Why Not Seeing the Ad is Normal 2024.11.19

In a scenario where there are 20 million users and an advertisement campaign generates 5 million impressions, each user can see the ad at most once. If we randomly select four people, what are the chances that none of them sees the ad? This probability can be calculated using the hypergeometric distribution, which considers the total population, the number of exposed users, and the sample size.

After computation, the probability that none of the four people sees the ad is approximately 31.64%, while the probability of exactly one person seeing the ad is about 42.19%. The difference between these probabilities isn’t as large as you might expect, right? This highlights an important point: it is quite common for a small group to have no exposure to the ad, even when the campaign reaches millions of users.

The reason is straightforward: with 20 million users and only 5 million exposures, the campaign’s reach is limited relative to the total population. For any given individual, the chance of seeing the ad is just 25% (5 million divided by 20 million). When selecting four people randomly, it’s more likely that not all of them belong to the exposed group.

In marketing campaigns like this, it is crucial to understand the statistical nature of exposure. A significant portion of users might not see the ad due to the limited number of impressions relative to the audience size. This does not indicate a failure in the campaign but rather reflects the mathematical reality of impression distribution.

If you need a specific person to see the advertisement, you might want to use fixed placement strategies. For example, purchasing a time slot for a fixed ad position on a particular website or application ensures that the ad is visible during the exposure period. This strategy allows you to ensure that your supervisor or higher manager can see the ad you’ve purchased. Incorporating such an approach into your media strategy can be effective in special situations where targeted exposure is critical. 

A Life-Changing Saturday: The Day Our Family Grew 2024.10.10

On the morning of August 31st, 2024, a Saturday that is very different from the rest of the Saturdays of the year. Every Saturday morning, I had to attend an English class online. As usual, we did a little overtime to discuss the last question of the weekly topic. Suddenly, my daughter broke our discussion and yelled at me, “Dad! Mommy is bleeding a lot!” and I heard my wife yell from another corner of my house, “I am OK, so far!“ I finished the discussion as quickly as I could and then asked my wife. “How do you feel? Do you think it will happen TODAY?“ She said.”I am not sure, but if my pain becomes regular and more painful, we have to go to the hospital.” 

After having brunch and taking a nap, we went to the hospital. I actually seldom take a nap on Saturday afternoon, but my instinct told me TODAY would be my son’s birthday which means it would be a long day and there would be lots of tasks to do, that’s why I took a nap to make sure I could have enough energy to face the challenge later. After arriving at the hospital, my wife called her mom and asked her to pick up our daughter and take her home. We knew our daughter was excited, but she was not be able to help at that moment.

Since my wife’s pain became more intense and that was around 17:00, the doctor said ”We can go to the delivery room now. Please let the husband sign some documents for staying in the hospital” I signed the documents and waited for them to call me to go into the delivery room. Waiting outside of the delivery room was the most difficult time of the whole process because I couldn’t see my wife at the moment, but still could hear her screaming. Time seemed to stop and my anxiety was 100% full. 10 minutes later, the door opened, and the nurse said “you can come in now.” I walked in and I witnessed the process of my son being born from his mom’s body. Fortunately, my wife and my son were both fine in the process and finally I could hold my wife’s hand and cheer her up. 

Now, I am a father of two kids. My wife’s recovery is going very well. After two delivery processes, I believe my wife has a superpower, the power of being a mother is incredible. I hope my daughter can grow up to be like her mom and have that kind of power even if she doesn’t want to be a mom, and my son can grow up to be a gentleman who respects women because he was born from such a painful process by his Mom.

林綠出生的記憶小碎片 2024.9.29

1. 2024/8/30 找我老婆中午一起吃午餐，因為要恭喜她下週一開始的待產假，終於可以好好休息了。我跟我老婆在同一棟大樓的不同樓層的不同公司上班。我們挑選了12：30出發用餐，結果這時間每個餐廳都客滿，我們最後去吃肯德基。

2. 每週六早上我都會在家上英文課，最後一個月孕婦每週都要產檢。因為家裡離醫院很近，我老婆都騎機車載我女兒一起去，第一胎的時候絕對不敢讓這件事情發生，第二胎倒也不是隨便，可能就是少了一點戰戰兢兢。

3. 2024/8/31 快要下課的時候我女兒衝了進我書房，因為她每個禮拜都會衝進我的書房，第一時間也不覺得有什麼異樣，但是這次她衝進來說，「爸爸！媽媽流了好多月經！」但我老婆在外面喊說，「沒關係啦～」。跟老師完成最後的討論後，出門趕快關心老婆。

