To complete the 4000-word essay (I managed to write 2800 words only), I thought of 10 points and expanded from there. I published in Facebook before and have drawn many comments.

Here are the 10 points for sharing to all.  Welcome to comment and criticize. I’d like to discuss and learn from your viewpoints.

Introduction

The question “Is globalization good or bad for Malaysia?” is not relevant any more. Globalization will happen and is happening to all countries including Malaysia, no matter it’s good or bad.

Quoting an unusual example – The late Qing dynasty in China in late 19th century and early 20th century. They locked the country out from the rest of the world. Unlike the Meiji Restoration that propelled their neighbour Japan into a world power in just a few decades, the Qing dynasty eventually fell in 1911.  Refuse to follow the world trend? It’s either downfall or extinction.

The 10 Points

#1 Malaysian businesses need the global market. The local market is just too small. It’s a matter of survival in the globalized 21st century. Don’t be content with just being a jaguh kampung (champion in home country).

#2 Malaysia needs to specialize. Want to get out of the middle income trap? Do something new, something different. Don’t insist on attracting FDI in labor-intensive businesses. Move up the value chain.

#3 We have been trying to “prepare” for globalization for too long time, even decades. It’s true some of us, some industries, some businesses are not ready. But when will we be ready? Perhaps when we are truly ready, we are irrelevant in the world economy any more.

#4 Globalization raises our competitiveness. Being a frog in a well (Malay proverb: katak dalam tempurung) does not improve our competitiveness. In business, it’s only when we face the real challenges that we grow. Just open up and the competition will hasten up our readiness.

#5 Globalization raises our human capital. Yes, brain drain is a real problem. But don’t dwell on it too long. How about using these “drained brain” in overseas for our advantage instead? How about getting foreign talents into our country instead? Who say Malaysia can’t attract talents? Learn from Mind Valley, the Google workplace of Malaysia.

#6 When we close ourselves out, people will not admire us. When we become an open book and have transparency, investors will come. A 81% drop in FDI is a wake-up call, much too late. Learn the lesson and open up.

#7 Communities in Malaysia have been sharing the same country, yet living segregated. But our diversity should be a great blessing to foray into the largest markets in world. Globalized Malaysian businesses with true partnership among different races and spirit of 1Malaysia can help national unity.

#8 We are living in an integrating, interdependent world economy. We need to keep up this reality. Want to close our market? Check the fate of Qing dynasty.

#9 We are good in many areas. We have leadership in many markets, such as Islamic finance and palm oil. Why can’t we excel in other areas as well? Malaysia Boleh (Malaysia can)? Don’t be defeatist. Think boleh and we boleh!

#10 I never advocate opening up 100% completely without reservation. There are limits. But we need to embrace globalization and even be an advocate in it. Globalization will change us, for the better.

What do you think of globalization? Is it good or bad for Malaysia? Welcome to voice your opinions.

Are you facing any regular email problem? For example, you can’t connect to server from Outlook, or you can’t login in webmail. Sound familiar?

I acknowledge all the problems. This problem with the service provider occurs from time to time for years already. At the time of writing this, their server was down and just recovered one hour ago, after 3 hours of downtime.

Yes I’m sorry because I had been using this provider. But they were once very good before. However, unfortunately their services and server quality have deteriorated in recent years. After so many complaints, I no longer harbor any hope that they would improve.

Yes, I’m very frustrated about it as you are. Every time their server has such problem, many customers would ring me up, but sometimes I can’t contact them at all. Their technical support line is just too busy!

So, since 2008 I have started to use a few new servers located in a different data centre. These new servers have proven to be much more reliable and better for these two years. I’ve been asking, requesting, urging and even begging customers to migrate over to any one of the new servers.

Thanks goodness most customers took my suggestion and migrated. But there are still a small group of customers who have not migrated. If I asked you to read this article, most probably you are one of them!

So can I help fix all the problems for you by migrating your domain name to the new server? The migration is free. You still pay the same hosting price every year. I have done this migration smoothly for a lot of customers. I’m confident I can do this well for you too.

The only drawback of migration is that, individual emails in webmail cannot be migrated. If your users have been using webmail exclusively, they need to download their emails to their computer using any email software such as Microsoft Outlook.

However, I have customers who have hundreds of users but their hosting was migrated smoothly without problem. Everyone was happy. The much better reliability, services and features on the new server far outweight the inconvenience of having to download emails during the migration period of one or two days.

Here’s a brief guide how to go about it:

1. Let me know you want to migrate. I will send you technical details to set up your email software (Outlook etc) for steps below.
2. You need to set up your email software to download emails from the old server. If you have been using such software to send and receive emails, then you just need to change a few settings.
3. On my side, I will copy over your web site from old server to new server. I will also recreate your email accounts on new server (but I can’t copy over emails to new server).
4. I will send you the “server configuration” of the new server, which you can use to set up your email software to access the new server. The new settings will not work until domain name is migrated below.
5. I will migrate your domain name to the new server at a mutually agreed cut-off date and time. Normally it’s best to do it at night or weekends. The domain name will be down for a few hours. But you still can send and receive emails through the old server. (Technically speaking, it’s just a few mouse clicks on my side to change name servers, but the process called DNS propagation can take a few hours)
6. After migration above, your web site will be up and running on the new server. Your email software will also be able to connect to the new server. You can also use the new webmail to access your emails.
7. You may keep the old server settings in email software for a week or so, just in case there are incoming emails which “accidentally” go to the old server. After that, you may delete the old server settings when you see fit.

If you are interested to read more about the benefits of new server, please check out:

• Free Migration To cPanel Hosting
• FAQ on cPanel Hosting
• Email Hosting Migration – Zero Downtime!
• Do-It-Yoursef (DIY) Server Migration

Please contact me today to migrate over to new server!

