Recently, this geek managed to catch hold of one of Singapore’s most successful but low profile technopreneur Ong Peng Tsin, 45, serial entrepreneur who founded Match.com and Interwoven (which he listed on NASDAQ). He sold his last startup Encentuate to IBM and also convinced IBM to setup a software lab in Singapore. Now, he is not only a board member of Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, but also the Chairman of Infocomm Investments, an IDA subsidiary.

How he started

After finishing his national service, Mr. Ong left to study electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Then he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he earned a master’s in computer science. Trained in double ECS and a programmer, Mr Ong joined a startup right out of school.

“When you join a business that’s 20 people, which is the first company I joined, there isn’t a clear marker when you started doing startups.”Mr. Ong said when asked about his first startup.

He subsequently joined Sybase which was also a startup then and went on to start his first business in the States which became the successful company we now know as Match.com.

Working for others versus working for yourself

Having both worked for others (Sybase, IBM, Singapore Government, etc) and being a serial entrepreneur himself, I asked Mr Ong what he felt was the fundamental difference between the two experiences, which he described very neatly in one statement, “In startups, things get done instantly. But in bureaucracy it takes time to get things moving. The reward is when it moves it can move in very big ways.”

Advice for the young

I asked Mr Ong what words of wisdom he had for our young aspiring technopreneurs today,

“It’s all about people. All the failures and successes are about people.”

“Our kids today don’t develop deep passions in areas. (They) don’t know what to do in schools.”

Which he went on to elaborate that they are seen as simply follow the trends for their career choices. First it was the dot com boom, then it bio-tech. Now it’s finance and that’s not looking too good at the moment. So, what will be next?

He feels strongly that young people today should not just watch which industry is hot, makes money and try to jump on the bandwagon. When Mr Ong started out in this industry, he didn’t think so much about the money but he was in it because of his passion for it.

“Nothing beats being clear on your passion… today, kids don’t figure out their passions. The world doesn’t reward people that get along. It rewards people who bash a new path.”

Obviously, I agree with Mr Ong because I risked the wrath of my parents to switch from a top Junior College to register in a local polytechnic IT course. You know I was a geek at heart even then :p

“A lot of times you’ve got to make the mistakes and learn from that.” is Mr Ong’s response on having been asked for advice so many times and sometimes, he is “tired of giving advice” because “the entrepreneurs don’t listen”.

“Biggest problem I’ve seen (in Web startups), people are not clear how they are gonna make money… you’re a business, think about how you’re gonna make money” else you “can’t talk to investors. If you can’t figure out how you’re gonna make money, don’t start a business, have a hobby instead.”

On Mentorship

Interestingly, while Mr Ong felt that mentorship is important, he also feels that we do not have enough qualified mentors here i.e. not enough people who have exited software IT companies in a significant way. Only a very small handful.

“Do(ing) it here (starting out) is different from when you do it in China, India, and US. Trying to get a mentor here is next to impossible.”

He went on to explain that as part of his work with the IDA, they are trying to develop quality mentors as well.

“Bootstrapping part is the hardest”. Mr. Ong talked about bootstrapping in context of having a mentor to help you in starting up and again, I totally agree with this. In fact, I think over here not many people have realized the importance of good bootstrapping and these days I personally try to focus more of my time helping companies to bootstrap because not many know how to do it right.

Conclusion of Part I

Coming back to advice for aspiring technopreneurs, Mr Ong feels that everyone who wants to start a business should ask themselves this important question,

“What do you want to do with your life in the next 5-10 years and why?”

Mr. Ong’s advice is to answer this question before you work on any startup.

If there’s anything that an entrepreneur need above the common traits like perseverance, endurance, energy, etc, it is clarity.

Having enough clarity to be able to answer, “Why you are doing what you are doing?”

As this interview was long, it’d be broken up into two parts. We’ll stop here for now but do watch this space as we continue to talk about building world class companies, the Silicon Valley, his family, the current economic situation, and some of his regrets.

