yesterday, I tried the first time to buy cloth -- a long sleeve shirt from internet, and collect the good at convenience store -- 7/11, I found it quite interesting, the information contain in the website is rich, the educate you how to distinguish a good T-shire and a bad one and explain how they produce the best quality / middle price T-Shirt for you, the only thing you are not sure is the " Brand name " which normally come with the thought of quality, branding spending decent money and hard to maintain, no brand name product can really identify its space in the net, as long as the product have no harm to your healthy, we are dare to try, as long as we know the payment is secured -- pay at CVS, we are tend to place our order with confidence; I am expecting to pick up the goods today and experience the quality in my heart and see if the customer - me will be seduce to this new experience of purchasing, I bought software, DVD, books, tickets, traveling package, fruit, local delicacy before, try no brand cloth, the first time.
lunch with Michael at a great Italian restaurant, found out he married ( second marriage ) with a Taiwanese and have a daughter of 5 who enter the local kindergarten and plan to send her to local elementary school, I am favor his decision and courage of global thinking, before the lunch, I only know he is the MD for economist forum ( now change the name to Taiwan business leaders' forum ) and accidentally found his also wearing another head, a representative of " IWNC " in Taiwan -- yes, I will not complain, a consultant and training firm who attracted me by it's service brand -- how can we leaning the concept of not complaining or complaining in right direction and reflect them to our work and life, as the company will go through a change management process, I prepare a " request sheet " in order to check if the IWNC can provide what we need after the new organization announced.
I didn't change my channel in English for quiet a long time since I joined this company, so for the lunch when initiative our conversation in English, I am glad to know that I am as fluently as before, I can freely express my idea / concept / concrete business purpose without any hesitation, even can deliver new vocabulary. so , I am happy and content. the sew is sharp still, my skill for using English as business language is vital .
participating on an changing management interview in early morning, 2 consultant from KPMG asked question which I have firm answers already, senior consultant told me that I am capable to be a consultant, well, maybe, I present a clear picture of the real problem we are facing and the end picture of how we going to overcome it and bring new height and hope to every one in the company. I said a few people before, organization chart is not a paper of lines, it dynamic and it's interactively influence, human change, human mind change, environment change and you shall build a dynamic balance to keep the company and the person in the company a well-balanced status, leading is not doing thing for mangers, shall be convincing people doing what he hope or versioned for the future of our business. This is the hard part -- you talking, and people surround you action to achieve your dream land, the tool you have is incentive, punishment ( with no physical harm ) , leadership and a dream they are buying --- how interesting to influence people or be influenced.
we try very hard to find out a way to prevent a possible disaster -- spending 12 million of cash to upgrade our database server with only one proposed solution; COO spending smart time conducting a presentation session for the vendor to tell us why we need it, as this is a single source vendor with one solution only proposal, I don't feel comfortable about it, especially when it was green light by our senior executive, a 12m investment should never be decided by one person without decent reviewing process; I am not question his ethic, but I do question this procedure, as an multi-national company, we shall respect the resource on hand and with a prudent attitude to prove we are doing the right thing at the right time.
this year, Christmas Eve wasn't as fun as before, Taiwan didn't follow the tradition , exclude Christmas from the public holiday from this year, before 2003, people in Taiwan celebrating the Christmas due to the " Constitution Day " instead of celebrate the birth of Jesus, I am not against this new rule, because if the holiday was set by the religion, then Taiwan shall follow this rule and create new holidays for different religion, as this year, Christmas is a Wednesday, we go for ping pong as usual, but I do have a wonderful Christmas Lunch with Jesse at Wulai; Jesse is the GM of the best boutique / design Hotel in Taiwan -- Park Spring Wulai, a hot spring resort hotle located in Wulai, Jesse who was employed at Regent 3 years ago, that's where our friendship growth, I accidentally found this great hotel 1 and half year ago and love this place, nice view, decent service and great room, me and my wife were invited to a free stay then, and we love the public spa house. when having lunch at the restaurant with Jesse, he told me the story of the unique spa management company, Ken Yu -- which provide Spa facilities, training and skilled master for pumping your body and soul, when he told me some of the girl who owned high education background even graduate from National Taiwan University, this is beyond my imagination, a lot of training and examination turn this Spa management company a spiritual consultation firm, so this is so called " extension of core competence " we had a great lunch and I bough a free stay / 2 meals package for myself, I want to use it as the lucky draw prize for the coming Year End Party.
