10.30.06

Communication effectiveness

Posted in Random thoughts, Globalization at 9:14 pm by Ray Wu

From interviews of a job I posted recently, a consistent feedback on Asian candidates is that they are quiet, and somehow lack of “executive” presence and communication effectiveness. These are top-notch candidates from major VC funds or private equities who have been educated and worked in the US for many years. In my mind, they are very talented, well versed in analytical and business skills, as well as English language. When I talked to the candidates, I found their communication style to be on par with what I expected. So it is somewhat enlightening and intriguing to discover the feedback from my American colleagues. This is not the first time I get these feedback. Can this be more of a culture norm vs the true communication effectiveness?

In an Asian culture, it is considered as a great virtue to be modest and respect for others. As such, one tends to less commanding and pay more attention to others’ position. “Pushing back” or challenging senior leaders that represents “critical thinking” skills or “leadership” in the US is frown upon by their peers in Asia. Many Asian leaders are quieter and less confrontational vs their US counterparts. As such, Asian leaders tend to be considered to have less leadership skills and effectiveness. This can be one of many reasons why there are disproportional small number of Chinese/Korean/Japanese leaders in the top US corporations.

This communication and cultural bias is also true when US leaders deal with Asian counterparts. I heard many feedback from my Asian friends on US business leaders conducting business in North Asia to be boastful and ego-centric. What shows in US as “leadership” and “executive presence” tend to be classified as dominating and arrogant by Asian.

In a global economy where people are building business based on relationship and trust, lack of understanding and assume the culture norm equivalency can become a major barrier to foster a true multicultural leadership team that can react and perform well on a global basis.

10.25.06

Executive MBA

Posted in Random thoughts at 1:25 am by Ray Wu

I had lunch with a friend yesterday on how to pick executive MBA. Here are the thoughts I shared with him on why I picked Berkeley Columbia EMBA (BCEMBA) in the end:

  • Bi-Costal coverage. I love to have campuses on both side of the coast. If I stay on the west coast, I have a school base and alumni network in the silicon valley. If I move back to the east coast in the future, I know I will again have a school and alumni base there. In addition, the size of the alumni network for both schools are amazing. Given the partnership programs among Berkeley, Columbia and London Business School, the alumni networks reach beyond US and have an internal footprint.
  • International reputation. Both Berkeley and Columbia are great schools around the world. Berkeley is one of the top schools for engineering and entrepreneurship, and Columbia is one of the top schools for finance. It is really a bargain to be associated with engineering, entrepreneurship and finance brands all at once by studying in a single program.

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10.20.06

Size = Power?

Posted in Random thoughts at 3:09 am by Ray Wu

When Linkedin first started, I received many invitations to join people’s network. One of the key attractions of social network at the beginning is to have a large circle of network, which in a way, represents large circle of influence and power. An interesting question is whether a large network really mean a person have more power? The answer is probably no. In fact, one cannot find CEOs of the high tech world such as Bill Gates from Microsoft, John Chambers from Cisco, Jerry Yang from Yahoo in any social networks. So in a way, a person have a large network might mean that he is lacking of absolute power because he still need to connect to apply influence. Power and influence does not shift because of this kind of cyberworld connections.

The same question applies to blog readership. As I started to develop this personal blog, I am wondering if more readership means more influence and power? Do I want more readers or just the right circle of readers? Maybe not having a blog shows the world that I don’t need to say anything to get attention :)

09.29.06

What’s the point of having more?

Posted in Random thoughts at 4:32 am by Ray Wu

Here is a write-up on Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, on whether he will sell out after social networking site MySpace was valued at $15 billion by an analyst.

Here are a few quotes from the article

“If you’re living comfortably, what’s the point of having more?” Newmark said raising the money to subsequently give it away to good causes also did not interest him. “We both know some people who own more than a billion (dollars) and they’re not any the happier. They also need bodyguards,”

Nice statements! Why are we so busy at making money and building wealth? The fundamental question is whether more money will bring additional peace and happiness to life. I think we need to meet the baseline of our worth and living standard, but after that, are we just compete in vain? We bring nothing when we come into this world and we will take nothing when we leave. Accumulation of wealth is a strange notion yet so fundamental to human nature. In the end, won’t that be just another illusion? I have a lot of respect for Craig who states his value so well…

09.22.06

Noise on the Internet

Posted in Technology Ventures, Random thoughts at 3:33 am by Ray Wu

It seems that there are just too many blogs on the Internet (including this one). Blog is a great system that allows anyone to voice his/her opinion, but are we really creating something meaningful or just duplicate each other’s opinion? People continuously to find ways to trick the search engines. Trackback is becoming a marketing trick like a link farm. How much of the news are true vs rumors, and even worse, pure noise on the Internet? As more of more content becomes available, it places a bigger challenge for any legitimate content providers to make their voice heard. In my mind, even google search engine starts to lose its potency, many and many results coming back are just not that relevant anymore. I guess that’s why there are so many vertical search engines around now….

09.19.06

Linkedin

Posted in Technology Ventures, Random thoughts at 11:57 am by Ray Wu

I have been using linkedin since it started because I know one of the founders relatively well. One of the major benefits I recently discovered is how to recruit using that network. I am able to get 6 - 8 qualified leads for the job I am posting after I blasted out a message within my network 2 days ago. Like a lot of people, I don’t seem to need to post in the linkedin job board to get what I am looking for.

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