• Read smart – Don’t try to read everything in a textbook. I read the table of content to get an idea of the flow and “framework” used by the author to teach the book content.
• Read less – We can’t remember everything. Most of the time, I read only the introduction, summary, headings and sub-headings of each chapter to get a general idea.
• Read more only if necessary – I dig into the text only for parts I don’t understand well.
• Ask questions – Don’t believe everything we read but think critically. I tend to ask and jot down questions especially why this and why that, while reading the book.
• Think more – I try to spend time thinking over the questions raised, problems, mini cases, and real life scenarios. After all, most questions in exam are problem solving ones.
• Use mind maps – I used to produce mind maps which I could use as handy and quick revision just before exam.
• Sleep on it – If possible, there should be a short period (a few hours, one or two days) between finishing revision and the real test.  Go do something else or simply rest. What we learned takes a little time to get into our subconscious mind.
• Trust our common sense – I tend to remember only the skeleton and trust the common sense to fill in the details. Then I can remember less things, yet I can remember more of the less.

I can’t help but think of some students who try to read everything but end up remembering nothing.  Just as Sun Tzu shares in The Art of War,

For should the enemy strengthen his van, he will weaken his rear; should he strengthen his rear, he will weaken his van; should he strengthen his left, he will weaken his right; should he strengthen his right, he will weaken his left. If he sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak. (故備前則後寡，備後則前寡，備左則右寡，備右則左寡，無所不備，則無所不寡。)

Introduction to cPanel hosting – Manage your web and email server using cPanel hosting control panel. All basics are covered, plus some tips and advanced features depending on your needs.

Blogging using WordPress – WordPress is the most popular blogging software, and in fact one most preferred content management system (CMS) to create a web site as well. Learn the basics and start blogging right away!

Creating web site using Joomla – Joomla is one popular content management system (CMS) to create a business and professional web site.  All basics are covered and you can start developing a web site after the training.

Basics of Internet marketing – The various channels of marketing on the Internet are covered. These include search engine marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, blogging and mobile marketing. This is an introduction to business people, not technical workshop.

The free training is provided to only 10 companies in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, and areas in Klang Valley only. First come first served. Surcharges apply for other areas in the country.

Each company is entitled to one training session only chosen from the above. This is offered to both BizPartner customers and non-customers. The training is to be conducted in English in the trainee company. Minimum 3 trainees in a group.

There is no need to buy any product or service. This is not a preview to any workshop or product. At the end of the training, there is a brief general introduction to what BizPartner does, and that’s all.

To register your interest, please contact BizPartner here with the address of your preferred training venue and details of each participant below.  The minimum 3 trainees can be from another company or your business friends.

• Name
• Company name
• Email address
• Mobile number

If your registration is accepted, we will call or email you to arrange for date and time convenient to you.

Three like-minded friends came together and shared four books. The titles include The Platinum Rule, How To Simplify Your Life, What The Dog Saw, and The Top 10 Habits of Millionaires.

Each of us took 15 minutes to present the books we brought.  In less than one hour, we have already got a glimpse of all four books presented.

At the end of the sharing session, books changed hands. Group members could borrow books from one another for one month until the next meeting.

Such is the working of the new Business Book Club (BBC) started in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  We meet once a month to share and lend books to one another.

Books to be presented include all books on business, management, entrepreneurship, finance, investment, self-development, motivation, inspiration, career, work/life balance. In fact, any book that helps us achieve business success.

Business people might be too busy to read books, so someone came up with the idea of book summary and book review. Then they just need to take a short time to read the summary. If they wish to delve further into the book, they will buy and read the book.

Now such book summary has gone live. By gathering a small group of business book lovers, we orally read our own book summary to one another.  If any member wish to read it, he or she just borrows it from the book owner.

It’s like a private library on business books making use of peer social networks.  After all, there is not any public library dedicated on business books to satisfy such hunger for business knowledge and experience!

But there is not only one group meeting once a month.  This is a new upcoming movement where such group is to be duplicated to meet and do the same things in different places, at different times, even in their own language.

Are you interested to start such a book sharing group at your place, among your friends, in your school or company? Get a small group of 3 to 7 people, and you can start your own book club.

Or do you want to join us to meet once a week in KL?  Tentatively we meet every month on the last Monday at 8pm. Each session is expected to last from one to two hours. Don’t forget we don’t just read books, but we network with like-minded members too!

If you have a book to share, just bring your book and introduce it to the others for 5 to 15 minutes.  Or if you just wish to sit and watch, come and be our guest.

Please contact me to join us, or join the club on Facebook.

I’m very active on my Facebook, and seen by many to be talkative, positive, motivating and inspiring. But am I really such person in reality? No, I’m more shy, quiet, introvert and seldom speak up, especially in a big group.

I told of a childhood story which was too private to repeat here. But it was an embarrassing and humiliating experience I couldn’t forget for many years. Basically it made me a loner and not socialize much. I even took up smoking as a loner’s “hobby” (I quit the habit years later).

In my years working for people, I came into conflicts with bosses and colleagues due to my anti-social behavior and inability to be good team player.  As a result, I was isolated and even boycotted. But one colleague was kind enough to write me a memo that said, “No man is an island”, a wake-up call for the rest of my life.

To cut a long story short, I learned up, adapted to the real world and started to perform better. After I transitioned into business later on, I learned even more especially from some inspiring bosses among my customers.

I still have much to learn, but at least now I can work in team and cooperate with others. Some friends even see me as extrovert and can’t believe I’m an introvert person.

