Another Pivot

Its been weeks since I last wrote. So much has transpired that this proper update is due. I will start by saying my sabbatical is finished. My commitments to learn Chinese, develop a big data community, volunteer for Open Data Hong Kong, write, and ponder my next move met with mixed success. As evidenced by the lack of activity on this blog, my writing commitment to writing flagged towards the end. But the other projects generally went well.

Chinese studies were the biggest struggle for me. When they were easiest I was spending 20 hours a week studying and practing. I listened to recorded audio, rewrote lesson text, and created, practiced, and delivered speeches. When I was fully committed the classes were comprehensible. But as sabbatical end drew close and my attention was drawn towards my uncertain post-study life, my enthusiasm for Chinese waned. As my commitment decreased class discussions became impenetrable. And therefore not fun.

But I know I learned a thing or two. In fact I recently re-read a Chinese children’s book I’ve owned for a couple years. In my first attempt, it took me 45 minutes to decipher the first three pages. Two days ago I read the entire book in five minutes. In a month I will be joining Clair in Shanghai so I’ll have an opportunity to practice spoken Chinese. Although Shanghai, like Hong Kong, has plenty of English speakers.

My work with Open Data Hong Kong was mixed. In the fall I convinced two groups of students to build final year projects using Hong Kong’s Open Data sets. One of those projects was recognized with an ICT award a couple weeks ago. I cannot take much credit for those students’ impressive work. But I deserve some of the blame for failing to recruit another generation of open-data-minded students for next year.

Our Hong Kong Big Data club has similarly met with mixed success. My irrational focus on using Google+ as BDHK’s platform caused uncertain damage to our growth. Indeed, for our second meeting a bug I found in Google+ left half our potential attendees believing their request to participate was declined. We moved the group to Facebook a few weeks ago and are planning a large event for mid-May. For that event HKBD is collaborating with the Chinese University school of business. That will expand our audience and hopefully get the group back on track.

The unambiguous success from this sabbatical is the launch of Tendtoo, a platform for IT enthusiasts. My business partner and I formulated the idea in January, signed a software developer in February, and have guided the production of a CRM system for people, events, and organizations since then. We hope to go live with the website in a month or two and release a mobile app shortly thereafter. My initial talks with prospective clients have been positive. I am eager to try to convert these early good wishes into contracts later this year.

So today, at sabbatical’s end, my commitment to this blog again changes. My time is occupied with experiments with entrepreneurship, software development, and community building. Maybe these adventures will provide fodder for my continued effort to develop my writing. If so subsequent articles’ topics may be so diverse as to guarantee no regular audience. But this blog never had more than a few hits a day anyway so I must do with it as I am doing in life: do what I love.