Ready to build the next-generation of feature-rich, powerful applications?
If you want to push the boundaries of Windows and the Web, and provide productive, intelligent systems to users, then TechFEST 2008 is the place to make it happen!

For two days only, TechFEST 2008 brings you more than 12 track sessions, 42 hands-on labs, and 17 ask-the-expert clinics covering the latest innovations, technologies and tools from Microsoft that will change the way you code!

Choose the topics you want to learn, including Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5, Silverlight 2, WPF, SharePoint, IE8, LINQ, PowerShell, and much more!

Featuring expert speakers, trainers, technology specialists, and Microsoft MVPs, TechFEST is the place to get the answers you need!

Date : 23rd & 24th October 2008

Time : 9:30am - 5:30pm

Venue : One Marina Boulevard, Level 7, NTUC Auditorium

Price: SGD99

Your two-day pass gets you all these:

• Access to more than 12 track sessions, 42 hands-on labs, and 17 ask-the-expert clinics!
• Three books on Microsoft® Silverlight™ 2.0, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server® 2008 worth SGD164!
• Microsoft Virtualization Evaluation Kit
• Windows Home Server 120-Day Evaluation Kit
• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite 90-Day Trial

Early bird offer!

First 100 registrations also receive a Tech-Ed DVD set worth US$195 - featuring videos from Tech-Ed 2008 US keynote speeches and breakout sessions.

For more details and registration, click here!

The Digital Movement (TDM) and The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) invites you to join us for a global technology event at the brand new science and technology hub, Fusionopolis. On the evening of 22 October 2008, TDM & A*STAR will be hosting an exclusive experts forum with the finalists of A*STAR’s global multimedia search technology competition, The Star Challenge 2008, who will be in Singapore to compete in the grand finals.

Hot off the press from A*STAR, the five finalists (in alphabetical order) are teams:

1. LIG from Laboratoire d’Informatique de Grenoble, France
2. LMS CTS from National University of Singapore
3. NII-KAORI from National Institute of Informatics, Japan
4. SHRC from China (includes members from Peking University)
5. UIUC-YX from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC)
Join us for an exciting evening of discussion and demonstrations with the world’s visionaries in multimedia search. Admission to the event is FREE so bring your friends along for a brilliant time! A networking session with free food and beverage will be made available after the event.

Event Details:
Date: 6:30pm, Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Venue: Level 13, 1 Fusionopolis Way, Singapore 138632

Seats are limited to so sign-up today!

Registration has been closed due to overwhelming response.
For inquiries please contact TDM at audience@thedigitalmovement.org

On Wednesday, Mike and myself had the honour of attending the Google Chrome press conference at their Singapore office where we were given a live demo of Chrome followed by a Q&A session. We took this opportunity to query Andrew McClinchey, Product Manager of Google Southeast Asia and Dickson Seow, Head of Communications & Public Affairs, Google Southeast Asia with pressing questions most of you might have relating to the rational behind the development of Chrome.

Among some of the questions asked (by both press and TDM’ers):
 

Why did Google develop a web browser?

Google felt that there wasn’t enough competition in this field and current web browsers were limiting developers on how far and advanced they could take their web apps. They wanted to make a great new innovation that will make everyone else pick up their game. Their long-term vision is to improve the internet and make it easier for people to write better and more powerful web apps.
 

How are current web browsers limiting web developers?

This was tied down to  a demo of Google’s brand new V8 Javascript engine which showed the speed of a rotating 3D space shuttle in Javascript. When compared with Firefox, the rotation of the space shuttle is much faster in Chrome. This is an example of the possibilities opened up by the emergence of Chrome for web app developers where processing speed of the browser is no longer a limiting factor.

If you would like to do the comparison on your own, the Javascript shuttle can be found here.
 

Google and Mozilla have been working together for the past few years. Why didn’t Google improve Firefox instead of developing a whole new browser?

