tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53806250541521643892024-03-29T10:30:51.613+08:00Entrepreneurship, technology and lifeStanley Chee is a serial entrepreneur, a tech startup angel investor, an ex-Google Regional Trainer, a TEDx speaker, a Mensa member, a public speaker, a casual blogger, a loving husband and father.Stanley Cheehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07747429349298296313noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-78414665937890893292020-05-09T13:53:00.010+08:002021-01-22T10:27:03.530+08:00Business decision to work from home (WFH) permanently<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">One of the best things that came out of Covid-19 pandemic is that our company has decided to work from home (work remotely), permanently. Before the whole ordeal of Covid-19, we have been practising 2 days per week work from home (WFH), so we have got a head start on this. The last 1.5 month of MCO (movement control order) or lockdown in the three cities that we operate in is just the final acid test on whether we could go permanent work remotely (PWR).</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As a measure to stretch the runway of our startup, we have found all ways to reduce our monthly expenses, including a company-wide pay cut. After rounds of discussion between my co-founder and I, we have decided to cut the office instead of an additional 13% pay cut in order to maintain the office. The expenses involved are office and co-working space rental, utilities, internet services, courier services, office cleaning and upkeep.<br />
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Going officeless is a bold move as most people that have visited our office previously was challenging the effectiveness of working from home, even when we were just doing 2 days per week. Some of the questions and my answers are:<br />
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<b>Q: How do you know if they are working?</b><br />
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A: This is one of the most common questions I get. I pointed to one of my colleagues sitting 10 feet from where we stand. He sits in front of his laptop with his ear plugs on and I asked my visitor if he can tell if my colleague is working. I admitted to him that I couldn't. The first thing I tried to decoupled is the measurement of productivity and the sense of monitoring with the close proximity within the office. I admitted that we are still working on having a scorecard (or KPI) for every Candyholic, what we call ourselves in SalesCandy, but I don't think that having them reporting in the office is a good solution. In fact, having not being able to see them will force us to really measure their productivity or at least start putting more focus to come up with better measuring mechanisms. This thought was reaffirmed in a book written by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried, who are partners in Basecamp, a global tech company. The name of the book is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Remote-Office-Required-Jason-Fried/dp/0804137501" target="_blank">Remote: Office Not Required</a>.<br />
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<b>Q: Can they start and end work at any time?</b><br />
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A: At the moment, we practice permanent work remotely with synchronous collaboration. It means that we still expect one another to clock in to work not later than 10am local time every day and work 40 honest hours per week, from anywhere. During working hours, we expect all Candyholics to be reachable via phone call and instant messaging (slower response time). Some time in the future, maybe we can "graduate" into PWR with asynchronous collaboration, where all of us can work from anywhere at anytime, as long as we churn in 40 honest hours.<br />
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<b>Q: How do you onboard new team member?</b><br />
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A: We have planned for some work-together sessions if we were to onboard a newcomer. Eventually, when the budget allows, I think a small 1-week retreat to a local resort to onboard newcomers will be amazing!<br />
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Before the decision is made, we did a company-wide survey among 33 Candyholics and I was surprised to find out that two of us actually commute 6 hours per day to-and-fro work, which is almost as much as the working hours! We also found out that all Candyholics think that they themselves and their teams are either equally or more productive, in both quantity and quality of works, when working from home in the past 30 days.<br />
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When I went to the office yesterday to arrange the disposal of some assets before handing over the office back to the landlord, I found that I don't miss much of the commute and the office. However, I do miss the face-to-face time with my team and it is something that we have allocated budget and resources to make sure that we will have enough face time, both virtually and in-person, through coordinated and sponsored company events.<br />
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Going PWR also forced us to look at what other processes that we need to reduce or simplify. We have managed to push our company secretary to adopt electronic signatures for all the company resolutions and to reduce the need of printing and scanning of documents. We also have less access (keys, access cards, etc) and assets to track after going office-less.<br />
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We do see that this move may not be suitable for every team, especially for teams and the management that have not really mastered what accountability is. However, we do see that transiting to PWR and getting good at it will give us an unfair advantage in terms of attracting and retaining talents, scaling regionally and globally and having a clearer focus on productivity.<br />
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I believe that working remotely will be the future of working and the transition has been slow even though the technology is available. Covid-19 has sped up the transition. I have always believed that in order for us to be ahead of the other players, we may need to take moves that others may not or can not take.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">p/s: Another good thing that came out of Covid-19 is the acceleration of wide adoption of conference calls (Zoom meetings, Google Meet, etc), especially making it a norm for businesses in Southeast Asia.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>Updated on June 21, 2020: This piece was picked up by BFM, the leading business station in Malaysia, and <a href="https://www.bfm.my/podcast/enterprise/resource-centre/ent-rc-nn-office-not-required" target="_blank">here is the podcast version</a> with Audrey Raj. We have also followed up with our clients on the service level and the survey results show that all of our clients believe that the service level, in terms of response time and response quality, is either on par or better than before the PWR.</i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i><br /></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><i>Updated on January 12, 2021: We have changed the term from permanent work remotely (PWR) to distributed work, as permanent work remotely suggests that there is a main office for work remote to make sense. As we have gone totally officeless, SalesCandy is now a distributed workplace and powered by a distributed workforce. </i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
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Stanley Cheehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07747429349298296313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-8088289941007225942019-07-14T14:39:00.001+08:002021-04-11T05:49:13.729+08:00My take on life insurance, critical illness coverage and medical cardI have recently reviewed my will and that caused me to look into my insurance policies. I have a conventional policy bought by my parents when I was 18, another life insurance policy with life and critical illness coverage, and a medical card.<br />
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I have spent quite some time trying to understand how to make the decision and figured that someone else may be going through the process and this may help.<br />
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After multiple discussions with my very experienced insurance agent. Here are my conclusions.<br />
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Before that, some background about myself so that you can put this into context. I'm a serial entrepreneur, now running my third business, a SalesTech startup, creating <a href="https://www.salescandy.com/" target="_blank">an innovative lead management system for lead-to-sale (L2S) industries</a>. I have recurring income from my first business and also some residential properties that I have invested in. I'm in my early 40s as at writing and I'm married with a 3-year-old son and I'm the sole income bearer for my family. We live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.<br />
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<u>Life insurance</u><br />
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As I structured my will and made myself familiar with the process and timeline of how the estate will be distributed to the beneficiaries, I realized that there is a gap. In Malaysia context, the most immediate monies that the beneficiaries can access to is EPF (KWSP) and insurance payout, assuming it is a clear death (as opposed to cases like those lives lost in MH370). The beneficiaries will have access to this monies in 2~4 weeks time.<br />
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I'm the sole income bearer for the family and I have to make sure my family has enough monies to cover monthly expenses, including rental, utilities, education, grocery, monthly instalment to properties (so that they don't have to go through fire sales or auction), etc.<br />
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As it may be hard for my wife to go back to the work force with a young kid, I plan to leave behind estate enough to cover 10-year of expenses for my family. I took count of net property value (after loan) and fill the gap with life insurance policy.<br />
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Now, the challenge is that the insurance premium may shoot through the roof (relative to my income) so I looked for ways to reduce the premium while having the payout enough to cover what I wanted.<br />
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As part of the insurance premium goes to investment to sustain the policy, the longer I want the policy to sustain (without top-up and assuming market return is at least as projected), the higher the insurance premium. Example, even though a policy is guaranteed to renew up to 100-year-old by the insurance company, the premium that the agent proposed may only be able to sustain the policy until the insurer is 70-year-old.<br />
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In other words, at around 70-year-old, the insurance cost may have been higher than the premium and the previously invested amount (with accumulated return) is not enough to cover the difference. This is when the insurance company will ask you to increase the insurance premium.<br />
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I figured that as I grow older, my kid grows up, my property value appreciates and mortgage loan get repaid, my responsibility and monthly expenses when I'm around 65 will be different. My kid should be (fingers crossed) done with education, making his own monies, my rental/utilities usage will be much lower, and my mortgage loan instalments would have been paid off. Just the unencumbered properties should be sufficient to be left behind when I passes.<br />
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I will most likely no longer need the life insurance when I'm around 65 year-old. By then, I will surrender my life insurance policy at the age of 65-year-old and withdraw whatever cash value left in the policy.<br />
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Having a clear "exit" allowed me to increase the payout coverage with same insurance premium, instead of aiming for the insurance to be sustainable until 100-year-old.<br />
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<u>Critical illness coverage</u><br />
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I concluded that critical illnesses coverage is mainly to make up for the lost of income if any of the critical illnesses hit. As my main income are passive income, I opted out from critical illnesses. If any of the illnesses strikes, I won't be able to get any payout, but my medical card will cover me for all the hospitalization and treatments. If your income is mainly coming from your salary, I would advise you not to follow my strategy on critical illness.<br />
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<u>Medical card</u><br />
