So, I have decided to start writing a blog.  My motivations aren’t for sharing my day to day revelations, or for creating a platform to broadcast my thoughts for the betterment of the world. No, rather I have realized that my writing skills have been on a downward slide. And, I feel I must correct this negative momentum. So, bit by bit I am going to write something. Everything that is a skill must be practiced, refined, and nurtured. Writing is no different.

I have discussed on many occasions the incredibly sad state of the writing education in this country. I was fortunate enough to go to a school system that put an emphasis on writing. Despite the growing pains I experienced many times in high-school English, I am a better person having gone through the practice of writing essay after essay. My trouble often stemmed from the isolation of “writing” strictly to the English class. Writing is a method of communication. And the topics we need to communicate are not confined to just literary texts, or the fictional novel. Writing should be practiced and emphasized in the science class, the history class, and even in the math class. What they never tell you in high school, nor in college is how critical writing will play in the working world.

Hence, my current predicament and how I noticed a glaring area for improvement. In my current situation, I will never need to create a thesis on a literary novel. However, I do have to create written material. Like it or not, communication is part of marketing. Now, my writing skills are not horrible, but in the realm of job interviews my other skills have come up more often. How often have you read “analytical/quantitative skills” in some job description or another. Translated: “are you good with numbers”  and more specifically “are you good with data”. Mastery of written language often is confined to the sentence “communication skills”. I was able to coast past this line item with my mastery of the spoken language. Meaning: I can talk and speak like I actually know something. In the endless interviews I have attended, only a couple of my potential employers have specifically asked for a written submission. My realized employer is not one of those few.

Ironically, out of all the skills found in the business  setting(accounting, finance, operations etc.) the function of marketing  depends most on written communication. The heart of marketing is communication to the potential customer why exactly your product fulfills their needs and wants. I know many an engineer, I included at one time, who rank the intellectual faculties needed to be a marketer to be somewhat between the skills need to be a janitor and security. But for all of the scoffs and sarcastic comments, the marketers hold tremendous amounts of power just by the fact they control the flow of information letting the world know what is there to know about the product. For example, one day as part of my marketing training a senior product manager came to give a talk. During one part of that product manager’s career, he owned the public messaging for a very important product of my company. Needless to say, after he drafted his initial public messaging campaign, he quickly began receiving some serious phone calls from  annoyed general managers and VPs on the development side. Their main source of annoyance stemmed from the fact that their features were not going to publicized the extent they had wished. Basically, this one product manager held the keys to give public attention, and thereby generate public credit for each of these feature teams. This demonstrates the source of power that we as  “marketers” possess. What the world does not know, to the world it does not exist. End of Story.

I will make no great pains to make these entries amusing, witty, or particularly entertaining. Since I have just started this new “self-initiative”, I have yet to determine the level of editing and refinement I will give to these entries. These blog entries are my homework I have assigned to myself.

It will join a growing list of assignments I hope to keep up.

1)      Write more. This blog is a start

2)      Get healthy. I currently live about 10 minutes away from my work. One of the reasons is that I hate commuting in the morning and feel it is a time vacuum. Rather, I can use the tie saved into more useful things. Namely, sleeping later in the day, and going to the gym. Another reason why I live close to corporate campus is because the company subsidized gym is also close to campus. It literally takes no time to go the gym, and therefore I have not excuse not to stick to a fitness routine. If I lived a bit more from campus, the slow creep of laziness would probably doom my chances adhere to a fitness regimen. So, I play these mind games and deny any conscionable excuse for me not to “get healthy”.

3)      Resume practicing the keyboards. I played the ebony and ivory in the high school jazz band.  I was not particularly good at piano. However, looking back, that period of time at 7 to 8 in the morning was an chance to exercise parts of my brain I also feel are slowly rusting away. All, I need to do is buy a keyboard.

4)      Somehow maintain the sparse knowledge of Chinese I still remember. I am not a language person. Today, I have to use most of my mental faculties already to keep up with English ( hence this blog……). I have recently found an excellent grammar book on the Chinese language. Hopefully, combining the use of this book, revisiting old Chinese textbooks and  attending a continuing education classes will help me retain some use of the language.

5)      Master Chinese cooking. This one is a no brainer. I have to eat every day. I might as well use this natural motivation to my advantage and improve on a valuable life skill. I grew up in the presence of the excellent food my mother prepared. She grew up in Malaysia. So, her particular way of cooking is one part Cantonese, another part Malaysian/Singaporean, and last parts every other part of the world. Honestly, I would have to venture far and wide to go outside and find a restaurant that replicated the menu courses served. Therefore, I should learn to cook so that I can be self-sufficient when it comes to my own favorable types of food.

This is a short is of the things on my perpetual “to-do list”. These action items (start getting accustomed to the usual office rhetoric)  particularly require some frequent practice.

We’ll see whether laziness will get the best of me….