As Firefox has been around for a while and is quite developed, it would be easier to develop a browser from scratch to make it more lightweight and put in all the new features like the new v8 engine and memory management system. Google is not competing with Firefox but instead am hoping that with the release of Chrome, Mozilla will strive to improve Firefox further. Everything in Google Chrome including the V8 engine is open source so everyone is free to collaborate and share the technology.

Side note: The open-source platform which Chrome uses is called Chromium.
 

Chrome looks like it has many little features that improves usability quite a bit but these might not be obvious to most users especially those who are just trying it out for a short while. How do you see people getting to know about these features?

We are hoping that the early adopters who try the product out discover that the speed and usability that comes with all these features improve their web-surfing experience and hence tell their friends about it. Firefox used to have a market share of only 5% when it was first launched and now it is close to 20%. We’re hoping that Chrome will grow its market share as well as more users finds the benefits that come with it.
 

What do Mike and I think of Chrome so far?

We are definitely enjoying the clean, responsive interface and the higher performance of the browser despite a couple of bugs relating to Javascript happening here and there. Chrome is after all still in beta. One of the features we really enjoy is the memory management system where every tab is a process on its own. This means that if you opened 5 tabs and one of the sites causes your browser to crash, you can just end that process and the other 4 tabs would still work. And oh yes! Before I end off, no more irritating and obstructive pop-up windows appearing when downloading files. :D

Our friends at Microsoft is organizing a 24-hour “Mash-It-Up Competition” which promises to be one of the most unique and collaborative competition ever. Utilizing PopFly technology, the team with the most compelling mash-up of their blocks and their competitors’ blocks stands a chance to fly to Microsoft in Redmond, Washington and win a 3-month internship with Microsoft Innovation Center (Singapore).

Here are some details in short:

Date : 20 - 21 September 2008

Venue : Singapore Management University

Time : 10AM - 10AM

For more details and registration, click here

MS Mash It Up Competition

So I’m going to give you guys an insight to what’s going to be in Tomi’s new book: 7 reasons why mobile beats any other forms of media.

1. The mobile phone is a personal device. According to Tomi, at least 60% of the world’s mobile phone users do not share their phone with other people, even their spouses. So given how intimate the mobile phone device is, it’s a very accurate device on determining the number of users using a particular network or software app.
2. Mobile phone is the only personal media that is carried all the time. Our dependence on the mobile phone shows how important the device is to the consumer. Even when you’re asleep, a number of people carry the mobile phone to bed, or leave it somewhere within reach.
3. It is the only media that is always on, no matter where you go. That’s the reason why there can be a constant stream of information to the phone. For example, a user can constantly receive news feeds from a number of sources on the go.
4. The handheld device is the only form of media with a built in payment system. It’s basically a touch and go platform as compared to systems on the internet which uses credit card information or services like paypal. And obviously, other media like the TV and radio has absolutely no forms of payment.
5. The mobile phone is a ready made device that facilitates user generated content. It is great for that very moment of inspiration or creative impulse, so you can just take a video, a photo or do an audio recording before the moment slips away.
6. It also has the most accurate user measurement. As compared to the TV which has 1% accuracy, or even the internet with 10%, the mobile phone has a 90% accuracy of user measurement. This is in terms of measuring number of users and who these users actually are.
7. Finally, the cell phone is the only device that captures the social context of consumption. An example which was brought up talks about 2 communicating users using sms to discuss about a particular TV show. Let’s say one of them did an interactive action on the program (eg. sms voting), we can be sure that both these mobile phone users are actually watching the show. This concept is pretty new and takes some time to sink in, but it really allows us to understand our customers.

Tomi talked about other interesting topics such as the co-creation or user generated advertisements, where people actually call in and ask for more advertisements to be displayed. It’s the co-created experience where the most relevant word comes in, communities. He also enlightened me about the different statistics and trends the mobile industry is moving in the different regions and countries around the world.

Do go check out Tomi’s blog, or just grab his latest book, Communities Dominate Brands.

