IDE Talk
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Artists and Their Models
It is the second time Hong Kong Museum of Art worked with Centre Pompidou, Paris to bring in collection from the Modern and Post Modern Period. The show features models as muse, friends, social symbols and politic figures. I have studied most artists in my undersgraudate although these collection is quite new to me.
Actually the children education corner is the most interesting part of the exhibition. We participate and we have fun!
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Friday, November 24, 2006
Rehearsal for Annual Dinner
Somehow by chance I volunteer to be one of the actor in our annual dinner. We have gone to To Kwan Wan for a drama rehearsal. It is a rush, chanllenging and enjoyable experience. I cannot imagine I need to perform in drama and dance in front of some many people. I have not really moved my body and danced for many years.
I am a very devoted employee in the drama. So am I devoted in real life? Am I a committed and positive employee?
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Tom Lee Clearance
It is my first time to visit the Tom Lee Clearance show . Even though I am a Tom Lee music centre student, I am virtually not aware of such event until I spot the small banner at www.tomleemusic.com. Tom Lee hosts this warehouse clearance sales once every three years. It is a big clearance day, with at least 100 guitars and 20 pianos on sales. There are at least 20 classical guitars and I have the chance to touch each of them. I have spent almost 45 minutes until the staff announce the closure.It is crazy and I have seen many people just take and pay.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Catch the balls and stop eating peanut butter
An internal document by Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president has been "leaked" to the Wall Street Journal on Nov 18 2006.
It maybe a internal power struggle tactic. Yet it is an impressive and touching memo. It also reflect the delicate leadership position of the giant internet / media company is holding. If you do not wake up, you may just disapper when there are new players who are good to capture customer needs and mobilize resources. In every job I keep reminding myself the same motto....several years ago, I enthusiastically join this company...
The full memo are attached:
**********************************************
Three and half years ago, I enthusiastically joined Yahoo! The magnitude of the opportunity was only matched by the magnitude of the assets. And an amazing team has been responsible for rebuilding Yahoo!
It has been a profound experience. I am fortunate to have been a part of dramatic change for the Company. And our successes speak for themselves. More users than ever, more engaging than ever and more profitable than ever!
RELATED ARTICLES
• As Yahoo Falters, Executive's Memo Calls for Overhaul
• Yahoo Nears Deal to Let Papers Sell Ads on Online HotJobs Site
I proudly bleed purple and yellow everyday! And like so many people here, I love this company
But all is not well. Last Thursday's NY Times article was a blessing in the disguise of a painful public flogging. While it lacked accurate details, its conclusions rang true, and thus was a much needed wake up call. But also a call to action. A clear statement with which I, and far too many Yahoo's, agreed. And thankfully a reminder. A reminder that the measure of any person is not in how many times he or she falls down - but rather the spirit and resolve used to get back up. The same is now true of our Company.
It's time for us to get back up.
I believe we must embrace our problems and challenges and that we must take decisive action. We have the opportunity - in fact the invitation - to send a strong, clear and powerful message to our shareholders and Wall Street, to our advertisers and our partners, to our employees (both current and future), and to our users. They are all begging for a signal that we recognize and understand our problems, and that we are charting a course for fundamental change. Our current course and speed simply will not get us there. Short-term band-aids will not get us there.
It's time for us to get back up and seize this invitation.
I imagine there's much discussion amongst the Company's senior most leadership around the challenges we face. At the risk of being redundant, I wanted to share my take on our current situation and offer a recommended path forward, an attempt to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Recognizing Our Problems
We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything -- to everyone. We've known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course. We are separated into silos that far too frequently don't talk to each other. And when we do talk, it isn't to collaborate on a clearly focused strategy, but rather to argue and fight about ownership, strategies and tactics.
Our inclination and proclivity to repeatedly hire leaders from outside the company results in disparate visions of what winning looks like -- rather than a leadership team rallying around a single cohesive strategy.
I've heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular.
I hate peanut butter. We all should.
We lack clarity of ownership and accountability. The most painful manifestation of this is the massive redundancy that exists throughout the organization. We now operate in an organizational structure -- admittedly created with the best of intentions -- that has become overly bureaucratic. For far too many employees, there is another person with dramatically similar and overlapping responsibilities. This slows us down and burdens the company with unnecessary costs.
Equally problematic, at what point in the organization does someone really OWN the success of their product or service or feature? Product, marketing, engineering, corporate strategy, financial operations... there are so many people in charge (or believe that they are in charge) that it's not clear if anyone is in charge. This forces decisions to be pushed up - rather than down. It forces decisions by committee or consensus and discourages the innovators from breaking the mold... thinking outside the box.
There's a reason why a centerfielder and a left fielder have clear areas of ownership. Pursuing the same ball repeatedly results in either collisions or dropped balls. Knowing that someone else is pursuing the ball and hoping to avoid that collision - we have become timid in our pursuit. Again, the ball drops.
We lack decisiveness. Combine a lack of focus with unclear ownership, and the result is that decisions are either not made or are made when it is already too late. Without a clear and focused vision, and without complete clarity of ownership, we lack a macro perspective to guide our decisions and visibility into who should make those decisions. We are repeatedly stymied by challenging and hairy decisions. We are held hostage by our analysis paralysis.
