The Reader

Missing bananas..

When I bought pisang goreng yesterday,I asked the vendor why the pisang nangka is getting worse  in size and quality?He told me that the pisang nangka is hard to come by and if he wanted the good ones,he had to buy direct from the farmers.One farmer complained that nowadays, there are so many banana thieves around at night.The goreng pisang seller told that he had to resort to  buying stolen bananas because of the current shortages.Then,I asked him,"Pisang ini pisang curi ker?The goreng pisang man just smiled at me.

When I go shopping at our local supermarkets,I notice that we hardly could get good local bananas.In the end, my wife keeps buying Dole bananas from Philippines.

To my Facebook friends who are own some-cyber farmviles,do grow some bananas;-) Joking aside,I have yet to see some real improvement in agro-business industry in my beloved country Malaysia.

Creative marketing by DiGi

Do what you love or love what you do?

What choice can we make from the above? All of us ordinary folks have to work to earn a living.Personally,I have gone through many phases of my working life.When I graduated as a civil engineer more than 30 years ago,I can't wait to join JKR(PWD).After being there for almost 9 years,I got drifted from engineering to management of engineering works.My interest in project management overided my earlier passion of engineering when I was in my early 30's.

After a few years,I got myself around the circle of corporate boys of the mid 80's.I left behind the project world and joined the bandwagon of the corporate world and later became the CEO of a company listed at KLSE.After getting almost burnt out,I quit the corporate business in 1989 and formed my own companies to engage myself in construction business until 2008 when my brother took over the management and I chose to become a project management consultant and teacher.Looking back over the last three decades,my passion and business interest changed with time and space(political,social and economic environment).Nothing is permanent and whatever decision I made was right at the time and I own the benefits/consequences of that decisions.A determinate mathematical equation has a definite answer but not a real life decision.Looking back,I noticed that I worked longer where my passion was.To some people,their passions are either for professional interest or for money.

Many a time, we work because we need a job to earn our living.  Sometimes, we like our jobs and sometimes we don't.I got one experience where I love the job but disliked the owner,so I quit.I think all of us will agree that we love to work where our passion is.And that,to many people is a luxury and those who are passionate in their work,they should be grateful.At some point in time,we may have the passion, but the remuneration did not commensurate with what we put in.Either we move to another employer and in my case,I set up my own companies.

I am writing the above as a background to this article on the above mentioned title of this blog posting.From my experience,passion must go hand in hand with renumeration of the job,otherwise passion will fade away.But at the same time,money cannot buy happiness but it pays all bills.

As I approach the the golden age of 60,I prefer to enjoy doing what I am doing at the tail end of my life even with lesser income.I have given thought about it many years ago and after evaluating my core competencies,I decided to do what I am now doing.

To the young man/woman out there,focus on improving/investing in yourself in whatever you are working on and the right job will come on your way.If not,create a job for you;-)

Revisited: The Brand called You!

Tom Peters wrote a few pages in FastCompany magazine 12 years ago.Please  read it here.I prefer to print it so that I have more time to think and reflect...

What reminded me of the 12 years old article mentioned above? It is this article about the importance of personal branding NOW.Please click this link.

According to Tom Peters,we are branded.The question is what brand are you.

I read Tom Peter's article before but I failed to pay much attention to it until 2003 when I was about to start a new business of my own in project management.As a consultant,I need a personal brand of my own. It took me two years before I could reap the harvests from the seeds that I had sowed. The investment in efforts,time and money had been recovered a few times.I am humbly grateful to my Lord,my mentor,my partners and my clients-mostly my friends.

I love to share this experience with my younger readers but it is too long to write here in my blog.May be,we can discuss this very important matter over a cup of latte at KLCC some time next week.If you are interested,kindly send email to me.[mohdadib@gmail.com]

Nice by design

A table is a table.But when it comes to nice tables,my knees usually start to shake, become weaker and without fail cause a progressive collapse of resistance to buy and own one.That is one of the reasons I prefer not to go to Ikea.It has simple and beautiful products that make people want to carry home.But before they can do that the people must pay.That is good business sense!

I look forward to see more Malaysian products with good design.The photo on the right caught my eyes.Over to you guys/gals.