I shall conclude with John Donne’s quotation here. “No man is an island, entire by itself; everyone is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

You and I may not have the funds to start one such library. But an idea crossed my mind to start a business book exchange club instead, starting right where we are, and among our own friends. It’s a small-scaled library.

Why not start a book exchange clubs where we meet regularly, say once a month?

1. Each member is to bring one book.
2. Each member is given 15 minutes to introduce the books.
3. At the end of all presentations, members are free to grab one book they are interested in from another member.

So at the end of each meeting, we will have previewed and “read” many books within one or two hours!

What do you think? I’m giving idea, and will be glad to partner with anyone to bring this into reality. Join this Facebook group for help start the movement.

Be among the first 20 customers to attend a free training workshop, and get one free Mini web and email hosting plan for 6 months!  Each and every trainee will get one useful mystery gift too!

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But a discussion yesterday and today inspired me to think about how to compete in the instant noodles market.

Let’s say you have a brand new XYZ mee to sell, how would you compete against giant brands in the market, say Maggi Mee or Cintan Mee?

Are you thinking of new flavors? You want to introduce new tastes currently not offered by Maggi and Cintan? Do you think they can’t do the same and do it better than you?

How about lowering your price and sell cheaper than them? If they charge RM4 per pack (I don’t know how much), then how about you sell at RM3.50? You think they can’t just lower some of their prices and immediately kill you off?

How about competing by promotion?  Good if you have more money and better resources than Maggi and Cintan. What if you don’t have? Even if you have, why waste so much money doing the same things as they do?

Build a better brand? You know how many years it took Maggi and Cintan to imprint their brand into our minds? Will you do a better job and do it faster than them in branding?

How about these ideas?

1. Focus on cup noodles - Don’t stretch yourself too thin. Just focus on cup noodles.
2. Sell the cups - Shift your focus from the noodles to the cups. Sell the cups instead of noodles.
3. More than just noodle cups – Make the cups green and friendly to the environment.  Make it versatile that it can be used to fill water and other stuff too.  Make it attractive with varieties like iPhone covers that people will admire you for carrying the cups.
4. Give away the noodles - For those who come to buy noodles with their cup, sell the noodles at dirt cheap price. I’m thinking of 20 cents per cup or even free!
5. Build community - Build a community of fans who are proud to carry the noodle cups around and show off to their friends. Make good use of Internet and social media to build a strong following.

Do you think Maggi and Cintan can do the same? Sure they can try. But somehow this is a whole new rule of game and it’s not easy for them to change their business model overnight. Doing so might just harm and cannibalize on their existing offerings.

So, don’t sell the noodles, sell the cups! Don’t think inside the box, but get out of the box and think!

Does it work? I don’t know. You tell me. But it sounds better to me than selling another Maggi clone.

And if there are such noodle cups for sale in the market, will you buy and refill the cups with cheap but tasty noodles every now and then?

Perhaps then I’ll start to consume more instant noodles

• Learn never to abandon tasks when faced with obstacles.
• Approach all tasks and projects with interest and passion. Passion will provide you energy. This will help you to avoid “bouncing” from task to task from lack of interest.
• Avoid distractions from new ideas and projects not in line with the tasks at hand.
• Visualise the successful task completion. This ensures you avoid seeing a minor hindrance as a major catastrophe.
• Engage others to help. This helps you be accountable but enables you to learn new tricks and techniques.
• Focus on the benefits of completing the task. This generates interest, enthusiasm and energy to accomplish the task.
• Believe in yourself. Believe that you can make things happen.

Thanks to Roshan Thiran, the CEO of Leaderonomics, for the useful and inspiring advice.  Putting these words into practice can help us become “Lin-tastic”!

If you feel you have been wronged, you have been treated unfairly, you have not been appreciated for what you have done, you have invested much into the relationship but have not been reciprocated to, or you simply feel such break-up is unwarranted, you are not alone.

Recently, a close friend for more than 3 years wanted to cut tie and just remain as normal acquaintance.

You may want to complain out loud to other people.  You may want to post your grouses on Facebook.  You may want to send in angry tweets.  But may I suggest you just keep quiet?

People sometimes don’t know what they are doing.  Perhaps they are still young and for the time being out of their mind.  After all, when we were younger and even now after we have matured a bit, we have done and still stupid things from time to time.

But when they come to their sense one day, and regret for what they have done to you, they may feel sorry for you and even long for your forgiveness.  That’s the time you have the chance to embrace them back and gain back friends rather than enemies.

In life, there are many chances for us to practise forgiveness and grace.  Forgiveness means giving them the benefit of doubt that perhaps they have some problems that they have to behave this way.

It also means understanding that generally people want to do their best sincerely to satisfy their own needs versus needs of others, but sometimes there is imbalance due to circumstance or their incompetence, that unfortunately we end up being on the receiving end.

Grace means our being gracious enough not to mind being on the wrong end when they have such problems.  It means when people do wrong to us, we don’t need to take revenge and do the same bad thing to them.

In my case, though I feel I’ve been wronged, luckily I managed to control myself and not complain or talk bad about the friend, either online on Facebook or offline in person.

I have only objectively told what happened and expressed my disappointment to a few close friends who asked me about it.

I hope when the friend comes to realize his or her behavior one day, he or she will come back to me, and I’ll be ever ready to embrace back a close friend as before.

After all, not everyone learns to be entrepreneur by just listening to talks. No doubt, such events also provide a networking opportunity.  But such platforms are better suited for those who are more sociable. How about others who are poorer in social skills?  Do such events help much in developing their social network?

