People

Wow. Chewy was an excellent speaker who is very entertaining and insightful. I totally enjoyed his presentation. So Thanks Prof Ben for getting him around.

The premise behind Chewy’s presentation last night was about people – people other than ourselves. What Chewy says is very poignant (and definitely very befitting of me) that we have constructed the “our reality” based on our experiences and because the human experience is so vast and myriad, we have often made wrong implicit assumptions about people – their beliefs, their behavior, their likes and dislikes.

Understandably, a few things ties us together. We have principles like honest, courage and love which are quite universally similar in essence; we have context like examinations, war or competition that we have grown to understand; we have cultures and languages which allows us to identify with each other; and we have physics and the human condition, which are both and almost always an empirical awareness that we develop as a living human. However, even with these basic identities and commonality, we are muchly different from one another because we have different taste and styles. Because we have different pursuits and problems. Because we have different beliefs and experiences.

And to appreciate and empathize takes more than just words or ears. It involves taking off the shoes of our experience and standing in theirs, something remarkably hard to do (at least for myself) because one so attached to our own experiences, ideas and modulus operandi. Indeed, our lives and actions are the embodiment of our beliefs. And that is not to say that understanding people is not possible. It takes genuine willingness to explore the Life of others, and the humility to put principles and people in front of self. (It sucks to hear two egos or two masks speaking to one another; or me trying to figure out you out based on my Life)

Together with chewy, I too believe in stories. They help me understand others. I am pushing myself to love people for who they are and to love freely, not to expect love in return, but because love inspires.

“I want to celebrate Life as I live. This is my story. What’s yours?”

Game on!

I have learned a few lessons this week. I would like to highlight one, mainly because it is a simple yet powerful idea people seem to neglect!

Examining assumptions

I was reminded of this by Prof Wong Poh Kam, director NEC and angel investor. Strangely, I was feeling rather free that one day and I tagged along with Lawrence to a networking cum sharing session. It turns out Prof Wong happens to be the director of BANSEA.

The idea over here is rather simple. After coming up with a business plan, examine closely, at my own assumptions. For example, is it possible that we get 50,000 users a month? Is it possible for some one to clock 100 hrs / week of programming time etc? This simple reflection would reveal the flaws and also forces us to clear of our plan of action. Simplest solutions are the best!

Also, it is not to say that we shouldn't make assumption. They just have to reflect reality. Let's look at some (simplifying) assumptions that I have for final project:

• Flash can be learned and mastered in a month.
• The game would be interesting enough for people to want to try
• The team's effort is synergistic and that everyone is enthusiastic about that we do. 
• We would be principled in our execution.
• Everyone in the team can provide the team with as much resources as we need to make project fly at the minimum. 

The next questions (What is there to learn about flash? What do I mean by mastery? What is the usual timeline?...) is of course asked to verify this assumptions, which leads to the next rounds of questions and assumptions. And as computer scientist likes it, this will go on recursively until we are clear on what we want and until we start asking questions that are either too stupid or too general or too specific like "What is the meaning of Life? "

The purpose of this exercise is of course to be clear on what we want. Clarity is the the most important outcome of this theoretical, goggle-aided, ideas bouncing exercise. (= After which we should have a fair idea on what we want and how to achieve it, although the solutions may not be optimise. To optimise is again, other exercise altogether. 

On another note, I was pretty excited by the CS3216 pitching session, which makes me feel like a VC, although I know that this is a mere ego-trip. These are people with real world problems to solve or ideas to implement. Thanks for giving us the flavor at least, prof!

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Best Presentation

Stories - to me are one of the most powerful way to share experiences. The commonalities of experience threads us together as we share the human experience. The more trying, the less ventured the journey- the more compelling. I guess it is in us to applaud, laugh, learn and wonder at the courage, the ironies, the trials and the incredulity of their spirit.

With that said, I am a person who learns the best from others. It is their experience, their paradigms and values which I absorb and learn and the best mentors/teachers I have so far are Mahatma Ghandi and Mr Tong. They live as one with their principles and aspirations. And the bestest presentation that they can possibly show to the world is through their action and their lives. That to me is most humbling, inspiring and compelling.

How to be a great Jack of all Trade?

What I am going to explicate over here are my insights and thoughts about being a great interdisciplinary learner and a person who seeks out experiences and wisdom in Life with spontaneity and curiosity. Perhaps the term “all trades” is misleading, as I don’t profess to be interested in the universal sum of knowledge and skill sets. Rather, I would like to replace the word “all” with “few/many”. The number does not matter, as some people are naturally interested in more stuff and they do it with all the love for live and can manage to excel in many things.

