An eclectic IT career: Mayo Takeuchi

During my period of career turbulence - which actually began as far back as 2014 if my retrospection is correct, but officially began in early December of 2017 - one recurrent talking point that my employer's CHRO and CEO both expounded upon was how they sought resources who were (not their words, I'm being succinct) emotionally intelligent and mentally flexible . Another trending topic from both the HR and economic viewpoints, particularly in North America, seems to be that of how millennials are contributing increasingly to the creation of a " gig economy " - seemingly voluntarily jumping from contract to contract. In both cases, it helps to possess a curious nature: learning curves, be they academic or social, are best scaled when one inherently enjoys the process of acquiring knowledge and then applying it. However, the bigger mental challenge might, in my opinion, be to keep an unflagging sense of optimism about impending change. We may speak to it, but actua...

A little over fourteen months ago I'd posted the predecessor to this post , where I touched upon the concept of multitasking. Now, over three months since my last post, I find myself on vacation, and finally able (and willing) to return my attention to this blog. I recently read a discussion by friends that mentioned that "the days are long, but the years are short". I've certainly found this to be the case also, for the client-facing work I've been involved with since August of last year. There are advantages to being obsessive, focused, and absorbed in any activity, I believe, but there are also unavoidable detractors, such as needing to use a timer or other externalized tooling to ensure that less engrossing tasks involved in daily living are still accomplished as required. So, here are three tips to avoid ending up like that (altogether uncomfortably identifiable) XKCD character. 1. Learn to accurately estimate task duration and effort. As the XK...

Since joining a few weeks back, I've seen quite a few blog posts and articles (such as this one ) crop up about how best to use Pinterest , which I would succinctly describe as a visual social bookmarking service.  It's still in invitation-only mode (if you'd like an invitation, feel free to contact me for one), it allows for users to: Create collections of bookmarks ("boards"). Boards may be assigned a category, which others can then search for and browse through. Boards can be either solely editable by oneself, or contributed to by other users, whom one can specify by name. Boards may be "liked" via Facebook plugin. Add bookmarks as represented by either images and videos, either found anywhere online (publicly accessible), or via upload. At the time of pinning, one can use Facebook and/or Twitter to share out the pin. Comment on any pinned items. "Like" and "re-pin" items. Follow all of or a subset of other users' bo...

Thanks to Google+, I first learned about a service called IFTTT ("if this then that").  They provide a very simple interface where the registered user can set up tasks. Each task consists of selecting a channel (such as Craigslist, Delicious, Instagram and many other social utilities), where a trigger event from said channel results in an action on a target channel. For instance, one can set up an email to be sent to one's account when the local forecast calls for snow. Or in my case, I've set up a task that tweets a customized message of thanks when I'm re-tweeted or followed. Possibly the most powerful channel that's available on IFTTT is the "Feed". Any RSS feed URL can be used as a trigger. This means that I can now consider leaving networkedblogs, on which I currently rely to syndicate new blog entry notices to Facebook and Twitter. I'd also like to review all my feed subscriptions, and see what else I'd like to automate. Thinking al...

Here's the original blog post upon which I'm commenting. (A disclaimer: I've had no interactions with this author save the message I left for him on his blog. I also have no metaphorical axe to grind nor malice with which I'm replying (the apt expression in Japanese would be that I'm not "selling him a fight"). It's simply that I wish to present my critique on the actual 8 listed tips. I certainly agree with his opening paragraph.) Now, my response proper: I believe his 8 tips could be condensed into 5. Moreover, in my world they would be re-ordered as the following: Valuable This merges his "valuable" and "solution" tips, and is related to "relevance" too, in terms of what the audience expects to find on the site, topic-wise. Credible  Using vetted sources for information is an essential part of all academic writing; lend credence to one's own assertions whenever possible online, too. This also touches ...

It's actually interesting to note that for much of the 20th century, many Japanese organizations like schools and some workplaces did participate in radio calisthenics . Even my Saturday morning language schools had them at the start of each school session. In any case, a recent meeting with a UK entrepreneur reminded me of another benefit to living on the European continent: my first name is almost never mispronounced any longer. If you wish to impress your Japanese colleagues or clients, I strongly recommend that you remember the following simple rules: There are only 5 pure vowels in Japanese, which are identical to the Italian vowels: from the way I pronounce (Canadian) English, the sounds are: A as in altruism, E as in elbow, I as in index, O as in olfactory and U as in ulna. The letter y can be seen preceding three of the vowels (ya や, yu ゆ, yo よ); it's always used as the consonant. Note: having received linking permission, here is  an audio file from a friend ...

