Lucas Lu

betashop:

Being the CEO of a startup is a hard and complex job. Here’s my quick list of the 13 things every startup CEO should make sure to do each week:

1. Remember your One Thing. Your startup can only do one thing well at a time. Know Your One Thing. Write it on the wall. Repeat it every day. Put it…

Toronto is a multifaceted place. In my occasional visit to the largest city in Canada on Wednesday, aka visiting the Chinese Embassy to apply for a visa, I was touched by three complete strangers whom I think represented the very vibrant and resilient life of Torontonians/Torontonese/Torontoists.

#1: Hana. A 20-something female student who was in a master degree for psychology and health management at U of T. I bumped into her when I adventured into the School of Social Works of U of T without any prior appointments. She said “Hi! Can I help you?” while I was peaking into the offices on both sides of the hallway, trying to find any next person to talk to. “I walked passed the building and was curious of what kind of stuff you guys do here?” “Yes I have a minute! I can tell you a little bit about our program!” She said enthusiastically. After chatting for about 20 minutes, I found out she was one of many counsellors who provide counseling services exclusively to two of the colleges in UofT, much like Laurier’s counseling service. Her phone vibrated during our conversation. She didn’t hesitate to take it out and pressed a random button to kill the vibration, without looking down at all. She was completely focused on our conversation.

#2: Michael, a young man in his late 20s with wavy red hair and freckles. He was an official solicitor for “Because I Am a Girl” campaign. First day on his job, he and his partner were standing outside a luxury shoe store on Bloor street while I was making my way to a Tim Hortons. I “j-walked” over to their side of the street when I saw what was printed on their shirt, “Because I am A Girl”. He was stunned. It was probably because he had never seen anyone j-walked over to talk to a fundraising solicitor, someone most people choose to avoid. It turned out that they were doing programs in developing world that aim to empower girls and young women by providing them with equal education opportunity. “What is the program doing in China?” I asked. “I don’t know to be honest. But I will ask my Chinese girlfriend.” He shrugged and proceeded to ask for my email and promised to find out all the questions that I just asked, ones that he didn’t have answers to. I then found out that Michael used to be a music manager for a very successful label artist in Toronto area and he plays electric guitar as well. He is now on a break to wait for his program of music and fine arts to start in Concordia University in Montreal. 

#3: Lorna. She is a middle age salesperson for Kobo reader at a Chapters bookstore near Bloor and Bay. Having no intention to buy a Kobo, I was playing around with the device and pressing on the buttons while she came up and said:”Let me know if you have any questions, I am here to help!” “How does the Kobo app for iPhone know where I have left off my reading from the Kobo reader?” I asked. “All books are stored in the cloud.” I was amazed and confessed to her that she is probably one of the most technical bookstore staff I have ever met. She laughed. As she was walking me through different features of a Kobo reader, I found out that she is a mother of two sons, one of them attends UW for computer science. “My computer is really old and I don’t think it supports Kobo’s desktop app. I use a PowerBook G4.” I said. “What! You go to Waterloo and you use a PowerBook?!” Her eyes became as wide as any middle age woman could. “Haha, I go to Laurier actually.” “Oh, I guess you are fine then.” Both of us got a good laugh at it. 

What’s memorable about this particular trip to Toronto wasn’t that $20 donation I made to “Because I am A Girl” campaign or the Kobo reader that I never bought. But rather, it was the message Hana never checked and her undivided attention, Michael’s friendly personality as a solicitor and Lorna’s stunned facial expression when she found out I am using a Powerbook G4. 

