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Archive for January, 2011

Be Relevant

Posted in business, Digital Marketing, lifehacks, tagged , on January 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

RELEVANCE. What a wonderful word. There is so much noise in our world today, that it can be difficult to find relevant information.

Try to think about this when talking to people in business. It’s amazing how often people, prepped with their presentations, talk about something that is totally irrelevant to the audience. Many people are scripted without regard to the relevance of what they are reciting to the needs of the people listening.

How do you to become more relevant?

  1. CARE — First, you have to care to be relevant. Seriously, a lot of people don’t care whether they are relevant or not.
  2. DON’T PRESUME – Listen. Then, ask clarifying questions if you are not sure about the issues at hand.
  3. VALIDATE – Outline your understanding of the situation and ask for validation.
  4. STORY TELLING – Make your points through story telling in context of relevance to the audience. Whenever possible use words and phrases initially used by those listening.

By being relevant in a business setting, or any other setting, you will rise above the noise and catch the attention of the people you are trying to reach. I know I find it refreshing when someone reaches out to me with information that is truly relevant to me.

While all the disciplines of marketing tries to get relevant messages out to their target audiences, it’s amazing how many of us don’t make any effort to be relevant in our in-person communication.

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Open Your Appetite to Adventure and Openness

Posted in lifehacks, tagged , , , on January 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

While I was traveling, a friend once told me that a person who is open to new foods truly is a person with an open mind. Anyone can talk about being open to new adventures and ideas but people cannot fake enjoying unfamiliar foods.

He was right. I’ve since watched people and their reactions to new foods for clues to their tolerance for new adventures and ideas. However, while humans can be creatures of habit, they can also learn new behaviors. Take me for example, I grew up pretty much a meat and potatoes guy (okay, maybe meat and rice guy). This is probably hard for some of my current friends to believe, but I was heavily influenced by a few American families that I lived with as a youngster.

On my first date with my wife Shari, however, she enthusiastically asked to go to a sushi restaurant. Until then, I’d only tried sushi once before and was repulsed by it. But wanting to make a favorable impression, I tried to swallow a plate full of sushi, only spitting back out the really fishy ones onto a napkin without detection. infatuation is an amazing motivator.

Since then, sushi has become one of my favorite foods. Furthermore, I’ve learned to really enjoy trying a wide variety of foods. Such meal time adventures are one of my greatest pleasures now. In fact, I now get really bored with standard American cuisine and try to avoid it as much as possible.

This has caused some problems at times. With my frequent trips to Vietnam, I’ve really learned to enjoy the various types of snails in the different sumptuous sauces.   Recently, these along with too much other shell-fish and an excessive amount of beer caused my first and only (fingers crossed) outbreak of gout. That was painful. Nonetheless, I had to try some snails again on my last trip. They are just too delicious to completely avoid.

My life mirrors the changes in my appetite for different foods. As I’ve traveled and learned so much about different cultures, I’ve become bolder and bolder with what I’m willing to eat. That change in perspective has enriched my life beyond imagination. I sometimes think back to that first date and wonder how different my life would have been if Shari had NOT been an adventurous eater herself?

My point is this, anyone can learn to open up their appetite to new adventures whether doing so is natural or difficult. The reward, I promise, is beyond your current comprehension.

Yummy snails!!!

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Vietnam Office Continues To Increase Impact

Posted in Uncategorized on January 24, 2011 | 1 Comment »

For the past 10 days I’ve been in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam working with our team there. I participated in the social media team meeting, where our American and British strategists and analysts gathered for a planning and team-building session with our Vietnam research team. In addition, I was focused on preparing operations there to absorb some new functions (QA, customer support, and IT infrastructure support).

We’re definitely building another level of critical mass in the Vietnam operations. One of the biggest risks when starting Lift9, which eventually merged with Intrepid (April, 2010) before being acquired by Alterian (August 30, 2010), was setting up a social research center in this foreign country.  It, however, was a concept I believed in, not just because of the opportunity to leverage lower labor costs, but because of Vietnam’s young demographics, relatively large population with nearly 90 million people, and fast-developing economy.

