Summer drive

An eventful day. Tennis in the morning. Csu class at noon. Get home gym installed in the after noon. At 5, decided to take my cruising bike to Carmel barnyard via Hatton canyon. It is a perfect weather for biking. Touring around the mostly empty shopping center and do window shopping in several interning stores that have not been to for years. It is very pleasant. Just have to learn to enjoy these alone.

Summer started on campus

Campus emptied out within a weekend. Library is eerily quiet. I walked to the lib and pick up a book by tony Wagner titled  creating innovators. The book try to use qr code to enhance the printed page. 15 century technolog-The author lamented.  Bit the first qr code I try to access did not work!  So the printed technology works because it is cheap and reliable. The new tech has to be better on both to replace the old one. This is an example of creativity interfere with usability. Ironic.

Unrelenting Email

Getting thru 100+ email a day troubles me still. Might have to have strict routine to deal with it.  Let's try
At least three times a day, early morning, mid-day and around mid-night , 15-30 min each time.  Goal is to quickly review all emails, answer urgent and import once, move others to "later" bin and clean up the mail box.

When a democracy is in trouble

I have been watching taiwan's student political movement.  They argue that the legislative branch of the government is no longer function well and no long represent the will of the people - a sentiment no doubt shared by many youth in the last 10 years.

There are many possible solution to this, but boil it down, a simple key that leave a strong impression on me - to solve a democracy problem, is to have more democracy.  How true.  Taiwan might lead the world into a new era, an era of cyber-democracy, that via intelligent and ubiquitous available connected devise, people can vote, easily, after verification of their identify and they have watch the necessary debates, on every issue.

Those vote should be one of three choice - yes, no, postpone.  If there is less than a high number, say 50% of the registered voters vote, if will be back to the legistors.  This way, a controversial issue can be resolved clearly and often quickly.

Design Thinking and online education

Colleague Denise came my office and discussed using portfolio to enhance student learning experience.  We talked for almost an hour and got very excited. So this is our ideas

The CSIT online program, being 12 courses and 2 years.  The learner's experience can be told as a 100 weeks story, each one with a title of learning outcomes, some of hard and some are soft.  But each one is a capability.  Each entry is determined by the teacher and student blog their learning and reflection and shared among their friends.

Week 0 (yes, in computer we start with 0) - orientation

Week 1.1  CST 300, beginning, knowing the curriculum structure, classmate,
Week 1.2...
Week 2 Design their learning plan
Week 3 Know the industry
Week 4 Thinking about their capstone project
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Week 8 Final and reflect upon their learning, complete the portfolio

Week 9 CST 205
Week 10 Know the syllabus
Week 11 Know the python language
Week 12 The media type and format


Week 99 Presenting capstone

Felt af home

Visit Santa Barbara area to review a program. Pleasant people, friendly town.  Nothing special. But the feeling at home surprised random saddened me. 

I talked in English, cursed in English, flirted in English.. when I see the people, I no longer see foreigners.  I am at home. I felt at ease.  But not happy.

CA SCA5 bill - a racist bill that will hurt everyone in the Golden State

"The Way to Stop Racial Discrimination Is to Stop Racial Discriminating" sounds so self-evident that I believe no one will dispute.  However, the lately passed CA SCA5 bill is trying to discriminated students based on their race.

People come to and admire the U.S. because here an INDIVIDUAL can be successful not matter what race, gender, birth place, all the items beyond individual's choices, are.  CA SCA5 is trying to limit the number of students not because their achievement and aspiration, but because their surname.

Should I change my last name to hispanic sounding one, or dye my skin to black or brown, to avoid being discriminated against when I apply to a university?

Should the professors in public universities are required to give 40% "A" grades to the underserved minority? You will think that is absurd, but SCA 5 is trying to do that.  Should a public bus limit the number of white passengers to 30%? That is preposterous, but SCA 5 is trying to do that.

I am proud to be a resident of California, because its meritocracy, its opportunity for individual.  SCA will be a terrible blow to me, and to each citizen in the state.  Even the students took advantage of the preferential treatment to get into a college, their self-esteem will suffer because many, including themselves, might question their qualification.

ATL

Travel to far away places to find the long lost spirit.  Can each trip be a pilgrimage?  Can we cleanse ourselves of all the worries, burdens, scars, and the dark corner of our hearts?  If the source of the ill is deep in our soul, can we forgo it?  

