Category: Ashes of Time

I have completed many appraisals of yours last week and it was a very rewarding exercise to me. Many of you told me how you want to make the services better, others told me ideas of making our process more efficiently. And above all, you told me how the bonding among the team members have already built. Many of you told me you belong to a unique and worthwhile group. In addition, you also have the belief that we are more effective working together than apart.

Yes, that’s what we called TEAM – Together, Everyone Achieve More.

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I will take a two weeks’ sabbatical break – I will join the Usability Week 2002 in London (http://www.nngroup.com/events/uw2002/london/agenda.html ) and then stay behind to discuss with some of my friends there aboutinformation architecture and usability. I have told you before that I am a firm believer of information architecture but I don’t have time to spend two years in Montreal to study that like Fiona. The trip costs me a fortune but I know that I have to take it. As I understand if I don’t make things happen, I will simply watch things happen or wonder what happened.

It is your call, you can make things happen.

Throughout that two weeks, I need you all to work together closely. A lot closely then now and the ESD rely you all to provide a good services.

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The following link point you to a poem that has been widely spread a couple years ago as chain-email in Internet.

http://www.godswork.org/inpoem53.htm

It is obviously to me with so many things happening together, keeping any schedule is very difficult. In one of my favorite web sites (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/), it says this is a problem of always connected, never focused.

Do you remember the last time you were really focused on doing just one thing? Have you noticed that it has become much harder to stay focused, because we are that much more connected now than before. Mobile phones, SMS, e-mail, wireless e-mail, Instant Messaging, Internet access, PDA and so on.

It is an indisputable fact that I can be reached almost anytime and anywhere, and I am. I can also reach almost anyone of you the same way, and I do.

So, if you recognize the feeling of being scattered all over the place, that it’s hard to stay focused. However, the web site suggested:

• have the mobile phone turned off a few hours every day
• if you are in the middle of a conversation, and the phone rings, don’t always pick it up
• if the phone rings, don’t always pick it up period.
• every once in a while, sign out from Instant Messaging even if you are connected and working at your computer
• sign out from your e-mail application a couple of times every day, so that you won’t be tempted to check e-mail every two minutes
• plan at least one weekend every month without going online
• don’t bring your PDA with you every time you leave the house
• go back to the habit of giving flowers or [insert nice thing here] regularly to your partner
• spend more time with your family, and while you do, don’t think about other things
• take a walk every now and then, not to get things but just to take a
  walk

Personally, this list is really a challenge to me. But may be many of you can do this, focus on delivering good things, one at a time.

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Again, no book recommendation this month as I have passed around a few good books already “The design of sites“, “Code Complete“, “Homepage usability” etc.. But if you do have time to focus in reading books, pop in to my room and I will show you some new ones – “It’s Your Ship“, “Good to Great“, “Design for Community“, “Design from both sides of the screen“, “A Pattern Language“.

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As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, THINK BIG.

~ Donald Trump ~

“It takes both rain and sunshine, to make a rainbow.”

Remember today, it’s the day we march forward, to make our own rainbow. We shall review what we are doing today and decide what need to be improved, what need to be replaced and what need to be dropped.

Every one of you has a part to play.

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No more e-Book for this month, instead I suggest you all to visit one web site:

http://www.dontbeanumber.com/

“Don’t be a number” is a web site of Iowa Private Colleges, and the message of the web site is “thinking independently”. Surf to this site, then compare to the other similar educational websites in town and then ask yourself, if you have to decide based on the information from the websites, which institution will you join ?

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I have had dreams, and I have had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.

~ Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the first polio vaccine

How’s your summer ? I have a pretty good one as I did some virtual traveling a week ago by picking up a dozen of traveling related books in the BookFair 2002. In that particular weekend, I traveled to Spain, Okinawa, Seoul, Greece and many other great places. Just wanna share a little secret with you all, I am dreaming that one day I will become a travel book collector � hmmm we will see.

If you do some serious travel planning, you would collect information, plan your itinerary and compare prices. You will probably ask a few friends, visit some travel agencies, browse a couple of travel web sites and buy a few travel magazines / books. And what you will probably notice is that there are tons of information in all kinds of media but never easy to sort out the details and get what you want, in a timely and accurate fashion.

These problems come down to one possible solution – Information Architecture. In other words, the knowledge of how to collect, sort-out, and present the information to the requesters, in a far better and intuitive way. Obviously, to master this skill, one needs to invest some precious time to study this school of knowledge …

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I bet you’re already bored by some of the updates, what about a quiz ?

You have an empty wine bottle. A 10-cents coin is placed inside the bottle and the cork is inserted in the neck of the bottle. Your job is to get the coin out without removing the cork or damaging the bottle.

How do you do it ?

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This month’s recommendation is “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity” by Alan Cooper (the father of Visual Basic).

In this book, Alan tells you why an IT professional shall make users happier, improve the process by which the users get work done and make their work hours more effective. Just in the first chapter, he quoted some very interested examples such as why a computerized car has (wrongly) designed to behave like a computer but not a car ? Why a computerized alarm clock has (wrongly) designed to behave like a computer but not a clock ? Same goes to camera, airplane �To us, we have to ask ourselves why our data entry forms were (wrongly) designed to look like a computer form, but not a user friendly paper form.

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No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it’s turn.

~ Hal Borland ~

Everything great and glorious begins with a belief

What’s your favorite moment of the World Cup 2002 ?

To me, it’s not Ronaldo’s golden double in the final last night, but it was the time I checked the transaction count right after the South Korea vs Germany semi-final game. I found that the transaction volume went down sharply during the game but went up again after the game. It’s the moment that I felt our services are not so high-tech but actually down-to-earth, it’s in pace with the heart-beat of people.

I have the belief that one day, all people will benefit from our services. One day they will share the same feeling of Issac Asimov – “I don’t fear computers, I fear the lack of them”.

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Have you ever wonder how the football team managers like Wenger, Houllier, Ferguson, and Eriksson motivate their football players ? How they manage a not-so-fit team to win a game ? You will find the answers in this book – The 90-minute Manager: Lessons from the Dugout.

If you believe in Internet and want to survive, you have to be an expert in
some technologies – XML, XHTML, and Web services. I found the following two
books are very readable – XML, HTML, XHTML Magic and Architecting Web
Services.