Mark Zuckerberg Does Q&A in Mandarin

An interesting piece of news I originally picked  up on Facebook (where else?) reported that Mark Zuckerberg recently did a Q&A session in full in Mandarin.

BBC picked up on the story too (link here) and dug a little deeper to see what people thought about it.

On Time Management

One of my objectives for taking my MBA is to build on what I know. With so many topics, classes, case studies, concepts, and tools taught, there is a tendency for one to get overwhelmed. The fast paced nature of an MBA is part of what makes it so challenging.

This part few weeks have been very, very challenging. Balancing work + school + family + business is a recipe for disaster if you don't know how to manage your time properly.

I've learned a few tricks for time management that helped me get through the past few months and weeks. Hopefully, they continue to keep me together up until graduation in a few more months!

Tip 1: Keep to your schedule, meaning, be on time

This is easier said than done given the many factors beyond our control. I'm not just talking about being on time to meetings (which is crucial and basic in my mind). I'm also talking about being "on time" for time that you set aside for each specific aspect of your life. For example, I set aside for myself at least one hour everyday (during lunch hour for example) to catch up on forum posts on IE Campus. Outside of this given time block, I will refrain from checking it. This keeps me sane as forum posts can get out of hand and contrary to what you might think, constantly checking (via the very accessible IE Campus App) doesn't really help.

Good Behavior Tally Board

So my wife and I started a small experiment involving our two kids. We were looking for a way to reinforce good behavior while curbing bad behavior. We came up with the idea to have a tally board (photo of the tally board below). The mechanics were pretty simple: when the kids behave for the day, we give them a star. 

For the criteria, we defined "bad behavior" as three main things: throwing temper tantrums, not doing homework right away, and fighting with helpers or a sibling.

To give the kids a sense of ownership and responsibility, we put a twist. Instead of the authority figure serving as the judge, we put the kids in charge of policing their own behavior. We ask them at the end of each day whether or not they deserve to get a star.

Best Place to Live: Canberra

According to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Canberra is the best place to live in the world. The report uses a measure called "regional well-being" which is based on nine topics: income, jobs, health, access to services, environment, education, safety, civic engagement and housing. Each region or area is scored on a scale of 1 to 10 on each of the nine topics. 

Photo taken in 2011 at Cockington Green Gardens, Canberra

Subscription Based Social Networks?

There's a new player in the social networking space that is looking to position itself as the "anti-Facebook", that is, they claim they will never sell advertising on their platform.

Screenshot of Ello.co

The social network is called Ello and currently they claim to receive 40,000 requests an hour from people wanting to sign up. Signing up is by invitation only at the moment.

Social Networks such as Facebook earn revenues by allowing advertisers to target their user base. Ello plans to earn revenue either via a subscription based model where users pay a fee to use the platform (like Netflix) or by asking users to pay to unlock more premium features (like LinkedIn and Spotify).