29 Oct 22 Now
30 Oct 22
Life
I left EDB in June-July, and just came back from spending three months with my teacher Ajahn Brahm at his retreat centre and monastery. This part of the Buddhist monastics’ Rains Retreat for this year, and is a dream come true for me (since 2018, when I did a partial Rains Retreat for a month). The most common comment I’ve gotten since I returned was “wow, you’ve lost a LOT of weight!”, which makes me (and my wife) wonder just how fat I was before…
I’m currently unemployed, and my clock starts now: my wife has kindly given me a two-year timebox for me to experiment. By October 2024, if nothing works, then I will need to crawl back to the Singapore government to ask for work. 🙂
Right now, my thinking and plan is to explore the intersection between Dharma, Design and Digital,
Work
One thing I am exploring is to do freelance work in three areas: you can read more details here in the Proposition section of this website.
If you have any suggestions or feedback, please reach out to me via email, or the contact form below.
1. Applied Design Thinking Fundamentals: training in Design Thinking
What is this?
This is a hands-on course on design-thinking fundamentals, which participants will learn by doing. Please note that this is not accredited nor Skillsfuture Qualified, yet.
Why choose PJ for this?
I am a service/UX designer. Using these techniques (in more depth and detail), my final project was awarded the Core77 Design Awards, Service Design Award, Student Runner-up in 2020, and was also an Honorable Mention in Fast Company’s Innovation By Design Awards in 2020. I also used these techniques in EDB to develop some strategic initiatives, which I can’t share at this point.
Details (including pricing) for Applied Design Thinking Fundamentals here
2. Team Catalysis: Forming Team Rituals and Norms
What is this?
My design school is quite unique, as we were deliberately trained to work together in diverse teams. One of the secrets we learned was about creating team norms, and how to work together in diverse teams. I could help you and your team work better together.
Why choose PJ for this?
Besides my design school experience, I was also a manager for 7 years of small, highly talented teams in the EDB, within the Strategic Planning, Marketing, and the Product Innovation by eXperience divisions. I’ve experience as a line manager, but also have experience dealing across different levels, from my peers all the way up to senior management.
Details (including pricing) of Team catalysis here
3. Strategic Planning as a Service
What is this?
The interventions here will depend on a case-by-case basis, ranging from a leadership workshop to a 5-day design sprint.
For an executive leadership offsite, I could help create materials (and prototypes) & design the content & session flow to spur discussion of possible threats and opportunities, working towards concrete OKRs and next-steps, which you and your team could take up.
Why choose PJ for this?
I had helped manage the Secretariat team which coordinated and executed the program for EDB’s International Advisory Council in 2015 and 2016. As a middle manager in the Strategic Planning team, I had also worked closely with senior management on our internal planning initiatives, and was one of the initial team members that catalyzed the eventual-New Ventures division. I had also conducted work-planning for teams across my entire 13 years’ EDB career. Plus, with the skillset from design school, I can also make digital prototypes & mock-ups.
Details (including pricing) of Strategic Planning as a Service here.
Side Projects
Before I left for the Rains Retreat, I had written a couple of essays on how to apply Dharma principles at work, which are published on Handful of Leaves. These include:
– how to decide
– how to deal with attractive colleagues if you’re already married
– how to interact constructively with your colleagues at work
I am writing up about my Rains Retreat experience, and will publish it on my blog in bits over the coming weeks.
I finished a YouTube-based course on SEO by Ahrefs: it is very good, and I highly recommend it to anyone involved in marketing.
Another thing on my schedule for this month is learning coding for real: I’m learning Python to automate stuff on my computer, and learning Swift to make a mobile app (a to-do list app) that I’ve been thinking about for a damn long time. I had been learning Clojure and Clojurescript, but am parking it aside for a while, because my focus is on automating stuff on my computer (so that I can increase my productivity, especially since I have nobody else to rely on now) and on creating stuff on my mobile phone (which unfortunately I don’t think Clojure nor Clojurescript are especially a good fit, at least for a complete noob like me). My hope is to eventually transition back into the Clojure-world, after I’ve learned some of the basics and gotten some stuff out first: I think that will give me a better understanding of the basics of making an app, which will then help me with understanding Clojure/script development.
Mulling Over
The Rains Retreat experience has inspired me to think even more about how we could use Dharma principles to design digital tools, both for Dharma practice, but also in “secular” use contexts e.g. helping to manage the sender’s anger when reading an email (I could have used this back in EDB…)
Reading
Two biographies, of two different realists.
The Life of the Buddha by Ñanamoli Bhikkhu – A wonderful collection of excerpts from the Pali Canon (both Sutta and Vinaya), organized to tell the life of the Buddha.
Sherman by BH Liddell Hart – I bought this book a few years ago, and just started reading this. Quite interesting, because I know next to nothing about William Tecumseh Sherman, except that he was a leading general of the Union in the US Civil War.
Other Stuff
Meditating
30+ mins a day, twice a day.
Working out
Doing the GMB Integral Strength programme.
Updated as of 30 Oct 22