provide me a guidance to better monitor our IT / Engineering development, I rather write it down before forget it all :
1. new tech doesn't equal to good tech; if stupid tech win the heart of user, don't change it.
2. always check and balance , make it a routine .
3. cross -dept. idea solicitation for IT investment , don't count on IT team only.
4. when it comes for new equipment purchasing, ask : do you try all the alternative and show you the record ? do they optimize the system before call it a capacity problem.
I shall keep it in mind to perform a good judgment and act as non-tech executive in technology company.
a new typhoon is hitting Taiwan now, according to Central Weather Bureau, this is a speed-up one which shall arrive by Sat. but all of a sudden, something drive the speed, well, this is kind of lucky for me, as I plan to bring my wife to Taitung on Sat. and bought the traveling package already.
Finally, the subject for my MBA essay comes out, jointly pick up by me and Professor, " Network Externality Valuation Machinism of Business Models in Internet " is the one, I will try to finish it by Dec.
October seems like a busy music month for me, 3 difference performances coming to town, Oda's J-pop concert on the 18th, Buna Visto Social Club -- the Cuban Jazz legend arrived on the 23rd and Yoyo Ma's cross-over Bosa Nova concert scheduled on the 28th, we sponsor 2 events- Oda and Yoyo , so the distribution for ticket will take effort again, I am planning to have the next Board Meeting around end of Oct. we may then invited all the directors to the Yoyo concert.
Today, I need to present the outline for my essay, I am planning to complete in by next Jan, so, I need to finalized the topic in next few week, I am now rather take a easy attitude to this task since pursuing PH.D will not be a short goal for me, Music and Internet is something I would like to emphasis upon, how the technology and listing behavior change an industry and how the old school facing the enormous challenge never happen before, hopefully , this outline can be accepted by Professor Chuang, My instructor and essay faculty.
I went south to Tainai in the early morning of Sat. I brought wife there to see Welly's musical " Wedding Banquet " the second time, I bought 4 tickets and invite my best friend Dr. Wei and his wife to the musical on Sat. night.
Me and my wife book our trip via the on-line agency, arrived and check in the hotel at around 12 noon, since we have more than 5 hours before the meeting, we decided go to the movie " Tomb Raider 2 ", most of the time, sequel won't surpass the pilot ( James Bond movie is an exception ) , but we found TR2 is better than the first one, the production, CG and story were great, we do enjoy the movie.
5:30 pm, Dr. Wei's wife come to pick us up to his house and pay visit to Madman Wei -- Dr. Wei's mother see me grow since I was a primary school boy, Dr. Wei and I are best friend among all our mutual friend, with proven academic background, Dr. Wei operate his own clinic for several years already, we had a quick dinner and head for the venue -- Art Center of Tainai, it's a walking distance from Dr. Wei's house to the venue.
To my surprise, the box office in Tainai is great, and the reaction to the musical is even more direct comparing with audience in Taipei; second time seeing the musical, I had more time to digest the lines, the actor / actress and the music portion. the venue in Taiana is big then in Taipei, so the microphone shall adjusted, Simon , Wei Wei together with Wen-tong win most of the applause during the show, the after show autograph session was quite successfully; Mrs. Yang told me Welly wish to see me after the show, I had a plan to bring Dr. Wei's couple as well, this is the first time, I am showing they the life of an artist and something behind the scene.
We went to a hot pot restaurant, Dr. Wei kindly enough to bring 2 red wine there, we sit next to Welly and Tina ( the Wei, Wei ), Dr. Wei speaks very good English and commend a lot of the conversation, he was so curious about the life of an Broadway actor and want to know how their career begin with -- singing before dancing or dancing before singing. We hang out there until 1 am in the morning, I think this leave Dr. Wei's couple an unforgettable memory.
it's a pity that my wife didn't interactive with them a lot, for her, it's sharing time with me and to wait until everyone want to go or continue to next activity, this is not fair for her as she hardly can conduct conversation in English, this social event made her feel uncomfortable, I thought language barrier contribute part of it.
The following morning we had a big fight, well, this is the uncomfortable feeling carry over to the next morning, we fix the problem for about 3 hours. Thanks god, it's happy ending again, at noon, we stroll on the department store food court and took some local flavors.
This sum up my weekend; in Aug. I am busy scheduling family actives, next Sunday, we will fly to Taitaung for hot spring trip, me and my wife along, neither bring any one nor visit anybody, a totally relax vacation, I hope to finish 2 books by then, the busy week will arrive in a few hours.
