Christmas is over, holiday is almost over, and it’s the end of the year. Have you taken some time to reflect on what is year 2009 to you?
If 2007 is a year of change, 2008 is a year of learning, 2009 is a year of questions for me. The surface shows decline and there are seemingly a lot of wrong decisions. It was tempting to resent them and it takes faith to believe that something deeper is at work, even through failures, and they can work together for good.
In year 2008 I learned a lot about myself, partly through the program The Courage to Create from ECI. Together with many books I read and blog articles I have written, it has impacted me to learn and question a lot of what happens in my life, the choices I have made, and the environments I was in.
That could be the biggest suspect of why year 2009 was such as year of questions, and in the surface, decline. Sometimes I was wondering whether it is the side effect of learning. I was wondering if it is better if I stop reading book for a while. Maybe that is the reason why King Solomon at some point of his life decided that everything on earth is nothing, wisdom is nothing, in his book, Ecclesiastes. Was there really something great about learning?
Here is what I learn about learning and why it is by itself is not enough… Continue Reading →
Writing could be a hard thing to do. Having no audience or lesser readers could be better. For me, it means lesser concerns on the impacts of my writing. Launching my new theme was made to mark a new beginning. I am now trying to write just like how I started blogging few years ago. Simply write and thinking less of other stuffs. Categorization, direction (or purpose), standards, and keeping good impression are some of the things I want let go. It’s back to the earlier passion of writing.
Nevertheless, writing is still not an easy thing to do. Besides getting back to our old pattern, we sometimes find that our creativity juice is not flowing. Writers call it writers’ block, but I believe we all, knowledge worker that requires creativity, face it at one point or another. Sometimes we ask, ‘Where has that creativity gone?’
In processing that thought I have found some answers and I would like to share it with you in this article. Continue Reading →
Painting of The Medici Family
I would like to share one family that has brought enlightenment, to the world, but especially to Europe in 15th to 17th century. It is the Medici, the godfather of The Renaissance. It was started from a small bank that they owned. The family invested in a pirate to sponsor his campaign to become a pope. From pirate into pope, is there stranger investment than that? The Medici saw the potential of that strange investment. Fortunately, it paid off hugely for the family. The papal support brought great benefits to the business.
It was not the only strange things they invested. The family has been recognized for their patronage to unique and talented artists. One that stood up is Filippo Brunelleschi, a maverick architect that has brought back classic style to his design. His eccentric style could not get him much sponsor. Cosimo de’ Medici, however, spotted him, and saw the potential in him. He brought his style to the city of Florence, to the admiration of many people. His great achievement was the Florence cathedral dome, a proof of his architectural, mathematical, and engineering genius. He is also the inventor of ‘perspective’, a new way to draw three-dimensional objects in two dimensions. Continue Reading →
It’s a relaunch (again). I’m now calling it Strange into Strength, inspired by an article from Tom Volkar, “Celebrate Your Strangeness“.
I’m relaunching with a new design for simplicity. Lesser things to clutter my blog. No more extra category now, I will have only Featured category to exhibit some of my better articles.
It is also a merger between KM-4-Life (www.km4life.com) and the old Reason-4-Smile. Due to the overlapping topic, it’s harder to decide which blog an article belongs to. For simplicity sake, I’m combining these two.
It’s getting personal as well. This blog will pretty much ‘evolve’ as what my interest is. For now, besides talking about personal development stuffs, I want to be able to write more on knowledge management and its application for individual life (Personal Knowledge Management).
It’s just a start. Hopefully I can continue writing and sharing what I am learning in life.
Cheers and Smile!
Robert
Maybe it is one question I have been asking for many times. I enjoyed formulating my thoughts, but I have constantly procrastinated. I enjoyed writing, but I have constantly resent it. I guess I have to really process this thing. You can consider this post an update, or you can consider it a sharing.
Things don’t really go well on my side, no income for the past 2 months as my mind was divided into 3 areas, my study in Knowledge Management, my freelancing programmer, and my job search in Knowledge Management area, either full or part time.
Seemingly, there are ways for me to pursue either of them, even both of them. But now? None of them is confirmed yet. The uncertainties seems to be numerous, there are a lot I need to improve first, but I believe in one thing…
Everything will work out in the end. If it is not working out, it’s not the end.
~Max Lucado (Fearless)
Back to the question, why is it getting harder for me to write? Here is my answer: in short, it’s fear. You want it longer? Here is what I thought of: Continue Reading →
This is part of my assignment for Business Intelligence course, answering how 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, the collapse of Lehman Brothers financial firm in 2008, and the rise of internet age affected the way multinational consumer electronic firm approach business intelligence, especially in regards to managing business risk.
Continue Reading →
Rev. Dr. Lewis Winkler
I met an interesting person last weekend. Rev. Dr. Lewis Winkler is a faculty staff in East Asia School of Theology teaching Christian Theology. When I asked him whether he is blogging, he said no.
Many people has asked that question to him, but he is still decided not to blog. The reason is his belief that blogging will take too much time from him. It is simply not for his personality. He is a deep person, thinker that blogging and structuring his thought into short article in a blog will simply take too much time. Many other things can be done if he is not blogging, so he is decided not to blog.
Continue Reading →
People and experts might ask, “why should I even share my knowledge?” They ask, “what’s the benefit for me?”
Rather than sharing, they prefer to hoard their knowledge. They think that it will save them their job, at least as they are the only ones who know that particular knowledge.
They forgot that knowledge grows as they share them.
Knowledge can be regarded as the only unique resource that grows when shared, transferred, and managed skillfully.
~Alfred Beerli
Why do knowledge grows when we share them?
Continue Reading →
What is taxonomy? According to Wikipedia, it is the practice and science of classification. And here is what I want to share with you about how you can manage your notes and documents with role as the main classification.
The idea came when I was trying to restructuring my blog Reason-4-Smile to cater with my variety of interest. I’m sharing more than just for introverts, and hence I was looking for a new theme and a new classification for my articles. I eventually came out with 4 categories, the leader, the human, the engineer, and the blogger. Over there it’s more than just a role, it was the personality as well, courageous leader, humble human, meticulous engineer, and marketing blogger. Continue Reading →
I’ve got a new pair of glasses, it’s not sunglasses, or those glasses with transition from lighter to darker color. Its brand is KM, and it’s given by NTU with its Master of Science in Knowledge Management course. And what does it do, it helped me to see things in KM perspective. The world is full of people, and each of them own potential resources to be managed, called knowledge.
Let me give you three examples, how something ordinary, that might have missed your attention could be seen from KM perspective. Continue Reading →
Hello and welcome! I am Robert, sharing with you articles in personal management and personal development. Check out the 
