Hi,

First let's start with you.

What you bring to our table:

You have something going on. A project or an itch to change or to do something. Other examples might be job hunting, a career change, a promotion, starting a business, doing better with a business, business issues. Perhaps you want to enrich a technical process so it has better relationships.

And/or:

You have a vision, a dream, or a story that you need to flesh out and make real.

You're looking for better, or new. Or maybe just different.

The basics, life balance. Maybe one side of the wheel of your life has gone flat.

Maybe you have a cross-cultural journey. Running your business into China, or your China business into the West, or ASEAN. Or, working our way west, you've bumped into the opportunities in India.

Now some meat on me.

I grew up in the country, mixed forest and farmlands West of Duncan on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. And I spent a lot of my early years outside by myself, and, as I tell people, my first language was squirrel. Coming from a farming, logging and sawmilling family I went to the University of British Columbia and got a degree in Forest Resource Management. So its natural that I'm a walker and a critter watcher, and  have a good handle on ecosystems and systems theory and practice. You might view me as a country bumpkin living in the city, with about six pairs of binoculars, good situation awareness and lots of scars from doing  things. Country people have traditionally been called pagans, and I'm a pragmatic Taoist. As in the roots of lean. As in the “Art of War” and “The Tao of Physics”, yin yang, and so on in a living web of natural patterns and ways. It makes sense, country kid, ecosystems trained, and years of experience learning, using, and blending the natural patterns (which leads into the story for "Why Windwaterwine" below).

Value experience-adventures

I spent years working in and traveling in and out of small logging camps along the B.C. Coast. I designed roads and bridges and cut-blocks and small villages and airfields and so on. I dealt with, and coached, a lot of near jailbirds, just out of, avoiding, wannabes, and a lot of people who had reasons to avoid other people. I'm practical, do what's needed. I'm good at coming up with solutions and applying them. So they made me a troubleshooter. Of course I quickly learned that technical solutions learned at one logging camp often didn't apply at all well at the next, because they had to first go through individual and group social filters on the way. So in the process I became a coach and consultant. Done well, people did what needed to be done and I mostly just watched their accomplishments. It was good not to in any-way-shape-or-form argue with some of the six-months-in-camp people. This growth process is partially why I'm very good at watching things start-up and go, or go from wretched to working, and even working to wonderful.

Later I became a consulting forester, my outfit was WoodsWise Consulting Inc. There I added surprising-to-me bits on organizational change and starting and helping in-town businesses go. As personal computers came along, I found them useful for mapping and databases, and got hooked. With computer mapping and databases, people could see what they had and what was going on, and make sharper decisions. The computer system can help suggest better ways, you do that, adjusting with reality on the way, then update the computer information and see what comes out. Rapid cycling between the two improves both – the entrepreneurial pattern again.

I went into software development, P.C. Softsmith, and operated that business for about fifteen years. Most of my support was by email, and I talked with people all over the world. I don't do support calls the way the call centres do, partially because I found that happier people half-solve their own problems.

What they say:

Ying & Yang Thinker 

100% Design-school  80% Business-school

You balance exploration and exploitation, art and science, and analytical and intuitive thinking. You are a design thinker. You are fearless, you embrace a challenge, and realize that in order to achieve great results, mistakes must be made. You think differently about structure, process, and cultural norms, so take advantage of your powerful competitive edge− you have the ability to drive a brand or business forward. You may feel inclined to speak to others about your innermost feelings, your past, and things that build closeness and trust in your relationships. You are also a sympathetic listener, drawing out others' feelings and personal experiences. You have it all.    (www.ideacouture.com/quiz/results/view/vic/3889)

(They have it wrong - yin yang spin into five moving-doing-living phases.<grin>)

Outside view, inside

I mostly add an outside view, maybe some extra information, cheer things up, then e

mpower the person who can actually see the problem to solve it. I think all support calls should be done standing up, maybe going on and off a tall chair like a draughting chair at times.

That software business evolved more into consulting and training, linked to me taking up Toastmasters.

