GeekMBA360

The work environment around me is getting a little bit toxic lately. In almost every meeting I attended, I kept hearing people complaining about corporate. Our company was acquired by a huge corporation a while ago, so we are part of a huge organization. It’s almost like working for the government.

We used to be a nimble organization – the company culture was intense, scrappy, and emotional at times. People were passionate. They cared about what they did. When there was issues, people felt that their hair was on fire. They argued, they pushed hard, they could get emotional, but we loved to work with each other. It’s like a family.

The parent company that acquired us was very different. It is a huge matrix organization. The departments in our company are now divided and reported to different parts of the parent company. It takes a long time to get anything done.

Although the work is still there, and the company is stable, I can sense that everyone is frustrated. The place is fully of negativity.

Last couple of weeks, the negativity starts to getting into me, getting under my skin, getting me very agitated and frustrated.

I deeply care about the business I’m running, and the team I have built and grown. It is not something I can easily walk away. I care about what we have built. But I’m also feeling that I’m against a huge, political, and bureaucratic organization. I’m just a tiny piece in a huge ocean. It’s scary – if I don’t take action, I might very well waste my precious time and career.

What should I do? What will I do? I’m seeking.

But, I know for sure that I’ll write more – writing is the one thing that makes me feel happy, energized, and at peace with myself. It’s an tool for us to organize my thoughts.

I’ll write more.

Have you ever gotten mad any work? The toxic emotion could be really damaging.

I bet a lot of you have gotten angry at something or someone at work in the past 30 days.

Here is a technique I learned that has been surprisingly helpful. It might be working for you as well.

It’s very simply. When you get really angry, ask yourself questions:

1. Could I let it go? – the answer can be either “yes” or “not” – don’t swell on it. Answer the question and move to the next one.
2. Would I let it go?
3. When will you let it go?
4. Iterate step 1,2 and 3 again if you still cannot let it go.

I didn’t believe such as a simple technique would work but it has really helped me regain peace and contentment when I get angry/frustrated. Give it a try.

If you’re interested in learning more about the technique, I recommend you to read The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Emotional Well-Being.

This is a question I have been thinking a lot lately.

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for a long time. I attended high school and college there. After college I worked in the Silicon Valley for several years. For a long time, like many bay area residents, I felt that bay area was the best place to live in the United States. The weather is great. There are two great higher education academic institutions. Plenty of employers, both large and start-ups. The VC and start-up ecosystem is the best in the world.

However, something is missing. In other words, I wasn’t happy. In the weekend, I  drove to San Francisco or Berkeley. I missed the vibrant, intellectual, diverse, and cultural feel of San Francisco and Berkeley. I didn’t enjoy working and living in the Silicon Valley. It was really boring to me. Office parks after office parks. Most people worked in high tech. We were all chasing after the next home run IPO.

When I decided to apply MBA programs, I didn’t apply either Stanford or Berkeley although both program were excellent. I wanted to live in a different part of the country.

I ended up spending two years in Chicago. My friends in the bay area think I’m crazy – why moved to the mid-west? They didn’t understand why I could leave the best place on earth to move to the cold and windy Chicago.

Well, I personally liked Chicago better than San Francisco. I liked the four distinct seasons. The restaurant scene in Chicago was unbelievable. Lake Michigan was absolutely stunning. Downtown Chicago was magnificent. And the cold weather didn’t bother me – I actually liked the four distinct season.

After business school, I ended up taking a job in Seattle. I have mixed feeling about Seattle. It’s not a top tier metropolitan area. It’s not New York City, Chicago, LA, or San Francisco. It’s a small and compact. The people here are friendly but tend to be provincial. The start-up scene in Seattle is like minor league comparing to the major league of SF Bay Area.

But, Seattle is much cleaner and greener. Housing price is much lower than the bay area – Seattle is not cheap, but comparing to the bay area, it’s much cheaper. Many family can still afford to live comfortably with one income in Seattle. In the bay area, I don’t know any one-income family among my friends – everyone is working to afford a house.

School is another differentiator. The schools in WA is in much better shape. The state of California is basically broke. The public school system in the greater Seattle area are much better.

As you can probably tell from what I wrote so far, there isn’t a perfect place. Each city/state has its own strengths and weaknesses. But, to balance all of the factors, for me personally, Seattle is a better choice in term of raising a family and quality of life.

However, as my career progressed, I also need to think about what to do next. The higher you go, the fewer opportunity is available. Seattle has a few large employers such as Microsoft and Amazon. But, there are not that many small-to-medium sized publically traded companies in this area.

