2012 on Nick Wang

2 more joined our playgroup - July 21st

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:05:00 +0000

My wife posted our playgroup info on one of the local Chinese baby forums and got like 5 moms interested in joining us! So we’re happy to report that today we welcomed 2 new families joining the fun!

Sarah brought many different kinds of balls for L to explore

First came YY with his mom Alice a bit earlier than 10 am, YY was immediately friendly and sat right in front of me, looking at the toy trains and cars. I asked him if he liked cars and trains but he didn’t respond. L quietly observed YY and then both of then went on to play with the trains and cars separately. I think this is probably very normal, toddlers at this age recognize people and places, this is the first time YY has been here so both the place and the people were strange to him. I’m glad we provided some good toys that he could feel safe and happy with.

Playing with balls, trains, cars, crayons and containers

When the doorbell rang the next time, it was C and Sarah. L was simply ecstatic to see his good friend and jumped in joy. Reminds me the (only) best thing about school for me was being with my friends :) C was also happy to find the new toy trains on the floor. Sarah then opened her “magic backpack” and pulled out many different kinds of balls, fabric and cars! L just stood there and watched Sarah blew up the big beach ball! His looks of anticipation was intense!

Checking himself out in front of 2 mirrors

The other mom and child arrived late because my wife gave them the wrong address :P (Sorry!) Overall, the play date went very well, the kids all played naturally together, the parents had time to share their habits at home and we shared the philosophies of the Reggio Emilia and RIE’s way of early childhood education. As “incidents” occurred, for example when YY wanted C’s car and Alice tried to ask him to share, or when YY fell and started crying and Alice asked him to stop, we were able to show Alice how to let the child deal with his own emotions.

The newcomers are learning about uninterrupted play

Watching Alice and YY, I could see myself and L in them. I had the right ideas but had questions about how to deal with certain behaviors. It’s reassuring to see that my relationship with L has improved, and I’m looking forward to seeing other parents experience the same changes as they learn more about Reggio Emilia. I’m still new to this but I really need to get better at observing and capturing the children’s learning moments and put them into these diaries. I hope that by showing stories like that of “Diary of Laura”, I can persuade help more parents to connect with their children and help them break out of the legacy educational system!

Drive the cars through the “tunnel”

Diary - July babies birthday party

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 14:32:00 +0000

Today, there was a “July babies 2 yr old birthday party”, about 40 ~ 50 families cramped into this little Chuck E. Cheese minus the food & giant mechanical rodents store in the mall to have a great party! L had a lot of fun because he loves those ball pits and they had 3!!

It was interesting to see that there wasn’t 1 family who would trust their children and let them explore and figure out how to play. What I witnessed most were parents holding their kids, helping them slide down slides or ride on carts, and taking pictures of their kids w/ their huge DSLR cameras, sometimes asking them to redo something because “Daddy didn’t get the picture!”

Anyways, back to today’s main story. L saw these ramps when we asked him to come with us as the organizers were calling everyone to gather up. There was nothing going on at the gathering, just a cluster of chaos trying to sit their kids down. Naturally, L chose to check out the ramps! There were a bunch of carts in that area and at first he grabbed one that he liked (I think?) but it wasn’t designed for the ramp, the wheelbase fits but the seats were a bit too high. L could ride past the first bump but got stuck in the middle ditch. After trying to ride up to the top and failed a few times, he gave up and tried the other ramp with a different cart. This yellow cart was a little lower, but the result was the same he couldn’t ride up to the top.

Then, he saw an older boy playing with a much nicer looking car (it has a steering wheel!) and he abandoned his yellow cart in the ditch, walked over to the bigger boy and tried to take that nice car! The older boy is, well, older! So he has learned how to deal with other kids fighting for toys. (“I can’t fight back, and I don’t want to bother negotiating! The car seemed to big for the ramp anyway, alright I’ll just move on to play the next thing!”)

L got control of the nice car, he tried to sat on it but it was too unstable up there and it finally fell off. L got on it and rode it to the end of the ramp. He tried to ride it up but this car couldn’t even get past the first bump! He was a little tired and so he just sat there, watching the gathering on the other side of the room, (but didn’t look like he was really paying attention, he looked like he was daydreaming :) An old Chinese lady had been looking at him and at this point she came over smiling, wanting to pick up the yellow cart L left in the middle ditch and help him put it on the top of the ramp. Both my wife and I yelled: “don’t help him… Don’t Help Him!… DON’T HELP HIM!!!” (Together, 6 times!) until we startled the little old lady, stopping her in her tracks! (Sorry old lady! I know you thought you were doing something endearing, but it’s bad for the children!)

It was also interesting that L had seen the other boy push the car up to the top, but he didn’t imitate the boy right away. After sitting there daydreaming for a while, he finally got up, and with a fresh mind he stood beside the yellow cart and pushed it to the top of the ramp! SUCCESS! He didn’t celebrate though, instead he hurried to sit on it! And even though he had his back facing the slope, he pushed off and weeeeee… backwards roller coaster ride!! (I was worried and stood beside him, just in case he fell off.)

