Pastel Painting to relax for tonight.

After a few days of rushing and running, I feel very tire. This is the kind of time where one can do some silly thing just to relax. Tonight I have chosen to do some silly painting. I wanted to expriment with oil pastels to see if I can simulate the affect of oil painting. Pastel is not meant for great details. Light color paint cannot cover another layer of darker color so it's not easy to add details such as lighting effect. It's really difficult to do so. I have also made a wrong choice of color tone for the mountains far in the background. Should have picked a blue / grey tone to enhance the feeling of distance for better layering affect. To simulate the great details such as the rocky edge of the mountain, I either have a super plan from from the start or I need a much bigger piece of paper. This painting is only a big bigger than A4 size. Not too successful but I am satisfied. It's really my second pastel painting in my life. Tonight will be a good night for sleeping!

It would be fun to use pastel to illustrate the concept of Twitter! ;)

Painting with my daughter.

I have always like doodling as a kid. I have tried sketching a bit as a teenager. In my 20s’, every once in a while I couldn’t sleep and did not find anything meaningful to do so I did a few doodling again to have fun. But I was never a “professional” artist. In fact, statistically, before age of 40 I may have produced 0.25 piece of painting per year. I have always fancy being an artist but I always have other things to do.

I have enjoyed drawing but it was quite a “waste of time” for me until my daughter came 7.5 years ago.

When she started to ask me to draw with her, the meaning of drawing became so much different. There were emotions attached to each piece of drawing as I had to carry the role model to help my daughter to draw.

Funny thing is that, often, my daughter went away to play with other things and I was left to do drawing on my own. I think my daughter is just an excuse for me to start drawing.

Anyway, this is one of my drawing a few years ago. It’s not so much about the drawing but more a piece of my memory with my daughter.

One final disclaimer: I did the painting but as a copy from some picture I found from Internet. It's not my original idea but it was my practice to pick up the skill again after so many years without doing it.

The number one advice to win a job you have no experience what-so-ever!

I was in a seminar a few months ago sharing interview tips with a group of mature, not so competitive job seekers. Many of them were out of a job. Their skill sets that helped them to keep a job were no longer highly demanded in the job market. They needed to secure a job that they did not know if they are qualified or not. When they knew that I had changed industry and roles several times in my career, many of them asked what made my previous employer hired me when I was new and often did not possess the relevant experience and qualification. There were so many reasons I could think of but I wanted to say one point where it will apply to everybody. After a moment, I gave them the following point:

I was bold.

To say it more eloquently, I was confident about myself and took the initiative to take on the challenge. To say it more frankly, I wanted it bad enough that, like a naughty kid, I was willing to do whatever I could to secure the toy.

Let’s put it this way, if you want to secure a job that you have no experience and qualification, you need to make it to look like you have! At least you need to project the confident that you can do it and you are committed to make it happen. I know it sounds a bit too easy. Let’s take it down in more detailed steps.

1. Preparation: despite that I don’t know the industry. I could research more about it. Now in hindsight, I was pretty quick in summarizing the “major requirements and deliverable” the job requires from the job seeker. This is important as it will affect your cover letter, your cv and even your confident in the subsequent action.
   
   
2. Make the Sales Flyer: Once I knew about what was needed in the potential job, it was natural that I made promise in my cover letter that I would deliver certain deliverable. Once I have written down the promise it was natural that I need to write some reasons to support my promise. In doing so I was forced to think of my own advantage and strength and how to apply them to deliver my promise. So I wrote how I could achieve those with my strength and current skill sets. I would tailor made my resume to go with the flow of my cover letter. So my resume became the technical specification or appendix of the sales flyer.
   
   
3. Rehearse to close deal: I often talk to myself and imagine (like of like a drama rehearsal) how good I look and act in the interview. Now, again in hindsight after many years of being a sales person, this was the very important step to win a deal.

I just said one point, didn’t I? But I have just expanded it into three points. Well, I wasn’t kidding about the one point. The three steps that I have just written all converge to one single winning element: They made me confident (or they made me bold! grin...)

The preparation forced me to think about the job and the real meaning of the job behind the fancy titles. This analytical process not only to help me to find out what’s needed to win but also helped me to keep clear about if the job was something that I really wanted. If I still had the motivation to go on to the second step, I was pretty sure that it was what I wanted. I had no doubt that I wanted the job and it was meant for me. This has a profound impact on my “boldness”.