• What is a parked domain name? You can “park” a domain name Parked.com to a main domain name Main.com, so that people visiting Parked.com will see Main.com instead. You can park as many domain names as you want.
• http://bizpartner.com.my/ is our major web site. But you can access it at http://bizpartner.my/ also. Why? Because bizpartner.my is a parked domain name of bizpartner.com.my. Would you like such other domain names to point to your web site too?
• Hi Malaysian companies, would you like to register .com.sg Singaporean domain names to protect your brand name? You can register at http://bizpartner.com.my/domain today!
• A domain name is a readable name such as “bizpartner.com.my”. Its actual address on Internet is a string of numbers called IP address such as “110.4.45.95″. We use domain name in place of the IP address to make it easier to identify a web site on Internet.
• We can pinpoint the location of anywhere on the planet by using coordinates. Similarly, we can pinpoint any computer or server connected to the Internet by means of its IP address. It is a string of numbers such as 110.4.45.95.

You can get the above tips in your Facebook by joining as fan on BizPartner page on Facebook.

• Domain name (such as rickysoo.com) is your identity on the Internet. Your web site address (such as http://www.rickysoo.com/) and email accounts (such as user@rickysoo.com) are named according to your domain name. Without a domain name, you cannot have such web site or email accounts that uniquely identify YOU.
• A subdomain (such as sales.company.com) is a subdivision of your domain name (company.com). You can host a different web site on this subdomain as http://sales.company.com/, and create email accounts such as alan@sales.company.com
• Why not use subdomains to create different email addresses for different departments in your company? You can have email addresses like ricky@sales.bizpartner.com.my. Read http://www.rickysoo.com/2009/03/25/use-subdomain-in-your-email-address/
• Who can register .com.my, .net.my and .org.my? Any ORGANIZATION registered in Malaysia, including society, association, non-profit organization etc. Individuals? Go for .com lah
• What if you need a .my domain name but have no company to register with? Go for second-level domain name, such as bizpartner.my, Yourname.my. Any Malaysian can register!
• You work in the sales department. yourname@company.com or yourname@sales.company.com. Which email address do you prefer?

You can get the above tips in your Facebook by joining as fan on BizPartner page on Facebook.

Marketing is applied everywhere, whether we like it or know it or not. Maybe we can learn from Peter Drucker on what he says about selling and marketing in his book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices..

“There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.”

Now let’s apply and adapt marketing vs. selling (courting) to boy-girl relationship and see if we can get any insight from the wisdom

“There will always, one can assume, be need for some courting. But the aim of marketing is to make courting superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the guy/girl so well that you fit the target and sell yourself. Ideally, marketing should result in a target who is ready to accept your proposal. All that should be needed then is to make you available!”

14. Did your studies help you in any way in your work? How?

Certainly. I have always found practical applications to work.  For instance, many accounting concepts such as revenue recognition have been directly useful in doing my own accounts.  Others include marketing concepts. Many a times I just cannot concentrate on reading up the marketing textbook, simply because my mind will drift away thinking of applications in business!

Furthermore, I have found concepts and models useful even in personal life too!  These include balanced scorecard, SWOT analysis, branding and repositioning that could be directly used in assessing our own self and making strategic decisions for our own life.

15. What do you expect to achieve with your MBA in 5 years?

An MBA will be of no use if it is not applied in real life cases.  I expect to be able to use what I have learned in busniess, especially in making informed decision and strategic planning.  I also expect to raise my soft skills such as presentation and public speaking to the next level.

16. What is the most recent book you read? Did it help you?

In preparation to write a marketing plan for one assignment, I borrowed from the libarary and just finished reading the book titled “The Marketing Plan: A Handbook” by Marian Burk Wood. It has helped me understand the steps in creating a marketing plan.  It is defintely not just start writing, but needs to go through real life analysis and decision making before coming up with a sound marketing plan.  This is directly useful in my business.

17. Looking back, what would you have done to prepare yourself before starting your MBA? Why?

I am working while studying at the same time, but I enjoy my life back to school again.  If I could have a wish, I wished I could just take a leave from work for one to two years and immerse myself in studies.

I have recently been interviewed by two local authors for their upcoming book on MBA in Malaysia.  Here are my original replies to their questions.

10. Describe a typical day at work.

I am a mobile worker and can work from anywhere with a laptop and Internet connection, even from school.  In a typical day without class, I normally intertwine working and studying throughout the whole day.  When I go out to meet customers and attend events, and sometimes travel outstation, I will bring along my mobile office wherever I go.  I can work in Starbucks and hotel room for hours.  I am a workaholics but have been sincerely trying not to work at night!

11. Describe a typical day in school.

It depends on whether my class is in the morning or evening.  The classes are 3 hours normally with half-hour break in middle of the session.  In a typical class,  the lecturer teaches for the first half of the session, and then students take stage to do presentation in the second half after the class break.  But this varies from lecturer to another.  If it is a morning class, I normally will stay back in school for one to two hours after the class to work in my mobile office!

12. Do some of your classmates struggle in class? Why?

All students do have their share of struggle in pursuing an MBA degree.  If one is not challenged, he and she might have chosen the wrong program.  Yes, some classmates may not be used to the student-centered learning approach as they are accustomed to the traditional teaching methods such as lecture.  For those who lack working experience, they might struggle in understanding, appreciating and applying the course content. As a result, some may not be able to produce work of quality expected in an MBA program.

13. What weaknesses do you observe in some of your classmates?

The lack of working experience among some classmates is certainly an area we should look into.  Other weaknesses such as lack of critical thinking, analytical and presentation skills are typical among students under the education system in our country.  The education system needs to be transformed to the next level to enable the country to march into high-level income country as according to the proposed New Economic Model (NEM).

