Diary of a CEO: 10/17/2004

I am heading for Okinawa early tomorrow morning, to join the company trip overseas the first time; it give me a great deal of time to think what COO mentioned late evening, another moment of truth approaching, am I curve meself in the corner ? or brave enought to think of second half life? it's about time to think hard, but not because of pushing, not because of excaping, not because of scaring.

A very late notice for a dinner last night, it break my plan for watching the " White Tower " with my wife, the invitation sent by AJ, for an unofficial Forum invitation, D. Host the dinner at the Grand Hotel Club, quiet and nice, it suit our age -- between 40-50, as I was planned to be officially invited to the Forum, the rest of forum members tried to release private and personal information during the dinner, the testing water is a sign of itimacy and a message of " one of the kind ", I appreciated the kindness from them and semi-open the Johaly's window to them, I even think of creating an non-existing mister to balance the conversion, man talk in private can't get rid of woman, woman in all kinds of relationship, I am fine with this as long as they feel comfortable about disclosed it; the forum session is a naked meeting - you have to open your heart unless no one will toward you, they had built the trust for more than 2 years, now to accept new members, with no history boundary, it must be hard for them to think about the range of itimacy, this is a precious moment to me, a highly values function in HYPE, the growing group in the Forum; when opinion and idea exchanged, I found all of them have the intellengce in their professional arena, D. Is a very nice person, humble with insight, always reserve margin for everyone to fit in, I feel warm welcome from them, although some of the topic I can't really follow and some of the terms keep me figuring out, but I knew I fit the category and uniqueness they hungry for.

Jean introduce another profile company executive to me and having me examine the businee development of the company, again, I am a free of charge consultant for her, I don't mind doing so , from reviewing different business model and new trend, I learn and think as well, the devotion wasn't cost me a dollar, the time spend can be deem as a cost of learning, the company is doing 3D for mobile phone, by leverage their technology, ARM 7 ( Low end mobile CPU ) mobile phone can enjoy a high performance 3D animation / entertainment / application featured on the mobile phone. I like the content which they modified and fit and thinking of having it work with our service.

Henry is really a thinker, no matter how I disappointed about his hint about my ignores in investing on the start up he is working on -- a Chinese Herbal extracted nato skin care product; his insight and foresight impressed me every time, he don't mind sharing his brilliant idea to me and exchange what he see in the future with me, this time , he told me about the corporation and management philosophy in a Chinese way perspective, I am thrilled about his understanding of the ancient science of Chinese and make it his own; to summarized it :

" Born together, and compete each other " is the platform of corporation, born together is what you came from, it is a liner / time dimension, this is not what you can change, compete each other is dynamic / space concept, you may change / replace partner by changing space. co-op / co-pe is the same with Yin-Yang ( hamoney in the round circle, conflict each other, white dot in Black and black dot in white ), Chinese must be the first to discover blur, the fuzz and the norm of normal distribution, and perfect in handling grey period. Henry developed his definition about effectiveness as well, time divided by the resourece input come to a number of effectiveness, but the " Duration of validation " is another key variable to justify it, this is his view point and very interesting.

Typhoon is heading Okinama, where we schedule to have the company trip tomorrow, I am not sure if I should call it a shot ? Today, we will see how it goes.

Spending decent time doing internal communication today, after the routine managers' meeting, I chaired a " Channel alternation strategy meeting ", this was cause by last Friday, when Marketing, Sales and Product dept. Getting together for the job function discussion, some miscommunication happened and it leaves a no result ending; Special Assistant inform me about this and wish I can conduct such a meeting again to resolve this issue. I did it.

the major difficulty lays in :
1. The concept of channel alternation is for aiming the change of business landscape from ISP to non ISP, the communication between shops and HQ wasn't done yet.
2. non ISP product launch with sale target, but the monitoring scheme wasn't in place, sales incentive and performance review was not design and the marketing resources haven't been located yet, so the product team carrying the sales target but the sales performance can't be reviewed.
3. When structure the mid range plan, product / revenue / channel / sales wasn't planned in a action table yet, thus, the mechanism of resource allocation was not well examined, this create an unbalance product development.
4. Transform of shops create new job and assignment need to be filled, non of the dept. Willing to pick up the additional loading.
5. Too many " to do" without priority.

I made a few remarks and urge a operational discussion among related dept. After the meeting, in the afternoon, during the coffee breaks, the topic bounce back again, I spend time to review my point with them respectively; the more I preach, the more I know what's going on, the message come to me is : we are involving in things we never did before and no one know the clear answer, we need collect efforts to drive the car to a save ground; this is what I feel now; find your way out make us exhausted.

expressing the second half life with C. At lunch, do nothing is terrible, nothing to do is boring; she said I need a vacation, I agreed, but why ? So what? what ahead in front is an unknown future, I am in the interim, a limited flexibility of changing, break away. And break out.

the restaurant we picked using our service, I am happy and sending my card naturally.

