Category: Ashes of Time

“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.“

~Edith Hamilton

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Sorry, I cannot help it when I read this quote, gotta share with you all.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.“

~ John F. Kennedy, 1961-05-25

I encountered a little dog the other day who wanted to block the road and rule the world … Not sure whether s/he could achieve it or not but I do appreciate his or her effort, as s/he kept barking and running after me …

But in the world of Internet, who’s doing that ? I reckon no matter how big, or small we are; we shall do the same – keep trying new stuff, keep challenging the norm, keep delivering good products … and one day, we will rule the world.

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In Intel’s web site, you will find this quote by one of their founders:

“Do not be encumbered by history. Go off and do something wonderful.”

Robert Noyce, Intel cofounder

Every year, around that time, I will buy a lot of books and magazines … all about news of the year, photos of the year, products of the year, person of the year, quote of the year etc. etc. It’s hard to explain why I have such consumer behavior, but I guess you will understand it when you’re getting older … when you really want to save time in a bottle … 😎

And if you looked back the past 12 months, you would probably find a few moments that you felt really upset, anger, sad, tired and frustrated. I think it is OK and normal, because we all want to do a good job and be a good person. The bottom line is, how we can make each failure, complaints, and setbacks to be a driving force and opportunity to improve ourselves, our systems and our work … to impress our customers once again.

Thank you. Thank you.

It reminds me the line by Captain Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) in the movie “Apollo 13″:

” … it’s been a privilege flying with you …“

I came across the following line from a newspaper web site, a line for the reporters … and I think it applies to us as well:

We face obstacles as we pursue stories, as we plan our careers, as we pursue our dream jobs. The obstacles are real. They frustrate us. They challenge us. They hold us back. They delay us from reaching our goals. But by the time we’re done, we have to make the obstacle part of the war story of our success, not the excuse for our failure.

Just came back from a trip with a mind recharged but the body discharged … it was just a very tiring trip. Anyway some thoughts from the trip …

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I think we all had the same experience – no matter where we traveled, we kept comparing the other countries / cities with our city. And same in my trip, I kept thinking why the “systems” in Copenhagen and Paris are so inefficient … their airports, subways, restaurants etc. etc.

That questions kept popping in my mind and then one day in Paris I asked myself another question – is our city a better city then Copenhagen and Paris … even though we are doing things “a lot more efficient” ?

The answer is of course NO. Then I reckon doing things efficiently are good, but not great anymore. I mean, that’s no good by just keep doing the old things (even though in a super efficient way) any more. We need to do things in a new way …

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Then I found all sort of interesting things around me. The subway display panel in Copenhagen is a lot advance than in HK. Even the toilet design is a lot clever than I saw anywhere (even though it was designed _40_ years ago).

And the ticketing kiosks in Paris have only three user interface elements – Yes button, No button and a “scroll bar” – there is no mouse pad, no keyboard, no touch screen. But it does everything you found in our subway’s ticketing kiosks – including support of multi-language, multi-products and multi-payment methods.

All these “Think outside the box” designs are so good that it blend into the city’s culture seamlessly – you don’t even know they exist unless you take a very close eyes to those.

And I think that’s what we need – Doing things efficiently and differently. That shall be our goal to compete in this volatile market.

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Things change quickly and I learnt the following lines from my friend couple of weeks ago.

If you are a wind-surfer professional,

• that’s no use to master the skill of forecasting the wind direction.
• what more important is to master the skill of maneuver the sail and the board when the wind changes.

Indeed, wind (like business scenario) changes all the time, that’s no point to forecast how, when and where it changes; but we all shall focus ourselves in learning the skill on handling the changes itself.