How to increase your worth, especially work in a low-pay job?

First, understand that everything in the world is dynamic and constantly changing: our life change all the time, no company always stay rich, and there is no such thing as secure job.

Next, understand that the real value of a person is equal to the perceived value of the person plus the other special experience and skills the person have.

i.e. Real Value = Perceived Value + Skills + Experience

Now, given that a person has a job which paid X amount of salary, for a Y amount of working hours. This still leaves the person with quite a number of hours after work. If this person can spend these times cultivate their hobbies and learn something new, the real value of the person will increase accordingly. Given the unpredictable dynamics in the career world these days, it makes people with additional skill sets looks more interesting and highly sought after. As such the perceived value for this person also increases.

So, how to increase our worth? Use our time wisely 🙂

Watching dramas, gossiping, complaining life won’t help! Do something productive and always learn something new. Otherwise, our value will also drop over time. Why?

Because there is another important hidden rule:

Our perceived value is a function of time. The longer the time, the less we are being valued.

Perceived Value (time) ∝ 1/time

Privacy, are we losing it?

Ever since the internet of things era begins, companies can get more data out from us. Now, it is becoming a norm that our data is constantly being collected. Our location, our contacts, our preference, and so on.

For example, Windows 10 which collects your computer usage and user preference automatically. Nest who you thought is just a learning thermostat is also collecting your data and sell it to third-party.Now even Spotify is going to collect your location, contacts, etc and they claim is a norm.

Our data is no longer ours. Our privacy is no longer ours. 

It is understandable that with more data we have on a others, we can fine tune the products for them based on preference and their liking. This way, they feel good as the product is matching their preferred experience. It also becomes a customized experience.

However, slowly, we are digitizing ourselves. We are becoming data and numbers. It is like cloning ourselves in the digital world.

Is it really necessary for our data to be collected in this way?

There are research that suggest privacy is about control. We are happy to share some information to someone else if we see fit. But software companies should not force customers to lose that control when they install the software. They should at least let them select right at the beginning what will be collected and let users select which one they are happy to let go.

In addition, who is gaining the benefit?

People who sign up for it may get benefits of a customised experience and improve their satisfaction. But once we share our data, it is really hard for us to know what is being done to our data and if they have been shared to other parties.

For companies, data is money. They can cash in the data they collected and sell it to third party and earn more money from it. For example, Nest sells their data to energy companies, good collects your data and allows third party to have target advertisement toward you. It feels like end users is at the end of the stick, our data got cashed out by companies and we just got more advertisement to ask us to buy more things while they are cashing in through our data?

Sometimes, it makes you wonder, why would we even need to pay for these products and have our personal information given away?

We are just cows in the new digital age. Just like cows, our data is being milk away by companies for their profit.

Are we really okay with this?

One after one, companies are applying the same principle, claiming that it is becoming a norm to share your data. So they started to incorporate data collection as a standard in their technology.

I don’t really believe that everyone is okay with this, it is just that it is hard to migrate to a different platform easily. Once we are locked into a certain ecosystem, it is hard to escape. Since other companies are starting to do the same thing, there is no guarantee they won’t take our data either. We are running out of choice, getting coerced and forced to get used to this new culture.

Are the companies truly to blame?

When people are using Spotify, or other free apps, there are this freemium model where one can choose to use the app for free in return of receiving advertisements. Many people are happy with that. They don’t want to pay to use such service so they happy to trade their data in order to use the service. Although now companies are becoming more active in exploiting the that can be obtained from the user, it is hard to tell if people are still happy to give in.

Data breach

The future of our security is no longer just physical security. Now our information is also being stored into digital space. If we want to protect ourselves, we have to protect in both physical  and digital world. Leaving our data in the hands of others can mean that our data security is no longer in our control. For instance, recent news in Ashley Madison hack released gigabytes of client information online, for anyone to check. In 2013, Target was a target for hackers and 40 million credit card information was compromised. The more we share our data, the more likely we will lose our data even when the companies promised to protect them.

So is is all bad to allow companies to take our data?

