Together as One

Day 188 - 812 days to go

I attended a choir performance today and I was surprised that it is not what most people think a choir is. The choir is very interesting, entertaining and lively. Many people think that choir is very boring, monotonous and the like. I am very grateful that my friend invited me to watch and support such a great performance.

After watching the performance, I spent almost 100 minutes to walk home due to certain reason. I did not feel very tired maybe the performance also provided some energy for my late night walk.

Happy events:

1. Attended a very good choir performance.

2. Finally know that I need to walk about 100 minutes to reach home from KL.

Creativity: creativity can be found and applicable in any events which include performing a choir.

Office Politics

Day 187 - 813 days to go

Really do not want to write about this but it overwhelmed me as the most critical and relevant event of the day. My whole department was not around last Friday and my staff attended a meeting with one internal department and one group level department staffs.

My staff was bullied by another staff who is much more senior in the market and company rank. The silly thing was that he said he was helping our department to carry out one activity which was actually his department activity in the first place. Maybe he is old enough to forget about what he put into his business plan or he thought my staff is innocent enough not knowing that it is the other department's activity. Really sad for the company for having staff who always busy doing all these activities instead of working towards achieving company's goals.

Happy events:

1. Finally my immediate supervisor showed that he was also annoyed by all the office politics instead of ignoring it and let the subordinate face it only.
2. We manage to sell more than 14,000 Terry Fox Run t shirts to raise fund for charity and may be able to sell more than 15,000 when the event is over this Sunday. Bravo.

Creativity: People who play office politics are very creative. One way is to turn black into white.

Creative does not mean that black can really turn into white. It is only a wishful thinking and may not last long as people will not be fooled for long. So black is still black.

Not so happy event: Office politics must coexist with office business activities?

Everyone Is A teacher

Day 186 - 814 days to go

Today I met up with a friend from Kluang and we had a great time catching up. He is a very nice and helpful guy plus knowledgeable in many aspects. He will be helping me to fix my PC. Every time I met up with him, I will sure learn something. Technically we can learn something from everybody but the question is whether you want to learn certain thing from certain people. For example, you have not interest in cooking, you may not want to learn cooking skill from a Chef. However, you enrajoy eating and hence you may want to learn from the Chef which is the good restaurants in certain areas.

Learning from people is the most convenient and fastest way if you know who may have certain knowledge. Compare to online search, you need not login and your results rependent on what keywords that you key in. In other words, it is passive and not interactive. However, human is much more interactive and active in the sense that they will feed you information before you ask, based on what they think you have interest in.

Happy Events:

1. Happy to meet up with my friend from Kluang.
2. Happy to learn quite a bit of computer knowledge from him.
3. Happy to make some new friends in PC's workshop.

Creativity: Creativity include applying existing techniques from other product into new innovation like the giant touch screen white board.

Developed countries have been using giant white board which is like a giant touch screen monitor in their class rooom for teaching purpose.

Virtual Real Estates

Day 185 - 815 days to go

Today I attended the 2nd day workshop for virtual real estates. Online real estates is very similar to offline real estates in many aspects in terms of need to put in lots of efforts to make a good investment decisions. Even the types of skills and strategies applied are somewhat similar in terms of principles and philosophy.

Nevertheless, there are at least a few aspects which are very differences:

1. Online is focusing on business or commercial but offline are residential and commercial etc.
2. Online is affordable to all people but offline is only accessible to those who afford or rich.
3. Online is worldwide market but offline is by respective country.
4. and the like.

Creativity: Online activities required lots of creativity strategies and ideas in order to produce innovative and best selling products.

Offline business need creativity as well but it is less obvious and hence no that easy to be copied due to lots of barrier to entry to a particular niche.

Tower Heist

Day 184 - 816 days to go

I watched the movie and really enjoyed it. It is not a movie that used a lot of computer effect and as such it is very real relative to many blockbuster movie. The thing I enjoyed the most is how people help each other to the extend that risk their job and freedom to set thing right.

Another thing I enjoyed is the power or synergy of a team shown in the movie. However, it also showed the risk of having a few team members as any of the team members may betray or sabotage the group for personal interest. Therefore, getting the right team members is very critical in a team project.

Happy Events:

1. Enjoyed a good movie with my daughter and her schoolmate too.
2. Learned quite a bit on virtual real estate.

Creativity: Creativity is one of the most critical success factor for online business.

Online business can be more or less competitive than offline business dependent on the niche of the business and also dependent on how you leverage on what you have.

Bursa Family Day

Day 183 - 817 days to go

We had a another or may be the final meeting before the family day next Sunday. It is getting more excited by the day and I am sure we will have a good time... so long did not have a chance to take part in company-wide event as I missed the annual dinner last year.

This year we will have fun at Sunway Lagoon with lots of lucky draw prizes and goodies bags. The only item some may comment is the SPM exam on the following day and hence some may not be taking part due to the exam. We feel sorry but due to availability of the venue and our senior management staff, it is the best date we can work on.

Happy events:

1. Finished the draft reply to SC, thanks my staff Logan for the team work.

Creativity: Team work not only can contribute to results but also creativity.

Sometimes, with the help and contribution by another person, creativity will be enhanced.

Passion - Terry Fox Run

Day 182 - 818 days to go

Most people think that it is hard work, commitment, determination, perseverance and the like are the most important factors. I will not deny that they are very important but to me they are secondary. I think passion is the single most important factor for us to succeed in pursuing anything in life.

Without passion, we will not be able to work hard, to be committed, to be determined and so on. It is the building block of all other secondary factors. There are many ways to name passion and the most common and popular one is LOVE. Only if we fall in love with someone or something, then only we won't feel tired and everything else is secondary to us. For instance, I dont mind walking one KM under the hot sun to deliver two Terry Fox Run T shirts to my friend for charity, after that walk in the heavy rain with a small umbrella until my whole body was wet. This was coupled with the fact that I missed the fun time with 6 colleagues for a farewell lunch too.

To me, another t shirt sold will contribute to possible saving of life. What is more important than saving life? Of course, what I did was just nothing worth mentioning if compared to what Terry Fox did 31 years ago. However, if everyone care and can contribute a little bit, we will have a much better world.

Happy Events:

1. Finally, I got my Iphone despite not a white color and not the Iphone 4s.
2. Started doing renovation for the condo.
3. Had a good farewell lunch with a bunch of wonderful colleagues.

AirAsia Business Strategies

Day 181 - 819 days to go

After taking AirAsia to 6 countries, I have learned quite a great deal of their business expansion plan and strategies. They apply at least two approaches for their airline business expansion. First of all, they add more routes. Secondly, they add more services or charges to their airline services. For adding more routes, it is a straight forward strategy. For adding more services and more charges to increase their revenues, they have done the following based on my personal observation:

1. The all in charges can be as many as 10 different charges including airport tax etc.
2. They offer in flight meal and also many other items.
3. They offer different seat and choice of seating selection.
4. They offer online free of charge check in service or pay at the counter.
5. They offer discount for ordering of food online and also cheaper rate for check in baggage.

Of course, the not airline business including hotel, insurance, prepaid mobile airtime and so on.

Creativity: Airasia is quite creative and innovative in their business expansion.

I am not sure how much AirAsia copied other airline or other businesses but their success is basically understand the needs of customers well and position themselves well to capture the niche market of low cost airline business.