Ambiguity and Patience

Ambiguity is factual. Patience is a skill.

And practice truly makes a skill perfect.

Sarjana.co.id is an example of an initiative initiated in an environment saturated with ambiguities. In this context, ambiguites take several forms: unreliability, indirectness, confusion, inconsistency, etc. It would be very easy for me to link them with the local culture and pass on the blame, especially when the culture is my own. Being away from this culture for so long has helped me see them more clearly, for better or worse.

For better, I have been so committed to giving back to the land where I was born. Carved in my adolescent mind: nationalism, rebellion, idealism. My life experience keeps me grounded. The most memorable moments I went through as a young adventurous lad which shaped me were being away from home to get educated. The privileges I had, I think, are worth sharing with others. What was missing in those moments, I wish I had, is what I am building to give back. Justifiable, I think.

For worse, I often forget that idealism will be broken again and again. This idealistic initiative with a glamorous title attached to it, 'Sarjana', does not seem to thrive as well as I thought. Not forgetting that it's trying to change a whole industry and stubborn mindsets, it is lacking a firm support system.

Sarjana.co.id faces potential clients that do not return your calls or respond to your email, vendors that do not communicate when they deliver their work, potential hires that don't show up to interviews. Potential partners get confused with our vision and activities, and they are skeptical about our motive. Bookkeeping can never be 100% honest. What we can hold on to, for most of the time, is positive feedback from users, most of whom are not very generous. So it does take a lot of patience for progress (I don't dare to use the word 'success'). 

The reason why I write this post is frustration at myself for not anticipating ambiguities. I do and should feel that these ambiguities are familiar. I am flaky at times, but have had the privilege being trained not to be. Business and leadership books are best sellers when they talk about it. So patience is what I am depending on.

While the song 'Blurred Lines' are at the top of the charts, I need to find ways to take advantage of the 'pleasurable' ambiguities: bargain more, be a visionary that projects certainties, train your management skills, be polite but clever. But I can only hope that the amount of patience required will be ... tolerable.       

'Strategic execution'

A buzzword that scares me. I fear it because I take a million stabs at it unknowingly; all the while, I accuse it for being a jargon that gives people six-figure salaries.

Taking a class on strategic execution at Georgetown University, I thought, was going to be about spending a sum of 19.5 hours in a nice glass building. Yet I was surprised by how speaking in generalities, my way of classifying the teaching of soft skills, still helps my mind wander about what I have done and what I can do with mu ventures.

One night, toward the end of class when my brain can pay no more tribute to knowledge, I came up with the idea to encourage the youngest staff member at Sarjana.co.id, after hammering into my head a concept 'People are assets of the highest value.' She has been facing what others would consider a failure, and yet still has fire for her work interacting with Indonesian youth through social media. How dumb was I to forget giving her praises for successfully executing my social media "strategy"? Well, pretty dumb, as I concluded that night.

People are just people. Without values, we are mammals seeking survival. And Sarjana.co.id is a real battle ground for me to test my values and train my ability to project and transfer these values through my collaboration with my passionate colleagues. For example, we are dedicated to persistence and endurance. With the amount of silent rejection that we have to face everyday, we find consolation in the integrity of our team. We joke around about old cheesy songs or our own frustration. It is easy to blame our surroundings, and though easier said than done, it is our responsibility to maintain our values intact: resilience, along with honesty, patience, and trust.

Though money is always the issue, it is often not. Incentives come in many forms. Project clear incentives for the success (and failures) in carrying out such complex tasks defined in the description of each job (and some more, for lean start-ups). 'Clear' means involving commitment, paid when owed, and open  for discussion. Sarjana.co.id has been committed not to withhold financial compensation in exchange for performance, not stingy about encouragement and gratitude. Incentives move people; personal and collective incentives, that is. Emphasis only on personal incentives will create unhealthy internal competition. Emphasis only on the collective would not allow for individual recognitions or merit-based promotion. And we seek to strike a balance.

Two more class sessions to go. So I thought I've learned enough, we shall see.

Data for Self-Scrutiny and Critical Thinking

This past weekend was evidence that I am "always working", a direct quote from my roommate. 