I eventually became a Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), and did Club Rescue for over five years. I have years of experience helping small volunteer groups pull things together and regrow their clubs. Team and leader building in some cultures, and cultural mixes, and many circumstances. I think of it as akin to gardening, and growing people. Maybe wild gardens because people are all individuals, then you grow person-person interactions and relationships, and success. Years of Toastmasters, so I think I'm pretty good at the talking bit too.

Need a speech?

For maybe ten years I did multifaith stuff every month, more or less between the Gulf wars. The second war nuked cooperation, and really cut into my free Buddhist vegetarian lunches. Despite the cutoff, I have a Multifaith book in the works; maybe it'll see the light of day someday. I'd like to add Asian Confucianism and a look at agile – trickster – native ways. Understanding them might be good. And I ask, where does culture fade into faith? (Free workshop in trade for vegetarian lunch, anybody?)

Hongcouver

Here in Hongcouver, aka Vancouver, we're aiming at a dominant Asian population. That's what I say about my Chinese wife too. About four years ago, in 2006, I married her and we went to China. We travelled to over 34 big Chinese cities, mostly by train and bus. I worked and lived in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Harbin, in Chinese circumstances. I didn't go home to Western living any night. Working - consulting, teaching, training, coaching, in ESL mixtures. I've flown to Shanghai enough times consulting to be better than most locals at bypassing the taxi line-ups at the domestic airport. I've inspected all kinds of factories and watched too many containers loaded with stuff going to North America. I've had clothes made for me in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Harbin – that's a good way to learn how locals do things, how they think, creativity, norms, and quality.

(They make the Y-12 aircraft in Harbin. It has two Canadian engines and U.S. propellers, and is the same size and shape as the famous Twin Otter (pic). But even with a lot of direct and wiggling indirect approaches, over two years, I couldn't get them interested in selling such aircraft in the West.)

Twotter airplanes

Over the years I've built up a huge library of consulting, coaching, and training materials, and after years in China, very few books. Worse, more information seems to arrive all the time clambering in over the web, partially because I'm an auto didact, an extremely strong self-learner. Oh yeah, I was pretty good at bypassing the great firewall surrounding China when I was there. I also have a rich store of multicultural awareness based on my experiences, and my ongoing fingers-on-the pulses.

Web Intelligence

I'm a webaholic. My sys

tems constantly collect information from the web. I read fast and try to be very selective, while being constantly overwhelmed. I feed parts of that flow to some other people every day – and get floods back. If you want to join that web tide, then talk to me. My intelligence extends across the web.

At my first school in China I had one class of rich power kids, police parents and such. I was teaching for an Australian university inside a Chinese university with my rich kid class in a nearby middle school. They had nearly no English and were a year away from Foundation classes preparatory to entering the Aussie Accounting degree program. They had to understand the Aussie teachers or fail. They didn't care, power kids graduate whether they work or not, and couldn't understand me anyway. So I made it fun and worked with one to three students at a time, who then spread the learnings in waves through the class. Fun teaching bent the Chinese teachers out of shape, so the Dean moved the class over to the university. All the desks disappeared from the university classroom, so I trained the class to hunt (and desks are slower than squirrels). I tell you that the students learned a lot faster when they realized they had to fight unseen teachers and not just over disappearing desks. Two of my students didn't come up with English names for themselves, and apparently their Chinese teachers thought I should supply names. So we called them #23 and #24. They flowered about the same as the rest

Flow of a Project

If you've browsed my WindWaterWine blog you'll know my ideas on the creative to perfect spectrum. Think of it like the flow of a project. At the input end, some of us, the more creative/innovative, make a lot of misteaks and put the basics together. The results flow across the spectrum into the middle, where most of us live and most of the work is done. Over on the far side the finishers perfect things. Organizations and cultures need to perpetuate themselves, so they tend to perfecting existing things instead of changing to new things all the time. I've spent a lot of my life doing new things, creating things, changing ways, and I'm a cultural creative. I tend to the innovator side, and at the same time I've written years of software which has to be nearly 'perfect' if it's going to compile and work.