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To me, this is the most important coverage for my own self, as life insurance is more for people that I left behind. Most of the latest medical card nowadays have more than a million ringgit annual limit and unlimited lifetime claim. Well, to be honest, I don't think anyone could really claim that much as the body may not be able to endure million ringgits worth of medical treatments. I chose the more entry level coverage with RM200 room, of which I can top up if I want a better room.<br />
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<u><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Riders/Waivers/NCB/deductible</u><br />
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As I tried to increase the payout while keeping the premium low, I opted out for the riders/waivers as I believe I can still pay the monthly premium even with the critical illnesses.<br />
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I also minimized the investment portion of the policies as I personally invest in my own businesses, other startups and stock market.<br />
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There is a new plan introduced by an insurance company this month (July 2019) that offers non-claim bonus (NCB) and also optional deductible. I noticed that I have not made any claim in the 20+ years that I am insured, NCB and deductible make full sense for me.<br />
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I plan to go for the RM5,000 deductible, which means that I will need to fork out RM5,000 per policy year if there is any claim, but this significantly lower the insurance cost and premium by around 30%. In other words, claims below RM5,000 will no longer make sense and I will personally have to absorb those medical expenses. This is fine for me as I mainly get the medical card to cover bigger claims and I don't bother to go through the claim process for less than RM5,000.<br />
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In conclusion, different person may have different need for the insurance policies, but most people may not realize that the need changes as we go through different phases of life. Instead of signing up for plans thinking that you need it to sustain until your end of life, it may make more sense to think of when realistically you need the plan to cover until and with that additional variable, you can either get higher/wider coverage or lower premium.<br />
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What's your personal insurance strategy? Do share.Stanley Cheehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07747429349298296313noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-69111063311037369942017-04-25T22:55:00.001+08:002020-05-09T14:11:47.179+08:00The price you pay for fear<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was talking to my mom about investing in lands and she was telling me all the stories she read in newspapers about how people got their lands transacted without their consents and how the lawyers and land office personnel teamed up to cheat the land owners. She told me that that was the reason she didn't invest in lands, the fear of being cheated.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Samer Daboul</td></tr>
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I was brought up in a family that is very prudent and skeptical about almost everything, especially opportunities. I have to admit that it has served me well in some situations but most of the time it made me paranoid about every single thing in life. It is good to be prudent and careful, I was told. After all, the chance of getting cheated is much less.<br />
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There are already many people making money from renting out rooms on Airbnb. At the meantime, there are still many people who are afraid that the items in their unit get stolen and afraid that the guests ruin their place, etc.<br />
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There are people that would tell you suppliers from China will always ship to you items that don't match what you ordered. The same people that would tell you not to buy things online or don't invest in stock.<br />
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Fair enough, these people usually don't lose any money because of their prudence and that become their mantra in making future decisions and that will also be how they advise their friends and family members.<br />
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However, if you take a closer look, do they really not lose anything? How about the possibility of ending up owning 10-20 properties from Airbnb income alone? The possibility of making a million dollar business out of the importing the products from China? And the loss of the value of your saving due to inflation?<br />
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Fear is built into us and it is one of the key mechanisms to keep us safe. However, it is important to understand that the fear is normal and here are some of the options you have on hand:<br />
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1) If the possible loss is 'affordable' and the opportunity makes sense, take the worst case scenario that you will lose what you put in (time, money and other resources) and treat it as the 'tuition fee' that you need to pay to acquire that knowledge.<br />
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2) If the possible loss is big (relatively to your income and saving), research and talk to people who have done it. Go through your fear with them, they may already have a way to mitigate the risk.<br />
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3) Now that you know what you have to lose, the available mitigation methods, the risk that you have to take and the possible reward, make a decision. When you reach this stage and decide not to proceed, it is no longer fear that holds you back, but it is a decision made. Situation and decision may change when the risk is no longer there, or there is a mitigation method that you come across or the reward become greater.<br />
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If you have been having the same fear for the same opportunity, it is time to take the above actions, instead of keep reading and soliciting for the same stories that strengthen the fear.<br />
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Some people think that getting cheated are something to be shameful about and they boast about how they have not made any mistake or lose any money. They don't get to see what they possibly have gained for taking the risk.<br />
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If you do make a wrong investment or choice, learn from it, try to identify which part of the journey you could have identified the mistake, laugh about it and add it to your experience and knowledge and it will sharpen your common sense over time. However, be careful when you try to draw a conclusion that "I will never... again" because this will shut down all the future possibilities.<br />
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This doesn't just apply to investment opportunity. There are equally as many people who are afraid to visit a country because of possible ISIS attack, afraid of meeting someone online because of the horrible stories they have heard, refuse to help someone in need because of the possibility of being cheated, afraid to fall in love again because he/she was used once.<br />
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Again, they may have not lost anything from making the above decisions. Or, they may have lost everything ever possible.<br />
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This reminds me of a quote, “A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A. Shedd.<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-26418141691517328252015-10-04T10:06:00.005+08:002020-05-09T14:12:18.306+08:005 myths about entrepreneurship (part 3 of 3)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<u>Slide 12: What Is In For Me?</u><br />
Now that I bursted all the myths and bubbles, why am I still running a business? Other than I like to torture myself, here are some of the reasons.<br />
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Lots of Learning:<br />
If you love to learn, this is where all the learning is. As OffGamers grew, I noticed that none of the partners have any knowledge in financials and I decided to attend the CFA course. Even though I didn't pass the exam, I learnt enough about financials. I also learnt more about law and trademark after we received the first lawyer letter.<br />
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Entrepreneurship expose you to all areas of business, not just a very narrow scope as an employee in MNC.<br />
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Lots of Challenges:<br />
Economy outlook, GST, currency, haze, etc, are all challenges. If you don't like challenge, please stay away from entrepreneurship.<br />
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Self Discovery:<br />
I figured that everything that didn't work in the company or business can be reflected back to me. For example, when we can't hit sales target in Gapture, it reflects back to me not liking to sell, which goes deeper into I am afraid of wasting others' time, which then leads to my lack of acknowledgement of myself.<br />
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Roller Coster - Up's & Down's:<br />
Entrepreneurship is the biggest roller coster ever, if you like roller coster.<br />
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Meeting People:<br />
I get to meet people from all walks of life.<br />
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Building Culture:<br />
I did some soul searching when running Gapture and I found out that what I wanted to do is actually to build a company that embodies all the values that I want in the country. Core values in Gapture are Simplicity, Measurability, Integrity, Thirst of Learning and Excellence.<br />
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At Gapture, we don't care what race, religion and sexual orientation is our employee. I requested our HR to drop the religion and race columns (which are very common in all forms in Malaysia) from our interview form. We only ask that you perform as per job description and achieve your KPI. We ask for excellence!<br />
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I wanted to build an excellent company that Malaysians are proud of, a role model for other companies, one that can inspire others to follow suit and bring excellence to the country.<br />
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I don't like the corruption culture in the country and I decided that Gapture is going to walk away from any business if there is a need for corruption. This is not an easy choice as there is many businesses and companies out there operate in that manner.<br />
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Now, when you finally get to start your company, what values do you want to instil in it? Out of all things that you have been complaining about the country, are you going to make a difference in your company?<br />
<u><br /></u> <u><br /></u><u>Slide 13:</u><br />
This is my favourite video about entrepreneurship.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-KHWUq3B7I" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-KHWUq3B7I</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.chee.im/2015/10/5-myths-about-entrepreneurship-part-1.html">5 myths about entrepreneurship (part 1 of 3)</a><br />
<a href="https://www.chee.im/2015/10/5-myths-about-entrepreneurship-part-2.html">5 myths about entrepreneurship (part 2 of 3)</a><br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-91538474713547900832015-10-04T09:40:00.000+08:002020-05-09T14:12:26.422+08:005 myths about entrepreneurship (part 2 of 3)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<u>Slide 7: Myth #1 - I Will Have Flexible Time</u><br />
For the first 5 years of OffGamers, I don't remember taking any vacation and all partners worked through most of the public holidays. My phone is next to me when I go to bed, as OffGamers is an online store running 24/7. Good thing about online store is that we have orders and sales coming in even when we are sleeping, bad thing is that there are also complaints and issues coming in 24/7.<br />
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It took us about 7 years and 120 pax later, to be able to work 9 to 5, and have annual leaves like other employees.<br />
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“Entrepreneurship is working hard for 40 hours per week so that you can save enough to start a business and work 60 hours per week.” I can't seem to find the author of the quote.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhviVBfUsrciqw5tl4pvdQlaSBDtbX10VfcixAYYQNN7Lu-E7KS7IH0rUzIZtVvw0VFe0gFR1JiqGRbDxom7mLp3wHJ-OCvaoGb7EFZxrDo46cVCHeEPSRPeA3ud2KwdRlKLHPIKluoyf4/s1600/Super+Rich+Private+Jet+1678x1119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Myth about getting super rich in entrepreneurship" border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhviVBfUsrciqw5tl4pvdQlaSBDtbX10VfcixAYYQNN7Lu-E7KS7IH0rUzIZtVvw0VFe0gFR1JiqGRbDxom7mLp3wHJ-OCvaoGb7EFZxrDo46cVCHeEPSRPeA3ud2KwdRlKLHPIKluoyf4/s640/Super+Rich+Private+Jet+1678x1119.jpg" title="Myth about getting super rich in entrepreneurship" width="640" /></a></div>