A city is what its people make it.

fuck-yeah-tumblrs-best-posts:

Submitted by xpsycho

photojojo:

If you think making portraits with a camera is hard, try constructing an accurate portrait using 1300 punching bags! Now that’s dedication. 

korareefi:

“I think pipes are really funny.” - Conan O’Brien

Early early birthday pic for CoCo! I did promise I would make more art pieces when I had time, right? 8D Thanks for being patient! 8D Only ten more days till Conan’s (and my) birthday! Wewt!

http://korareefi.com

I am so very thrilled to announce that we are starting the 2nd annual “We Give. We Cook. We Care.” for St.John’s Kitchen 2010! For those of you who missed the event last year, it was first established by Sean Gallaghar, Andrew Moores and myself in October 2009. We started planning for it with one simple idea in mind: we want to make a big meal for members of our society who are poor, vulnerable and neglected during Christmas time. Food is a right, not a gift, and it is something that each one of us in the community deserves to enjoy its fullest regardless of your ethic background, income level or where you stay at night. During the process of collecting donations, we got lots of help from friends and people that we know at school, and eventually, we were able to assemble a team of nine people. Including the three mentioned above, we also had Catherine Horrigan, Scott Cherry, Keeley Philips, Kyle Martin, Aeron Lawrence, Jacqueline Chan and collectively we collected $856, over 200 cookies and 80 handmade holiday cards. Pictures from last year, http://www.flickr.com/photos/lucaslu8/sets/72157623030594112/.

What did we buy with that much money you ask? In total, we bought 100 LB of roast pork, 100 LB of roast beef, 80 bags of chips, 200 granola bars, 50 L of ice cream, 6 large cans of hot chocolate, ice tea and fruit punches. On December 4th, 2009, we cooked everything that we bought and made over 200 people walked out of St.John’s Kitchen, the largest soup kitchen in KW that serves over 200 meals on daily basis, with a full stomach and big smile! Here is an article from The Cord, http://thecord.ca/articles/24159. 

This holiday season we are looking to raise more money and serve even more people. On Friday December 3rd, 2010, Catherine Horrigan, Mallory Neale, Keeley Philips, Stefan Hill, Aeron Lawrence, Kyle Martin, Sean Gallaghar, Evie McGowan, Kendra Dunn, Chloe Stroud and myself will be going to the kitchen and cooking for the people. Personally, I am really excited to also have Lyndel Naidu and Laurier’s first ever acapella singing group that she founded, Hawkapella, to come in and provide live entertainment for the people on that day! In short, we want to extend our effort to make people in poor community to feel loved and cared this holiday season.

What we will be buying this year you ask? Well, we will be getting 300 LBS of boneless shoulder beef, 400 apples and 57 L of ice cream! And our goal is to serve at least 250 people that will come to the soup kitchen on December 3rd, 2010.

I heard a low voice whispers in my ear: food is a right, not a gift.

When Katie first approached me about submitting a letter for her new website, I immediately said yes (and then googled exactly what type of website she’s been working on.)

She posed the interesting question of “why”? Why do I do what I do every day? Why do I choose to come to this university but not the other? All of a sudden, I found my brain occupied by a sea of question marks, each with an aggressive and yelling face that looked me directly in the eye and shouted: Why? Why? Why?

I ask myself: What is my why? Slowly, my eyesight start to blur and I tilt my head back; I’m about to go back to revisit the journey of that one night…

I was having a night out at a local bar with a few friends. After a few hours of great conversations, food and beer, we were ready to leave. As we stepped out of the door, a homeless person approached us and asked for some spare change. Unfortunately, none of us had any with us at the time, so we apologized and were about to continue our way home. All of a sudden, the funny genes within me started stir and I was compelled to make a “harmless” joke to the homeless person.

“Do you take credit card sir?” I asked, and looked him straight in the eye, as if I was expecting a intelligent answer back.  

“That is so crude of you!” A friend yelled at me, even before the homeless person could realize what I had just said. “I cannot believe what you have just said! That was just so crude, unfair, and ignorant!”

“What is the big deal?” I said, feeling attacked for making a harmless joke at the stranger.

“Most of them have mental disabilities and they constantly live with stress!” My friend explained, still tempered with anger and frustration as she made the last attempt to help me realize how horrible and ignorant my comment was.

