Brian Keng

  • Little by Little

    It’s surprising how much a little can add up to a lot.  I’ve been writing on this weblog for over two years and I’ve finally posted more than 100 articles! (this one is 101)

    It’s funny initially I tried writing mini-essays, something similar to Paul Graham.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep up with it (also they weren’t nearly as good).  The task of writing a 500 word piece was so daunting that I wasn’t motivated to keep up.  So I stopped for a while.  After a brief hiatus, I realized why limit myself to 500 words?  So I decided to set a goal of 4-6 posts a month regardless of the length. Up until lately, I’ve actually done pretty well with that.  The periods of few posts typically correlate to some trip I went on or some deadline that I have to meet.   So it’s usually a good thing for me, but I guess not so good for the number of posts.  Going forward, I’m going to try to keep up with 4 posts a month.  Hopefully by the time I hit two hundred, I will have kept pretty close to this goal.

    To wrap up, here are some things I’ve learned or random thoughts about my weblog:

    • I keep posting here for a few reasons: writing down ideas help solidify and reinforce them in my head, to practice my writing, and to share knowledge with anyone who cares to listen.  Funny enough, the last point is the least important reason for my writing but the most satisfying one (when something I wrote is useful to someone).
    • Stories are a much more interesting (read fun) way to express ideas.  Explaining the facts in a logical manner just doesn’t seem as sexy.
    • It’s pretty scary telling personal stories in public but after a while you get used to it (especially when readership is so low).
    • It’s also pretty scary telling people that you have a blog; it makes you vulnerable.  Anyone can read a post, criticize you and put you down.  Fortunately, no one has really done that… yet.
    • I actually enjoy writing.  It’s kind of nice to take off my hat as a consumer and actually be a producer (of something else besides code).
    • Practice makes perfect.  I’ve found that words flow much more easily than before I started.  This also translates over to writing papers too.  The quality of my first drafts are much higher and produced more quickly than before.  This is exactly why I started writing.
    • I always wanted to write about some of my other hobbies such as investing or something technical like coding.  But for some reason, I always felt that I wasn’t enough of an “expert”.
    • I turned off public comments on my website because I was getting way too much spam. (Although, people can still comment on Facebook).
    • When I co-posted with Facebook, my readership skyrocketed (from almost nothing to still a very low number).  Surprise, surprise, turns out most people get their information through Facebook.
    • There’s a real sense of accomplishment when I look back at all the “work” I’ve done.  Even reading some of my previous posts, I’m pretty happy and surprised at how good they are.  Unfortunately, this definitely doesn’t apply to all of them.

    What good is knowledge if you can’t share it?  I’ll keep sharing and hopefully someone will keep reading.

  • Adaptability

    I recently had the chance to talk about and promote some work we’ve done to varied individuals over the course of several days.  With lots of practice and preparation in hand, I was ready to deliver the message and show all these people the great work we had done.  To my surprise though, not one of them really understood my original message!

    Some explanation is necessary.  See, I’ve recently become a relatively competent communicator (both literally and title wise from Toastmasters), so I was more than prepared to deliver the story about our work to these people.  My regular preparation for this kind of situation is to remember all the points I wanted to hit and practice, practice, practice.  Unfortunately, my Toastmaster experience hadn’t taught me one of the most crucial points in this type of situation — adaptability.

    Giving a speech is hard in one sense.  There are so many different points to consider: structure, message, vocal variety, body language, audience and the list goes on.  However, it is also easy in another sense because the audience is relatively static (you know beforehand what to expect).  In this situation, this was definitely not the case with the audience (and their background knowledge and perspective) changing every time you talk to someone new.  This completely threw me off initially.

    At first, I would just give the standard “speech” that I had prepared and practiced for.  It sounded great.  It hit all the points on this list: good message, good vocal variety, good body language… except for one thing: the audience.  Here I was woefully unprepared.  I had assumed incorrectly (as most academics do) that the people I would be talking to would have somewhat of a similar background as I do — at least at a high level.  In fact, this was true to some extent.  However, the big problem was that the way they viewed the problem and solution was completely different.  This caused my prepared message to veer off wildly from its original purpose.

    Thankfully, some of the more experienced peers I was with gave me some pointers after my initial frustration.  The solution was so simple that I missed it: ask questions.  A few questions up front, as well as sprinkled throughout the presentation, would direct the presentation so that the message would be received loud and clear (clear being the most important part).  Although, I was still struggling to figure out what the right questions to ask were, I was definitely having much more success than my first few attempts.  I guess that old saying is right: if at first you don’t succeed, ask some questions.

     

  • Forecasts

    “Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecaster; they tell you nothing about the future.”
    Warren Buffett

    I think one of the hardest parts about talking to people is when then insist that something will happen, particularly when it applies to something that surely is not predictable.  The best example is anything to do with investing.  Stocks, real-estate, interest rates, it seems as if everyone has a (strong) opinion on what’s going to happen.  But really, if they were even moderately good at predicting this stuff, they could make a boat load of money.  So far, I haven’t met anyone who has been successful.

    One of the most difficult parts about these kinds of things is that our brains are wired to generalize the past (that we’ve experienced).  People who got burned in the latest recession are convinced that stocks are terrible investments that only go down, others whose condos have risen in value in recent years believe that it will continue forever, and there are hundreds of other examples of people who will try to convince you of some other eventuality about the future.  When you step back and think about it, why the heck are people so intent on convincing you that their prediction is true?  I think many times it’s less about convincing you and more about convincing themselves.  Because if there’s one other thing that are brains are wired to do is to never contradict our worldly view.

    The best any of us can do is just be aware of these inherent biases in others as well as ourselves.  Human nature is almost impossible to change but being aware of it is the first step in charting a new course.  It looks like it’s going to be sunny tomorrow, guess I’ll bring an umbrella.

     

  • How to get a lot of people to hate you

    “getting a lot of people to hate you is easy — all you have to do is become really successful at doing something you love.”
    Evil Plans, Hugh MacLeod

    Since when did it become a crime to feel good about loving what you do (and telling people about it)?  Maybe it’s a byproduct of my stereotypical Canadian modesty but I always seem to feel guilty talking about how much I enjoy what I do.  I rarely mention that I sometimes like to just sit and think about a research problem for an entire afternoon, or how I sometimes start coding in the morning only to realize it’s dark already, or the fact that I get paid to do this!  Not to mention that I have amazingly flexible work hours, get to travel to conferences around the world, and get to work with some of the smartest people I know. (Aren’t you hating me already?)

    I’m trying to shake this habit though.  I don’t want the critics and the haters to stop me from changing the world (in my own small little way) and I sure as hell don’t want them to stop me from sharing it with people.  Besides I try to keep in mind this fact: anything worth doing is always going to piss some people off — just not the ones that matter.

  • A Walk in the Park

    “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.”
    From Kung-Fu Panda

    This past weekend must have been one of the most beautiful couple of days this year.  And I did something unusual: I bought a Vanilla Bean Latté, went to the park, sat down by myself and read a book.  The latté wasn’t the unusual part, nor was the book; it was the walk in the park that was a bit peculiar for me.  This funny thing is, the fact that the walk in the park was peculiar for me is in itself a bit peculiar.  Because on a bright sunny day, doesn’t it makes sense to enjoy this perfect presentation of spring?

    There have been many beautiful days in my (short) lifetime but there have been few times where I have stopped to appreciate the weather.  So busy are everyone’s lives that they don’t even have time to stop and smell the roses (as it were).  This is a mistake I will not make.  And if Kung-Fu Panda has taught me anything (besides to keep being awesome), it’s that the today is a gift we call the present.

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