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<u>Slide 8: Myth #2 - I Will be Super Rich</u><br />
I am still getting less pay than my first job as a programmer in USA. Most business owners pay themselves very low as most profit are put back into growing their business. Grabcar and Uber drivers make more money than me.<br />
<br />
OffGamers makes 30 million revenue a year but my wife and I are still counting the number of nights that we can afford to eat out.<br />
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Entrepreneurs don't usually get super rich until they sell their companies. Building a company that is sell-able is another topic altogether.<br />
<u><br /></u>
<u><br /></u><u>Slide 9: Myth #3 - I Just Need to Hire Someone To Do The Jobs that I Don’t Like</u><br />
I was a programmer, indeed a very good programmer. I can sit in front of a computer whole day. I am not really a people person. When I was in university, I always think that if I do start a business, I will be the behind-the-scene parter and get another partner to be the CEO or the front facing one.<br />
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Just like in Gapture, when I first started it, I thought that I could hire a sales manager to take care of the sales, as I don't like to sell. However, that didn't work. Sales target was not being hit and eventually I decided to jump in and start doing sales.<br />
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The worst task that I have done was actually picking up rotten rat from the staircase. Why do I want to do that as you may ask. I did that because there were only 2~3 of us and no one has the title or job description that says "pick up the rotten rat" so by default I am the one doing it.<br />
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"Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable" as previous speaker, Victor Phang from iTalent Management, pointed out, is how I overcame my public speaking fear.<br />
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Another point about hiring is that many entrepreneurs think that they can just pay a salary and hire whoever they want.<br />
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Some of the best-hires I have recruited took 1 to 2 years "courting process" and most of the time salary is not the main issue. Entrepreneurs should ask themselves, "why do someone want to be led by me?"<br />
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<u>Slide 10: Myth #4 - I am the BOSS</u><br />
I thought I was the BOSS after owning a business, until I meet the clients, then I realized that they are the bosses. After closing the sales and when it is time to deliver, I realized that the employees are the bosses because if they leave then, I will not be able to deliver what I promised to the clients. Of course, when it come to tax paying and GST, I realized that the tax authority is the boss as they get a cut of every profit.<br />
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At the end, I really wonder who is the BOSS.<br />
<u><br /></u>
<u><br /></u><u>Slide 11: Myth #5 - There is a Destination Called SUCCESS</u><br />
You may have heard this a lot, "It is easy for him because he has made it. He has made his first pot of gold." <br />
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I don't believe there is a destination called success and everything is smooth sailing after that. Entrepreneurship is a journey with up's and down's, successes and failures along the way.<br />
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After closing a big deal, I could be on top of the world, thinking that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. Moments later, a key personnel would tell me that he or she is resigning, and I will be at the bottom of the valley, thinking what is the problem with me or the company that we can't retain talents and when would this cycle end.<br />
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Entrepreneurship is the biggest roller coaster ride ever.<br />
<u><br /></u>
<br />
<u><br /></u><a href="https://www.chee.im/2015/10/5-myths-about-entrepreneurship-part-1.html">5 myths about entrepreneurship (part 1 of 3)</a><u><br /></u><a href="https://www.chee.im/2015/10/5-myths-about-entrepreneurship-part-3.html">5 myths about entrepreneurship (part 3 of 3)</a><br />
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<u><br /></u></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-33066681317272623232015-10-04T08:54:00.000+08:002020-05-09T14:12:32.768+08:005 myths about entrepreneurship (part 1 of 3)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was invited by UCSI University in Malaysia to give a talk on entrepreneurship in their inaugural SEE (Student Entrepreneurial Experience) Conference.<br />
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I put together the following slides for the event.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="485" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/dHBzOJw5xuv0pN" style="border-width: 1px; border: 1px solid #ccc; margin-bottom: 5px; max-width: 100%;" width="595"> </iframe> <br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 5px;">
<strong> <a href="https://www.slideshare.net/StanleyChee1/five-myths-about-entrepreneurship-ucsi-university-2015" target="_blank" title="Five MYTHS about Entrepreneurship (UCSI University, 2015)">Five MYTHS about Entrepreneurship (UCSI University, 2015)</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="https://www.slideshare.net/StanleyChee1" target="_blank">Stanley Chee</a></strong> </div>
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<br />
Here are the notes of the slides and I noticed that I have missed some of them during the talk.<br />
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<br />
<u>Slide 1</u><br />
Cover page:<br />
UCSI University Student Entrepreneurial Experience Conference 2015<br />
Five MYTHS about Entrepreneurship<br />
Stanley Chee<br />
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<br />
<u>Slide 2</u><br />
A recent photo of me and my wife in Tblisi, Georgia. She started a new business importing naturally semi-sweet wine from Georgia to Malaysia.<br />
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<br />
<u>Slide 3</u><br />
Many businesses that I am involved in, also illustrated my fair share of successes and failures in businesses.<br />
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I now run a digital marketing agency, Gapture. Gapture is a certified Google Partner and I am a certified Google regional trainer.<br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): I have exited Gapture in October 2018.</i></b><br />
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<br />
<u>Slide 4 & 5</u><br />
At peak, <a href="https://www.offgamers.com/" target="_blank">OffGamers - an online store serving gamers worldwide</a>, one of the businesses that I co-founded with two other partners, employed 180 people in three offices, across Malaysia and China. Also, that was me in the red circle, with much more hair. That is one of the things that entrepreneurship did to me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5rHxUOhTOvkgHOv_ILfoue6IUk-yalilWpy4-Ap2UhkqJXtlUktwbVUUPy5gKlxH57D1a89X0O7aGF2AsY8qYXB9skxNXJsPZ0j-iTEuoniiZN0-xtsuB0xtkDPSCmdEThYmHBcjTRo/s1600/Kids+Raising+Hands+in+Classroom+1685x1114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Entrepreneurship show of hands taking challenges" border="0" data-original-height="1058" data-original-width="1600" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5rHxUOhTOvkgHOv_ILfoue6IUk-yalilWpy4-Ap2UhkqJXtlUktwbVUUPy5gKlxH57D1a89X0O7aGF2AsY8qYXB9skxNXJsPZ0j-iTEuoniiZN0-xtsuB0xtkDPSCmdEThYmHBcjTRo/s640/Kids+Raising+Hands+in+Classroom+1685x1114.jpg" title="Entrepreneurship show of hands taking challenges" width="640" /></a></div>
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<u>Slide 6</u><br />
I asked the audience, "By show of hands, how many of you here is already an entrepreneur, or would like to become one?" Around 70% of the crowd raised their hands.<br />
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I then asked, "How many of you are willing and like to take challenges?" 60% of the crowd still have their hands up.<br />
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Then I challenged them, "How many of you, are willing to take a challenge on the stage now?" Only 10% left with their hands up.<br />
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First I asked those that are here in Student Entrepreneurial Experience conference why are they here wasting their afternoon if they don't intend to be an entrepreneur. Are they here to just watch others being one?<br />
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Second, I asked those that want to become an entrepreneur but don't like to take challenges what are they thinking? Challenges are the only thing guaranteed in entrepreneurship.<br />
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Third, I asked those that said that they like challenges and willing to take it, what happened when I asked them to take the challenge on the stage now? 5 out of 6 of them dropped their hands. I asked those who dropped their hands to think about what were the reasons or excuses they gave themselves for not taking the challenge.<br />
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Some of you like to be entrepreneurs, because your friends are entrepreneurs or you think it is a trendy thing to do. A lot of you may think that you have what it takes to become one. But when it actually boils down to the actual hard work, long working hours, sleepless night, no more time for boy friend or girl friend, or even family, how many of you are still willing to do it? For how long are you willing to do it?<br />
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<br />
<a href="https://www.chee.im/2015/10/5-myths-about-entrepreneurship-part-2.html">5 myths about entrepreneurship (part 2 of 3)</a><br />
<a href="https://www.chee.im/2015/10/5-myths-about-entrepreneurship-part-3.html">5 myths about entrepreneurship (part 3 of 3)</a><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-48850103165948055062015-09-20T12:02:00.001+08:002020-05-09T14:10:24.142+08:00Is AsiaWorks a scam?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
First of all, let me disclose that I have attended the training, I did my AsiaWorks Basic training back in 2012, then Advanced and Leadership Program (LP) in 2014. All these three trainings were conducted under Asiaworks Training Sdn Bhd in Malaysia. The reason I'm writing about this is because when I did a Google search on "AsiaWorks review", almost all results point to negative reviews. Best yet, some of these reviews are from hearsay of the writer's friends, family members, colleagues, etc. I will bring you through my journey based on my first-person experience.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgWjiPz593jtexIjW-uBaGNnkYBn5PGwr87fGTor3XXwijOgV4if_YdczQujtCrVYn1GbbEQ1aTL7r-fJU8zTozKEAcVOHRfFcqqVnv4N94GXuFBMscxo-FURE892t42paY6fzgYzaAM/s1600/Is-AsiaWorks-a-scam.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Is-AsiaWorks-a-scam" border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJgWjiPz593jtexIjW-uBaGNnkYBn5PGwr87fGTor3XXwijOgV4if_YdczQujtCrVYn1GbbEQ1aTL7r-fJU8zTozKEAcVOHRfFcqqVnv4N94GXuFBMscxo-FURE892t42paY6fzgYzaAM/s640/Is-AsiaWorks-a-scam.jpeg" title="Is-AsiaWorks-a-scam" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo is for illustration purpose only, not a real photo of the training. Photo credit: Luis Quintero</td></tr>
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<br />
<u>Cult and Secrecy</u><br />
Imagine someone told you Bruce Willis is dead before you even watched the movie "Sixth Sense" (sorry to those who have not watched "Sixth Sense"). This is the main reason why they want to keep the content of the course so secretive. The course is designed to let you have a closer look at how you operate in your life via exercises. If you know the exercise in advance, it will not create the same impact or results that it was intended to.<br />
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Is AsiaWorks a cult? I think it is, at least according to the definition of cult in <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cult" target="_blank">Dictionary</a>. The interesting question is why are we so afraid of cults? Apple (as a brand) is a cult, CrossFit is a cult.<br />
<br />
<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): Tesla is a cult.</i></b><br />
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There are a lot of cults out there. Cults don't necessary need to involve a daemon or a sacrifice. To me, any organization or body that is able to change people's behavior is a cult.<br />
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Is this brainwashing? I think it is, I came out having a different and wider view of things, I'm definitely brainwashed. Again, why are we so afraid of brainwashing? I don't see many people afraid of laundry washing, dish washing, car washing, but when it come to brainwashing, people somehow get so afraid.<br />
