Barcamp Saigon video clips

Bacon Over Eggs (part 2)

By far, whomever I told the fable of chicken and pig managed to see themselves as pigs and agreed that eliminating the decision making power from chickens would brighten their work life.

And that is the tricky part of the fable. Most people think they are pigs. While Pareto principle (80/20 principle) implies that most are chickens.

If you want to know within your team, who are pigs and chickens, but can't afford spending 3 months turning your organization up side down, comparing your respectable colleagues to farm animals, then check out this story, told by legend Ken Schwaber, known as Squirrel Burgers.

Once upon a time, Ken worked at Fat Burger. One night he was given the task of closing up alone. About 15 minutes before closing time, a customer came to the window with $1.20 in his pocket and said he wanted a Double Fat Burger ($2.50), Large Fries ($1.25), and a large drink ($1.25).

Ken was the only one there. And he probably didn't have the best day in this life. He noticed a dead squirrel in the parking lot when he came into work. He scraped it up, cooked it, put it on a partially eaten bun from the garbage (inventory control said he couldn't use a fresh one), and gave it to the customer for $1.20.

The customer ended up going into a coma. And the company was sued for millions of dollars.

src: ibtimes.co.uk

In this F&B disaster, who were pigs, who were chickens?

• The customer was a pig because he bet with his own heath. That was a deep commitment.
• Ken was a pig, he was fired from his job
• Fat Burger was also a pig. It lost its business and faced a PR crisis.

And in every organization, the squirrel burger story is a norm. There is always a department affected by a decision made by some other random department. If everyone is committed to their work with their own career and welfare, should not everyone have the right to make decision? And then, with universal suffrage (or worse, bosses are more "equal" because bosses), there gone all the benefits of Chicken-Pig distinction.

But I know, and I believe you know, that not everyone is pig. Ken could always find another job, in fact he went on with software development and became a legend :). Fat Burger could always start its franchise elsewhere, Vietnam for example. Only the customer was The Pig, it was his own life on the line.

The story of squirrel burger points out that everyone tends to think she is a pig and that our mind plays with us, no matter what we do or don't do, we will always wholeheartedly believe we are pathetic pigs and all the chickens are making her life miserable.

That is, the chicken-and-pig question is in fact a moral question. At first sight, you are a pig. On the second thought, are you really?

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Trước giờ, mọi người khi nghe câu chuyện gà và heo luôn nhận ra mình quả thật là một con heo, và lấy đi quyền quyết định từ những con gà rách việc là một ý tưởng thiên tài.

Cái khó của tư tưởng Gà-Heo chính là ở chỗ mọi người đều nghĩ mình là Heo, trong khi qui tắc Pareto (qui tắc 80/20) cho rằng, trong mọi tổ chức, Gà luôn chiếm đa số.

Để hiểu được lý do phân biệt Gà-Heo sao phức tạp vậy mà không cần bỏ ra 3 tháng bới tung công việc của bạn, so sánh đồng nghiệp khả kính với đám gia súc nông trại, hãy nghĩ tới Tèo, phụ bếp của Mập Donalds ngay chợ Bến Thành (chuyện phỏng theo Squirrel Burgers của Ken Schwaber thần thánh)

Tối một ngày tháng 5, một đứa bé cầm 10 ngàn bước vào và hỏi mua một phần Big Mac, khoai lớn nước lớn. Tèo khá cao hứng tối đó và nó muốn làm thằng bé vui. Vì bánh và thịt bị quản lý bằng hệ thống kho, Tèo không tự ý thó một tẹo ở đây, ở kia mà không ai biết được. Nó bèn lấy phần bánh khô cứng của ngày hôm trước, rảy thêm chút nước cho mềm, và chiên một miếng thịt cũng của ngày hôm qua nốt.

Ý tưởng của Tèo thật sự vô cùng rất là khủng khiếp. Thằng bé đau bụng nghỉ học luôn ba ngày, ba mẹ nó thuê luật sự kiện đủ đường, Mập Donalds bị phạt cả triệu đô, Vài tuần sau người ta thấy một cửa hàng Trùm Burger hiện ra ngay chỗ trước đây của Mập.

Vậy trong đại hoạ của Tèo, ai là Heo, ai là Gà?

• Đứa bé rõ là Heo rồi, vì nó lăn lộn qua lại báo hại ba mẹ nó hết mấy ngày, lại còn nghỉ học bị ghi sổ đầu bài.
• Tèo, cũng là Heo. Bằng chứng là nó bị đuổi.
• Mập Donalds cũng là Heo nốt. vì mất tong miếng bánh An Nam thòm thèm suốt từ thời mở cửa.

Và trong các công ty, câu chuyện như của Tèo diễn ra khá thường xuyên. Luôn có một phòng ban nào đấy bị vạ lây bởi một quyết định ất ơ ở một ban phòng khác. Nếu mọi người đều cam kết vào công việc bằng chính quyền lợi thiết thân của mình, mọi người nên có quyền quyết định, đúng không? Và khi đó, phổ thông đầu phiếu (hay tệ hơn, phiếu của sếp thì quan trọng hơn vì đó là sếp) xoá sạch mọi lợi ích của chế độ Gà Heo.

