Biz trip in the States

Spent half this week in Fort Worth, Texas and the other half in California.

Tuesday I helped judge a chili context in Texas and I found out the closest restaurant to our office is Hooters (thumbs up for the deep-fried pickles).

It was planes, trains, and automobiles for me Thursday 11/24 (US. Thanksgiving Day). Flew from Ft. Worth to San Francisco, took the BART to the car rental area and then picked up the rental car (Chevy Malibu) and drove to my hotel.

Had a nice dinner at the Shengs and recuperated Friday. Saturday drove to Santa Cruz and Sunday played a round (111, but 3 pars).

Kate told me Anna is starting to walk a lot and I'll be surprised. Hope she's filming it. Bad enough I missed her first birthday.

And the newest Canadian citizen is....

that's right, my daughter Anna. Yeah Anna!!!

After only 7 months I picked up the little card from the CTO yesterday.

Funny, the significance of little plastic card with a photo.

SMB Product Launch

Happened officially on 10/31. Bit crazy, but learned a lot during the process.

Worry-Free Security Solutions is the name of our SMB marketing campaign and actually it's quite a good one. Very appropriate for our customers. Both end users and partner/resellers.

Money or learning opportunity?

That's the question Kate's brother asked me tonight regarding choice of jobs.

Of course I told him, learning, learning, learning while I pounded my fist on the couch. I explained to him that if he finds a company > department > role that he likes (probably need to do it in that order) then learn and gain as much meaningful experience as he can. If he learns a lot and obtains that experience the money will come.

They talk about this in the book The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers : The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction .

They talk about the difference between potential value and experiential value. Use your experiential value (that gained from experience) to also build up your potential value. This increased potential value opens more doors and allows others to have confidence in you and offer projects/roles that can in turn increase your experiential value.

Experience > Potential > Experience > Potential, etc...

Dinner with Russell

Had dinner last night with Russell and his girlfriend (along with Maggie and Jill).

Who's Russell? Just a super nice guy who took us all over Minnesota in July. We were there for the Microsoft Partner Conference and he was our guide/driver. One night we ended up going to his place and hung out. Others played majong while I guarded the couch.

He's been back in Taiwan for awhile, but something has always come up (previous time Jill and Maggie on biz trips, time before that typhoon).

Ended up having delicious Korean food at my favorite Korean restaurant in Taipei and a bottle of nice jinro soju.