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<u>Scepticism</u><br />
Am I skeptical about the program? You bet. I'm one of the most analyzing, logical, skeptical persons that I have ever met :). A friend told me about AsiaWorks more than 10 years ago before I joined the course. I told him I don't need a course like this. The fact that a lot of MLM, direct marketing, and insurance agents joining the course didn't help to convince me.<br />
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<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): I wrote about fear in <a href="https://www.chee.im/2017/04/the-price-you-pay-for-fear.html">this blog post</a>, the fear of getting cheated.</i></b><br />
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Why did I join after 10 years? I was in the part of my life where I was soul searching and finding answers for why some little things agitate me so much. I talked to another friend that I respected, who has joined the course a long while ago. The first question I asked him was, "Is this a motivational course?" I told him that I am not looking for a motivational course that pumps me up for a couple weeks and then I fall back to the same me. He said, "No, it is not." I then asked whether he still applies what he has learned since he did it about 10 years ago, and he told me "Every day!" Right there and then, I decided to give it a shot. He is also an established business owner and investor. He re-affirmed that it was the best RM2,000 (AsiaWorks Basic training was around RM2,000 back then) he has ever spent.<br />
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I attended the course, alone, on Friday evening. I looked around and saw a lot of people that I think would really 'need' this course. I started to question whether I was in the right training course, I was one of the older ones. As the trainer started the program, I analyzed everything he said, his gesture, the lighting setting, the background music, etc. I was very skeptical.<br />
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<u>What have I discovered about myself in AsiaWorks Basic?</u><br />
Wow! This is the part that I can go on and on. My wife (then girlfriend) attended the course as well, I didn't sign her up but she decided to check it out after seeing the change in me. According to her, she can't really pinpoint whether the change is better or not, but she saw a change and that intrigued her, as she knows that I am as stubborn as a rock.<br />
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Some of my biggest discoveries about myself in Basic is that:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>I can be the most intelligent person on Earth (I am a Mensa member with IQ of 164), but intelligence and logic are not the only point-of-views in this world and that they are not the only way this world functions.</li>
<li>I noticed that I don't have much feelings and emotions, I operate like a robot, with lots of programs, functions, logics running (I graduated as a computer systems engineer) in my mind. I used to be very proud of this trait of mine.</li>
<li>Through some of the exercises and games in the AsiaWorks training, I noticed that I like to lead but I don't want to be viewed as "power hungry". I didn't get to lead the team and ended up just jumping in to criticize the leader. This reflected in other areas of my life, including business, family and any other organizations I am involved in.</li>
<li>I analyze every single thing and try to beat the system. I miss the opportunity to take action immediately.</li>
<li>I don't notice the support I have around me and I don't ask for help.</li>
</ul>
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This list can go on and on. Will you get the same take-home from the training? I am not sure, it all depends on what is working and not working for you all this while. It also depends on whether you want to participate.</div>
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<u>AsiaWorks Advanced and Leadership Program (LP)</u></div>
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You may ask why did it take me 2 years to join Advanced course if the course is so good. I have actually decided to finish the course (Advanced and LP) right after I finished Basic. When I was asked whether I want to join the immediate Advanced course by another AsiaWorks graduate, I told her that I didn't have time for it back then and that I will certainly do it one day. Now thinking back, also after volunteering to staff the Basic, I was just being righteous and wanted to show her that I knew better.</div>
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Nonetheless, in 2014, when my wife was away for a few weeks, I got bored and decided to sign up for Advanced. Here are some of my key discoveries:</div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>I have always thought that the connection between people is very shallow and that was how I viewed most connections around me, including connections with all the other participants in the training.</li>
<li>I can lead and people look up to me. I am inspiring.</li>
<li>I have to take risks to be a leader, including being misunderstood and misjudged of my intention.</li>
<li>I have played (participated) very differently in Advanced than how I participated in Basic. I have actually changed in these two years!</li>
</ul>
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</div>
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<u>Relationships</u></div>
<div>
I think one of the biggest take-homes from the whole course is my relationship with my wife and my family members. I remember my wife told me that the reason she signed up was that before I joined Basic, all I loved was her. However, after I joined Basic, she felt that I love her, but I also love myself! I think this is the most fundamental for a healthy relationship - loving oneself. Without this, trust is hard to be built on.</div>
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<u>Financials</u></div>
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I saw a lot of reviews associating getting rich fast, MLM, etc to this course. Do I make more money during or after this course? In some ways, yes, but it is because of me operating very differently now. If I choose to not do anything, will the money automatically come to me? Dream on! </div>
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I will give you an example. I used to hate selling! Really, I always see myself being the business partner who stays behind the scene and my business partner will be the front facing one. Now, I still don't like to sell! But the difference is that I can sell if I choose to, as good as any good sales person in the field. My whole perception of sales changed after the course. Selling is not just a skill applicable to sales people. It is an important skill, which we call enrolment, for any leader, any leader of a company (the boss), any leader of a family (the parents) or any leader of an organization. Life is an enrolment game! So, do you think able to sell when I want to will help me financially?</div>
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<div>
<u>Who shouldn't join AsiaWorks?</u></div>
<div>
First of all, no one needs this course! Please DO NOT join:</div>
<div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>If you think that you can make a lot more money just by attending the course</li>
<li>If you are afraid of change and just want to stay in your comfort zone</li>
<li>If you don't intend to participate</li>
<li>If someone pays for you and you feel like you are being forced to join</li>
</ul>
</div>
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Other that these, what do you have to lose? Couple thousands of ringgits and couple days? Seriously, have you not lost them in some other indulgences or branded products before? If you have always held on so dearly to these few thousand ringgits and a few days of your life, have you ever wondered what you could have possibly missed?</div>
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I will be cross posting this blog post to some of the forums that I found in the search results, do feel free to share your thoughts, feelings, and questions that you have in the comment. Thanks.</div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-24761586718507566962015-07-21T21:08:00.000+08:002020-05-09T14:09:46.290+08:005 words to avoid in your life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is one of my favourite quotes:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Watch your thoughts; they become words.</i></div>
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<i>Watch your words; they become actions.</i></div>
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<i>Watch your actions; they become habits.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Watch your habits; they become character.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>-- Lao-Tze</i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FRUWwKQQrdb_T9i1mQzoAVkUFZ3ytGlyZllKDj7SBIjZsFJrIkUfzD1ypV_GHL87gNRIKUsHPb4wQhpv4VVObBpd5y7GY1laxiXF_TeeL03q7vN34K3m01dXEM5PT82voCSsV535v44/s1600/path.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1201" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FRUWwKQQrdb_T9i1mQzoAVkUFZ3ytGlyZllKDj7SBIjZsFJrIkUfzD1ypV_GHL87gNRIKUsHPb4wQhpv4VVObBpd5y7GY1laxiXF_TeeL03q7vN34K3m01dXEM5PT82voCSsV535v44/s640/path.jpeg" width="512" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Luke Miller</td></tr>
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<br />Words are good reflections of your thoughts. In order to watch your thoughts, observe the words that came out of your mouth. Here are some words to avoid or at least to be aware of when you are using them, especially when you use it regularly.<br />
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<u><b>1. "I will try."</b></u><br />
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As Yoda said, "Try not. Do, or do not." Make up your mind on whether you want to do it or not. If you want to, then do it. If you don't want to, then don't do it, don't try to do it. Telling others that you will try leaves such a big backdoor for you not to do it. It is also a way for you to lurk in the grey zone. For example, if you were asked whether you will be going to an event, "I will try to be there" basically mean, "let me see what I feel like doing later". Most people that abuse this word think that they don't want to make promises that they can't keep. However, in my opinion, these people never make promises and commitments of substance because they can't keep them.<br />
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<u><b>2. "Quite"</b></u><br />
<u><br /></u>
When asked "How's the food?", many may choose to answer "quite good" or "not bad". How about an "excellent!", "good", "delicious", "bad" for a change? "Quite" is a way to leave backdoor for your judgment, so that you can follow up with, "but...". This has become such an automatic response for a lot of people that even when their kids come home to show them their grade and wait for a compliment, all they could answer is "not bad". I'm guilty of this and I have to consciously remind myself especially when giving compliments to others.<br />
<u><br /></u>
<u><b>3. "Kind of"</b></u><br />
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"This is kind of nice", "I sort of ignore him". Again, in my opinion, this is way of avoiding responsibility in what you say.<br />
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<u><b>4. "So-called"</b></u><br />
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"There are these so-called security guards in the office". It is commonly used with air quote. I find that there are just so much sourness and sarcasm in "so-called". <br />
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<u><b>5. "Have to"</b></u><br />
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"I can't go to the party this weekend, because I have to go to the training", "I have to fetch my kids", etc. This is common phrase and I use it a lot. However, please be mindful on it. Try changing it to "want to" and you will see how your mind and your world change. Example, "I can't go to the party this weekend, because I want to go to the training this weekend (to improve my sales skill)." and "I want to fetch my kids (because I want to spend time with them)." If you really don't want to do it, especially if it is something that against your values, please don't do it. If it is something that is good for you but you don't feel like doing it, take a different approach and see how much more you will benefit from it by changing your view on it.<br />
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Feel free to share what's on your words-to-avoid list!</div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-10476665049925601162014-09-25T20:01:00.002+08:002020-05-09T14:09:22.817+08:00Are successful businessmen just lucky?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I believe most entrepreneurs have this conversation before, "Are successful people just lucky?". I have talked to many businessmen who have made it and they attributed a big portion of their success to luck. I have also talked to some who haven't made it and they were also attributing it to the lack of luck.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41CzJZ7rZoxm6jJ03cU5ztu862Y1D40hyM8dm_mzHr9RpyID8ci-AZTeNxEXG241XdLumoIniHRsPNL9yEwgFvJS5ptWYrI4D5caM6sjlgPZrsRkSYZZI-_u1qRdtruYFKHA9iPcJ5f0/s1600/successful-businessman.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41CzJZ7rZoxm6jJ03cU5ztu862Y1D40hyM8dm_mzHr9RpyID8ci-AZTeNxEXG241XdLumoIniHRsPNL9yEwgFvJS5ptWYrI4D5caM6sjlgPZrsRkSYZZI-_u1qRdtruYFKHA9iPcJ5f0/s640/successful-businessman.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: mentatdgt</td></tr>
