Denial vs Reframing -- Part 2

King Henry of Shakespeare's "Henry V" play, must be an expert either in denial or in reframing. No matter how bad a situation, he saw something good in it. He would even insist that he would be disappointed if the situation changed into something some other character wished for.

Normally, if we pay court to a girl with a foreign tongue, we would wish either that we speak her language better or that she speaks our language better. King Henry is way different from the rest of us. He's always glad with the way things are, right at any moment. He accepted any situation as it was and found his way forward from there.

This is Act 5, Scene 2 of the play.

KATHERINE

Ô bon Dieu! Les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.

KING HENRY

What says she, fair one? That the tongues of men are full of deceits? 

ALICE

Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits; dat is de princess. 

KING HENRY

The princess is the better Englishwoman.—I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding. I am glad thou canst speak no better English, for if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say, “I love you.” Then if you urge me farther than to say, “Do you, in faith?” I wear out my suit. Give me your answer, i' faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say you, lady?

EssayKKN too specializes in teaching reframing and undaunted spirit to young and mature students alike.

Denial vs Reframing -- Part 1

In Henry V | Act 3, Scene 6, the English king's army was vastly outnumbered and the French ambassador was even demanding ransom from the king. The Duke of Gloucester could not help voicing his fear-driven wishes and hopes.

In these lines, King Henry spoke like US Civil War General USS Grant, reframing a desperate situation into something more encouraging.
.

KING HENRY:

Go bid thy master well advise himself:

If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,

We shall your tawny ground with your red blood

Discolor. And so, Montjoy, fare you well.

The sum of all our answer is but this:

We would not seek a battle as we are,

Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.

So tell your master.

MONTJOY

I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.

GLOUCESTER

I hope they will not come upon us now.

KING HENRY

We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.

March to the bridge. It now draws toward night.

Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,

And on tomorrow bid them march away.

EssayKKN specializes in teaching reframing and undaunted spirit to young and mature students alike.

Low-risk Aggression at EssayKKN

James Lacey and Williamson Murray's "Moment of Battle: The Twenty Clashes That Changed the World" is a great book. Their recount of Midway naval battle proves a great page-turner.

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's directive to his subordinate, Admiral Raymond Spruance, caught our fancy in particular. The key instruction here was "calculated risk." In business terms, it means you should not spend a cent if you are not certain that you can earn back more than that cent.

The authors explain that such instruction would be rather constraining to typical commanders, but not to Spruance. They admired Spruance for his imagination, ability and discipline to be aggressive while at the same time, to incur only low risks to his own fleet.

Our team at EssayKKN derive great inspiration from these words. Can we think up and execute low-risk but aggressive and effective actions for customer acquisition? Well, let's see ...

Love Wins: the SEA games champion Thai football team

Love Wins: Congratulations to the SEA games champion Thai football team!

A few days ago, I read a fabulous book, "Soccer Speed" by By Richard Bate and Ian Jeffreys. They amazed me with their focus on teamwork.

According to them, teamwork is essential both in defence and attack. Their statistics shows that on average, a player cannot hold the ball more than 2 seconds!

Say, in defence, my player No 4 (M4) presses their player No 9 (T9).
So, T9 passes the ball to his teammate T6.
M5 presses T6, which forces T6 to pass to T11 and so on.

T9  --> T6 --> T11 --> T10
M4      M5       M3         ?

If there is no M player to challenge T10, the effort of players M4,M5,M3 go to waste. It would be better for them to have slept or taken a break at that time instead of pressing T players. If they had rested, they would have more energy now. Now they are tired and the ball has passed through their defence line.

The same holds true for attack. No player alone can do magic. Even star strikers like Messi, Neymar need support all around them.

When Myanmar strikers come forward, do they get enough support? More precisely, do they support each other?

When Singapore strikers come forward, do they get enough support? More precisely, do they support each other?

When Thai strikers come forward, do they get enough support? More precisely, do they support each other?

"Glory players," players who play for their own personal glory do not win matches. Nor in-fighting generals win wars: read about German invasion of Soviet Union in World War II.

So, at EssayKKNkn we teach love. We run our website out of love for the kids, the parents, the nations, and of course, out of love for ourselves.

Laziness Wins: the SEA games champion Thai football team

Laziness Wins: the SEA games champion Thai football team

When a team loses possession of the ball, they need to get it back. But they cannot press the opponent team all over the field as it would tire them out way before the opponent team lose the ball or get tired.