For a LOT of what I've done I've needed to wander around outside the box as a living role model. It took years of prodding before they opened the first seaplane base in Shenzhen. Small airplanes on floats are not at all inside the PRC Chinese box. They are normal, everyday, and akin to air taxis/buses here in the Vancouver area. I think the Shenzhen scheme is still a few steps from a good implementation. Hint for opportunity hunters, the whole small aircraft area is a huge opportunity area inside China. They don't have any now.

International Relations Manager

Continuing on. At that first school in China they transferred me to “International Relations Manager”, responsible for relations with other Aussie universities we were attracting, and for getting new students. I also worked on forming a new vocational school as part of the same group. Later, I helped start-up the first Web International school in Shenzhen, then upgraded the Witty International school in Tianjin. Next I helped start the Meten R&D center in Shenzen, and as a 'R&D Courseware Developer' I wrote and tested course materials, and trained teachers and students with the materials. We grew to four schools in Shenzhen and fourteen in Southeast China. Next I moved to an Ontario high school program in Guangzhou, helping it double its student population, reversing years of dwindling. Back in Harbin, I helped a guy buy and upgrade eight local schools, mostly I trained Chinese English teachers to improve their teaching – mostly with observations and questions. My biggest change was getting them to informally check-results-test fast, sometimes in each class, to get early spoken feedback, then correct individual students, instead of just plowing through the class. We got excellent quality improvements, immediate independent testing, and happy parents attracting more clients. This is an entrepreneurial pattern, and an agile pattern. It's a kind of design to fit - design thinking.

Can I help you?

Jumping ahead. Dummy me comes back to Canada. I wait in the parking lot for my wife and granddaughter to finish a Chinese scissors-cut-paper class. Dead vehicle battery – four years storage, and some idiot listening to English language radio for the first time in years. Not good to have a dead battery. I lift the hood, poke about, and someone asks “can I help you?” We talk, he doesn't have jumper cables. I have some but they're five hours and a ferry ride away. Another woman comes up and asks if she can help – no cables. Another guy, with no cables. This is good. People help each other here. I'm cheering up. I can just stand there and be cheerfully stupid and the problem will solve itself. Almost like a consultant. Yup, the next guy has cables and can park close enough to use them. His battery doesn't show positive or negative so we test spark our way to starting up, and I take my wife and the little scissors-cutter for a long drive.

Okay, I've just started things up, things are still revving up for me, so I ask you “can I help you with that?” Can we generate productive sparks together?         Try   604-657-9595    or  Vic@windwaterwine.com

A slideshow:

Beyond the meat.

Why WindWaterWine?

Why the name? Well, my name wasn't available in many places, and I wanted a consistent name across LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. So I looked about and thought. I wanted something that suggests flow and getting better. Wine ages. Wind and water flow, and there are excellent models for the flow, as in feng shui. In the Vancouver area, office feng shui goes right into good office work flow and good ergonomics. Practical stuff, except that it misses stand-up desks and chairs.

Some lives flow longer and better and happier. Some stay reasonably happy through hellish things.

A key ingredient is adapting to changes, tolerating experiments with the weeds of change, making them useful, while looking for ways to live in the focus of change. Locus instead of focus if you prefer.

Think of flowing water. If it flows too fast it's not useful. A waterfall often looks good but you can't swim or boat in it. The same pattern holds for a typhoon. Dramatic changes in life tend to drown things.

A similar thing occurs with long stretches of straight water, or straight roads. Things go fast and we get more accidents. Rivers jump banks during high water, and people speed up while attention lulls, and crunch.

Good moving curving water flow adds pleasures in watching and using it. Lakes can be fun and useful.

Dead water, stagnant swamps, breed mosquitoes and bring diseases. When we refuse change we cut-off the flow, tending things towards swampy. Changing the model just a bit, if we cut inflows off, we end up with a puddle, likely to dry up in the sun. Like most businesses, and most people with type 2 diabetes, and so on.

Some flows are more adventurous, some better for irrigation and boating.

Some flows refine, ageing like fine wine.

A Design explanation? Or what?

Try   604-657-9595    or   Vic@windwaterwine.com