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Some of my friends argued that it is plain luck since everything is uncertain in the business world and some of these people are just "lucky". My counter-argument to them would be, are you saying that if Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, or Richard Branson were to start a new business (assuming that they have no access to their established network and wealth), it is as good a chance to succeed as any random person from the street?<br />
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After a few conversions on this topic, I decided to write about some of the conclusions that I have come to. First of all, I believe even for a seasoned entrepreneur like Richard Branson, there will still be a few failures if he was to start 100 new businesses. On the other hand, someone like the main character in Forrest Gump, may also have a few successes if he was to start 100 new businesses.<br />
<br />
Of course, we may never know what the actual number is. However, let's use 80/20 for discussion purpose. I believe a very knowledgable, experienced, wise businessman will still have 20% of failure possibility in new ventures that he is starting. Likewise, a very inexperienced, lack of knowledge person, with all the other flaws that you can think of, will still have a 20% success rate.<br />
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Now, the interesting part is that I don't think this number is fixed for any given entrepreneur. I believe as an entrepreneur gains experiences, skills and knowledges, his success rate will improve from 80% to maybe 90% and eventually, maybe 95%. However, this success rate will never hit 100%. And as he looses touch with the business world, technology and has not been practising his skills, the success rate will drop, but again, it will never actually hit 0%.<br />
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Having this thought encourages and motivates me to continue to improve myself, may it be my sales closing skill, public speaking skill, new technology, as opposed to "relying" on luck! What's your take on this?<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-9121563759466907442014-05-26T00:08:00.003+08:002020-05-11T20:50:53.302+08:00Malaysian woman searching for her son separated at birth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If you are a Malaysian male (of Chinese/Malay ethnicity) and were born on October 28, 1977 (plus minus a week), please read on.<br />
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You may have been told by your parents that you were adopted at birth, or you may doubt that you were adopted, or you may even have started looking for your birth parents with no avail.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyoWv2_xvZFf1oHnLAiQUagExNBFBcrhmMjEKntFZUgsOngxNvZOVU76SvArio_6aIiLPi7JVEtikIbWiW201MU_F0IzFYw4SNtgirNByJu_f9VrU76pBY4r_OkCuuQXaNn3rWzs4kQUE/s1600/pregnant-woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="853" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyoWv2_xvZFf1oHnLAiQUagExNBFBcrhmMjEKntFZUgsOngxNvZOVU76SvArio_6aIiLPi7JVEtikIbWiW201MU_F0IzFYw4SNtgirNByJu_f9VrU76pBY4r_OkCuuQXaNn3rWzs4kQUE/s640/pregnant-woman.jpg" width="425" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Luciana Ferraz</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I have just got to know that a friend's mom has a son who she has given away at birth. She was then a 19-year-old young lady and she wasn't sure what to do with the unexpected pregnancy. She insisted on not aborting the baby and followed her mom's advice to give the baby away when the baby was delivered in a clinic in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. She didn't get to see the baby at all and the only information she had was that the couple who adopted the baby are Malaysians (of Chinese ethnicity) in their 40's back then. Her mom has passed on now and she has limited information on where to look for her son.<br />
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She is a grandma in her 50's now and she has never given up hope to see her son again. All she hope for is that her son could understand why she did what she did and she also hope for forgiveness from him.<br />
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The loose regulation in Malaysia on adoption back in the 1970's leave no trace of this incident. The only hope we have is that with the help of social media, we will be able to reunite this mother and son as soon as possible.<br />
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All the readers out there, kindly share this link on your Facebook and Twitter, especially if you are in your 30's and 40's. We need this message to reach as much people in Malaysia as possible and hopefully the son or his friends and family members get to see this and inform him. Your one-click on the share button signifies hope, love and care.<br />
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Please leave a comment and your contact if you have any information. Thank you.<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-91121229947152346492013-11-09T16:33:00.001+08:002020-05-11T20:51:07.179+08:00Online software that we are still using after three months<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Most of the online software lost traction in my company after 1~2 months of implementation. One of the best features in SaaS (Software as a Service) model is that we get to try out the software in real environment and we can ditch the software if we decide that it is not something that we will continue using, without losing much investment.<br />
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Here are a list of software that we still stick to religiously after three months (a gage for us on whether the software is working for us or not). Some of these may have been covered before in my previous posts: <a href="https://www.chee.im/2011/12/company-laptop-and-software-needed.html">Company laptop and the software needed</a>, <a href="https://www.chee.im/2011/12/integrating-dropbox-into-companys-file.html">Integrating Dropbox into company's file system</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBMt4wopGjb6pUQCsrHRfxYp4liQEoVFqpMW6tkpXUtj-2zPDSMJ7VCzWmmjvjz0AQpZu4gH90soqJu-othKxm7-3mn-nwvSRkHHNAdtPHYNuXb2DDkcPyDlpAoAWhsxcn6DSSG6VqBow/s1600/asana-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="159" data-original-width="318" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBMt4wopGjb6pUQCsrHRfxYp4liQEoVFqpMW6tkpXUtj-2zPDSMJ7VCzWmmjvjz0AQpZu4gH90soqJu-othKxm7-3mn-nwvSRkHHNAdtPHYNuXb2DDkcPyDlpAoAWhsxcn6DSSG6VqBow/s200/asana-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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<u><b>Asana - Tasks Management</b></u><br />
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This software is like a software customized to our order, we have tried many other tasks & project management software, including Wunderlist, Insightly, Podio, etc, just to realize that we need a simple tasks list that is shareable. </div>
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<u>How We Use Asana</u><br />
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On daily basis, I go through:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Inbox: </b>To see the update of the tasks that I am following.</li>
<li><b>Incomplete Tasks followed due within the next 2 days: </b>I have this custom search list open when doing daily huddles with my team.</li>
<li><b>My Tasks: </b>I have this page open for the rest of the day to make sure I get the tasks scheduled for the day done.</li>
</ul>
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<div>
Other plus points include the integration with Google Apps (single sign-on and user management) and Harvest time-tracking (I personally don't use this feature often).</div>
<div>
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<div>
We have cut down a lot of internal emails once everyone get used to this software. Tasks are assigned directly from Asana and attachment is supported. We get to set a follow-up date (using due date field) and the task will show up in the "Incomplete Tasks followed due within the next 2 days" when due date approaches.</div>
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All changes (description, due date, comments, attachment) are being logged in the corresponding tasks.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><u>Pricing</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><u><br /></u></span></span>
Embarrassingly, we are still running on the free account, which supports up to 15 users. We will definitely upgrade once we outgrow the quota, or when we need the extra features only available in the Premium Plan.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nxcDIvoflsRpsMfXkdmfKKc1OmKK4fegfCvzaY7kaaBKHqaLtdLLLe1gpt9kHxMNP-DlNLkm_C1MxgemkWyLYV45amhCdtLpNx5G9-y0Nl_wSOTxVKkyftwIys7YheM8ImiEoj1aLqo/s1600/harvest-timesheet-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="464" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nxcDIvoflsRpsMfXkdmfKKc1OmKK4fegfCvzaY7kaaBKHqaLtdLLLe1gpt9kHxMNP-DlNLkm_C1MxgemkWyLYV45amhCdtLpNx5G9-y0Nl_wSOTxVKkyftwIys7YheM8ImiEoj1aLqo/s200/harvest-timesheet-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><u>Harvest - Timesheets</u></b></div>
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I'm surprised that it actually took me quite a while to find this software. We need a time-tracking software that can enable multiple roles per user as most of us play a few roles in the company. Most time-tracking software out there only support one role (and rate) per user.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span><u>How We Use Harvest</u></div>
<div>
<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><br /></b></u>
Each of us are required to log in our hours on daily basis and to submit the weekly timesheet every Monday. Projects are created for external clients and also internal projects (non-billable).<br />
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We use the "Tasks" field to track different roles (with different hourly rates, for billing purpose to our clients who are on monthly retainer basis).<br />
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Every end of month, we will generate a report for the project that is on retainer. We also use the report to calculate project incentive to be distributed to each team member who contributed to a particular project.<br />
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<u>Pricing</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><u><br /></u></span></span>We subscribed to Basic Plan and pay USD79 per month for 8 users.<br />
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<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): We have stopped tracking timesheet back in 2014 in my agency, which I have exited October last year.</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyoSKGrnBHBSNlhko3Bb-9BTuRTv6rvRNdXa0RZ8e-AnPUgeFSrU9dH9me0gjFg6c0EkyMLs-1uYHJi11x6C5vsl9rzDAz-Q5BgVZZlp_Qla-VSr6nFU8e7PIRO-cYmfQaXlb0U0D8ic/s1600/zoho-invoice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyoSKGrnBHBSNlhko3Bb-9BTuRTv6rvRNdXa0RZ8e-AnPUgeFSrU9dH9me0gjFg6c0EkyMLs-1uYHJi11x6C5vsl9rzDAz-Q5BgVZZlp_Qla-VSr6nFU8e7PIRO-cYmfQaXlb0U0D8ic/s200/zoho-invoice.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><u>ZOHO Invoice - Billing</u></b><br />
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We have been using ZOHO Invoice for our invoicing/quotation purpose since incorporation in 2011. The developer is updating the system every now and then with new features or just for cosmetic reasons. </div>
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<br />
<u>How We Use ZOHO Invoice</u><br />
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We use ZOHO Invoice to do quotation, invoicing and payments recording. We have recently turned on auto payment reminder (email notification will automatically be sent to clients 7 days before due date and a second notification on the due date itself). The system is easy to use and most of the basic features like email integration is there.<br />
<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></u><u>Pricing</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>We pay USD30 per month for Professional Plan, with unlimited users.<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>
<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): We stopped using ZOHO Invoice once we switched over to XERO as our accounting software.</i></b><br />
