Sales, Social and Tech

I was invited to the media launch of Microsoft Office365 on Wednesday to get a taste of the Microsoft cloud offering for its Office applications. Microsoft had four customers to present their experience of using Office365. Most of them liked the familiarity of the Microsoft Office interface without having the complexity of hardware configuration or software download. All they needed to do was to get onto a browser and you are Office ready. Using Office on the cloud makes good economic sense especially if you do not have an IT team as a department.  Leave the IT to Microsoft and focus on the real work in the office. I remember working in a PR agency where they had their own servers to handle the mail exchange and data storage. However, the problem was that once the server goes down, there wasn’t anybody really trained to pinpoint the problem and find the solution. The reset button may come in handy in this case but sometimes it work, sometimes it didn’t. The outsourced IT...

While I was waiting for the train at Raffles Place MRT, I was surfing on Facebook via the iPhone. When the train arrived, I was still glued to Facebook on the iPhone. As I boarded the train and it moved into the tunnels, I entered a comment to a friend’s status update. Then it hit me. I am in the tunnel heading north and that would easily meant I was entering the 3G deadzone. But wait, I managed to enter a comment. Checked the status bar and Starhub 3G was at full bar. Singapore telcos were given a deadline " to provision 3G internet speeds on SMRT's existing underground network by end July 2011”. Starhub has not officially announced it but it seems that the telco is on track to meet the deadline.

I have been visiting a couple of spas lately to look at their Facebook Pages and found that many of them face stagnant Fan growth. With the number of Facebook Pages increasing exponentially, it isn’t surprising that even when you put content up there on a regular basis, organic fan growth can still go stagnant now because your content can be easily buried by other status updates that appear in the fan’s news feed. The biggest problem with Facebook Pages is that it is extremely hard to find. Big brands have easier recall rates but the small brands are the one you most like forget when you reach home. Here are some tips for small consumer business looking to overcome stagnant fan growth. Tip 1: Get a username for your Facebook Page When you set up your Facebook Page, you will get a long url of words and numbers. There is no way anybody will remember them. Search us on FB will be quickly be forgotten. So if you have 25 fans or more, go to http://www.facebook.com/username to g...

If you or your client are thinking of bringing journalists carrying Singapore passports into one of the Singapore casinos and reimbursing their entry fee. think twice as it is against the law. Resorts World Singapore was recently fined SGD200,000 “for reimbursing the SG$100 casino entry fee to a group of Singapore journalists who attended the opening of a women-only section”. Law is law, in Singapore that is!

Not the one at NYC, but the CIA – Culinary Institute of America, Singapore at the Temasek Polytechnic. The students at the CIA were given the assignment to learn the techniques of making breakfast and casual lunch.   It was an interesting experience to see these would-be chef students preparing the meal in front of you as you choose your dish.   Preparing the Rigatoni Pasta Serving it piping hot..   Putting the final touches..   Presenting the Rigatoni Pasta with Shitake Mushrooms, Italian Sausage and Tomato Cream Sauce The tomato cream source has an Asian twist to it with a spicy tinge that taste almost like curry sauce being used. It went well with the non bread pita.

In my earlier post , I highlighted that the strategy employed by The Workers’ Party was to find their opponent’s weakness in the strength. The Workers’ Party win at Aljunied GRC validates the strategy. Ries and Trout, authors wrote The challenger should seek a weakness in the leader's strength and attack on as narrow a front as possible. The Workers’ Party win at Aljunied GRC highlights that the weakness in the PAP strength could actually be the GRC system itself. One GRC lost and the PAP lost three ministers in an election. Come GE2016, Workers’ Party have to play defense to maintain its hold in Aljunied GRC which is a different strategy altogether. The Workers’ Party in Aljunied have to make sure that they deliver their promises made in this campaign and ensure that Aljunied GRC improves. This Workers’ Party team have to show that as leaders, they have the humility to attack within so as to improve Aljunied GRC. An attacking within was a strategy that PAP took t...

Some of the opposition have highlighted that the role of Non-Constituency Members of Parliament or NCMP is that of a second class MP without any voting rights. The three best losers who will be invited to take on the role as NCMP will be SPP’s Lina Chiam for Potang Pasir, WP’s Yee Jenn Jong for Joo Chiat and one WP’s representative from East Coast GRC team. I am not very sure of how the NCMP scheme work, so I am making some assumptions. Though SPP’s Lina Chiam might be given the role for NCMP, I hope she rejects it to give it the forth best losing party which will be the NSP team for Marine Parade. I am not sure if the NCMP scheme works this way. But if it does, I would NSP to nominate Nicole Seah as their choice of NCMP. Nicole’s presence in parliament would ignite interest of politics among the younger generation. Wouldn’t this make for a interesting run up to GE2016? So for WP, I hope Yee Jenn Jong takes up the role and represent the entrepreneurs and SMBs of Singapore as...