An eclectic IT career: Mayo Takeuchi

Leadership blind spot: how to support your remote and hybrid people

2025-08-26T12:40:00.001+02:00

Controversial opinion: leaders who think or convince themselves into believing that supporting RTO (return to office) policies is the right thing to do are less likely to truly understand and support their teams.

I joined IBM half a lifetime (literally!) ago, after an intensive, in person/on site experience at a dot com startup which succumbed to the IT bubble bursting. Ever since then I have only held geographically distributed, cross cultural, and often cross-functional roles.

A two year consulting engagement I had with a customer also involved my running mini-projects with stakeholders in six different countries with distinct cultures, languages, and approaches to problem solving. So by the time I became a People Manager in 2021, not only was I well versed in remotely supporting colleagues, upline, and clients, it had become my way of working.

With the trend in many companies bringing people back to the office, I am firmly on the side of honouring the remote option for most* employees, especially as a leader. Why?

I've written about this at length before: trust underpins success. Leaders need to earn their teams' collective trust to be effective. This is difficult to do, and easily lost. Earning trust is about the quality of (two way) communication and consistency of actions matching words. It is not possible to build or maintain trust simply by being physically present in the same building or even spending concentrated periods of time together.
The corollary to the aboveis that team should be trusted first by leaders. People tend to live up to expectations, or down to lowered ones. Even humans in their mid-20s are grownups (even if they don't feel like they are!) and deserve to be treated as trustworthy individuals who can manage their own workload and time.
It is objectively easier to manage one's time and be productive when working remotely. No commute (nor the expense or energy drain from said commute), proximity to family members who need support and other amenities, and the aforementioned trust placed in team members by upline combined result in improved productivity.
I strongly believe that professionals should be assessed by the quality of their output and not by whether they are willing to sacrifice their time and sap their energy to appear at the water cooler or are in their element in after work events.

Of course, how they work with others affects a leader's perceptions of their overall worth and few roles can be performed well in complete isolation socially (more's the pity, I used to believe).

As a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, I am naturally inclined to both favour 1:1 interactions and to listen actively. These are strengths that permit me to get to know the people I support via regular touchpoints regardless of whether they're in person meetups or via videoconferencing. Knowing your team makes it easier to support them in ways that they need and in ways that they want.

*The extroverts - who were in the minority in most teams I have worked with - were miserable during Covid-19 lockdowns, so for their mental well-being I support at least a hybrid model when it makes sense to. If your stakeholders or most of your team mates are remote to you, however, we end up with this scenario anyway (due credit goes to Rob Cottingham for the below cartoon):

Leadership blind spot: working on self awareness

2025-08-21T12:07:00.000+02:00

There are a few reasons why many colleagues have lauded me as someone they appreciate and an effective leader. What has aided greatly in my being a valued professional is my self awareness. Whether from being the only Nikkei student in day (English/French) school, the only woman in an university course, the only Canadian in a room full of Europeans*, or in a minority by being neurodivergent (which in itself merits a separate post or several), I have always felt or objectively been conspicuously different.

Everyone is unique, of course, but I have looked foreign everywhere in the four (Western) countries where I have lived. Due to these circumstances, I am (as judged by body language and values) too westernized to fit into Japanese culture since I never lived in Japan, although I can speak the language at a near native level. To date, I have only felt like I belonged in one place: New York City.

Being significantly different to a relatively homogenous group of people not only means that I notice when I am treated differently, but also when I react differently because my frame of reference is not the predominant one. Thus it has been critical to me to understand who I am, how I prefer to act, and what values I uphold. It also means that I tend to be open minded when meeting new people: I never presume to "have their number" or pigeon hole anyone solely based on first impressions or shallow conversation.

It is also clear that, as I am often the only second generation Japanese Canadian woman that people have become personally acquainted with, that I have had to frequently field at best benign stereotypes and at worst, harsh prejudices. I have repeatedly discovered that their assumptions of what type of individual I am, whether favourable or not, was extremely different to my self image.

Experience has proven to me that only clear and consistent communication both in word and deed, of being "true to myself" can, if slowly, mitigate gaps in perception much of the time. Fortunately I have thus far managed to find open-minded people, aided most likely by a higher incidence rate of neurodiversity, to study and work with.

In the business realm, establishing trust by behaving consistently and reliably is critical, and being realistic about your strengths and weaknesses, growing both as an individual and as a professional, judiciously choosing what to be open about and what to keep private, are all facilitated by working on self awareness. Below is a rendering of the Johari Window courtesy of Google Gemini which I recommend as a framework to continually work on ourselves.

Have you already set goals for your own development? What has been the most effective activities you've undertaken for this journey?

*I am well aware that Europeans, US citizens, and Canadians are not monolithic. Nonetheless, I have generally found that monotheistic religions and those raised in a culture that was shaped by them have more in common than those that evolved with polytheistic doctrines.

Courtesy of Google Gemini, a Johari Window Theory infographic extract which I generated.

A chance to do things better: AI vs. Internet

2025-06-30T12:40:00.003+02:00

An AI generated image I designed to represent an unfettered internet and a still youthful AI

Being a late Gen-Xer, I was an adolescent when the internet fundamentally disrupted most of the world's access to information. Its mainstream deployment gathered steam in the 1990s, starting with text based interactions between humans, the publishing of HTML formatted content, and gave rise to the usefulness of not only portable telephones, but devices with large screens, to wit, smart phones (Japan had led this technological invention, for reasons such as but not limited to having double-byte characters with bifold designs of phones with colour displays and beautiful ringtones. But this was around 2000-2005: then the iPhone arrived on the scene).

What I did not see these past 30-ish years, however, was governments and public services thinking through how to reach their voting constituents or their dependents. Nor, during my many years strategizing about search engine optimization, social media marketing, and web site enhancement topics, did I discern any overlay of ethical frameworks on how the internet itself should be leveraged to serve the population. GDPR compliance and other data privacy related notions have been challenging to implement precisely because, like many OWASP vulnerabilities, they have been added post hoc to an existing ecosystem.

Instead, we with scant exceptions have been using Big Tech owned Social Media channels to disseminate news, facilitate schoolwork, and otherwise only designed custom applications when data deemed more sensitive (e.g. taxation related PII/SPI) came into play. The sheer convenience (and possibly an aversion to "reinventing the wheel"?) and cost factors appear to be mainly responsible for our situation. After widespread awareness of "political technology" and the takeover of popular channels by billionaires, next gen platforms such as Bluesky and Substack have arisen.

And now, a huge swathe of humans have access to generative AI solutions, much of which has been trained to date on internet content which reflects biases, myths, prejudices, and blatant misinformation which humans have been creating for decades. This means that "we" (human enabled AI) can publish even more "information" online which is just as likely built upon a foundation of contradictory or fictitious . We find ourselves needing to take a step back to examine how we can quality control the inputs we feed AI.

AI deployment in specific contests already seems to be having some false starts - the hype and promises are over inflated as with anything novel, and I am sincerely hoping that societies will choose to curb real life consequences humanely and sensibly even as we increasingly rely on AI and come to terms with how it, as any powerful tool, can be harnessed for good and monitored for misuse/wrongdoing.