Admin or not Admin

After so many years, I start to realize that most admin are either too busy or too incompetent to be effective.  My worries are that I am becoming one of them. Some admin climb the rank because they don't do anything. Often they don't remember details that they should know.

Some of us take on the admin position simply to prevent someone to do it because they might bring disasters to the organization. 

Outline of my latest Invincible Company through Innovation workshop

Innovation Management

- building an invincible company by sustained innovation

by Eric Y. Tao, Ph.D.  (see bio http://erictao.weebly.com)

Dr. Tao, a professor of technology management and director of Institute for Innovation and Economic Development, leads executives through a journey of innovation that started from a deep appreciation of how individual brains work in innovation, to enabling everyone to become more innovative, to cultivating innovative teams and conclude with how innovation can lead to not just one successful product, but a long lasting, invincible company.  

Many innovation management theories by the top scholars over the last fifty years, Peter Drucker (father of modern management), Clayton Christensen (Harvard Professor, author of Innovator’s Dilemma), Tim Brown (Stanford scholar and CEO of Ideo) will be discussed and practices in the workshop.  Through stories, hands-on exercises, team-projects and brainstorming, Dr. Tao guide the executives completing the workshop with a new mindset, a set of usable strategy and a plan to make their company invincible through sustained innovation.

16-hour lecture and workshop for executives

Hour 1-2 Start the innovation journey

• What is innovation
• What is design thinking
• Innovation stories that we can learn from
• “Innovate or die” - is it true
• Discussion the sample and importance of innovation

Hour 3-6   Becoming an innovative individual

• Know how your brain work
• 5 good habits to make you more innovative
• Individual innovation games
• Innovation now! (in class exercise)

Hour 7-10   Build an innovative team

• Why some team are more innovative?
• How to promote innovation in your team
• How the human resources department can help
• Team innovation game
• Reflection on current company policy (in class exercise)

Hour 11-12 Balance between innovation and efficiency

• Efficiency is crucial for survival
• Learn from efficiency stories and theories
• Innovator’s dilemma
• Essential efficiency strategies
• Balance innovation and efficiency

Hour 13-18 Build an invincible company via innovation

• The design thinking and innovation process
• Analyze the market place and trends
• What are the competitors doing
• Change management challenges
• Design new product/services to the markets (in class exercise)
• The long term goal - invincible

Spending time on investment or not

During the last few years, my investment in stock and real estates are doing fine.  I studies, analyzed and braved the turbulence of the market since 2009.  Often I woke at at 6:15AM PST to survey the major news of the world in general, and the companies whose stock I was watching in perticular.  I will spend about an hour on these and I would decide the sell and buy limits, instruct my onlne brokerage on my trades and let the waves of the market determine my actually trade.

I figure out the longer trends of the real estate and stocks and project its growth.  When the price raised shapely, I will sell, when it drop below the price I feel it deserves, I buy.   I usually stay with value stock and the major players pick, such as major banks, insurance companies and volatile (yet has foundamentionals to support the grow) ETF.

I will work on these until 8, when my day job starts.

Lately I start to resent the time I have to spend on these activities purely for money.  Sometime it is just for intellecture challenge to beat the market, most of the time it is just trade my valuable time for money.  I felt distained about the time while my wealth, although limited, is enough to sustain my living for good.

I re-read the auto-biograhpy of Benjamin Franklin, and reflect upon the people I respect, such as Sklansky, Moroh, chairman Jiang.  I felt a little better, these people also put a lot of effort to managing their finance.   I felt it is not just waste of my time, which can be used to help students and faculty on the Monterey and San Jose campuses, but a healthy regiment and I have to do as an succeful, independent, well-rounded person.  When done in an maderate, intelligent way, spending time on my finanical health is as valuable and necessary as spending me on my phyical, spiritual and relational health.

And when I read the Franklin book, I also surprrised a great man as he was, he pained the earninging and loss of every shilling in his early days.  So importatn to him that he can record who, where, how much change hand 40 years after the matter had happened.

As I was brought up in the chinese intellectual way that worriing about oneselves is selfish.   The old Ben's book comforts me.  Thanks!  I passed a note to him when I walked by the public library of Boston with his status and words.