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“I like to move it, move it!” is a very popular phrase made by our cool animal dudes of Madagascar but to me, it’s not just plain talk. I’m going to make this one of my key phrases of 2009. To me, it means “Stop sitting around and move it !!”
I’m not sure whether you have the same feeling as I do. Every year, time passes by so very fast - too fast and every January 1st, we’ll sit down and realized that there’s actually not much progress/improvement from the year before. Not much have changed - except for wider waistline, more gray hair (lesser hair for my case), and maybe a decreasing value of financial net worth. Not very good eh? Maybe it’s time for us to step up a little and put a full stop to this? Just so that we will not be seeing the same thing (wider waistline, more gray hair and lesser money, again) in 2010.
So what are you gonna do to put a full stop to such routine? Eh, this routine can be quite costly since you only reflect on it once a year, not everyday. 
Here are few ways which I can think of now (yaya, it’s 1st day of 2009, but that doesn’t mean you should relax and let your brain stop functioning for today. In fact, today is a very good day to plan ahead for 2009!).
- Break the normal routine. Feeling bored with your life? It’s all the same..everyday… how boring. Maybe it’s time to do something out of the ordinary? If you have never go for rock climbing, maybe it’s time to do it this year? Or if you are not the type who dares to speak out in meeting, maybe it’s time to change and be more outspoken? Life can be more interesting that way.
- Stop finding excuses. Ah…weather pretty bad…don’t feel like going for a jog. The project’s deadline is still far away…maybe we can relax first. Stop finding such lame excuses. If you are strong-willed enough, there will be no mountain too high for you to climb. It’s all up to you. So if you want to do something, stop giving excuses. If you don’t want to do it, then don’t think of it in the first place.
- Improve on the past. Not everything which happened in the past is bad. Maybe you can get some from 2008 and improve it this year? Maybe that idea of yours is good but it lacks the proper implementation. Maybe it’s time to start something solid in 2009?
- Remove those useless habits. Can’t get rid of those ugly habits like smoking and drinking? Maybe the question is not can or cannot, but do you want to get rid of them or not. Again, it’s all up to you. If you feel it is hurting you and the people around you (such as smoking), then stop finding excuses (oh, entertainment, social gathering, this and that)! Remove those useless habits now, in this year, 2009!
- Stop sitting around and act on it! Is there something which you really really want to do in the past but not able to do it due to some reasons or excuses? Maybe it’s time to take a look again and make it a reality this 2009! No point sitting around and waiting for the sky to fall. Time is not going to wait for you, neither is your age and amount of hair. So make it happen before your excuse become a reality (oh no, I can’t do that, I’m too old for that).
Simple eh? It sure is simple if you have the will to do it. Because at the end of the day, everything is up to you since it is your life. If you don’t want to waste another year of your life doing nothing much….like what you have been doing in the past few years…then maybe it’s time to move it?
As for me, there are many things I want to do. 2008 hasn’t been very good and I only managed to achieve 10-20% of my resolutions. But it’s time to put a full stop and move it. 2009 is gonna be a big year for me. If it’s not going to be good, just like the doomsayers (aka our economy experts) said, then it’s up to me to at least make my 2009 slightly better than the average.
So what are you waiting for? Stop sitting around and start making a move! Act now!
Ok ok..maybe just take this one day off since it’s new year. 
Hope it helps!
p/s…. Curve’s firework was great last night. Not as great as London’s but well, one of the best I’ve seen in Malaysia. Hmm…i thought we’re having recession? 
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Posted in Life, Motivational.
Tagged with 2009, direction, Life, motivational, new year, objective, people, personal.
I’m still stuck in the office, and will most probably stuck in the jam later (road closures~~~). Just want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very Happy New Year. Hopefully this coming year 2009 will be a great one for everyone, irregardless of what our economists are saying. 
And do remember to spend the last few hours of 2008 to prepare for your 2009 resolutions. It’s still not too late to do that.
Courtesy of http://www.gorillasushi.com
So have fun people and thanks for all the support for this humble blog of mine. Looking forward to post up more in 2009 and will also try to start another IT and design-related blog soon.
Take care and good luck.
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Posted in General.
Tagged with 2009, celebration, gratitude, new year, thanks.
It might be funny to come out with such a topic but don’t be surprised if I tell you that most people who organize a meeting do not have any form of meeting agenda. But that does not mean they do not have anything to discuss. They do! But without any agenda, how can they remember so much? They might be able to remember 1 or 2 issues for the meeting but does that mean they only have that 1 or 2 issues to discuss? Nope. They just can’t remember the rest of the issues.
Also, without an agenda, they will not know which issue is more important and urgent. They might end up spending a lot of time discussing an issue which is not important at all just because they cannot remember the other more important issues. If they do have an agenda, they will realize it and can choose to skip the not so important issues first.
Having an agenda is also important when you go for a meeting with the client. It helps to keep you focused and organized, and also gives a positive image to the client. Imagine if you do not have any agenda during the meeting. You asked the client 2 questions and after the meeting, you realized you have few other questions. You ended up calling the client to ask the remaining questions. Do you think this is a good move? I doubt so.