Nhưng tôi biết, và tôi tin bạn cũng biết, không phải ai cũng là Heo. Tèo luôn có thể tìm một công việc mới (nó được nhận vào Trùm Burger, đứng ngay chỗ trước đây nó đứng và người ta còn cho nó huy chương gì đấy). Miếng bánh An Nam chỉ là một mẩu trong chiếc bánh Đông Nam Á của Mập. Nhưng thằng bé thì khác, nó có thể đã đi hầu cụ kị nhà nó.

Câu chuyện bán burger của Tèo chỉ ra, rằng nếu bạn hỏi một người bất kỳ, nhiều khả năng bạn ấy (cũng) sẽ cảm thấy mình giống Heo hơn, rằng cái tôi của chúng ta thường quá lớn để chấp nhận sự hiện diện của mình nhiều khi chỉ để trang trí.

Vậy nên, câu hỏi Gà-Heo là một câu hỏi luân lý. Thoạt đầu, bạn là Heo đó. Nhưng nghĩ lại một lần nữa, có thật vậy không?

Bacon Over Eggs (part 1)

Whenever I have a chance to meet up with my friends, a conversation on bullshit decisions and unreasonable bosses always finds its way to pop up. Usually these two factors are directly proportional. No boss who manages to make decisions with clarity is marked unreasonable. Everytime the conversation develops in this direction, despite acknowledging even bosses (or rather, especially bosses) are learning in their leading role, I can't help but mumble to myself "you should kill all those chickens".

Chicken who?

The fable of the chicken and the pig is classical among people of software industry.

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.
The Chicken says: "Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!"
Pig replies: "Hm, maybe, what would we call it?"
The Chicken responds: "How about 'ham-n-eggs'?"
The Pig thinks for a moment and says: "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"

src: www.implementingscrum.com

The moral of the story is that people who are committed should be given the right to make decisions on their fate (including the ultimate right to quit). Even though the fable to a software developer is just as popular as an Aesop one to a 3-year-old, few people outside of the circle know about it. I personally believe that in this wild and colorful world, every career and industry would benefit from adapting the mindset.

Though I know that everything that exists has a cause, I can only see the traditional power hierarchy is socially unfair and a waste of talent.

Bosses have to suffer from shareholders' pressure, make detailed planning for their subordinates to execute, and are still victimized with endless critics. That is unfair. Employees who are talented, spent four years of their lives in the most prestigious schools and ready to be all in for the job are treated as a dispensible piece on the chess board, expected to be executing instructions like a machine. That isn't fair either.

Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached? 

- Henry Ford

This is no French revolution but I truly believe that giving the decision making power to people who are committed is the first and most essential step of building a healthy self-governing organization.

Next post will be on why figuring out pigs and chickens is more challenging than what it seems to be

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Bạn bè lâu ngày gặp nhau,nói chuyện một hồi thế nào cũng đến lúc bán than những quyết định quái gở và những ông sếp hắc ám. Thường thì hai đại lượng này tỉ lệ thuận với nhau. Không ông sếp nào có khả năng đưa ra những quyết định sáng suốt mà bị coi là hắc ám cả (lưu ý sáng suốt khác trong sáng). Những lúc này, tuy biết rằng chính các sếp cũng đang trưởng thành dần trong vị trí lãnh đạo, tôi vẫn thường lầm bầm "nên giết sạch mấy con gà đó đi"

Con gà nào?

Câu chuyện con gà và con heo là một câu chuyện ngụ ngôn kinh điển của các bạn làm phần mềm. Truyện rằng: một ngày đẹp trời, Gà gặp Heo bàn chuyện làm giàu bằng vốn tự có. Gà muốn mở nhà hàng bán trứng và thịt ba chỉ chiên. Dù Gà liên hồi về việc bán hàng đếm tiền, conversion rate và viễn cảnh nhượng quyền, Heo thấy run. Mở nhà hàng với Gà là đóng góp vài quả trứng, với Heo là tính mạng của nó. Trong trò chơi đồ hàng này, Gà là người liên quan, nhưng Heo mới là người cam kết. Vì vậy, mặc cho những giấc mơ đẹp đẽ của Gà, Heo mới là người có quyền quyết định theo đuổi dự án hay không.

src: http://blog.smartbear.com

Bài học của câu chuyện là rằng, những người bị ràng buộc với kết quả cuối cùng nên được trao quyền quyết định số phận của họ (bao gồm quyền cao nhất là từ bỏ). Câu chuyện này phổ biến trong ngành như một dạng truyện ngụ ngôn Aesop, nhưng tuyệt nhiên vô hình bên ngoài vòng tròn những người viết code. Nhưng trong thế giới đầy màu sắc, có lẽ mọi ngành nghề khác đều có thể học hỏi từ tinh thần này.

Dù biết rằng cái gì tồn tại thì cái đó có lý, tôi vẫn nghĩ mô hình phân quyền truyền thống là một bất công xã hội.

Sếp phải chịu nhiều áp lực, lên kế hoạch cho cả team, và còn hứng hết chê trách từ những người ôm hận trong lòng. Đó là bất công tập 1. Nhân viên tài năng, dành bốn năm học hành chăm chỉ, nguyện hiến xác cho công việc nhưng bị xem là một con cờ trên bàn cờ, phải "ngoan" và làm việc như một cái máy. Đó là bất công tập 2.

