Spaniards enjoy their life and the people around them. After spending 2 weeks in Madrid and Sevilla… how I wish I can live in Spain!

Do note that the photos are taken by me or my sister except the Siesta spanish yoga. Videos are taken from youtube. And since this is a personal blog I didn’t really bother to ensure the photo sizes are the same. The key thing is to curate my best memories of my holidays!

1. Drink Sangria At Every Meal

Wine is abundant and it costs the same price as a glass of water! But, of course we went ahead and indulged in Sangria!

2. Eat a Variety of Dishes at Half The Portion

Meal doesn’t have to be a one-plate affair. Spainards enjoy have a variety of dishes called racions. Instead of the usual plato or 1 full plate, you get to enjoy a variety of dishes at half the portion and price!

3. Enjoy Art & Culture Everywhere

Spainards live an interesting and balanced lifestyle by preserving their culture and art. Walking in the street of Madrid or Sevilla… you can’t help but enjoy art everywhere you go.

4. Celebrate Festivals With Gusto

We were lucky to be in Sevilla when they were celebrating their 2-week long of Feria. We enjoyed bullfights on 16 April featuring Finito de Córdoba, Juan Jose Padilla and Fandi. We also visited the Feria Sevilla.

5. Hang Out With Your Best Buddies

I love the fact that Spaniards can meet up and ‘network’ & hangout with their buddies! Don’t be surprised if you see oldies hanging out together!

6. Love Pork… Love Spain

If you’re a lover of pork. You’re in a for a real treat! They celebrate life with food. If you’re hungry, jamones tapas is available 24 hours a day at any cafe that stays opened.

7. Dance The Flamingo

Distinctive vigorous tap dancing together with continuous clapping! Catch a full performance at the same venue we watched at the Flamingo Musuem, Sevilla.

We find that the dance is a mix of indian with flamingo. And the singing is quite distinctively muslim inspired. Since, Sevilla was under Moorish rule for 800 years before the roman catholics.

8. Ogle At Lovely Mosaics

We simply love the mosaic influenced by the Moorish era.

9. Be Transported To The Moorish Era

We enjoyed the beautiful Moorish architecture! Watch this video to understand the history behind the Moorish empire in Spain.

10. Take A Nap… It Is Siesta Time

An afternoon is such a good idea. Between 2pm to 5pm, the city is suddenly quiet. Shops and cafes close. People disappear. Not sure whether the locals really return home to sleep. But, at round 5pm to 6pm, the locals start appearing on the streets… looking refreshed and happy!

We think it is such a great idea!

Looking forward to the next Spanish trip!

If, we’re bounded by rules and regulations set up by people. We would not learn new things, gain experience and achieve great heights

Go ahead, break a status quo. Don’t be afraid.

To be safe and work within the boundaries is almost the same as being still, not learning, repeating the same thing and perhaps achieving linear growth vs exponential growth.

I draw similarities with what Nokia said: “We didn’t do anything wrong!”

Go ahead break the status quo

Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this "we didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost". By: Ziyad Jawabra

The product owner is excited about his product and is looking for a good UX Designer. He wants to improve his product such that the user experience is perfect and top-notch.

A UX person is pretty much described as someone who sits in the office and hacks away and launch a top-notch user experience without even talking to the user.

UX is pretty much misunderstood. It will take some time before non -UX folks understand that UX is collaborative design. A UX designer can’t just hack away a good user experience sitting at his desk without getting to know who the user is and how the user interacts with the product.

What is sufficient information?

And sufficient information for one person may not be sufficient for another. And one risk getting into a situation of analysis paralysis. When one need to gather even more information before making a decision.

Need for Calculated Risk to be taken

In business, one must take a calculated business decision.

Strategies can be tweaked

As in all business situations. Decisions have to be made and action to be taken. And only after which then can one see results, learn and make changes to strategies taken.

The flip side of taking too long to make a decision

Waiting for sufficient information to be collected before making decisions. Or agonising on which decisions to take … basically, means that by the time the decision is made … the business environment would have changed. And the decision made would be based on out dated information that are no longer relevant.

Don’t want too long to make a decision

So, just imagine the time taken to decide on your next move or strategies to take. Time would have passed while one agonising or collecting more information to make your decision. Imagine the data points and learnings you would have gathered during that time. Which in turn would be able to make a 2nd phase strategies with data collected from the first decision.

Leap of Faith

So, the next time you have to make a tough decision. Be committed to coming up with a decision based on ‘sufficient information’ you have. Take a leap of faith with a dash of intuition and reasoning.