The problem is, who to trust and what to entrust them with? This comes with experience. My observation in business is that, we should be shrewd as snakes (know the workings of the devil), but be innocent as doves (be like angel believing the world can get better)

No doubt we are living in a distrustful world. There are some people who just can’t be trusted. But I guess most people are innocent like you and me, basically good people but just hesitate to trust others.

I suppose the world maintains itself based on trust, without which it will just break down. We trust our engineers have done good job that our roof won’t fall down to hit our head. We trust our banker with our money that it won’t get lost.

Managing people needs trust. We must trust our employees for certain things, or we will end up doing all the job ourselves.  Expanding business network needs trust. We must trust our partners that they will do their part, or we will end up being lone ranger in business.

There is a Chinese saying that if we use the service of people, trust them. Otherwise, do not hire him (用人不疑，疑人不用). Especially true in managing people who work for us.

Correct me if I’m wrong, the world needs more trust.  As we extend our trust to people more, good and innocent people like you and me will reciprocate their trust to us.

Between trusting people and distrusting people, I would rather choose to trust than distrust. The world needs more trust and we can do our part to make it a better world. Not only for the world, but for the advantage of ours and people around us too.

The problem is, who to trust and what to entrust them with? This comes with experience. My observation in business is that, we should be shrewd as snakes (know the workings of the devil), but be innocent as doves (be like angel believing the world can get better)

5. Which subject so far do you like best?

I like all subjects that I have taken so far.  But some subjects has been an eye-opener to me.  Though I am more inclined towards marketing-related subjects, I have found new interest in subjects I thought I would not be interested in. These subjects include Accounting for Decision Making, Financial Management and Business Law. But if I must choose a subject based on interest, then it must be Marketing Management.

6. Having gone through in the program so much, would you choose the same program again if you have the chance?

Given by my budget, I still consider UPM-GSM the best in the market that I could afford.  I admire its teaching approach such as problem-based learning (PBL), as opposed to just being lectured in class.  Yes I would choose the same program again if given the chance.

7. What do you like least about the program?

While I like the program, its syllabus and the school, the level of the students is quite varied.  They can be managers in their 40s with vast experience in business and management, but can also be fresh graduates with virtually no working experience.

However, an MBA program does require certain level of understanding and appreciation in the business world.  With an MBA class consisting of students from various levels of experience, it is said that the experienced ones can get frustrated for the lack of learning experience and challenge from peers, while the inexperienced ones can get unnecessarily confused for the difficulties in understanding the course content and producing works of comparable quality.

8. Which subject is the hardest?

I have experienced some challenges in studying Financial Management for my lack of knowledge in this area.  But the hardest subject so far for me has got to be Business Law.  While it is very interesting and practical in business application, I have found it hard to remember the statute laws and case laws.  It is an unfamiliar territory to me.

9. In what ways do you think the MBA can be improved?

The MBA has been quite successful in its student-centered teaching approach.  But perhaps the school could look into the problem highlighted above for the variety of student quality.  By the way,  it might be too easy to get A in the program.  Getting grade A might not mean one reaches the required understanding and appreciation of the subject matter, but rather he or she knows how to study.

1. Briefly describe your career to date.

I graduated from the University of Malaya in 2002 with a bachelor degree in computer science. While I have been working as a administrative assistant, computer technician and computer programmer, my experience working for people has not been substantial.  Most of my working life has been spent on building my own business, which I started while I was still a university student.

Currently, I am an Internet business developer, building and managing a few online businesses of my own.  My main business is an IT company focusing on providing domain name, web and email hosting services at http://bizpartner.com.my.  I also operate a blog at RickySoo.com.

2. What makes you want to do an MBA?

I came from a technical background and have been working in my business as a “technician”, as opposed to being an “entrepreneur” or “manager”, according to the three business personalities popularized by E-Myth.  As I found the need to cross over from being a technician to become more of an entrepreneur, I needed to develop myself in terms of knowledge, skills, experience and network.

MBA is one major part of my self-development programme in pursuit of my career objective to succeed in business. I have always kept reminding myself of my purposes in doing an MBA, as summarized in the acronym called LDNE (Learning, Development, Networking and Experience).  I have much to learn about all aspects of a business, develop myself in business and soft skills, network with like-minded people and experience school life again after years of working!

3. Which school are you attending? Why that one?

I am attending the Graduate School of Management in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM-GSM) as at http://gsm.upm.edu.my.  Besides reasons such as budget and convenience of its location, I chose the school because of its student-centered and problem-based learning approach, and also for its high ranking in the country and the region.

4. Which other school was you interested in? Why?

If my budget and time allowed for it, I would consider doing MBA overseas.  Schools like Harvard maybe too far-fetched. But I’m definitely interested in schools nearer such as Nanyang Business School in Singapore, and McGill MBA in Japan.

Why not? Businesses, banks, legal firms and government agencies have been known to conduct background check on people using CTOS, CCRIS and other means.

After all, foreknowledge on people, companies and markets we are dealing with will be much useful to ensure higher success for us.

Sun Tzu even says, “Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge” (故明君賢將，所以動而勝人，成功出于眾者，先知也)

So, why can’t employers check on job candidates before hiring them? One justification is that, hiring the wrong employee is not only costly to the company, but also detrimental to the employee who comes into the wrong job.

But are you aware of the dangers of doing such online background check?  Feel free to comment on my presentation done in December 2009 below or on SlideShare.net.

• Leadership is a service. A leader is one who provides a service called leadership.
• A leader is just one part of the team.  Everyone in the team plays his or her own role.  The leader plays a role by providing leadership.
• Since leadership is a service, a leader is one who serves others by providing that service. He or she is a servant (one who serves) to others.  The leader is a servant leader.
• Leadership is a calling.  It is something bestowed to the leader.  It is not his or her thing. The leader serves for something higher than just him or herself.
• Leadership is nothing glorious. It is not about the leader. It is not about anyone’s reputation. It is not about exalting the leader him or herself. He or she has no need to take credits.
• When his or her job is done, or his or her term with the team is over, the leader should just step down and let others take over. The leader should not stay on for the sake of ego.
• The leader is not one who sits behind and instructs people to do things. He not only knows the way, but he walks the way, and shows the way too.
• Leadership is about more than just inspiring others to be their best, but is also about inspiring others to be better persons than before.
• A leader teaches others to fish.  He or she does not fish for them.  But when necessary, the leader does fish with them.
• A leader does not just seek to complete the tasks given, but seeks to take care of the people working with him or her too.  The leader should seek to make them better persons after working together than before.