4. 確認老婆沒事之後，我老婆在客廳吃她回家路上買的蛋餅，我就在房間跟我女兒玩。玩一玩，我就跟我女兒說，「你去跟媽媽說，爸爸想要睡一下，如果要去醫院的話再叫爸爸起床。」嘴巴是這樣講，我心裡想的其實是，應該就是今天了，照這時間點應該今天還有得忙，我可得趕快補充一點體力。不知道是上一次的經驗還是靈感，但當時就非常肯定今天會生，不過我當下沒特別跟我老婆說就是了。

5. 大概一點出頭，我老婆叫我起床，我們整理了一下行李，我還挑選了一頂比較百搭的 Carhartt 帽子，因為我想說這一出門，下次回家就是林綠出生之後了，我可能不能很沒有風格的迎接他的到來。我老婆則是很細心的分開打包了生產包跟住院包。這樣就不用一次扛超多物品到診間，真是縝密。最後我們抵達醫院的時間是 13:10。

6. 隨著一波又一波的陣痛，我跟我老婆都非常確信今天就會生產。中間還遇到護理師跟值班醫師想退貨，但是都被我老婆說服了。我老婆認真想說服別人的時候真的很強，堅定的語氣搭配誠實的面孔。

7. 大約在17：00附近進入生產間，我也有進去，但護理師跟醫生忘記詢問我要不要剪臍帶，所以這次我沒有剪臍帶。不過沒關係，老實說，剪臍帶很無聊，如果可以的話，我想試試看接生，我看兩次了，我覺得我應該可以。

8. 林綠在 17：19 出生。這傢伙不知道是天生帥哥病還是怎樣，衝出產道的姿勢跟氣勢真的頗帥，有一種 superhero landing 的感覺。

9. 比預期早了一些，不過是個非常完整的嬰兒。2,830g，頭圍32cm，身長43cm。十根腳趾，十根手指，兩個眼睛，兩個耳朵，一個嘴，一個或兩個斷掌。好樣的，你爸爸也是一個斷掌。

10. 在嬰兒誕生完的好一段時間，嬰兒到底怎樣，我其實沒有很有所謂，對我來說，我老婆的一切才是最重要的。對我來說，我老婆就是我的一切，也是在這段過程中最在乎的人。 

Building Consensus: 3 Strategies for Gaining Support for New Ideas in the Workplace _ 2024.9.28

As a proactive worker, I believe in the process of optimization. For instance, Google must adjust its algorithm frequently to ensure search results always align with what users are seeking; also, developers of a popular mobile game should iterate the app fast to provide gamers a better playing experience. Innovation helps many companies become successful in the market. As a part of a huge organization, how can we build consensus around a new idea? Here are three strategies I’ve learned recently. 

1. Gather Agreement Before Publishing Your Idea:
Sometimes, suddenly revealing a new idea makes colleagues feel that you are too aggressive without thinking. At the same time, a new idea should get support from decision-makers and peers. A good strategy is to review others’s perspectives first and revise your idea into a more suitable solution for everyone. Finally, when you present this idea in a meeting, you are more likely to win their agreement unconditionally.

2. Reduce The Information Asymmetry:
When you want to have a new workflow in your organization, you will likely encounter some difficulties and unnecessary processes. Share your bad experiences to let everyone know and give space to those show disagreement by describing the reasons. After that, your discussion could focus on figuring out the middle point that makes everyone feel satisfied. It’s easier to evaluate an idea with transparent background information and find a consensus from all members of a unit.

3. Transform Your Novelty Into Value: 
It’s harder to assess the novelty of an idea than its value. For example, it’s easier to understand whether we will earn more revenue from the new solution; whether we will shorten the process to achieve the same goal, and whether we will reduce the marketing cost? No matter how innovative it is, transform it into how valuable it is for the team is crucial. It builds criteria for your new idea and can be evaluated.

Don’t be upset when you face a lot of disagreement. This kind of experience improves your skills in building a consensus next time. Hopefully, these three strategies are useful for your career.

Embrace Consistency Over Perfection 2024.8.23

Everyone sets goals for careers, family life, financial plans, and personal habits. It’s great to have goals so that when you wake up you feel energetic to do something to achieve your goals. But how can we develop better strategies for setting goals in different areas of life? An outdated method is to divide your big goal into three categories: the final goal, the mid-term goal, and the short-term goal. Beyond this approach, how can we maintain our values or make sure we can keep going toward the success we believe in? Here are three strategies for reference.