We end up with competing (or redundant) initiatives and synergistic opportunities living in the different silos of our company.
• YME vs. Musicmatch
• Flickr vs. Photos
• YMG video vs. Search video
• Deli.cio.us vs. myweb
• Messenger and plug-ins vs. Sidebar and widgets
• Social media vs. 360 and Groups
• Front page vs. YMG
• Global strategy from BU'vs. Global strategy from Int'l
We have lost our passion to win. Far too many employees are "phoning" it in, lacking the passion and commitment to be a part of the solution. We sit idly by while -- at all levels -- employees are enabled to "hang around". Where is the accountability? Moreover, our compensation systems don't align to our overall success. Weak performers that have been around for years are rewarded. And many of our top performers aren't adequately recognized for their efforts.
As a result, the employees that we really need to stay (leaders, risk-takers, innovators, passionate) become discouraged and leave. Unfortunately many who opt to stay are not the ones who will lead us through the dramatic change that is needed.
Solving our Problems
We have awesome assets. Nearly every media and communications company is painfully jealous of our position. We have the largest audience, they are highly engaged and our brand is synonymous with the Internet.
If we get back up, embrace dramatic change, we will win.
I don't pretend there is only one path forward available to us. However, at a minimum, I want to be part of the solution and thus have outlined a plan here that I believe can work. It is my strong belief that we need to act very quickly or risk going further down a slippery slope, The plan here is not perfect; it is, however, FAR better than no action at all.
There are three pillars to my plan:
1. Focus the vision.
2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership.
3. Execute a radical reorganization.
1. Focus the vision
a) We need to boldly and definitively declare what we are and what we are not.
b) We need to exit (sell?) non core businesses and eliminate duplicative projects and businesses.
My belief is that the smoothly spread peanut butter needs to turn into a deliberately sculpted strategy -- that is narrowly focused.
We can't simply ask each BU to figure out what they should stop doing. The result will continue to be a non-cohesive strategy. The direction needs to come decisively from the top. We need to place our bets and not second guess. If we believe Media will maximize our ROI -- then let's not be bashful about reducing our investment in other areas. We need to make the tough decisions, articulate them and stick with them -- acknowledging that some people (users / partners / employees) will not like it. Change is hard.
2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership
a) Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today -- heads must roll,
b) We must thoughtfully create senior roles that have holistic accountability for a particular line of business (a variant of a GM structure that will work with Yahoo!'s new focus)
c) We must redesign our performance and incentive systems.
I believe there are too many BU leaders who have gotten away with unacceptable results and worse -- unacceptable leadership. Too often they (we!) are the worst offenders of the problems outlined here. We must signal to both the employees and to our shareholders that we will hold these leaders (ourselves) accountable and implement change.
By building around a strong and unequivocal GM structure, we will not only empower those leaders, we will eliminate significant overhead throughout our multi-headed matrix. It must be very clear to everyone in the organization who is empowered to make a decision and ownership must be transparent. With that empowerment comes increased accountability -- leaders make decisions, the rest of the company supports those decisions, and the leaders ultimately live/die by the results of those decisions.
My view is that far too often our compensation and rewards are just spreading more peanut butter. We need to be much more aggressive about performance based compensation. This will only help accelerate our ability to weed out our lowest performers and better reward our hungry, motivated and productive employees.
3. Execute a radical reorganization
a) The current business unit structure must go away.
b) We must dramatically decentralize and eliminate as much of the matrix as possible.
c) We must reduce our headcount by 15-20%.
I emphatically believe we simply must eliminate the redundancies we have created and the first step in doing this is by restructuring our organization. We can be more efficient with fewer people and we can get more done, more quickly. We need to return more decision making to a new set of business units and their leadership. But we can't achieve this with baby step changes, We need to fundamentally rethink how we organize to win.
Independent of specific proposals of what this reorganization should look like, two key principles must be represented:
Blow up the matrix. Empower a new generation and model of General Managers to be true general managers. Product, marketing, user experience & design, engineering, business development & operations all report into a small number of focused General Managers. Leave no doubt as to where accountability lies.
Kill the redundancies. Align a set of new BU's so that they are not competing against each other. Search focuses on search. Social media aligns with community and communications. No competing owners for Video, Photos, etc. And Front Page becomes Switzerland. This will be a delicate exercise -- decentralization can create inefficiencies, but I believe we can find the right balance.
I love Yahoo! I'm proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow. I'm proud to admit that I shaved a Y in the back of my head.
My motivation for this memo is the adamant belief that, as before, we have a tremendous opportunity ahead. I don't pretend that I have the only available answers, but we need to get the discussion going; change is needed and it is needed soon. We can be a stronger and faster company - a company with a clearer vision and clearer ownership and clearer accountability.
We may have fallen down, but the race is a marathon and not a sprint. I don't pretend that this will be easy. It will take courage, conviction, insight and tremendous commitment. I very much look forward to the challenge.
So let's get back up.
Catch the balls.
And stop eating peanut butter
An internal document by Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president has been "leaked" to the Wall Street Journal on Nov 18 2006.
