Don't Ever Lose Faith in Yourself

I quote from Ashley Bell:

Never think that any part of you is lacking. Never doubt your abilities. Never question your judgment. Never let anyone or anything make you feel less than you are, because who you are is someone special.

Never feel that the next step is a step too far. If you're stumbling as you walk, hold your head high and know that no other person's words or actions can ever hurt you, because who you are is someone special.

Never lose faith in yourself. Just look around you-at the friends who surround you-because they love and care for you, support you, and believe in you..because you're someone special.

Who decides what is material to the investors?

Looks like GLP is in the news for all the wrong reasons. After posting an article about GLP here back in October, it seems that the GLP prospectus did not include some information which investors feel that is important.

The story? ProLogis could become a serious competitor to GLP’s China business after the expiry of the non-competition arrangement in February 2011. The problem? This was not highlighted in the prospectus. The debate? Investors say that this is material information while GLP says it is not.

What's the root problem? GLP uses legal terms to describe that there will be a risk of competitors targeting the same market, and at the same time, the Master Implementation Agreement (“MIA”) entered into with ProLogis in 2009 to effect the acquisitions of the various properties in China and Japan – the MIA was disclosed in the Prospectus as one of the material contracts which were available to the public for inspection. MIA was not included within the prospectus.

GLP says that the expiry of the agreement is not material enough to warrant a line in the prospectus, but yet the MIA is considered as a material contract. Sorry, I can't add it up. The MIA is a material contract but the contents within the contract is not material enough?

So who decides what is material to the investors? The company that is being listed?

What happens when you take things out of context

A scene in a typical family meal setting:

Person A: How is your day today?

Person B: It sucks. Customer 1 was in today and as usual, she has her eye on the details. This is usually not much of a problem but Customer 1's attention to details caused a confrontation with Customer 2 and they both started arguing over it. The worst part is after that argument, they blamed the problem all on me even though I have nothing to do with it. In the end, I had to clear all that sh**.

Person A: Really? Maybe that had a bad day or something. Just treat it as customer service so that they will come back and give you more business.

Person B: I guess maybe you're right.

Nosy C (overhead the conversation): Ah-hah.
---


Nosy C to Customer 1: Hey,do you know that Person B was badmouthing you in front of other people. She said that your attention to details caused a confrontation with Customer 2, and she was complaining that she has to take all that sh** from you two.

Customer 1: Really?? That ... ... ...

---

Morale of the story? Don't look at piecemeal news and do not look at things out of context. It never tells the whole picture.

Telcos wants Service Providers to pay for network infrastructure

France Telcos have voiced out against mobile and Web companies that have introduced data-heavy online contents such as videos, music and games. They are asking these service providers to help defray the "billions of dollars of investments" needed to build new network infrastructure to cope with today's bandwidth demands.

Personally, I think that's ridiculous.

Initially, all the telcos have been building those 3G towers which no one was using. Who was the one who helped fill those airways? The mobile and web companies. Before Apple and Google came into the picture, there was absolutely no reason for anyone to use the 3G towers that the telcos built. Content changed the game. The few hundred thousand apps in the smartphone world now drives the usage of the mobile data network.

Like it or not, Apple has made 3G / 4G useful through the iPhone. Before that, everyone was teaching people how to disable 3G since it's useless and it only drains your battery. What about now? Look at the number of people subscribing to data plans now compared to previously before the iPhone even appeared.

Heck, the telcos should pay the mobile and web companies for giving consumers the reason to subscribe to data plans.

The Boys' Brigade Share-a-Gift 2010

The Boys' Brigade has been bringing cheer to the less fortunate, reaching out to some 28,000 beneficiaries from the Public Assistance scheme, ComCare Transition scheme and more than 140 Voluntary Welfare Organisations.

Donate basic food and household items and drop them off at the designated collection areas. You can also donate online at www.fairprice.com.sg

Operating period: 25 November to 20 December 2010, 11am to 8.45pm daily

The collection areas are:

Main Box Location

• Orchard Road (Outside Takashimaya S.C)

Satellite Gift Box Locations

- NTUC FairPrice outlets :

• Ang Mo Kio Hub (FairPrice Xtra)
• Bedok North (BLK 212)
• Bishan Junction 8
• Bukit Panjang Plaza
• Bukit Timah Plaza (FairPrice Finest)
• East Point Mall
• Hougang Point (FairPrice Xtra)
• Jurong Point (FairPrice Xtra)
• nex Mall ( FairPrice Xtra )
• Rivervale Mall
• Tampines Mall
• Thomson Plaza (FairPrice Finest)
• Toa Payoh HDB Hub

- Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre Lobby

What can we learn from AEM-Evertech, SLA, M1 and Red Cross?