And remember … taking that first step and give you more data points to help you on the 2nd phase of decision making.

Don’t waste time … make a decision now. Don’t over agonize. If you fail, you fail. At least, you move and learn.

Today in class, we were asked to spend 5 mins writing about things or people we are grateful for.

We were given a A5 size paper and we started writing.

I am amaze at all the good things that have happened and is happening to me.

All the good people whom I have met. The opportunities I have been given and the opportunities ahead of me.

My mom and dad. My sisters, nephews and brother -in-laws.

Luke, Esther, General Assembly and my new found love… UX!

My list started to expand to the environment we live in. Clean drinkable water in Singapore. An extremely liveable Singapore, good transport system. and a safe home. The beautiful Keong Saik Road that we are at, everyday.

My gratitude list got longer and longer. And yes, true enough the positive energy that came from writing the gratitude list is still lingering in my spirit. It has over shadowed all the ‘negative energy’ that has come my way.

How about you? What are you grateful for?

Grit is passion and perseverance for long -term goals. Working really hard to make the future a reality. It is a marathon not a sprint.

Talent doesn’t make you gritty. Grit is inversely related to measure of talent.

Growth mindset is developed Carol Dweck a professor in Stanford University.

A growth mindset isn’t just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students’ achievement, but it’s not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they’re stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches — not just sheer effort — to learn and improve.

Measure whether you have been successful. We need to be gritty.

This brings me to mind… for a startup to succeed it takes grit and perseverance.

A startup that is launched with a concept of early exit i.e. a sprint is probably not going to be a unicorn.

Ihave just returned from a 2-week break in Shanghai. I was nervous when I booked the ticket on a whim when I saw the Singapore Airlines ticket sold at rock bottom price.

I asked myself whether I can afford this trip on many levels:

1. I am in a startup and have to save every penny I have.
2. I should be focused on my work and not reward myself on a trip.
3. I should be looking for more ways to monetize

I persuaded myself I needed it and bought the ticket anyways in less than 10 mins after discovering the promotion on Singapore Airlines website.

A wave of panic immediately overcame me… did I do the right thing? Should I have been more cautious about my expenses since I am in a startup?

Should I just continue to work like a horse non-stop? I should be picking up a new skill? Is it possible to drop everything? All these questions flooded my head non-stop.

For the next few weeks, these worries just got pushed aside as I busy myself with day-to-day tasks.

I told myself I will ‘worry’ about it when the time come and just pack my luggage the night before. So, I don’t necessarily anticipate the trip and get overly excited about it. And perhaps, I will feel less guilty about it.

Soon after, I was reminded how careless I was for doing so when I was given a warning by a friend for indulging in a trip that long. I felt guilty after that conversation. And those guilty thoughts were repeated in my head for many hours and days after.

The time came for the trip … I packed my bags 1 hour before I left home for Changi Airport. I travelled to Shanghai and came back.

I must say, a trip out of your country gives you fresh perspectives on your life and career.

I promise myself from now onwards, I am not going to bogged down by career, practical dogma and stay put in Singapore.

No matter how busy I am, I am just going to travel. Even if is frowned upon by practical Singaporeans to do the right thing. And not destroy life’s rhythm or opportunities…whatever that mean?

I don’t give a Hoot! Toot! Toot!

Sitting put at my desk, doesn’t necessarily make my life better. In fact, I become very dull and unhappy.

And, opportunities are not all found at your desk; sweating it out for long hours… doesn’t necessarily bring you personal fulfillment or fortune.

You can also achieve personal fulfillment and maybe even fortune when you travel!

Your brain gets a seismic shift of sorts! And your brain i.e .YOU will thank YOU for it!

What Is a Tag?

A tag is a snippet of code that sends information to a third party, such as Google. If you don’t use a tag management solution such as Google Tag Manager, you need to add these snippets of code directly to files on your website or mobile app.

With Google Tag Manager, you no longer need to maintain each of these code snippets in your source files. Instead, you specify the tags that you want to fire, and when you want them to fire, from within the Google Tag Manager user interface.

Google Tag Strategies & Framework

1. Migrate all tags to 1 place to avoid additional code changes
2. Decide static and dynamic value pass to your website: revenue, booking data ( think of events or user actions being captured using tag manager).
3. Data requirement should map back to overall business goals

Example of Measurement Plan — The Great Outdoors

Tag Implementation Plan

What is a Container Tag?