There have, fortunately, long existed more authoritative, powerful voices than mine advocating for ethical AI, curating training data stringently, and wider adoption of medium or smaller language models for deeply specialized and accurate insights. And my path to becoming an expert myself in any specific aspect of this will be a long one despite my grounding in natural language processing and hands on work in machine learning. Nevertheless, I am one more concerned citizen, insisting that all technology benefits from being steered towards a balanced and thoughtful approach between innovation and societally responsible implementation. Let us use the internet, which connects us all, for this ethical and valuable aim, so that we handle AI better than we did with the internet was in its infancy.

Transforming Corporate Culture requires Trust

2024-03-26T17:21:00.005+01:00

Since being selected in 1Q 2022 to represent not only my organization, its division, but also my country location as a member of the IBM Manager Champion Group for that year, I frequently used the above virtual background in my web based calls.

Working remotely had been my norm since well before the pandemic: that in itself deserves a separate post, especially since I have returned to a 3/2 split of office/home working in 2024. Yet it's inextricably linked to the main topic I've been ruminating on lately: corporate culture.

The terms of manager and leader have been co-cited often by IBM HR. However, I believe we are all capable of behaving like leaders, whether or not we have the responsibilities and privileges afforded to us to perform managerial duties.

The Growth Behaviours (note my Canadian spelling, unlike in the picture) as we have been encouraged to embody, consist of the following topics:

Growth Minded

by staying curious and open to feedback, experimentation, learning from everyone, and focusing on solutions not the problems.

Trusted

by being candid, open and transparent so that our teams feel empowered and accountable.

Team Focused

by building inclusive relationships with respect and empathy and collaborating across the business to drive organizational outcomes.

Courageous

by thinking independently, taking risks, and making critical decisions in tough situations.

Resourceful

by being resilient, both personally and in business, and being creative with what we have.

Outcome Focused

by testing the status quo and using a customer-centered and nimble approach in everything we do.

Of the above, Trusted is the one behaviour that I perceive as the most critical and foundational to enabling all the other behaviours:

When you trust those around you, you will naturally seek out knowledge and advice from them. You feel comfortable in admitting to not know everything, and trust enables a safe space in which to experiment.
Trust is key to building an authentic rapport with anyone: that they will reveal their individuality, admit to having struggles, to be vulnerable.
It's easier to take risks and controversial decisions when you trust those around you to not punish you for being courageous, and also easier to offer what may seem to be outlandish ideas when you can trust your situation to freely think creatively.
When trust facilitates effective networking and teamwork, it opens doors to unforeseen opportunities and creative problem solving through new perspectives, resources, and possibilities - in other words, trust unlocks resourcefulness.
With trust enabling teamwork, true agility is made possible. With trust between you and your customers, stakeholders, and upline too, better communication can permit teams to proactively head off problems at the onset and steer themselves to desired outcomes.

Furthermore, trust is only possible to build and maintain through effective communication, consistency, an establishing of reliable actions that serve to reinforce, not undermine one's words. Trust is all too easily and quickly lost.

Thoughts on moving into People Management

2021-12-18T17:41:00.002+01:00

Mid December in 2021 marked six months since I moved from an Individual Contributor role of coordinating Infosec (although mainly electronic rather than paper based data related) Incident Response for my employer, to managing my former peers in the squad I'd been a part of for the prior two years.

Since I'd had a 22 year career prior to my arrival in Cybersecurity, I'd had a long time to reflect upon what styles of management I would like to model, especially since I've experienced different styles of management as a practitioner. Generally speaking, the Golden Rule - treating others as I wish to be treated - resonates with me strongest. Being trusted, respected, and given constructive, timely feedback. Allowed to voice my views freely and perceived as a multi faceted individual rather than fitting into some mold of what someone in my role is supposed to be like, or limited by what I've already demonstrated rather than having my potential nurtured. I also hope that I've successfully been conveying that I appreciate everyone that I am in a position to help.

While I knew that my multi-tasking and time management skills would be put to the test, I have still been surprised by how random and varied the one-off sorts of requests and situations seem to be. Having to also consume quite a lot of guidance and learn a new to me set of tools has also taken up my attention when I would rather be focused on other matters. I see my most valuable powers to be more in identifying and removing blockers for my people, and for the newcomers, moving first from a training role (as I have recent and direct experience with their daily work) into a coaching role as they become seasoned team members.

In my recruitment efforts to find two additional Incident Responders, I struggled to find candidates who I saw potential in when they lacked direct experience, and when they did, their temperaments clearly pointed to a strong preference to be forensic investigators and analysts. This may warrant a separate post later.

At times, I've noticed that the term leader and manager are being used interchangeably as I have done above. In one separate area at my employer's managers are called "career coaches" which I find to be a topic worth teasing out in its own post eventually. Historically, I have perceived leaders to be challenged with inspiring everyone and building up their intrinsic motivation, by holistically grasping a team's existing strengths, helping the organization overall to explore its potential, and being exemplary. Managers, on the other hand, are required to devote time to addressing logistical issues and make fine detail decisions at the individual level. They also have the power to extrinsically motivate their team members fiscally.

I have always made a distinct effort to care about and help out my colleagues (one of the 9 practices my employer extols is "show personal interest") - but now, it is a core aspect to this role. My strong introversion has always lent itself to my faring better in 1:1 rather than group based interactions, so that aspect of my regular activities is even more enjoyable than I anticipated.

The road to my becoming a manager is not just my own to tell, but I intend to impart it sometime as it was quite dramatic.

For my holiday reading, I plan on exploring the topics of coaching and leadership through a few books I've purchased in digital format. Hopefully I will be able to resume posting here whenever an extended break permits.

To all reading this, I wish a restorative and joyous holiday season, and an energized, healthy start to the New Year!

On my Twentieth Service Anniversary - a Retrospective

2020-12-10T19:46:00.001+01:00

December 11th 2020, was my 20th anniversary since starting at IBM. I wasn't quite sure how to start this article: I just knew I wished to write something down.

Like many career IBMers, I've learned something - usually several things - every day, solved problems, made mistakes, helped others, been inspired, and sought out support from areas and people I didn't know existed in the matrixed yet siloed presence that is our employer. On balance I am grateful for much of my experiences, and especially for the people who I've gotten to know, respect, and care for.

So, with apologies to non-IBMers who would be unfamiliar with the org structure (although I've otherwise tried to avoid internal jargon and initialisms) I dedicate this post to everyone I wish - and need - to thank. You all have been an important part of my life.

The Facts:

Life events

My elopement in the autumn of 2000 to an Irish citizen, which led to my applying to multinationals based in Dublin, Ireland in the first place;
My trans-Atlantic move from North America (I'd lived in both Canada, my home country, and the US, where I attended undergraduate studies) to Europe; and
One intercountry, intra-company move.

For reasons I won't delve into, I was compelled to move deeper into the EU, and with its consistently high ranking in quality of life for ex-pats and given my passion for "classical" music, Vienna was the only logical choice. Now, if only I could actually feel proficient in the local language. I have found Austrian (and in particular, the Viennese flavour of) Deutsch to be difficult to understand and use, compared to the High German I'd learnt the basics of ages ago in middle school.

Roles

Most of my contacts know that IBM is a vast company in many senses: this has allowed me to pursue what seems like a series of disparate careers:

Software localization toolset testing and change management (1.2 years);
Natural Language Processing and patent filing/paper publishing (5.3 years);
Web personalization and IBM.com program management (2.5 years);
Search Engine Optimization and web site/social media marketing consulting (8.5 years);
Ontology and Taxonomy development/curation and more patent filings (1 year); and
Cyber and Information Security Incident Response (1.5 years).