Event started slightly late at the NTUC Centre Level 7 Auditorium and opening address was by the CEO of IDA, RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, who just stepped into his new job early in January this year.

Next up was the GOH, Mike Liebhold from Institute for the Future, a Silicon-Valley based research think thank, who set the tone for the topic of the event, Digital Abundance. Basically, Mike introduced what IFTF is and after that gave the audience a brief rundown of the evolution of computer bandwidth. He said that as we move ahead into the 21st century, the evolution of computer processors that has been following Moore’s Law be soon having a breakthrough. Moore’s Law defined that the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed in a chip doubles every 18 months, but Mike predicts that will change to become the doubling of the the number of cores on a chip every 18 months! Mike then came up with a graph that depicts the periods in the development of technology, from the period of computing development in the 80s, to the idea of communication in the 90s, to the generation of sensing in the 21st century, and finally in the future, sensemaking will be making the headlines. By sensemaking, Mike refers to the semantic web and the evolution of the recognition, mining and synthesis processes. Mike then introduced cloud computing, which is part of the future of computer servers. However, at this point in time, the reliability of the current grids available are not as reliable as it should be because of the lack of protocols. Cloud computing enhances parallel and concurrent programming which can help with the scalability of a platform hosted in it. Running out of time, Mike showed us several slides of what the future will look like, in terms of researches on technologies such as:

• Smartphones as the world computer. (a link up of mobility and grid computing)
• Development of wireless technologies. (WiMAX, LTE, 4G, Wireless HDMI etc..)
• Invisible Computing - creation of a digital layer
• Body area networks (sensing and making sense of signals on the body - healthcare)
• Face and speech recognition
• Sensing for Geopositioning (now - GPS or Wifi; 2015 - multi sensors)
• Development in terms of multidisplinary sciences (semantics of all the domains)
• Identity Centric Computing - next generation Human Computer Interaction
• Life blogging/recording (personal data mining)
• Applications in Behavioral Health
• Citizen Sensing (eg. checking on the environment)
• Social Reality
• Mobile Immersive Media
• Smart Reality (in terms of Communications)
• Video with Digital Displays

However with all these exciting and cutting edge technologies, there comes a downside to it, which can include abuses of these systems, security of the grids and the problem of backing up these networks.

Next up was Dr Tan Geok Leng, CTO of IDA, who gave us an insight into what Singapore is doing to improve and help push Singapore into the global map of digital abundance. He gave some examples of award winners in innovation and research areas. He talked about how the top-down and bottom-up approaches have to be used together to help in the R&D areas.

Before the break, we had the panel session on creating the enablers of digital abundance. The facilitator was Mike Liebhold himself, and the panel consisted of Derek Callow, Marketing Lead, South East Asia, Google, Daniel Ingitaraj, Driector of Developer & Platform Evangelism of Microsoft, Prof Kwong Dim-Lee, Executive Director of the Institute of Microelectronics at A*Star, Prof Lye Kin Mun, Deputy Executive Director of Research at Institute for Infocomm Research, A*Star and Prof Lawrence Wong, Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NUS. The panel talked about the importance about embracing and making use of change and how multidisplinary research is critical to bridging gaps, such as a job of a linguist and an engineering researcher. They then discussed about other issues such as relevancy in the period of digital abundance, how the user experiences can be improved because in this era, the user is key to everything, so understanding the users is important. Finally, they talked about the future of computing where it goes beyond the keyboard and mouse, and of mash computing.