Sun Tzu says, “Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage” (故善戰者之勝也，無智名，無勇功).  Once a leader’s job is done, just get lost!  The world is not about the leader.

My view may not be complete, nor even correct.  But if you feel disagreeable on anything, please feel free to disagree.

Recently it dawns upon me that I should reflect on my MBA experience after each semester and write it down. It will be great later in life to look back and relive the wonderful experience I have had in this stage of life. So I would like to record down these experiences in the first semester (July to October 2009) while the memory is still fresh…

It’s been years since I wanted to go back to school. Unlike my friends, I have taken a weird and slow route by taking only 2 subjects per semester, due to my personal reasons for taking MBA. In the first semester, my two subjects were Accounting for Business Decision, and Organizational Behavior.

Though I have had a little background in accounting before, this subject in managerial accounting has been quite a learning experience for me. Under the guidance of our good lecturer Dr Foong, I have been made to see beyond the numbers and look into the rationales behind accounting decisions made by businesses.  I was even once challenged and “cornered” by her publicly in class for a decision made to the extent that I felt like losing face. But I’m glad to have gone through this learning process.

The students in accounting class were divided into groups. Due to a little “expert power” in the subject matter, I emerged as natural leader of my group of six members. We had many discussions together for our assignments, completed one class presentation, and had some arguments too.

Thinking back from now, this group in accounting class has been the strongest group I ever joined so far in two semesters. Almost everyone is someone is his or her own way – either as a good leader or team player. Yes, I think we have scored well together, thanks to team members working together

Accounting group members

As for Organizational Behavior (OB), it’s been an eye-opening experience to learn about human behaviors in organizations. But more importantly, it actually helped me to discover myself. I especially liked the self-assessment quizzes in the textbook. These tests had helped me to know my own weaknesses, especially in assertiveness, conflict resolution and negotiation.

All students were also required to stand before class and present on selected topic. Drawing on my past MLM experience and other life experiences, I presented on “Self-Efficacy – If You Think You Can, You Can!”. It was the first time I shared such authentic life story to many people. The sharing has since been one of the presentations I like most so far.

As part of coursework for OB, I also paired up with a classmate to produce a training booklet for managers on negotiation using Sun Tzu’s Art of War. It is completed with two case studies, one from the then crisis in MCA, and another from the US-Malaysia talk for free trade agreement. I have been reading about Sun Tzu for some years, and now so glad to be able to apply the principles learned in a real life topic

Due to time constraints of our initial group leader in OB class, he passed on to me the responsibility to coordinate our group work. We did fairly well in our group project and presentation on “Have You Got A Lady Boss?” I have also learned to use Google Apps to conduct online survey!

MBA is part of my self-development plan.  In this first semester, I have learned about being a team leader and a team player. Wherever I have been put to serve, whether as a leader or follower, just play my role to the best and serve lah. Don’t complain!

I have learned before that leadership is a service. A leader is one who serves others. It is not about personal ego and glory. When you have done your job, just get lost and let others take over. I subscribed to the idea of servant leadership. But I have not had the chance to practise until first semester when I could serve in both Accounting and OB groups.

But it had not been all smooth sailing, and I have encountered problems too. The first situation was when two group members had some conflict with each other. As group leader, I had mediated between them too. Though it’s resolved and they are now well as before, I also discovered that I could not handle conflicts very well. It’s been quite lucky to me that the conflict did not escalate to affect the group performance.

In the second situation, one capable group member turned down my request to perfect her work, that I had to get another member to take over her part in the last minute while everyone was busy. To be frank, it hurt me and inconvenienced others. But I found myself having problem confronting team members when they did not go my way. I should also have clarified expectations of what I wanted more clearly. But most importantly, I have been taught to exercise “grace”, be forgiving and not hold grudge against anyone when feeling wronged. (No grudge ever held because later in second semester we teamed up again and she has delivered good job)

Another skill I gained was speed reading (with speed understanding). Previously I was not able to read fast. But in the MBA course, sometimes we are required to absorb a lot of materials in short span of time. At first, I complained about having to read 120 pages in just 4 days in one instance. But now I found myself reading much faster than before. Thanks to MBA

In overall, the first semester has been a good start of a self-discovery journey.  I have enjoyed the campus life very much, to the extent that I wish I could stop working and concentrate on studies alone.

I’m satisfied with my performance in the first semester. I was also socially active, and participated in class a lot, especially when compared to second semester later. I’ll write about the more eventful second semester. Stay tuned…

How about the start of your MBA? Did you share any similar experience with me?

Say your domain name is YourDomain.com, your web and email hosting plan enables you to create email accounts like anyone@YourDomain.com and put up a web site at http://www.YourDomain.com.

Creating Email Accounts

You can create email accounts using the web-based control panel given.  It is at http://www.YourDomain.com (cPanel users) or http://mailadmin.YourDomain.com (MailAdmin users).

For cPanel users, please login and click Email Accounts icon to create new email accounts.  Once you have done this, you can start using the email service via webmail at http://www.YourDomain.com/webmail.  You can also set up your email software (such as Outlook) so that you can send and receive emails from your computer.  Please refer to the “Server Configuration” email sent to you for details.

For MailAdmin users, please login and click Users button on the left to create email accounts.  You can access webmail at http://webmail.YourDomain.com.  Please also refer to the “Server Configuration” email sent to you on setting up your email software in your PC.