It maybe a internal power struggle tactic. Yet it is an impressive and touching memo. It also reflect the delicate leadership position of the giant internet / media company is holding. If you do not wake up, you may just disapper when there are new players who are good to capture customer needs and mobilize resources. In every job I keep reminding myself the same motto....several years ago, I enthusiastically join this company...
The full memo are attached:
**********************************************
Three and half years ago, I enthusiastically joined Yahoo! The magnitude of the opportunity was only matched by the magnitude of the assets. And an amazing team has been responsible for rebuilding Yahoo!
It has been a profound experience. I am fortunate to have been a part of dramatic change for the Company. And our successes speak for themselves. More users than ever, more engaging than ever and more profitable than ever!
RELATED ARTICLES
• As Yahoo Falters, Executive's Memo Calls for Overhaul
• Yahoo Nears Deal to Let Papers Sell Ads on Online HotJobs Site
I proudly bleed purple and yellow everyday! And like so many people here, I love this company
But all is not well. Last Thursday's NY Times article was a blessing in the disguise of a painful public flogging. While it lacked accurate details, its conclusions rang true, and thus was a much needed wake up call. But also a call to action. A clear statement with which I, and far too many Yahoo's, agreed. And thankfully a reminder. A reminder that the measure of any person is not in how many times he or she falls down - but rather the spirit and resolve used to get back up. The same is now true of our Company.
It's time for us to get back up.
I believe we must embrace our problems and challenges and that we must take decisive action. We have the opportunity - in fact the invitation - to send a strong, clear and powerful message to our shareholders and Wall Street, to our advertisers and our partners, to our employees (both current and future), and to our users. They are all begging for a signal that we recognize and understand our problems, and that we are charting a course for fundamental change. Our current course and speed simply will not get us there. Short-term band-aids will not get us there.
It's time for us to get back up and seize this invitation.
I imagine there's much discussion amongst the Company's senior most leadership around the challenges we face. At the risk of being redundant, I wanted to share my take on our current situation and offer a recommended path forward, an attempt to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Recognizing Our Problems
We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything -- to everyone. We've known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course. We are separated into silos that far too frequently don't talk to each other. And when we do talk, it isn't to collaborate on a clearly focused strategy, but rather to argue and fight about ownership, strategies and tactics.
Our inclination and proclivity to repeatedly hire leaders from outside the company results in disparate visions of what winning looks like -- rather than a leadership team rallying around a single cohesive strategy.
I've heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular.
I hate peanut butter. We all should.
We lack clarity of ownership and accountability. The most painful manifestation of this is the massive redundancy that exists throughout the organization. We now operate in an organizational structure -- admittedly created with the best of intentions -- that has become overly bureaucratic. For far too many employees, there is another person with dramatically similar and overlapping responsibilities. This slows us down and burdens the company with unnecessary costs.
Equally problematic, at what point in the organization does someone really OWN the success of their product or service or feature? Product, marketing, engineering, corporate strategy, financial operations... there are so many people in charge (or believe that they are in charge) that it's not clear if anyone is in charge. This forces decisions to be pushed up - rather than down. It forces decisions by committee or consensus and discourages the innovators from breaking the mold... thinking outside the box.
There's a reason why a centerfielder and a left fielder have clear areas of ownership. Pursuing the same ball repeatedly results in either collisions or dropped balls. Knowing that someone else is pursuing the ball and hoping to avoid that collision - we have become timid in our pursuit. Again, the ball drops.
We lack decisiveness. Combine a lack of focus with unclear ownership, and the result is that decisions are either not made or are made when it is already too late. Without a clear and focused vision, and without complete clarity of ownership, we lack a macro perspective to guide our decisions and visibility into who should make those decisions. We are repeatedly stymied by challenging and hairy decisions. We are held hostage by our analysis paralysis.
We end up with competing (or redundant) initiatives and synergistic opportunities living in the different silos of our company.
• YME vs. Musicmatch
• Flickr vs. Photos
• YMG video vs. Search video
• Deli.cio.us vs. myweb
• Messenger and plug-ins vs. Sidebar and widgets
• Social media vs. 360 and Groups
• Front page vs. YMG
• Global strategy from BU'vs. Global strategy from Int'l
We have lost our passion to win. Far too many employees are "phoning" it in, lacking the passion and commitment to be a part of the solution. We sit idly by while -- at all levels -- employees are enabled to "hang around". Where is the accountability? Moreover, our compensation systems don't align to our overall success. Weak performers that have been around for years are rewarded. And many of our top performers aren't adequately recognized for their efforts.
As a result, the employees that we really need to stay (leaders, risk-takers, innovators, passionate) become discouraged and leave. Unfortunately many who opt to stay are not the ones who will lead us through the dramatic change that is needed.
Solving our Problems
We have awesome assets. Nearly every media and communications company is painfully jealous of our position. We have the largest audience, they are highly engaged and our brand is synonymous with the Internet.
If we get back up, embrace dramatic change, we will win.
I don't pretend there is only one path forward available to us. However, at a minimum, I want to be part of the solution and thus have outlined a plan here that I believe can work. It is my strong belief that we need to act very quickly or risk going further down a slippery slope, The plan here is not perfect; it is, however, FAR better than no action at all.