This poses an interesting challenge – should I be open to relocate for an attractive job opportunity? A friend of mine recently made up his mind to leave Seattle and moved to the mid-west. It wasn’t an easy decision.

I think this boils down to job first or location first. If I decide to put location first, then I’ll have to figure out how to support the life style/quality of life decision I made – it could mean that instead of continuing to climb up the corporate ladder, I need to choose a different path so that I can have more control over where I live in the next 10-20 years.

This is not an easy decision. I’d love to hear from you my dear readers. What do you think? Location first? Job first?

Do you hate office politics?

Are you stuck in office politics?

Do you feel that you are powerless against your coworkers who are really skilled at playing politics?

Do yourself a favor – don’t give up. You need to fight back in a smart way. If you give up and move to another company, the same thing will happen to you. You’ll be stuck in office politics again, get sick of it, and then move on. It’ll become a counter productive cycle.

How to fight back? Here are some tips to fight back office politics.

1. Accept office politics as part of everyday work life. It is neither good or bad – it’s human nature – unless you are a one-man shop, you will have to deal with office politics. To accomplish your goals and make your mark in the universe, you have to acquire the necessary politics skills.
2. Identify and stick to your non-negotiables. These are values that you are unwilling to compromise – you need to know who you are and what values you stand for. You will encounter gray areas as you apply your political skills in day-to-day battles. You need to have a clear value system to guide you decisions.
3. Observe how others play politics. You need a role model. This should be someone you respect – who does great work, receive the recognition he/she deservers, and appears to be politically savvy.
4. Pick 1 battle a day. Decide how you want to approach the situation to fight the battle. Define metric of success. Test your strategy. Evaluate result. Modify your strategy. Test again. Take an iterative approach – it’s like exercise. You practice political skills everyday. Continue to refine your political skills and assess your progress. Eventually you will get there.
5. Read. Below is a list of helpful books – but you must apply what you learn from the book. Otherwise, you’re no better than people who never read these books.

• 50th Law (if you have time to read one book, this is the one.)
• The 48 Laws of Power
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
• Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know—and What to Do About Them
• Secrets to Winning at Office Politics: How to Achieve Your Goals and Increase Your Influence at Work

Nouriel Roubini recently predicted that Next year’s perfect global storm could be much worse than 2008.

I have to admit that I’m worried about what will happen although I don’t know what will happen. If there is one thing I learned from the 2008 financial crisis, it’s that we should not underestimate the role politics play in economy. Because politics are unpredictable, I feel it’s hard to make any prediction on the economy.

I live in an area that housing price has turned around and there has been bidding war lately on certain houses. However, I have learned this is not representative of the rest of the United States.

Last week I sat next to a retired couple from Ohio on an airplane to the mid-west. People in the battle ground state of Ohio are hurting. Government workers are only allowed to work 30 to 39 hours so that they don’t get paid any health insurance. Young college graduates are living at home and working two jobs. Housing price is so depressed that one could buy a 1.5 acre house with private lake access for under $225,000.

According to the online servce RealtyTrac the number of foreclosures in state of Georgia went up by 30% year over year in May 2012.

For those of us who work with high tech and live in the west coast high tech areas such as the SF bay area or Seattle, we might not see all of the signs of a depressed economy. But, the rest of the country is still hurting badly.

I’m afraid that we might see a big shock in the next year or two …

New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer nabs $71 million pay package.

The truth about Marissa Mayer: She has two contrasting reputations.

Yahoo: Help Us, Marissa Mayer. You’re our only hope.

By now you have probably seen plenty of headlines about Marissa’ move to Yahoo!.

Put aside the money, the power, the glamour, the pretty face, the pregnancy, and the intrigue to turn around a struggling internet giant, there is one aspect of Marissa’s move that nobody is talking about.

Here is an important lesson: Marissa just gives herself a promotion of two levels at another company while taking essentially zero risk.

This move is no brainer!

Marissa is not even a member of the Google’s executive management team – she is a vice president who reports to a Senior Vice President. By taking the CEO job, she essentially moved up two levels.

This is like a successful assistant college basketball coach takes an NBA head coaching job without any prior head coaching experience.

I’m not arguing about Marissa’s ability. I’m just pointing out that this is a pretty big jump in term of responsibility and seniority in a major corporation.

At the same time, this is NOT a risky move. What’s the potential down side? If she fails, she can always blame the failures of her predecessors. It’s really a sinking ship; there are only so much a new leader can do to save the company. She will not lose her credibility even if she fails at Yahoo!.

On the other hand, if she succeeds, she will join the rank of silicon valley legends. She will be credited as someone who saves Yahoo!.

