Tag: Friday

Fun as motivator

Cyndi Lauper and Sheryl Crow both touched on “wanna-have-fun” theme.

(Girls just want to have fun, All I wanna do).

The upcoming Olympic in Brazil should be a fun place (certainly more than polluted Beijing).

Fun ranks up there as one of the highest motivators.

It’s wired in our fabrics.

Pure fun. Wholesome fun. Grand ball. Sight, sound and scenes.

Smoke machines, sound machines and special effects.

Googlers are seen each year in the Mojave Desert (Burning-Man Festival).

CES in Las Vegas kicks off each year in January.

Kids open their electronic toys Christmas morning. Fun, fun, fun.

“I got this feeling that I am not the only one… .”

Men are fated to toil the ground and tame the beasts.

But after hard times comes harvest times.

In a Korean’s novel (Please Look After Mom) we find a landscape utterly foreign yet familiar. Agrarian culture, with everything done by hand, in transition to a bustling Seoul subway where an aged senile country mom got lost.

Yet, even in this bleakest of portraits, we still find some romance, and occasional laughters.

Fun.

I often found people chuckled in the midst of drinking.

Apparently, there were fun injected into the blood stream besides alcohol.

My friend’s favorite has been Seasons in the Sun. “We had joy we had fun”.

Fun doesn’t belong to but is often associated with youth.

Everyone can and should have some fun. Even at work.

Wait not for Halloween or Valentine.

At Zappos, they set up desks deliberately in the hallway, so co-workers are forced to “bump” into each other. Gone are the cubicles. The wall came tumbling down.

Now, just collaboration, not competition.

Southwest Airlines associates wear shorts and shirts, sing FAA regulations in a way that draws out a smile in each passenger. Fun culture retains great talent.

It adds healthy numbers to the bottom line.

Know the motivators like the back of your hands.

Work them into your HR policy. Practice them at the front line and in the back room.

Then people wouldn’t need to wait for Happy Friday or Happy Hour.

They are happy at work. It boosts up morale and team spirit.

I love to work with workers who are not grumpy. Unless it’s at Disney Animation.

Long Winding Road

To your door……

I woke up to a Friday. Not any Friday. But a birthday Friday.

Long and winding road. Like a graph, your life can be “manipulated” to make it a more positive-trending (not Bell-shaped).

Depends on how you look at it. People have said that President Obama looks older than when he first took up office. Oh well, who wouldn’t  after three and half long years.

I share concerns with friends these days. Always with long shots, and high hopes, from Electric Vehicles to Electronic Medical Records. Stuff that earlier generations had never heard of.

(except for the EV part).

The same with Mars and upcoming discoveries in Science. How they will shape and reshape the human race.

Yet one thing stays unchanged: human nature itself. We still react under certain principles, Pavlovian, for instance.

Ring the bell, the dog salivates. Facing danger, fright or flight.

Oh well. Long and winding road.

Friends said no matter how far and how much traveling they had done, when they came home, they just wanted mama’s cooking. Acquired taste. Subliminal and unconditional trusting. Talk not to strangers (yet I keep connecting with the multitude of you out there via Social).

Talking about networking. Since it’s my birthday. Can you send me a referral. Some doctors who need to install EMR?

Or a telecom engineer department that need their software tested offshore. Long shots? Yes. Long winding Road? Yes.

We , social animal, do need each other and do reciprocate.

I am here today thanks to the help of many friends and families.

I in turn have helped friends and again, some families.

That’s how the circle of Life operates. How pay-forward  works. And how the virtuous cycle is. There is no need to recast that graph. Just be and become better. Each life is different and each person unique. Born on a different day and dies at a  different  hour. While living, let’s make it a pleasant journey. The tilted clock on the wall reminds me that there was an Earthquake a few days ago. Even time is not standing still. Nor is the clock that shows time. How can you assume too much that it (Life) is going to be a straight line? To me, it’s more like a long and winding road.

Friday before Friday the 13th

A Vietnamese film producer is working on his version of The Ruin and Blair Witch project etc…

One idea sparks another. Localization, customization, contextualization.

Photo-sharing. Moment sharing. Life sharing.

What’s relevant, resonating and regretful if we missed out.

Deep down inside, what’s our core values. What’s all the hustling and bustling  about?

Some faceless stakeholder’s values? or ours?

I understand the necessity of parsing, of Taylorism (stripping down work into its interchangeable components – away from human interaction) to achieve healthier bottom line.

But….when the US suffers from its eroded manufacturing base, people revolt. Rightly.

Chinese worker’s rights vs US’.

Can’t keep shopping if we don’t have work.

My daughter was in retail for a while. But she decided to switch jobs. Can’t push people into buying stuff they don’t need, she said.

Oh well. Find something your heart is in. Pursue it relentlessly. The world of work is changing. Even Friday 13th now struggles to find an audience. Can’t have a cult follow when everyone is watching it at home. No more darkened theaters and the anticipation of collective fear. Not when fear and uncertainty take place in plain day light. It’s called unemployment, for actors and audience alike.