Category Archives: Interior design in Asia

Does long working hours translate to real profits?

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These are the 10 most influential brands in the world according to the April 2, 2013 article by Kochie’s Business Builders:

1. Google

2. Microsoft

3. Apple

4. Facebook

5. Visa

6. Coca-Cola

7. Samsung

8. YouTube

9. MasterCard

10. P&G

After I saw this result, I am puzzled because there is only 1 Asian Company on the list. It can’t be because most Asian businesses have the tradition of working overtime. Longer working hours means higher productivity which many Asian businesses deeply believe. So, based on that theory, it should have more Asian businesses on the list.

We also can see most of the companies on this list are American businesses and most American businesses do not promote working overtime. I think for many Asian business owners, this list must be wrong.

The True Productivity

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There are a lot of businesses out there still believe working overtime can increase productivity but fail to realize productivity should not be measured by how much is accomplished alone, how much time spent on fixing the mistakes and revising bad ideas should also be considered.

For example, if a set of construction drawing normally requires 7 days to finish but you push your designers to finish it in 3 days, maybe your designer can finish it in 3 days as you requested, but you might want to consider if any error or bad design has occurred due to the fatigue your designer sustained because of long working hours.

If your designers spent 3 days to finish the drawings but spend another 5 days worth of work on correcting mistakes or stupid designs, arguing with contractors/vendors, and apologizing to the clients, then you must calculate the total time spent on this construction drawing set as 8 days, not 3 days anymore. This sounds like a no-brainer, but many employers out there are still ignoring it and deeply believe by working overtime, they can get more things done and fail to realize it is just absolutely an illusion.

A lesson of democracy from a hit Hollywood movie

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Chinese audiences laughed about the scenes in the movie “White House Down” showing the transferring of power with the nuclear weapon launching code from the president to vice president and to speaker of the House if the leader was dead or incapable of performing the tasks in the US. I think the Chinese people should stop laughing and think if the similar situation happened to your government, what kind of power transferring mechanism your government has in order to insure the power won’t fall into one crazy nut or fall into no one?? I think that is the lesson Chinese people can learn from this action packed movie. I give this movie a thumb up.

Culture Insensitive Interior Design

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There are lots of mediocre stuff going on in the interior design world, one example is to design a space with Oriental elements. One particular thing that disturbed me was seeing the cut-off Buddha’s head displayed on a stick. I studied European or American art and architecture history for a while and never saw designers displayed any chopped off Jesus Christ’s head on a stick. I personally think it is a very disrespectful practice and I do not think the designers who designed this kind of element fully understand the content of Asian culture which reflects what I just mentioned, mediocre.Culture InsensitiveMediocre Oriental Design