I am simply glad I got through Datakind DC Datadive #data4good experience, feeling very uncomfortable being surrounded by 'real' data analysts and programmers. I told a few people how rusty my quantitative and programming skills were, even after Jake Porway tried to collectively convince us that someone like me was still welcome. I was lucky not to encounter intimidation, first meeting a science journalist from the Huffington Post who traveled from New York to satisfy his hunger for data immersion. He has a degree in history and taught himself programming. Though people tend to group with their own peeps in this event, there were many strangers who made connections and accomplished a few projects with impressive findings. Who knew Evgeny and I ended up looking at (and web scraping) changes in rice prices in Indonesia over time through a retailer's website? I then said confidently in writing:

- Between Aug 2010 and today, prices of rice at the retail store increased more drastically than world prices. 

- Today, consumers pay almost four times the price of world's rice commodity price at the retail store (middle-class grocery store). Curious case!

- We found some news articles as early as December 2012 where the president of Indonesia ordered BULOG (the National Logistical Supply Organization) to stabilize the price of rice, along with soybeans and sugar. This confirmed that our findings are a national concern in Indonesia at the moment.   

Small victories, indeed! Putting myself in discomfort that would typically threaten my confidence and finding myself satisfied with another opportunity to connect the dots (my buried love for numbers and chart with analyzing 'big data' to help ourselves better understand complexities).

Of course, I cannot help but link it to my venture, Sarjana.co.id. Questions started popping up in my mind: Does one meta-site really change students' decisions in pursuing higher education?
Do students really invest in "scraping" for information which determines their future?
How many more times will they visit Sarjana.co.id after our first visit at their schools?
What does increasing Twitter followers and Facebook fans mean?
Would universities see any value in working with Sarjana.co.id, based on the answers to the above?

These questions were the same 'kind' of questions people at the Datadive were asking themselves at the World Bank that weekend. It was self-scrutiny. The World Bank provided data and allowed data divers analyze, for example, overhead costs in the monstrous multilateral structure and their relation to projects' budgets.  

Scrutiny is seen as putting people down, but if you watch Shark Tank, scrutiny is reality and it does build you up (depending on how you see it). For starters and movers out there, self-scrutiny is taking scrutiny to the next level, where we question our motives and steps, not because we lose ourselves, tangled in problems or complexities, but because we strive for something. Striving for addressing problems at a societal level, instead of imposing solutions that we think are appropriate. We have to many of those who impose things like laws and educational curriculum that don't ultimately affect them. 

Self-scrutiny is definitely a path to critical thinking. Education is a sector full of 'pretty, cheery' things, where all good things added up seem to be good -- scholarships, online education, foreign professors, international curriculum. Sarjana.co.id is really taking a position in the midst of an education system that is nearly 'obsolete' (thanks to Sugata Mitra's definition of education's obsolescence, http://www.ted.com/pages/sole_challenge). If Sarjana.co.id does not take the unpopular path of critical thinking, it's going to be cheering for the wrong team: the reluctant, yet defensive bunch in the hijacked system.

So how should Sarjana.co.id hack the system?  

If goodwill is an asset, humility should be, too

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." What a punch in the gut by Einstein.

This is revealed to me by Stacey Edgar, the mind and heart behind Global Girlfriend, one of the largest U.S.-based fair trade importers of apparel and handicrafts. The chapter that begins with this quote is titled "Believe." This core of this chapter is the story of Global Girlfriend's entry to Whole Foods.

I spoke to Stacey by phone for an interview when I was writing a study on U.S. jewelry market, and hers was one of the most comforting and humble (thus inspiring) voices that I've ever listened to.

Nancy, who now comforts me through crises and uncertainties, tirelessly reminds me that my modesty combined with other qualities that she claims I have will get me far in life. Truth be told, this is tough for me to hear. Humility is one quality that you cannot claim you have; once you do, it fades a little.

Kate and I talked about humility over wine, and about how entrepreneurs, along with hubris, struggle with humility when they expose their ideas to others. We think that trust is a key supporter to this particular process. When an entrepreneur takes the stage to share her idea to a panel of investors or a group of colleagues, humility is tested. When she does it to get feedback, she needs to trust that the audience have her best interest, regardless whether or not the assumption is valid; otherwise, feedback meets defensive comments. With my inexperience, I am not sure if speaking to a panel of investors is simply and solely about defending your idea. Is there room for vulnerability? Should one think that there may be an investor (or two) who sees character over ideas or prospects?

