Hyokon's home

Artpoli is a community and marketplace for fine arts. We wanted to broaden opportunities for artists to show their works.

In addition to the web service, we are delivering the images to SK Broadband's IPTV, with more than 800,000 subscribers in Korea. The channel is called "TV Gallery."

We also have Artpoli Gallery for iPhone and iPod Touch. Read about it here.

Innomove Lab creates new businesses. I am the CEO.

I wrote a small book titled "Longtail Strategy for Korean Companies". It has paper-book and ebook editions. And the paper book is sold together with Chris Anderson's The Long Tail, which I also translated into Korean edition with some colleagues of mine. While writing my book, I developed the concept of Mass Niche. Mass Niche is the new economy of diverse small businesses we are entering after the Mass Production economy dominated by large companies. It has significant implications, including less concentrated wealth, the importance of arts (visual arts, music, etc), and freer and happier work.

Random thoughts on innovation, entrepreneurship and changes in the way we live.

This is my tumblog to write short notes. At first, I didn't know how much I would use it. But it became my primary tools for comment blogging, in place of Cocomment.

If you are a Korean, or more correctly if you can read Korean, this is my blog written in Korean. This is not a Korean version of my English blog, although I may post the same content in English and Korean.

Occasional and random notes.

As a slow blogger, commenting is the way to write my thoughts fast.

I am now using Backtype to log my comments on other sites. I used to use Tumblr and Cocomments for this, but Backtype seems more efficient to log comments. One problem is Backtype does not track all the comments I make, but it has been tolerable so far.

I used to use CoComment, but not any more. I switched to Tumblr and more recently to Backtype.

I have a Facebook account, but I have not been doing much other than sending and receiving friend requests. The "playing kids" feel of Facebook is just not for me. Cyworld has been popular for a long time (it started in 1999) in Korea, but I have not used it either. It feels like Facebook.

I update my professional profile here. If you want to see my entire career to date, this is the place.

I certainly feel more comfortable using LinkedIn than Facebook. However, I rarely do other things than occasionally inviting and accepting connection.

I occasionally use StumbleUpon to bookmark 'fun' (as opposed to work) pages.

Before starting Innomove, I was a manager at Bain & Company. At Bain, I was having a great career. I was lucky to be the key manager for the largest client of Seoul Office for 2.5 years. I was honored to be voted as the first Best Coach of Seoul Office. I learned a lot about how to change and move large companies. But there were some cases that were more important to me, even though others also celebrated. Together with my colleagues, I proposed and designed the first online insurance business models in Korea, when there was hardly any precedent globally. So, when people asked me why I was leaving, my response was "I want to do it more." The traditional business strategy is about running, not creating. It is more analysis than flash of ideas. While I liked strategy, I loved innovation more.

Before Bain, I worked at A.T. Kearney, another consulting firm. In 2000, I worked in Europe on broadband projects twice, once in Poland and the other in Portugal. I was asked by my Swedish partner to move to Sweden to work with him, but the big Internet boom in Korea made me to come back to Korea. On the phone, a friend said to me "it is a revolution now!" Well, when I came back the bubble bursted as you know. I wonder how my life would have been different now if I had stayed in Europe. Another crossroad of my career.

I also worked at CJ, the largest food and media entertainment company in Korea. When I was working for CJ, it was still a part of Samsung Group and was regarded as Samsung management academy as one of Samsung's earliest businesses.

At CJ, I had my first experience of innovation. I initiated and led the development of Sol-eui-nun, a soft drink made with pine buds. We found that there was no drinks that were meant to be good for health yet appealing to young urban people. Soleuinun targeted that empty market, and became a successful product. It still seems a steady seller.

I worked at STAR-TV in Hong Kong during my MBA summer vacation. I travelled to Korea and Indonesia as well. I worked at business development, which did new market entry, joint ventures, etc. I worked with spreadsheet most of time, and never had a chance to work with TV actors.

Later, a colleague of mine who worked in the same department got married with an international celebrity.

I am an MBA from Kellogg School. I liked finance and graduated as the top finance student. Actually, I almost joined Enron (another what-if point). Looking back, I think I liked financial innovation, but not the finance industry lifestyle.

I went to Seoul National University, studying Economics. At first I dreamed of becoming an economist, but was discouraged partly to find that my classmates who wanted to become economists (who would become my collagues if I became an economist) were the people I found most boring. (Later on at Kellogg, I found that academics in the US had some cool people.) But I still like economic thinking.

I used to play guitar at a rock band called Volcano, that I formed with my highschool friends. It lasted until college days. I still enjoy rock music, often watching rock guitarists at YouTube.