Recently, there have been quite a few corruption cases reported in a short span of time and other than looking at the amount that was lost, there are other points that we can gather from this episode.

First if you look across all the cases reported, you can see that whether corruption happens really depend on the person. CEO, Senior management, middle management, salesman and finance officers. You can see that this happens across all different types of job scopes.

Sure. Some people can say that there are not enough controls to "detect" this fraud. My question is that if the CEO is involved, are "controls" that effective?

Personally, the key point is that controls can only do so much. In the end, it's the people that matters. What's inside the heart, behind all those high grades, CCA, and profit-driven objectives. Previously when I interviewed people for a job, attitude to me is the most important other than the match in skills. The willingness to learn and collaborate. If I do not see this in a person and see it in action during probation, I will not recommend the job to this person. Having said that, do note though that I'm not HR trained. This is just my personal opinion.

Sad to say, my way of interviewing may not be the norm and bear in mind, there are always repercussions. Cause and effect always happens. It's just a matter of time.

User Interface: iPhone vs Android vs Windows Phone 7

Recently I had a chance to play with the Android and the Windows Phone 7 phones, and in my personal opinion, I have reached the conclusion that I prefer the iPhone user interface.

Samsung Galaxy S was the Android phone that I've managed to "test" initially. In fact, the reason why I got to touch it was because someone had problems using the phone and asked me for help. I'm not sure if it's the same for all Android phones, but I had serious problems in trying to help the person answer a phone call. I've totally no idea how to answer the call as it was not intuitive. Later on I had the chance to play with a HTC Android phone in a HTC store and I was kinda confused over the many screens. The home screen? Application screen? HTC screen? Needless to say, I didn't like it.

Since I was in the HTC store, I've also tried a HTC Windows Phone 7 phone. First thing was that I had problems identifying where are all the different apps as they are no fixed icons associated to the individual apps. In fact, I even had trouble finding the Photo App and I had to go to the "start menu" to find it. Even in the "start menu", I've also spent some time trying to find it as there are just too many apps installed on that demo phone. I guess I do not quite like the concept of using green tiles to represent an app. There is also no standard interface guideline for all the apps and I got pretty confused on where all the features are. Do I like it? No.

I guess I prefer the iPhone where the interface is pretty standard and it's easy to understand and use. Any new app you download you can be assured that you'll be able to use all of the basic features. I guess users requirements are sometimes just quite simple.

Life shaped by Attitude

I quote from Katherine Mansfield:

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.


Our life is shaped by our attitude to it. Change it, and you'll change your life.

Same words, different meanings

One of the important things that I've learned is that the very same sentence that is spoken have different meanings to different people. Based on my own observations, it would seem that this is especially so between males and females (not sexist here).

I'm not sure if that's the origin of the terms "guy's talk" and "girl's talk" but it would seem to me that for certain types of conversation, most guys are more "in-tuned" to each other and thus able to understand each other better. Vice versa for the girls. This seems to be regardless of how long you've known each other.

However depending on the type of conversation, the same words may have different meanings to different people, and in my experience especially so between different sexes. What you may think is casual chit-chat in general may not be that casual after all once you look deeper into what was being said.

Mis-communication is one of the main sources of conflict be it among your family, friends or even in your workplace. I guess we have to try to be sensitive to what we're saying and clarify when you feel something is not right in that conversation to reduce conflicts and misunderstandings.

The feeling is also not good if you're being misunderstood.

Why is unemployment The Feds Responsibility?

Just recently, I realised that the Feds are responsible for keeping the inflation rate and the unemployment rate under control. The first thought that came into mind. Why is unemployment The Feds responsibility?

For those who have not heard of The Feds, The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. Its duties today, according to Wikipedia and official Federal Reserve documentation, are to conduct the nation's monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, maintain the stability of the financial system and provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions.

The problem is what has the nation's monetary policy or financial institutions for that matter have to do with unemployment? Why are the Feds given the responsibility of keeping unemployment low? The government rightly should be responsible for the unemployment because there is no direct linkage of monetary or financial policies on unemployment rate.

There are many ways to keep the unemployment rate low and financial means is just one of those means (e.g. loaning of money cheaply to businesses). By throwing the responsibility of unemployment to the Feds, you're severely limiting your options on how to reduce the unemployment rate. Can the Feds subsidise the salaries of citizens and provide training grants to all like the Singapore government? Furthermore, don't you find that controlling inflation rate and loaning of money cheaply to businesses a contradiction?

I still don't understand what the central banking system has to do with unemployment. Doesn't make any sense to me at all.