To better develop entrepreneurship among the common folks, how about trying different ways besides talks, seminars and conferences?  Even small group sharing by entrepreneurs can have a bigger impact on individuals. Yes, less number of people, but higher impact on individuals.

How about having some kind of mastermind groups or buddy system where pairs or small groups meet regularly? Each person can share his or her own plan or progress in business, and be made accountable to other group members.  Then everyone can provide inputs and feedback on how the business can be improved.  Individualized development and action-based, isn’t it?

If possible, how about some mentoring system where each experienced entrepreneur mentors a small group?  The group can work as mastermind group above, with the mentor providing experience sharing.

To make more widespread impact, how about we cast our vision to others around the nation and mobilize them to duplicate the same thing in their own place?  This is akin to Toastmasters and BarCamp where each club or location does the same thing but in multiple locations to make an impact to more people instead of people at just one place.

By the way, how about setting up a mini public library with books on business, management, entrepreneurship, self-development and soft skills etc, and let budding entrepreneurs borrow and read the books?

What other ideas have you got?

If you are just like me, you like the freedom to blog, rant and shout anytime.  Once upon a time, I was even so religious in blogging that I had at least one blog post everyday!

I started with Blogspot at http://rickysoo.blogspot.com, but later moved on to my own domain name and host the blog at http://www.rickysoo.com.

Nowadays with domain name and hosting account costing as low as RM100, do you wonder why many bloggers are still using free blog sites like Blogspot.com instead of starting their own PersonalBrand.com?

If you are one of them, you are in effect promoting for Blogspot instead of your own identity. Or you prefer to co-brand with Blogspot? Why not have full control over your own name?

Please register your own .com domain, and host your blog on your own server:

• More customization – You can better customize your own templates, plugins and features hosting your own blog instead of relying on third-party.
• More control – You can better control your files and folders having your own hosting account.
• More than just blog – You can do more than just blog.  You can use software provided on server (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, OsCommerce etc) and change it into a web site more than just a blog.
• Own domain name – You can promote your own .com domain name, instead of co-branding with Blogspot. You want your own address to come up in Google.
• Own brand – Having your own house, you have better control over what you want to communicate to people about you.

Worried about the move over to new domain name?

• Easy migration – You can easily migrate your blog posts from Blogspot to the new server. We can help free of charge if you need.
• Easy hosting – All necessary settings on new server are provided to you. You can start learning and using the new environment in no time.
• Money back guarantee – Try it out and get full refund if you find it difficult. But still keep your domain name!

Register your own domain name here now

If your business team use e-mail and other forms of Internet communication media, then the Internet links in your office has become a life-line to your customers.

Improper usage of this resource via internal and external users can result in loss of working time and revenue. Thus it is important to empower businesses to monitor the usage in order to plan for current situation and to change usage policies in the future.

It is also equally important to have widely experienced networking engineers to support your business no matter the scale. We will empower you and your team via our products and business partners in making better use of this resource.

If you are interested to attend an information sharing session in your office (KL/PJ/Klang) anytime on 23/2/2012 (Thursday) or 24/2/2012 (Friday), please email to sales@secureshieldenterprise.com.

As your service provider, BizPartner is your service-oriented business partner empowering your company to be self-reliant, and NOT dependent on hosting companies, web designers and related IT solution providers.

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I remembered joining the MBA course for 4 purposes: to learn, to develop, to network, and to enjoy.  I have always kept reminding myself on these throughout the MBA journey.

• Learn - I have learned much about business, its various areas and everything in a whole.  The last case study submitted was a consultative paper in which I learned to apply many things in the course to provide solution to a real-world problem.
• Develop - I should have become a better thinking person, thanks to certain good lecturers in the course.  But I’ve not been able to improve my communication skills including presentation and public speaking.
• Network - I might be one of the most connected person in my business school.  The last count on friends known through the course on Facebook stood at 318.  Unfortunately, most are shallow relationships and I hardly have more than a few buddies to speak of.
• Enjoy - After absence from school for years, I indeed have enjoyed the campus life.  In fact, I enjoyed every process including the stressful schedules to submit assignments, prepare for presentations and sit for exams.

• Financial goal – Increase my net worth for a certain amount.
• MiC (Masters in Communication) – I need to become a master in communication, the very thing that I missed out developing in the MBA course.

I guess I’m quite clear of what I need to achieve this year. How about you?

New emails are usually marked in bold. Those that have already been replied to or read become ‘un-bold,’ which means they require no further action. To most of us, emails in bold are those which require action. What happens if messages are marked as Read before an action has been taken?

This is exactly what happens in most email clients. It marks messages ‘Read’ immediately after you have opened an email. This overly smart feature has to be turned off.

To do it in Outlook, go to ‘Option/Mail/Reading Pane/Mark item…’. In Mac’s Mail, you need to install a plugin called TruePreview in order to disable this feature.

Mac’s Mail using TruePreview plugin

Postbox with ‘Mark message read’ disabled

After you have disabled the feature, you need to learn a new practice – to mark messages as read manually. The keyboard shortcut for Outlook is CTRL-Q. In Postbox, it is ‘m’. In Mac’s Mail, it is Command-Shirt-U (we prefer to replace it with just two buttons: ^A)

Assigning new keyboard shortcut in Mac’s Mail

Don’t just hit “Reply,” but hit “Reply all”.