Second Half Life, I learn it yesterday; before entering George Lynch's clinic concert at The Wall Taipei, I made time to the Golden Stone book shop; with the instruciton of the Forest School Dean, we - parent have to read books to grow oursleves and be a better parent; " The Parental Guilde for ADHD " and " How to teach your kid about AQ " are books we were requested to read. I bought them in 5 minutes, as the concert open by 8:00 pm, there are plenty time on my hand, stroll around the book shop and pick up 2 books which cause my interest, first is short essays written Nobel Lurenent authour -- a Japanese writer, the other one is a compilation of back story edited by Business Weekly Magazine, the book entitled ( I translate it in English ) " Resume your pitchers' positon ", it deal about peoples in their 40's change their life, career, mind set and pursuing a new curve of life, they call it " the second half of life ", the stories are compelling, it reflect exactly what I am thinking of, then I realized I am in the interim and waiting the nature calling, for pursuing my second half of life also.

the interim comes between 40 -- 45 years old, to recall my memory in the book of " Circle Life ", this is the beginning of second circle; interim is not a point, but a duration of time, a decent thought and a well planned action; you don't wake up in the morning and found youself trapped in the second life, you don't have an overnight wisdom and determinate your where about, how you digest it and re-discover yourself is the key; the key in someone's hand; I begin reading stories, each one of them tell me it take great courage to make it happen

Saturday was a normal routine, I take Sid's diet prescription in the morning, this is the first day on the medicine diet program, I am not sure the thirsty and sleepy cause by the pill or simply because I am too tire on the week days.

Friday night, 6 primary school classmate invited our teacher to a dinner together, this is an unofficial second reunion since I initiative it last year, some attendee didn't know that one year pass already, we had it on Sep. 28 last year, Mr. Lin raised his hand last year and volunteer to be the coordinator this year, he didn't keep his promise, I tried contact him but in vain, so, the annual gathering is no longer a plan now; but teacher return to Taipei every year, to inform everyone and to assemble a dinner wasn't a big effort -- thanks for Eu. My assistant, so, I don't mind to take this coordination job for everyone, no one knows how many times we can see each other for the balance of our life, update and sharing is a good viture to perform; on Friday's dinner, a hot topic was the English Teacher Miss Shue, 30 years ago, she was a spicy girl in our school and she really inspire us -- well in different directions, at a boy only class, girl certainly is the most talk about topic, especially we are at the growing up stage , in our javelin; Teacher Tseng advise us that they are contact still and they will see each other on coming Sunday, one classmate in the dinner table can't wait to write a memo to teacher, and inform teacher to be the message deliver his contact to Sheu, I feel stranger, since she is not our class teacher who didn't accompany us for 3 - 6 years, this is a bit of rude; any way, this is my feeling and I didn't throw it out at the dinner.

Sending professor Yeh home ( a classmate as well ) and little Cat ( nickname after his name " Tiger " ), leaving one bottle of red wind to Yeh, we are expecting to see each other more often.

Having Champaign lunch at the Fresh fish with Ping Pong team members, won the Champaign last time and enjoy a free meal, restaurant owner Mr. Peng is as hospitality as before, fish is fresh and the cuisine is delicious, full house on Sat. For lunch wasn't easy, they are making a remarkable business.

Stroll at the Circle night market with wife last night, I wish to identify the sticky rice ball desert shop which teacher Tseng mentioned on Friday night, we are lunch to locate it, although I am full ( while taking the pill, I am not sure is I am full or hungry ), we order the sticky rice ball again, this is so good, we saw 3 generation working on the shop with very pleasing and caring attitude, this is why they built a business last for canter and win a lot of appause since, we enjoy the desert and enjoy the way they treat customers, I think we will end up being loyal customer to them;

the result for eating too much sticky rice is the turbulence of stomach, I woke up at night couple of time, I shall not take the grape fruit juice after the sweet sticky desert.

It's end of Oct. Now and it left me 4 more months to think of my future - career, my contract with the company will be expired by next March, I shall review it with they now, as the HQ wasn't in a good financial situation, I decided not to take an aggresive approach this time, talking with wife last night, if I lost my job, we should use the house morgues to support sounds study at Forest, if the behavior adjustment is a must for him, no matter how difficult our financial is, we should keep him at such an environment, if the behavior and ADHD symptom can't be altered, we may spend more money and effort on handling the consequence; thinking about that, I feel more comfortable.

Diary of a CEO

2004/10/20

2004/10/18

2004/10/17

Previous Posts

Archives