Đây không phải là cách mạng Pháp, nhưng tôi nghĩ trao quyền tự quyết vào những người cam kết vào công việc của mình là bước đi quan trọng để tạo dựng một tổ chức tự vận hành.

Bài tiếp theo là bàn về việc tìm ra đâu là heo, đâu là gà thực sự khó hơn lý thuyết rất nhiều.

When everything is fucked up beyond all recognition

Right after Barcamp Saigon 2014, I shared this status on Facebook. Though it wasn't long, it was pretty much what had been on my mind the whole event day. I was truly grateful that Barcamp Saigon 2014 wasn't a Failcamp topic the year after. The (relatively) successful execution of the event was a huge relief on my heart and by relief, I mean the feeling of being released from all responsibility in life and once again, become a child.

Over the 2 months duration preparing Barcamp Saigon 2014 with the organizing team, the experience had been stressful, brutal, and depressing to me. It reminded me of all the tough times I had been through in the past, like when my whole fish tank died after a night, or when I almost got a retention due to academy performance; the times that I genuinely told myself everything must be just a dream and I should wake up like right there before thing got worse.

At some point, my work on Barcamp was pushed forward not by the belief of Barcamp on the local community, but by the fear of fucking everything up. The shift in mentality was the same as a good student going from getting an A+ to praying "oh God, please let me pass this".

So what actually happened?

A month and a half before the event, some time in the first week of November, I met my sponsor lead. She was worried that we got only one sponsor and hadn't succeeded in getting any new sponsors for a few weeks. She suggested downgrading Barcamp Saigon so that it fitted the budget we had got. I was pretty sure that would be a huge disappointment to Barcamp enthusiasts in the city. After all those years, we had spoiled the Barcamp crowd with lots of  freebies. But I wasn't at Saigon, where all our potential sponsors were. I was stuck at Hanoi for 10 days.

A month before the event, I had a major meeting with Barcamp Saigon venue sponsor. Gathered in the meeting room on floor 9 of a downtown campus were faculty members, and various staff of the university. More or less everyone in the school whose function involved in promoting and managing Barcamp Saigon was in that room, where we finalized a few last issues mostly regarding the event flow and the university's concerns about Barcamp's openness. After the meeting, I had a tour around the campus when I got to pick the floors, halls, and rooms that would be used before and on the event day. Everything seemed so certain. All what left to be done was to update the agreement with the new room numbers and we were good to go.

Fourteen days. A major sponsor sent us a formal email demanding that the company's logo must appear on the T-shirt design and threatened to withdraw the sponsorship agreement if the demand wasn't satisfied. Though the withdrawal would mean a significant portion of Barcamp budget might be gone, appearance on T-shirt was not by any mean stated in the sponsorship proposal and contract, the demand wasn't something we could agree. Until thing was sorted out, the incident delayed the commence of T-shirt manufacturing for a few days. We were making 700+ T-shirts, so any delay on the schedule was a nuisance. However, what was going to happen the very next day made this incident in our favor.

Thirteen days before the event, I headed to the campus one more time, believing that I would have the agreement signed. After all, the event was coming close and we satisfied all the requirements from the university. To my surprise, the half-an-hour appointment extended itself into a meeting over lunch, where I was bombarded with questions from a staff I had never met in any previous meeting. He was the most paranoid person about risks associated with the open nature of Barcamp. Though I do agree that there are lot of bad things that can happen in an unconference like Barcamp, I also believe the benefits of Barcamps to its local community outweigh all the risks. In the same way, despite of its risks, the Internet prevails and continues to transform our life every day. That staff seemed to be one who would have blocked the Internet. Also in that meeting, I learned that the people I had spoken to did not have any actual decision making power. Which is fine, because I knew no university vice president would spend his time meeting me once every couple of weeks. I just did not expect that to happen 13 bloody days before the event. The meeting ended and I knew that none of the prior preparation mattered. I had to start from scratch. Everything needed to be postponed till this was solved.

Ten days before the event, I was told that there would be a way to hold Barcamp: contacting a dean at the university, who would then foster Barcamp as an activity of his faculty. I rushed to the campus to meet the dean I was introduced to. He seemed so nice, and supportive, and, above all, so affirmative about the possibility of organizing Barcamp even there was only roughly a week left. I was not as certain.

That night, I met the rest of the organizing team to let them know about the situation. And we planned for all possible exits: changing location, delaying the event date, or dropping everything all together. We were 60% sure that we would not be able to have Barcamp on the designated date. And that was horrible. We had about 30 registered speakers, half a dozen of sponsors who had signed contracts and wired money to my bank account, and worst, hundreds of Barcamp enthusiasts who had purchased their tickets. We planned to have T-shirts, mugs and gym sacks as freebies for participants. All suppliers were calling, because that night was the deadline to kick off the work, or else they would not be able to deliver on time. That was especially true for T-shirts, 700+ T-shirts couldn't be possibly made in a few days. But having these items made also meant we had to spend the sponsored money, and once we had done that, there would be no way back. We had to postpone everything. I thought planning for my own death would have been easier.