When I sent Ed Kim from Seattle to HCMC to build this research center in July, 2009, we together agreed beforehand on these

underlying principles:

  • Build a team of dynamic people in Vietnam
  • Develop and provide opportunities for the team
  • Provide a culture of fun, mutual respect and encourage creativity
  • Accept failure from  people to encourage initiative and learning
  • Respect and appreciate the local culture

Now, expanding to a second floor, the office there is being set up for faster and larger success than I first envisioned. We are grooming people who will no doubt be future leaders of our company in years to come.

Office group photo HCMC

 

Every afternoon fresh fruits are brought into the office

HCMC getting ready for Lunar New Year

Attending a team member's wedding

Warren Sukernek commuting into office

 

Nothing like a Vietnamese coffee jolt

After hour team building

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Appreciate Random Sadness as much as Happiness

Posted in lifehacks, People, tagged , , , on January 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Life is meant to be an ebb and flow of experiences and emotions. It is not meant to be one continuous ride of happiness. How utterly boring would that be?

Some people complain non-stop about being sad and unhappy, and chase “happiness” at all costs. These are truly imbalanced lives.

In my life, I’ve been sad; I’ve been challenged; I’ve been depressed; I’ve been miserable… Too often I’ve felt sorry for myself and hated my life. Moving forward, I expect to continue to have such disappointments. In fact, I would insist on it. Looking back, times of despair were my best  learning and motivating experiences. These emotions made me feel human, and living became more intense. It helped make me into who I am today.

Imagine life having never experienced a gut-wrenching heart-break that physically hurt? That intensity of emotion is something we humans are PRIVILEGED to feel. It is that intensity that drives passion in other areas. 

I believe past laughter makes tears meaningful, and remembered tears make laughter more enjoyable. Appreciate random sadness as much as happiness. Embrace the varying ebbs and flows of life. In the end, it is delusional to think you can be happy all the time, but it is smart to be optimistic no matter the situation.

 

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Multi-Tasking Diminishes Impact

Posted in business, entrepreneur, lifehacks, management, tagged , , on January 12, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

While people have become more productive with modernization, many of us have gone beyond the point of diminishing return.  

Multi-tasking allows us to effect more things in a given day, but it doesn’t always allow the quality impact like single-tasking – nor does it allow us to enjoy what we are doing as much.

How many times have you enjoyed really being focused on a single task? We’ve all enjoyed being in that “zone” when we’re lost in a task. Our best work and greatest satisfactions come from such times.

As an executive during the dot com era, I used to say that I needed to make a decision for the company every 15 minutes. Well, I made some bad decisions then from multi-tasking. Now, I make decisions more thoughtfully, always in context of a single corporate vision.

Even beyond work, we give up so much multi-tasking in our lives. Do you remember watching a really great football game while surfing the web? I don’t. In fact, when a game gets interesting, I always put down my laptop. I want to focus and engage with the game because that makes the experience more enjoyable and memorable.

It is not memorable when I’m constantly texting other people while having drinks with my friends. Then, I’m not really engaged with my friends and pretty soon they are texting others as well. I just cheated all of us out of a potential great time together.

I’ve never had a memorable meal eating lunch at my desk while trying to finish up some work. Have you?

We definitely sacrifice a lot being “productive”, multi-tasking and cramming as much into a day as possible. It creates adrenaline and we think we are being impactful. In reality, we are cheating ourselves of being better at what we do and enjoying deeper experiences.

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New Year Reaffirmation of Life Goals

Posted in lifehacks, personal stories, self-improvement, tagged , , on January 1, 2011 | 1 Comment »

For the New Year, I’m hopeful that my life will become even more simple, that I find fulfillment by what is accomplished and not by what is accumulated.

I want to be more supportive of my family and friends for what they are and not what I want them to be. I would like to spend more time with them, rather than being distracted just by my personal interests.   

I will strive to be a facilitator between people I know, and try to make life better for those in my circle of influence – with a smile, a joke, an opportunity, an introduction, a perspective, competition, or whatever.

 I will continue to challenge myself at work, at play, at home with the focus on succeeding at every opportunity, as that is my responsibility for being given the gift of life.

2011 is set up to be a special, memorable year. I’m old enough now to know that my perspective controls my reality, and I chose to be grateful and optimistic each day.

Happy New Year everyone!

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