Very often, the sender who sent you an email would also include other email addresses in the Cc. If you hit Reply, only the sender will get the reply. In other words, those people in the Cc’d list won’t receive your email. In order to overcome this problem, please hit “Reply all” instead of “Reply”. Make this a habit!

'Reply all' helps keep everyone informed

View “Unread” messages only.

None of us has the time to go through each email to decide which requires a response. Chances are, we are most likely to just pick those ‘Unread’ message and start working on it.

In Outlook or Outlook Express, this can be done by choosing ‘Hide Read Message only’ in the View menu.

Newer email clients such as Mac’s Mail or Postbox has a feature called Smart Folder. You can define rules in a Smart Folder in order to find only unread messages.

Mac’s Mail with a Smart Folder called ‘Unread’

Rules are defined in the Smart Folder

Sorting emails using folders is old fashioned.

Many email users create lists of folders to group their messages. Senders are sorted by company names. It is a hassle to drag each message into the correct folder.

Messages sorted by folders in company name

Newer email clients are equipped with advanced search options which eliminate the need to sort messages in folders. In other words, you can just search to find an email instead of sorting them by company names.

Searching an email with the build-in search feature

Emails sent using your phone should also appear in your Outlook.

Working on multiple devices and still keeping your emails synced is now possible. All thanks to faster Internet connections and the advancement of IMAP protocol.

IMAP allows you to view your messages directly from the server. By configuring all your devices such as notebook, smartphones or tablet to use IMAP, you can have everything in one device to be synced automatically to your other devices.

Previously, email users chose POP over IMAP. In POP, one downloads the message and works locally. Today, with improved Internet connection speeds, IMAP is an affordable option.

Configure Mac’s Mail to use IMAP

Configure iPhone to use IMAP

Signatures, Disclaimers and Email Receipts are dead.

Email isn’t dead yet, but it will die, eventually. Don’t believe us? Well, look at the fax machine. Let’s face it. Facebook email, Apple’s iMessage, Tweets and many other means of communication is pushing email out.

Soon, email features like subject, signature, disclaimers and email receipts will become a thing of the past.

Keep emails short. Ask one question at a time.

View full story

The best email client? Mac’s Mail!

I have tried Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, Mulberry, Netscape Mail, Eudora and Postbox but none of them come close to Mac’s Mail. Mac’s Mail comes with Mac OS X as the default email client. What makes the difference? It has one of the greatest user interface with good IMAP support. It has accurate and fast email search features and handles plain text and HTML email better.

Email addresses are better in small letters.

Never write your email address in capital. Well, it still gets delivered but it’s just not right to write it that way. Just remember this: USE SMALL LETTERS FOR EMAIL ADDRESSES.

Example of bad email address

3 ways to send “really huge” files over the Internet.

Emails are not designed to deliver huge files (over 5MB) via the Internet, but there are a dozen other ways to do it.

Use Sendspace.com to attach files up to 300MB

Install CloudApps in Mac to deliver files up to 25MB.

Shared folder using Dropbox

This article is written by Pin. If you have any questions, please email pin@1.com.my

Pin’s company does just one thing – email hosting. In Pin’s own words, it is “the email experience” that virtually no other email provider in Malaysia cares as much about.

First Semester

• Positive Mindset
• Personal Branding
• Conversation
• Socializing

Second Semester

• Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP)
• Non-verbal Communication
• Presentation
• Practical #1 – Toastmasters Club

Third Semester

• Humor
• Public Speaking
• Leading
• Practical #2 – Assertiveness

Fourth Semester

• Persuasion
• Selling
• Negotiation
• Arguments

I designed this “curriculum” out of fun and quest for self-improvement.  I can use it as a self-imposed self-development course to improve my communication skills.

Imagine each semester takes 2 months to complete. Then I can focus on two courses in a month.  For example, in the first month I can improve on Positive Mindset and Personal Branding.  Then in the second month I can work on Conversation and Socializing.  The course will finish in eight months or within a year.

Is there any exam?  Of course, no.  But to make it work and make myself accountable, I’ll need to read, learn and put into practice in daily life.  Then I can use journaling to record and reflect on my progress.

How would you improve this course?  Would you like to design your own course too?

December 26, 2011 (Monday) - 4 areas to be tested on Wednesday: 1. Training needs analysis. 2. Transfer of training. 3. Training evaluation. 4. Development methods. Now reading up on 3rd area and evaluating Santa Claus’ performance this year.

December 27, 2011 (Tuesday) - Final exam starts tonight until next week. My only exam is tomorrow night. One thing I learned from friends here is D.N.U.T. (Doa, Niat, Usaha, Tawakal). So let’s do our best and have PEACE..

December 28, 2011 (Wednesday) - The last ever exam is now over! I’m always lucky for taking less number of subjects and so finishing earlier than others. For my friends still having other papers until next week, best of luck and you too will be independent very soon like me now.

January 6, 2012 (Friday) - Supervisor wants me to publish in case competition and wants me to do PhD. Well but let me earn some money first, then I’ll think about it again

January 7, 2012 (Saturday) - This morning I got waken up by phone call from a professor in marketing encouraging me to pursue PhD. She has not taught me in any class before, but she was in fact the first lecturer I got to know personally in GSM. She must have remembered the guy who presented to her in lab on social media in July 2009

December 19, 2011 (Monday) - Transferring marketing ideas from mind map to words in report is taking more time than expected. Will finish in one or two days so that I can turn it in to Turnitin, or else I’ll have to turn myself in to GSM for late submission.