Src: Toy Story 3 screenshot

Nine days to go. I booked my meeting at 10AM with the dean, but for some reason I could not call him and did not know where to find him. I did not meet him until over 11AM, at which point he was rushing to another meeting. So we decided to meet in the afternoon instead. He looked different from the man I met the day before though, with a twist of anxiety and uncertainty in the corners of his eyes,

In the afternoon, what I worried was right (I am usually proud of my prediction, this wasn't one). Between our meetings, the dean met the university vice president who, once again, expressed serious concerns that Barcamp's openness would bring sensitive topics to the university and ruin its reputation. The dean asked for some extra information and one more day so he could think everything through. The words T-shirt and deadline passed through my mind a few times. But fuck that, it would be pointless to have 700 T-shirts and no Barcamp. The dean was my last life vest.

Eight days. When I came to the campus at 10AM, the time we were supposed to meet and sign the bloody agreement, the only paper that could guarantee Barcamp Saigon 2014 was not going to be a flop, the dean was in another meeting (I genuinely think people here are meeting too much). I had to wait, and while I was waiting, all the exit plans we planned the other day played again and again in my head. I ended up waiting for an hour and a half, but it seemed to be much longer than that. At 11:30AM, I met the dean, after a short talk and even making some changes directly to the printed agreement by pen, we finally proceeded to sign the agreement. By fostering Barcamp, I knew that the dean, and everyone involved in this plan, took a huge leap of faith in us, the Barcamp organizing team, and put their career and reputation on the line. I could not have asked any one for a better commitment. But the process almost killed me.

We then rushed to contact all suppliers we could possibly thought of to get the freebies made. Due to time constraint, we had to compromise the original design that we made. But again, having a decent Barcamp on time was more important that having a perfect one late, so we bit the bullet and rolled on.

Four days to go. Yet another sponsor intimidated to withdraw the sponsorship because they believed some registered topics went against the company's benefit. As the organizers of Barcamp Saigon, we took the responsibility of providing benefits to all sponsors, because we would not be able to pull things together without their help. But there were lines we also needed to maintain to keep Barcamp what it is, an unconference. As a Barcamp, we were supposed to not be censors. Though I have to admit it is hard to rationalize with people taking thing personally.

Sixty hours left. I got a phone call from the university, saying that the titles in the agreement was not in the right format and we would have to redo it. Now please notice that Barcamp Saigon team was nothing but a group of locals and foreigners falling in love with Barcamp. We did not have a legal status. A local company was nice enough to trust us and help us sign all the paper as a legal entity. There was only one problem, the company was in the further corner of District 7, half a city from where I lived and another half the city to the university. I am typically most productive around afternoon, but that was one afternoon I spent riding around the city and would never get back.

Until then, when the format was right, memos were sent between departments to prepare for the event. There were around forty eight hours left. People from maintenance, security, IT and sanitation were up in arms, complaining that that was a ridiculously short notice, that how they were supposed to allocate people to work overtime on the event day, and many other things. All what I could do then was smiling like an idiot. I knew that I had done everything that I could and if I made half a university pissed for my little event, so be it.

This brutal experience taught me the importance of not losing hope even in the darkest hours.

Remind me of all the tough times I have been through. It is true that the experience was horrible and even haunting, and if given a chance, I would definitely choose not to go through the same thing. But no matter how bad the experience was, and how often it happened, the next thing I remember is that somehow I am still here, in one piece, looking for the next stupid thing to do. So I know that as long as I stay on my path, this too shall pass and become a story for my children.

And the light that led my way in darkness was my "why". Why did I volunteer to put myself into this situation? For at least half a dozen of times people asked me why I was putting myself through all those pointless things, and my answer was the same. In 2008, when I first heard of Barcamp, the inner voice in my head said that there was no way would this work. Why on earth some random people would want to share their knowledge and ideas to some other random people? But somehow, the community has always responded incredibly positive to Barcamp. Year after year, the number of participants increase. And people looking forward to the event as if it was some sort of annual festival. Every year my mind is blown by the power of a healthy community. And I want to carry on the spirit.

Let me know how crucial it is to be around supportive people. If you want to do something, and all the friends are telling you how stupid it is, better consider dropping the plan, or look for new friends.  During these hard times the temptation to just drop everything on its own is huge. The assumption that once I quit, all miseries will be gone is really seductive. I know that I am weak so I don't try to fight the devil alone. I stay with my team to get encouragement. and, when I can, to help inspire others. What I have learned from all the years fighting alone is that never wait until my inner self starts screaming for some human interaction, by then it will be too late already. Now I always try to have my shields up before difficult times strike.

Building an English Speaking Culture - Up and Down

Source: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-06-01/

Build an English speaking culture, because why not?

One of the most controversial decisions I made during the time I served as the head of Coder, Inc. was to use English in all forms of communication within the company. And it was so controversial that, until today, I keep questioning the correctness of the decision. Hiring people who are fluent in English and making them use it in their daily communication is unconventional, and in fact I believe that this idea rarely crosses the minds of the executives of companies in Vietnam. At the same time, I gained personally and professionally from the choice of language. Let me tell you my story.

When we first started Coder, Inc., we did not use English. After the first 2-3 months, there was a time that we were on a conference call with a client and we were all surprised by how rusty our English had become. Just like how people work out to keep themselves in shape, we started looking for a way to strengthen our communication skills. And as we were all RMIT alumni, the idea of speaking English all day long came naturally. We thought, "Hey this is cool, I don't think there is any other company doing this" and we decided to keep doing it as part of the tiny little organization we were building.