There are three pillars to my plan:
1. Focus the vision.
2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership.
3. Execute a radical reorganization.
1. Focus the vision
a) We need to boldly and definitively declare what we are and what we are not.
b) We need to exit (sell?) non core businesses and eliminate duplicative projects and businesses.
My belief is that the smoothly spread peanut butter needs to turn into a deliberately sculpted strategy -- that is narrowly focused.
We can't simply ask each BU to figure out what they should stop doing. The result will continue to be a non-cohesive strategy. The direction needs to come decisively from the top. We need to place our bets and not second guess. If we believe Media will maximize our ROI -- then let's not be bashful about reducing our investment in other areas. We need to make the tough decisions, articulate them and stick with them -- acknowledging that some people (users / partners / employees) will not like it. Change is hard.
2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership
a) Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today -- heads must roll,
b) We must thoughtfully create senior roles that have holistic accountability for a particular line of business (a variant of a GM structure that will work with Yahoo!'s new focus)
c) We must redesign our performance and incentive systems.
I believe there are too many BU leaders who have gotten away with unacceptable results and worse -- unacceptable leadership. Too often they (we!) are the worst offenders of the problems outlined here. We must signal to both the employees and to our shareholders that we will hold these leaders (ourselves) accountable and implement change.
By building around a strong and unequivocal GM structure, we will not only empower those leaders, we will eliminate significant overhead throughout our multi-headed matrix. It must be very clear to everyone in the organization who is empowered to make a decision and ownership must be transparent. With that empowerment comes increased accountability -- leaders make decisions, the rest of the company supports those decisions, and the leaders ultimately live/die by the results of those decisions.
My view is that far too often our compensation and rewards are just spreading more peanut butter. We need to be much more aggressive about performance based compensation. This will only help accelerate our ability to weed out our lowest performers and better reward our hungry, motivated and productive employees.
3. Execute a radical reorganization
a) The current business unit structure must go away.
b) We must dramatically decentralize and eliminate as much of the matrix as possible.
c) We must reduce our headcount by 15-20%.
I emphatically believe we simply must eliminate the redundancies we have created and the first step in doing this is by restructuring our organization. We can be more efficient with fewer people and we can get more done, more quickly. We need to return more decision making to a new set of business units and their leadership. But we can't achieve this with baby step changes, We need to fundamentally rethink how we organize to win.
Independent of specific proposals of what this reorganization should look like, two key principles must be represented:
Blow up the matrix. Empower a new generation and model of General Managers to be true general managers. Product, marketing, user experience & design, engineering, business development & operations all report into a small number of focused General Managers. Leave no doubt as to where accountability lies.
Kill the redundancies. Align a set of new BU's so that they are not competing against each other. Search focuses on search. Social media aligns with community and communications. No competing owners for Video, Photos, etc. And Front Page becomes Switzerland. This will be a delicate exercise -- decentralization can create inefficiencies, but I believe we can find the right balance.
I love Yahoo! I'm proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow. I'm proud to admit that I shaved a Y in the back of my head.
My motivation for this memo is the adamant belief that, as before, we have a tremendous opportunity ahead. I don't pretend that I have the only available answers, but we need to get the discussion going; change is needed and it is needed soon. We can be a stronger and faster company - a company with a clearer vision and clearer ownership and clearer accountability.
We may have fallen down, but the race is a marathon and not a sprint. I don't pretend that this will be easy. It will take courage, conviction, insight and tremendous commitment. I very much look forward to the challenge.
So let's get back up.
Catch the balls.
And stop eating peanut butter
Monday, November 20, 2006
A Break
When's the last time you took a break from the hustle and rush working life? Last week I have taken a real quick lunch and had the whole hour playing guitar at a music studio in Wanchai. It was an amazing and wonderful experience of focusing not at work but at something that you enjoy.
Surprisingly, I was still the early bird who come back to office after the lunch hour.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Aberdeen Reservoir
I always believe the best natural landscape is not far away in New Zealand or South Africa. It is always in our small city – Hong Kong. Imagine we have over 80% areas belongs to natural park. Come to join me to visit the Aberdeen Reservoir, which is just 15 minutes walking distance from the Aberdeen city centre. Indeed I have seen the same beautiful and tranquil landscape in New Zealand this year.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Future Direction
It is almost the year end and best time for rethink and plan for future direction. What are my priorities in next year (and in the coming 3 years)? Should I
It is almost the year end and best time for rethink and plan for future direction. What are my priorities in next year (and in the coming 3 years)? Should I
- Study for a new course
- Acquire a professional qualification like CPA, CFA
- Continue to brush up my mandarin
- Learn new management and communication skills
- 200% devoted to my work
- Focus on my family and friends
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A drop in the bucket
I've seen a TV programme about a group of young musician who are trying their best to practice everyday to be the professional artist. One of them mentioned Ralph Kirschbaum once said "Everything you do, every step you take, is a drop in the bucket." Ralph is a renowned cello soloist. It may be trivial if we practice everyday. We may not aware any breakthrough. Yet, slightly and slightly, our efforts are accumulated and the bucket will be overfilled one day suddenly. To be an outstanding artist may require talent, but more importantly one's continuous efforts to be perfect. The same principle apply not only to music training but also learning language, studying a new subject, advancing one's carrer, building a website and building a business.