<b><i><span style="line-height: 16px;"></span></i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFKHP-QA50EzFIfFKQ2k3wbyMFOz80Ddh5JTOK8VN1sdm8-JaKguD_6Sz-pJoUsybHpXb6H8LdXXqngUpxBxMe9-5A_D8ZafnDm6LE3kHWXyfORwrGA1X2MSyIn3XjBHgAjtke4y-5v0/s1600/zoho-people.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFKHP-QA50EzFIfFKQ2k3wbyMFOz80Ddh5JTOK8VN1sdm8-JaKguD_6Sz-pJoUsybHpXb6H8LdXXqngUpxBxMe9-5A_D8ZafnDm6LE3kHWXyfORwrGA1X2MSyIn3XjBHgAjtke4y-5v0/s200/zoho-people.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><u>ZOHO People - HR Management</u></b><br />
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We needed a simple leave management system and we have been using this since the inception of our company.</div>
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<u>How We Use ZOHO People</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><u><br /></u></span>
Quite straight forward for this, we entered all the public holidays, get team members to submit their leave application and direct supervisors will approve/reject accordingly.<br />
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Good thing is that if you would like to apply for longer leave (like 2~3 weeks), the system is smart enough to calculate based on actual working days, taking off weekends and public holidays (entered by admin).<br />
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<u>Pricing</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><u><br /></u></span></span>We are on free plan, which support up to 10 users.<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span>
<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): We stopped using ZOHO People as we switched to a local payroll and leave management system, called Kakitangan.</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZyZNpVCy-VPJLZHwm0ewM3gKE7KBRla8q5I-YswHH9ra6rlwEPCKVKO1MMbRCqijHpUJvqgIyW5AD77ra-6Drgu079_vF9E8yohov_LwXs13R68sRRyyGHL4BpG-kIpb9fvPiaR-RB8/s1600/smartsheet-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="900" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNZyZNpVCy-VPJLZHwm0ewM3gKE7KBRla8q5I-YswHH9ra6rlwEPCKVKO1MMbRCqijHpUJvqgIyW5AD77ra-6Drgu079_vF9E8yohov_LwXs13R68sRRyyGHL4BpG-kIpb9fvPiaR-RB8/s200/smartsheet-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<b><u>SmartSheet</u></b><br />
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I remember a client requested Gantt chart for the project timeline. We didn't have any software that do that back then so we had to do it in spreadsheet. Of course, there are changes to some of the timeline and we spent a lot of time coloring and decoloring the rows and columns. I came across SmartSheet and with the relative reference to other items under the precedence field, I can easily update the whole Gantt chart in 10 seconds with changes in campaign launch date, for example.</div>
<div>
<br />
<u>How We Use SmartSheet</u><br />
<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></u>
We use it to track campaigns that involve multiple parties. We also started to use it more often when during the proposal phase. A lot of time, the clients think that there are still plenty of time left if the launch date is two months down the road. With an estimated timeline (realistic ETA are entered for each task) showing that in order to launch the campaign on time, the campaign has to be confirmed by end of this week, will usually do the trick of getting them to look at the timeline realistically.<br />
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<u>Pricing</u><br />
<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></u>
This one is a bit pricey and we only sign up for users that need to use it, we pay USD49.95 per month for three users.<br />
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<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): We have stopped using Smartsheet as we standardized our process for campaigns.</i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b style="font-family: Times;"><i><br /></i></b></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJEtOiueSYSm7MiMTXa1OdREToySXLVRS_RU0BmHhHyjgjiKK0VXlzn9S5Zo67YOeKryh4iaRKoJP4iN2Y1pZJ-UJk78sV5pPqeZoKBSIeq1hUCB_GAe9YyPsZYAeH_7Dl2kL_FutrCI0/s1600/dropbox-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="1000" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJEtOiueSYSm7MiMTXa1OdREToySXLVRS_RU0BmHhHyjgjiKK0VXlzn9S5Zo67YOeKryh4iaRKoJP4iN2Y1pZJ-UJk78sV5pPqeZoKBSIeq1hUCB_GAe9YyPsZYAeH_7Dl2kL_FutrCI0/s200/dropbox-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><br /></b></u><b><u>Dropbox - File Sharing & Backup System</u></b><br />
<b><u><br /></u></b>
We have been using Dropbox as our company's file sharing and laptop backup system. Dropbox is more of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) instead of SaaS.</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><u><br /></u></span>
<u>How We Use Dropbox</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span>Kindly refer to my previous post on this: <a href="https://www.chee.im/2011/12/integrating-dropbox-into-companys-file.html">Integrating Dropbox into company's file system</a>.<br />
<br />
Besides what posted earlier, Dropbox has also come to rescue a few times when I accidentally overwritten a file (spreadsheet, presentation, etc) instead of saving a copy. I will just have to open the corresponding folder in dropbox.com and retrieve the old version. It works wonder. Besides, with Packrat subscription at USD3.99 per month, Dropbox stores unlimited revisions of the files (including deleted files) for me.<br />
<br />
Personally, I also started to use Dropbox when dealing with vendors in cases when a lot of documents are involved. For example, recently, in order to rent out my apartment, I emailed more than 20 real estate agents. Instead of sending over a ZIP file of description and photos to every one of them, I put all the documents in a Dropbox folder and send them the Dropbox link. They do not need to have a Dropbox account to view it. They can view the photos in photo gallery format in the browser and download accordingly if they want to.</div>
<div>
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<div>
<u>Pricing</u><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><u><br /></u></span>
<span style="line-height: 16px;">USD9.99 per month per user for 100GB.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<b><i>UPDATE (2014-08-20): We have recently migrated from Dropbox to Google Drive mainly due to the attractive pricing of Google Drive (1TB for USD9.99 per month) and easier integration and user management with our Google Apps.</i></b><br />
<b><i><span style="line-height: 16px;"></span></i></b><br />
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<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><br /></b></u><u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><br /></b></u><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF_h64a_WoSMf5KU-LcbpQI7D8fFPrjU_1EFR06S99vgS3vTRqJANJ2TWpUih1SpXFY_ulRbbm2YSqF46XSC6l5o1F8HAeqLdpPqaYdTlQsaJ5lOfSDG2iUq7jlzo0lKiL9zuqDpVkECQ/s1600/g-suite-app.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="237" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF_h64a_WoSMf5KU-LcbpQI7D8fFPrjU_1EFR06S99vgS3vTRqJANJ2TWpUih1SpXFY_ulRbbm2YSqF46XSC6l5o1F8HAeqLdpPqaYdTlQsaJ5lOfSDG2iUq7jlzo0lKiL9zuqDpVkECQ/s200/g-suite-app.png" width="168" /></a></div>
<u style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><br /></b></u><b><u>Google Apps (Google Suite)</u></b><br />
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I have been a strong fan and advocator of Google Apps since 2008. We started using it mainly for Calendar and Email.<br />
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<u>How We Use Google Apps</u><br />
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You may read <a href="https://www.chee.im/2011/12/company-laptop-and-software-needed.html">Company laptop and the software needed</a> on how we use it.<br />
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Another great thing about Google Apps is the single sign-on integration with other systems. We manage users (when new team member joins or old one leaves) in single Google Apps admin console for all the above applications, except Dropbox, which doesn't support it.<br />
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Besides that, being an agency offering Google AdWords services, we also use a lot of other not-so-common-to-the-public applications, like Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, Google AdWords (obviously), Google Place, Google+ Page, Google Tag Manager, etc. And all these access can be managed from the same Google Apps admin console. Imagine how much time it has saved us on the setup of all these access for a new team member, and to remove all access when a team member left.<br />
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<u>Pricing</u><br />
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<span style="line-height: 16px;">Pricing starts from USD5 per user per month. However, we haven't paid a single cent so far for all our Google Apps accounts because Google was offering 100 accounts for free back then, then down to 50, then 10 and now only 1. We still have a few domain names with more than 100 accounts (you can ask for more back then, for free) and the one that Gapture is currently using has 50 free accounts. </span><br />
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<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): Google Apps has been rebranded to Google Suite a while ago and has been even more powerful than ever.</i></b><br />
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Do you use any of the above software? How do you use it? Do you have others to recommend? Kindly share.<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-55582819568272658852012-11-17T14:15:00.001+08:002020-05-09T14:08:46.319+08:00Going green in the office<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 100%;">Going green to me means being easy on the environment, but whatever we are implementing must also make sense (it can't be too tedious for users) and cents (it has to be same or lower in cost). Here are some "Go Green" strategies that we have implemented in the office:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><u><b>Office Printer</b></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">When shopping for our new printer, the requirements are:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b>Laser printer with separate drum and toner unit.</b> Laser toner is much more economic than inkjets and we also make sure the laser printer we are getting have separate drum and toner unit as the drum unit usually have longer life cycle than the toner.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b>Duplex printing</b>, so that we can save on papers by printing on both sides of the paper without manually flipping and re-feeding the papers.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b>Extra tray for recycle papers</b> (papers that have been printed on one side only). Please note that we only feed the tray with recycle papers that do not contain confidential information.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b>Scan-to-email function. </b>Together with a virtual fax service from third party service provider, we can eliminate having another fax machine. <i>(However, we are still having trouble to get the printer to integrate with Google Apps SMTP server, do share with me if any of you have experience on configuring this.)</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b>Network support. </b>This feature is very common nowadays. This enable us to share the printers within the network without a print server. This is also necessary for the scan-to-email function to work.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">We decided to rent the printer instead of owning it. After talking to the vendor, <a href="http://www.imagetech.com.my/" target="_blank">Imagetech Marketing Sdn Bhd</a>, we decided to go with Ricoh Aficio MP C2500 Digital Color Copier.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZNn49EirSkibhyvfYusvs7R3gfHGab_Ci1oUPGruMH2EBFrvUuKSUwU60jtlJCdgGiYxxxhTiyf7Wa95NPbd70Scp48C1bWRe6X43px9BASB7SNUM6X-oFoYnE76TaWL2pN2K9j9duso/s1600/green-office.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZNn49EirSkibhyvfYusvs7R3gfHGab_Ci1oUPGruMH2EBFrvUuKSUwU60jtlJCdgGiYxxxhTiyf7Wa95NPbd70Scp48C1bWRe6X43px9BASB7SNUM6X-oFoYnE76TaWL2pN2K9j9duso/s640/green-office.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Emma Pollard</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><b><u>Open Office Layout</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All Gapturions (the way we call ourselves) shares the same office space, with two rows of four desks facing each other. We do have medium height mobile partitions in between so that we are not in one another's face the whole day. We are a small team and we believe in facilitating more open discussions and keeping the company transparent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This arrangement definitely require less floor space and save the number of air-conditioner unit needed in the office and the monthly electricity bill.</span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reduce Physical Documents</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We email quotations and invoices to our clients by default. This reduce paper usage and also the logistics carbon foot print involved in snail mailing them. We try to keep at least documents printed out as possible, to save on storage (cabinets, office space, etc).</span><br />
