Saying goodbye to people you love (and who equally love you) is really really hard. 

Nancy’s had her last day at the nursery yesterday because from next Monday she will be going to the pre-school. It was an emotional day for all of us. Colleen (Nancy’s teacher) and my wife started crying in the middle of a sentence and couldn’t go on. And she still crying at the dinner table when spoke to me about it.

It has been a year and a half since Nancy started at the nursery. It has been challenging along the way for all of us. But knowing there is someone you can trust certainly make the whole process a lot of easier. To Nancy, she needed someone she could trust and rely onto as well and she certainly got that from the nursery.

One of the many advantages of starting kindy early is the opportunities to interact with other children. Being the only child at home, Nancy certainly got the idea of sharing, caring and playing with others. Other activities like painting, drawing certainly helps her to explore her artistic potential and the list goes on and on. We glad that the nursery provided all the opportunities.

The Chinese proverb says “there is no everlasting banquet”. As much as we love Nancy to stay in the most comfortable environment, we also like her to explore the world and life more. Saying goodbye is hard, but we also looking forward to the future. Thank you everyone for helping Nancy along the way, we deeply appreciate it.

Just completed the Best Workplaces Survey. Very interesting that the top 3 of the 12 categories are

1. Culture and Values
2. Common Purpose
3. Communication and Cooperation

And if it’s based on the importance of cultivating a successful organisation, I would totally agree with it.

Last night, we (@redvspanz and @thebakit) were at Summer of Tech meet and greet in search for top BA and Design students who can help us with couple of projects during summer.

There were around 40 companies who are “fighting” to attract TOP talents (who doesn’t). Each company had JUST 1 minute to introduce themselves as well as the project. It needed to be brief, also straight to the point (no messing around here). As much as companies want best students, students want to work for coolest/best companies as well. There are quite a few intros caught my eye, for different strategies they were using in the intro. Personally, I would like to work for them if I was a students.

Catalyst - Concise and Most Energetic intro. Peter Torr-Smith @ptorrsmith nailed what the company does and what they are looking for under 1 minute. Most importantly, the intro is full of energy. I love people with great energy, and personally, I believe you need to have great passion in whatever you do.

Green Button - What’s in there for me? Green Button CEO (sorry, didn’t get his name) was also a very energetic guy. But what good about his intro was he used an example of his current employee who was a summer of tech intern from last year. He mentioned they offer the intern a job after 3 months, send her to HongKong for conference, gave her 2 pay rises and promotions and offer her stock options etc (I couldn’t believe it when I heard it), but if I was a student, I would like to work for him.

FNZ - Be Rememberable The Development Manager of FNZ introduced company and saying “FNZ doesn’t stand for anything” which brought laughters to the entire room. Although it’s debatable, but I am sure people would remember the company after the quick intro.

Southgate Labs - Creditability There were a lot of companies doing Rails in the Meet&Greet. While other companies merely using Rails, The co-founder of Southgate Labs, Michael Koziarski @nzkoz is one of the creators of Rails. You can’t top that, can you? If that was enough, @rowansimpson (trademe employee No. 3) and Amnon Ben-Or (former trademe creative lead) will definitely blow you away.

Unlimited Realities - Relate to the audience Unlimited Realities doing some tablet stuff which is pretty cool. But the founder is very good at relating himself to the audience. He mentioned that he was in the same seats 3 and half years ago, that immediately build a bridge between him and students. After all, people feel much more comfortable with people that are common to them.

Worknow - Leverage (whatever you have) The guy from Worknow wasn’t a great public speaker (sorry man). But what’s good about him was he knows how to leverage his resources. He mentioned that they are in the same office with Sounthgate Labs, working for them give students opportunities to “work” with NZ startup gurus. That’s smart.