After the break was the panel on Implications of Digital Abundance for Users, where Mike was again the facilitator. This panel consisted of Lucas Chow, Group CEO OF MediaCorp, Dr Sarah Muttitt, CIO of MOH, Aroon Tan, MD/Co-Founder of Interactive Digital Dreams Pte Ltd and Magma Studios, Tan Tong Hai, President & CEO of Singapore Computer Systems and Dr Ting Choon Meng, Chairman & CEO of HealthSTATS International Pte Ltd. This panel talked about issues related to their own personal fields, eg. Lucas talked about the need for media mashing in the future as this is a period where the consumers are multi-tasking and attention is divided among different mediums, so Mediacorp has to create a balanced situation where it captures maximal attention from the user. With regards to Healthcare, Sarah talked about changing the clinics to be more patient centric. Other issues also covered was the importance of intellectual property and how the people’s morals affect it, the need for education between the provider and users, how digital abundance actually encourages digital isolation, which affects human and physical interaction, and finaly with collaboration, balance is kept and is benefitted with elements of human interaction.

The events ends with a summary by Mike and Dr Tan, who then took some questions from the floor.

Mr Tan Chade Meng, the jolly good fellow of Google and Singapore’s first googler, shared his personal philosophy, experiences as well as anecdotes on working with the multi-billion dollar company. He began with Google’s history, culture and mission - to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful; before sharing with us what life is like at Google. From food and trips, the 100 feet rule, 70-20-10 rule, 20% time rule to fun stuff, Chade Meng did not fail to inspire and draw laughter from the crowd.

There is certainly much for us to learn from Chade Meng and his aspirations, especially with regards to his positive belief in every individual. One of the key take away messages from the 107th employee of Google for Singaporeans was that anyone can change the world. There are many ways to realise our full potential and it’s important to strive to serve the greater good. In addition, to him, failure is not an end in itself but the key to innovation.

In retrospect, the event was a success with about 200 attendees who turned up at DXO that night,
and were treated to food and free flow of non-alcoholic drinks at the bar. We now look forward to
the next Infocomm Live! Series!

—————————-

Live blog:-

Good evening! Thank you for dropping by as we are preparing to meet the jolly good fellow of Google - Chade-Meng, who is also the first Singapore to be employed by Google. This evening’s event is organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and The Digital Movement (TDM). Meng will be sharing his personal philosophy, experiences as well as anecdotes on working with multi-billion dollar company Google.

If you are somewhere in town and you happen to stumble upon this, do join us at DXO, Colours by the Bay, 8 Raffles Avenue, #01-13, Esplanade Mall. I’m sure we would be able to make some space for you.=)

If you are already at DXO, you would be pleased to know that non-alcoholic drinks are on the house today, kindly sponsored by IDA. Nice little glow sticks are also available at the registration counter if you have not gotten yours.

The preparation started really early, and I was welcomed by lots of “mic tests” which thankfully stopped before the first guests came in. You can tell that this is not a particularly “techie” event by looking at the crowd - which comprises of the young, old, serious-looking and those seemingly waiting for the party to start. Yes, a helluva time is what you are going to get today as Meng shares with us his experience at Google; and if you don’t know by now, his official post in Google… is “Jolly Good Fellow”. Cool company, isn’t it?

6:57pm: I managed to find a hidden corner to do this live blogging. It’s probably the only corner where there is a power point for me to plug my laptop in. Well, we certainly don’t want the live blogging to suddenly go… er… dead, do we? =) Today, it’s our honour to have Rear-Admiral (NS) Ronnie Tay, CEO  of IDA to grace the event. This is the first of many Infocomm LIVE! Speaker Series to come and we will have Meng share with us on living and innovating at Google. This event is brought to you by IDA in partnership with The Digital Movement (TDM).

7:05pm: While we are waiting for the event to start, let’s have some small talk on getting into Google. Now, I am definitely no jolly good fellow, but I am lucky enough to know, personally, someone who went through the entire interview and is now a fellow jolly good fellow at Google. He apparently applied for a job and was shortlisted. After some short telephone interview (I can’t remember about this bit), he was flown down to Google HQ where he was almost served like the prince. The food, I heard, is wonderful and tastes authentic. In fact, it was something he really seemed to enjoy. To cut a long story short, he was finally employed by Google and have to move to California (speaking of which, my friend does seem to resemble Meng a little). Apparently, the lifestyle in there is so great, that they can just take time off to get their own stuffs done or to just take the dog out for a walk.