I was puzzled. What is the big deal? I was still struggling with the question at the end of the night. I felt like what my friend just said was almost like an insult;, just a few weeks ago, I was stopped by another homeless person on the way home and bought him a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee because I didn’t have any change with me.

But I spent the following few days realizing how ignorant and crude I was to the homeless person. I have come to the conclusion that people judge you by your actions, not your intentions. Ever since then, it has become a motto that will continue to guide me through all my life experiences.

Later that week, I had an idea for how I could express my sorrow and reveal  the fact that I truly care about the strangers on the street. We give, we cook and we care was born. We were going to cook for people at a local soup kitchen. Through the help of several friends, we were able to raise a total amount of $856.01 altogether, with which we bought 100 pounds of pork, 100 pounds of beef, more than 50 litres of ice cream and small snacks that people can take on the go.

On December 4, 2009, I stepped into a soup kitchen for the first time in my life. I was shocked. I was surprised by the scenery that I witnessed at St.John’s Kitchen, partly because I have never seen somebody who begged me for a loaf of bread, a bus ticket and a cup of coffee. As confused as I was shocked, I slowly started to see the bigger picture of our society, Canada, so called “one of the richest countries in the world.” Question marks were floating above my head, I was seeing, feeling and asking questions all days long, like a 3 year old on her first day at junior kindergarten.

For the first time, I was alive.

In the realm of World Cup fever, soccer fans around the world are taking days off from work to watch their favourite players and skipping school to cuddle in front of a TV. Soccer is such a glamorous and exciting game, with each goal scored and foul committed, the heart of the country’s citizens vibrates. The biggest “goal” of the World Cup is to unite the world through the sport of soccer and bring the host country enormous economic opportunities and prosperity. It has been one of the biggest celebrations in the human history and yet, only very few can truly see through what lies underneath the golden mask.

For the past couple months, Current TV’s Mariana Van Zeller has been on a journey across the continent of Africa and documenting the market known to only very few: footballer trafficking. According to Mariana, there are about 20,000 young African soccer players are currently stranded throughout Europe. How did they end up being there? Playing in an European league is a dream to every young African player. Youth soccer programs in countries like Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon and Morocco recruit top talents and start training them at a very early age and, almost like any other sports, wish their players will get discovered by an agent that bridges the link to world-class soccer clubs. However, these young soccer players are often times the victims of predatory agents. Slums and migrant ghettos are home to many of these players, when approached by an agent, their parents usually have to sell everything that they own, houses, furniture, bikes, to pay the commission demanded by the agents whom promise to get their kids into an elite European soccer team. 

Commissions are anywhere between a few hundred pounds to a few thousand, an affordable figure to many families living in western society however, a fortune equivalent to years of income to many African families. Paris is one of the hottest soccer player black market. Agents show up to the tryouts with a young African player, sometimes invited, for the most part, not invited. According to Jean Claude Mbvoumin, an advocates who is trying to help the trafficked young footballers, said that nearly 70 percent of the tryouts that took place in 2009 were “uninvited”. In other words, these agents show up like a door-to-door salesman, hoping to promote and sell the player. But we all know what happens to door-to-door solicitors, 9 out 10 times you will get a rejection on the spot. 

When those tryouts either don’t materialize or don’t go well, the agents simply fleet, a common tactic for many predatory agents. What follows is a young footballer from Ghana, not having any money or knowing any one in town, standing alone on the strange streets of Paris, watching through the fence outside a soccer field where a group of similar aged young players are doing drills. 

It is extremely difficult to estimate the accurate number of how many young African players are trafficked and stranded in Europe. However, they are all a part of the real cost of the World Cup. What we see on TV are the best of the best, Ghana national team, Senegal national team. But what we don’t see is the cost to produce the best of the best, which is the 20,000 and maybe even more players that are stranded on the land of Europe. 

