Weekly Learning

What's happening in my brain this week:)

Hi friends,

Hope you are doing well ❤️

I have been losing my writing consistency because of the pressure to perform well on the Internet. I had unfinished thoughts that I didn’t want to publish yet, but I still wanted to share them with this little corner.

I re-read the blog post “Why do I write online?” and I shared in the post my goal of writing online:

My goal is to cultivate a culture of lifelong learning where people feel safe to throw out incomplete ideas, half-baked thoughts, and works in progress. A culture where the focus is on the process, not the perfection.

I was reminded of why I write online, of this focus on process over perfection. This Weekly Learning series is my effort to go back to writing consistently, to continue writing and sharing my learning with the world.

Welcome to this week Weekly Learning 🙌

Work Updates 💪

Product Building 🔨

The past few weeks have included a lot of execution for me. We were delivering two courses at once while preparing another one for launch.

Over the past month, we delivered the best cohort of Writing On The Net that we have ever done. I am very proud and grateful for my team and all the alumni who helped us make our dream happen.

The cohort had 130 people all learning and writing together. I was so inspired. Going from 60, 70 students per cohort to 130 students per cohort, we saw how the community effect got so much more heightened in the latter. A year ago, after cohort #2, we made a goal to deliver a cohort of 100 people. A year later, we did it!! Though we came across quite a few hiccups when scaling and we still have a lot of things to improve in our design and operations, I am so glad we chose to scale up. Because otherwise, we would never learn what it's like to deliver to 100+ people, never learn what is needed to scale up.

Along the way, I am also grateful and touched by how understanding and supportive our customers are. They gave us feedback and ideas on how to keep growing our product and they encouraged us to keep going. I think I can die happily hearing these words from our customers:)

Besides Writing On The Net, we were delivering a Knowledge Management course where we encountered a lot of hiccups in our first launch. Hiccups are expected in the first launch, but I still had a lot of expectations for our new product because of what we have been able to achieve with Writing On The Net. I had to remind myself to be on the ground with the current students who are learning, interview them and observe them closely. From the students' feedback, we will roll out a better design in the second cohort in the next two months. I also had to remind myself to not impose the same design from one course to another nor expect the same engagement in both. I am unlearning a lot from launching both courses at the same time.

Growing Team

As we scale more products, we are hiring a Content Marketer in order to grow our Marketing team. In the first quarter of the year, we hired a Marketing position but it turned out to be not a good fit after the probation period. I learned how costly hiring is, how hard it is for me to communicate that the new hire is not a good fit and to follow up, observe and assess the new hire consistently. I really want to learn more about hiring.

Work System

Last week, I implemented a work system on Obsidian and I was quite happy with it. Every day, I would outline the tasks I have to do in the following frameworks:

• Most urgent

• Most important but not that urgent

• Not urgent nor important

Often times I would try to accomplish too many things in a day, which sometimes made me think I am more busy than I actually not. This system has helped me make sure I tackle that most urgent and important tasks first in the day and limit the amount of tasks that HAVE TO BE finished.

Personal Development 🫂

Design My Life

This weekend, some of the Vietnamese people living in Saigon from my university gathered for a reunion.

We asked each other, "If you have to quit your job right now, what would you do and why?"

Many of us either already quitted or want to quit to do something else. I am lucky enough to enjoy what I am doing now and my job helps me pay the bills. But at the same time, I know I won't be doing this forever. I will, at some point, have to redesign my work. It's crazy to me how much time of our life we spend working, thus, I think it's important for us to help each other do the work that matters to us so that we can have the energy and space for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities.

Thus, this month, I have a goal to host a "Design Your Life" workshop for myself and test with a few friends. I will start by re-reading "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans and revisiting the notes from a Career session from first year (will also look for more resources, especially ones whose viewpoints are not too US-centric). First, I will design a session for myself with the questions and wonders I have for myself currently. Then, I will ask a few friends to join me:)

Contribute to community

Over the past week, I attended an Info Session of Women Leaders Circle led by female leaders in different sectors based in Saigon. I was so inspired by their kindness and willingness to give to the community. Many of them have families and other commitment in their lives, but they still choose to spend time giving back to the community.

They remind me of our dedicated alumni who spend time giving back to the community even though they have many things on their plate. I want to make sure I dedicate time and energy to giving and doing good in the world like them.

Interesting Reads 💡

I am currently reading “Miseducated: A Memoir” by Brandon Fleming and learning about the role of communities in learning from the book “Psychology of Learning for Instruction” for my work designing courses at MỞ.

Thank you for reading ❤️

Have a wonderful week ahead.