Last time, since Osking was in China for some Christmas activity, the remaining 4 ping pong player practice double play the first time, this is fun, team play is totally different from single play, corporation and harmony is critical to every ball you handle, we may do it next time, and may develop some strategy for double play, GTG GM sending another 100 free tickets for me, is save us a lot again, Sermii send me season’s greeting well, I shall think about her sometimes, favor shall be return when the chance come.
we pick up KPMG as the agent for our change management action, the restructure of our organization is for re-allocate our manager and deploy correct resource to the new business we are heading, when taking the kick off meeting, consultants from KPMG put out a list for collecting our financial information, as the purpose for analyze the financial performance is to calculate the productivity of our people, we do raise our question about this measurement, as in service industry, fix cost and manpower is huge, until the economy of scale reached, the pay off won't be easy to see, for example, if we measure the growth of subscriber , then the same amount of employee can service double even triple of our clients with the same investment of fix assets, but without the initial investment, we can't serve even one customer, so, we discussed with them and try not to miss-leading the examine of our organization and produce an incorrect organization chart, I will seat on an interview tomorrow, what concern me is :
1. do we have decent manager and qualified team in OS to perform the task for next year and year after ? since this is critical to our growth if ISP is in stagnate situation.
2. How to retain best of the best managers in our organization and place them in the growth position and motivate them to do more ?
3. overall quality of our existing managers and review the weakness of each one before redesign the organization.
4. take off one key managers role and relocate him to an non-administrative position.
5. balance marketing resource and direct it to the new direction for company growth.
6. Fit the overall business direction for the years to come.
I participated on the discussion panel yesterday for the subject of " Shall Taiwan build the national pop music arena ? " I am happy to meet a few old friend there, Shefone who is now obtain her global reach for promotion Asia music to Europe, Robin talk the same after all the years in IFPI, Denver still alive, Kang Hui chang his battle ground but keep his foot in the music field, young promoter, venue owner and artist Freddie is a good example for new ear of pop music , who knows how to promo the new music, survive themselves and keep the faith on what they are doing -- don't be shame of being an alternative artist, this is the value in the old Chinese mind, you can do any job, but to be a rock star before reach fame and fortune, you will be punished -- by your friend, your society and your parent, because they will put you in the category of mistrial, unsuccessful, pitiful people; it's no fun to play music anymore, what Freddy mentioned is a true value system, what we perceive from our society. the discussion last for about 3 hours, after it, I had a chance to take a shore coffee with Shefone, I almost forget I was the one to make her first dream come turn back to 1997 when the tree ( the label she established ) come to me and present a proposal of doing alternative music ( not so call " underground " ) in Taiwan, I was impressed about her courage and believe, so, I have an OK for this distribution deal , then we jointly release album such as " Beijing Opera " " Taiwan Aboriginal Music " " Beatle Nut brothers ", something you do you thought it's simple, but it create an significant impact on the people around you and it influence them in the future, maybe I did something like that, I forgot most of them and didn't take credit for it, once they remember or mention about, I feel proud, this is my feeling when having coffee whit Chefone yesterday.
when receiving my wife's call after the 3rd re-treat from the hospital, I feel release, her eyes didn't cause big problem and our life can back to normal now; I was sitting on the strategic meeting, this is the routine we did every quarter, at the strategic meeting, we normally choose one hotel , book the conference and spend the entire day there, for the first few sessions, we often running until very late, like 11 pm something and continue following day, thanks to the learning curve and smart staff we have, recently, the strategic finished by 9 pm, we deal a few key element for the quarter issue, such as a very brief recap on past quarter achievement, mainly on sales and marketing side and a bird's eye view to the market, then run into the next quarter pre-planning, from market, product to sales target setting and build the consensus for everyone in the meeting room, we start the strategic meeting from a very small group, 3 to 4 key executive, then extended to all the manager today, the routine became a very important session for company operation, we form the foundation and build the ground and guideline for everyone to follow, the result from the strategic meeting is what we called the " CE DIAGRAM " -- Concurrent engineering diagram, a blue print for bringing idea into action and to assign project owner at the same time. afterward, we will follow with a monthly 2 hours strategic meeting session to do the " house keeping " -- check what's been done, what's been move and how far we are compare with the target we set before; this plan, check, do, review session took us to a well managed statue and I am a little bit off hand these day, today is special, when receive the " I am ok " call, I feel like running home and escape from the meeting, when the worm of mind moving, I slightly change my mind and urge my drive to pick my up after lunch and leave my afternoon with my wife and the great movie " Lord of the ring - return of the king "
I love the film so much, for first and second, we ( me and my wife ) were the first few to rush to theater for the screening, so, I can't wait to see the ending episode, I miss in on last Saturday, cause too many people in line and I don't really want to finish my movie by 3 in the morning, so, this Monday afternoon become my day escape with my wife; poetic and full of humanity as before, I am a little bit lost when follow the screen, I think of how a man can making a non-realistic film so touch and so real and make you believe human do compass themselves with loyalty, love, friendship and sacrifice spirit; I also think about the life after death, or the next life, if death is not the end of the day, but only a path to somewhere unknown, then the pain before death is a trial or test for everyman, this is not the end, I wondered how this idea developed from my heart, maybe because this is a movie talking about a fiction, and it drove me to think of life after , then the line " We have to go to war, but not necessary win " kept me thinking for a while, this is very much a marther thought, people choice what they believe and die for it, revolution in the history of human did explained it, another human gesture which I need to digest. Friendship is the most impressive part in the movie, Sam and Frando, so truth and so touching, sure, we love the ending, evil been conquered by the justice, human regain the world and the good guy became the king who married a loving lady. like all the fairy tale, we love this one particularly; this is an epic, the film will make itself a history of the movie, generation later, I believe young guy will talking about it, Peter Weil, who spending more then 5 years to make this film will carve his name in the history of movie industry.