More details on Ralph Kirschbaum
Monday, November 13, 2006
什麼人訪問什麼人﹕港燦是個七字頭
I like the HK Blogger 港燦 interview by Ming Pao very much. It actually capture the "struggling mentality" of the HK middle class who were born in 70's. Click here to see the article
(明報) 11月 05日 星期日 05:05AM
【明報專訊】網上世界百花齊放，有些人說會取代主流傳媒，也有說會遲早被主流傳媒吃掉。
筆者有一個網站，沒有幾個人看，每天的讀者不到100人。在過去兩年間，筆者開始在報章和雜誌寫作，在網上的寫作愈來愈少，慢慢被主流傳媒吸納。
港燦也有一個網站，很多人看，每天的讀者超過2000人。在過去兩年間，《港燦筆記》這個博客獲得多份報章雜誌介紹，網主卻一直堅持不上鏡，不公開身分，不走進主流傳媒。
兩條路，本來只是個人選擇的不同。談到結尾，卻發現兩人所共同面對的，是同輩「七字頭」如何和社會對話的大問題。嬰兒潮的一輩快將退休，社會上層的位置卻沒有因而讓後來者自由競爭。香港的新生代如果要立志幹一番事業，應該如何自處﹖
本來對找港燦做長篇訪問不抱太大期望，每次報章雜誌談到他的博客，他總說感到很不好受。有次某雜誌把《港燦筆記》評為「舉足輕重」，他立即把博客的副題改為「並非財經網誌」，拒絕記者的稱許。
為了自娛 也是自學
港燦的博客多談企業財務會計分析，從跨國公司到商場貼紙相連鎖店的營運研究都有，就連稱許他的雜誌也會被他煎皮拆骨，解讀在該報業集團的位置。問到港燦為什麼會寫這類題材，他說最初純綷是出於興趣。他一再強調，在網上寫文章只是為了自娛，不是為了成名。本是金融服務業出身，港燦對市場消息自然比較留意。有時他自己或朋友不同意一些主流傳媒的意見，便很想「寫幾行字發泄」。如是者，便有了《港燦筆記》。
從自娛開始，港燦發現寫博客其實也是一個自學的過程。他說因為曾經誤判了某上市公司的股票，覺得應該把平日研究股票、年報等的自學筆記貼上博客，希望能拋磚引玉，讓真正的高手出來指正。不過他一直強調自己並不專業，其業餘股票研究很難做得到專業投資者應有的精細。
所以博客獲得主流傳媒的報道，港燦不單絲毫沒有一點飄飄然的感覺，反而第一次感到有壓力。早前他甚至曾宣布停寫，到了最近才重出江湖。要他選擇以真身示人，在可見的將來似乎是毫無可能。
不以真身示人 謙稱水準未夠
港燦還說幸好他的上司不知道他就是港燦，如果發現他常常在上班時間寫自己的博客，還不立即革職查辦﹗還好他在公司有自己的房間，身後只有一幅牆，讓他可以靠寫博客來忙?偷閒。他始終謙遜地說自己水準未夠，太早成名不但不會有助自己轉工，只會增加被金融業踢入黑名單的機會。
如是者，話題便轉到「成名與否」的抉擇。年輕人從剛踏足社會開始，來到林海峰(相關新聞 - 網站)說的「三字頭」關口，總會想想自己的事業該如何的走下去。在業界中打響名堂，從來是向上爬的一個重要手段。
筆者就遇過不少在「博上位」的同輩，去過幾次旅行就自稱旅遊玩家，上過一次電台就自稱客席主持。他們總是不會放過交換名片的機會，總是在不斷找尋見報的方法。這些人有的主持小眾寬頻節目，有的在免費報章寫評論，有的還磨摩擦掌要去選區議員。
說到投資市場，同樣不時會有所謂的少年股神出現，被傳媒一窩蜂地追捧。據說確實有少年股神獲電台邀請講股，還受投資銀行賞識，主動邀請到其研究部面試云云。港燦也曾在博客提到某些年輕投資者樂意被傳媒追捧，其實是志在尋找客人做資產管理。
筆者以為重實學的港燦會對樂於爭逐名利的人很鄙視，誰知他卻說﹕「也是為了餬口而已，反正不是去偷去搶，也就不要理會他們吧。」
世伯變仇人 經歷不愉快
既然明白名譽地位的重要，對爭逐的過程又不盡反感，為何在網上擁有穩定讀者群的港燦仍然多番強調不想見報﹖幾經追問之下，港燦終於道出一個不愉快的故事。
話說某年市道和今天的差不多，有位在銀行股票機前認識的朋友，本來相熟得想介紹女兒給港燦認識。這朋友問港燦恆指將會升還是跌，他便說當時市場暢旺勿估頂。誰知轉頭市勢逆轉，弄得這朋友由贏變輸，獲利變成止蝕。這位朋友第二天遇到港燦，有如見到仇家一樣，更別說讓他和女兒來往。從此之後，港燦情願在網上和各方素未謀面的人談，也不想變成什麼股壇名人。
沒股票推介 沒內幕消息
今天港燦還在博客旁邊寫上一大段密密麻麻的「使用條款」，列明投資價格可跌可升，讀者應該自行判斷。博客沒有股票號碼推介，沒有獨家內幕炒股消息，他卻還是擔心會歷史重演，會有人輸錢之後怨他一世。
為什麼經歷了金融風暴之後，香港人炒作和投機的風氣沒有改變﹖港燦說除了可以用作投機的錢少了，和金融產品及衍生工具的選擇增加之外，現在香港的投機風氣和97年前沒有分別。我們甚至可以懷疑，新一代的香港人可能要比上一代更為投機，才能有機會向上爬。
