My big big Secret..

My friends, I am going to reveal one of my big big secret, please promise me not to tell anyone, u swear? It happen two weeks ago, when I meet this lovely girl name Wendy…

Ha ha ha ha, obviously this is not a post about my love affairs (and btw I don’t have any love affairs) but this is more about my dreams. I am writing this post to tell the universal law of attraction and my readers what I want to achieve in my career in 3-5 years time. According to the book "The Secret", to make one's dream comes true, we just need to ask for it, visualize our needs, write it down in detail somewhere and feel it. One day, what you have request/dream will come true ……

So, here is my “Secret”.

Date: 2011/2012
Venue: KL Hilton Hotel, Lobby

Wendy, from The Edge Magazine : "Hi James, thanks for your valuable time to do this interview."

Me: "It’s my pleasure."

Wendy: "First of all, could u share with our readers how u end up in ur current job, i.e Google Creative Director for Asian region."

Me: “I have always wanted to work with Google, so 4-5 years ago, I decided to apply for a technical job position at Google. However, given that I am already 35 years old that time, and working as a boring software development manager but not as talented (in terms of technical) as most of Google staff, and does not hold any working permit for US/India/China (where Google R&D centre is based), my chance of Google granting me an interview 4-5 years ago is very,very, very slim, :-(

So, instead of going via the normal route of applying a job at Google (i.e upload my resume to Google jobs portal and throwing my CV into giant black hole), I have to try another route.

I am very creative person, I also have ideas to make life easy, and some of my crazy ideas are very “Google” when I discuss some of my Google idea with my friends, and most of them agree that idea will work. So I decided to post my ideas to Google at my blog, and hope that Google HR will one day notice my creativity and call me for an interview. After posting about 10-15 ideas, I finally got call from Google HR for an interview, and after couple of more interviews and tests, I ended up with my current job position.”

Wendy: “Wow, that’s a unique way getting a company’s attention. So tell me, what is the job scope for Creative Director, i.e what do you need to do and deliver.”

Me: “Well, as Creative director for Google, I have to invent and deliver three-four ideas (i.e new Google services) to Google per year, The 2 -3 ideas must be profitable, and rest of ideas are platforms to improve community lifestyle, like free education for poor people, making our earth greener, reduce the gap of digital divine and etc.

My daily work involves discussing ideas to product and user groups, do a quick POC of my idea with my team, perform market survey about the idea, and finally work closely with product development group to implement the idea”

Wendy: “Oh, that’s a very fun and exciting job, so Khoo, tell me, where u get ur creative juice for all these great ideas.”

Me: “Hmmm, good question, and I don’t think I have answer for that, new idea will strike me out of no where, while driving, while watching movie, at the beach and even day dreaming. Hm..ok,, seriously, if I really have to put a answer on this question, I believed most of my creativities are from my observation. I like to do a lot of research, try out new things, observe people, and always aware of happenings around me.

Let me give u an example, the idea of “SMS Protect Me” came about after I read a news report that the rate of Malaysia women Malaysia being hit, raped, even murdered is increasing each year, and the sad part is most of victims are just doing day to day activities like taking a cab back home, jogging, shopping, waiting for someone to pick them up, and etc. So while driving to work, I am thinking is there any way to prevent this or reduce the crime rate, and out of sudden, my friend SMS me to go for breakfast. This is how the idea strike me.”

Wendy: “Cool, so James, or shall I address u as Mr Coolboy, out of so many ideas u invented, do u have one idea u very proud off?”

Me: “Hm, another good question. Well, if I have to pick one, I will pick "Google earth points", as I am very concern about our environment, and I wants our children have better place to live tomorrow. I am glad that the launch of Google earth points are very well receive by many parties, a recent study shows that, since launch of Google earth points, Google and other partners have help reduce global carbon emission by a total of 3-4%. Thanks to all the loving and caring Google users.

Oh, oh speaking of Google earth points, let’s me reveal this great marketing plan to u, thanks to Toyota. Starting next month, for anyone who purchase new Toyota 5 star green energy efficient car, Toyota will automatically granted purchaser for total 10 million Google earth points, 10 million Google earth points will entitled user to redeem latest Android Phone with 1 year unlimited voice, video calls, and unlimited usage of premium Google service for a year, Isn’t that exciting?”

Wendy: “This is a very good news, do tell us more”

Me: “Sure, wait till next month, at our press conference. Ha ha”

Wendy: “…

Stay tune for part two.