Therefore, they have to let the other team come to them. When the ball is far away from their goal, they let the other team work on the ball at a leisurely pace. Only when the ball gets into the striking range towards their goal, they become serious about dispossessing the other team.

Previously when I noticed such behaviour, I always thought of such teams as lazy. Even when the Thai team won the final of SEA games football this way, I still regarded them a bit "lazy" or conservative.

But a few days later, I read a fabulous book, "Soccer Speed" by By Richard Bate and Ian Jeffreys. They sanction such deep defending as a good way to conserve energy.

This is reminiscent of Sun Tzu, Chapter 6:

17. For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.

Therefore, at essaykkn we take special care not teach everything to our students. First, we kill 1 or 2 fatal mistakes. Then we pounce on areas where rewards are highest per effort.

Sometimes sales are inevitable

Sometimes sales are inevitable.

In an old HBR magazine, I read about Kiva and its disruptive logistic robots. The technology was good but the price tag was high and they finally had to give away a free trial worth of $ 38 millions.

In the same vein, the story of the University of Phoenix revealed that American schools showed interest in change, in new technology, or in new business models only when they are about to be bankrupt!

On such times, Sun Tzu predicted thousands of years ago that sales are inevitable.

Let us each prepare for that.

Vision Flanking

Are you feeling a lot of pain?

Often I instinctively use what I call "vision flanking." "Flanking" is a military term, meaning avoiding the other side and going around it. In vision flanking, you stop seeing the other side, and they do not even belong in your sphere of existence.

For example, in 20 hours after I got the transfer order to move from Yangon to Maw La Myaing, the English Department or the English Major not longer exists in my Universe. The Dept/Major can no longer help me or harm me, it felt very cool! It still feels cool.

Yes, I still love it and its people, I still owe lots of gratitude, I still keep fond memories. Still we live in different Universes.

For example, some online programmers' groups in Singapore were full of hostile souls. It was hard for me to participate there. Their method seemed to be to subscribe to Google Alert, then post those links back to their Groups. No serious, substantial discussions or collaborations were possible, at least during my time there.

And the programmers still owe me something for my "serious" posts ;-) I can patiently wait for the pay back ;-)

For a non-attacking type, it is lucky that I was born with this "vision flanking." I'll flank to better universes whenever I was made to feel whatever pain.

Facebook Rants --- Black Strategies and Futility

Black strategies are self-defeating and so we need not study them.

Black Strageties and Futility

Cao Cao, Sima Yi, Sima Yan, Wu Qi, Sun Tzu, Sun Bin,Unrestricted Warfare, Mao Guerrilla warfare and protracted wars,

Bar Me Sayadaw, Maha Thiha Thuya,  Bayint Naung, Bandoola, Alaung Phaya, Sin Byu Shin,

Grant, Sherman, RMA, Network Warfare, General Rdigeway, Geoege Patton,Gen Marshall

Sumerian wars, Biblical wars, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Scipio, Fabius,

 Machiavelli, Han Fei Tzu, Chanakya the so-called Indian Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Napoleon, Gen Manstein, General Guderian, General Rommel

Georgie Zukov, Prince Kutosov,

Nobugana, Hideyoshi, Admiral Togo,

Duke of Wellington,  Lawrence of Arabia,  Liddell Hart, General William Slim, Gen Montgomery, General Templer,

Moshe Dayan, Vo Nguyen Giap ....

And on business side ... I don't want to carry on.

Don't read them.

Just have love. Just have faith. Even be naive and innocent. You'll be alright.

We're Having Fun -- The Competitions

We are having fun despite the numerous competitions. Conventional wisdom has it that when you are small, you choose what others can but will not do, and when your have grown big, you do what others cannot do. We are blurred about what others will or will not do. We are only clear that so many teams can easily do whatever we are planning to do. Encouraging?

We think so and we are having fun, right now.

A few 4 or 5 years back, I met a skinny, nerd-looking kid browsing the Computer book shelves in the Jurong East library, holding a big red book (Wrox Professional series) on PHP in his chest. I chatted up with him and learned that he's been doing some programming for his CCA, sort of hobby/club-like thing in primary and secondary schools in Singapore. Since then, I cannot count how many school kids I've seen with iPad programming,  iPhone programming, C, C++, Java, javascript, HTML5, Python etc.

A few 4 or 5 years back, I read in the newspapers about an app that an ITE team had done to win a competition. That app integrated so many different mobile technologies! To give a big picture for those outside Singapore, the pecking order of Education here in Singapore is like:

secondary schools -> ITE -> junior college or polytechnic --> university and so on
secondary schools ----------> junior college or polytechnic --> university and so on

The kids are a lot savvier than me about tech!!!