工業和服務業的暴發周期已過，傳統打工仔靠累積年資經驗和持續進修來升職的路已愈來愈難走。港燦說，如果「上位」的定義是取代老闆的位置，那麼很抱歉，連老闆也自身難保，因為公司早已被內地新精英的後代收購。他們國語英語俱佳，既有國際專業資格，又熟悉內地社會生存的蠱惑招數。香港的新一代如不走投機之路，只怕永遠也沒有向上流的機會。
人生如孖展窩輪交易
從這宏觀的角度出發，那些不斷「博上位」的「卡片黨」又似乎只是時代的反映。對於香港的新一代，投機從不止於抽新股，還有花錢花時間讀副學士(相關新聞 - 網站)和申請創業基金。人生旅途從來就是一場又一場的孖展窩輪交易，買賣場的名字叫「我用青春賭明天」。
港燦說，自拍錄像短片上網、參加《殘酷一叮》、選美和各類遊戲節目，以至各類政治壓力和宗教團體的興起，都可以是這個社會大潮的反照。近年所謂「御宅族」的興起，不一定只有動漫、打機、音樂、電腦黑客幾類。他們代表了一些街上完全不起眼的人，對某些題目的獨特研究心得，或創作天分之強，可能完全是主流媒體沒有見過的。在傳統晉升階梯苦無出路的年輕人，正按此途又一次發揮香港人的「執生」精神。
如果有多些企業能如港燦的希望一樣，能在傳統招聘程序之外多留意這些「御宅族」，把能夠發揮他們才能、創作力和研究心得的工作給他們做，香港仍有條件發展創意產業，而香港的晉升階梯亦可被拉闊。說到這兒，筆者總算隱隱看到「不想見報」的港燦在走一條怎樣的路。
既說三十而立，我們這一代在改革開放和金融風暴當中成長的「七字頭」，在這強政勵治的和諧社會之下，原來無論選擇走哪一道階梯，其實都是在城市的跌蕩當中找尋屬於我們的位置。
後記
與港燦談起霍英東(相關新聞 - 網站)先生辭世的消息，他問﹕「霍英東先生是靠膽識還是知識改變命運﹖」這條問題太難回答了吧﹗筆者只有很初步很初步地假設，在每一個社會，每一套制度之下，每一代都會用各自的方法自製存活空間。至於當他們找到機會之後，會選擇改變建制還是變成建制的一部分，則又是另一個完全不同的課題了。
I like the HK Blogger 港燦 interview by Ming Pao very much. It actually capture the "struggling mentality" of the HK middle class who were born in 70's. Click here to see the article
(明報) 11月 05日 星期日 05:05AM
【明報專訊】網上世界百花齊放，有些人說會取代主流傳媒，也有說會遲早被主流傳媒吃掉。
筆者有一個網站，沒有幾個人看，每天的讀者不到100人。在過去兩年間，筆者開始在報章和雜誌寫作，在網上的寫作愈來愈少，慢慢被主流傳媒吸納。
港燦也有一個網站，很多人看，每天的讀者超過2000人。在過去兩年間，《港燦筆記》這個博客獲得多份報章雜誌介紹，網主卻一直堅持不上鏡，不公開身分，不走進主流傳媒。
兩條路，本來只是個人選擇的不同。談到結尾，卻發現兩人所共同面對的，是同輩「七字頭」如何和社會對話的大問題。嬰兒潮的一輩快將退休，社會上層的位置卻沒有因而讓後來者自由競爭。香港的新生代如果要立志幹一番事業，應該如何自處﹖
本來對找港燦做長篇訪問不抱太大期望，每次報章雜誌談到他的博客，他總說感到很不好受。有次某雜誌把《港燦筆記》評為「舉足輕重」，他立即把博客的副題改為「並非財經網誌」，拒絕記者的稱許。
為了自娛 也是自學
港燦的博客多談企業財務會計分析，從跨國公司到商場貼紙相連鎖店的營運研究都有，就連稱許他的雜誌也會被他煎皮拆骨，解讀在該報業集團的位置。問到港燦為什麼會寫這類題材，他說最初純綷是出於興趣。他一再強調，在網上寫文章只是為了自娛，不是為了成名。本是金融服務業出身，港燦對市場消息自然比較留意。有時他自己或朋友不同意一些主流傳媒的意見，便很想「寫幾行字發泄」。如是者，便有了《港燦筆記》。
從自娛開始，港燦發現寫博客其實也是一個自學的過程。他說因為曾經誤判了某上市公司的股票，覺得應該把平日研究股票、年報等的自學筆記貼上博客，希望能拋磚引玉，讓真正的高手出來指正。不過他一直強調自己並不專業，其業餘股票研究很難做得到專業投資者應有的精細。
所以博客獲得主流傳媒的報道，港燦不單絲毫沒有一點飄飄然的感覺，反而第一次感到有壓力。早前他甚至曾宣布停寫，到了最近才重出江湖。要他選擇以真身示人，在可見的將來似乎是毫無可能。
不以真身示人 謙稱水準未夠
港燦還說幸好他的上司不知道他就是港燦，如果發現他常常在上班時間寫自己的博客，還不立即革職查辦﹗還好他在公司有自己的房間，身後只有一幅牆，讓他可以靠寫博客來忙?偷閒。他始終謙遜地說自己水準未夠，太早成名不但不會有助自己轉工，只會增加被金融業踢入黑名單的機會。
如是者，話題便轉到「成名與否」的抉擇。年輕人從剛踏足社會開始，來到林海峰(相關新聞 - 網站)說的「三字頭」關口，總會想想自己的事業該如何的走下去。在業界中打響名堂，從來是向上爬的一個重要手段。