For such flexibility given by Google, it’s little wonder that the employees - or jolly good fellows, would work equally hard for the company. Now, let us all try to think of some companies in Singapore that adopts the same culture… =)

7:35pm: The event has started. The emcee of the evening is Estee Teo who started the event off with cheers from the crowd. Reiterating her, food is served at the back and non-alcoholic drinks are free-flow for the night. Today, we are also going to welcome 2 guests today - Rear Admiral (NS) Ronnie Tay - CEO of IDA, and Mr Chade-Meng, who is the first Singaporean employed by Google.

The crowd is just beginning to warm up as we welcome on stage, Rear Admiral (NS) Ronnie Tay.

7:38pm: RA (NS) Ronnie takes the mic and thinks that he is a little out of place with most of the crowd coming in casual shirts and jeans. Come on, we all know that it’s not true. Unknown to me, there is apparently only enough space for 200 guests to register for this event and according to RA (NS) Ronnie Tay, invitations for this event is sent out in the most usual way - not just via email, but through online portals.

Today, we have Chade-Meng to join us on the 1st of the LIVE! Speaker Series by IDA. He’s the 107th employee, to be exact, of Google. At this moment, he is working on a lecture series - Seach inside yourself, which is just a little of what he is doing. He is here today with his wife and child and it’s definitely our pleasure to have him with us. Agreeing with RA (NS) Ronnie, it’s going to be an interesting night with Chade-Meng as he hands the mic over to him.

7:45pm: Seated on the cushion, Meng introduces himself. He is an early Google employee and is the first Singapore Googler. He is hired as an engineer and now working with Google University. He worked on Mobile search, search quality, chinese search and all. HE developed emotional intelligence training program in Google. He is also the ambassador for Google.org - which is the official philantrophic part of Google. He graduated from NTU and worked in NUS. He considers himself bi-partisan. He also wants to save the world when he grows up. Go ahead - ask him about that and he will give you the entire flow.

He has a photo of Lao Zi on the screen and he thinks Lao Zi is a very rich fellow because people keep saying “Lao Zi You Qian” (^_^)”‘

Meng has a wall of pictures whom he boasts of - that, yes, he builds great walls. He has met many famous people - Colin Powell, Robin Williams, Condoleezza Rice - just to name a few. He’s also met President Nathan, President Mikhail and President Bill Clinton - yes - they decorate his wall!

Meng’s New Job is in Google University’s School of Personal Growth - to bring ou the best in Google and Googlers, which he will talk about later.

Today’s agenda started with Google History and Culture - which is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This is the mission statement since Day 1 - and it does not mention anything about creating a search engine - which is really huge. However, this is not just a mission statement, but rather, the way they run the business. Google is started by Sergey Brin and Larry Page and the CEO is Eric Schmidt. Google is started in Stanford University in 1995 and started off as a project for backlane analysis. If you look at any web page, it’s easy to tell which pages a page links to but it’s not easy to know which pages link to it. This gave rise to the crawling idea. Like all great companies in the Valley, Google was started from a garage - Google - World Headquarters.

Meng now gives a story of the company. Google is worth 150 billion dollars today while it could be bought for 1 million dollars. The first cheque was actually addressed to Google Inc. - but there was not Google Inc. then, and hence, the company was formed. The front page of Google is the same as when it started, except that the “!” is now missing from the word. Subsequently, they had Google Doodles - where they broke the golden rule of not touching the company logo. Subsequently, they start having April Fool’s joke, where the first joke was on PigeonRank (do a google on this).

So, how is life in Google? Life is fun! They play frosball, hockey, food (see! I told you!) and massage. In Google, meals are served 3 times a day and all are organic. Their beef and tuna are good stuff and the least meal of the day is sushi. (!!!!). There is a 100 feet rule in Google where nobody in Google should be more than 100 feet away from good. However, they didn’t tell you which direction the 100 feet is towards. =P

Dogs are allowed in the office but cats are not (ohhh……) and once a year, the entire company goes for a ski trip, except for 2008 when they went to Disney Land because the number of employees “out numbers” the mountain.