The same holds true for kids in Myanmar! Malaysia! Vietnam! Indonesia! Huh ...

They can easily do whatever we are planning to do. Encouraging?

Let's Consider Another "Friendlier" Competition

My son's English seems a lot better than mine in many aspects. He's a funny kid with interest in lots of things --- time machine, time travels included. His dad, I am funny in my own ways and with my own funny interests --- thought experiments included.

So let's put my son in our English major honors class about 20 years back. 20 years back, my English must have been really poor, my "cultural deficit"(one of our teachers' remark on my lack of knowledge about English songs and movies!) was about 99.99%, listening and speaking may be about 25% and so on.

So, what will be his total scores? I am a bit harsh, I gave him F+p9.

Our teachers, Professor Daw EJ Kangyi,  , Professor U Han Tin, , Professor U Thi Ha, Professor Daw Khin Lay Myint, and other lecturers are all noted for their "generosity of spirit". Still with their personal and professional integrity, they wouldn't give him more than F+p3 or F+p5.

"F+p5" means "Fail but with potential to pass in 5 years' time."

His English is good. But he won't understand why Othello was so prone to jealousy, why Mrs Bennett was so eager to marry off her girls to rich gents, why Milton lost and regained paradise, how so easily Mark Antony could turn a population against Caesar's assassins, why Lamb dreamed of "Dream Children," why langauge policy cannot be decided with Chomsky and Halliday and science alone, and so on.

In techno field too, we have apps to sort one's necktie collection, games where one tries to unroll a toilet roll faster than another player, apps which help you count how many pets you have and so on.

Just last month, we read in Harvard Business Review about Big Bang Disruption. Hey, this is in HBR, written and vetted mostly by business profs.

Are such disruptions so fast and furious?

At least Peter Drucker, Steve Jobs, and Amazon disagree. According to these bumpkins and simpletons and ignoramus, we have about 20 to 30 to wait till such disruptions catch up with us!

So, we are having fun. If we chose, we could even wait. We won't wait though ;-)

Even primary kids can do what we do better than us. To feel it really, take a foreign language class, and see that all native pree-teens and early teens talk far better than you do. But don't stretch your conversational topics beyond Girls Generation, Psy, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Halo, Crysis, Transformers etc. 

Mastery of a language means a lot more than fluency. Are all English men and women and girls and boys Shakespeare or Jane Austen or Arthur Conan Doyle or Bernard Shaw?

You get it now.

So, we are having fun.

Product Strategy : What is Strategy? -- 2

I asked a very young reader to give me a very brief summary of a previous post What is strategy? He replied: "Everything is leverage."

I realized at once that I had failed to write clearly. Still, I joked: "Oh, yes, making the competition believe that everything is leverage is a good leverage too ... because, as Sun Tzu says, when you defend everywhere, you're not defending anywhere."

Yesterday, we asked: "Are beans in bamboo containers strategic for your army? " and answered "Yes" to that question.

But not all bags of beans can be strategic. They are when they meet the following conditions:

1. The competition sort of relied on their cavalry. What if they came in boats, on elephants, or merely on foot?
2. Their horses were poorly fed. What if the other side's commander got wind of you plan and prepared properly for that?
3. You can take advantage of the ensuing chaos in their cavalry. What if you were far too outnumbered?
4. The other side's commander would not adapt quickly. What if they dismounted and shot with their arrows, as the Mongols would/did?
5. Even the weather would be on your side: If it rained too heavy,  if the wind blew too hard, their horses would not be able to catch the enticing smell of your steaming beans on the grounds.
6. The other side's horses would not come with mouth guards.
7. The other side did not use some medicine to de-sensitize their horses' sense of smell.
8. Maybe many, many more factors.

These are trash, hoarding, OCD(Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), not strategic assets.

When Do Trash Become Strategic Assets?

You need the big picture, the mosaic, the collage where each trash becomes a component, an element, a cog the wheel, a brick in the cathedral, and so on.

How Do You Get the Big Picture, the Mosaic, the Collage?

Two methods as far as I know:

1. Your parents have coup d'oei in their DNA
2. You hire McKinsey, Bain, Booz, Accenture, HopeHero etc.

Product Strategy : What is Strategy?

I've been burned so many times. So I learned.

I learn that you must obviously sound and look humble in online communication, discussion etc. So, here I am ---- humble both by nature and by discipline.

What is strategy?
I don't know clearly.