筆者就遇過不少在「博上位」的同輩，去過幾次旅行就自稱旅遊玩家，上過一次電台就自稱客席主持。他們總是不會放過交換名片的機會，總是在不斷找尋見報的方法。這些人有的主持小眾寬頻節目，有的在免費報章寫評論，有的還磨摩擦掌要去選區議員。
說到投資市場，同樣不時會有所謂的少年股神出現，被傳媒一窩蜂地追捧。據說確實有少年股神獲電台邀請講股，還受投資銀行賞識，主動邀請到其研究部面試云云。港燦也曾在博客提到某些年輕投資者樂意被傳媒追捧，其實是志在尋找客人做資產管理。
筆者以為重實學的港燦會對樂於爭逐名利的人很鄙視，誰知他卻說﹕「也是為了餬口而已，反正不是去偷去搶，也就不要理會他們吧。」
世伯變仇人 經歷不愉快
既然明白名譽地位的重要，對爭逐的過程又不盡反感，為何在網上擁有穩定讀者群的港燦仍然多番強調不想見報﹖幾經追問之下，港燦終於道出一個不愉快的故事。
話說某年市道和今天的差不多，有位在銀行股票機前認識的朋友，本來相熟得想介紹女兒給港燦認識。這朋友問港燦恆指將會升還是跌，他便說當時市場暢旺勿估頂。誰知轉頭市勢逆轉，弄得這朋友由贏變輸，獲利變成止蝕。這位朋友第二天遇到港燦，有如見到仇家一樣，更別說讓他和女兒來往。從此之後，港燦情願在網上和各方素未謀面的人談，也不想變成什麼股壇名人。
沒股票推介 沒內幕消息
今天港燦還在博客旁邊寫上一大段密密麻麻的「使用條款」，列明投資價格可跌可升，讀者應該自行判斷。博客沒有股票號碼推介，沒有獨家內幕炒股消息，他卻還是擔心會歷史重演，會有人輸錢之後怨他一世。
為什麼經歷了金融風暴之後，香港人炒作和投機的風氣沒有改變﹖港燦說除了可以用作投機的錢少了，和金融產品及衍生工具的選擇增加之外，現在香港的投機風氣和97年前沒有分別。我們甚至可以懷疑，新一代的香港人可能要比上一代更為投機，才能有機會向上爬。
工業和服務業的暴發周期已過，傳統打工仔靠累積年資經驗和持續進修來升職的路已愈來愈難走。港燦說，如果「上位」的定義是取代老闆的位置，那麼很抱歉，連老闆也自身難保，因為公司早已被內地新精英的後代收購。他們國語英語俱佳，既有國際專業資格，又熟悉內地社會生存的蠱惑招數。香港的新一代如不走投機之路，只怕永遠也沒有向上流的機會。
人生如孖展窩輪交易
從這宏觀的角度出發，那些不斷「博上位」的「卡片黨」又似乎只是時代的反映。對於香港的新一代，投機從不止於抽新股，還有花錢花時間讀副學士(相關新聞 - 網站)和申請創業基金。人生旅途從來就是一場又一場的孖展窩輪交易，買賣場的名字叫「我用青春賭明天」。
港燦說，自拍錄像短片上網、參加《殘酷一叮》、選美和各類遊戲節目，以至各類政治壓力和宗教團體的興起，都可以是這個社會大潮的反照。近年所謂「御宅族」的興起，不一定只有動漫、打機、音樂、電腦黑客幾類。他們代表了一些街上完全不起眼的人，對某些題目的獨特研究心得，或創作天分之強，可能完全是主流媒體沒有見過的。在傳統晉升階梯苦無出路的年輕人，正按此途又一次發揮香港人的「執生」精神。
如果有多些企業能如港燦的希望一樣，能在傳統招聘程序之外多留意這些「御宅族」，把能夠發揮他們才能、創作力和研究心得的工作給他們做，香港仍有條件發展創意產業，而香港的晉升階梯亦可被拉闊。說到這兒，筆者總算隱隱看到「不想見報」的港燦在走一條怎樣的路。
既說三十而立，我們這一代在改革開放和金融風暴當中成長的「七字頭」，在這強政勵治的和諧社會之下，原來無論選擇走哪一道階梯，其實都是在城市的跌蕩當中找尋屬於我們的位置。
後記
與港燦談起霍英東(相關新聞 - 網站)先生辭世的消息，他問﹕「霍英東先生是靠膽識還是知識改變命運﹖」這條問題太難回答了吧﹗筆者只有很初步很初步地假設，在每一個社會，每一套制度之下，每一代都會用各自的方法自製存活空間。至於當他們找到機會之後，會選擇改變建制還是變成建制的一部分，則又是另一個完全不同的課題了。
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
青文結業
Catch the news from 馬家輝。稿紙以外 that 青文 has been closed on 31 Aug 2006. It is an excellent bookshop in Wanchai, featuring many local and overseas books (with Twilight bookshop) literature, sociology, psychology and philosophy books. With the rise of Amazon, I rarely shop at 青文. Sadly that I worked in Wan Chai now and never visited青文 in the last two years.