Google Tag Manager for web works via its own container tag that you place on all your website pages. For mobile, Tag Manager is deployed via an SDK for Android or iOS. The container replaces all other manually-coded tags on your site or app, including tags from AdWords, Google Analytics, Floodlight, and 3rd party tags. (See a list of supported tags.) Once the Google Tag Manager container tag has been added to your site, you update, add, and administer additional tags right from the Google Tag Manager web application.

Your Google Tag Manager account allows you to administer the tags for one or more websites. Although you can set up multiple Google Tag Manager accounts from a single Google account, you’ll typically only need one Google Tag Manager account per company or organization. Read Setup and Workflow to learn more.

Content from About Google Tag Manager

Brand Marketers tend to be right brain individuals. They’re creative, spontaneous, intuitive, thoughtful and subjective.

I just attended a webinar conducted by a PR expert from the US, after looking at his slide… I realized that the speaker is a right-brained. Someone who excels in art, language, spontaneous and emotional.

I screen shot his slide below to illustrate.

Brand Marketer Explains Data with a Beautiful Image on the Powerpoint Slide :

To be honest, it has been a long time since I have seen this type of data slide since I started working at eBay; data driven slides rule the day. The senior teams were run by consultants ( good at number crunching) not brand marketers ( good in brand positioning. All about colours and emotions etc).

A pretty slide was never admired at eBay, unlike in a creative agency. A logical presentation and analysis backed by data were highly regarded and preferred.

A Data- Driven Marketer Explains Data with Graphs on the Powerpoint Slide:

And if you present data in this manner, then you’re left-brained. A left- brainer is someone that involves logic, language, and analytical thinking

Are You Predominately Left or Right?

Is it true that most people are either left-brained or right-brained. Are there brilliant folks who can master both numbers and art i.e. left & right brain?

In Singapore, we were streamed into different classes early in our teens. Either we were in the arts class or maths class. In our formative years, we were trained to use more of one side of our brain.

Ever-Evolving Digital Marketing

And now, with digital marketing evolving into a left-brain type of job requirements… right brain marketers have to retrain and fire-start our left brain which were probably left dormant and somewhat lazy.

So which one are you? Or are you brilliantly both left and right brained. As Forefront Magazine wrote that Mark Piazza, CFO of MediaCom North America uses both left and right brain to talents to ensure that budgets are spent on priorities and that dollars are matched with real key performance indicators.

Here is 1 more illustration of left vs right brain. You be the judge whether you’re more left or more right. Or perfectly both!!

Knowing which one side you lean into can help you to be more centred. Get what I mean?

I painfully know which side of my brain I use more. Need to fire-start the other side to be more centred. Trying very hard but I think it has been asleep for many years.

And if you’re unsure which one you are. One quick trick to is check your notebook. Do you write notes neatly and sequentially? Or do you scribble everywhere that you can’t even find where you wrote what. I know my answer. Do you?

Footnote: I wonder is a programmer left or right brained? I guess left brained … since he or she needs to be logical and sequential. And those in the finance sector needs to be left brained.

Perhaps entertainers and musicians are right brained?

1.Measure the amount of traffic you currently drive for long tail keywords.

By establishing this from the beginning, you’ll be able to measure if you’re gaining traction for those keyword phrases month over month.

2. Analyze how useful the long tail traffic is. If you end up in the top of the SERPs for a long tail keyword phrase but drive no traffic for it, it’s not a good place to spend your time. If you get traffic but low conversions, start testing your calls-to-action and landing pages. If, after A/B testing CTAs and landing pages, you’re still seeing no improvements, focus your efforts on more profitable keywords.

3. Determine which keywords yield the most revenue.

Start tracking which long tail keywords drive the most future customers. Over time, you can even attribute customer acquisition costs and lifetime customer value metrics to this equation.

4. Evaluate the success of content optimized with long tail keywords. Metrics to consider are bounce rate, time on page, social reach, and inbound links.

If visitors leave a blog post about how to make a unicorn costume in 4 seconds, for example, one can infer that blog post is not useful for people searching that term.

5.Piggyback on success by targeting similar terms (Synonyms)

When you’ve identified long tail keyword phrases that drive traffic, conversions, and other positive site metrics, experiment with synonyms of those words.

For example, if there’s success with the termunicorn costumes for kids, there is probably also opportunity with the term unicorn costumes for children.

6.Identify holes and opportunities in your content.

If you see people coming to your site from relevant search terms you hadn’t considered, there’s an opportunity to optimize your site for that group of searchers.

For example, a costume retailer could capitalize on the search term Halloween safety tips for children even though the term doesn’t explicitly mention unicorn costumes (or any costumes, for that matter), while still remaining relevant to readers.

Strategies and Content from The Ultimate Guide for Mastering Long Tail Search