Happy Birthday! Happy Rebirthday?

Was writing this post at the month of October, my birthday month, and kept it as draft for two months now, till a friend ask this question, what does 13-Dec-2011 means? 

Usually for birthday, birthday cake from love one; greetings from friends; replies of thank you to all the greetings; will mark the birthday ocassion.  Year after year, mode of greetings changed, birthday cake favour change, way of celebration change.

But day after birthday, wake up as usual, and go through the same life cycle over and over again.

This year I have different perspective of birthday, after the death of Steve Jobs.  I asked my friends, do you remember when is Steve Jobs' birthday?  None knew about it.  Do you care when is Steve Jobs' birthday?  None.  Do you know what iPhone and iPad are?  Yes, almost all do.

We don't care when is Steve Jobs's birthday.  But we care about the invention brought to us by Steve Jobs, we care about how Steve Jobs helped us in making our life better.

I believe Steve Jobs wasn't borned to be whom he was and routinely celebrated his birthday every year.  He went through his life stories of connecting the dot, love and loss, and death.  Which is short, i call this rebirth.

Birthday is a good date to be remembered, of which you were borned to this world.  Rebirthday should be the date to celebrate, for which you find your love of life, and live everyday with passion.

Back to the question of the meaning of 13-Dec-2011, the date is written this way too, 13-12-11....(-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1)  Yes, 13-Dec-2011 is a countdown date.  And I will remember this date as the countdown date to rebirth.  Happy Rebirthday!

Business At The Speed of Thought

No, I had never read this book.  But can relate how the business world has changed today.  It's amazing customer service experiences.

Case 1
Went to TM Point to submit application to terminate one fixed line and to transfer one fixed line.  They got me waited one hour plus for that.  Accepted and not complaining about that caused know TM customer service expectation well.

At the second day morning, the TM contractor called me and come to transfer the fixed line, and at the same day, my other line was terminated too.  All happened in 24 hours, double thumbs up for a company that we did not put much hope on its customer service.

Case 2
Did not buy in to Astro idea to subscribe the value for money Super Pack, instead choose to cut down the number of packages, and to subscribe the new HD package.  Submit the change at Astro service center at 5pm, and when I reached home later, the new package is already in effect.  And I'm going to miss the Tour de France.

Now, I'm eagerly waiting for the Astro installer call to upgrade my unit to b.yond.  Hope they will have the same response time as their service centre.

Statistics

Pahang MB: I can get 3m to support PM on Facebook

July 14, 2011 (Malaysian Insider)

Interesting to see this sort of claim.  It's easy to verify the probability of doing so.

Just google and go to socialbakers website on Malaysia facebook users statistics.  There are 11 Million plus facebook users in Malaysia.  And look at the age distribution and analyze how the generation facebook think, you tell me, what's the probability of getting 3 million users support?

Home vs Jail

Read this old article where a prostitute choose to go to jail for the free food. (Read here)

Well, take the food discussion aside and just focus on the security perspective, home could be worse than jail ...

Home	Jail
Fix own iron grille for all doors and windows, and live behind the iron grille in fear.	Securely live behind the iron grille with peace of mind.
Need to lock, double lock, and triple lock your doors and windows.	Someone will lock the door for you, and make sure the window is properly secured.
Have home alarm and CCTV, and engage third party provider to help to centrally monitor the alarm.	Have centralized CCTV monitoring, door alarms and an operation centre to monitor the alarms, all part of the package.
Pay for private security services, to engage private security company to guard the neighbourhood.	Multi tier security is provided FOC.

New Year Greeting - From SMS To Facebook

A year ago, and two years ago, and three years ago, at this time, was busy thinking about new year greeting message to SMS to family and friends. Also, handphone was non stop receiving SMS greeting messages.

Today, it seems to be a bit quiet. Not because I have less friend, but most New Year greeting messages were posted on Facebook, rather than SMS.

So much social changes happening in a year!

Look further back, from New Year Greeting Card, to e-card, to SMS, to Facebook, the way we greet others has changed drastically. The only constant is still the will to wish and greet.

I don't like to wish, I like a more affirmative greeting, the one I started using since 2009:

Spread your joy, share your love, keep your health and claim your wealth in the coming year. Happy New Year 2011!

Adspaper; Newsmedia?

Q: Where do you get your news today?

A: Online medias.

Q: How do you look for advertisement?

A: Newspaper.

I read news on www.malaysiakini.com, sinchew.com.my, thestar.com.my etc daily. Occasionally, I buy newspaper on Friday or Saturday, to find out the latest hypermarket promotions, new property launch, products and services promotions.

I (we) have changed the way I get information in recent years, and it make me wonder whether the word "newspaper" still carry its original meaning? I decided to do a study, and the subject of my study is last Saturday Star "newspaper" on 23rd October, 2010.

The purpose of the study is to find out the news and advertisement content distribution on newspaper. Following is the summary:

Section	Pages	News	Advertisements
Star	72	55%	45%
Saturday Metro	56	44%	56%
Weekender	36	51%	49%
StarBizWeek	40	81%	19%
StarJobs	32	0%	100%
Classified	44	2%	98%
Overall		49%	61%

On average, 61% of what I read from that newspaper was advertisement. Well, I spent RM1.50 to buy that newspaper because I want to read the advertisement, and I got 61% of it, not bad!

But wait, isn't it newspaper? Why the content of advertisement is more than news? If I take away StarJobs and Classified which are supposed to be adspaper, the overall percentage of advertisement on the newspaper still stand at 43%, which I think is still very high.

On a typical www.malaysiakini.com news page, the percentage of advertisement is still less than 25%. Going at this trend, would newspaper eventually evolve into adspaper? And newsmedia will be the new source of news? Time will tell, and we are the one who will decide.

Note: The percentage is based on visual estimation only.

Note2: Obituary is classified as advertisement.

Note3: The result is based on a single day newspaper only.

Malaysian Maid

Very soon, we will see this kind of job posting in major newspapers and recruitment web sites:

Full Time Domestic Helper (Maid)

Qualification

• Must be Malaysian female
• Age 21 and above

Job Description

• RM1,000 - RM1,200 monthly salary
• 6 days week
• Optional overtime on Sunday
• Optional stay in package
• 8am - 7pm working hours
• Lunch and dinner provided
• To handle household chores
• To take care of baby and children
• To take care of elderly

Note:

To apply for a foreign maid nowadays, one got to pay close to RM10,000 up front, plus a monthly salary of RM650. There is a fee to renew the working permit at the second year, plus a flight ticket to send the maid back at the end of the contract period. There is also no guarantee on the maid quality, and unfair termination clause and run away maid policy for employer.

On Average, it cost more than RM900 / month to employ a foreign maid for a 24 months contract, why not go local? For family looking for a short term helper, it's far more cost effective. Assuming normal job contract, employer's interest is better protected. For job seekers, the package is much more appealing than a lot of other jobs out there. Why not?

The prediction by Corston-Smith Asset Management is becoming real. Read the article "Malaysia's next export: Maids?"