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.