I don't even have a clear answer for: What is strategic?

I only have stories, anecdotes, case studies, fragmented impressionistic data. Maybe too simplistic for Harvard/Standford Profs and for you too.

1. Are beans in bamboo containers strategic for your army?
2. Are trumpets strategic for your army?
3. Are drums strategic for your army?
4. Are silk vests strategic for your army?
5. Is medicine for cracked winter feet strategic for your army?

Yes, according to military histories of the Chinese and the Mongols and  Punic Wars .

1. Are dental chairs strategic for your army?
2. Is winning hearts and minds strategic for your army?

Yes, according to military histories of the British.

What About Software Business?

1. Is "pizzazz" and "sizzle" strategic for your websites?
2. Is "design" strategic for your websites?

Yes to Question 1,according to Don’t Make Me Think, if your site is entertainment(movies, musics, games), pure branding(cereal), or -- I forgot this last one ;-)

Yes to Question 2, according to this Fast Company article

"A reliance on design-driven innovation poses a challenge for the companies that live by it: You can’t easily patent how something looks, or the feel of a user interface. Features, subtleties, and finishes spawn imitators with unprecedented speed. That means that design-led companies must innovate constantly to maintain their edge. And that’s exactly what makes the stories in this issue so interesting."

So What Is Strategic?

They say that leverage can be found in "strange places". What kind of "strange"? What kind or kinds of places? Why strange places?

Leverage, a beautiful word, indeed. Especially in deeds.

Creating Original and Non-original Softwares

The Original School

 "ambition,""revolutions," "revolutionary"
"original," "radical"
"creativity," "innovation," "lateral thinking,"
"invention," "reinvention," "disruption,"
"leadership," "platform leadership," "leapfrogging," "blue ocean strategy,"
"positioning," "re-positioning,"
"market domination,"

The Non-Original School

Copycats
Fast Seconds
Entrepreneurial Judo
Busting profit pool a la Michael Dell, Dell CEO
The margin, the opportunity a la Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO.

The Honest School

1. Einstein (in paraphrase) : Originality is nothing but forgetting one's sources.
2. Scott Adam (in paraphrase) : Originality = theft + lack of talent + time
3. Bruce Lee (in paraphrase) : Origin of the technique doesn't matter. Just express yourself honestly, truthfully.

The Deep School

1. An old German tract that suggests , for three whole days, shutting out the world, listening to one's own thoughts and recording them faithfully. 
2. Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows: Rainer Maria Rilke

Product Strategy : Simple Research 1

Searching "user experience"  on Google gave this to us.

Searching "product strategy"  on Google gave this to us.

Searching "software product strategy"  on Google gave unsatisfactory results.

Searching "product strategy + software"  on Google also gave unsatisfactory results.

Searching "what new software to create"  on Google also gave unsatisfactory results. 

Searching "how to think up new software"  on Google also gave unsatisfactory results.

Our conclusion right now is --- such topics are unpopular.

My Visions for Software

I'm referring to IT's Great Power to Spark Changes by Nayan Chanda. Because I have taken time, this post will be very short.

1. Collaboration is getting better. Soon, we will be able to teleport ourselves to any part of the world for a few cents
2. Distribution is getting better. You just write your content/app on your PC, phone, pad, watch, or shirt. Then, just press a button, and the world's population can see/use your stuff in a few seconds in their own devices.
3. Even content may be getting better despite what Rupert Murdoch said here “Devices and platforms are proliferating but this clever technology is merely an empty vessel without any great content.” Since NewCorps alone does not have monopoly on content creation genius, content costs will come down.

Our Opportunities

Imagine you can teleport your son/daughter to any library anywhere in the world, swiftly, safely, and cheaply.

Imagine your kid can use all the library services/apps there for free.

Will that make him/her any wiser, any more employable?

What else is needed?

Startup Wing Chun

I don't know Wing Chun or any martial arts. Rather like the guy who "can't even catch a chicken" in Water Margin (or Outlaws of the Marsh)

Aside: that book was Mao Zedong's childhood favourite and adulthood manual. Both version, 70 or 120 chapters, are good.

Wing Chun somehow came from Shaolin.

Differences, as far as I can see:

1. Shaolin was invented when China was "the center of the Universe."
2. It is full of ornate, impractical forms like, tiger forms, monkey forms, snake forms, crane forms, drunkard forms, etc.