So, how do you create a 150 million dollar company? The first is to know about the 20% time rule - where Google allows Googlers to spent up to 20% of their time to do anything they want. From here, some good products came out of it - one of which is Google News. The others were Google Scholar, orkut and basically much of Google labs. Gmail was also created out of this - product of Paul. The other rule is the 70-20-10 rule, where 70% of the money/time goes to things that are core of Google, 20% goes to anything related, e.g. Blogger, and the 10% goes to anything in the world.

The structure in Google is extremely flat - where it only takes… er… 2 promotions to be the founder. =)

8:16pm: Meng has a burning question - can someone turn up the aircon? Anyway, what is “promoting innovation”? It is pretty much like growing flowers - and while we can’t force flowers to grow, we can create the conditions for the flower to grow. Of course, the next question is on how we actually create the condition? Well, we can create the climate - and Google does that by working on small projects and hire people that are really, really smart. Everyone at Google are able to access information such as the amount Google earns, amongst others, and every Googler believes that they can change the world. They also let engineers find their passion by working on things they want.

In Google, failure is the key to innovation. Soichiro Honda “Success is 99% failure”, and Thomas Watson are just amongst the few who tasted failure. The other key, is to feel stupid. Apparently, you have to be confused, upset and think you are stupid.

8:23pm: Fun stuffs - of course there are fun stuffs. Firstly, Google has one of the best translator and they get to see many funny translations from other online translators. If they analyse search data, they can see interesting patterns - “full moon”, “earthquakes” and they also found out that there are 800 ways to spell “Britney Spears”. Heh. Apparently, there’s also a book flipper machine when they embarked on a project to make every book searchable! Incredible!

Lastly, there’s a quote from Larry Page “The ultimate search engine would… ” (oops! I didn’t catch that). Oh well…

If there is one thing that Meng wants us to bring back today - it’s that anyone can change the world.  There are many ways to realise our full potential and it’s important to strive to serve the greater good. With this, Meng (Chade-Meng Tan, meng@google.com) ends the session and starts the Q&A session.

8:30pm: Q&A session starts. Ground rules for the night is to identify yourself and to stick to learning questions. First question by Ishel, he applied to Google, went through 4 rounds and got rejected… Anyway, he is asking about some power-app that is started by ex-Googlers. To this, Meng thinks that Google concentrates more on the users rather than competitors because this naturally brings in the moola.

The next question comes on the issue of retention - to this, Meng, thinks that the easiest way is actually to make things fun for the employees. Next, Andy from the floor asks about the flat organization and how it is managed. The answer is that Google is “on the brink of chaos” and the people there are very motivated - so things get done anyway even though they are not “managed”.

Next, the moderator asked on how it is decided that a product from the “20%” becomes a product. Ideas become products when it gets the thumbs up from the management and get killed based on statistics on usage. Next up, we have Bernie who asked how culture was built when it was started up. Meng’s observation is that a start-up is built on the vision of the founders; and to nurture by example. So even when an idea may be revenue generating, but if it does not benefit anyone, the product will not get the go-ahead.

Following up, someone asked Meng how he made the switch - to this, Meng said that he wanted to widen his horizon. When he reached the west, he felt that it was “Ru Yu De Shui” - like fish in water, and that he felt that when he was in the West, he thought that he founded a place to grow. Next question from Jeff, he wanted to know what stops Google from turning evil. To this, it started from a list of things that HR noted down which could simply be summed up as “Not be evil” by a fellow Googler. Next, Jeff also wanted to know if we should all be afraid of Google; to this, the answer was an obvious no. Simply because Google will work for the betterment of man else it will be dumped like dirt (of course, that’s in my own words).

So, what are some of the things that someone should do if he or she wants to change the world. To this, Meng thinks that the person should talk a lot about it - preferably to people who will believe in it - and to get the idea to grow with people and to get it to serve the greater good.

