Thomas Fong

Answers on how to design a scalable cloud solution for enterprise from the business perspective. The first question before any solutioning is to ask why. Will migrating to cloud result in cost reduction and achieve your desired business goals? Or do you just need a hosting service? Strategies and design techniques of integrating of different cloud service model (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS), different deployment model (hybrid, public, private) and disaster recovery (Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective) to achieve optimum cost savings, speed to market and reliability is discussed in this book.

Core design principles for a Platform business explained by Paul Sangeet on how to build a platform to enable core interactions that we can own. A must read for building platform based business and market place.

A comprehensive framework to build on your brand. What is the first thing you want people to associate your company and products with? This book provide some possible path to explore ways to project your story to the users.

The biggest take home from this book: "The best people need to be working on the biggest opportunities, not the biggest problems." The best people in the team are often overloaded with fighting critical fires to be working on places where the organization should shine.

A guide book for any customer facing role and business. My favorite from this book, don't ask your client how is the coffee when you don't mean it. It is the number one sign of lack of sincerity and the most common mistakes I have personally experienced by other salesperson.

A very promising company that could have survive the onslaught of Iphones by shifting their core business to the development of their BlackBerry Messenger. They could have been the next Telegram or Whatsapp but they chose not to pivot. Only those who adapt survives in today's market.

Overview of how OKRs work in large enterprise. Importance of setting clear measurable and specific objective key results in public for transparency and collaboration. As Jim Collins said: "What can you be the best at in this world". Once we figure out the answer to this, we should place that as our top OKR.

Compelling negotiation framework that can dispel assumptions and forge understanding between parties towards a common goal. A must read before any negotiations.

"There are 2 great forces of human nature: self-interest and caring for others " - Bill Gates. Giver ? Matcher ? Or Taker ? My take : Find your mission, form your principles and give relentlessly to your mission that is centred on the betterment of people, society and evolution.

As the title suggest, everything about Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) with brief introduction to content type negotiation whenever a HTTP resource is called, purpose of request headers, types of connection established through HTTP , optimization of site through caching, stateless vs stateful web page, setting cookies and security concerns of cookies and HTTPs (protocol) to abstract encryption of content of webpage received and sent.

Good read on the trend of the upcoming disruption in the automobile industry, on what OEMs of car, Technology Companies and startups are investing in. V2V communications protocol will be a major gap to bridge for future integration of AV and manually driven vehicles.

Good read on the adoption of GraphQL over traditional RESTful Architecture of web services. Unifying web transactions to a single end point eliminates multiple endpoint or repository calls which is definitely a plus for data intensive applications, make the application lightweight and scalable. Due design consideration must be given to ensure the reliability and availability of the single end point.

A conceptual level explanation of Hadoop - framework for managing data processing and storage for big data applications, bringing the processing to the data. Brief overview of the architecture of HDFS and how data and tasks are being managed and referenced by NameNode, JobTracker and data racks.

In short: put your tags and keywords in appropriate places, create content regularly using relevant keywords and establish a strategy to get other website to create outbound links to your webpage if you wish to compete on search engine's ranking. OR pay for SEO optimising tools and professionals to help you out.

Speed comprehension leads to speed reading. Learning to pick up key phrases and practising will help you absorb more in a shorter time frame.

Why before How and How before What. "WHATs don't drive decision-making, WHATs should be used as proof of WHY". And HOWs are the process to get to the WHATs. Our decisions must always be grounded with facts and strong reasoning before we can think of how to achieve certain objectives. The result will either reinforce our ideas or force us to rethink our steps.

A good step by step and element by element guide on how to do public speaking. I find one particular strategy in it that works well with me: that is to read through all the contents that you are delivering and memorize it if need be. On the day of the talk, drop all your scripts and just talk, have a conversation with the audience.

"Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win." - We can act to change undesirable environment and lead a revolution against injustice. But we must start small, be patient and claim victory to sustain the motion. Most importantly, we must start. And it have to be us.

Validated actions that one can take to boost your chances of generating successful original ideas to fruition. 1. Question the Default, 2. Triple the number of ideas generated, 3. Immerse yourself in a new domain, 4. Procastinate strategically, 5.Seek more feedback from peers, 6. Balance your risk portfolio, 7. Highlight the reasons not to support your idea, 8. Make your ideas more familiar, 9. Speak to a different audience, 10. Be a tempered radical. On Managing emotions: 11. Motivate yourself differently when you are committed vs uncertain, 12. Turn anxiety into excitement, don't try to calm down, 13. Focus on the victim to trigger empathy, not on the perpetrator which triggers hatred, 14. Realize you are not alone, 15. If you do not take initiative, the status quo will persist.

A story where blind optimism combined with blatant disregard of truth leads to public health being put in jeopardy. Respect to the professionals who upheld their core ethics and choose to reveal the facts despite threats of law suit by one of the top lawyers in the Silicon Valley.

The perfect political apparatus for consolidating power? Apartheid: legally sanctioned racial segregation. The perfect tool for unity? Language. "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart" - Nelson Mandela.

A meaningful world view, to deliver fundamental value to society and mankind. That is what all entrepreneurs should aim for, the money will naturally follows when you bring value to the society.

To be Impeccable with your words, not to make any assumptions, not to take anything personally and to always do your best. Four Agreements that anyone can subscribe and agree to.

"He who has a Why to live can bear almost any How"; "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time wrongly as you are about to act now". Too many snippets of wisdom in this book. Highly recommended to read.

Do you hate "yourself"? Disconnect yourself today from identifying with your mind and body. Let go of all the conditioned past. Do not worry about the unpredictable future. Focus on Now, do your best now and everything will turn out alright. A powerful book that led me to the practise of meditation, this is a book that everyone should have.

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure". A parable that implores all of us to go out and actively pursue our dreams. Not to stop and settle down when we obtain wealth but to endlessly pursue our calling. Because at the end, the pot of gold will be greater than anything you ever had.

The 3 big concepts of Stoicism: Control your perceptions, direct your actions and willingly accept what's outside your control. Great book with 365 days of daily wisdom and experience interpreted from mentors of the past who have gone through way tougher conditions and thrived.

"Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment". Very inspiring memoir by Phil Knight where he advised us to seek a calling before a job, profession or a career.

"Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job - not a calling". It is amazing that how in the face of death, Paul chose to continue his duties as a neurosurgeon, to do what he deems as important and to continuously hone his skills as a neurosurgeon.

A good book on body language 101 to become more conscious of your own body language and of others. Not a definitive guide, but good enough to show you common body language that shows distress and comfort.

Most business value proposition: Price and Proposition Simplification. Do we compete via more competitive pricing or offer to provide a simpler and more effective version of current solution? This book highlight key strategies we can follow and learn from when pushing products and solution out to the market.

This book answers how do we position and create an ideal climate before any actual negotiations and sales take place. "The main purpose of speech is to direct listeners' attention to a selected sector of reality " - Thats where the stage of persuasion takes place.

An excellent guide to cultivating good habits and improving productivity: take incremental tiny steps. Habits don't form overnight or with great resolve. They are formed by practise.

"No one knows how good your products or services are until after the sale. Before they buy, they only know how good your marketing is. Put simply, the best marketer wins every time". Part of bringing an idea to the market, is knowing how to sell your product. If no one buys your product, you will never know who actually needs it.