1. Wing Chun was invented when China was under the Manchus.
2. It is frugal, even miserly.

What Startups can learn form Wing Chun

Twist, turn, spin, wiggle, rotate, shuffle, crawl ...
Twist the wrists, the fingers, the waist, the ankle, the knee ...
Rotate the wrists, the elbows, the fingers, the waist, the ankle, ...

To generate force, do whatever
To avoid force, do whatever
To hide your own move, do whatever
To gain time/space on the opponent, do whatever
To gain leverage on the opponent, do whatever

To surprise the opponent, do whatever

It is total humility, total innocence, totally instinctive actions.

Startup Lessons from Chinese Classic Literature

Last 2 or 3 days, I read

1. Water Margin (or Outlaws of the Marsh). This was Mao Zedong's childhood favourite and adulthood manual. Both version, 70 or 120 chapters, are good. 
2. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 4-volume version and 10-volume comics version. This was also Mao Zedong's childhood favourite and adulthood manual.

As usual, I draw some weird lessons:

1. Water Margin methods are good for rebelling against your own emperor, but not against the Mongols!
2. Zhuge Liang was so full of ruses and stratagems that even Sima Yi had to admit a few times that, "Zhuge Liang is a genius," "Zhuge Liang's methods are out of this world," "I am no match for Zhuge Liang" etc. Still, Sima Yi won.

Thus, Zhuge Liang's methods are good enough to win battles, but not wars.

No wonder, Carl von Clausewitz didn't think much of initiative.

Movie-Like Software and Our Chances

People and organisation seem to have an incurable amnesia. One day they say, "Software is king". The next day they say, "Software is commodity". And this pendulum swings go on and on. What is the truth behind this hype and reverse-hype?

Drucker's Predictions

Drucker has famously said that the IT Revolution has not even started yet. He described how printing business gave rise to publishing and other businesses and predicted that IT will give rise to many unforeseen industries.

Drucker also believes that IT will become like movie industry. By extension, it will be like publishing industry too.

Then, I want to ask:

1. Do we, small guys, still have a chance? 
2. Do we get access to technology, market and capital?

1. Can we mount a realistic challenge to Hollywood? e.g. Hong Kong, Bollywood, K Pop, J Pop, etc.
2. Can we pose a challenge to New York Times, Wall Street Journal? 
3. Or do we need something like Chinese Government's multi-billion media initiatives to make any inroads?

Since software is becoming more and more like writing novels and making a movie,

1. Can the next Harry Porter occur in Indonesia? 
2. Can the next Avatar come from Vietnam? 
3. Do we need a Silicon Valley or a Chinese Government to do well in the software market place?

I still believe we have a chance to become major players in software business.

1. Because change is a constant and it is our friend.
2. Or as our friend, Ko Moe Thu suggested, because we create changes that will stack the odds in our favour.

Discipline is Remembering What You Want

David Campbell, the founder of Saks Fifth Avenue, said, “Discipline is remembering what you want.”

Your Self-discipline

1. What do you want?
2. How do you keep remembering that? 

If you can answer both clearly, you can be confident that you have discipline.

Also remember how Steve Jobs once prevented his engineers from taking  notes during one of their meetings, insisting that engineers would not forget whatever was really important. True, we seldom forget our true priorities.

1. If your desires are strong, they will reveal themselves to you clearly.
2. And you don't forget any of your strong desires that easily.

Just watch yourself a bit more closely.

Craig Mundie,Microsoft, and Expensive Business Lessons

Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, during a recent visit to Singapore, shares these pithy business and technology lessons with us.

Before I discuss his lessons, I suggest he/MS change his job title to "chief strategy and research officer". That they have not done so already implies that they haven't learned or taken their own lessons seriously.

1. MS has 900 Ph D scientists., "the world's largest R and D unit."
2. It has many very strong and cutting edge technologies.
3. MS was sort of the first to invent tablets and smartphones.

1. MS failed to exploit their pioneering inventions of  tablets and smartphones in early 2000s. The products were "heavy" or "cumbersome."
2. MS failed to do "great execution in some categories " of their product lines.
3. Specifically MS failed to  coordinate different research groups, to design lusty products, to market well.

Now, why is Mundie still called "chief research and strategy officer"? Is research still more respectable than strategy in our beloved Microsoft?

Aggressive Impulses of Id

I feel foolish anytime I get angry. And that is my curse. I soon forget why I get angry in the first place.

I need to remember why I get angry in the fist place. Because I will get angry again in future for the same reasons.

1. I am angry when I have to code low-value programs.
2.  I am angry when I don't have someone else who should code such programs.

There's a will, there's an anger, there will be a way, a way out.

Have fun! Joy up!