Someone next asked what the biggest problem for Google is. The answer? Scale. Google apparently has some problems with scale as they grow and even though they give people the 20% time, it is not known if this works until few years later. John from the audience next asked about the principle of censorship and what Google is doing about China’s policies on censorship. To this, Google will notify the user that some results are being censored while complying with China’s laws.

8:55pm: The next question from the audience is essentially on how they keep their engineers passionate - and the simple answer is to get them to believe that what they do can really change the world. Following up, someone asked about how a flat organization is being managed and not punishing failure. To this, objectives should be set up around methods as opposed to results - so when something is done, that the objective is met.

Next, someone asked how decisions are being made if there are conflicts - to which Meng answers that it’s through consensus.

Following, a lady asked what’s the most significant thing that happened in Google that changed Meng’s perspective. To this, Meng has a story to tell - the story of “Amid”. He decided one day that he wanted the CEO’s office and Eric had a tiny office. To this, Eric offered his office space to Amid as he was being nice. Amid was told to ask Wayne - the VP, to whom Wayne had no issues with it. Of course, Eric was being nice but well, his niceness backfired. Essentially, Eric went out of his office everytime there’s an important phone call. This tells a lot on Google’s culture… and insubordination. Heh.

9:05pm: Marcus from the floor asked about Meng’s vision to change the world. To this, Meng feels that he wants to make mental/emotional training (meditation) a field of science - to make it useful. If this is successful, this essentially brings about World Peace! This is because mental and emotional development brings about happiness, inner peace and compassion. A critical mass of happy, peaceful and compassionate people creates condition for world peace. This is a new approach to world peace - cultivating world peace from inside out, rather than imposing peace from outside in.

Someone then asked how does what Meng does make World Peace. Moment-to-moment, no-judging awareness is the answer, which is about bringing on self-awareness. Basically on emotional intelligence, which is… beyond what this poor live blogger can understand (oops!). However, what’s heart warming is that Meng remains passionate on bringing about World Peace.

9:10pm: Now, we would like to invite RA (NS) Ronnie to present Meng a token of appreciation, as well as Howie from TDM to present him… Ah Meng, as a token of appreciation from TDM. The event is now closed, but do feel free to mingle around. Have a good evening!

What do Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Clinton, SR Nathan and His Holiness the Dalai Lama have in common? They’re all on Meng’s wall!!

Want to know what it’s like to work and PLAY in Google? Want to find out more about how Google promotes innovation? Come meet Chade-Meng (Meng), Google’s Jolly Good Fellow.

A Little Something about Meng
Meng’s unusual job title started as a joke, but eventually became real. He was one of Google’s earliest engineers, and also the FIRST Singaporean to be hired by Google. Among many other things, he helped build Google’ first mobile search service, and headed the team that evaluated and kept a vigilant eye of Google’s search quality. After a successful eight year stint in Engineering, he now serves with Google University, where he works to promote both Google culture and personal growth. His main project is Search Inside Yourrself - a Mindfulness-based Emotional Intelligence course, which he hopes will eventually contribute to world peace in a meaningful way.

Organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and The Digital Movement (TDM), Meng will share his personal philosophy, experiences as well as anecdotes on working with multi-billion dollar company Google.

Date: 30th July 2008
Time: Registration starts at 6:30 pm
Venue: DXO, Colours by the Bay, 8 Raffles Avenue, #01-13, Esplanade Mall

Join us for an evening with Meng and hear about these and other Google stories from an overseas Singaporean who watched Google grow up first-hand.

As we have limited spaces for this event, please REGISTER EARLY with the form at the end of this post.

Finger food will be provided. You are encouraged to bring a laptop along to join us in the LIVE chat room during the event! For any blog posts and photos uploaded post-event, do add an “InfocommLIVE” tag to it!!

E-flyer: (Click on image to enlarge)

Come meet Google