Going Round and Round

Since writing my last posting, I’ve changed my mind on a few things, and furthered my thinking on others. Hence, this time instead of “getting carried away”, I’m “going round and round”. All in the effort to pursue my dream.

After reconsidering school in Milan, I also decided to re-look at a few other options I have had in mind since finishing my degree. One of them is an internship program through an organization based in Calgary called Westlink. It’s self-stated purpose is “to facilitate communication, collaboration and technology development and commercialization in Western Canada”. Unfortunately, to go back to one of my former points, my timing was off. I missed the deadline for application by almost a month. Fortunately, I know the president of Westlink. While that still wasn’t enough to squeeze me into the program this year (of which I respect and am actually grateful for), it was enough for me to find a new focus for my career.

In keeping with my efforts to see how concise I can be, I won’t go into detail about why finding a focus for my post-undergraduate career has been so difficult, although I could indeed talk at length about it. The main thing is that now I know there actually is a “field” of professionals out there that seek the same kind of answers and connections as I have. They just don’t call themselves designers.

So, because I don’t know much about these people, and what they do, I’ve taken it upon myself once again to take another trip out of the city for a conference. This time though, I don’t need to go as far as Monaco. In fact, I don’t need to leave the country. Come tomorrow morning, I’ll be in the middle of Canada: Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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Just a few other updates to end this short and concise posting (Tim smiles that he was able to do this):

Edmonton’s biggest salsa event (www.spiceproductions.ca) kicked off on June 15th with salsa superstars from all over North America, and I got to be in one of the performances with Salsaddiction. The night of performances was mixed array of excitement, dance politics, and confusion, but nevertheless worthwhile. The real joy for me came from social dancing at the end of the night and driving home a friend’s Jeep. Don’t ask.

This past week, I was officially included in my company’s plan to revise our engineer drawing standards. For once, it actually felt good to be assigned more responsibility and be given the opportunity to show my abilities as a designer. Odd that it should come at a time when I am thinking about my next step after this job though.

And just for kicks, add two more characters to my workplace experience: Jerry Seinfeld and Frodo.

Getting Carried Away (aka: obsessed)

I’m not sure why, but I think I like getting carried away with things. (Read: obsessed. Something a good friend of mine once said not to become). You know, cars, girls, salsa, “saving the world”, that sort of stuff. Maybe that’s just been my way of keeping busy over the years. Anyway, how this relates to anything, has a lot to do with the past two months or so.

After returning from my trip to Monaco, I went back to my regular post-conference routine of emailing everyone I had collected the business cards of, in an attempt to establish some kind of working relationship with them. That I’ve learned, takes a lot of patience and persistence, but in my opinion, is worth the struggle. My day job, albeit not nearly as exciting, has been a similar story.

I approached my boss near the end of the forth month (my extended probationary period), and told him that I was serious and committed to my work, despite my lack of “mechanical aptitude” and incessant asking of questions. To my surprise, he seemed almost glad that I brought the issue up to him, and told me he realizes that I was “never completely trained” and that he “expected that it would be a steep learning curb for me”- which it has been. Things at work have become oddly comfortable since that time.



At the end of April, my department moved into the company’s main building. Quite the experience itself, and definitely a nice break from 8 hours of computer work. As I may have mentioned before, I actually quite like manual labour, so long as it’s not back breaking.



Since the move, I have acquired: a nicer desk; a sort of better computer; and peace of mind (read: no longer having to listen to my boss’ blaring radio play K-Rock the whole day since he now has his own office). However, I have also acquired: an officemate that doesn’t like to talk much, and not-so-secretly was getting annoyed by my humming and tapping of the feet (I think he’s used to it now); more awareness of, and by default involvement, in company/department politics; a heavier work load and the responsibility that comes with it.

The really nice thing about the move however, is that it has allowed me to see my workmates in a different light as well. I have equated most of them with TV characters. For instance, we have a Goofy, a Chipmunk, a Captain Kirk, a Mark Messier, a Burt, a Mr. bean who thinks everything is boring, a next-door neighbour, an American with a southern accent and clueless tendencies, a guy who loves laser tag and keeps following me around, and a bunch of people looking for every chance to show how great/smart/funny they are. It’s quite the show.

The not so nice thing, is that I think I’m realizing a thing or two about the “real” world here. One: that it’s pretty hard to fake an engineer (Not that I am. Most of the engineering work is still not done by me. I’m usually just the guy people go to once a project is in its final stages, and it needs to be organized and checked for errors. Plus, I think they as well as I know that I couldn’t pull it off, even if I tried). Two: this is a "real" job. No more “I’m just doing this for the experience, or to make money after of school.” At least in my department, it’s kind of expected that I’ll be hanging around for a while. My boss even alluded to that in the interview I had with him before going to China. But again, honestly, I can’t see myself doing this work for too much longer. I made a promise to myself to follow my dream, so when I see the next opportunity, I’ll have to move on.

Luckily, the new general manager (our Mark Messier) says he can understand my ambitions. I talked to him just yesterday about it. His only suggestion was that I find and train someone to replace me before I leave, as he had done for his past employers. Fair enough.

That being said, here’s a quick update on my side projects. I am now in a sort of bi-monthly contact basis with some of the industry contacts I made while in Shanghai, and elsewhere. The big thing for me that I will be advertising to them once it comes out, is my magazine article on Shanghai. From that exposure, I hope to capitalize on the opportunity for more work. In my mind, the best would be to go back to Shanghai for further research for a specific company or organization. I would love that so much, but anything could happen.