December 20, 2011 (Tuesday) - Submitted the first incomplete draft to Turnitin for “testing”. Result unknown. Still writing up on marketing strategies. Learning more when crystalizing ideas in words. Took one hour to draw up perceptual map alone. Work to be continued tomorrow. Good night.

December 21, 2011 (Wednesday) - Met client in their office, conducted training on email server. Now sitting in cafe in KL City Walk, drinking Vietnamese milk coffee, writing up on marketing mix. Typical work + study life in past 2 years.

December 22, 2011 (Thursday) - Finished writing on marketing strategies, having taken 3 days and many pages. Case report writing is now 90% done. Should be finishing up the final part soon

December 23, 2011 (Friday) - Case study report COMPLETED. Submitted to supervisor and Turnitit for checking. Hopefully not much change required. Now I can sleep. Good night

December 23, 2011 (Friday) - Someone told me I’m a “controversial” person in GSM. Well, it’s good to be controversial, not good to be ordinary. Stand up and speak for what we believe in. That’s how Namewee created a niche for himself too.

December 24, 2011 (Saturday) - Spent hours to settle company accounts and works delayed while focusing on case in past 2 weeks. Will start to revise for the last ever exam on Wednesday.

December 24, 2011 (Saturday) - Reading up on training needs analysis (TNA), one of the four areas to be tested on Wednesday. Studying is over soon, but lifelong learning continues (thanks to MCA). I already identified my own learning needs (or rather, developmental needs) in 2012. You?

December 25, 2011 (Sunday) - Christmas time + Study time for Training & Development = Task analysis on Santa Claus.

December 12, 2011 (Monday) - Completed SWOT and SPACE for Case Study on one client company. More reading, thinking, strategizing and writing ahead. Developing skills as con-sultant, but not interested to be one. Why earn cheapskate money for giving ideas to others, when we can use them to build up our own business and earn better ourselves?

December 13, 2011 (Tuesday) - Sat in International Marketing class of Dr Kenny Teoh, one of the most popular lecturer around. Listened to friends’ presentation on selling Tongkat Ali coffee. Stealing information for own case study as usual.

December 14, 2011 (Wednesday) - Intensive planning, intensive writing, intensive reading, intensive stealing.

December 14, 2011 (Wednesday) - Surprise farewell party for Tuan Haji Yaakob, my two-time lecturer in Case Writing, and Training & Development Management.

December 15, 2011 (Thursday) - The last class of the whole MBA is over. Worked on case study in Old Town while friends discussed issues. Learning much on opportunity analysis. As entrepreneurs we often come across various opportunities, and the seven domains model is one good method to systematically analyze and decide to pursue them or not.

December 16, 2011 (Friday) - Developing a “co-opetitive” business model for client company in case study. Let’s not be me-too but start to think out of the box. Learning how to think is one major skill we can gain in this course.

December 17, 2011 (Saturday) - Morning do case, afternoon do case, night do case, eat thinking of case, drive reflecting on case, sleep also dreaming of case, might as well marry someone called Casey.

December 17, 2011 (Saturday) - SWOT done, SPACE finished, opportunity analyzed, business model evaluated, competitive strategies proposed, now QSPM-ing. Case is 70% completed. Not a crime thinking about life after MBA. Bitter first, sweet later!

December 18, 2011 (Sunday) - Let’s imagine the joy of having fought a good fight and having run a good race. Then we will be most motivated towards the goal at the end. Case is 75% done and one day ahead of schedule. Next up, ready for submission by Christmas on Sunday!

December 18, 2011 (Sunday) - Working on Appendix C: Financial Statement Analysis. Who ask you to take General Management? Must do everything from strategy, marketing, operations, IT, now accounting and finance some more.

December 18, 2011 (Sunday) - Financial analysis completed. Now working on strategic action plan, strategy alignment and McKinsey 7S Framework. Whatever goal we have in life or business, we must make sure everything we do is helping us towards the goal rather than away from it.

December 8, 2011 (Thursday) – Assignments come and go yet never ending. But Case/Project should be on top of mind and done every now and then.

December 8, 2011 (Thursday) – Reading up on “perceptual distortion” for the very last presentation (conduct training) on Sunday.

December 8, 2011 (Thursday) – Books are gold mine to those who know how to find. Theories are practical to those who know how to apply.

December 9, 2011 (Friday) – Had the last group meeting with members of my last group for the last presentation in MBA. We are to give a half-hour training on Perceptual Distortion. We will try to, no, we will do our best to give one impressive “performance”.

December 9, 2011 (Friday) – Finished preparing slides for weekend training. Going to depend less on slides but focus more on trainees. Borrowed textbook of Marketing Strategy class. Going to scan through for possible materials to use in Case Study.

December 9, 2011 (Friday) – Reading marketing strategy textbook and extracting possible models and theories to be used in Case Study. Pretending to be CONsultant for a client and learning to apply theories in real-world situation is great learning experience.

December 10, 2011 (Saturday) - Now left the last presentation (training) tomorrow, final exam on 28/12, and case submission by 30/12 (or 3/1?). Coming week is critical in order to submit before Christmas. Must have good lifestyle support and time management!

December 10, 2011 (Saturday) – Last-minute effort to rehearse for training tomorrow. It’s always a challenge to present a dry topic in a funny way and engage all audience from start to finish. The last time I managed to do so was on Digg in MIS class but many months ago. Hopefully the last presentation tomorrow will be good enough for lifelong remembrance.

December 11, 2011 (Sunday) – Mock training started in GSM. 6 groups to present half-hour each, 4 indoor and 2 outdoor. God bless my team’s indoor training later.