This reminds me the most important lesson I learned from my two-year business school experience. One of my favorite professor told the class: “turnaround situation is fun and easy. It can only get better.”

If you find yourself in a sinking ship, don’t panic. There might be exciting opportunities right there.

Instead of listening to sports radio or NPR during my morning commute, I have started to listen to Mixergy interviews.

I have a become a big fan of Mixergy.com. It’s an site with hundreds of interviews with successful entrepreneurs. What makes Mixergy unique is its founder and interviewer, Andrew Warner. He is an extremely talented interviewer – he asks really insightful questions, and he knows how to ask the right questions because he is an entrepreneur himself.

Anyway, this morning I listened to Single Grain: From Getting Screwed OVer to Building A Successful Company – with AJ Kumar.

Here are my notes:

• AJ runs Single Grain, an online marketing agency. They’re known to have the ability to drive a lot of traffic. Their core competency is SEO although they also do other aspect of online marketing.
• AJ is a doer. He mentioned that he would pick up some ideas from books, and he would apply them. If you read a lot of books but don’t apply what you learn from the book, then you are no better than the person who never read the books.
• To sell effectively, build relationship and have conversations with your customers first. From selling seminars to selling online marketing services, AJ emphasized the importance of having a conversation with your prospects first.
• Single Grain has access to top social media site accounts (e.g. top users in Reddit, StumbleUpon, Twitter, etc.) They don’t own these accounts, but they have access to these accounts. I have first-hand experience on how much traffic these accounts can drive traffic – this is definitely an area that I need to cultivate more relationships.
• Having really good content is still a key component of any SEO strategy. However, finding good writer is hard. There is a huge difference between a $20 piece of content and something like $60 or $100 content.
• Single Grain uses a program called Trello to systemize writings. Trello is a service to manage writing projects – you can define what you want for the writing project, coordinate with multiple freelance writers, manage deliverables and dates, etc.
• An online marketing superstar might seems to be everywhere on the internet – he would reply every comment on his blog, post on other blogs and message boards, guest post, etc. In reality, he hires other people to do the work for him. For us online marketers, we need to learn to scale ourselves, delegate, and outsource tasks.

New York University economist Nouriel Roubini recently predicted 2013 Perfect Storm May Surpass 2008 Crisis. Many people have been intrigued by the idea of buying gold as part of their investment portfolio. However, not many people know how to buy gold.

Today I have a guest post on how to buy gold from an online service called Bullion Vault. Enjoy.

Investing in gold is a very intriguing concept for many people, but for most people that’s all it is: a vague idea or possibility. Fewer people actually go so far as to seriously look into gold investment, simply because this sort of financial investment doesn’t work the same way as a typical stock opportunity might. Gold has a very independent market, and as a result the means by which people purchase gold for investment are a bit different. Fortunately, there are companies designed to help you with the gold investment process every step of the way. For example, Bullion Vault online is a very reliable and easy-to-use gold investment resource. Here’s how it works, and everything you need to know.

Who is Bullion Vault? – Put simply, Bullion Vault is the largest online service for gold investment, and puts all of your gold investment needs on a single website. At Bullion Vault you can buy physical gold bullion at constantly updated prices, and then have it stored in a vault of your choice. You can buy and sell your bullion, or even withdraw it, at any point you wish.

What Services Do They Offer? – As mentioned, Bullion Vault allows you the opportunity to buy, store, withdraw, and/or sell your gold, all on a single website. The prices for gold at Bullion Vault are updated consistently in accordance with world markets, meaning that you always get a fair price. Additionally, Bullion Vault supports payments from a number of different world currencies, and allows you a choice of UK, US, or Swiss banks for storage.

Why Is Gold Investment Beneficial? – Particularly in times of financial uncertainty, such as our own current time, gold investment is an option for people looking to protect their financial assets. When economies decline, the currencies attached to them also decline in value. On the other hand, gold bullion is not tied to any specific economy, and is thus less prone to sudden drops in value. So, if you do not trust your economy or currency, as is the case for many people in Europe and the United States today, you may want to invest in gold to protect your finances.

Is Bullion Vault Trustworthy? – Ultimately, it is always up to you to decide where to put your money. However, as far as credibility goes, Bullion Vault is quite professional and reliable. Not only is the website managing over $1.5 billion in gold worldwide (which shows a great deal of customer satisfaction and loyalty), but the site has earned extremely high reviews from users, as well as multiple awards for the services it provides.

How Do I Get Started? – Opening an account with Bullion Vault is extremely quick, and does not require an initial transaction. You can simply go to bullionvault.com, click on “open account,” and prepare yourself to begin conducting transactions at your leisure.