Is this fair? Is this just? Now you know the true cost of the World Cup, how is it going to affect you next time you tune in and watch another World Cup or European soccer game?

leilockheart:

original photo & the artist

The conventional wisdom tells us that no one should waste food. We were raised by our parents who never seemed to lose interest in telling us: take what you think you can eat, and don’t waste any food! If you do, then no TV tonight! The next thing we know, we are terrifyingly picking up what has escaped from our plate and onto the table, while father is showcasing his favourite death stare from across the table.

We were told to live with responsibilities and disciplines. There is nothing wrong with that.  

But things can be quite different if you pay a visit to places like St.John’s Kitchen in Kitchener, Ontario. 

I was helping out at St.John’s Kitchen the other day and assigned the task of managing the disposal station. It is a counter with different racks on top for people to put their plates and cutlery in, and dump left-over food into a garbage bin. My job is to make sure the flow of the station that it does not create a bottleneck by helping people to dump the food and put away plates and cutlery as fast as possible. As I was taking over trays of food from people, almost 5 in every 10 have amount of food enough for a full meal to throw away. I got upset. Then I saw Gretchen, who is in charge of the kitchen, walked by and I stopped her to propose a suggestion. “People are throwing away way too much food Gretchen, I think we need to figure out a better system that will minimize the food waste.” 

Gretchen looked up at me and thought for a moment, “Lucas, look around this place, you see people on welfare, with no incomes or homes. They can’t find jobs, get food, buy clothing, they live with restrictions. What we do here is that we are trying to make St.John’s Kitchen a place where they can exercise just a little bit of freedom and control of their lives. You see, the food that we are serving would otherwise go to the waste had we not served them here, because they are from big corporations. That’s why we allow people to take as much food as they want.”

 Now when I think of the concept of “wasting food”, this conversation will always drag me into taking the circumstances of the people involved into consideration.

I scheduled a lunch with a friend today in uptown Kitchener. The lunch was rather pleasant, we got to do lots of catch-ups. After the lunch, it was only around 1 pm and the place we just had lunch was really close to St.John’s Kitchen. So I thought to maybe I will just go over there and help with the cleaning, they usually run until 3 pm. 

I got there at around 1:20 pm and surprised Gretchen from behind. Gretchen is the woman behind the success of St.John’s Kitchen for the past 20 years and she is in charge of everything. She said: “you know what to do!” I said: “yeap!” Except I don’t really know what to do.

I found my way to the cleaning supply room and picked up a broom and a dust bin. I started sweeping from one corner of the lobby and worked my way out to the entrance. I then spent the next 20 minutes sweeping every piece of floor tile, under every chair & table in the area, until it is sparkling and dust-free, well at least I thought so. 

Then came a woman, walking in the distance towards me, with a broom and a dust bin in hand. She got closer and closer to me, and said: “Can you work with me to sweep this area?” 

“Which area?” I asked

“The one over there.” She pointed at the area that I just swept.

“But it’s been just swept.” 

“I have eyes. I can see!” She was getting rather impatient.

“But it’s been just swept.” I repeated.

“I have eyes. I have eyes. Can you work with me please? Can you work with me please? Can you work with me please?” She became upset.

“……” I was going to say something.

“Can you work with me please? Can you work with me please? Can you? Can you?” She became even more upset. “God! ugh…..” Then she stormed away with heavy footsteps and started to sweep an area that I have just swept. 

I stood there for a good few seconds, not knowing what to do, but to watch her walking away, and tried to figure out what exactly has just happened. 

“Can you work with me?” Those five words just kept echoing in my head for the next 10 minutes and I was both mad at her and myself because she was mean to me and I was mad at myself for being mad at her. 

