Sales, Social and Tech

300,000 personal details were leaked to the public in Singapore when a hacker group release K-Box membership details the they hack. In the release data, anybody could obtain the name, address, IC number, mobile number and even their date of birth.  First level of scary is that these details are  often the first questions any credit card or bank operator will ask when a call is made to their hotline.  There are still some security questions that the operator might ask, but those usually are yes/no questions that one can easily answer to get the right permutations. Some websites also use the data above and this could lead to other serious form of identity theft. The next level of scary is that a simple search of the names on Facebook or Google could easily result in portrait photos that could be easily put face to name.  A potential stalker can now visit the address, identify the victim around the area and do much harm, not just to the victim bu...

Channel NewsAsia wrote about a M1 Facebook Fan who have highlighted a bug in the iPhone 6 registration website. It was reported that the person who found the bug was able to access forms of previous submission and is able to get these users phone number, IC number and even home address. However, what is interesting is that it seems M1 took about 18 hours to respond the comment. Image from Channel NewsAsia . 18 hours is a very long time to react to a security bug like this as any data would have be "hacked" in minutes. Probably M1 Social Media do not work on weekends so this was given a missed. One of the issues here is that when a security bug is found by a user, the user had to go through the long process of submitting the screenshot at M1 Feedback Site. In cases like this, a direct message would have been better to expedite the issue. Oh wait.. M1 disabled the Messaging function on their Page.

Sales is a number game and also about finding out what you customer want or need. If your customer had a want that leads to a home run, should you keep trying to hit it until you are strike out of the deal? Or should you aim to meet the need - a smaller sales number but a guaranteed hit to first base? I would go for the latter. Meeting a need is much more easier to convince to meet a want.  Plus it helps you get one foot in the door for later upsell that could help you achive a run.

This Mars be a world first. Post by SGAG . Is this the Singapore spaceport that was announced earlier? If the Sun was installed on the Yishun Flat, will the children or HDB resale value there be brighter? Most important question that HDB has to answer - Is Pluto a planet?

Thanks to AirAsiaSingapore Facebook Page contest, I won a pair of tickets to witness the first football match at the new National Stadium. The biggest satisfaction was to do the Kallang Wave again, after so many years, and it was even better as I waved with son for the first time. The last I did the Kallang Wave was probably during the Malaysia Cup days were the grand old dame saw many glorious goals. Who can forget Sundaram bicycle kick vs Brunei? Then, the stands were slightly further from the field because of the track. The new stands at the new National Stadium can be moved so that when it comes to football matches, you can get a closer view to the pitch. Unfortunately, the pitch looked rather patchy, especially from the brown spots. More work has to be done for the pitch to provide more quality football entertainment. The match, in general, was as predicted to be one sided with Juventus scoring the first goal with a cheeky free kick. The Singapore defensive wall, as...

During my Army days, one of the unwritten rule we were told was that you could do what you want, but don't get caught. SMRT's response to the woman defecating publicly at their Holland Village station seems to support the unwritten rule above and this poses a danger to transport security. SMRT wrote , in a reply to Temasek Review's query, Please be assured that should any of our staff spot a member of the public committing such unlawful acts, they will most certainly approach the person and put a stop to it. He/ she is also likely to be issued with a Notice of Offence (NOO) and a summon from the National Environmental Agency (NEA). However, this incident had occurred away from our staff’s line of sight. Whilst our staff would endeavour to ensure that our stations are looked after properly, they would also need to attend to other duties and passengers as well. Hence, constantly focusing on CCTV would be counterproductive for them. On that note, we seek the pu...

Many Singaporeans on Facebook was shocked to see a photo of a lady defecating in public at the Holland Village MRT Station. Such act of public "bombing" is extremely rare in the clean and green garden city that the initial reaction by some was that the image was photoshopped to add fuel to the argument that Singapore has one too many foreigners. However, a query by a concerned Facebook fan of the SMRT (Official) which resulted in a reply proved that the incident was real and not edited. Wrote SMRT , Hi 林漢文, SMRT cleaned the area at 4pm, after a passenger notified station staff of the woman's behaviour at 3:50pm. Interestingly, the photo originated from here where it was shared almost 2000+ times. The incident was photographed slightly before 2pm. Were there 2 hours of stink before it was cleared? Reaction to shock is sometimes denial. This is seen in reactions when some patients are first told they can cancer. In this case, the denial came in the form of t...