This is a guest post on behalf of Bullion Vault, written by freelancer John McGary. John has written numerous articles on the subject of gold investment.

A few weeks ago I was in middle of a real estate transaction. I received an offer from a very excited buyer.

Things went downhill after both sides signed the sales agreements. The buyer’s behaviors suddenly became extremely unstable, inconsistent, and demanding. (I will write a separate post on what I learned from dealing with this difficult buyer.)

As it would take about 30 days to complete the transaction, I was very concerned as I started to see more and more warning signs. Let me put this way – I was hoping that buyer would change their minds, as I really didn’t want to do business with them any more.

Unfortunately, most real estate contracts are structured to protect the buyers more than the sellers. This made me very uncomfortable. I was kicking myself that I didn’t spend some time to fully understand the nuances of the contract before I signed it.

I remembered it was Monday night. I felt the need to talk to a real estate attorney. I had exhausted all of the search options on Google but I still had a few questions that I didn’t have an answer. I really wanted to talk to a real estate attorney as soon as possible.

But, I had two problems. First, it was almost mid-night. I had to wait until the next day. Second, I had all-day meeting with a strategic partner the next day. I won’t have any time to calling around to find a good real estate attorney, and set up an appointment.

I went back to Google and typed several variations of my question. I was hoping for an miracle to find an answer.

Interesting enough, the web site www.JustAnswer.com popped up in the search result. It is a Q & A web site that link experts in areas such as legal, medicine, auto, etc. to questioners like myself.

It’s NOT free – they charge a fees. Out of desperation, I typed my question. Within a minute, someone started a chat session with me. As a questioner, I can either choose to chat with the expert or receive answers from the expert via email.

I chose chat. I ended up talking to a real estate attorney for 30 minutes, and got all of my questions answered. I had a good night of sleep as my anxiety was all gone after talking to her – she explained to me the nuances of the contract, and helped me understand that I had many options to get out of the contract if things didn’t work out.

I paid a little bit over $50 for the service. If I’ve gone to a regular real estate attorney, I would have  paid at least $200-$300 per hour. And I need to first find an attorney, and then make an appointment. There is no guarantee the attorney will be available the next day to talk to me.

I have to say that I am super impressed by JustAnswer.com. I checked their company background – it’s started by a fellow UC Berkeley alum. Go Bears!

Anyway, if you need to talk to Lawyers, Mechanics, Doctors & Nurses, Vets, Electricians/Plumbers, Relationships, Weddings, or experts in many other categories, I highly recommend you to give JustAnswer a try. Below is an embeded JustAnswer application – give it a try!

I was chatting with someone who was a mid-level manager at Microsoft. He has been with Microsoft for several years.

Since he worked in finance, I started the conversation by asking him: “You guys just wrote off the Aquantive acquisition. That’s $6+ billion dollars. You work in finance. What’s your take?”

His response: “you know, it didn’t affect our stock at all. We have tons of cash. It wasn’t a big deal for us. It’s Microsoft. Only Microsoft can take $6 billion dollars write-off.”

“You know, the Aquantive acquisition was positioned as one of the most important acquisition in Microsoft history. How could Steve Ballmer survives such a big write-off? They wrote off the entire amount!” I pressed him.

“It’s Microsoft. You guys didn’t know how much cash we were generating. We’re still one of the best companies out there. We’re doing great!”

“You know, you guys missed Search, and now are way behind in mobile. Mobile devices are quickly taking shares away from PC. Microsoft is facing a huge issue there. Android has 50%+ market share. Apple has 35%+ market share. Microsoft only has 5% market share. That’s pretty scary.”

He laughed at me. “You know. I work in the mobile group. I work with the carriers. They told us that iPhone is too expensive. And Android is too expensive to maintain from customer service standpoint. It’s open source, but because it is open source, it is very expensive to support and service Android device. Microsoft has the best solution.”

“Well, there is one thing missing your argument!” At this point, my thinking is: “what kind of Kook-Aid is he drinking!!!”

He said: “what am i missing?”

“Well, you miss the CONSUMERS! If they don’t want Windows phone, it does NOT matter what the telecoms are telling you!”

“Well, you’re right, but we’re Microsoft. We’ll fight and get there.”

I work and live in the Seattle area. I really hope for a strong Microsoft because Microsoft is crucial for the local economy here.

However, I cannot tell you how many Microsoft employees I met who are drinking their own Kool-Aid everyday. They have no clue how the outside world has changed.

It’s frustrating. I was talking to a friend who worked at Microsoft before. He told me that Microsoft really brainwash their employees.

I have no doubt!