1. Reduce the difficult and impossible goals: 

The key to setting goals is to let you know how to ensure you are on the correct path to the goals. Too many challenging goals are hard to break down into little steps and make us feel upset when realizing how far we are still from achieving them. Then, we give up on achieving doing what we want to achieve. Set some reasonable goals at first, and when we have a little progress, set the harder ones.

2. Be consistent: 

Sometimes, it takes decades to become an expert in specific areas. How you can keep on practicing or doing something for a long time is more important than what your goals are. If you can keep on doing certain things consistently over time for a lifetime, you can achieve anything more easily than others. Find a balance between you current achievements and what you are eager to achieve in the future, which can help you keep on learning skills you don’t have now.

3. Be brave about giving up: 

When we realize some goals are not important to us anymore, don’t feel guilty about giving up even if we have spent many hours on them. We can’t achieve everything, but we can always focus on what is the most important. Giving up is not abandoning the efforts we’ve made previously but about making essential progress in our lives,

Especially as adults, we are burned out from job and family responsibilities. Goals are not meant to add more pressure but are intended for a better life we want to have. Feel free to celebrate when achieving a little and don’t put the blame on yourself when failing at something. Hopefully, we can find joy in achieving some goals and continue setting new ones.

How Taiwan's Athletes Flourished at the Paris 2024 Olympics 2024.8.14

Although we won fewer medals this year compared to the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, the Paris 2024 Olympics has been one of my favorite experiences of watching and cheering for athletes from Taiwan. I enjoyed every match and every game, not because we won, but because I noticed that the athletes from Taiwan genuinely enjoyed the competition as well. This is truly special to see because in the past, I felt that athletes from Taiwan were always very nervous on the court and stage. Perhaps they carried too much stress on their shoulders before.

I wonder why athletes from Taiwan are able to enjoy the games more now. First, I think they have gained more international experience. Young athletes must have participated in many professional sports competitions and tournaments over the past three years, which makes the Olympics feel like just another international event. Second, athletes realize that no matter how they perform, they will have full support from Taiwan. For example, Taiwan has set up a local food station near the Olympic Village so our athletes can enjoy familiar food. Many sports fans have also bought tickets to Paris to watch the games, and there's been an outpouring of love and support on social media for our athletes.

When we learn more about a certain sport or athlete, we realize that the Olympics are just one stage in an athlete’s entire career. Sometimes, an athlete participates in the Olympics solely for the honor of Taiwan, so we shouldn't complain when they lose a game. Instead, to show our gratitude for their contribution, we should cheer for them unconditionally as well.

Furthermore, many organizations have put in a lot of effort to ensure we can watch the Olympic Games at home. If you haven’t yet, next time you can purchase a paid subscription on Hami Videos or Elta OTT online, allowing you to enjoy many different sports right from your computer or smart TV.

Beyond Encouragement 2024.6.26

 If you are a parent, I believe your expectations are similar to mine. Parents want to encourage their kids to do everything nowadays. When our kids encounter frustrations, we say phrases like, “I Know you can do that because you are the best.“, or “Practice makes perfect, so you should practice more to get better results.“ undoubtedly, we love our kids unconditionally, but is this kind of encouragement good enough? Should we also take care of more spheres in our family?

First of all, our world is changing so fast that we can’t just have a single approach and always be positive when encountering everything. Flexibility, resilience, communication skills, and adaptability are also crucial for survival. The path to learning these skills is learning from experiencing frustrations. We all have negative emotions when we face frustrations, and parents should teach their kids to realize these emotions and manage them healthily.

Second, families should embrace both positive and negative emotions. In my opinion, that is not the only but the most essential value in a family. Kids at school are not encouraged to cry or yell, so they don’t affect other kids. Adults in a company may need to hide their emotions when facing supervisors and clients. However, we as human beings do have emotions and family plays a role in containing all kinds of emotions. We don’t always have to be optimistic in front of our family members.

In conclusion. while it is good to encourage our kids and foster a positive spirit, it’s equally important to teach them how to face negative emotions and learn more approaches from them. Too much positivity would let our kids misunderstand that the  warmest function of a family is loving each other unconditionally. A family has many sides, and it’s essential to maintain the balance.