Creating Web Site

Developing a web site is not an easy task.  You can either outsource web development to web developers, or try to do it yourself using many free content management software (CMS) out there.

By using a CMS, you don’t need to possess too much technical knowledge to make up a web site.  Popular CMSes are such as WordPress (easiest) , Drupal, Joomla, Xoops, and OS Commerce (for e-commerce web sites). You don’t have to download these software but simply install any of them in cPanel.  Click Fantastico in cPanel to find out more.

Using CMS to create a web site requires a little learning curve.  But once you have mastered it, you can replicate your skills to create other web sites as well.  For many business and personal web sites, actually creating a blog is quite a good choice.  You can use WordPress to do so.  Find out how to use WordPress to develop your web site.

You can also use web development software such as Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage to create your web site.  How easy are these?  If you know how to use Microsoft Word, it does not take you much time to learn Microsoft Frontpage.

But if you prefer to hire a web designer to do up your web site, there are thousands of them interested in your job.  You may want to try engage a web designer among my partners here. (If you are a web designer reading this, you are welcome to join as a partner too)

Hosting Your Web Site

When you are ready to put up your web site on the server, you can do this by using the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) service provided as in the “Server Configuration” email sent to you. You will need an FTP software to do the job.  Recommended is FileZilla (free). Another way to upload is by Windows Explorer as described here.

If you use software such as FrontPage to design your web site, you can also upload or publish your web site straight from the software itself.

Hope this little article help.  If you face any problem, welcome to contact me here

You may think I have become lazy to write articles.  You may think I have taken easy way out by microblogging using Facebook isntead.  But I suspect I’m not the only one.  I venture to say that microblogging using Facebook and Twitter has won over the heart of some conventional bloggers like me.

Now I suppose conventional blogging is not for everyone.  Not too many can write, want to write, care to write, or have the time to write.  Some of us took up blogging a few years ago due to reasons such as peer pressure, or it was the “in” thing to do at that time.

But as time goes on, we start to find out who can blog, and who better not waste time blogging.  You may call the blogs of former as high quality blogs, or the latter low quality blogs.  But I prefer to think that blogging is simply not the cup of tea for these latter group of people. 

Some of them blog because they have a need to express themselves.  But it can take too much time sitting in front of computer to write, and or too much stress to think what to write.  But now with microblogging, it serves their need to express perfectly.  They can just shout anytime they have something to express!

I’m talking about the bloggers who have “expressive” need to express themselves.  I’m not talking about other reasons for blogging such as to contribute to body of knowledge, to attract web site traffic, to promote a company, product or service, or to make blogging money.

Moreover, by microblogging we have ready pool of friends on social media who can read our status updates.  We don’t need to worry about attracting search engine traffic to our conventional blogs.  Well, not too many people know or care about search engines and online marketing.

But don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying blogs have no use any more.  I’m saying microblogging has taken away some conventional bloggers like me who blog primarily to express and to shout.

And you are welcome to express and shout your comments below

Question – Why am I different from others?
Answer – Do you have to be like others?

Don’t seek to be like others! Everyone of us is unique and has our own destiny to realize in life!

From marketing point of view, the commercial is also great. Pantene shampoo is a functional product and has its conventional market of shampoo users. But now it seeks to cross over from functionality to emotional appeal. Instead of using logic to tell us why it is a better brand, it seeks to attack our emotion and win our heart over.

Not only will it persuade more people from the its traditional market to use the product, those who don’t use their kind of shampoo maybe bought over too. Who knows I might decide to buy Pantene for my family next time? Perhaps this is one of the blue ocean strategies to conquer a new market.

And the tagline is inspirational – You can shine!

By the way, I consider the Thai language very beautiful phonetically. It is a language I wish to learn if I had extra time.

In learning to be a leader, I subscribe to strength-based leadership, among other practices.  It means to focus on other people’s strengths, instead of weaknesses, in leading and coaching them.  Instead of spotting their mistakes, we try to spot their plus points and encourage them accordingly.

Since we will see what we focus on, so by strength-based leadership we will seek to discover and reward the good points in others.  Hopefully, their confidence and morale will increase and will produce even better work and be better team members.

Generally speaking, it has worked out quite well so far.  However, my trial is not without problems.  But these are not problems with strength-based leadership.  They are my problems.

In focusing on strengths, I tend to overlook their weaknesses.  As a result, when a team member does not do his or her job well, I tend to brush it aside and not confront the member so that he or she can do better next time.

In focusing on strengths, I also tend to inflate a member’s ability.  If I find someone capable of doing something, I am inclined to consider he or she good in other areas as well.  However, such assumption can prove to be wrong.  At least once recently.

Also, when a member really does something wrong, I tend to give him or her benefits of doubt.  This maybe alright.  But I even try to rationalize and explain away his or her mistake.  Seems like I’m not facing the reality.

When I spot a member doing something obviously wrong, I also tend to avoid conflicts in order to maintain our relationship. I guess this is related to my tendency to be a nice guy.  It may be OK for a short-term team or project.  But it will not bring any benefit if we are together for long term, to the well being of both the team and the member.

I still want to adopt strength-based leadership in life, but perhaps with some adjustments and corrections.  Any feedback?

On a social level, I find it easier and more comfortable dealing with girls than guys.  I have more and closer female friends than guy friends.  Normally you may see me associating with girls more than guys.  I think this has something to do with my childhood upbringing.

But when it comes to working, I find it much more difficult dealing with a lady boss than a male boss.  “Boss” here is not limited to workplace but also other settings such as a team leader working together for non-work purposes.

Perhaps it’s because the few lady bosses I have had in the past are all quite strong leaders, even stronger than many male leaders I have come across.  They often have very high expectations out of me.

