Nathan's Archive

Where to

nathanarchive — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:27:53 +0000

Hi there,

This is the archive of my old blog post on www.nathanli.net, If you find these post interesting or useful, please go to www.nathanli.net/blog to find my latest post.

Cheers

Nathan

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Rod Drury

nathanarchive — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:47:24 +0000

I added a post at my ning network, you can read it here.

Where do I blog these days

nathanarchive — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:08:08 +0000

I started a network at victoriaalumni.ning.com lately and trying to build up the traffic to that site (you can check out my profile here). So instead of double posting on both places, I will start posting more often at there and less often here. But I will post update here for the initial few to indicate there is new post added. If you are interested, you can also add this feed http://victoriaalumni.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=2atsg8mya2v2q&xn_auth=no in your reader. Happy reading.

What Would Google Do? – Jeff Jarvis

nathanarchive — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:19:22 +0000

I just finished Jeff Jarvis‘ new book What Would Google Do?. It’s a brilliant book. It shows how people can do better in the Google age. It is so good that I couldn’t help translating his ppt into Chinese. If you guys are interested, check it out.

Google ?????

View more presentations from nathanli.

“I love you Barack Obama” — Stevie Wonder

nathanarchive — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 08:17:42 +0000

Every Friday and Saturday night, I watch American Idol and there was no exception last Saturday. It was a great show not to my surprise. What’s even more brilliant was the 6.5 minutes performance by Motown hero Stevie Wonder. It was so marvelous that I would feel guilty not to share with you (it did take me a while to find this video though).

I strongly recommend you watch this, not only because Stevie Wonder sang 4 different songs and played 3 different instruments (piano, keyboard, and harmonica) within 6.5 minutes, but it was such an inspiring performance. I was so touched by it in the end of it. Maybe, I was influenced by his talent, energy and simply just the melody. Some critics say, saying “I love you Barack Obama” in the middle of the song brought too much politics into the show. But I disagree. Not only because it blended into the melody naturally, but it is coherent with “It’s all about positivity” and “I love Africa”. I believe it’s genuine and I re-affirmed this feeling after watching this video

Being blind by birth and signed by Motown at age 11, Stevie has been active in his music career for almost half a century, His music has huge influence in Americans life. No wonder Michelle Obama says he is one of her most favorite people in this entire world.

So what, if they don’t know what they are doing.

nathanarchive — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:24:23 +0000

I watched “The First All Chinese Rugby Team” in New Zealand story on Campbell Live. And I reckon it worth talking about. The team is part of Auckland Marist North Harbour Club and all its players are from China.

One thing made me thinking was in their first game, the opponent’s coach’s comment about the Chinese team, “We are messing against a team who doesn’t know what they are doing”. He was probably right, actually I should reword he was right as the 60-to-nil store proved it. I couldn’t stop asking myself “Does it really matter if they don’t know what they are doing?”The answer is maybe not. True, the all Chinese team got trashed on scores, but in my mind they are winners. Why? Simply put, the courage, the pride and they made difference.

All Chinese Rugby Club team in New Zealand history is unarguably rare. Kiwis start playing Rugby as early as they barely start walking. It has been in Kiwi’s blood for many centuries. Rugby has never been a Chinese thing. And you can find zero Rugby in Chinese culture. For Chinese getting into Rugby it is extremely challenging. It requires huge amount of courage to get out of their comfort zone and move into something new (I respect the boys deeply for this).

They sure lost the game, but they played with pride. Sport is not about winning, it’s about participating. It’s about participating with pride, be proud of what you do. This reflects in life. When people do things with pride amazing things could happen. When people have pride, they are willing to take the initiative and the ownership of what they have chosen to do. These are the two fundamental elements to success. They might not know what they are doing today, but they will do in the future.

Mass market is dead (according to the marketing guru). To survive, you will need to find the niche. This might be a little exaggerating for the all Chinese rugby team, but you get the point. People don’t hear all Chinese rugby team every day, this is a true niche created by some people who want to make a difference. Rugby teams are boring, but all Chinese rugby team is not. Who can tell New Zealand Rugby won’t have a market in China. Can you?

Right people for the right job. Always!!!

nathanarchive — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:53:14 +0000

My colleague came into the office this morning with a very sleepy look on his face and he shared a story about what happened. In the middle of night, my colleague found there was a mouse in his bedroom and he couldn’t sleep. As first he was trying to capture the mouse by himself, but it didn’t work. After couple of hours hutting, he gave up and took a different approach. He invited Elliot (his cat) into the bedroom and went to sleep with a hope of a dead mouse in the room next morning. You can guess the rest.

This is a classic example of “get the right people do the right job”. Well, in my colleague’s case, the right cat. This reminds me in Good to Great Jim Collins says “Get the right people on the bus … put the right people in the right seat”. He also mentioned “Put your best people on you biggest opportunity not your biggest problem”. I am amazed by how companies strive to the edges by fully utilizing the potentials of their employees. And personally, I think that’s what should be done for any company to go the extra mile. I have a very good friend who works in a consulting company in downtown Wellington. Being an expert on Microsoft Dynamics and a native Chinese speaker, he was chosen to give presentations in Shanghai and Beijing on MS Dynamics on behalf of his company. On the trip, not only he delivered excellent presentations, he also built an extremely challenging prototype for one of the largest private banks in China under a very tight timeframe. Sure, his work was charged at a very appealing rate, but on top of that the reputation, the connections and everything else non-monetary generated on this trip could be advantageous to the company (whether his company is going to China, I don’t know). And this is all because of his company knows what he is good at and willing to take the advantage of his language skills to go the extra mile.

I couldn’t stop thinking “Get the right people on the bus … put the right people in the right seat”, “Put your best people on you biggest opportunity not the biggest problem”. How insightful!!!

Could there be a better time for these books?

nathanarchive — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:01:00 +0000

Everybody is affected by the recession at the moment and analysts predicted it’s going to get worse. In his blog post Slack, Seth Godin offered two suggestions to people what they can do during this economic down turn. I couldn’t agree more. On top of that, I reckon people should read. There are lots books which could help people mentally prepared to get through the tough time. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. They were both published around the time of The Great Depression. Personally, I couldn’t think of a better time to read these books. In addition, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale should not be left behind.

What are you reading?

(To help New Zealanders get through recession, please purchase these books at Fishpond.co.nz)

Aim High – Celebrating 30 years New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

nathanarchive — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:07:56 +0000

Just watched Cambell Live - New Zealand celebrates 30 years of sauvignon blanc. The words from Frank Yukic, the visionary who planted the first sauvignon blanc in Marlborough 35 years ago, struck me.

“Without dreaming, you lose the possiblities. Not only you got to dream, you got to plan. Not only plan, you got to act. But the greatest thing is you got to believe. If you don’t believe, nothing ever happens.”

Watch full video here

Tom Peters’ Video

nathanarchive — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:57:59 +0000

Just bump into those videos on YouTube. Tom Peters is excellent.

Marketing:

Innovation:

Creativity