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<b><u>Reduce Application Servers</u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There isn't a single server in Gapture office as of now, despite our heavy IT usage. For all applications, our first option is SaaS (Software as a Service) model. We have implemented SaaS applications like Google Apps (for emails, calendar, etc), Dropbox (for file backup and sharing), ZOHO Invoice, ZOHO People (for leave application), and SmartSheet (for project management).</span><br />
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We tried searching for SaaS for dokuwiki (for internal flow and SOP), but we couldn't find one. Instead of setting up a physical server, and the server room (which have to come up proper air-conditioning), we host it in a datacenter, under one of the shared hosting plan.</span><br />
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If you must have a server in the office, please note that the actual usage of most application servers is very, very low. Every vendor (CCTV system, accounting system, POS system, door access system, etc) will try to sell you a new server together with their solutions, for ease of integration/maintenance (on their end) and also a bigger invoice amount. Try to look for vendor who is comfortable to work with existing servers that you have. You may want to consider Virtual OS (like vmware) for different applications if you are concerned that one vendor may break the other vendor's installation.</span><br />
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As you may have noticed, all of these implementations help reduce usage on materials, energy and space, which also translates to lower cost of acquisition of the systems and lower monthly utility bills.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>UPDATE (2014-09-23): We have migrated our dokuwiki from shared hosting to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for better resource allocation. I also missed out that we do have a server in the office, running ClearOS</b></span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, which acts as our firewall and DHCP server.</b></i></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-38173757206570345912012-05-19T23:22:00.001+08:002020-05-09T14:08:33.786+08:00Outsource vs. in-house<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In my digital marketing company, we outsource a lot of the tasks in the office. The following considerations are weighed before we decide outsourcing or hiring:<br />
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<u><b>Is this role a core competency of our business?</b></u><br />
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If the answer is yes, we will hire if we have enough jobs to keep him/her busy. If we don't have enough jobs yet, we will outsource until we can get enough jobs to hire one full-time.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe79B_L3EYvp4ClTKw20QgWSQIdQMf_bKrO0H73FDS_Ys1N1EY5Y1H967bQQk2Ieh4jskLI4ECoMUi0EzF-bsqVcMTp7AYCUbjIZk3xN9raiJYWusYkGYufSllJafbpa2ttzfqyxSC1p4/s1600/outsource-in-house.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1047" data-original-width="1600" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe79B_L3EYvp4ClTKw20QgWSQIdQMf_bKrO0H73FDS_Ys1N1EY5Y1H967bQQk2Ieh4jskLI4ECoMUi0EzF-bsqVcMTp7AYCUbjIZk3xN9raiJYWusYkGYufSllJafbpa2ttzfqyxSC1p4/s640/outsource-in-house.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: rawpixel.com</td></tr>
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<u><b>Is there a career path and environment for this role to grow in our company?</b></u><br />
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We would like all our team members to grow professionally and personally. We may have enough jobs for a particular role to be more cost effective hiring in-house, but if we know that we can't provide the right environment for this person to grow, we will outsource the jobs.<br />
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We outsource our accounting, payroll, systems administration and office boy (despatch) jobs. There is pretty much no career path for an accountant, a systems administrator and an office boy in our company. Retaining these team members will also post a big challenge as it is quite hard to convince them to stay in the company that they will not grow in.<br />
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<u><b>Is it cheaper to outsource?</b></u><br />
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Instead of comparing monthly salary with the outsource cost one to one. We use a multiplier of 1.7x to cover the following:<br />
<ul>
<li>13% goes to employer portion of the Employee Provident Fund in Malaysia</li>
<li>17% goes to annual bonus provision, assuming two month bonus</li>
<li>5% goes to employee training</li>
<li>RM150 per month (around USD50 per month) goes to mobile phone subscription</li>
<li>RM400 per month (around USD133 per month) goes to office space rental (80sf per team member including communal space at RM5, around USD1.60, PSF rental) and utility bills</li>
<li>RM200 per month (around USD67 per month) goes to back office support (human resources and systems administration cost)</li>
<li>RM200 per month (around USD67 per month) goes to office equipments (laptop, software, desk, chair, etc) depreciation</li>
<li>RM200 per month (around USD67 per month) Employee insurance, hiring cost (over average of 24 month service period), training and hand-over period for new-hire</li>
</ul>
The above items add up to additional 35% on top of the basic salary and fixed RM1,150 (around USD384) per month (assuming a salary of RM3,000, this will be around 38% of the salary).<br />
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Using the above calculation, an outsource cost of RM3,000 (around USD960) will be cheaper than an employee of RM2,000 (around USD640) salary, since RM2,000 x 1.7 = RM3,400.</div>
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<b><i>UPDATE (2014-10-15): I have changed some of the above estimates and reduced the multiplier from 2x to 1.7x.</i></b><br />
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Other benefits of outsourcing includes:</div>
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<u><b>More intimate relationship within smaller team</b></u></div>
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In my other business, we have, at peak, 180 employees in three offices. Even in the same office, plenty of time, I couldn't recognize if a person in the office is our team member, a client, or a vendor. I won't be able to keep track who has left the company and who has joined. In this new company, I intend to keep the team size below 30 and in order to do that, we need to master this "outsourcing" skill.</div>
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<b><u>Replacement cost</u></b></div>
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Non-performing and always-fallen-sick employee is no longer our concern for the roles that we outsource. Not even long annual leave, maternity leave, honeymoon leave, etc. The vendor will have to provide the replacement.</div>
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<b><u>Clear deliverables</u></b></div>
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Clear expectation and deliverables will be established since the vendor will need to make sure they don't lose out from this contract. Even though this is also best practice with in-house personnel but it is always convenient to overlook.<br />
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<b><u>Better monitoring of job performance</u></b></div>
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I was trained as a software engineer and no one in the management is certified in accounting. Keeping an accountant in-house will be challenging when it comes to job performance as I will have no idea how much time and resources are needed to perform a particular task and whether the job is done in the best manner.<br />
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We also state it in our agreement that our accounting service provider only bill us when previous month financial report is sent. And now, every month, they are the one chasing me for the statements so that they can close my previous month account.<br />
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Lastly, it is easier to switch a vendor than a team member when different need arises as the company grows (or shrinks).<br />
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What's your thoughts on outsourcing?</div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-25553197934136764392012-03-28T23:22:00.000+08:002020-05-09T14:08:09.646+08:00Company phone/fax numbers without hefty PABX system<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We need a phone number for the company for general inquiries, support and also as a back-up number just in case a particular mobile number is not reachable. This number will be printed and published on all our marketing materials, including letterhead, business cards, website, invoices, etc.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghu2dViw_yJYJQV4zamwN0u2HofddXHJHIyT-MiZiRcoOynrBwJ4R4tZwdaNCEzr2RI9C2XX4Enke5i9tBJ7Cy-MSjdoF3YhY4aeVh_qcG-u8c9z3PVUXrUj40ft0Y0YE9OFjReLri3m0/s1600/land-line-fax-line.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghu2dViw_yJYJQV4zamwN0u2HofddXHJHIyT-MiZiRcoOynrBwJ4R4tZwdaNCEzr2RI9C2XX4Enke5i9tBJ7Cy-MSjdoF3YhY4aeVh_qcG-u8c9z3PVUXrUj40ft0Y0YE9OFjReLri3m0/s640/land-line-fax-line.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Joenibraw</td></tr>
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<u><b>Challenges</b></u><br />
We want as minimal hardware investment as possible and we always have the idea of able to have the whole company work outside the office when necessary.<br />
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Simple solution will just be getting another mobile phone number and a dedicated mobile phone, to be carried by whoever responsible to answer the incoming calls. However, we are afraid that having a mobile phone number as our company number would give the impression of a fly-by-night company or a freelancer.<br />
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<u><b>Solutions that We Adopted</b></u><br />
We came across a radio ads from our local telco, Maxis, promoting Unity Hotline service, where we can get a 1-700 hotline number and all incoming calls will be forwarded to a mobile phone number (which comes with the 1-700 hotline number). We did some testing and confirmed that it works for all mobile networks, including landline. However, the shortfall is that it only works in Malaysia. For audience outside Malaysia, we still publish our designated company mobile phone number. Another great feature is that we can call from the designated company mobile phone number and have our 1-700 hotline number displayed on the caller ID by prepending *9 to the number that we are calling. This is especially good for company branding, which is important for a marketing agency like us.<br />
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While researching for the Maxis Unity services, we also found out that Maxis offers Unity Messaging service, where faxes can be sent to a 1-700 number, which will then be forwarded to an e-mail address, in .tiff format (which can be opened by default image viewer on Windows and Mac). Guess what? We grabbed a 1-700 number for our company fax too, and that saved us a fax machine and lots of A4 papers and toners.<br />
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<b><i>UPDATE (2019-07-10): Maxis has re-branded Unity Hotline to <a href="https://business.maxis.com.my/mobile/onebusiness-voicego/" target="_blank">ONEBusiness VoiceGo</a>.</i></b><br />
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It took us one to two months to finally get all these set up and most of the delay are due to the insufficient knowledge of our corporate account representative. We were told that we were one of the few who signed up for these services. We believe these services can definitely benefit a lot of SME if being marketed properly and if the corporate account representatives are being trained properly. Besides, it will be easier for me to share the links if they are done properly (the Flash file is not too user friendly).<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-68205524164652412762011-12-12T12:00:00.000+08:002019-07-11T00:17:05.716+08:00Some tips on data securityI am putting together some tips on data security. This is not the most air tight security setup, but it is good enough to protect against basic security threat and they are relatively simple to set up.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJorUW2JEE2ylTXclAXCB93O6Je8HUyLDOlWkZ0fNZiJ0KASIwZm9NLg6r-1bKsyzsqDKK2j9lm6ix4YDH6tc9nruhBEamjdOczLagnyhVqvYW_kgxJ_qHq4TrrdDZntfK0vhe8JXgv8/s1600/data-security.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJorUW2JEE2ylTXclAXCB93O6Je8HUyLDOlWkZ0fNZiJ0KASIwZm9NLg6r-1bKsyzsqDKK2j9lm6ix4YDH6tc9nruhBEamjdOczLagnyhVqvYW_kgxJ_qHq4TrrdDZntfK0vhe8JXgv8/s640/data-security.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Pixabay</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<u><b>Strong Password</b></u><br />