The pros

Because the decision was made at a very early stage, speaking English had extended itself into various aspects of the company, even before we'd fully realized it. The following points explain the impact of speaking English on our culture.

• One of the things we had been discussing was how working at Coder, Inc. helped an employee increase her personal and professional values. If fluent communication in English is not valuable, I don't know what is!
• Speaking English eight hours a day was not easy. Firstly, we all had these funny Vietnamese accents. Secondly, people hard learned a pretty academic version of English so they were not familiar with actual daily conversation (try describing how your favorite dish tastes -- I still have problems with that now), or slang (who knew what "klam" in klamr meant) or jokes (yo mama jokes, anyone?). This was a part of the learning process for everyone joining us, which, I believe, embraced the core value of the constant pursuit of growth and learning.
• Employing someone without sufficient English skills meant we needed a buffer layer between developers and clients. Those who spoke directly to client would have more insight about a project than those who didn't. This eventually would lead to hierarchy and compromise the flat organizational model we were applying. I was not a big fan of hierarchy as I saw it preventing people from operating at a higher level then where they currently were, which was yet another selling point of working at Coder, Inc..

Most importantly, it gave us a distinct brand. We were a small team of fresh graduates doing outsourcing in a country where the main revenue of software industry was, well, outsourcing. Building an English-speaking culture was an easy way to differentiate ourselves and give people something to talk about. With that under our belts, we managed to compete with companies that had been around for longer and had spent more money on recruiting. There was a semester at RMIT when out of 20 students we got 18 internship applications (we ended up picking 2).

The cons

You might be telling yourself that hiring only fluent English-speaking developers is nuts, these people aren't public speakers, they are programmers, their job is to code, not to communicate, and by doing so, I restricted myself to a smaller pool of talent. And that is true. But the small talent pool was not the problem for me. Coder, Inc. was not a gigantic multinational consulting firm, it was a twenty-something-developer outsourcing shop. The number of applications I received every month was between so many that screening and interviewing time alone ate up my entire day and too few that I had to desperately look for new sources of talent.

As it turned out, the blessing of working directly with clients was also a curse. Coder, Inc. clients were mostly entrepreneurs looking to get their ideas implemented at an affordable rate. Under the name of lean startup, fail fast - fail often, and responding to market trends, entrepreneurs had the tendency to conceptualize, change and twist the project vision in every possible way. While this energy was exactly what was great about entrepreneurship, it placed an incredible demand on software engineers, who were asked to write, test and re-write the code, all over the course of a few days.

Many engineers Coder, Inc. employed at that time were talented, energetic, and passionate. They engaged in discussions with clients with both curiosity and eagerness to build something great. But as time went by, unstable requirements, code reconstruction and midnight calls drained the energy out of these youngsters. They got burnt out. I personally at the peak of a high-demanding project, got to be very grumpy and thought about dropping everything more often that I would like to admit.

In this case, the thing we tried to remove was the very thing we needed: a buffer layer that shielded the developers from the clients' whim, allowing them to focus on their work and be productive.

The second problem with the English-speaking policy was rooted in my own voluntarism. It didn't occur to me that what worked well when we were a group of 5 wouldn't work when we scaled up to the size of twenty. And I thought what was good for me was good for my employees. An act that in retrospect was naive, conservative and stupid.

As we grew and sought diversity, we hired new people who still had great English abilities, but had little experience using it as a primary language. They would study English in a center two or three times a week, but had never spoken the language for an entire day. And it was hard. When confronted with such a challenge, it was natural to switch back to the language they had practiced for decades and knew inside out: Vietnamese. Rules are supposed to guide people to what they want, not prevent them. When that happens, rules will eventually be broken. Gradually, within the team, Vietnamese gossip groups formed and became the source of much unwanted office politics. So in an attempt to remove a formal hierarchy, with title, scope of responsibility, and everything corporate, we found ourselves in an informal and intangible hierarchy of politics where the flow of information was blocked, twisted or altered to serve personal interest. The rest is history.

Conclusion

Though it is painful for me to look into the past and see things that I had done wrong, it is extremely important to learn right from where I failed. In my opinion, Coder, Inc. would have been in a better state if either:

• A suitable process had been set up to manage projects and find balance between client's interest and engineer's sanity.
• The pace of recruitment had been slowed down to ensure one new hire had time to adapt to the new culture before hiring the next one.
• The English-speaking policy had been removed when the team decided to scale up.

What has been done cannot be undone. I learned that building an intensive English speaking company is hard, and requires the right people and the right process.

There's a different between knowing the path, and walking the path. - Morpheus

Why I blog

A couple weeks ago, I was honorably mentioned in ITViec's blog post 9 Vietnamese tech bloggers you should know. The post later made its way to Tech In Asia a few days later. It is a huge success, a splendid kudo, not only to me, but to the local tech bloggers community who has always been an underdog in Vietnam's rising tech startup scene. And I thought to myself, this is great, I want to help ITViec spreading the message. I decided to "renovate" the original post on my blog. Though who am I to tell you that you should blog, I just gonna tell you why I blog!

It's cool

Dead simple. In the same way owning a super car is cool, or learning a new language is cool, I grew up believing that owning an active blog is cool. When I was a kid, the blog culture, Yahoo360 in particular, was on its hype. Everyone seemed to talk about it. But I was a random country boy, I didn't feel like I had anything to put there (more on this later). That was how I created 2-3 blogs and just helplessly watched them die.

