End of Probation Period for My Second Job - Shifting from a Senior Consultant to a Programme Manager

End of Probation Period for My Second Job 
- Shifting from a Senior Consultant to a Programme Manager

My new journey in social service sector started on 12/12/2012. Today is the end of my 6-month probation period for the second job in my life. I am currently working as a programme manager in Internet Learning Resources Centre (ILRC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS). 

Last year, with my wife's full support, I gave up a great offer with 500K+ annual income from another international consulting firm, and pursued a new career in social service sector with deep pay cut. It is part of the realization process of my vision on consulting for not-for-profit organizations, especially for churches. Therefore, it worth the price. 

When people ask about my job, the simple answer is that "I am helping government on a programme against poverty, and we focus to help the underprivileged teenagers." To supplement, we are operating a social enterprise and the brand name we used for the government programme is "WebOrganic". We target to become self-sustainable financially when the 5-year programme ends. 

Wan Chai Office and Lai Chi Kok Office
Our WebOrganic office is in the Duke of Windsor Social Service Building, Wan Chai.

We have a new office in Lai Chi Kok in January 2013. 

My Team
This is a team photo taken in Apr 2013. We got a team of 17 people. Erwin (leftmost) is our CEO. Tony (forth from left) is our GM, who was previously worked in PCCW. Both of them are very bright and I learnt a lot of engagement and management skills from them.

I am lucky to have two subordinates to help me. This is Nic Chan (Right) and he is very helpful and smart. 

@Work
We attended a lot of presentations, organization visits, product demonstration, conference, open lessons, seminars, and activities. 

1. OGCIO Focus Group Observation for i-Learn-at-home (Dec 2012)
2. iPad Game Booth in a Special School (Dec 2012) 
3. Open Lesson at Jockey Club Primary School (Jan 2013) 
4. i-Class Product Demonstration (Jan 2013)
5. Dyknow Product Demonstration (Jan 2013)
6. Wikimedia Presentation (Feb 2013)
7. Open Lesson at The Lok Sin Tong Leung Wong Wai Fong Memorial School (Feb 2013) 
8. e-Learning Consortium EDU2.9 (Feb 2013)
9. Open Lesson at Alliance Primary School - Whampoa (Mar 2013)
10. Opening Ceremony of Jockey Club Digital Inclusion Center (Mar 2013)
11. 啪着60個夢想 Briefing (Apr 2013)
12. Community Investment and Inclusion Fund (CIIF) Briefing (Apr 2013)
13. ICT Expo (May 2013)

In the past 182 days, I was exposed to or handled 30+ new things highlighted below: 

1. Attend staff meeting and learn about 4 pillars of HKCSS
2. Engage suppliers (3HK, CSL, Wiki, Publisher, Infra, Apple Service Provider, etc)
3. Respond to government tender on hardware rental
4. Build a practice for E-learning consulting for schools
5. Organize principal workshop
6. Engage 3 schools to start e-Learning enablement projects
7. Coach team member
8. Hire part time staff
9. Process appraisal of subordinate
10. Develop roadmap planning for e-Learning in school
11. Persuade and negotiate with prinicipals for hardware procurement
12. Prepare QEF project proposal
13. Deliver a speech in front of 300 people
14. Share in front of 50 principals and teachers
15. Buy HKD600 snacks and ship from Kowloon Tong to Tai Wai on my own
16. Carry out marketing activities in social media network (FB, YouTube) for school
17. Edit 10+ video clips for promotion
18. Sell refurbished iPad to schools
19. Attend funding briefing and hear moving stories
20. Build and analyeze sales pipeline
21. Analyze school needs and recommend next best action
22. Attend 4+ open lessons & 10+ seminars
23. Create and deliver school bulk purchase package for 2 schools
24. Recruit for 100 students to attend an activity in super short timeframe
25. Participate in 10+ lesson observation
26. Engage Google for an activity
27. Experience bad political situation due to Legco discussion
28. Pay 360 to attend TED conference
29. Get CE and accounting firm's signature for proposal approval
30. Help school to get quotations to compare with my quotation
31. Conduct teacher iPad training sessions
32. Conduct co-plan sessions with primary 4 and primary 5 teachers

3 Most Impressive Things

It is hard and long-winded to write all my experience here. Therefore, I picked three most impressive things to share.