From personal experience, it has not been very pleasant experience working with lady bosses.  But thanks to these lady bosses, I have learned much and corrected myself from the experience dealing with each and every of these strong personalities.

Personally, I prefer working with male boss.  But I’m not in control of who will be assigned as my boss.  Perhaps God gives me a difficult boss in order to train me up.  So I should take whoever assigned to me as my leader.

I guess in future, women leadership will be very common, that perhaps one generation from now, such survey on lady boss is no longer meaningful any more.

It is a fact of life.  We need to deal with anyone who come into our life.  I guess the problem is more on “managing our boss”, rather than the lady bosses themselves.

I have indeed learned how to administer a questionnaire using Google Docs. It’s so convenient!  Thanks to recommendation from friends on the Internet and social media.

As promised, the results are being released online.   But first of all, have a look at what respondents told us about a lady boss.  Click to enlarge.

Don’t blame me for anything.  I’m just reporting the findings…

Below is the part of presentation on data collected and analysis.

Disclaimer - I’ve got the permission to put up photos of the pretty lady in the slides

Click here to view or download report data collection & analysis in PDF format.

What conclusions can you make out of these results?

I’m doing a mini research with a team of MBA classmates to find out what you think of working for a lady boss. Surely, I will share my personal experience here, but only later in order not to influence you in any way.

Please help take 3 minutes to fill out this survey.  Thanks! 

If the questions are not displayed properly, please try this form instead.

Update – Thanks all for taking the survey.  Please check the result here

We were trained for positive thinking.  One compulsory reading we must have was Think & Grow Rich.  We were trained to visualize success and think “if I think I can, I can”!

I believed in the “law of attraction”, though it may not be called this name at that time.  I believed I could achieve anything I wanted, anything my mind focused on and attracted.  At the age of 19, I thought I was at the top of the world.

But things did not turn out well:

• My group collapsed.  Many downlines migrated to another network marketing company.
• The company also folded itself in a few years.
• I lost money and trust of many friends.
• And many other setbacks in life.

Recently I made a presentation on the concept of self-efficacy.  It is the belief that we can complete a certain task completely.  It also refers to our general trait that we think we can succeed in a variety of situations.

To make a long story short, while self-efficacy is very important, it is not everything.  We humans have limit on what we can do, and we need to be humble enough to recognize our limit.

However, as Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, proposes that as we focus on what we can do now (our circle of influence), and not on what we are concerned of but can’t do now (our circle of concern), we will stretch our circle of influence bigger and bigger.

Please go through my presentation and see if you can find out anything or not

When you see the catchy words and sentences at the top of the page, you may be tempted to scroll down to read the rest.  You may find out more about the product, its benefits, some customer testimonials, and of course a link to buy it.

Normally there is no link to any other page on the same web site where you can find more out more about the company, the product or service.  All information is contained in one single page.

Such one-page web sites have existed for more than one decade since the 90’s, advocated by Internet marketing gurus such as the late Corey Rudl.  However, nowadays many still advocate the use of one-page web sites to sell product.  Perhaps it may still be working.

For me, I normally consider such web site as mere advertisement, sales letter and simply spammy.  Normally when I come across such web site, I will simply leave and go elsewhere.

I once asked an Internet guru who is himself using an one-page web site to sell his training course.  He answered that on such web site, visitors have no link to click away and so must stay on and focus on the web site to read the rest.  Whereas visitors to a web site with multiple pages will be tempted to click around.

I reason that perhaps on an one-page web site, the visitors will be forced to follow the desired sales process by the seller, whereas this may not happen on a web site with multiple pages.

On regard to whether it’s spammy, the Internet guru said that if the web site is owned by your father or your trusted friend, surely you will not go away.  So the challenge is to build trust.

And what do you think of an one-page web site?

She asked us to raise our hands if we thought it’s 2.  To my surprise, half the class raised their hands.  When asked who thought it’s more than 2, only a few hands were up!

Of course it was not a maths class.  It’s a business class.  I wonder whether the power of synergy has been undermined by many people.  What two people can do together is more than the sum of what they can do individually.

Consider two colleagues who work on separate parts of the same proposal for a client.  Each can come up with his or her own recommendation.  But if they can work together and cross-check each other’s work, they can come up with better proposal for the client than if they produce it individually.

The same goes to individual students who prepare for exam.  Instead of striving on their own, they can group together and discuss issues, questions and case studies, so that the new ideas generated are more than what they can come up with individually.

As for me, I can’t make a baby myself.  Neither can my life partner make it herself.  Nor can we make it individually, no matter how hard we try.  We need to do it together!

However, the other hosting provider, actually their outsource web developer, would not budge.  He claimed the web sites make use of certain ASP.NET components not normally available on other servers.

Fair enough.  I asked for a list of ASP.NET components required.  Perhaps they really need to stay with him.  But after checking the list, those are just standard components supported on most if not all servers.

Finally, the web developer agreed to let customer go, but not without a “transfer fee” charged for the trouble to transfer their web sites and email accounts to the new server (which I would help do for customer free of charge if given all necessary server login details).

However, after some consideration, the customer decided not to pay the “transfer fee”, not because of money, but because of principle.  Maybe.  But I suspect another reason being the fact that their web sites are under the control of the developer.  They have to rely on the web developer to access and update their web sites.

After all, the web developer has been doing a good job maintaining their web sites.  From customer’s point of view, why switch to me if there is not much compelling reason to switch over to me?  But from my point of view, it is another typical case of customer web sites and hosting being hijacked by provider.

A Typical Web Development Project

So, it’s finally time for you to look into building an online presence for your company’s website? Or it’s about time that you revamp the website after hearing from your boss that website is looking really dull for the 999th times.

I would assume that you have a budget for your web development project. I wouldn’t go into how you should come up with this budget, but a budget would give the developer and yourself a rough idea on the scale of the development. You cannot have a RM799.00 budget and ask for everything under the sun. A budget would also allow you to prioritize what features to include in your website, and what features should be implemented in the subsequent phase of your web development pipeline.