If nothing happens, I have a different plan: go back to school. By the time I started to think about that this year, I had already missed almost all the application deadlines for MBA programs- except one. The Polytechnic University of Milan. While the program I had written an exam for is not officially an MBA program, after reading the current program description and receiving an email reminding me of my admittance, it started to look more appealing again. The description of their Masters Program reads like this:

“Strategic Design is a design activity concerning the product-system; the integrated body of products, services and communication strategies that either an actor or a network of actors (e.g. companies, institutions, Non-profit organizations etc.) conceive and develop in order to obtain a set of specific strategic results.

It is often claimed that technological innovation, cultural and economic globalization, and the transition to environmental sustainability generate problems and opportunities. It is also repeatedly stated that the possibility to avoid the former and exploit the latter necessitates the development of three core skills not only by companies, but also by different types of institutions and/or social actors: vision, sensitivity to innovation signs and ability to formulate solutions. In other words, the ability to design products and services, whose success is the anticipation of what will be, or should be, the norm tomorrow.

The social demand for a new generation of products and services, coherent with current socio-cultural transformations and their sustainable development, becomes an opportunity for companies that are able to operate in the context of this new design mentality, this unique meeting of design and company strategy: strategic design.

The Master[s] in Strategic Design is addressed to young graduates who wish to initiate or re-direct their professional careers on the frontier between design and management.”

Wow! If that doesn’t sound exciting, I don’t know what is (ok, I know, sometimes I can be a geek too).

Anyway, so I’ve been admitted and have submitted my CV. We’ll see what happens.

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The rest of the things that have happened since my last posting, deal with getting carried away perhaps a little more directly.

In early May, a good friend of mine here in Edmonton, called to say he wanted to talk after having a stressful day (possibly week). We ended up walking down to the river valley, as I jabbered away (that seems to happen to me when I haven’t seen someone for a while, and feel I need to update them on, well, everything. Yes, I know, I am trying to work on being more concise). Our discussion (yes, he talked too) covered a lot of ground, as I guess most of our conversations do, but at some point, we talked about timing. Timing, as I wrote in a 27-point letter to myself in high school about “The Way” to pursue a romantic relationship, is the most important thing in any kind of relationship. As I wrote, “Even for first impressions, timing is everything”. I still swear on that, but wish I could be more conscious of it in practice.

Sometimes I feel like I do things based on older assumptions or justifications on why I should have done that thing, even when I no longer believe it. It’s like there’s some kind of delay between my thoughts and my actions. Like my timing is off.

I don’t want to dwell on this too long here, but I think going back to Shanghai after a visit back home during Christmas, may have been a better choice to make. The professional relationships and experiences I could have made in Shanghai may have been more valuable than those I am now building at my day job. Even the non-professional relationships, not to mention the extra skills I could have gained (learning Mandarin for one), would have also been invaluable. Maybe I’m wrong on this one, but it seems like without good relationships, your work will never be good enough. But then again, I know that had I gone back, I would have had other reasons for thinking I should have stayed here.

Over the past two months, I have also been taking glimpses back into some of my activities of past: attending a lecture on architecture, attending a reunion for a group I used to be part of, and going to a classmate from high school’s birthday party. In a sort of sad way, I have realized from just these three events, how the times have changed since I last was really a part of those people’s lives. On the other hand though, I met someone who practices Psych-K (you got to look this one up), and got in touch with an old friend who both helped me see I wasn’t the only one feeling like this.



People have told me before to look out for the signs in my life that can help me guide it. I have noticed this a lot when I read. So despite my dislike for it, I’ve started to read again. Yes, books in fact. The first of many I plan to read, is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephan Covey. I only just finished the first chapter, but the wealth of knowledge I have gained so far has been tremendous. This is definitely something on my list of books to read (yes, I have one) I should have read years ago. For any of you entrepreneur types, or others following a dream, definitely pick it up.

On May 6th, a wonderful article came out in the New York Times titled “The greening of the red, white and blue” by Thomas Friedman. Great writer and researcher, in my opinion. The article talks a lot about the reasons why America thinks itself as green, yet hides from

“…the really inconvenient truth: [that] we have not even begun to be serious about the costs, the effort and the scale of change that will be required to shift our country, and eventually the world, to a largely emissions-free energy infrastructure over the next 50 years”

It also talked about something that I have been having some difficulty putting into words. “The China price… the fundamental benchmark that everyone is looking to satisfy.” Basically, no alternative fuel technologies will have a significant effect on the world’s total pollution, unless there is the real possibility of a green China, and for that matter, India and Brazil. And the way to get that? In the words of Freidman himself “The only thing as powerful as Mother Nature is Father Greed”. Globalization has to work in favour of clean-tech industries. In fact, in some ways, it already has. As Friedman notes, the seventh richest man in China, Shi Zhengrong, is China’s leading manufacturer of solar panels- 90% of which are made for export. However, despite the greed that money brings, government, according to Friedman, should set the standard on what that money can produce. In terms of going green, it needs to set efficiency standards to help foster technological innovation. I think he’s right.

About a week or so later, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, daughter of none other than David Suzuki, was interviewed on the radio and a lot of what she said echoed things I’ve often heard in my activist-esque undergraduate days. The thing that didn’t, and that really got to me, was a simple statement of identity. Of Canadians, she basically said: “If we can’t do it, who the hell can!?” I’ve had similar thoughts to that before, but never one so blunt.



On a lighter note, salsa continues to be my dominant social activity, although being on a dance team has changed my perspective of it slightly. I still like it, but I feel I have to be a little more cautious with who I dance with and how I dance with them. Ah, the politics of dance.

I took part in my first 10km run on May 5th. Running is starting to become a weekly endeavour now, despite the fact that I think I already do enough cardio activities, including biking to work and everywhere else that I can.

And lastly, Sean Aiken is me in a different body. He’s the guy behind the website http://www.oneweekjob.com/, where he is keeping track of his one week job endeavours, in an attempt to find his “passion, not just a career”.