            To start off, I would like to introduce the concept of an “adaptor”, which happens to also be called a “Jack” in colloquial terms and have the connotation of being adaptive and spontaneous. Lovely, because that is exactly what a Jack needs to be

I.      To be able to plug into different domains of knowledge and bring all the innovations and solutions together as one integrated piece.

II.    There is no way one can possibly keep up with the exponential expansion of domain knowledge. Hence, it is wiser to use the networked effect of different domains of knowledge as a leverage. (meaning that the more things you know, the more perspectives, possibilities and potential ideas you have to work with as long as you can draw links between different domains of knowledge. Think of what led to the video game industry? Design + Traditional games + computer advances + businesses)

Hence, my basic aspiration of becoming a great Jack of many trades (specifically Combio, humanism and SE and many of their subsets) has been reduced to the challenge of fulfilling these goes.

How to fulfill the basis

1.     I love people. It is as simple as that that follows of my take on Life that there are many many people (perhaps everyone) who are intrinsically special. Learning, talking and doing things with people inspires me. And hence, from the many interesting experiences, paradigms and wisdom that I gain from people, I can begin to build up my understanding of many pools of knowledge in Life, and appreciate the connection between things. Like how an apple may mean food, a business opportunity, red color, an alphabet aid at the same time.

2.     Read as widely and ask as many interesting questions as possible, so I get to learn more.

3.     Continuously strive to be inspired. When one area does not seem as exciting to me, I would either find new perspective or I would often skip on to other domains that are “happening”, it helps to be along with exciting people moving onto the next big thing. 

4.     Reflect and think. Learning so much without thinking through, reflecting, asking myself questions forming frameworks and explaining to others is kind of a deflated way of learning. The best way to learn is to teach others and to apply what I have learned directly though action. Clarity helps.

5.     Being an expansive thinker – I am not sure whether this could be acquired or taught, but I am acutely aware that my brain is abuzz in a playground of ideas and get easily fired up by ideas, relating ideas seems to be intuitive in that sense. Perhaps exploring Life and thinking things through via first principles instead of textbook answers and theories might help. Talking to people and seeing what they see helps. Is this creativity?

6.     Basically, I am not that smart. But I just ask good questions and I think that can get me somewhere.

What not to do

1.     To be distracted like a dog by cats or squirrels. One can easily be caught up and overwhelmed by the number of books to read and things to learn. However, always question, is it useful? Is it fun? Is it meaningful? Could it lead to something? If the answer is no to all, perhaps you might wasting your time and energy… One can only do that much. More importantly thing leverage from synergistic domains of knowledge and skill sets.

2.     With that much learning and doing, being a great Jack of all trade requires rather high maintenance.

The Value

1.     To be able to leverage on the network of ideas, knowledge and people. Hence solutions tend to be have an integrated approach and is leveraged by the synergy of different fields.

2.     Project management this together with the ability to appreciate interpersonal team dynamics, team capacity and skill sets allows me to take my team further. It allows me to serve as a conduit for ideas.

3.     This toolkit will get upgraded by being polished by other people’s experience and insights. Which means that I learn faster with more knowledge gain. (=

4.     Adaptiveness – allows me to survive and excel.

5.     I believe that everyone good enough ought to be crossed-trained.

Show And Tell

"You must understand this CS3216 is not like your typical NUS class. " - says Prof Ben, and tonight's show-and-tell revealed to me something unique about my peers, which would probably would never have happened in a typical classroom setting amongst the cheerless silence willing emancipation from school. Thankfully. Because I like twist and excitement, not only for it's high, but also because it makes my Life meaningful. I want to live to see more, experience more and do more.

I love people and I think I fell in love tonight. With their honesty, their candidness, their personalities. The energy is incredible. I feel that when we have the courage to show people what's true of ourselves, be it beauty or failures, happiness or sorrow, grace or forgiveness, it creates an instance of soul laid bare. It's like a leap of faith which inspires. How often I found myself wanting, wishing and needing to communicate people in this space of possibility, vulnerability and intimacy where there is none to be found because "people are not important" or because "there's no time".

I thrive on inspiration and love and I do hope that I am able bring out the best in myself and others, in a spectacular showing, in the most open and empowering telling. I know, we can do so much more.

Cheers. I enjoyed sharing myself too, albeit the fatigue and nervousness.