[Google Idea] gLove.google.com

Wow, it's been a long time since I post "Google Please hire me" series, well, for fans that follow this series (ahem..as if I got many fans that read my blog, Haha), so sorry for the delay

Anyway, my 6th idea to Google is a Mobile match maker application for lonely hearts. The application utilizing Mobile Phone with 3G and GPS service, such as Google Android phone. Although there are many variance of mobile match making application out there, there are many cool features of my application. Here how the application should work:

• First of all, user needs to register themselves via Google love matching website (i.e glove.google.com), entering their personal's detail such as name, age, birthday, astrology sign, preferences, language, hobbies, and etc.


• User can also choose to upload their picture, and enter criteria of their preferred partner (race, age range, hobbies, and etc)


• Once register, user proceed to download the mobile match making application from the web site.


• Once the application is activated, and sign on, user is presented a real time love chart, shown below:
  

• Heart shapes represent love match found from user existing location. The three circles here help user to visualize on how far/near between each love match and the user. For example, inner circle means the love match is about 250 meter between user and potential love match, middle circle is about 500 meter and distance on outer circle is about 1 KM.

• Color of love shapes shows match compatibility, red color > 90%, green color > 80%, and yellow >70%
  

• User could click on any love shape to view more information about the love match, as shown in picture below.
  
  
• If user like the love match found, user could opted to:
  
• Get more info about the user.
• Send a short message to the user
• Invite user to play online love quiz, where system will ask both the user and the potential partner a series of love/compatibilities questions (like top ten prefer movies, top ten place to spend romantic holiday) and at the end, present both parties each other answer.
• Play "find me if u can", where system present both parties hints (about 30 steps NW from XYZ Shopping center) to find each other.

The application/portal will be designed as open platform which enable third party developer to develop interesting "plugins" (can be free of charge for user, or needs to purchase with credit) to enhance the mobile application.

To further increase the chance for each other to fall in love, following are some examples of such third party app.
- An app that study how compatible they are base on their birthday and astrology sign.
- A app that study user's circle of friend, and provide a social graph (with interesting graphic) how they are related to each other. For example, if Mr A match with Ms D, the app could show A knows B from Primary School, B is friend of C, and C working together with D at company XYZ.


Please note that, to find a closer match, user do needs to informs the server where is he/she, so that the server is able to find one's soul mate that is located near to his/her current location. If the application detected that there is no GPS Signal, it will use following channels to find user's location, example:

a) Mobile Cell tower - Use of mobile cell tower to find user's location.
b) Wifi access points.
c) Base on the trail of the movement (GPS) of the person until he goes indoor.
d) if all above fail, the app will ask user's to enter his/her location (e.g Sungai Wang, Mid Valley) and find closer match..

On top of that, We partner with other big shopping centers to further promote this mobile application, i.e special discount is given for "Love is in the air" user, each shopping mall could have a giant display on their info desk, or main entrance showing real time info how many "Love is in the air" user is in their shopping center, each with interesting statistics, for example-

- There are total of 10 5-stars most wanted bachelor in this building, and 15 5-stars single lady in the building.
- There are total 10 pair of people are 90% match with each other, are u one of them? quickly find your match now, and claim (together with your potential partner) your free movie tickets in next 30 minutes here..

I believe with the right marketing and development, this will be killer application.
So, that's it, what do u think? do share me your thoughts on the comments page, stay tune for my next idea.

PS: As always, if anyone find these ideas interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.

Cheers

One World One Dream

Please edit email subject line before u send email

Please change your email subject before replying a email

I feel annoy when receiving a reply email, where the email content are not related with the email subject. People are just “lazy” to compose new email, and fill in address field with new email subject, they simply wanted hit reply button, where the address is pre-filled, even if the content is not related to the subject. Here's what happen to me today.

My recruitment agents call: "Hi, James, have u review the Java Developer CV I send to u yesterday?"

Me: "I didn't receive any email on regards Java Developer CV oh"

Agent: "Did lah, I send it yesterday about 3:30pm, could u check ur email again"

Me: "Hm, let me check, I did receive one email with the subject of 'Free for lunch?' from u.."

Agent: "That's the email..that's a CV attached".

Me: "Then why don't u change the email subject to 'new Java Developer CV to review' to me before u sending email back to me?"

Agent: "Err......"