All of them have been globally funded, which meant working primarily in English and with multidisciplinary and international teams. Fortunately roles 1, 2, and especially 4 (and to a lesser extent the rest of them) have permitted me to dust off my Japanese language skills.

I started in all of them as a newbie, picking up a Java programming certification (role 2) and the GCIH certification (role 6) along the way.

Business Units

In chronological order (roughly) I have belonged to:

Software Group (now defunct)
CIO
Transformation & Operations (during part of which I had a sub-contract in GBS, which is our Consulting division)
CHQ Marketing, and
CISO (first in E&TS, now in Systems)

The Painful:

Colocation

I've chosen to refrain from writing a novel on this one. Although I could.

People

It may be Nietzsche-esque to say so, but on (the odd, thankfully rare) occasion, there has been conflict and strife, politics and questionable events. Often related to the above.

The Great:

I will always try to wrap anything up with positivity.

Working on what matters

Supporting our customers means supporting everything from a country's government, infrastructure, economy, healthcare system, and society. Even during my stint in Marketing, I interpreted SEO as a means to ensure that our existing and potential audience could find helpful and interesting information that was pertinent to them. Dedication to every client's success is a core IBM value, and it has applied surprisingly well to even the internally facing roles that I've held.

Innovation

Developing inventions encourages creative problem solving, improving the status quo, and while there is some remuneration, I feel the most intellectually and emotionally fulfilled in coming up with ideas.

Awards

I represented the Lotus brand worldwide in the early tenure TechConnect event which was sponsored by Nick Donofrio. This was in 2004. I also spoke that year at a Women in Tech conference, also about our innovative approach to textual language identification.

In 2012 I won an Employee of the Month award for my work within the Consulting division, supporting a Telecomms customer in analysing the language they used on their Support pages, comparing them against the queries that their visitors entered, and aligning both to better address the topical matter.

People (again)

In this context, I could tritely say that it's the people whom I work with, whether for years or just for one incident, who contribute to making the long hours, occasional frustration, and the most concerning of situations worth dedicating my best to coping with. And I would be completely sincere in doing so.

The Distinguished Engineers I admire and have worked with; the new IBMers I try to mentor; the Legal experts and BISOs (and their delegates) whom I now work with, and the Academy of Technology people I hope to become better acquainted with - all touch my life even outside of the work context regularly. The account teams whose incidents I investigate - they too, may fleetingly pass through my calendar and inbox, but they matter to me.

In particular there are two managers whom I'd like to thank profusely for their enormous impact on me, but only one is available.

The one remains my first liner, and I owe him an enormous amount: he was the one who laterally moved me to Austria into role 3, literally sight unseen (which in itself seems miraculous), nominated me for the Employee of the Month award, and then hired me internally again to my current position. I more than suspect that he'd been ushering me gently but firmly for months towards my next role.

The other passed away tragically in an accident last year (a few months after he left the company). Without him having provided several years of funding and finally directed me in role 5, I wouldn't have been around to be picked up for my current position. But I'm sure he would have enthusiastically been happy to have seen me reach this milestone.

Another analogy: Incident Investigations and Jawbreaker (gobstopper) candy - IR musings

2020-03-11T18:59:00.003+01:00

After a couple of vacations to a country under lockdown due to the novel coronavirus, my first experience taking a SANS course, a bout of (regular strain of) flu, and some consistently busy work weeks, I'm back with yet another analogy.

In looking up a reliable reference page to link to describe the jawbreaker candy, I discovered that in the regions outside of North America they seem to be called gobstoppers. If you can't be bothered to follow the above link, here are some salient excerpts:

Gobstoppers usually consist of a number of layers, each layer dissolving to reveal a differently coloured (and sometimes differently flavoured) layer, before dissolving completely. Gobstoppers are too hard to bite without risking dental damage (hence the name "jawbreaker").

[snip]

As gobstoppers dissolve very slowly, they last a very long time in the mouth, which is a major factor in their enduring popularity with children. Larger ones can take days or even weeks* to fully dissolve.

The article also mentions how the "core" around which these different layers are deposited is often a spherical piece of chewing gum.

By now, one hopes that (by reading the most recent posts I've erratically written) the analogy has become clear to my readers:

Each instance of candy-like object which our team receives is, at minimum, an event or in fact usually represents a series of events.
Whether one actually constitutes an incident must be determined by triage (tasting it).
The layers could represent both the discoveries the response team makes during the investigation, as well as the stages of incident response. The flavours, colours, and even textures are often unpredictable, and appearances may also be deceiving.
We cannot rush through each layer - they must be dissolved and worked through sequentially.
At the end when we work on the RCA and action plan, we figuratively chew on the core of the confection, usually until our jaws begin to feel fatigued.

I have a colleague who has been using a less esoteric foodstuff for their analogy: the bulb (of common) onion. But I prefer something less conducive to weeping and over the last 9 months or so, I've remained fortunate in not having too many high stress cases to manage.

*I have never seen anyone work on digesting such a large or difficult gobstopper - do they leave it on their bedside table while they sleep? Incidents do, however, take at least a few hours, often weeks, and sometimes months before they can be closed.

Cyber Security Incident Responder as a musical conductor: an analogy

2019-09-18T17:17:00.002+02:00

Those who know me personally may be aware that my main extra-curricular, spanning a full decade starting at age 11, was playing the viola in music ensembles which ranged from the intimacy of quintets to the power of 80-piece orchestras. In fact I'd taken piano performance the most seriously (read: via private lessons for eight years with a reputable teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Music) so I never became as proficient in viola.
In contrast to the years-long solitary struggle that comprised my endeavour to passably interpret several Beethoven sonatas, a few of Bach's keyboard works, and a Chopin mazurka or two however, my most vivid memories at school are social, involving becoming acquainted with compositions by actively collaborating with my fellow musicians.
My love for "classical" (more accurately, baroque to early romantic era) music continues unabated, and a desire to perform has now been channeled instead into haunting the Musikverein and Konzerthaus - and very occasionally, the Staatsoper too - here in my adopted hometown.
Perhaps this is why, as I began to examine the "playbooks" of cyber security incidents, that I naturally formed this notion that as far as analogies go, my role as Incident Responder is that of a musical conductor. Having taken a bit of time to think this through a bit more, I remain pleased by how apt it is. At least, it's not quite as surreal as my prior analogy for SEO.

First, the conductor determines which composition the incident entails (triage). Depending on the composition, the number of musicians can vary widely, as well as the instrumentation that's represented. Sometimes, "ringers" and freelancers are needed; other times a quartet is sufficient to render the piece.
The conductor in this case also assembles the musicians, often needing organizational support to complete the group. Some are seasoned regulars and know exactly how the piece ought to sound. Others are completely unfamiliar with the score and may also be less experienced in their instrument (role). They must all coordinate their efforts and contribute to the successful performance of the composition.
The conductor must cue the appropriate participants at the right moments and help them anticipate and deliver their contribution to the performance. Some will insist on embellishments and other improvisational playing so the score can't be slavishly adhered to; most are willing to fulfill their part and do the best they can.
Needless to say, much of the playing is concurrent, and has a distinct shape formed in part by the score (incident type), how the conductor herds the ensemble, and the reception from the audience (client). A hostile audience can cripple what might otherwise have been a smooth and pleasing performance.