Will not elaborate on this as there are plenty of articles out there on this. My rule of thumbs is that the password is at least eight characters, with combination of alphabet, number, and special character. I also suggest not to use the same password for all logins. Example, don't use the same password for your Hotmail account, Skype and company online system, so that they don't all get compromised just because one does.<br />
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<u><b>Google Apps (Google Suite)</b></u><br />
We run a lot of our software in SaaS (Software as a Service) and most of them integrate with Google Apps authentication for single sign-on. This would mean if someone gain access to my Google Apps login, he will gain access to a lot of my company data. I enabled "2-step verification" on my Google Apps account and I installed a <a href="http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1066447">Google Authenticator</a> on my BlackBerry. What happen now is that whenever I login to Google Apps with a new device, it will require my password and also a 6-digit PIN generated by Google Authenticator. I can choose to save it on the device for 30 days (and I will have to re-enter the PIN after that). Since the PIN is time sensitive, you need to make sure the timezone setting on your phone and Google Apps is the same, and more importantly the time cannot be off for too much (this was the first issue I encountered when setting this up). Another challenge would be to set up all the applications that integrated with Google Apps, like you Calendar, Address Book, E-mail apps, on iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, even Google Chrome Sync, since your password is no longer the real password without the PIN. You will need to manage all these passwords <a href="https://accounts.google.com/b/0/IssuedAuthSubTokens">here</a>, you can generate a different password for different apps (it is recommended to do so instead of using one password for all apps in case you need to revoke the access of one particular apps). So far, I will just need to generate once for every apps, the only time I need to re-generate one is when I reinstall my device OS or wiping out the configuration. Good thing about this is that now I can login to my Google Apps account on a public computer (like in a cyber cafe, hotel's computer, airport computer, etc) if I really need to, I just need to make sure that I don't check <i>Remember this computer for 30 days </i> when entering the PIN generated by my mobile phone and also to log out when I'm done.<br />
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<u><b>MacBook Pro</b></u><br />
First thing I did was to set myself to run as "Standard User" under <i>System Preferences > Users & Group</i>. This setting will prompt for admin credential whenever I change any settings under <i>System Preferences</i> that is locked or whenever I want to install an app. Besides that, here are some of the security settings under <i>System Preferences > Security & Privacy</i> that was not turned on by default:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Under General, set <i>Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins</i>. Make it a practice that when you are away from the device (for a toilet or water break), click Control-Shift-Eject to send the display to sleep and hence locking it immediately.</li>
<li>Turn on <i>FileVault</i> and save the recovery key. This will encrypt the hardrive and make it inaccessible without proper login credentials. It will prevent non-authorizer from accessing the data inside the hardrive using external disk reader tools without the recovery key.</li>
<li>Turn on <i>Firewall</i> and check <i>Automatically allow signed software to receive incoming connections</i>. Generally, firewall is good to have and I don't see this firewall creating much problems during day-to-day usage.</li>
</ul>
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<u><b>Other Devices</b></u></div>
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Since I'm using Blackberry and iPad to access some of the systems, I also make sure that the device is password protected and auto locking time is set to minimal.</div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-65992579344344316602011-12-08T16:52:00.001+08:002020-05-09T14:07:58.426+08:00Company laptop and the software needed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm a strong supporter of open-source, freeware and SaaS (Software as a Service). We have recently switched half of our company's computers into MacBook Pro. Here are a list of software that we installed (or not installed, if we are using SaaS) for common office tasks on all MacBook Pro. Most of them work on Windows as well since we were previously living in that world.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGoSVrM8BEtAeQOqUe49fHBsvn3D-n32M_3n5bDGStkimVa8BW6QGjcP1SUH7aqkz2saq_mNB3t1DgrOThUEQwmIcAsmUIFVAAEfxdqbdH49KLB1EBYfgg9OHLTnsWbbrQd3ykaBCucc/s1600/Macbook.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGoSVrM8BEtAeQOqUe49fHBsvn3D-n32M_3n5bDGStkimVa8BW6QGjcP1SUH7aqkz2saq_mNB3t1DgrOThUEQwmIcAsmUIFVAAEfxdqbdH49KLB1EBYfgg9OHLTnsWbbrQd3ykaBCucc/s640/Macbook.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Toni Cuenca</td></tr>
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Text document, Spreadsheet: <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/" target="_blank">OpenOffice</a> (Free)<br />
Presentation: <a href="http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/" target="_blank">Keynote</a> (USD19.99). <i>We previously used OpenOffice for presentation.</i><br />
E-mail, Calendar, Address Book: <a href="http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html" target="_blank">Google Apps</a> (Free for 10 users)<br />
Anti-Virus: None, however we do run as Standard User instead of Admin on our MacBook. <i>We previously used Avast on our Windows computers.</i><br />
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I am a strong advocate for Google Mail (part of Google Apps) as I have used Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird and some webmail solutions, but nothing come close to Google Mail, in the sense of uptime and functionality (multi tagging is one of the most amazing features).<br />
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Ever since I switched over to Google Mail couple years ago, I no longer need to download e-mails and attachments for five to ten minutes every morning. I no longer need to constantly back-up my e-mails, and I no longer need to delete some indexing files in Thunderbird or Outlook just to get the e-mails working again. And of course, I no longer needed to duplicate an e-mail just to fit them into two separate folders. And not to mention, a search that really works!<br />
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Google Calendar is my first exposure to shared calendar couple years back and now I couldn't understand how I could have lived so long without it. We also use it to reserve meeting room (by creating a calendar that automatically accept invitation if it is not busy for every meeting room and have corresponding calendar invited if meeting room is needed). <br />
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Google Contact is the centralized repository of all my contacts. Before iOS/Android era, I was a strong supporter of Sony Ericsson and I sync'ed all my contacts from my phone to my laptop using software provided together with the phone. I took the pain couple years back to manually transfer all the contacts into Google Contact and now I sync my Blackberry, iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro address book to Google Contact using Exchange. Any update in any device will update the rest automatically over internet via 3G/Edge/WiFi. The reason for sync'ing MacBook Pro address book is mainly for offline purpose and for other apps that work with address book.<br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-61875612559255708282011-12-07T18:56:00.001+08:002020-05-09T14:01:21.970+08:00Integrating dropbox into company's file system<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QorsmCE2dpIyx6ym2ZjWGNB48uXDga5QpkbnxFGs22gPXSv9sIy_SgAYpM7YVkDKxGiXIV3kb12n_vctGxTCsWvT1A6J41NdDiEeDpb3CK0DY8M3QBq9uSEOYrOY4eOiOOBJoWOpgRs/s1600/dropbox-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="1000" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6QorsmCE2dpIyx6ym2ZjWGNB48uXDga5QpkbnxFGs22gPXSv9sIy_SgAYpM7YVkDKxGiXIV3kb12n_vctGxTCsWvT1A6J41NdDiEeDpb3CK0DY8M3QBq9uSEOYrOY4eOiOOBJoWOpgRs/s200/dropbox-logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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<u><b>Background</b></u><br />
We need a file system to backup all our laptop data files in real-time manner. We also need a file system to share files among team members. In previous company, we set up a NAS (Network Attached Storage) and configured backup script that automatically run every morning to backup files from each laptop to the NAS. We also set up shared folders in the NAS for file sharing purpose. The shortcoming of the file backup system is that it is not so real-time and it can only run when the laptop is connected to the office LAN (Local Area Network). The shortcoming of file sharing system is that we can only access the file when connected to LAN or via VPN (Virtual Private Network) when working remotely.<br />
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<u><b>Challenges</b></u><br />
Some of the policies that our company (team of seven as of writing, and we don't intend to get bigger than 30) follows when adopting a IT solution is that:<br />
a) Minimal setup cost<br />
b) Minimal, if not zero, hardware (disaster recovery and office mobility planning)<br />
c) Minimal maintenance in the future<br />
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<u><b>Solutions that We Adopted</b></u><br />
<u>File Backup</u><br />
We subscribed all team members to <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/plans" target="_blank">Dropbox Pro 50</a> monthly plan. All team members downloaded and installed Dropbox client on their laptops. We then moved all the data into Dropbox folder. This solution works offline as well since a copy of the file actually resides in the local drive (while a copy reside in the Cloud). We get real-time backup since Dropbox sync automatically (in real-time manner) to the Cloud whenever we are online. This solution also protect against accidental deletion of file, as we can always go to Dropbox website and recover deleted file (only within 30 days for Pro 50 plan).<br />
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<i>Added on 2012-05-19: I have recently subscribed to <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/help/113" target="_blank">Packrat feature</a> at additional USD3.99/month and that gives additional back-up beyond 30 days.</i><br />
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<b>Results: We can now backup files automatically in real-time manner and it can be done anywhere in the world as long as we are online.</b><br />
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<u>File Sharing</u><br />
We created a folder called "Sharebox" and shared it among all team members. Since the number of files can outgrow the local hardrive space (especially if we decide to upgrade to Dropbox Team plan with 1TB of space), we decide to turn off "Sharebox" sync'ing (via Dropbox > Preferences > Advanced > Selective Sync). We use Dropbox website to browse, download and upload files and folders.<br />
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<b>Results: We can now share files among the team members from anywhere in the world as long as we are online.</b><br />
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<i><b>UPDATE (2014-08-20): We have recently migrated from Dropbox to Google Drive mainly due to the attractive pricing of Google Drive (1TB for USD9.99 per month) and easier integration and user management with our Google Apps. </b></i><br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5380625054152164389.post-20504905915826068662011-12-07T18:12:00.000+08:002020-05-09T14:00:48.626+08:00Hello world!Has always been wanting to maintain a blog and finally get to actually do it. I am not sure if I'm a good writer but I figured topics like business, photography, IT and life may not need fanciful words. A little bit about myself: I run a digital marketing agency and I have been previously involved in a few start-ups, some make it and some don't, but I learnt and experienced different things from each and every one of them. By training, I am a programmer, hence the title of this post.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZKbXtuDZ71dIQwgdtlCyb0q-vw1p58uoTS_XwkWitT3BcDCUWvwPiq9Cui3taCdF5V46iuRscSdGTLAimFC39tVXsVgVICL9L74LPnvzOrWrmuuU9lO6TGmNJSx-YQI3bLTLnd_dTro/s1600/hello-world.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5ZKbXtuDZ71dIQwgdtlCyb0q-vw1p58uoTS_XwkWitT3BcDCUWvwPiq9Cui3taCdF5V46iuRscSdGTLAimFC39tVXsVgVICL9L74LPnvzOrWrmuuU9lO6TGmNJSx-YQI3bLTLnd_dTro/s640/hello-world.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Pixabay</td></tr>
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