It occurred to me that next year marks twenty years since I first began to use email. Since then I've registered and deactivated well over a dozen addresses. Now I have ten active ones, most of which filter and forward mails into two inboxes: one business, and one personal. If I become more adept at tapping - or Swyping - perhaps I'd want to use my smart phone for most personal communiqués. However, I think it will take considerable time before becoming comfortable using "text message orthography" in business contexts, including instant messaging. This is why I'm not even going to address the basics of formal writing rules such as capitalization, punctuation, and writing out words fully, in the following tips. Use the subject line effectively: differentiate and justify why you're sending the email by summarizing its primary topic clearly. I'd also recommend attempting to be concise at the same time, but it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to d...

I've seen my share of enigmatic meeting minutes, which usually consist of enumerating topic headings that may or may not be attributed to the speaker(s) involved. I'd always believed that the purpose of minutes was to accurately and thoroughly capture the proceedings of meetings such that those absent could, at minimum, understand the salient points of what transpired. Thus it surprises me to see examples that read like cue cards where, clearly, one had to be there to even get an inkling (to have the slightest clue) of what the meeting was about. Here are my best practice suggestions, therefore, to create minutes that are indeed useful and worth sending to others: Take notes that will jog your own memory, while others are speaking. Specific techniques would vary by individual; I usually take full sentence quotes because I'm able to type quickly enough. While taking the rough notes, focus on action items, decisions, or points that pertain to any subsequent meeting...

One of my blog followers was kind enough to mention to me that my inaugural post had helped someone to execute telephone based communication more effectively (in the context of charity fundraising). Which is why I've decided to make a few more observations about communicating with others in a formal setting (be they virtual or in person). While in school, which was now long enough ago that I'm hoping many of my then-teachers have retired and forgotten about me and thus wouldn't seek this blog out, I began to implement a "planted questions" technique. I chose peers who were typically quieter in the classroom, and requested that they ask me pre-defined questions whenever I had a presentation to make. Since I had control over these questions and thus my responses, this technique killed several proverbial birds with one stone: I would seem better prepared to handle the Q&A part of the work, my classmates would speak up and improve their participation rating, a...

Thank you for your patience, dear readers: here's the awaited English interpretation of the Hiberno-English example I gave in my earlier post , for those who didn't try going to places like the Irish slang dictionary site to look things up: " Oh be the hokie : my laptop was banjaxed . I felt so knackered after trying to fix it that when I met yer wan on the footpath by Mssrs ., I could barely say  how'ya ." " For goodness' sake : my laptop was severely damaged . I felt so exhausted after trying to fix it that when I met that human female (of any age) whose name I've forgotten on the sidewalk by my local pub (you know where it is) , I could barely greet her ."  Actually, the interjection  (which could also be interpreted as "for crying out loud" etc.) wasn't something heard frequently, and is from a prior generation. As well, footpath is arguably UK in origin. I noticed also from the dictionary site I found, that UK Eng...

A US-based colleague of mine whom I'd had the recent pleasure to meet, spoke to my immediate team about working effectively across various cultures. The basketball expression "it's a slam dunk!" was, in his experience, as bewildering to his overseas colleagues as what we might consider to be less esoteric expressions, like "no kidding". This prompted me to consider what lessons I'd learned in my position as a thrice ex-patriated person with a working knowledge of Japanese and French (and now challenged with Austrian German). In Ireland, it took me a surprisingly long time to truly understand Hiberno-English. Never mind the phonetic shifts (aka "accent"); even transcribed, common interjections and vocabulary can quickly mystify the non-initiated. Take this example sentence which artificially conflates a lot of native (Dublin centric) expressions: "Oh be the hokie: my laptop was banjaxed. I felt so knackered after trying...

I, like many others in the globalized business world, spend much of my time on the phone. In particular, chairing and minuting teleconferences, often with a mixture of native and non-native English speakers. Here are my top 5 tips for effective telephone-based communication: Summarize discussions succinctly and simply at the end of every topic and confirm that key participants understand the agreement(s). Be conscious of posture and speak from the diaphragm. Standing up also helps with voice projection: a thespian approach to enunciating assists with getting your message across. Smile as you speak! A friendly tone of voice puts everyone at ease, and we can discern when someone is smiling even without any visual cues. Further to point 2, speak more slowly and clearly than in a face to face situation. This allows for noise and lag from VOIP connections and transatlantic (or further!) distances. Don't be afraid to confirm what you understand by paraphrasing someone else...