This part it about Allen,
I met Allen via a friend -- Miss Fan back to 10 more year ago, when doing my first production and management firm, one of my main business domain is to agent for overseas production for artist / producer from Taiwan to LA, this first case was doing Stella Chang's album " Sunshine in California ", as this is my first case and my first production arrangement in LA, I asked Fan introduce me her friend in LA, it turn out to be Allen -- an contemporary artist and art critic in LA, without further introduction I called him and check if he is fine to be our local advisor, he said no problem , so we met in LA, a gentle and bright man Allen is, I hardly remember what favor we asked from him, what left in my mind still was when the production come to an end, we extend a few days stay in LA, a bonus for artist doing overseas production and an extra holidays for record label staff, since Allen who is an artist and know almost everything in contemporary art, so, we asked him to show us around and introduce us to art, and sunny day, the appointment were made, we went to MOCA, Design Center and Allen be the art guide explain to us who the artist it and what's the important step he or she did in the era of contemporary Art, teach us how to appreciate the art form various of obstruct form, I remember asked him 2 silly questions ( when you have your first encounter with Modern Art and you had an expert who won't laugh at you, you better ask as many stupid question as possible ), first is : I think I can do exactly the same as those artist did -- no skill to me, I said , the reply from Allen was : Yes, you can, but it's imitation or copy, not primitive form or origin of the creativity , second question is : how to value one modern art piece, especially for decorated arts? how you know " How much " you can justify your appreciation by convert it to dollar ? the answer from him is : this is difficult, you need a middleman / broken ( they call it agent or gallery owner ) to promo your artistic origin before there's a market price; my second time to LA, was with Terry ( Ukulele ) with the same purpose -- production co-work with David Foster, and my wife was with me, we met again, and a great modern art tour , other then the art education, we talked a few more , buying meal for each other when seeing in different places, I remember visiting him house in LA once before he move to San Francisco. as he is the key for me to open the door for new form of art, I began appreciate new art and put myself in some learning by accident situation, I bought a few of his books, go to some gallery / exhibition, collect some contemporary works, I received his greeting cards from time to time, I gradually know his sex orientation, but it doesn't shock me at all, as I was in the field of entertainment, I understood how he feel and how sensitive he is, then I read his story little by little until 2 weeks ago when walking to Eslite book store in Tun-nai, that's the day I accompany my wife to her second after eyelid surgery re-treatment, it was a Monday morning, as Eslit open for 24 hours, so, I wait my wife there, strolling to the magazine session, seeing art magazine periodical with his big picture on cover and the headline of " In memory of Allen Chang ", I feel something bad happen to him, rush to buy one and sit on the small cafe outside Eslite, I found he was passed away in October ( or August ) due to lump cancer, I feel so sad as I treat Allen as my teacher to modern art and we know each other but I knew nothing about his death, check all the article inside, what people talked about him is so fresh to me; I have a very strong emotion to writing something about him and mail it to the art magazine, but I didn't do it, as I wrote down my impression and encounter with him, there's not enough material for me to share with others, as I know his last wish is to establish a foundation helping children like him -- grow poor but with talent of art, I will check how I can do for that, be part of his friend and to fulfill part of his dream
Wind Training
Last Friday, I give a full day training for Winds Record, an independent record label who surviving in Taiwan for 15 years and made themselves an unique entity in the music scene, as this is my first time to conduct a grand training for a group of 33, so, I prepare it for very long time and consider varies situation , as training for a day wasn't a easy job for any one, especially for me -- an armature trainer, so, I do design a very informative, interactive, interesting seminar, by end of the day, I know almost every one in content with the day.
I shall collect and reassemble all my speech file and make it a " teachable material ", consultancy / training is a good an balance road map for me in next 5 years, I shall take it seriously if this is a right choice for me.
