moses choi

How important is good design to you? If I could live a 2nd life or if I could do things again, I think I would have considered going into design as a career. Specifically, the type of design I’m referring to is industrial design, human-centric design or product design for the purposes of solving problems, closing the gap in a poor product offering or simply producing something of value for its own sake.

I’m not the most artistic person out there, in fact, I am not artistic at all. But the world of design is very attractive to me. If there was a way that I could fuse design with business/making money while providing solutions to the masses, I would be very satisfied.

One of the top companies in the world in this field is IDEO. It has consistently been ranked as one of the most innovative firms in the world by Business Week magazine. They are experts in both design and business and have worked on some really interested projects over the years, bringing to market some of the most compelling solutions to problems sometimes we never realized we had.

Good design, good user experience and aesthetic appeal makes good business sense especially in the fickle consumer marketplace. In many ways, it helps define the brand. Over the years, unbeknownst to me, design has become very important, but not in isolation. Form and function has to of equal salience. I admire companies like Samsung, Apple, and Porsche for their commitment to both form and function. Contrast these firms with lets say, Bang & Olufsen. It seems to me that they are more about form over function for the purposes of serving a small segment of the market with a large amount of disposable income.

To answer my own question, design is very important and the companies that are able to bring both design and utility in a singular package will end up winning the very limited funds in my wallet.

Insomnia.

Today I re-did the layout of this blog and downloaded the WordPress application on BlackBerry. I figured I would test this app out in the next day or so, but here I am trying it out tonight.

Hope this worked.

I had an issue with my Grado SR80 headphones and instead of trying to fix it myself, I decided to email Grado Labs first to see if they had any form of customer service. To my pleasant surprise, my email was addressed within a couple hours and after a couple emails back and forth, they said they would send me replacement part free of charge.

This is an example of how small businesses can go the extra mile to ensure satisfaction and continue to facilitate positive word of mouth recommendations. This is in stark contrast to many larger companies where your inquiries are typically lost in the abyss of their customer service teams.

Thank you Grado Labs and hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

I really enjoy looking at the work of talented photographers. One of the best collection of photos on the internet is obviously Flickr. Although I’m far from being a talented photographer, I do enjoy snapping away once in awhile to replicate some of the interesting photographs I’ve seen online. Swing by my flickr site and take a look!

www.flickr.com/moseschoi

Thanks y’all.

www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com

This is a wonderful blog. It’s a satirical blog about the things that white people like. It isn’t racist nor is it offensive. It’s well-written and quite hilarious. Read it and enjoy!

I’ve recently moved to a new team at work. For the last 6 months or so, I was on the Product Development team for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile services and software. What this means in a nutshell is delivering to market carrier-branded software and services on our smartphone devices. What a great learning experience it was to be on that team! I had the great opportunity to work with really interesting and most importantly fun people. I was able to really bite into projects and own them and had my first taste of what it would be like to own a product and manage it. I was sad to leave, but I had to continue to try different things so I moved to the Product Marketing & Pricing team for our prepaid portfolio.

My time on the new team can best be described as hectic. There is a lot of work to do for this year and not enough capacity on the team as all our projects have been piling on really quickly. What I really enjoy about my new role is that it’s based around an entire portfolio, rather than a particular function or a subset of a product. What this means for me is that I have visibility on the product end-to-end, working on initial product development, execution and launch, all while implementing marketing and pricing strategies.

I will be on this team for about 6 months before I move on to another challenge. By that time, I will be reaching my 2 year mark at this company. Time really does fly…

My friend Kyu, a proud graduate of UCLA recently wrote to the LA Times regarding academics and athletics in American universities and here is his email.  I’m putting it up here because I think he brings up very valid points and sheds some light on what some may regard as the excessive commercialization of collegiate sports in the US.

Subject: Academic standards vs. Athletic performance

Dear Mr. Kurt Streeter:

I am a UCLA alumnus and an avid supporter of UCLA athletics as well as academics.  I am in absolute agreement that we should have a balance of academic standards and athletic performance and that college athletics should not be solely based on wins and losses.  Although winning will bring in revenues for an academic institution, I do not believe academic institutions have to sell college athletics for the all mighty dollar.  This is one of the problems we face in this society and I am in full support of your fight to bring ACADEMIC standards to ACADEMIC institutions.

I really hope that UCLA can sell itself as an academic institution, first, which also has a quality Division I athletic program and not the other way around.  I do not want UCLA to become an institution where the major source of its publicity comes from its athletic programs.  That means an institution like a Cal, UCLA or a Stanford must have higher standards on their student-athletes and I am not only talking about on-the-field performance.

I’d rather UCLA produce individuals like a Jackie Robinson, a Arthur Ashe, a Kareem Abdul-Jabber, than a Michael Vick or a Barry Bond.  Men and women of character, who uses their God-given talents as a tool to put them on stage to make a positive statement in society.  If those are the individuals that UCLA is producing under coach Karl Dorrell, I am fully supportive of that effort.  Because, as you and I know, it takes years to build a reputation of a school and an athletic program, but it takes only one scandal to ruin a reputation.

(On a side note, I do not advocate for a coach like a Nick Saban, who happens to be a great football coach but also compares college athletic catastrophes to historical tragedies.)