Changes are constant. In particular, the development in Internet and urban landscape drives things changes and goes quickly. We have so many memories with bookshop, Queen’s Pier and Hong Kong Star Ferry Piers. It is now resided with our memories only.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Hong Kong Stock Market; HSI: 18,936.55
My friend started to ask me whether I am bullish or bearish with the Hong Kong stock market. The HSI reached 18,936.55 today, the peak ever since the internet bubble in Year 2000. Instead of evaluating the stock market from a fundamental analysis or technical analysis, I would like to look at the stock market from the behavioural finance perspective.
It happened six years ago, just a few months before the bubble crash. It was just amazing that everyone invested in the stock market. Every investment has good return-on-investment. Every IPO has recorded with excellent over-subscription rate. Even the auntie at the newspaper stalls, colleagues and friends who had never invested in stock market joined the crowd of “hot and fast” money! Try asking your friends, colleagues and even street passer-by, you could have a feel whether it is a hot market or not.
When the critical mass – all retail investors are pulled into the stock market, It is always the best alert signal to stop and think. It is time for discipline and control. So what did I do? My cash are still with the stock market, but “high fly” equities are swapped with some stable and dividend rich equities. My adjustment will continue in November.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Lemon Tea Advertisement
I ride on MTR everyday, same as million of Hong Kong people. HK MTR is full of advertisement and I like this "Lemon Tea" advertisement which wrapped up the whole MTR cabinet. The yellow colour is so lively and brand impressive. I also notice a man carrying the yellow www.tdctrade.com necklace. Did you notice?
I ride on MTR everyday, same as million of Hong Kong people. HK MTR is full of advertisement and I like this "Lemon Tea" advertisement which wrapped up the whole MTR cabinet. The yellow colour is so lively and brand impressive. I also notice a man carrying the yellow www.tdctrade.com necklace. Did you notice?
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Irene and Eugene Wedding
Thanks Irene for inviting me to her wedding reception today. It’s just so nice and happy to see so many people celebrating and witnessing together. Indeed, it’s my second time to join an outdoor wedding reception. So good weather!
May I wish Irene and Eugene all the best! Happy wedding life!
Instant Messaging
Do you MSN? ICQ? QQ?
I have been using ICQ for more than 5 years, and start to use MSN Messenger since last year. Surprisingly, my ICQ friends also migrate to MSN and there are so many people using MSN now. Just a rough count, I have 30 ICQ contact but 188 MSN contact.
It is so convenient to use IM tool to connect to my friends and colleagues. It is even cost effective if you need to communicate to your overseas friends or overseas colleagues.
Yet, it is also troublesome. To me, IM tool is kind of distracting especially when I am in my work. People using IM tool expect you reply quickly. Therefore I need to distract from my work and reply even though I am focusing on critical tasks.
Furthermore, IM is one of the tool facilitating gossip. I trust the amount of gossip and number of colleagues using IM is positive related.
Same motto: “there is no right or wrong with IM as communication tool, it is just how do you use it in your daily life. How do you control yourself in leveraging the tool's benefits without over-usage.
Do you MSN? ICQ? QQ?
I have been using ICQ for more than 5 years, and start to use MSN Messenger since last year. Surprisingly, my ICQ friends also migrate to MSN and there are so many people using MSN now. Just a rough count, I have 30 ICQ contact but 188 MSN contact.
It is so convenient to use IM tool to connect to my friends and colleagues. It is even cost effective if you need to communicate to your overseas friends or overseas colleagues.
Yet, it is also troublesome. To me, IM tool is kind of distracting especially when I am in my work. People using IM tool expect you reply quickly. Therefore I need to distract from my work and reply even though I am focusing on critical tasks.
Furthermore, IM is one of the tool facilitating gossip. I trust the amount of gossip and number of colleagues using IM is positive related.
Same motto: “there is no right or wrong with IM as communication tool, it is just how do you use it in your daily life. How do you control yourself in leveraging the tool's benefits without over-usage.
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