Ever since taking cognitive science courses in university I have strongly averred that music performance - whether solo or in groups- builds one's Executive Functions effectively. In all project management roles inclusive of this one, I have benefited greatly from the investment I'd made in my youth to learn that simply doing things is insufficient to achieve my goals: rather, doing the right thing at the right time, in an optimal sequence, and also choosing not to do certain things that could be superfluous or worse, detrimental, all are necessary to succeed in most ventures.

Musings from an IR - Meeting and Parting with Strangers

2019-07-29T18:53:00.003+02:00

After nearly two whole months in this Cyber Security Incident Responder role, I remain amused by the universally expressed sentiment from every new person I meet. Specifically, that they're pleased to make my acquaintance, but sincerely hope our interactions are short-lived and that they wish to never need to cross paths with me again, as representative of all people in my role.
On the one hand, as a self-professed deep introvert, making cold contact with complete strangers on a daily basis is a draining ordeal, despite my extensive experience with many types of colleagues and clients. What mitigates the fatigue is that firstly, most of the people I interact with are experts in their disciplines, which I appreciate both in principle, and from the delightful side effect of learning a surprising amount about what they care about professionally and what processes they follow.
Secondly as they are almost always embroiled in a stressful situation, they appreciate my presence as guide and prompter of questions. The sense perhaps that I have "seen it before" or at least can assure them that as with all events, this too shall pass, gives them a form of comfort much as I imagine medical staff and police or firefighters as being capable of projecting in their work.
Another thing I'm thankful for is the abundance of text-based communication channels. While triage and cadence calls are integral to running most cases, whereupon I draw upon my experience in producing the best quality of meeting minutes that I can, the initial contact and formal communications are in writing, whether through instant messaging, other company-sanctioned tooling, or even SMS. As my role involves fully documenting cases such that they withstand audits and legal scrutiny, I prefer strongly to minimise the chances of mishearing or failing to take down what may at the time seem like tangential points, but which turn out to be part of the crux of a situation. Also a challenge is that in most incidents, the key contacts speak English as a second, third, or fourth language: my years of picking up on their versions of the lingua franca have proven invaluable in ensuring my comprehension of a case.
I'll be certain to share more thoughts in the months to come.

Thoughts of a fledgling Incident Responder: one month in

2019-07-06T22:49:00.003+02:00

As stated in my recent posts, I've made another career switch. This time, I'm dipping my metaphorical toes into the increasingly mission-critical area of most businesses: that of cyber security. The new look that I've applied to this blog, that of a darkened forest, is an analogy that I find apt. In broad strokes, most people are aware of its existence, yet few have explored it to find the diversity of the elements which comprise it.

Being such a neophyte myself I count myself as especially fortunate, to be in a team where there are already experts I could call upon, where we have the potential to leverage powerful, industry-leading tooling, and in an environment where every employee is called upon to actively protect not only our own data and assets, but those we are entrusted with by our clients.

In fact, it was immediately apparent that one has no choice but to take this role seriously if only because my employer's clientele consists mostly of organizations that collectively affect the lives of literally millions of people: if even one industry's portfolio of applications that we have designed and maintain were to stop working, large swathes of society would logistically be crippled. As digital data grows not just in size and extensiveness but in how integral it becomes to life decisions, be they for individuals or at the federal government and international perspectives, so too does the relevance of protecting it and preventing its exfiltration and abuse.

That I couldn't find many public anecdotal tales from other incident responders didn't surprise me: the very nature of this job requires a strict and almost absolute amount of secrecy that shrouds the details of the day to day workload that we handle. On the other hand and contradictorily, the definition of my new role and the varied playbooks that we follow seem ubiquitous online so I'll spare the reader a redundant attempt to cover those here or in future blogs.

I've encountered several comparisons of IRs to that of fire fighters and other responders: ignoring the urge to shy away from complicated and impactful events, we rather rush towards them, ideally with a level head and serving as an effective source of support to those already embroiled in it.

I look forward to chronicling more thoughts in the months to come, particularly as I gain more insights in not just handling, but (hopefully) thriving in this role.

Building Adaptability Skills in both the Workplace and Life

2019-07-01T20:43:00.000+02:00

During my period of career turbulence - which actually began as far back as 2014 if my retrospection is correct, but officially began in early December of 2017 - one recurrent talking point that my employer's CHRO and CEO both expounded upon was how they sought resources who were (not their words, I'm being succinct) emotionally intelligent and mentally flexible.
Another trending topic from both the HR and economic viewpoints, particularly in North America, seems to be that of how millennials are contributing increasingly to the creation of a "gig economy" - seemingly voluntarily jumping from contract to contract.
In both cases, it helps to possess a curious nature: learning curves, be they academic or social, are best scaled when one inherently enjoys the process of acquiring knowledge and then applying it. However, the bigger mental challenge might, in my opinion, be to keep an unflagging sense of optimism about impending change.
We may speak to it, but actually embracing change is quite difficult, I think, for many people. We may wish for difficult times to pass, but when a easier period of our lives arrives either logistically or financially, it's unlikely that we would seek out something new at the risk of dismantling what we have just for the sake of novelty.
Certainly, having carved out a high quality of living for ourselves here despite not even remotely approaching the 1%, both my spouse and I have focused our efforts in remaining physically put. However, when it was apparent to me that my time as an SEO was going to end, I was willing to embrace a significant change in job role. This separation which I had mentally made between job and life was almost surprisingly simple, considering my culturally inherited trait of inclining to be organizationally loyal.
Nevertheless I expect to always carry some of the habits I developed "marketeering". One sign of this is the chagrin I feel when I see Quora questions that imply that my employer has been failing ever since they stopped producing B2C products. Knowing as deeply as I do the effort and scope of B2B marketing that we do and the diversity of segmented audience we strive to reach, I'm disappointed that even the mainstream stories of interest, be they Watson winning Jeopardy! or the plans to commercialize Quantum Computing, seem to be brushed aside by the mindset of "but they don't do PCs any more, and aren't mainframes irrelevant?" (Answer: no, we now design and manufacture the hardware behind everyone's beloved "Cloud").
So, where did I end up? I intend to - without contravening any guidelines - delineate and present a newbie's view on cyber security incident response in future blog installments. So please stay tuned...

A brief prosaic elegy to my role of a year, a.k.a my brief stint as a budding (IT sense of) Ontologist

2019-06-27T17:53:00.001+02:00

Those of you familiar with my LinkedIn profile, not to mention my prior post from early 2018, would not fail to notice that the stability I'd enjoyed in the field of SEO consulting showed signs of being disturbed. Specifically, I took a scenic detour into the realm of (the IT sense of) Ontologies and Taxonomies.
Recently, my spouse asked me how I'd describe the post-SEO role I'd held for 12 months. Promptly, I replied that my mission was to extend and develop a set of ontologies that would serve as the framework for taxonomies both used and potentially useful to my employer's Marketing division.
At this point, it would be helpful for me to step back and put that in less abstract terms, I'm thinking.
While most people are familiar with taxonomies from taking a unit of animal species classification - where we heard of things like Phylum and Genus, there is a vital need for such entities in categorizing and managing every type of content. Furthermore, not all taxonomies need be strictly hierarchical: I recommend this enjoyably humourous infographic example, rap artists' names arranged in a taxonomy.
Take e-commerce sites, for instance. Most web experiences that require the visitor to segment themselves - in other words, dig deeper into the site structure to find specific items, services, etc. strive to provide navigational options, often with facets, to improve their user experience.
Those options and facets can be canonicalized using ontologies, which allow us to define the types and attributes and their interrelationships. The actual values of those selectable items or descriptors are, or should be, curated taxonomic values.
Over the year I spent adjusting my worldview from an SEO-grounded content marketer, to one that started noticing lists and missing taxonomies everywhere, I barely had the chance to build the level of expertise I believed the role deserved. However, just as SEO practitioning has permanently altered how I experience websites, it's left an indelible mark on how I try to mentally grapple with related concepts and curate them, be it for my new role or in my personal activities. In retrospect, that I didn't strictly adhere to the Dewey Decimal System when arranging my book collection in childhood indicates that I was already a nascent ontologist.