I really support your efforts to bring that to the forefront and I hope you can continue to write about such subjects with a passion.  I really hope you can write about a student-athlete being a student first and an athlete second, and not an athlete first and who also happens to be a part-time student.

(Also, a side note, yes, I think the statistics on minority coaches in Division I must be addressed, because it seems like there is equality on the field–as in the proportion of black, hispanic and white athletes–but that has not been translated onto the management ranks of the coaches or athletic directorship.)

Respectfully,

Kyu Sin

UCLA alum ‘05

- It’s been a really long time since I’ve written in my blog. I guess I’ll start off where I left off last time I was here: the Toronto Raptors. I just watched their home opener against the Philadelphia 76ers and wow, what a great game. It wasn’t a great game by the traditional definition of great games, but it was an indicator of the positive things to come. (note: I started the last sentence a couple nights ago, today was the game versus the Nets and I didn’t catch it this time)

- Anyway, with the start of a new season, comes a new fantasy season and hopefully another season of blogging. 2007 is supposed to be the 10th year anniversary of blogs and blogging. It has come a long way from being an activity that nerds do in their spare time; now, almost everyone blogs in one way or another and it has become a legitimized means of communication, influencing the public and keeping in touch. Perhaps I can find some discipline to continue writing and contributing whenever I can.

- Let me talk about Google Reader. For those of you who love reading online articles, blogs or are looking for a robust, well-designed, fast and reliable RSS reader, look no further than Google Reader. I’ve been using it since it was under development in the Google Labs and it has become my default home page. It allows me to swiftly scan the headlines of the newspapers/blogs/websites I like to read.

- Now that it’s in the public domain, I can now talk about this online. The TELUS BlackBerry Pearl is now available! I’ve been using the new Pearl since early September and I think I have decided that I’m a big fan of SureType. I assumed that I wouldn’t like it, but given sufficient time, the Pearl learns what I want to type and predicts my words. Today, I can confidently say that I can type just as fast on my Pearl as I can on a qwerty BlackBerry. I am happy with the Pearl and even better, I am happy with my RIM shares!

I just got in from watching game six of the Nets-Raptors first round series. The crowd at Jack Astors near my workplace was going completely nuts throughout the game. The game was so close and so intense to watch that at times I could not bear it. However, it was so damn entertaining. I guess it’s better than being blown out by the 2nd quarter and suffer a completely demoralizing defeat. Prior to this season, also known as the dark-era, I was only a casual fan, keeping tabs on the struggling team after “Vinsanity” left town. Of course, during the first few years of the franchise I was a pretty big fan until 2001ish. But I started to lose interest as other things started occupying my life. But now, I’m again starting to feel optimistic about our future.

Tonight’s game was so awesome but too bad we lost. It could’ve gone either way and unfortunately the Nets pulled it off. We did have a great season, a season characterized by growth and turnaround. Go Raptors! Go Jays!

Next year is looking bright!

By the way, congrats to Golden State for knocking out Mark Cuban’s team!

I hate the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). The TTC, also known as the “Red Rocket” for its ancient streetcars is okay at best and completely unreliable at worst, but mediocre on average. Its service is so unreliable that many people would tell you that the TTC actually stands for “Take The Car”. As I used to work at City Hall with the former chairman of the TTC, I am aware of the constraints that the TTC operates under, I understand the financial problems that the service encounters so I don’t want to blame the city only for this mediocre service. I think it’s a systemic problem with a lack of concerted effort by the entire Canadian governmental system to innovate and fund public transporation.  It is also a problem with bureaucratic paper pushing and political squabbling that leads to nothing being accomplished or built.

Last week, on my way to work on the subway, the entire trip took twice as long as usual.  The train went at halfspeed and during the entire trip, I was fuming.  I was muttering obscenities under my breath and sharing exasperated looks with my neighbours.  The stop-and-go traffic underground was ridiculous because people usually take the subway to avoid the morning rush, but I guess it just goes to show that one should indeed Take The Car. Another thing that drives me nuts is when the subway stops at a station and kicks everyone off to go back in the other direction. These things always seem to happen when you’re in a rush or really tired and looking forward to going home. When I read stories of bus drivers being assaulted, subway drivers being threatened, or people throwing bricks through the windshield of a bus, I completely understand why people would do such things. I’ve thought of doing those very things too.

Just recently, the TTC and the government announced some changes to the current system. The proposal was to build a LRT that criss-crosses the city. Hopefully this LRT is a step up from the Scarborough RT, because the RT is a loud out-of-date system that would drive people mad with its 100+ decibel noise levels. This proposal is good because it allows for dedicated transit that is free from problems associated with automobile traffic. It is also a cost-efficient way to transport people in areas of lower population and to stimulate population growth. Once the population is large enough to justify and sustain the construction of actual subways, a network of LRTs may be sufficient, given it’s built quickly and sensibly. However, I somehow doubt it’s going to be built quickly and sensibly…

I think the solution to the issues at hand are: increased funding by all levels of government to public transportation, a concerted effort to make mass public transportation an issue of national priority, more automation to reduce the number of personnel employed and to increase efficiency, and to get rid of the paper tickets. I wish change would happen more quickly and more efficiently. Perhaps one Torontonians can have a transit system that is reliable, fast and well thought out.