Lesson of the week: Be open, be honest, share. Opportunities are eager to present themselves.
Pretty much settled on Malaysia.
The trip to KL was phenomenal – in experience and in duration. This time I went with Katharine and Ruben. It was a monumental 17 hour flight with Qatar Airways with a stop over in Doha.
Such distances and durations remind me that that regardless of how small the world appears, it is still physically a huge place and the technological advances to make it smaller (supersonic aircraft for example) come at a human and environment cost – jet lag and pollution! I bet camel caravans on the Silk Road did not suffer jet lag!
Anyway, I digress. I had pretty much accepted that I would not be recruiting anyone this trip – Chinese New Year is mega. I didn’t know just how mega until I arrived in KL and noticed the exodus on people – Chinese and others (I thought it was something I said 
. The city pretty much shuts down for a week – so any attempt to run my team selection workshop would have failed.
Fear not!
This trip was a hugely significant from as a family experience too – I hadn’t been to KL for 25 years and the reunion with my cousins , uncles and aunts was totally beautiful. Just more proof that investing in positive family relationships based on shared experiences when your kids are young pays dividends as they grow older.
Anyway in the course of the visit – I agreed on a serviced office and the employment vehicle for my team to start with (the simplest way is for them to be hired by an existing company -I found one I can trust and if we make it through the pilot 17 weeks, I will register wwxlabs as a ‘Sdn Bhd’ – a malaysian limited company – and hire them all.)
Also discovered an unexpected source of talent through a distant relation – in this land where family relationships play a major role in business. More on this later.
Still not hired anyone yet though, but I will do by the 15th of March.
Also made huge strides in the emerging Scrum and agile community in KL, we have a couple of major events in March (a ‘product in a day’ workshop and the launch of the Malaysia MSC Scrum User Group) more on this elsewhere.
So all in all, I’m on track and then some. My greatest challenge has now become my highest priority and in many ways, my most critical activity – Find the rest of the team.
I like having only one high priority and being able to focus on it.
More later.