December 11, 2011 (Sunday) – Final presentation is done! My own performance is not satisfactory. But thanks to teammates Shannon Tam and Carrie Goh Yi Yi, we did fairly ok. All the best in your project and studies. I’m leaving GSM soon.

December 11, 2011 (Sunday) – One customer asked me on writing a lot about MBA lately. It’s because now is my last month in MBA and I want to journal these last moments of my course. So writing till end of year only. No, I’m still working..

It’s my first time to come up with a more formal model on real life problems. It is not meant to be complete or entirely accurate.  A model is just a representation of the real world.  It is meant to help us make decision on real life problems. It has weaknesses and we shall not depend on a model entirely.

I came up with this model on personal branding as I’m preparing for a talk on the topic.  The model doesn’t try to cover everything about personal branding. Nor does it explain why we should do brand our self, or how to go about doing it. But it’s more on the elements of personal branding and the kind of questions we should ask our self when developing and evaluating our own personal brand.

I hope to elaborate more on the model soon. But for now, I’ll let the mind map do the talking. Click on the map to get the full picture. If you can roughly get the ideas I want to convey simply by looking at the mind map, then I know my mind mapping skill has improved

Your comments and criticisms are much welcome.

FB post #2 - Have you been working diligently but other people just don’t see your hard work? Perhaps your performance is not yet good enough to attract their attention? Perhaps you need some “selling skills” to make them notice you? Or perhaps you are not exposed enough that they don’t even know your existence?

FB post #3 - Sometimes what we want to do conflicts with what other important people in our life expect us to do. Maybe we haven’t learned enough of their needs. Maybe we don’t know enough of our own ability. Or maybe we haven’t communicated enough with them on what we can do for them.

How do you respond to these posts and questions? I’m in brainstorming stage to prepare for an upcoming talk on personal branding. Your comments are welcome.

Continued from previous…

It was 7pm as Anita was making a presentation in her case writing and analysis class. She had written a business case based on a scenario faced by a real company. The company wanted to develop a new industrial product and market it throughout the world. But questions remained in the management. Would the new product be profitable or not? If so, what were the best business and marketing strategies to compete in the global market? How should they differentiate from their competitors?

Anita had earlier approached the company and gained access to the required data to be used in her case study. She interviewed the managers to find out about the product and issues involved. She reviewed the company’s history, its management and staffs, the current businesses, sales and financial performance. The company treated her like their free consultant. For one, they would like to hear recommendations on their problems from an MBA student. Also, it was a valuable opportunity for the company to be mentioned and studied in an MBA course!

In the class, Anita acted as a consultant of the company and presented the problems and solutions to the case. She applied strategic planning tools learned in her strategic management class to analyze the business environment and the new proposed business. These tools included SWOT analysis, SPACE matrix and BCG matrix. She presented her findings and recommended the client to proceed on the plan. She also drew upon knowledge learned in marketing management class and proposed a marketing plan for the client.

After presentation by Anita, her classmate Faeek came up on stage. He had been assigned as the critique of Anita’s case. Acting as a devil’s advocate, he criticized Anita’s case and pointed out problem areas that needed improvement. Then, the whole class started to comment and debate on case. The lecturer acted as a facilitator encouraging participation from everyone, besides providing his final comments on the case and also the quality of critique and class discussion.

This was yet another experiential learning built into its curriculum by one business school. In doing so, a student faced real life problems in the business world instead of just doing textbook exercises. Anita had learned to approach issues objectively, and developed her people skills interacting with people in the organization, creativity and problem solving skills as consultants, presentation skills in presenting her findings and analysis, and also persuasion in defending her solutions and fielding questions from others. Are these skills not what we expect from an MBA graduate?

In my previous article in this column, I mentioned the respect towards our MBA graduates is declining because they are unable to fulfill the needs of companies employing them. Now, in order to close this gap, MBA can be more experiential by exposing students to the real world situations, rather than just keep them sleepy in the class reading the books and listening to lecture. What use is it to feed students with all business theories and knowledge in the world, yet they are unable to tackle a situation in the real world?

The war game, the on-the-job training, and the case writing class mentioned above are just some examples of experiential learning. Universities, colleges and training institutions, you can be even more creative. Give what the market needs in an MBA graduate, and you will enjoy good reputation and profitable returns for churning out graduates companies in marketplace speak well of.

So b-schools, why do you let HSBC to hold business plan competition every year to dig out the business talents among our youths, when you can host the Malaysian version of Apprentice to draw out the potentials among your students? Or you think MBA should be academic only and it is the real world’s job to teach students about real world? Congratulations, for you will be dinosaurs in education field in no time.

About The Author

Ricky Soo is a biased advocate for using case method in management education in Malaysia as used widely in the US. If you feel strongly too in this matter, come and argue with him on http://www.rickysoo.com. Or if you want your organization to be mentioned in an MBA course, feel free to spam here.

Continued from previous…

It was 9am in the office when Dennis received the letter of appointment as the Head of Department of the sales department. He had been rotated in his company from one department to another. In purchasing department, he learned to negotiate and push for the lowest prices and best terms from suppliers. In finance department, he learned to manage cash flow to make sure the company had enough to pay for its bills and not cause a disruption in operations. Now in the sales department, he would learn to lead a team of energetic sales force to achieve sales target of the company.

One month later, Dennis became an entreprenuer and started his own company selling environmentally-friendly shipping boxes. He drew up a business plan with five team members and presented it to investors and bankers for financing. They got the funds and started to trade. As the CEO, he managed his team members, who each had a part to play in his or her own functions in the company including sales and marketing, purchasing and operations, accounting and finance, human resources and administration.