Perhaps it takes humility to believe in miracles, in job creation or youth empowerment. If one was to monetize humility in my venture, I wish to put it as the most valuable asset on my venture's balance sheet. This gets me to think about the humility of my team, who practically are my co-founders. Logically, companies should grow their assets and generate returns with them. How I should live my life should be how my venture should grow. Because I believe, 'will' replaces 'should'.

Back in writing business

Committing to writing about start-ups is as easy as committing to having children. It will pan out, and make sense much later, but it takes a while to convince myself. I guess if everything fails, I can make a living out of talking about my failures: speaking engagements and book deals.

Since summer 2012, there was one trip to Indonesia, hiring of two employees and solidifying the direction for  Sarjana.co.id. [I realize I haven't been clear about my venture(s) previously on this blog, but I will rely on your research skills.] Sarjana.co.id has indeed built credibility and awareness in East Java, among students, high schools, and universities. We've joined hands with large universities in their events (competitions and admission testing).

Looking back, the crew of Sarjana.co.id survived so many uncertainties.

Hiring was not easy! As a start-up we've been lucky to have hired a few who really believe in the vision and prospects of Sarjana.co.id. We had quite many no-shows, people who turned down offers or bailed in the last minute before their first day of work. Job creation seems like Cinderella's dream; it happens smoothly only with miracles. Thanks to public figures who convinced me to believe in it.

I learned how to sell the vision of the venture like selling to a potential client or investor. Hires do take risks when joining a start-up like mine, with big altruistic dreams, and they spend their time and energy not knowing how their work will be perceived by our target market or other employers in the future. Now that I have a few retained, I need to be religiously reading about human resource and talent management, on top of ... (no, I shouldn't go there).

The direction that Sarjana.co.id is now taking, after quite the uncertain times, is a collective challenge for the team. It's finally grounded, where we have subtracted from the multitude of ideas that I have had to a few. We specialize in serving member universities and using the network we are building to provide marketing-related services. Focus is scary, because it may be make-it-or-break-it, but that's what is prescribed for many, many good reasons. I have yet shared the whole picture with the crew, which is probably not a good practice, but what's on our plates now is enough to keep all of us occupied.

The big question that I should try hard to answer is, what do I want to get out of investing in blogging?

Everybody is now talking about 'big data'. Well, the words on my blog posts will be 'big data' somebody. One can analyze how I loved and dreaded different parts of growing my ventures.

My mind wanders, my mood affects decision making, and my ambition doesn't help me focus. So I can probably and hopefully keep myself in check by writing about the paths that I take, which at this point affect Sarjana.co.id users' perception and the jobs  that have been created out of my ideas.

De-clutter and Expand

The main gains of this trip to my beloved homeland is to meet with my employee and enjoy flexible, relaxed schedules.

De-clutter from brain-clogging stuff from the last two semesters in grad school! Should entrepreneur go to school to be a one? Last year, I would have said, "Yes, yes! Absolutely!". And now, I don't know anymore if I can say so. What I know is that if one wants to be an entrepreneur and an activist, aka, a social entrepreneur, graduate education is precious. Although I was slaving myself to afford DC living, I got so much out of the human rights course I took and founding and running a brand-new student organization. [Hell I can always find work for myself. The sky is the limit.] Now, it's time to process it all. I am processing courses that did not apply so much but open up doors in my mind, and human rights discourse that pushed me beyond my previous intellectual limits. I am processing an up-and-coming business partnership that gets me so excited that all I think about is shoes, shoes, shoes. I am processing this overwhelmingly optimistic outlook of the social business that was going to go nowhere without my precious friendship with my employee/colleague.

Isn't all beautiful when all of your employees have the best interest of your organization? Well guess what?! I got one. We had our first working meeting today and ... expand!! She is offering her nationwide connections to delegate our work with such an innovative model of financing and decentralizing work, which I have yet shared -- a solution that I'd offer to those operating in countries with high youth unemployment rates. She is ready to travel and conquer, recruit and train, and execute and expand! Compensation is no problem to me, though I have to beg to ask others to help with my other business that's the source of funds for this one venture. It's all worth it!

De-clutter and expand away ...

Product development

Took the first step on product development

The Kano model, anybody?

"Kano is a technique for classifying customer needs and determining appropriate levels of innovation for products and services."

http://www.uie.com/articles/kano_model/ ... applied to Flickr