Not necessary. Protecting data is a very resource-draining activity. It is like you need to hire a security guard constantly watching your house, but in digital world. The security needs constant security patch and upgrade to safeguard against malware, bloatware, and hackers. There is also no one standard to say a software or connected hardware has sufficient security protection layer in place. So you can’t expect an ISO certificate on software to say it is safe, at least not anytime soon. So it may be a better solution to let a trusted company to manage your data. Because then you can ensure that data is safely protected.

However, the bigger the company is, or the more data the company contains, it is also a higher value target. Because the return of investment from breaching into that company security is huge and lucrative.

I am going to end this blog by saying that there remain a lot of uncertainties, people may slowly getting to realise that their data being milk unfairly, or companies become more people friendly and stop coercing people to share their data. The road in the next decade is going to be very rocky with rapid technology advancement and generating a new physical-digital hybrid world.

Use talents wisely is like playing a good chess game

It is wrong to blame fault on anyone who are working with you. It is a leader role to recognise well what they can do and utilise their best skills and knowledge. Like playing a chess game, we cannot ask the knight to move straight, nor the rook to move in L shape. It is not only wrong but also you are not considering using their unique abilities.

So if something is not doing right in the company, think of what we may have amiss and if we have places our people in the wrong tasks. Assign them to the right place and get the right people to do the right work, things will then get into order.

Let’s play a good chess game.

Everyone needs a coffee

My friend Tom and I is working on a coffee capsule vending machine. We have just released our first blog on our initial journey talking about our ideation and making process. The blog can be found here!

Everyone needs a coffee !

Enjoy your coffee 🙂

Placebo effect of doing something

When we have a problem we have to solve, we would want to do something. Even though it may not actually helping the conditions, the effect of doing something itself, with the thought of it will helps, creates a stimulation for our mind to think positively.

In short, it is just another placebo effect. When there is a problem require our attention to solve, out brain is hardwired to do something. Sitting idle and not doing anything usually makes the person more anxious and uncomfortable. Imagine if someone suddenly lost contact with her child and does not know where the child is, would she be happy to sit there doing nothing or she would do anything that comes into her mind? By suggesting her that she can do something to help find her child, she will feels that she has a purpose and become more positive. Or at least, ease her mind from worrying too much.

So, how do we make use of this effect in our life?

If we sees someone is in a problematic situation, as an advisor, even though there is no actual solution, suggesting some activity for the person to do can often leads to positive outcome. It gives them both hope and something to work on. Don’t tell them there is nothing they can do, because the person will instantly feel vulnerable and depressed.

Give them hope, give them something to do, make their life meaningful.

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

I was discussing some of the events and experience I came across recently. Some of them are positive, some are of them aren’t. Then my partner quote “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” by Eleanor Roosevelt.

After what she said, I felt enlighten. Indeed, there are so many ideas we can talk about and dream about, and there are so millions of important things we need to take care of. There aren’t really any time to spare to think negatively about anything and anybody. We all need to do our bit and work on making things work and better. If we want to dream big, think about what matters and how to make things happen.

What is on your mind when you cant sleep?

It is another sleepless night, getting excited and also too nervous for giving a pitch later this morning. I have been trying to sleep for the last 2 hours by lying on bed but so many things keep on flashing in my head. The more I try to not think of it, the more it keeps coming back. There is a saying that if you can master your breathe, you can master your emotion and clear your mind better. So I tried to moderate my breathing too but it seems to get me into a more elevated state in meditation, ended up being more alert. As time goes by, I also became hungrier and ended up get away from bed and have a few cookies.

I cant help but wonder about what others people think of when they cant fell asleep. Would you like to share some of your experience and what you did to help you sleep?

“Inspiration can only be found, it cannot be told.”

A sudden insight came to me today when I was discussing an idea about writing a novel. A great inspiration come to us usually when we suddenly found a new idea, it is a self-discovery. Methods of generating inspiration can be suggested, but the inspiration itself cannot be told. So if we want to make someone be creative and imaginative, lets give them some space to nurture their thoughts and let them find their own inspiration.