Business did not turn out as good as envisioned. Competition was stiff, suppliers were suspicious of the new company, and customers complained of high prices. The prospects did not respond favoriably to their cold calls and staff morale was as low as sales. But the new company needed to survive and pay back RM100,000 loan from the bank plus interest. Dennis managed to motivate the team and they worked together to execute a turnaround plan. They started to collect boxes from their customers, recycle them and sell the reconditioned boxes at discount price. Sales finally picked up and the company achieved a handsome profit after one quarter. The financials were pretty and the investors complimented them for their performance.

Dennis and his team were actually full time students in one business school. They had been sent to a training company where they worked in a simulated business environment. They first worked in an established virtual company to learn different functions in the business. Then they learned to form their own virtual companies and trade with virtual suppliers and customers. The money and products were not real, but the business operations was very real.

Being exposed to such working environment was impactful to students who had no or little working experience. The training was counted in their résumé as valid working experience. They not only learned to appreciate the various business processes in a company and work harmoniously with one another, they also discovered their seed of entrepreneurship in selling products in their own enterprises. They would graduate from their MBA course having a competitive edge over their peers. The training was useful even for trainees who had prior working experience, as many of them had been working in their own field and did not get to see the helicopter view of a business and the interdependence of various departments in it.

Read on here…

It was 5pm as Amin and his soldiers marched into the jungle. The weather was warm and their heart was worried. They were sent into the forest to fight against the guerrila force who had stole a prized treasure. Guided by a compass, they nevertheless boldly trekked the jungle towards the coordinates given. There they expected to encounter the enemy to complete the mission.

But they were not the only squad going after the treasure. There were also other millitants vying for the prize. Amin needed to compete with these forces to reach the destination, and even engage them in fight if necessary. The reward was bountiful, for they would earn money for each rival soldier killed. But for each own soldier downed by their foe, Amin had to pay ransom to redeem the life of a dead member. Keeping enough cash was important to keep the enterprise afloat and pay for expenses as they arose.

Staying alert against any attack on the way, Amin and team each held a bomb in one hand, while carrying a bag of weapons and food supplies in the other. But the terrain was just too challenging, and not all team members were fit enough to hike up and down for hours. By 8pm everyone was hungry and worn out. So they stopped and started campfire to cook dinner with rice and water bought.

Unfortunately, as they relaxed their guard, bombs started to fly across the trees. They had been ambushed! Three members got killed in the dark. They smelt badly as stinky water spread around their bodies. Fortunately they managed to bomb a few opponents too. Money exchanged hands and the mission went on. Unless the treasure was recovered by any team, the jungle fight would go on and on. Nobody would be allowed to walk out of the jungle, even if it meant continuing until the next morning.

Well, the weapons were as fake as water bombs, and the killings did not really happen. But the enthusiasm was real and team spirit was high. This was a corporate strategy simulation camp informally called “war game” by one business school for its MBA students. The participants were grouped into “companies” in the war game and required to earn money by winning games and competitions, the jungle war being only one of the many activities. The company with the most cash at the end would emerge as the winner.

Though Amin’s company did not win, they learned a lot in the process. They undertook many tasks over four days and three nights. These could be as simple as building bridge across the River Kway, designing the most efficient process to pass balls around, and performing role-play on stage. But some activities could be as challenging as building a raft, rowing it in the open sea towards a goal post. They even overcame their water phobia by swimming 300 metres in the waters back to the beach, and of course, brought out their fighting spirit bombing enemies at midnight in the jungle.

Critical success factors facing these challenges included strategy, leadership, creativitiy, confidence, communication, teamwork, delegation, trust, crisis management, motivation, and even behaviour correction. But on top of these common lessons in team building activities, participants also got to experience and apply on the battlefield many theories they learned in their MBA class including competitive and cooperative strategies, theory of constraints, entrepreneurship, business process reengineering, financial management and even blue ocean strategy.

Read on here…

Actually such spams are not uncommon.  The spammers use a trick called email spoofing to forge emails as if they are sent from known friends and even your good self! It’s actually not hard to forge such emails. Any skilled web programmer, include myself, is able to do it without knowing your email password.

You might wonder whether your mail server security has been compromised that it is used to send out spams to yourself. Not necessarily and not likely. I can use any server to send out such spams if I wish to.

Why do spammers want to use your or your friend’s email address to send to yourself? One reason is for them to hide their true identity. Another one is that the email recipients are more likely to open such emails, seeing that familiar names have sent the emails to them.

So is there any solution to such problem? The honest answer is no, unless you can spend huge amount of money to invest in high-tech server and firewall solution. If you are using a shared server, most likely you just need to complain to your hosting provider and they will do their best to help you.

What hosting providers can do is to institute certain preventive measures such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys and others. Please get them to turn on these security features for you. Most probably you will need to provide email header of the spam to them. Email header is the unseen part of an email that provides some diagnostic information for checking. Find out how to do it here.

Without going into much technical details, basically upon receiving an email, a method such as these checks with the server of the alleged sender’s domain name to see whether the email indeed comes from that server. If yes, the email will go through to the email recipient. If not, it will be blocked and will not reach you.

But there are actually other ways a spammer can use to send out spams as well, not to mention there are loopholes in these preventive methods too. For one, what if either your server or the alleged sender’s server does not support such method? Then the method will not work.

Nobody likes to receive spams.  Spams also present a big problem for hosting providers for using up a lot of server resources that otherwise would have been available for other good use.

