minlin space

Kevin had a spring break week early april. I took him to a train ride trip to portland thur through saturday. this is his first real train ride and he is excited (to be accurate, this is my first train ride in usa also, and i am excited too). the trip from seattle to portland is scenary and beautiful, it travels along the pristine beauty of puget sounds elegant water, then passes through the valley like majestic cascade mountains. the best place on train to view the scenary is the lounge car, it provides the seating in front of windows just like a cruise. we also had a dinner on the train in the dinner car, it is relaxing and kevin can spread out his drawing gig and took pictures outside the window. he also found some playmates on the train back to seattle and enjoyed playing games with them.

walking on the bridge in portland

portland chinese garden

relax at 知鱼亭

小小表演家

picture taken by kevin

on the cascade dinner train

scenary outside the trainplay on the cascade train ride

play on cascade train dinner car

kevin has completed the level 1 swimming class and is now attending level 2 class. he is doing great. he is still not able to swim by himself but that day may come anytime. he has all the skills to do that but he has never swim by himself before so it may take a bit longer, just like a baby walk, the first step is always the hardest.

microsoft’s earning report is not at all good for this quarter. down 6% revenu, net income of $2.98 billion was down 32%… but msft is up >10% today, a rare jump for a long time. i feel sometimes it is hard to interpret what’s going on on wallstreet. but i am long at msft, the windows 7, the cost reduction. borrow a saying from the famous bizzar food host “if it looks good, eat it”, i say, if it looks good, keep it:)

It sounds like a disney sensation but it happens in real life. Susan boyle, the 47 years old lady rocked the judges and audiences at British got talent show and it was an “overnight sensation”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

this video clip has been viewed 41,335,790 times as of today, it is simply amazing.

some take away from this:
– if you got talent, it will shine one way or another
– it may not seem like this, but you are eventually judged by your talent not by your look
– make your weapon sharp and wait for the right opportunity
– everyone are equal in front of opportunity
– remain humble
– keep a positive view on things
– relax, life is beautiful if you think it is

microsoft has been very successful playing the catch up game previously, from office suite, visual studio development IDE, to winning the browser war with netscape, and up coming xbox game sectors, but this has not yet happened in the search portal. although microsoft spent tons of dollars on search, the performance is by far disappointing.

although money still talks, but you really win by providing the best service or experience to your end users. this was true for office and visual studio, they catch the competitors and eventually beat them by quality. this can not be said on search experiences though. I admit using google whenever i need find something online, chances i usually find what i want in no time. i would love to use live search if it provides better results (or even comparable results). i see lots of investment in the search group and i would hope the same catch-and-pass game would come true to search.

had a chance to try out the latest microsoft search brand kumo, feel it has many details that the search portal put together. the map search has definately improved, so are the user experiences, etc. Another cool thing about kumo is the mouse over feature, it retrieves the content from the result page so you can view it without leaving the search page, as well as other topics on that page.

The fun game of desert kings gives us some great lessons what we can apply to our daily work and life:

• there are many factors in life that would try to take control of me. Try to be active and take good control of these enviromental factors and not let them control you:
  • deadline
  • competition
  • peer pressure
  • desire to achieve
  • fear of failure
  • fear of unknown
  • inexperience
  • frustration
  • information overload
• do not fear unknowns, find a way to make it known
• take time to make a solid plan before taking action. decisions make up front have the greatest impact on productivity
• find all the facts before making decision. decisions may seem good but if they are made based on bad or false info, they are bad decisions and will certainly cost. so stay calm, be patient, dont rush to decisions
• speck to the “old man”: every field you will find the old man who represents the past knowledget, who are the knowledge as stackholder. those old man could be:
  • customers
  • co-workers
  • leadership
  • competitors
  • reports
  • library
• value your resources. especially, time, info, people
• do not plan for the sake of planning, plan for productivity (in this game, the productivity is time in the mountain, not time in the desert)
• there is a big difference between playing to win and playing not to lose - maximize your chance to win and dont compromise on situation
• measure every decision based on the impact it has on the desired outcome.
• consensus, if unfocused, will lead to compromise and mediocrity. sometimes you should step up and make tough decisions, even they are not popular
• make sure your goals are:
  • specific
  • attainable
  • measurable
  • agreed upon

this is a very good team building and goal setting training that i highly recommend