The challenges I am facing as a start-up is daunting. It’s fine when you get hit by one set back, but when they come in a slew, that’s another matter. My presumptions are being tested in the world as it is and not as what I think it is. This is not reality TV. This is REAL life.
The biggest challenge is cash flow. How do I make digital storytelling (DS) sustainable for the long haul. I want to use DS for social good. I know it can. I see DS becoming a great tree from which many will find shade, shelter, a place to nest, and food to eat.
I can allow obstacles to paralyse me or I can rise up to the challenge. We are made of greater stuff than we often realise. Attitude is what makes the difference.
What do I do when the road ahead has never been trodden? There are no manuals no crystal balls to tell me what to do. I was a missionary from 1988-2010. I did not have a salary like working people do. I have stories — the kind you read in story books but cannot imagine will happen to you — stories of how he provided for me. God has never failed to look after me and those I love.
Isaiah the prophet said:
Listen and hear my voice;
pay attention and hear what I say.
When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually?
Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?
When he has leveled the surface,
does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin?
Does he not plant wheat in its place,
barley in its plot,
and spelt in its field?
His God instructs him
and teaches him the right way.
Caraway is not threshed with a sledge,
nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin;
caraway is beaten out with a rod,
and cumin with a stick.
grain must be ground to make bread;
so one does not go on threshing it forever.
The wheels of a threshing cart may be rolled over it,
but one does not use horses to grind grain.
All this also comes from the LORD Almighty,
whose plan is wonderful,
whose wisdom is magnificent.
God knows my need. He also knows what it takes to make a harvest. He gave the farmer understanding of each type of seed. He taught the farmer timing, technology, and treatment.
He will teach me how to make digital storytelling thrive.
* Isaiah 28:23-27
I’m happy to say I recorded my first podcast early this morning. I’ve been thinking and talking about it for the longest time.
I have been listening and reading up podcast tutorials, watching training videos (it’s amazing the resources you can find out there), thinking about the topics I will address. I’m still studying the technical aspects of geting it available online and on iTune.
I wonder if I can sustain the series. It’s a long haul commitment – not easy when I have competing demands. Never mind, I got started. That’s what counts right now.
I hope to launch the series soon! I know I should put a launch date to it… I will, I will…
Management consultant Raymond Ng recently told me that he had changed his marketing strategy over 200 times. I admire his tenacity and learner mindset.
My good friend Wee Lin, whom I look up to as an innovator, entrepreneur, and marketing guru said to me, “Lots of people have got their market strategy in place when their product isn’t even fully developed. You have a good product. But you have not got your marketing plan in place.”
Marketing is about understanding the people I am want to connect with and putting into their hands what I have and can offer. It’s been almost seven months since I started out my Digital Storytelling Asia social enterprise. I’m learning what doesn’t work (at the moment). How can anyone want what they don’t know about or understand?
Digital storytelling has so much to offer to make life better. But until it is seen as both a need and a want, it will only remain with the few who have felt its magic.
Commenting about the first car he ever built, Henry Ford said: ”If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”
He also said, “If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”
I am learning to listen to the market. Digital storytelling is what people want, but don’t yet know that they want it.
My parents never gave me a Chinese name. My grandfather who was influenced by the British somehow didn’t think it was necessary. My brother Brian, however, was given one because Mum said he was a boy – and it won’t do for boys to have no Chinese name because they are supposed to carry on the family lineage. So no Chinese names had my sister and I. 
I asked a friend to create a Chinese name for me some years ago. She wrote 許 for KOH and gave me 安 宁 based on the sound of my name Angeline.
Angeline or Angel for short of course means “Messenger of God” or “Bringer of Good News.” It was given me by my grandfather although I am not sure if he was a believer.
In Japanese calligraphy it is written 
(in katakana) or 
(in hirakana) and 
(in kanji). (Katakana is the standard way names are translated to Japanese and is how names appear in Japanese dictionaries)
KOH 許 OR 许 (shortened form) is my family name.
許 when combined with different words carry different meaning. For instance, 许愿 means wish and 应许, promise. 许… 很多 or 许多 means many. It also means praise, perhaps, promise, allow.
The rest of my name which my friend gave to me… 平安 means peace, or 宁静 quietness. And 宁 tranquil.
So my name 安宁 translates peaceful, quiet, mostly serene, even if that’s really far from where I am but where I want to be.
Today I discovered that 許 in Japanese is read KYO or YURUZU and means forgiveness.
Although someone else chose my names for me, it was my Father in heaven who gave me my names. John 10:2 says “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ” I love my name and pray that I will live up to what Father created me for.
P.S. In case you are impressed with my level of Mandarin… the meanings were all typed out and explained to me by my friends.
I have a regular listening diet of TED talks. Speakers are given 3-18 minutes to talk on any topic of their passion or expertise. It’s their 18-minute opportunity to change the world.
Tim Longhurst blogged about the TED commandments every speaker needs to know. No wonder the talks are so captivating.
I decided to compile a list of my favourite talks. They are not in any order of rating. I’ll add on the list as the days go by.
- Here’s a short one to start with: Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days. Hmm I’m thinking now what I should do for a 30-day challenge…
- Emiliano Salinas: A civil response to violence. The problem is not the things we feel victims of. The problem is that we play the role of victims. We need to open our eyes and see that we are not victims.
- My mother often talks about how as a child the toys she played with were ones they made out of scrap materials they could find. I did a lot of that myself myself growing up. Watch this delightful clip how Arvind Gupta is Turning trash into toys for learning.
- See Yemen through My Eyes — Nadia Al-Sakkaf, editor of the Yemen Times shares her vision and is bringing about change in a politically hostile environment where women are not embraced or welcomed in a man’s world. A role she has taken on not without great sacrifice, including taking over editor father when he was killed.