But please work together with your hosting provider and together such incidents can be minimized. So please send the email header of such spam to them and get them to turn on preventive measures above. Find out more about email spoofing here.

Without much thinking I replied, “Don’t be a magazine.” Before that, I had been habitually telling people to operate a successful bookstore, don’t be a bookstore; to be a successful nasi lemak store, don’t sell nasi lemak. That is, be bold to come out of your product category, create your own market space and be perceived as offering something different or more than what you sell.

As a matter of fact, I know of one magazine which is not really in magazine business.  The company behind is actually in branding business. They charge clients fees to certify their brand, give them brand awards, and promote them in a number of ways, magazine being one main channel. No wonder I can’t find advertisements in the magazine.

I guess the lecturer asked me about magazine because he knew I used to write a column for a magazine called MBA Edge Quarterly. Again, if I had resources and owned a magazine like this, I would do it in different way, rather than a traditional one going around soliciting for advertisers and presents only good things about MBA. Create an MBA 2.0 magazine!

I’ve been asked to write a testimonial for MyPEC training, a simulated on-the-job training I went through with a group of MBA students. I think I might as well post it here so that my friends and other coursemates know what I’d been through missing in action in the period from November 2010 to January 2011

In November 2010, at the start of my fifth semester in MBA, I was among 30 students selected to join MyPEC training. We were sent to work full-time in a virtual company two days a week for three months. The company sells office stationery to “customers” (other virtual companies in Malaysia and throughout the world).

First I became the head of department in purchasing where I learned to negotiate with “suppliers” (yet other virtual companies) in order to buy office supplies at the best price and quality. Being new to purchasing and quite an accommodating person, initially I found it hard to be tough and assertive negotiating for best terms. Anyway I learned a few tricks and my team managed to pass the test to minimize the costs and bring in more profit to the company.

Few weeks later, I got rotated to the production and planning control department where I assisted my team leader to come up with new and creative products for the company. Designing and working on physical products was not my cup of tea, and I found myself quite reluctant in the new department. But I managed to come out of my comfort zone to do a job I was not familiar with.

Another few weeks later, all trainees formed groups and we broke into 5 new virtual companies. I helped form a company selling shipping boxes. Together with other founding members in the company, we completed the registration process to register a Sdn Bhd company, produced a business plan, pitched our business idea to investors and bankers, got funds in and started selling our products.

As COO of the new company, I was in charge of operations aspects including purchasing and inventory control. Again I was involved in negotiating and purchasing. But this time I was not so lucky as the suppliers stood firm and kept raising their prices. I offended quite some people and made a few mistakes. One of the most important lessons learned was to manage my emotions and stay cool and positive even under stress.

The company went well and we presented quite a handsome profit to our investors at the end of training. Thanks to the job rotation in former company and helping to oversee the operations of the second company, I had learned to appreciate the overall business process of a trading company. Needless to say, I learned the importance of teamwork and soft skills like negotiation and communication too.

The training had opened my eyes as it’s my first time experiencing such realistic and practical training. Although the suppliers, customers, products and money were all virtual, we all worked hard as if they were all real. The training provider was very successful in creating the simulated environment.

I recommend the training to all students without working experience to feel how it is like to apply what we study in business course to real life situations.  I also recommend it even to those with working experience because it enhances our understanding of the overall business flow of a company and helps us to see all departments and appreciate all inside and outside stakeholders with a helicopter view.

I thank MyPEC Sdn Bhd for providing such a novel kind of training in Malaysia, and the coaches who taught, advised, encouraged, challenged and even scolded us in performing our job. Some people were not nice to deal with. But it was meant to simulate the real life anyway.

I also thank my business school, Graduate School of Management (GSM) in UPM, for allowing me into the training, though it was initially meant for my junior batch. The training should be continued in the university, and in fact should be introduced to many other business schools as well.

Think of the cheque deposit machine at the bank, it replaces a bank teller at the counter. Since the machine can’t talk to people, it has a computer screen that you interact with. The screen serves as the bridge between you and the machine. It displays a set of instructions that tell you how the deposit can be made.

Although the system works, these machines aren’t intuitive and user-friendly. For example, some machines use only English; some are difficult for first time users to figure out; and some can only accept one cheque at a time, which causes long queues. The overall experience translates into – poor interface design. The person to blame – the interface designer.

Poor interface design can affect us in other aspects of our lives too, not just at the bank. My mum once burnt her cake because the oven only had instructions in English, and I don’t know how many times I’ve found it hard to find the expiry date on food packaging. In the latter, it seems the interface designer thought it’d be clever to hide the date, print it in some faded colour or use a ‘code’ like 030411 instead of 3 April 2011. And, who needs a remote control that comes with 20 button on the panel? Why does Microsoft insist on asking you to configure the sensitivity of your mouse? (Apple products would never ask you to adjust the sensitivity of your touch screen).

It’s obvious that these interface designers have failed to understand consumer needs. So who’s the best interface designer? Well, maybe my mum would make a good oven designer, I could be a good cheque deposit machine designer, and my dad could be the best handphone designer… We all know what we want in a design, the so-called experts just need to tap into that.

Agreed?

About The Author

Are you a web or apps developer? You are invited to join http://groups.google.com/group/friends-1-com-my

Pin is the founder of 1.com.my. He hosts email and websites for his customers on Cloud. He has written two books on Online Business and Linux, and he also founded a Web Developer Group that has over 100 friends. To learn more, please visit his website at http://www.1.com.my