Invest Fair Malaysia 2011

Day 84 - 916 days to go

Today was the second day of the Invest Fair Malaysia 2011 organised by Shareinvestor. I believe the organizer achieved the intended objectives. As a participant for day 2, I would like to propose the following improvement:

1. Distribute more paid seminar tickets to event sponsors so that more participants attend the so-called paid seminars. I attended two and only less than 20 participants in the room that has 100+ seats. (I think not many participants paid for the tickets when there are free seminars were held at the same time and the speakers are equally or more popular than the paid seminars)
2. Another option is to make all seminars free of charge so that more participants in each session. Otherwise, it will discourage speakers to come for briefing as they may get insulted or at least not very happy with the low level of attendance. I think the market or promotion unit should have done a better job to fill up the seats.
3. If the above tow options are not feasible, they should reduce the size of the seminar room for paid seminars.
4. In terms of the quality of speakers, the organiser should request sponsors or exhibitors to send their senior staff to conduct briefing. What I experienced in one of the seminar was a not so senior staff who just read from slides. The quality of slides was equally poor as the font size was too small to see from the back and also the color used did not help at all. It was very discouraging for anyone who paid for it and may result in request for refund.
5. The larger damage was chased away potential investors who attended as the speaker failed to do a good job of explaining the various investment vehicle and may lose the potential investors for life.
6. More variety of investment companies should be invited to participate. I think they have done quite a good one but more will be better. Another aspect is to invite non regular exhibitors so that it will provide more exposure for new exhibitors as well as providing new information to participants.
7. The few talks I attended use mostly overseas stocks and stock markets as examples. It mat not be good for the development of the local capital markets.

Happy events:

1. By chance passed by another event organized by Happy Science. Attracted by the subject and attended the briefing conducted by a Japanese. It was mostly about how to be happy spiritually. Eventually bought 4 happiness related books authored by Mr. Ryuno Okawa who was reported to have written 700 books. Just wonder how he managed to produce at least 2 books per month.
2. Bought 3 books authored by Adam Khoo - the millionaire stock investor, writer and coach for developing successful teenagers in the Invest Fair Malaysia 2011, for RM80 which was 50% cheaper than the retail prices sold in book shop. Happy for buying good books and buying them with 50% discount.
3. Met with a newly known friend who is an insurance agent from AIA. I bought my first life insurance policy in 1994 and added a few policies since then. Learned a few new development in the insurance industry such as life time unlimited claim for hospital plan (my knowledge stopped at yearly limit and 3x lifetime limit for hospital bill claim), guaranteed renewal up to 100 years and coverage up to 100 years old. Another one is the flat/level rate for critical illness up to 85 years old versus step up rate every 5 years to 75 years old and increase on a yearly basis up to 85 years old. The trick is to charge up front by predicting the possible increase in insurance costs and make the policy holder to pay for it upfront. It is similar to quoting the fixed side of a swap to a swap buyer by assuming the floating rate risk.