He repeated this again and again! Then I think he went away for a while. Next time he came back, he figured out to push the cart up backwards so that he could roll down facing the front.

By the way, while this whole learning story took place, the majority of families were sitting at the gathering watching a clown magician hybrid thing perform. This means the parents had successfully taught their 2 year old children to sit docilely watching their teachers! Sad. Now I’m not saying teaching 2 year olds to sit quietly is bad, there are situations where it’s good, even necessary, to set that boundary! (Like during car rides and meal time).) But I personally don’t think forcing them to sit still to listen & learn from a “teacher” is one of those good situations.

Lessons Learned from Startup Weekend Global Organizers Summit

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:45:00 +0000

http://360.io/Tbxp7TMarch 8th, 2012 marked my first Startup Weekend Global Organizers Summit, I took so many notes in this one day event I don’t know how to put them into a blog post! So I’m just gonna type everything up and share it with you all! (Midway through writing this, I realized I should probably put this on Google Docs and set it to public, so that all of you at SWOS 2012 can add your notes to it!) Also, this is purely my notes from the Startup Weekend Global Organizers Summit 2012. If you’re looking for my SXSW related posts, check out Me Being Awesome at SXSW 2012, Storified! and 5 Things You Can Do to Increase Your Startup’s Exposure at a Big Event.

Bo Fishback - Zaarly* Was president of Kauffman Laboratories for Enterprise Creation, didn’t understand what’s so special about Startup Weekend \

* Didn’t plan to go but ended up pitching & winning at Startup Weekend LA, quitting his awesome job to run Zaarly!
* Friend in banking pitched to him with a long executive biz plan of what was Zaarly! Bo was like, âWait… Thatâs Zaarly!â but his friend was like âBut it’s different.â So Bo just told him to go to a Startup Weekend!
* The friend was texting Bo excitedly before going up to pitch, and then afterwards he said âI was shit, my idea didn’t get picked.â So within 1 minute, he got the feedback for the bad idea he had worked on for months!
* Zaarly gave 2% share to Startup Weekend!# Startup Weekend Cairo* 1500 applicants
* Revolution and the change of the status quo
* Rise of Egyptian youth
* Joint campaign with TEDxCairo to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit# Greg Gottesman - Madrona Venture Group* Startup Weekend is like crack, once people get a taste, they get hooked
* Teaches Startup Weekend in his class in UW, transformed the classroom!# Kristjan Freyr Kristjansson - SW Iceland* Startup Weekend is the best thing that has ever happened to people with ideas!
* Created Startup Weekend marathon - A Startup Weekend is never more than a month away.
* President of Iceland came to 2 Startup Weekends!!
* Vision: Every person in Iceland needs to know about Startup Weekend, and every school student needs to go through Startup Weekend at least once!# Kyle Kesterson - Giant Thinkwell* Rise of the Designer
* Lack of design talents in Startup Weekend
* Designers’ mental model - Like to work for big agencies, dislike being freelance
* To appeal to designers, let them know they are here to lead! Not just to help others with designs
* Collaborate with others to create ideas, do design thinking, solve problems
* Startup Weekend needs their creative mindsets
* Get designers to sell tickets to more designers for a discount
* Get sponsors from design companies (and get their designers to come!)
* Film promo documentary by following a designer throughout an entire weekend
* Read (http://www.designstaff.org/articles/does-your-startup-need-a-design-co-founde…) by Enrique Allen, founding member of Designer Fund and 500 Startups
* Remove the risk of âfree workâ
* Seattle Students R&D (makers)# Do These at Next SWHK!* Watch Steve Blank’s Customer Developer video - Assign CD Leader
* Assign Project Management Leader
* Coaches instead of mentors - Participate the whole weekend
* Get 2 interesting speakers - TEDx tie-in
* Get **GOOD FOOD!!!**
* Sunday night flowers for spouses
* Strong organizing teams
* Event management to-dos
* Ops team check out @doteyes (Use music to time events)
* Bring back strong leaders to run teams
* Pre-event (Alumni night, GTUG)
* Move Sunday night pitches to a bar, expand to 500 audiences
* Animoto
* Calendar for organizers
* T-shirts for coaches, and then for attendees afterwards
* Have female coaches and judges bring in female participants# SW Next* An event after Startup Weekend to stress test the teams!
* Help make stronger, enduring teams
* You don’t really know the people you worked with in a Startup Weekend
* It’s all about the team! e.g. Cloudmine found 2/3 of its co-founders in SW, even though they didn’t work together in the same teams# Intellectual Properties* Don’t talk to lawyers, don’t over complicate
* Hold weekly meeting s for a month
* People will find out what they wanna do
* IPs coming out of a Startup Weekend is worthless, e.g. the Zaarly idea has been pitched over 20 times at events everywhere, but none succeeded! It’s the team that counts!
* Don’t worry about equity, just set milestones, people will weed themselves out
* Press milestones
* Ayloo.net# Sponsors* Ask them what’s their company’s goals
* e.g. Design companies have designers but want developers# How to Promote* Cap the ticket low, let the wait list grow and release fix strategically (only to good people)
* Interview your coaches and post up blog / videos before event
* Then, after event, interview a few participants