Ok, after the Management has approved with your budget, what should you do next? Naturally, the next step is to find a competent developer who can deliver the project fast, cheap and beyond expectations, as unrealistic as that might sound.

So, you post up the jobs, ask around your friends who’s in the IT business and do a search on Google for ‘Malaysia cheap and good web design companies’ or ‘cheap web designers’ or even ‘freelancers who work for free’. And after that, you shortlist 5 of them and asked each them to give you a quote. And you waited for a few days before all the quotes come in, and after looking at the figures you decided to meet with 2 of the cheapest one, and one that quoted the highest (just because you were curious why this particular designer is so different from the rest).

And after interviewing each of them, you finally nail down one company, let’s call them Super SEO Sdn Bhd, and the project begins by paying the web development company a 15% down payment. The project usually begins with Super SEO collecting all the information that you want to put up on to the web for the world to see. All the annual reports, the magazine scans and all your interviews with the newspapers. Next, you also require Super SEO to come up with a few prototypes to give you the ‘look and feel’ of the design. As a matter of fact, you don’t really know what you want, but heck, you can always change your mind, right?

And so it goes on for a few weeks, with Super SEO proposing their revised color scheme for the Nth times, while you continue to browse at your competitors’ website to see what they’ve been up to lately, and to see if there’s any cool features that you might be able to ‘steal’ from them.

If all of the above sounds familiar to you, then you’re very likely to find yourself with a website that did not bring in any positive impact in your sales. Well, at least now your company has a website, and you can include the cool URL on your name card and ironically, other than the URL, there’s really nothing inside the website that you could really shout about to your potential visitor. You begin to wonder why did you spend RM8,000 on the web development project.

My advice? Just get a domain name and have a single page with your company’s address on it. That will probably only cost you about RM150.00. Nothing to shout about either, but it’s going to have the same impact on your name card.

Hold it, now you’re saying that you are really, really serious about building your online presence and how else, other than the method explained above, can you go about it?

Who’s the Architect?

Here’s what I’ll propose, and I think this would definitely work much better than the commonly-used method illustrated earlier.

First, you must know what you want out of the website, and how the website will affect your business’s bottom line. No web developers on this planet can give you this answer, simply because they are just that- web developers. They know nuts about your business, and probably won’t be interested to listen to you brag about your rag-to-riches stories.

Contrary to what you may have been told, if you are going to build a website that works for you, the key architect of the site is none other than you and the people in your company. If it’s a revamp of your existing website, the feedbacks that you’ve gathered from previous visitors, clients and the web statistics will also be an important source of information in working out the blueprint of your web development project. You should be the person deciding the metrics you want to benchmark the website with. How many visitors are you expecting after the revamp? What keywords do you want to position your website with? Which languages do you think you should translate your site into? Which countries are most likely search about your industry and what kind of search engines do they use? Do you have a department in your company that would be able to tap into the company’s web resources and improve their service delivery?

And if you still think that your web developer is going to do all these for you, you’d better rethink your purpose of developing/revamping the website.

The Blue Print is All You Need

So, it’s really not rocket science. What I am really suggesting is that you need to first identify your web development’s need. Figure out the benchmarking metrics of your website and the conversion ratios you are hoping to accomplish. Let everyone in the company chip in and contribute in the planning phase. Get the blueprint of your project done and make changes whenever a better idea or suggestions come along. It’s 80% cheaper to change the features on the drawing board than after you’ve got your website up on the net.

It’s very tempting to hire a web developer based on their portfolio and their client base. Yes, these are important attributes which will help you determine whether they can deliver what you want, how you want it and when you want it. Yet, it’s even more important to engage a web developer who listens to your needs and can help to ensure your blueprint is realistic and achievable. An experienced web developer who can help you to come up with the final blueprint can also dramatically reduce your risk. The blueprint will usually only be a fraction of the entire project cost, but it’s also the foundation of the entire project. With this blueprint, you will have a clear idea of what to expect from the website and you can even bring around this blueprint to any web designing companies which can execute the blueprint for you, exactly the way you want it. Again, this can help to further reduce your development cost and also to ensure that you will not be ‘surprised’ with the end product.

Conclusion

A website is becoming one of the most important tools in an organization’s public communication strategy. You can deliver an impressive message by providing the information that your visitors are searching for with the least effort or you can be turning off potential customers with a few badly designed product purchasing forms.

Whatever it is, I would like to emphasize again my point: Your website is your business.

• .com.my, .net.my, .org.my – RM40, discounted from RM80
• .my (second-level domain) – RM60, discounted from RM120
• .name.my – RM16, discounted from RM32

Customers always ask me why .my domain names are more expensive than the international .com domain names.  But now that .my domain prices have dropped, there is not much difference now.  You can take advantage of it here!

Any price reduction is good news for us consumers.  I suspect .my DOMAIN REGISTRY (formerly MYNIC) may not go back to the high price tag of RM80 any more, even after the promotion period.

After all, it happened before.  Years ago, the then MYNIC had a similar promotion to reduce the original price of RM100 to RM80, and then decided to stay put with RM80 after the promotion and never went back to RM100!

It will be good for .my domain prices to drop to level similar to those of the international domain names such as .com.  The price reduction makes our .my domain names more competitive in the international market.

Domain name resellers and hosting providers have no option but to follow suit and reduce the prices in accordance to the promotion.  After all .my DOMAIN REGISTRY (MYNIC) sent out emails to all .my customers to inform about it!

However, a quick check on a few hosting providers’ web sites show that some of them have not yet updated their published domain prices to the lower prices.  I don’t know whether .my DOMAIN REGISTRY (MYNIC) had given them ample time to prepare for the promotion or not.