1. CSS Engagement - I started to engage Chiu Sheung School (CSS) from a casual conversation with a teacher in a seminar. Then I wrote a proposal in PowerPoint using my consulting experience in IBM. Finally, I successfully got CSS's principal to buy our idea and pay a small amount for our first-of-a-kind iPad e-Learning Enablement Pilot project. This project opened two more project opportunities for my team and kept us super busy over 4 months.  
2. EDU 2.9 - I got a last minute request from boss to present something in a seminar, since he was sick. However, he got no slides and I needed to create my own. While I was super busy with some school project, I found that the seminar was quite large in scale and had senior government officials being the guest. It was a "make-or-break" situation for my career and I squeezed myself for an extra mile to complete the task. It was a really great experience to challenge myself.
3. Fire-fighting - While I was super busy with school project work, a competence colleague offered help on a time-consuming task. This task was about recruiting 100 students from Western area to join a high profile Digital Inclusion activity. The event date was a week after Easter holiday. My colleague reported to our boss that he could not recruit any students just a few days before Easter holiday. I was all out to get my friends and family members to help. My father got me one school and a senior lady got me another one, all routing through the principal level. My friend, Karen, got me the last and the most critical one. Thanks God for the grace and thanks my friends and family members to help fight against a fire. 

New Scope of Work
My scope of work was update after Mar 2013. The new scope is:

1. Business development and offering development
2. School programme development and promotion
3. Develop new projects for external funding 

All key areas involve sales and marketing. Thanks God that I got equipped through my years in IBM and through my study in MSc (Marketing). 

Why Change Join? My First Job as Consultant in IBM Hong Kong
I worked for my first employer, which is an international technology conglomerate, since my graduation of bachelor degree. Started as a consultant trainee, my career was not bad. Being promoted for two times and, when I left the company, I was a senior consultant in Business Intelligence practice. My job duty shifted from delivery to project engagement and project management, which meant selling successfully and then ensuring project execution was smooth. This was a fast-track to understand the biz world at operation level and my horizon was widely broadened. 
   
The Answer... Two Diverse Offers for My Second Job
It was time to switch to a new environment at the seventh year in IBM, even though there were some financial incentives. Finished my master degree in marketing and became a new member of the father club, I was proactively looking for more exposure and a new page for life. There were two offers for me which were really heading towards two extreme ends. 

The first offer was from an international consulting firm and the other was from a new start-up social enterprise.  The former one provided extremely good career development and financial incentives. After four rounds of interview, the position was secured and a significant paid raise was bargained. The second one was by invitation of a charismatic celebrity but on contract term and with huge pay cut. However, this was more aligned to my vision of church consulting, which is a deeply planted idea by God into my life. 

Vision for Jeff - My Calling for Church Consulting
When I was in year 3 in HKU, I asked God if he wants me to become a full-time worker for his kingdom. He told me, "Yes, but not now. It's at the age of 40." One year from my start of consulting career, in a prayer, my mind was opened for a new idea about "church consulting". I always worry if such idea was out of my personal thought, however, after some more prayer, the passion continued to grow and glow in my heart. After discussion with some pastors and church teachers, I understood churches really need that, especially for small and medium churches. In addition, there is formal training for church consultants in America since long time ago.

Hard Way to Start - Changing Industry to Pave the Way for Church Consulting
Changing from one industry to another is no easy task. I knew that an extremely smart and experienced consultants were not taken by an NGO even with a significant pay cut. Switching from business and technology consulting to church consulting is difficult. A progressive shift from business to not-for-profit sector seems to be a good start for career migration.

Anxiety and Comfort  
As you could imagine, it was a tough decision to change industry. However, thanks God for the courage and comfort through His own words in bible as below:   

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 
(Isaiah 55:11 NIV)

我口所出的話也必如此，決不徒然返回；卻要成就我所喜悅的，在我發他去成就的事上必然亨通。以賽亞書55章11節

Next Step   
It is hard to know the next step. But I am sure God will get me more companions if it is the way He wants me to walk on. Please pray for me...