Convergence and career evolution

2018-02-12T19:23:00.003+01:00

Despite resolving to attempt smaller, more frequent blog posts a few years ago, I'm back after another multi-month hiatus with this one. Due to the rarity with which I've been updating this blog, Google has de-indexed all but three of my pages on this site, but actually that's not the main reason for this newest piece of content, which is perhaps more personal than is typical of this blog.
Over ten and a half years ago, I chose to make a lateral move (for a manager who kindly took his chance on me), and due to circumstances, I am once again in a situation where at least organizationally, moving has become necessary.
Moving great distances, not only physically but professionally and culturally, has been something I had been willing - and able - to undertake in the past. My CV, which lists a career history spanning Toronto, Boston, and Dublin (and my initial move States-side for third level education) attests to this. Lately however, my reasons for not uprooting myself (and my spouse) yet again, have strengthened despite the fact that I'm not entirely certain that Vienna will ever be my emotional home. It certainly is, however, by far the most culturally enriched, convenient, and surprisingly affordable place I've lived in, and I'm loathe to relinquish this.
The aforementioned lateral job move had brought me into the realm of digital content from that of Natural Language Processing, and the rise of Rankbrain and various NLP-based technologies that comprise the fascinating and multi-faceted "AI" space, where niche start-ups and tech giants alike are vying for share of voice, has led to a convergence of my past and current roles, as well as the most likely future one.
I've chosen Darwin Day to write this post, but perhaps fittingly, it will be April 1st before I'm able to formally announce a significant shift in role and division, if not employer. To paraphrase a Buddhist sutra, to be alive is to change, and impermanence can result in suffering. On the other hand, courtesy of George R. R. Martin's fellow INTJ character Petyr Baelish:

Let me climb.

Extemporaneous speech has its hazards

2017-07-14T18:13:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to have some in-person time with one of my employer's vice presidents. My card-holding manager invited me and one of the colleagues I've worked with the longest, to visit a different office location and to cover some SEO news topics over the course of a half hour.
While I was quite content to split this time allocation evenly, I also had a disproportionately large amount of information to cover, although I was quite selective in topic choice (our team has gained momentum and, hopefully, a wider sphere of influence since moving organizationally last year).
Since this opportunity arose with very little lead time, I also decided to use pre-existing slides (which I only provided some feedback to create, not as primary author). It could have easily taken an hour to cover just my section in proper detail, but also in trying to meet some "business as usual" deadlines, my attention remained painfully divided even during the hours just prior to the talk.
In addition to speaking much more quickly than I would have preferred to (in light of there being many present, to whom English was their second or even third or fourth tongue), there was one incident which amused me enough to decide to document here. It also wasn't "professional" enough to include in my team's intranet based blog, where I've been attempting to post regularly - much to the detriment of this, public (yet more personal) venue.
About a decade ago, I worked with an IA expert who frequently spoke to the vivid image of "putting lipstick on the pig". When SEO best practice is sought and applied post hoc, which is to say when some digital asset is largely ready for publishing, I tend to think this analogy fits. So when this image came unbidden to my conscious mind and I'd spoken it aloud, I immediately wished to extend said analogy into a more preferable course of events, I was trying to make sense (as I do in every communication I attempt).
What resulted in issuing forth was "... while we want to treat SEO as nutrients so that the pig grows into a beautiful one". Should I have said "prize winning"? And that IA was akin to the barn housing said pigs? Or is SEO pre-natal care of the sow so that the piglets get the best start to life?
I already perceive this to be yet one more humourous anecdote to add to an otherwise fairly serious career. Good thing I have a sense of long term perspective!

The powers wielded by search engines and social media

2016-02-24T19:46:00.000+01:00

It seems to me that it's increasingly becoming a frightening new world that we live in.
Back when the internet was merely nascent, I was studying psychology in college: numerous examples hammered home to me the notion that we, collectively, are easily manipulable, emotionally, cognitively, and that our memories are scarily labile, too.
Over three years ago, I'd blogged about Google+ increasing its reach, which has since apparently been adopted by many more people. Sure, a small fraction of its estimated 2.2 billion + account holders are publicly posting content - but Google has access to all the trackable behaviours of everyone who remains authenticated, not to mention numerous third party cookies and ways metrics are being recorded.
Last summer, amongst other topics I'd read the coverage on Facebook's 1-week, 700K user experiment on emotional contagion, which is well summarized in the Atlantic.
Then, about a week ago, another piece was brought to my attention (thanks to my spouse) about Google and Facebook's inherent power to manipulate election outcomes.
In the intervening time, topics like #gamergate (Forbes offered a good op/ed piece on this whereas I, a presumed SJW, have remained silent mostly due to lacking even a passing familiarity with the gaming community), the #jianghomeshi trial, and currently, the US elections related buzz, have taken over my newsfeeds.
In fact, simply reading the above linked articles from the Atlantic, Forbes, and Aeon should provoke so much thought without my editorializing, that I wondered whether it was worth attempting to blog about these subjects at all. Furthermore, as an internet specialist of sorts, it occurs to me also, that keeping a neutral stance on these topics (as well as Apple's open letter to their customers) may well be prudent.
However, I do feel compelled to ask these questions of myself, and I would strongly encourage everyone to do the same:

Am I seeking and finding balanced and/or impartial coverage of world events before arriving at a personal stance thereon?
How credible are the sources that provide the news that I consume? How do you decide whether a source is credible?
Do I make an effort to validate content before I share them with my friends and followers?
Do I exercise critical thinking when I read something?

Just today, Facebook launched "reactions" buttons. Now we're providing them with even more data, willingly and perhaps unthinkingly, and making further newsfeed algorithm experiments even more fine-tuned. Wasn't this so considerate of the design team, accommodating such a significant feature request?
But remember:

Meme courtesy of Geek&Poke

Content based marketing advice: aim to increase base hits, not home runs

2014-11-25T21:05:00.005+01:00

Several colleagues of mine recently attended this year's Internet Summit in the US, so not unexpectedly, lots of advice came couched in the form of American-friendly metaphors. I'd lamented some years before about culture-specific expressions, and how they confuse non-native speakers, but given my heritage, the advice cited in the blog title actually "struck home" (baseball pun not intended).
Perhaps a soccer metaphor would be more recognizable to those outside of North America, in which case it would likely be to strive for strategic passes and goal assists, and to value the role of Libero (or sweeper) rather than fixate on scoring goals or becoming an ace striker.
In any case, this advice pertains to keeping a blog fresh - a topic that I've been mindful of, having started several draft posts since my prior entry in April, which have not seen the light of day. So, here I am wading back into the fray, as it were, by taking said advice. From now on, if I find something new to share that's relevant to this blog, I'll endeavour to do so.