The sales flyer preparation (the process of writing cover letter and resume) was important too. Since I did not use just one standard cover letter and resume, I had to make sure every single word aligned to the winning point (that I was the best person for the job). The rehearse step was important as I had to pretend that I was the employer to play the role of my counter part in the drama. That forced me to think of potential questions and challenges. That also forced me to see it from the recruiter’s perspective and not from the job seeker perspective.

I recall that whenever I went on interview, I was never scared. I was never really trying to win a job but to discussed how I would have worked the job and deliver my deliverables. I believe that it was these style of interview that help draw the recruiter to sometimes even think about thing that he has not thought about in relation to the job. That made me a special job seeker.

Frankly, I was not only bold but I was naïve. But it certainly help me to focus being naïve. It gave me the energy to glow in front of the recruiter.

If you are looking for a change in your career and you have no idea how to land a job that you have no relevant experience, try to follow what I have done at the time. It will help you to channel your energy from spending it on worrying to step by step building your strategy plan to win.

I wouldn’t say this is the best advice in the word about landing a job you don’t know but it’s certain one of the best that I could offer from my own experience. Hope this will help. Just sharing my two cents.

4 Must-do to land a job in a tough time!

Time is tough these days if you are out of a job. My job is a manager for a job portal in Hong Kong. I have seen our web site’s job searching traffic and online job application skyrocketing as the Hong Kong’s Heng Seng Index plummeted starting at the end of 2007. Many job seekers asked me for advice to how to find jobs. There are many good advices to locate the jobs but what’s more important is that the job seeker must be internally ready for a tougher and leaner job environment. More people will be fighting for the rare jobs in the market. Landing a job means a tougher selection process. Landing a job means that you are more competitive and ready!


How to be competitive and ready many job seekers asked?


In a nutshell, you have to find yourself some meaningful and demonstrable projects to do which you will be able to leverage them to maintain and even improve your state of readiness.


Yes it’s quite obvious. There is no quick fix except for the “presentation” part.


Be More Knowledgeable – This is on the top of my list because knowledge cannot be “increased” by simply one day or one week. You must be constantly upgrading yourself. Take on a course. Go back to University. Go to public seminars. Take a MBA. Take a doctorial degree. Event writing a book or contributing to community for social working will give you knowledge and insight for personal growth.

1. Be Tough – Tough time won’t last but tough people do! Employers are looking for top talents these days. They know they have the upper hand and have the choice to select the top talents. And time is NOT pressing for them. If they hire someone or open up a new headcount, they are looking for talents and not just a pair of hands. They are looking for someone who can seriously create and contribute to business. They are looking for someone who can contribute and create value to business even in tough time. So we job seeker must demonstrate that we have the mental toughness to be able to stand top even in the toughest condition. Now we must tell ourselves we are this kind of people. We must believe in ourselves that we can create and contribute in the toughest environment. And we need to be glowing with such confident and commitment to be the last one to stand in the battle field. How to show this? Of course you need to have the right presentation and the body language. Dress up rather than dress down. Look up rather than look down. Smile instead of grumble. Embrace instead of blaming. Demonstrate that you have been active in between jobs. You have invest your time in learning back to school, doing social works, researching for a demonstrable project, writing a book and so forth. Do these sounds familiar? Yes they were just mentioned in the last paragraph. If you have the will to value add for yourself, you are building up your confident and commitment to be ready! Have faith and believe. Do more exercise! They can seriously help you to build your physical and mental strength!
   
   
2. Be Easy – Yes we need to be tough but we should not let the current challenge turn us into sour cream or a very rough piece of rock. Employer (and rightfully yourself) should worry about taking on someone over-adjusting himself and becoming a misfit to the team. Demonstrate that you have not just taken the current challenging time as an opportunity to grow and learn but also an experience to enlighten your depth. Look into people’s eyes confidently but not staring to make them uncomfortable. Smile instead of looking too much like Rumble. Demonstrate you have the ability to understand and embrace others instead of blaming others. You really also need this to balance yourself.
   
   
3. Be Ready – First you go back to the last 3 paragraphs and ask have you started doing those things. If you think you have already embarked or even complete certain projects, then you should prepare your “presentation” so that if some call you for an interview, you can just pick up the pack and go in 30 mins. Get your resume ready. Get your show-and-tell slides ready.
   