So, if you are the type who do not like to prepare meeting agendas, maybe it is time to change your behavior now. Be more efficient and most importantly, learn to respect time - other people’s time and also your own time.
Hope it helps.
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Posted in Management.
Tagged with corporate, discussion, job, management, meeting, Office Life, time.
When it comes to preparing your Curriculum Vitae (CV) or resume, there are generally 2 types of belief. The first is those who believe that attaching your latest photo in the CV will help increase your chance of landing a job interview, and the second is those who believe it is better not to attach your photo in your CV at all.
But I believe that there’s no definite right or wrong here. It depends on what you want to achieve with that photo of yours and how confident you are with it.
When applying for a job, you are hoping that the company will give you a chance in terms of job interview based on your qualifications and experiences and NOT based on your look. Unless, you are applying for marketing or personal assistant kind of role where good look is very important. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is better not to attach any photo in your CV. Why?
- Your photo might not look like your real person. This might cause a very big disappointment to the interviewer if he/she calls you for an interview based on your “good-looking” photo.
- Your photo might be mislead the interviewers and they might neglect your true qualifications.
- Your photo might not be as nice as you would’ve hoped for. Thus, by placing your photo there, they will just filter you out without looking at your CV’s content.
- By placing your photo in there, you are trying to cover some facts about your skills and trying to mislead the person doing the filtering. And yes, I’ve said this before.
Not convinced? Let me give you an example. The other day, I was talking to a recruiter friend of mine who used to work in the Human Resource department of a large multinational company. She has to go through a lot of resumes and CVs in a single month…and I do mean A LOT. Some of the CVs have the photos attached and whenever she saw such type of CVs, there will only be 2 outcome. Either the photo is very bad and the candidate got filtered out straight away, or the photo is very good and she will proceed to the content. Because by placing a photo there, that is the first impression you are giving to the HR. Imagine if you received a CV with a photo belonging to someone who cannot even open his eyes properly…the sleepy and tired look. Do you think you want to hire him as a consultant? Ok, first filtering done….so she called up the group of people qualified for the job interviews. Apparently, a lot of those with good looking photos, didn’t appear to look as nice. Some of them were …well…ridiculously different. And they got penalized for that too because they were not being honest.
Do you want to hire an employee who always looks like this?
Conclusion? I really feel that the disadvantages you get by placing your photo in the CV or resume far outweight the advantages.
That’s why I’ve never adviced any of my friends to attach their photo in the CV or resume (even though some of my friends are really good looking people). Whenever they ask why, my answer will be “Don’t blindfold them with your photo. Convince them with your skills and experiences. That is how it should be done.”
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Posted in Career.
Tagged with Career, curriculum vitae, cv, interview, job, people, recruitment, resume.
You don’t have to be the most creative person in the world to come up with the best idea ever. And even if you do come out with a ground breaking idea, do you think you can implement it and most importantly, market it successfully? Coming out with an idea is not difficult but coming out with a good idea is not easy too.
That’s why some businesses especially the big boys don’t tend to come out with their original ideas. They steal other people’s ideas or buy from them. Well, not many buy actually, most of them prefer to steal or …improvise. For example, Apple did not come out with the first MP3 player of the world. They did come out with the first IPod in the world and the first ITunes (which is pretty similar to Napster, except you need to pay). What they did is to capture the heart of the consumers and to see what they need - performance and beauty. That is why IPod is such a big hit. It sounds better than most MP3 players and it looks a lot prettier than its competitors. Same idea, different implementation and marketing plan.
What about Google? They are definitely not the first company to come out with a search engine. We have Lycos, Yahoo, AltaVista (which..somehow..disappeared) and the terribly unsuccessful MSN Search. You might argue that Google was the engine behind Yahoo’s search engine…but that’s a totally different story. What matters here is who came out with the idea first? Maybe it’s Yahoo and maybe it’s Google…but from what I can see now, Google is far more successful than Yahoo because they redesigned the search engine and added a lot of goodies to the users. More features, better and more optimized results, but all built from the same idea.
Another example, our very own Air Asia. Are they the one who came out with the idea of budget airline? Definitely not. There are already other such ideas being implemented in the world but mainly in US and Europe. What Air Asia did was to take the idea and reimplement it in this region because nobody else has done this before. And they become a very big hit in a very short amount of time. Same idea, same implementation, different location and different timing.
From the above examples, you can see that you don’t really need to come out with a good or even great idea. Because it’s not that easy. If you can come out with one, then kudos to you but if you can’t, don’t blame yourself and it’s not the end of the world. You can still start a successful business and have a successful product. At the end of the day, it’s not just about the idea, but the way you market it, the way you position your product, the overall implementation and the timing.
So for those people who always say “Why do you want to start a business when you don’t even have a great idea? Come out with one first before you plan anything!”, maybe it’s time to reposition your stand?
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Posted in Business, Entrepreneurship.
Tagged with Business, creativity, Entrepreneurship, idea, innovative, thief.
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