A few years later, when I was in college, the blogging culture struck me again, this time, to the bone. Every cool people I came to know, be it tech celebrities, professors, or classmates, had a freaking blog. At this point, the way I saw it, a personal blog to awesomeness was the same as Rolls-Royce to prosperity. I didn't really mind whether it is a causal relationship or correlation, the idea simply stuck in my mind.

I was forced

Despite of all the good will about owning a blog, I didn't start my blog until the school made me to. You see, when I was on my last semester internship, it was mandatory to keep an active weekly journal report. The school used Blackboard and its UI was horrible. It was so bad that I didn't feel like writing at all. To be honest, writing on a text editor is really difficult to begin with, the cursor keeps blinking like it was forcing me or something. To cope with the requirement, I figured that I could just write a blog post and put the link to the journal entry on Blackboard. I passed, and my blog lived on.

What I learned from this is that I didn't have to start big. It was easier to start with something small and requires minimal effort, especially the by-product of something I have already been doing, like a report, a documentation for my pet project or a collection of Facebook statuses. Gradually, if one finds blogging interesting, s/he will naturally spend more time on it, get more viewers, and the momentum builds up, like a snow ball.

I desperately want to be better at communication

I spent most of my childhood learning the standard K-12 program of Vietnam. And one of the things this program wasn't good at is to teach children expressing their own feelings, emotions and ideas. The concept of writing down my idea was alienate to me till I was 16, when I knew about the TOEFL test. Before that point, all what I learned from literature classes was to copy and paste whatever the teachers lectured. The downside of starting actual writing relatively late was that my skills sucked. The words out of my mind didn't sound right, I didn't have the vocabulary to communicate idiomatically, and my attempts at coming up with metaphors were pretty lame. To make up for that, I have been trying to practice writing as often as I could, started with TOEFL writing test topics, then SAT. Picking up random topics for my blog is just a very natural thing to move on. And not until a year ago did I start writing in Vietnamese. I know it sounds weird as I am a native Vietnamese speaker, but it just happens that way.

What I learned from this is that everyday hard word beats talent. Though I am still no where close to the level of the ones I admire, I believe I am better than me 5 years ago. And that gives me the reason to keep writing.

Now without any further delay, let me introduce a few other Vietnamese tech bloggers that I think you should know

phunehehe.net
Don't let the funny name of the blog fool you. I have known Phu ever since we were fresh men at RMIT and if all those years taught me anything then it is that he is a genuinely talented DevOps and a reliable friend. Let him show you a thing or two on software development, system administration and open source.

buunguyen.net
Buu was a lecturer at RMIT and taught me 2 or 3 courses. He was horrifying brilliant. If there is any lecturer making me chill to the bone when reviewing my assignment, it is him. Buu also happens to be an RMIT alumnus, so he was one of the few people I looked up to define my career path back then.

blog.nerdyweekly.com
Understanding Nhan's interests in system administration and development, I couldn't help but think of Nhan as a clone of Phu. Just by reading his blog, one would find all the qualities people associate with youth: energized, dynamics and creative.

truongtx.me
Trường broke my prejudice that  Aptech and NIIT and the like are pretty much vocational schools, producing second-class developers. Look at the way he takes learning new technologies, investing time to be proficient with essential tools and sharing knowledge, I can tell he is going places.

hieple.net
Hiep is currently an organizer of Agile Vietnam. He has been taking bold steps in sharing knowledge and building a healthy community in Vietnam. And all these works are reflected on his blog. Heck, we need to clone more Hiep.

PS: In writing this, I ran across this list of tech bloggers in Vietnam, both native Vietnamese and expats, way back to 2008 (the year of the first Barcamp Saigon) http://fresco20.com/tech-bloggers-in-vietnam/. If you do the search, many blogs have stopped, and some are no longer in tech. This reflects that blogging is a life style and it changes on different period of life.

PS 2: This nice piece of writing top hacker news this week, it wasn't about why the author blog but more on the benefits of blogging/writing. I couldn't have done a better job myself, so here it is http://mlafeldt.github.io/blog/write-every-day/

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Vài tuần trước, tôi rất may mắn được điểm danh trong một bài blog của ITViec về những tech-bloggers Việt tiêu biểu. Bài viết này nhận được phản hồi rất tốt từ cộng đồng và được đăng lên Tech In Asia vài ngày sau đó. Tuy tầm ảnh hưởng còn rất hạn chế (Facebook like không nhiều bằng thiếu nữ lột đồ chơi ice bucket challenge) nhưng rất đáng khích lệ với cộng đồng tech bloggers, vốn luôn lép vế trong bức tranh công nghệ Việt Nam.  Để giúp thông điệp của ITViec tiếp tục được lan toả, tôi định bụng sẽ thêm mắm thêm muối vào bài viết gốc trên trang blog của mình. Nhưng tôi là ai mà bảo bạn phải viết chứ, tôi chỉ kể lại câu chuyện của mình thôi!