Mobile phone stalls..

Just go to any shopping complexes and you shall see so many kiosks selling mobile phones.I just wonder who are buying them?Considering the high penetration rate of mobile phones among Malaysians and also foreign workers,I have no ideas how the mobile phones vendors could keep on selling new phones.Or is it quite a number of us keeping upgrading our mobile phones? I must confess that I do change or upgrade my phone but I used it for about two years before I make the change.

By the way,how many mobile phones do you carry with you?.I know some of my friends carry two.My son has two-one his own and the other was given by his company.I have two-one for business(with many web apps) and one for personal use(just a basic phone) when I go to masjid,pasar,cycling or doing domestic errands near my house.

RM 1.80 per bottle!

Two days ago,after my meeting that ended at 2pm,I suddenly become hungry even after eating fried beehoon during the discussion.This may be attributed to my appetite getting better after my cycling exercises in the last few months.So, on the way home,I stopped at KLCC and went to the food court at 2nd floor KLCC Suria.After ordering my favourite fish and chips at England Fish Tales for RM9.90,I was asked what drink I wanted.The shop only sells soft drink.Lately,I tried not to drink soft fizzy drinks,and also teh tarik. Then ,I moved to the next kiosk that sells mineral water.Looking at the price list of mineral water that costs RM1.80 per bottle(about 0.5 litre),I refused to buy it as my personal protest.This is too much for me.My rational mind immediately compared the price of petrol of RM1.70/litre to that bottle of mineral water mentioned earlier.

After having my lunch,I just left and went home...

As a businessman of my own,I know and understand that business must make profit but I deplore profiteering!

From now on, I must have at least a bottle of water in my car at any one time.

Note on the photo:Nice water bottles I bought for my nieces and myself.

Book: Project Decisions- The Art and Science

Let me share with you an interesting book about making decision especially in managing a project.For those who are involved in project management-either a project manager or team member,I suggest you try to take a quiz about this subject here.

Our lives are in fact projects and we were by default are the project managers in a way.Everyday ,we are making decisions.The simplest one is like tonight,I have decided to take my wife to dinner and later drop in a bookshop.But at other times,I have to make a decision  whether to send my son to a boarding school or ordinary school.When my father was in a coma for three days, the doctor asked me as the eldest son: to keep my late at the hospital or to bring him home.Making decision is more complex than solving linear equations where the number of unknowns are the same the number of equations that will give us a unique answers.In real life, the answer lies within a range of possibilities.Choosing the right one is the most difficult part.A few are  strategic and many are operational.

Please be aware that in making decisions, our sentiments and prejudice come into the equations without us realising their presence.Once a decision is made and executed,we shall own the consequences of that decision.

As muslims/muslimahs,we must always seek guidance from Allah swt.InsyaAllah,we may succeed.

Magazine:Fast company

  Reading and writing materials 
  Originally uploaded by Adibi

I can't remember whether I have blogged about this magazine before but  let me share my passion about it.I discovered this magazine more than a decade ago when I was visiting MIT.Until today,I gave it a 5-star rating in terms of design and contents.If you looking for new business ideas,just have a look at it.It is a bit expensive but it has value for money.

Some years back, a group of Malaysians started our local chapter based on FastCompany Community of Friends but today I don't know whether it is still alive..

NB: The photo shown the FastCompany magazine and my moleskine( for making notes when I read) and its new leather bag.

Opportunities

For the past three decades of my working life, I have taken a few  career changes and business ventures - some were successful but quite a number I had failed.I knew a few of my friends who never failed because they had never took the risks when opportunities came to them. C'est la vie..

To young men/women out there, please read this short article.Personally,I have been using the techniques mentioned without knowing them for the last 10 years.It helped me in some of my business ventures.

From my personal experience in business since 1989, almost all of my business opportunities came out from my personal network.A few months ago, I bought a book entitled The Little Black Book of Networking and my 17 years old son is reading it. He told me it is a good book even for him as a student.I strongly recommend the book,especially if you are going to be in business for yourself.

As they say, opportunity knocks once and when we are not ready it is gone to someone who is ready and willing to grab it.