Thoughts on introversion, extroversion, and related controversies

2014-04-14T19:15:00.000+02:00

Try the quiz linked via the graphic, to answer 20 questions all skewed towards extroverts

Most of my socal media profiles openly declare my self-identification as an INTJ (estimated to comprise 1-2% of the population, and popularly depicted in fiction as antagonists or anti-heroes). I've tested as such since I was 11, though during my university years I came close to registering as INTp. Of course, Myers-Briggs has had numerous valid detractors, and one criticism is that the dichotomies of I-E etc. are not quantified by the labeling: that is, one cannot tell just how strongly introverted I believe myself to be. And since it's a self-identifying classification, one could easily delude oneself into believing that inclination is manifesting directly into actions, meaning that others may not classify one as belonging to that type at all. Nevertheless, lately there have been quite a bit of confrontation between the two camps, where one normalizes one's preference and marginalizes the other. Being in the perceived minority yet again, I can't say that I've been impressed with the arguments presented by either side - but personally, introversion has never been a point of concern, and less so after ex-patriating to outside of North America.
Certainly, it should be no secret to introverts that socialization is encouraged for the most part, and conversely, expressing predilection for spending time by oneself is (at best) treated as a weird quirk, or at worst, a sign of mental disease. Isolation (in the solitary confinement sense in prisons) has also been claimed to be torture. Business situations certainly call for networking, interpersonal and inter-organizational engagement, and it's presumed that extroverts, since they tend to enjoy such opportunities, will generally fare better in them, for several assumed reasons.
However, establishing a reasonably successful career necessitates that an individual explores and confronts their weaknesses, at the same time as playing to her or his strengths. Thus, no matter how disinclined one may be to schmoozing, networking, and elevator-speech delivering, being employed drives one to hone all such skills, and anecdotally, I've found that one's proficiency in gaining such is not correlated necessarily to one's preferences, but rather one's innate capacity combined with effort and making it a high priority to attain.
Before anyone asks, I have not yet read Susan Cain's bestseller, whose title I'll contract to just "Quiet". Part of this being that I haven't access to much English language material locally (I prefer to borrow rather than purchase books, already having a burgeoning collection and a dearth of shelving), but mainly this is due to my already having been sold on the concept of introversion having merit and some advantages.
With that disclaimer, I'd like to present a few observations and opinions of my own, coming from a significantly biased perspective:

"Thinking aloud", especially in meetings, often comes across to me as wasting everyone's time. Is it not polite to formulate one's position, preferably with substantiable reasons, before opening one's mouth?
Having been raised at home with the cultural attitude that "Silence is Golden: only break it if you know you can improve upon it", I was penalized for well over a decade in Canadian schools by the extroverted mindset. My teachers frequently, and erroneously, concluded that I was disinterested (not true much of the time), had no opinions (also almost always false; I simply took too long to arrive at my conclusions), and lacked confidence (the most persistent and mistaken of the trio of misunderstandings).
I believe that generally speaking, it is extremely difficult to get to know others in a group context, particularly since even observing them means the information gleaned only comes from how they happen to behave amongst that particular set of people, and said behaviour can shift dramatically. Small talk may have its place, but it's singularly inefficient as a style of conversation, so I would prefer comfortable silence over stilted, shallow exchanges. I would certainly prefer deeper discussion over either of the former two, with just one or two individuals at a time.
Extroverts are also capable of (or vulnerable to) clinical depression and demonstrating withdrawn behaviours. Introverts may prefer to have periods of solitude or reduced company at times, but this is not equivalent to exhibiting depression. Non-depressed introverts genuinely enjoy their time interacting with others and can lead balanced lives with quality socialization without severe discomfort.
Introversion is also not shyness, necessarily - it may speak to feeling drained after being in the proverbial or literal spotlight, but not to an inability to share ideas or opinions with others, or being a poor public speaker.
Like sexual orientation, I believe inclinations such as introversion to be on a spectrum as pictured at the top of this post. Most of the population would fall in the mid (not extreme end) zone.
This article claims that 75% of those with IQs over 160 are introverted - of course, EQ is a separate (and equally important) metric, but I'd be interested in understanding the extensiveness of the research that drew that conclusion.
The "Quiet" website implies that "Asian-Americans" are baffled by the extrovert-friendly educational system in the US, but this statement irks me also, as roughly half the Asian-American population consists of those inclined to extroversion, too - it's just that in some contexts such as speaking out of turn or embodying that Proverb (17:28) are culturally embedded, serving to mitigate extroverted behaviour.

I'd like to share one final article link concerning how extroverts seem happier than introverts, before I end this rant-esque post. As one of the top comments states, when the survey questions have to do with social situations, of course extroverts who draw energy and worth from said external experiences would report higher levels of happiness. Another example of a skewed survey, indeed, where the "norm" is defined as extrovert-friendly activities, and the preferences of the introvert are largely ignored.

Using HootSuite for Facebook page posts: a mystery glitch?

2014-02-25T19:23:00.000+01:00

Although the engagement completed in 2013, I have the privilege of remaining on the admin list for one of my employer's Facebook pages. In the past day, my colleague was kind enough to note that due to a glitch, scheduled posts via HootSuite attribute me as the person creating them. This is in spite of my never having linked my HootSuite account to that page, although I do have it linked to my personal Facebook account. For full disclosure, while I'd considered personally sharing one or both of the stories below, I hadn't, nor had I used HootSuite to view or share them to my various social media channels (which in this case, would likely have been personal Facebook via Twitter, as well as LinkedIn and my Google Plus page).

Evidence A and B:

If one is not an administrator of the Facebook page, however, this additional information is not disclosed - so had I chosen to keep my silence, very few people would be cognizant of the onset of this strange phenomenon.

My question to those reading this post is this: have you encountered this or a similar case of false attribution of posts to an SNS? I'll update this entry with any information that I can uncover.

Update: received a helpful tweet from a former colleague from Dublin Software Lab:
@sodoherty: @MayoTakeuchi your FB issue probably related to this. https://t.co/kGgoSS8eZs

The above link from cnet reports the following:

Facebook said Tuesday that it has tweaked its News Feed formula yet again, this time to include posts that Pages you've "liked" are tagged in. The alteration means you'll find stories from Pages you don't follow mentioning those that you do.

So, it's clear that things are in flux when it comes to relating content from Pages to user accounts - however, I'm not seeing this issue - that is, I don't see additional content when the page wherein I'm an administrator has been tagged. I did appreciate being notified about this, though - thanks, Simon!

Finding the sweet spot for content and social media driven strategy

2013-12-22T19:45:00.000+01:00

Earlier this month, my work days were filled with the review of a relatively new page from my employer's Japanese presence. Specifically, it was to do with a significant acquisition from this past summer, and what it meant (and continues to signify) for our current and potential clients. A tremendous amount of investment used to be required, in traditional marketing models, to ensure that the public would become aware of such news. But in a social media driven world, strategy (and its optimized implementation) has become the key to successfully conveying the right message to the right subset of the populace.

Customers generally think they know what they are looking for, and perform web based searches accordingly. However, there are several types of content available from the following types of sources:

Traditional "broadcast" style content - that is, what businesses wish to convey to new and potential customers about their offerings.
Anecdotal, social media driven content - what existing customers, with their own biases and varying levels of credibility, have discussed about the business and those same offerings.
Third party (e.g. Forrester Research) sources also provide useful content and competitive comparisons.