But as for me, I only received the news on 16th July, just 4 days before the start of promotion period!  It would have been better if I could know this earlier to prepare for it.

Unfortunately, the web development company does not want to fix the error for the customer, unless they are paid a certain amount (which I think they should not charge at all) to “upgrade” the system. They claim to have developed the scripts using PHP version 4, but now that the server has been upgraded to PHP version 5, the scripts do not work any more. That is, they blame the problem on the server.

I checked the scripts but did not find any problems due to new PHP version. I found the errors as common programming errors, which can be fixed easily by them who developed and understand the system. In addition, the developer could not answer me when asked for exactly what outdated features of PHP 4 that the scripts are using that are not working now.

They refused to fix the problems for the customer, saying that the web site is not hosted with them. But I think this is not a very good reason, because a web site can be hosted and deployed anywhere, not necessarily theirs. They should support the web site no matter where it is housed.

Now they say they are no longer interested in serving the customer, and they say since I am so “expert”, then I should fix the errors for the customer. Well, even if I am in web development business, they are still the one who created the system. I think it is their responsibility to support the customer and not just simply pass the buck and walk away.

Yes, I have been joining some of these groups. Also learning about this new way of making money – building recommender community groups on Facebook.

Correct me if I’m wrong. But it works like this:

1. Decide on your passion, such as table-tennis or reading books.
2. Create a Facebook group around your passion, such as “Malaysia Table-Tennis Network”. Decide on what you can offer your group members.
3. Invite your friends on and off Facebook to join your group. Aim for the number.
4. Keep posting useful messages to group members to build your credibility, and make sure they get something beneficial out of joining your group!
5. Once you have reached a critical mass, such as 1000 members in your group, start leveraging the number to make money!

For example, you can contact sport organizations and companies to sponsor events, contests and prizes for your table-tennis sport group. You can help these sponsors sell their products. In return, you may get a cut of the profit.

Another example I’ve witnessed a book love group are doing. They leverage on their high number of members to negotiate with MPH to gain discount for their members.

I don’t know exactly yet how to translate number of members into profits, since I’m not there yet. But since you are leading your many group members now, you have the influence over the group members and “recommendation power” to talk to businesses interested in your group as their target customers.

And once you have achieved success with one niche group, start another group (better be related, I supposed), and leverage on the first group to promote the second!

Just announce to the first group that you have created a second group, then many of them will join you since they already trust you!

Does this business model work? I don’t know. But according to one Internet guru, building recommender community groups is one of the most profitable ventures on the Internet.

And what do you think?

Coming from a technical background in software engineering,  I worked as a programmer and software developer, later started my own business.  But the problem is, there is a whole lot of difference between a business run by a technician, and a business run by a business person.

In trying to cross over from a technical person to a business person, there are many skills and expertise I need to develop, including problem-solving, presentation, public speaking and networking, among others.

Certainly no MBA will be the magic bullet to provide everything I need to learn in business.  But it will give me a good foundation in both knowledge and business skills, knowledge being the know how in different functional aspects of business and business as a whole, which I never learned in a class.

But most importantly, it’s the business skills that I’m looking for.  I would not have gone for any academic course in business, if not for its student-centered learning, problem-based learning and self-directed learning approaches by GSM.  Their unique positioning in how they impart knowledge and skills to the students attracted me, apart from being one of the top business schools in Malaysia and Asia.

I’m taking only two subjects per trimester (school term or semester as they call it, as there are three semesters in a year), which is the least number of subjects possible, in order to spread the whole course over 2 years. My subjects this trimester are Organizational Behaviour and Accounting For Decision Making if you are interested to know.

I don’t want to rush as I still have a business to take care. I also think it’s the learning and development process that counts, not just the end result.  Moreover, I don’t need to finish the course quickly in order to get to the job market fast. I’m not interested in job anyway

So I’m glad to be an MBA student now.  It will be an important part of my learning and development plan in realizing my dream in business. I’m going to learn, develop, network and enjoy in the whole process!

Much thanks to my long time customer Ms Alison and business partner Tim for being kind and supportive referees to recommend me for the course.

If you are a current MBA student in GSM, I want to know you! Please add me as your friend on my Facebook page! (Please do introduce yourself when adding)

What do you think of MBA? Feel free to share

However, this web design company insisted the customer use their web hosting service.  Web hosting was part of their web development package for the customer.  Not being a technical person and not having been briefed clearly, the customer unknowingly agreed to the deal.

Later the web design company called me up to get my “cooperation” to transfer hosting to their server.  I sought clarification from customer but he said he never wanted to switch hosting provider.  He still wanted to host with me.

But the web design company was very adamant that the customer must host with them.  They claimed that they had set up everything about customer’s web site and database on their own in-house server, and so it was very troublesome to move their work to my server.  They said it was “easier” for them to develop the web site by hosting on their server.

Luck was on my side, though.  Customer insisted to host with me and gave them official notification to the web design company to host their works on my server.  Long story cut short, the customer is still happily hosting with me until now.

By some discovery later on, I found out that the web design company was actually using hosting from third-party hosting provider.  So they had not been very honest by saying the customer must host on their own “in-house server”.

From my experience, it is generally not true that you must host your web site with your web design company.  No matter where you host, as long as they get hold of the details on how to log on to the server, they can do their work.

It is also generally not true that it’s “easier” for them to develop your web site on their server.  No matter where you host, they work on your web site using pretty much the same ways – uploading and downloading by FTP, web-based administration using cPanel and PhpMyAdmin, and so on.

But I know of some cases where a customer’s web site makes use of special features available only on the web designer’s server.  Then in such cases, you have no choice but host with them.  But these cases are rare.

Web design and web hosting are two different services.  These two services can be separated and provided by different providers. But a web design company often bundle web hosting in their service, and this is perfectly good strategy.  But it is not good when they are not being honest and transparent with you.