Viết blog ngầu

Thế thôi. Cũng như việc mua siêu xe ở cái nước siêu nghèo rất là ghê gớm, hay học thêm ngôn ngữ là thú vị, tôi lớn lên với suy nghĩ có một trang blog của riêng mình thiệt là ngầu. Đó là thời gian văn hoá tạo blog (không phải viết), đặc biệt là Yahoo360, nổi lên như một hiện tượng quốc dân. Nhưng mà hồi đó còn nhỏ, còn khờ, tôi chẳng biết có blog thì phải viết cái gì cho nó. Vậy nên 2-3 cái blog sinh ra rồi chết ngắt.

Vài năm sau, khi vào đại học, tình cũ không rủ cũng tới, văn hoá blog lại ve vãn tôi. Mọi con người hay ho mà tôi gặp, tech celebrities, giảng viên hay bạn học, đều có một trang blog ra ngô ra khoai. Tôi chết luôn cái ý tưởng có blog của riêng mình thật là ngầu, như cách Rolls-Royce cộp mác giàu sang thịnh vượng. (Tôi không biết những con người hay ho ấy họ đã thú vị sẵn rồi và blog chỉ là công cụ diễn đạt của họ, hay việc viết blog làm con người động não những vấn đề khó nhằn và do đó thú vị hơn, đừng hỏi tôi)

Tôi bị ép

Dù hơi bị hoang tưởng về việc có cái blog của mình, tôi lần nữa chần chừ đến khi dí dao vô cổ. Hồi đó học kỳ cuối cùng tôi đi thực tập, mỗi tuần bị bắt viết một bài báo cáo về những gì mình đã làm (hay phá). Trường xài Blackboard để quản lý hầu hết các học phần, và cái UI của thằng này xấu ghê gớm. Dùng nó chán đến mức tôi chẳng muốn viết. Nhưng chân thành mà nói, viết trực tiếp trên máy tính với tôi vốn đã rất khó rồi, con trỏ cứ nhấp nhánh như thúc giục. Để sống chung với lũ, tôi viết báo cáo lên một trang blog, rồi chép mỗi link vào Blackboard. Cuối cùng tôi được ra trường, và trang blog sống sót.

Tôi học được rằng viết blog cũng như nhiều việc khác, không cần một khởi đầu lớn lao. Khởi đầu với một thứ nhỏ xíu dễ hơi nhiều, đặc biệt nếu tận dụng được phụ phẩm của thứ tôi đằng nào cũng (phải) làm, như viết báo cáo, viết documentation cho dự án, hay một lô lốc Facebook statuses. Dần dà, nếu việc viết lách thú vị, tôi luôn có thể dành nhiều thời gian hơn, có thêm người đọc, và vì vậy lại dành nhiều thời gian hơn, vòng xoay cứ lăn như cầu tuyết (snow ball).

Tôi viết ngu thuộc loại siêu cấp vô địch

Hồi nhỏ tôi học chương trình hệ 12 năm như bao đứa con nít Việt Nam khác. Và tôi nghĩ trong đủ thứ chương trình này không làm được có mục khuyến khích lũ chíp hôi mặt mụn giải bày cảm xúc và ý tưởng của chúng. Mãi tận năm 16 tuổi tôi mới có khái niệm viết luận, còn trước đó hả, học văn cái giờ mỏi tay nhất trần đời, tại phải chép trên bảng quá trời đất, không chép là "lạc đề" liền. Tại vì ngu khờ kém hiểu biết về viết lách như vậy nên bài tôi viết không ai dám đọc. Từ ngữ tôi nghĩ ra lục cục như con ngựa Đà Lạt, tôi thiếu vốn từ thành ra diễn đạt dài dòng và phép ẩn dụ của tôi thì ẩn kỹ quá, không ai thấy luôn. Từ hồi đó tới giờ gần mười năm tôi vẫn phải học viết đều đều, từ đề TOEFL rồi đến đề SAT. Lựa một chủ để bất kỳ để viết là điều tiếp theo vô cùng tự nhiên. Cách đây một năm tôi mới tập viết bằng tiếng Việt. Nghe điều này từ một thằng da vàng mắt đen thì thật kỳ cục, nhưng mà thật chuyện tôi nó vậy.

Tôi học được rằng chăm chỉ mỗi ngày thì tốt hơn tài năng. Dù tôi còn xa lắm cái mức độ của những người tôi ngưỡng mộ, nhưng so với tôi 5 năm trước tôi nghĩ mình đã khá hơn nhiều. Đây là động lực để tôi tiếp tục viết: chiến thắng bản thân mỗi ngày.

Build your product - Làm product

“Build your product” is a popular catchphrase these days, used so much that it makes its way to a small set of national keywords. From a young startup wishing to disrupt a traditional industry to an hundreds-employee outsourcing firm, everyone is talking about building a product, the one of their own. Though no one charges tax on dream, what makes “build a product” such a keyword? Without below things, I would have never left my life of luxury to engage in a long, painful journey.

* Build your product is the condition to be your own boss. IT workers, either as a freelancer or in corporate environment often find themselves providing service, offering the best possible technical solutions but possessing little authority to make decision. Except those who have accepted their places in the corporate ladder, the rest suffer from more or less depression of being a second-class citizen.

* Build your product makes you “rich”. Financially, a common thing about doing outsourcing or being employed is that you are only paid an amount enough to survive till the next paycheck, so that you are kept in the infinity circle of work. Emotionally, the journey of building a product (and an organization around it) drags you out of the moderate baseline of an office staff, and throws you into a roller coaster of feelings, from cheerful success to bitter failure. A colorful journey indeed.