   Do video and voice rehearsal ready. Get your friend to drill you on some interview rehearsal and prepare to do Q&A. If there is one thing I recommend for the best interview tips is that you do your video rehearsal. It will force you to really see yourself and all the rough edges you need to publish.
   
   
4. Be there – Last but not least! This last point is very important especially for those of you who think you are already rather be competitive and ready. Just go out and promote yourself. Make sure you are active and show up to others. Don’t just hide in a corner and do your exercises or study. Do it in public! Go to seminar. Discuss things on social web sites or forum. Meet people at the right places. Networking is one of the best method to find a job because you are really showing off your competitiveness and readiness in front of other people who may be your potential employer or your angel who refer you to your ultimate employer.

Start today and don't delay. I wish you all the best but if do you so accordingly you don't need my prayer.

6 reasons why Google Wave is likely to be successful.

Last week I was introducing Google Wave in an executive lunch to someone with an IT and Business Consultant background. He did not know of Google Wave until I introduced to him over the lunch (read my last blog post if you don't know Google Wave : Click Here). After listening to me for a few minutes, he suddenly said that Google would not be successful in launching Google Wave. His immediate and raw reaction actually reinforces my post’s title "the most ambitious communication product by Google”. It is indeed ambitious. The chance of success for such a comprehensive product to be launched to the mass market is low; thus the description “ambitious” was craved into my blog post title.

I am more positive becuase Google Wave fits the 6 characters that I have observed in the last decade from web applications that have made it big (at least once). I call them 6 Es. More will be covered in this post later.

I am slightly more positive in this case, also, because I believe the general user of web communication has been trained by Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Chat and hundreds of other Internet communication products. "Timing is right" in a nutshell. I believe the market (at least a significant portion of the web user) will understand and be able to use complicated product like Google Wave. These people are likely the online marketing evangelists like me. On the other hand, I think the product looks simple enough in its user interface. It looks reasonably simple that it will not scare people away. Chances are that people just use the basic function of Google Wave first when their feet just get wet. There is no need to use all functions inGoogle Wave. They can simply use it as a e-mail alternative.

Google Wave is more sustainable because of proven online advertising business model. Google will have to educate the market. However, give it some times and people will gradually get comfortable with the new interface and learn to use the advance functions. People will be “educated” by their friends when being prompted to read information pushing by their friends. Given the market share and financial power of Google, it will have enough resource to sustain the time needed by the market. Also, Google has already established it’s Online Advertising business model, it’s not going to have the pressure to quickly look for revenue stream to sustain the product or business development. Chances are that Google will use Google Wave to capture users who did not use Gmail but like to use it’s social networking and email integrated function. More users and more traffic will means more content to help distributed Google’s Adwords’ advertisements.

Another reason I think Google is going to be successful in long run is that with the protocol, extension and API setup, Google is going to gain cost efficiency in future application developments. It’s simply the backbone of the future communications. Google Wave is a new product but it is also a very strategic building component for future roadmap. As more applications are developed for Google Wave, the more successful Google Wave will be. So other new venture of Google's product will add weight and sustainability to Google Wave.

Having said that, of course it’s just very new and nobody can truely assess the chance of success. We are all making wild guesses. My guess is based on a simple score aginst the 6 characteristics to make it a really big scale killer app. Well, like other who’s trying to make my point across, I shall call them the 6 Es. They are:

1. Everyone - Can be used by almost everyone on the net – male, female, old, young, you, me ….
2. Everyday - Can be used everyday – just like your e-mail today.
3. Every device - Can be used by any device (PC, notebook and mobile device)
4. Every friend - Has the viral and networking effect – the user will introduce the product to other users
5. Every partner - Extension / API to further build niche applications and a large network of value-added software solution provider.
6. Every topic – Unlimited content with unlimited number of topics as people use it to discuss various topics. There is no cost to buy or to “write” content. Users simply supply unlimited amount of content to make the product ever interesting.

Google Wave fits them all.

Finally, many successful products come and go in the past becuase they were just one product. Google Wave will sustain longer because it is really not a product but a protocol standard. The real challenge to Google is whether other software partners will play along Google’s rule of games. If they have enough partners they will be successful. Like Windows’ success in having the most compatible software solutions, Google Wave’s success will depend on how well Google promote and support this new product to other “partners”.