Businessmen, or businesspeople, are generally not considered the intellectual kind. You don't have to go far to find a person who holds the belief that "to succeed in business, you don't have to be really smart". I had never really thought about this until recently, when it was mentioned during one of the training sessions... Continue Reading →
Money and Happiness
Money brings to me its own intrinsic reward. For as far as I can remember, I've always liked accumulating money. I hated spending it, most of the time. I liked money for its own sake, and would often ask myself before major purposes: would I rather have the money, or would I have whatever it... Continue Reading →
The 80/20 Principle
The 80/20 principle says that 80% of our profits come from 20% of our customers. In customer-relationship management or CRM, that leads us to believe that we should therefore concentrate our resources on those 20%. But what happens in the long run if you dedicate more and more resources to the top 20%? You get... Continue Reading →
On Making Resolutions
I've never been much of a "new year resolutions" kind of guy. As much as I've always believed in goal-setting, which is what new year resolutions really are, it has never occurred to me that they actually work. I was looking back on the new year resolutions I had written about last year -- both... Continue Reading →
Why MyMall.Sg Will Not Work
mymall.sg has been making its rounds on Singapore TV lately, and this entry is just to say: it doesn't work. What is mymall.sg? It is a new marketing platform based on a combination of two mediums: television (TV) and the web. A splash screen showing a "keyword" will appear at the end of a TV... Continue Reading →
On the Lack of Ambition
An old man demands that we live our lives with purpose.
Rich Dad Poor Dad
I once borrowed the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki from Wilson sometime back in 2001. Though I found the book interesting, it left me with quite a number of questions, especially regarding the integrity of the facts stated. For example, "if 'Rich Dad' is so rich, just who is he, and why... Continue Reading →
Rules I Live By
Here are some rules I live by. I had never actually consciously used them, until the last few years, where I've learned through greater self-awareness what drives the motivations behind me. I do think that most of these are "positive", but like Rule #1 on my list, "there is nothing either good or bad but... Continue Reading →
Apple Onsite Repairs?
As I was thinking of getting a MacBook from Apple and bringing it over with me to UWA (University of Western Australia), I decided to take a look at their "AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro/PowerBook". I scanned through the text once quickly, and decided that it wasn't for me. But an asterisk at the... Continue Reading →
Negotiation and Human Behaviour
The passages quoted below can be found in the book Fundamentals of Negotiation by Gerard Nierenberg. I'm sharing these with you because of the insight it has provided me regarding the techniques in dealing with people. I especially enjoyed the second passage, where Nierenberg asks the reader the question, "are you more interested in their... Continue Reading →
Donn, fragments 