* Build your product puts you onto a catapult that shoots you up high into the sky so you can see beyond the well hole and make a big bold step out of your comfort zone. No longer limited to a creasy specs piled up in a cubicle corner, the job opens itself to endless possibilities. Whatever that can add add value to your product, from customer support, business development to watch out for competitors are all now parts of your job description. And oh boy no one gonna “spec” that.

* Build your product lets you climb your private mount Everest. Not everybody can reach the submit, many will fail and be forgotten. But unless for at least one time you seriously put on those hiking boots, many years from now you will find yourself ugly, old, looking at the past and find emptiness. Identify your own Everest is half the battle. Onward!

* Build your product is a chance to write your story, a story worth sharing. Many great ideas started with an unrealistic action. Believe that not all pages are born equal, some are more equal than others and decide to do something about it from a dorm room is an unrealistic action - Google. Publicize the source code of one of the most complex software application in history and expect free contribution from community is an unrealistic action - Linux. Exchange millions of messages that last a few minutes is an unrealistic action - SnapChat. These stories are attracting and inspiring because they go against common convention (at the moment they were created) and that gives everyone a hope. A hope to triumph over adversity. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it, the story that isn’t about yourself, but about them and what they can be.

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“Làm product” là catchphrase khá nổi hiện nay, xếp vào hàng từ vựng quốc dân, anh mà không biết thì dốt như con tốt. Từ hội “trẻ-khoẻ-rẻ” làm khởi nghiệp nuôi chí "build cái app" nức lòng quần chúng nhân dân, hay công ty gia công gần trăm người “outsource nuôi miệng thôi, ước mơ làm product chứ”. Dẫu “đời không như là mơ, nên đời thường giết chết mộng mơ”, điều gì làm hai chữ “làm product” có giá dữ vậy? Cực thí mồ, không có những điều sau thì tôi chẳng bỏ chăn ấm nệm êm mà đi làm product.

* Làm product là điều kiện để làm chủ. Người làm phần mềm dù freelance hay trong doanh nghiệp thường rơi vào cái thế của người làm service, mang đến các giải pháp khả thi nhất nhưng không nắm quyền quyết định cuối cùng. Trừ những người xác định rõ “người ra tiền là người có quyền”, còn lại đều ít nhiều ức chế với cuộc sống của công dân hạng hai.

* Làm product mới “giàu". Nói về kim tiền, làm gia công, làm thuê ở đâu cũng vậy, người ta chỉ trả cho mình một khoản tiền đủ giúp mình tồn tại, để tiếp tục nai lưng ra làm. Về đời sống tinh thần, làm product kéo ta ra khỏi đường trung bình ảm đạm của anh nhân viên văn phòng, quăng vào tàu lượn siêu tốc của những rạng ngời thành công và cay đắng thất bại. Là một chuyến đi nhiều màu sắc.

* Làm product để nhìn ra khỏi miệng giếng, bơi khỏi cái ao làng. Không còn là bản specs cong queo vứt ở góc bàn, công việc mở ra rộng khắp. Bất kỳ hoạt động nào gia tăng giá trị của sản phẩm, từ dịch vụ chăm sóc khách hàng, qua phát triển thương hiệu đến cạnh tranh với đối thủ, giờ đều là việc của bạn. Làm product như cái ná chun bắn bạn lên thật cao, nhìn khắp bốn phương tám hướng, nhìn lại chính mảng ghép của mình trong guồng máy kinh tế. Còn rơi xuống sao thì kệ thây.

* Làm product là vượt qua đỉnh Everest của mình. Rõ ràng không phải ai cũng thành công chinh phục đỉnh vinh quang, có thể bạn sẽ thất bại, sẽ bị lãng quên. Nhưng nếu bạn không ít nhất một lần nghiêm túc xỏ chân vào đôi giày đinh, có một ngày bạn sẽ già, sẽ xệ, nhìn lại và muộn màng hối tiếc. Xác định đỉnh Everest của mình là một nửa trận chiến rồi. Xông lên!

* Làm product để viết câu chuyện của chính mình, một câu chuyện truyền mãi. Nhiều ý tưởng vĩ đại thai nghén từ hành động hoang tưởng. Tin rằng không phải mọi trang web đều bình đẳng và cố gắng chứng minh từ phòng ký túc xá là hành động hoang tưởng - Google. Công khai mã nguồn một trong những chương trình phức tạp nhất trong lịch sử để đổi lại đóng góp từ cộng đồng là hành động hoang tưởng - Linux. Trao đổi hàng triệu tin nhắn chỉ tồn tại trong phút chốc là hành động hoang tưởng - SnapChat. Những câu chuyện này cuốn hút và truyền cảm hứng, vì chúng đi ngược lại suy nghĩ thông thường (tại thời điểm chúng ra đời) và mang cho ta hy vọng. Hy vọng chiến thắng nghịch cảnh của chính mình. Mọi người không chỉ mua sản phẩm bạn làm, họ mua câu chuyện bạn kể, câu chuyện không chỉ có bản thân bạn, mà có cả hình bóng của họ, những gì họ muốn trờ thành.