Now, I invite you to examine the crudely drawn Venn diagram below (I have never claimed to have strong graphic skills, and this example amply - and literally - illustrates why):

Showing the intersections of traditional marketing, content available via social media, and the body of information customers are seeking, in Venn diagram form.

The shift to inbound marketing means the focus on marketing content generation has moved from the area shaded in yellow, to the areas shaded in blue and green. I would posit, however, that the green area is of the highest value to potential customers, as it can be substantiated by a third party. Given the overall burgeoning of all online content, honing in on the truly valuable content has increasingly become challenging.
The enablement of social media driven content to be presented in aggregators and newsfeeds on official business sites is represented here in the area shaded in orange. This body of content too, is increasing in volume and prominence for B2B.
There also exists content that customers don't realize consciously that would be beneficial to them and thus are not seeking - which may come from any of the areas in yellow, orange, or pink. Even when this is optimized for the most salient topics or keywords, the right people are not choosing to search for them, so it remains difficult to discover.
From this last point, I would hope that part of content strategy for businesses includes the effort to identify and optimize these useful pieces of their online presence. And I look forward to doing exactly this for several of my clients in 2014.

Recognizing "wild ducks" in oneself and in the workplace

2013-08-07T20:41:00.003+02:00

Congruent, yet independent. A Mallard mother and part of her brood, Stadtpark Pond in Vienna (July 2013)

The above photo, of a duck and her ducklings, was one of my (unsuccessful) entries in an intra-organizational contest just last month. Coincidentally, the notion of "treasuring wild ducks", metaphorically speaking, had been one of the subjects covered during my employer's Centennial commemoration. There is a 14 minute video with beautiful animation and story-telling, if you happen to have the time and inclination.

As those following my +Mayo Takeuchi Plus presence may have realized some years ago, ducks are the most common type of wildfowl that I can readily record, in both still and moving images. This year in particular, the local park has seen a bumper crop of ducklings. Their precocial abilities still manage to impress me: aside from the youngest ones emitting a high pitched, urgent peeping call when they lose sight of their mother, they know how to independently seek edible matter, swim, dive, stretch their as yet flightless wings, and cluster together for safety when they sleep. Compare such competence with most mammalian young!

In the business context, "wild ducks" are the non-conformists. To a wild duck, being fed (remunerated) is not tantamount to being domesticated. Pioneering and creative, they do not have to hide amongst the masses, nor will they always flock with them. Last December, I was reminded of this when a lone Red Crested Pochard drake spent a few weeks commingling (but not socializing with) the sea of Mallard and Mallard-esque ducks, also in the Vienna Stadtpark pond. He departed, as mysteriously and as suddenly as he'd arrived, at the beginning of 2013.

However, unlike that drake, human "wild ducks" don't necessarily stand out so clearly. They may not be vocal or behave in an extroverted manner during meetings. They may not even behave in an alien or unusual way, or openly flaunt convention and due process. Rather, their inner thoughts, reasoning, ideas, and perhaps a suspension of preconceived notions of limits - all or some subset thereof may reveal their inherent wildness. Detecting wild workplace ducks may take months or years, and ideally, a combination of open-minded yet supportive management and a sense of self-confidence that has been earned and nurtured, would allow for such individuals to maximize their potential.

Does your employer nurture the wildness that might lurk within its staff? Do you perceive yourself as a wild duck? And, what benefits may there be to being tame? Could we all become a flock of wild ducks without drawbacks?

These are some of the questions I've been mulling of late.

How THINK is useful both as acronym and habit

2013-05-10T12:04:00.002+02:00

Some months ago, I shared a meme to Facebook. It was a photo of a poster that said:

"Before you use Facebook, send a text, tweet, or blog,

THINK:

T - is it true?
H - is it helpful?
I - is it inspiring?
N - is it necessary?
K - is it kind?"

"Think" also happens to be my employer's slogan since the 1920s (the Japanese translation is the imperative form rather than the infinitive, 考えよ). And as an INTJ, I both value and enjoy thinking (and perhaps over-thinking). Years ago I'd read about an abridged version of the acronym "THINK" - that is, it had omitted the "is it inspiring" criterion. Oftentimes since then, I'd found that my observations or insights meet only half to three quarters of the remainder of these criteria. As a result, perhaps I've become even more taciturn than in my youth - although even back then, I believed in the concept of "live and let live", which also meant I wouldn't try to meddle in others' affairs in a desire to be similarly treated.

What has this all to do with my professional views, one may well ask: it was this article on Ted Nguyen's site about the increase in rude behaviour via social networking services. Despite its bias towards English speaking (and in the case of the accompanying infographic, American) sources of stats, intuitively it is not a stretch to consider that a larger number of people spending more time on SNSs will mean not only an increase in interactivity via those media, but also more spontaneous behaviour. When tempers flare, the physical act of typing privately into a device and hitting send is deceptive, in that it seems to distance ourselves from accountability for our words, and also from the urgency created by looking someone in the eye when addressing them with the exact same sentiment.

Real life creates stressors and balances alike in most lives, bringing both highs and lows to everyone. Facebook, on the other hand, is a place of skewed PR - some will prefer to only share highlights and positivity, whereas yet others may lean towards perpetually complaining about circumstances or those around them. The biased newsreels we see from our contacts may exacerbate irritations we choose to feel about said individuals, more than when spending time with them in person. Since using SNS/SMS to interact with others results in losing tone of voice and other non-verbal cues, text-only communication leads to misunderstandings and other complications, which in turn can result in substantial damage, occasionally permanent in nature, to interpersonal relationships. Humourous examples of more transient instances of confusion have been documented extensively in sites like Damn You Auto Correct!

If more of us chose to apply THINK the acronym to our SNS based interactions, surely we can curb this insurgence of rudeness. The above linked article says one should consider how one's grandmother would react to what one may be considering to share, but my personal attitude has been to only post anything that I wouldn't mind a prospective employer seeing. I'd like to think this post serves as an example itself, of embodying the THINK acronym, though perhaps it's a bit low on the inspirational scale.

What's in a Title?

2013-04-25T20:30:00.000+02:00

After nearly three years in this role, my title changed from "Web Effectiveness Analyst", which was deemed slightly cryptic, to "SEO Specialist", which I hope will not be associated with too many negative connotations (it doesn't, internally to my employer, at least). Those familiar with the fundamentals of SEO would know that the prominence and density of a targeted keyword matters in titles; be they in HTML files, PDFs, videos, or indeed, LinkedIn taglines.
So far this year, however, my deliverables have shifted from traditional consultancy - which implicitly involves knowledge transfer - to more of a training role, which has meant explicitly and convincingly conveying SEO best practices to clients. As early as 2011 I'd begun to co-author best practices guidebooks for an external client (primarily operating as a B2C entity), and this month I used the second of such to create a customized curriculum in the form of a presentation and series of live demonstrative investigations. This I covered over two days last week at one of my client sites.
In March I trained an internal team in similar principles, but with emphasis on B2B, and in Japanese. This necessitated acquiring a greater IT and topic related vocabulary than I'd naturally developed and maintained thanks to my association of the language with comfort and cultural ties, rather than professional goals.
Search engine optimization has been, in my view, a bit of a misnomer, unless one talks about optimizing an internal (site specific implementation) of a search engine.
In a nutshell, one could claim that implementing SEO means making web sites and its collateral conducive to being crawled and indexed by search engines, so the changes are applied to online content, not to search engines. Their algorithms have of course evolved, but more to mimic human language processing, and to address so-labeled "black hat" practices that become too pervasive or too effective to ignore: cf. the infographics of SEO Evolution, courtesy of Greenlight.
Thus, regardless of what I call my role, the language I use, my audience, or medium of communication, my message remains the same - striving to create easily find-able content online requires an understanding of one's desired audience, and the willingness to continually streamline, update, and manage one's web-based presence.