I tried my best not to let the emotions take over me, the hatred and resentment produced as a result of not being given a chance to express my opinion. Wait a second, that sounds familiar, ‘not given a chance to express one’s opinion”, isn’t that what people like her and hundreds of others in our community experience on a daily basis? Community members like her, who live from paychecks to paychecks, who depends on a soup kitchen for a full meal, constantly experience the absence of attention and equal opportunities from others. When they are hungry, no one hears them, or more specifically, no one is wiling to listen. When they can’t find a job, no one wants to help. When they can’t pay their rent and have to move onto the street, no one wants to offer a place. When their children enrolled in gangs, they have no one to turn to for help, no is willing to listen to them.

It makes me to think about a brutal fact about designing for social programs that we hope to help community members, is that sometimes we forgot to take their emotions and mental conditions into account, but rather focus too much on the structure and curriculum. When we donate computers to libraries and hope that they will help members in our community who can’t even afford computers to use them. But we’ve ignored the human aspect of this plan. Many, if not all, people lack the basic training in computer. They don’t even know how to turn on the machine, because they can’t locate the power button. You would think: “why can’t they just ask the librarian?” They can’t because they are scared to show their vulnerable side, that they might get laughed at and it is usually a source of abuse. 

Then came along the concept of human-centered design, coined and advocated by design firm IDEO. In plain English, it takes into consideration the people that will be served by a new project and put them as a focal point of everything, especially their emotions, habits and mental conditions. These should be the driving forces for changes that will take place by effectively addressing the emotional needs of the community members. New design programs should be resilient and flexible enough that put people in the centre and work around them, instead of people working around the system, otherwise you will get a group of nagging users that are very likely to drop the service very soon. 

But what constitutes an effective social innovation program that puts people first? It is a result of hours, sometimes days, of field research, interviews, talks, listening to stories, and being in others’ shoes. It is a long journey and no one ever said it is easy. But if one truly wants to design a program that has the potentially to truly benefit the people, field works must be an important component in the process of designing for a new program.

Now I think back on the woman who got upset at me for not helping her to sweep the area that I’ve just swept, I feel happy, because it was an extremely valuable lesson. 

(via leilockheart)

From spiderman to star wars, from the incredible hulk to iron man, we’ve all experienced the fascinate creativity from famous directors and writers. 

We have built our education system on the model of fast food, everything is standardized. We have sold ourselves into a fast-food model of education, and it is impoverishing our spirits and energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.

Courtesy of leilockheart.

Remember the last time you were really excited about that idea you had? Be it a surprise party, a fundraising idea, a soccer tournament, or a business venture. You called up a few trusted friends and you assembled a team. All of you worked really hard. 

But it FAILED. Your beautiful dream about that event shattered into a million little pieces, and you wish that only if you have done this, or you had that person…would the event turn out just fine.

The key to success is the difference between selling “what” vs. selling “why”. Remember the last time you pitched to your friends, and said “hey I want to throw a surprise party for Jennifer on her birthday! And I need some help from you guys!” This is a classic example of selling “what”. NOBODY besides you on this planet knows why they should be doing this. If it fails in the end, it could be one of the two reasons: you weren’t able to attract all-star players and you only get mediocre results; or you attracted all-star players, but they just weren’t sold, they were helping you only because you are their friend.

Jim Collins wrote “Good to Great” and described “…first who and then what…” It shows the importance of having the right people on your team and then figure out what to do next with your star players.

In his TED talk “How great leaders inspire action”, Simon Sinek mentioned that inspirational leadership, such as Martin Luther King and the Wright Brothers, all start with a golden circle and the question “Why?” Take the surprise party again. Instead of saying “we should throw Jennifer a surprise party”, one can rather say “Jennifer has been working so hard, she always devotes her time to helping others. It is now a time that she gets served and she really deserves a break on her birthday!” 

When you are able to show to other “Why” they should be doing this with you, one of the two things will happen. Either you are able to attract all-star players or, people who are not all-stars work so hard that they almost produce what all-star players normally produce.

The rest is all history. The Wright Brother invented the first flying machine, and the way African Americans should be treated were profoundly changed partly because of Martin Luther King.

I have a friend named Evie. She has the ability to always smile and use it to cheer up others.