Google+ increasing its reach

2012-12-27T01:00:00.000+01:00

Just about a week ago, it was announced that Blogger users may now mention either people or pages from Google+ in the same manner as within G+ itself. This would have been quite useful when I first promoted my +Mayo Takeuchi Plus page, which has now accumulated a good body of photographs. However, I cannot seem to cite myself, perhaps because I've linked this blog to my personal Google+ account and it would be self-serving?
In the meantime, I've also added more G+ related widgets on this blog, including one that allows me to show thumbnails of people who have circled my personal account. Another button hopefully will encourage more people to circle my aforementioned Plus page.
During my "day job" researching I'd also noticed that, although the follower/circle counts weren't up to date, that the PPC spots were also starting to make mention of sponsor pages on Google+.
In an article "marriage of SEO and Social Media" (which likens this union to a predictable yet sudden elopement, to extend the metaphor), Matt Cutts's views on "social signals" continuing to grow in importance is quoted. One presumes that Google+ related cues such as +1s and other activities native to their environment would likely hold more weight than other SNSs, although perhaps there could be favoured emphasis on Twitter for breaking news.
If Facebook and Bing's integration evolves the way it has been implied, such as the 2012 August 30 announcement of the latter enabling searches of photos hosted in the former, Google would find it natural to mine Google+ data to enhance personalized results. Indeed, searching for my name on Google (in an incognito browser session) has started to yield my publicly uploaded photos to my Google+ accounts.
Speaking of social signals and Google, their Android OS received an influential vote of confidence from former Apple evangelist and current author of a free e-guide to Google+, +Guy Kawasaki. I'll be looking through this publication with interest and trying out more of the Google+ features.
In the meantime, I notice that I'm only prompted to share a new post via Google+ if immediately publishing. I'm hoping that time delayed G+ shares/posts (such as are available for Twitter) will become possible eventually.

Three Tips on Time Management

2012-12-16T17:00:00.000+01:00

A little over fourteen months ago I'd posted the predecessor to this post, where I touched upon the concept of multitasking. Now, over three months since my last post, I find myself on vacation, and finally able (and willing) to return my attention to this blog.
I recently read a discussion by friends that mentioned that "the days are long, but the years are short". I've certainly found this to be the case also, for the client-facing work I've been involved with since August of last year.
There are advantages to being obsessive, focused, and absorbed in any activity, I believe, but there are also unavoidable detractors, such as needing to use a timer or other externalized tooling to ensure that less engrossing tasks involved in daily living are still accomplished as required.

So, here are three tips to avoid ending up like that (altogether uncomfortably identifiable) XKCD character.

1. Learn to accurately estimate task duration and effort.

As the XKCD comic mentions, building a schedule can be useful to structure one's day, week, or project. However, I also posit that an accurate ability to estimate the effort and time every task can be expected to be required to create an effective timetable.

2. When prioritizing tasks, pick your battles.

Another indispensable skill concerns correctly prioritizing one's to-do list. This I consider as an essential pre-requisite to creating schedules that can be followed, regardless of the desire (or lack thereof) to do so. There are hard deadlines, softer (more negotiable) ones, and "nice to have"s. Identify them first.

3. Make yourself a priority.

Building in breaks, meals, and contrasting activities to break up the day can contribute to successfully adhering to any schedule. This clearly involves self-awareness and learning one's proclivities from experience. Should one take a sugar boost in mid-afternoon to offset the lull of digesting a lunch? Is one's most productive first thing in the morning, or late afternoon?

As a child, I thrived on routine, although by external perspectives my parents created a household that was completely enslaved to our (self-imposed) schedule. While now I enjoy heretofore unknown levels of flexibility with my work-week, I'd like to reassess all of my priorities this year's end. Part of the 2013 planning will hopefully include ensuring that I resume blogging more regularly!

Caveat googlers?

2012-09-06T14:15:00.069+02:00

Courtesy of article from getlisted.org, circa 2010

Google has enjoyed mainstream use as a verb, in English and Japanese ("ググる"). Furthermore, if Wikipedia is to be believed, people "google" things in Dutch, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. However, a quick look at any of Google's portals shows that the company offers much, much more. Combining its various services with the perceived bias for presenting content with close allegations has led to my finding a recent article by Danny Sullivan. There he, in a nutshell, decries his company's having crossed an arbitrary line of what search engines are "expected" to do - objectively point to online content - and what it now (and increasingly) does: provide a biased subset of content that aligns with its business model. I'd found Mr. Sullivan's op/ed via an article posted to TechCrunch, which caught my eye due to its title: "Why we may no longer be able to trust Google".
This was a strange statement to me - Google has never been, to my knowledge, a non-profit or public sector service. Many of Google's offerings have evolved in order to compete against other private sector corporations such as, notably, Microsoft (which had its own news outlet, MSNBC, about 13 years before they unveiled Bing, their search engine).
For this reason, I have never trusted Google any more than I felt comfortable trusting Microsoft, Yahoo!, Lycos, or any of the myriad of other search engine providers that have had their moments in the proverbial sun since the advent of the internet age. I expected each of these companies to have inherent biases in what the present. And as I have thought of mentioning before, I chose Blogger as my hosting site in large part because Google owns it, with the expectation that it would initially give me a slight edge in Google organic results over, say, Wordpress even if my content (read: site and page-specific SEO efforts) were exactly the same.
The fact that Google has branched out to acquire so many data sources, such as Zagat and Frommer's reviews as mentioned by Mr. Sullivan, didn't surprise me either. It's quite understandable that Google may believe that these historically credible sources of information will become popular with its users, thus encouraging widespread adoption of their location based search (now known as Google Plus Local). I believe that's fodder for another blog post, however.

In any case, here is my stance regarding the trustworthiness of search engine services, summarized:

The major search engines come from private sector companies, and do not have to conform to any idealized view of what search engines may be "expected" to deliver.
Since their objectives include running a profitable business, they will have inherent biases, which are likely not just to appear via paid advertisements, but in their organic results as well.
Their users would benefit from being aware of and accounting for said biases when conducting searches.

If you're afraid of what you share on SNSs being exploited by the services themselves (e.g. Facebook or Twitter in targeting ads to you) or by prospective employers/schools/nosy acquaintances etc. performing background checks on you via said search engines, then control what you share, every time and via every service that you use.
In the meantime, my persistent advice for content creators - and if you're active on an SNS, you are one regardless of whether you realize it or not - is this: so long as you focus on creating high quality content, judiciously use social media to spread awareness of said content, and refrain from using disreputable (underhanded) techniques, your web presence should (eventually) rank reasonably well for your targeted keywords, even if unseating Wikipedia is but a dream. Certainly, I was pleased to see today that this blog is returned first in Ask.com.