It Had Never Been The Same Ever Since...

-This will be my first moody post in this blog. Feel free to skip to my older posts if you don't feel like reading a moody article.-

I had been feeling a little down since earlier this week because I re-watched the film You Are The Apple Of My Eye (那些年，我们一起追的女孩). 

 

It is a really good film. It doesn't have good editing or effects, it doesn't have awesome actors, but the story is so good that it touches almost everyone. It talks about puppy love, something everyone of a certain age had experienced. And it was portrayed in a way so familiar with the audience. To the audience, it is almost similar to their own story.

Anyways, enough of praises for the film. There was one particular scene that affected me the most. The male lead organised a fighting tournament, thinking that it is a chance for him to show the female lead how strong he is. The female lead, however, scolded him for promoting something dangerous. She added "有时候，我真的很不了解你" (translation: sometimes, I don't understand you). This sentence struck me the hardest.

Back during my days in polytechnic, I had a crush whom I was very close with. However, I did not let her know about my fondness towards her due to various reasons. I conceded that we could only be friends, and was contented that we were the best of friends. 

However, as time goes by, I started to have difficulties hiding my feelings, and I started to behave differently. Although I didn't do anything offensive, I kept getting on her nerves. One day, we had a slight argument, and she told me something that made me very upset. 

"I used to think that I was able to read you like a book, but now, I don't seem to be able to understand you."

This may not be the exact sentence, but it was something along this line. And this sentence has an uncanny resemblance to what the female lead in film said to the male lead. I can't help but get reminded of what she told me when I heard that line. I can't help but to recall how the sadness grew in me when she told me that. It was not the devastating kind of sadness. It was a subtle, gradually growing kind of sadness that stays forever. It pinches me every time I think of it.

Ever since then, I always felt awkward when I faced her. Eventually, we had a big quarrel, and the bond between us was never the same again. As much as I would like to, during our graduation ceremony, I didn't have the courage to go to her, to talk to her, to apologise to her, to take a shot with her. I regretted that even till now.

Years have passed, and the unhappiness and awkwardness got diluted with time. We are able to talk again, make fun of each other again, but I don't think it will ever be the same as how it was back then. I lost my best friend due to my childishness. This is the story that the film reminded me of, and this will stay as a prick in my heart forever.

-The god has spoken

Sincere Appreciation, Or Just Part Of Marketing?

1 July is Singapore Armed Force (SAF) Day, a day for the nation to show appreciation to all the current and former servicemen or servicewomen who contributed their efforts to ensure the safety of the country. In the past years, not many citizens know about SAF Day. For those that knew about it, most of them did not bother or don't know how to show their appreciation to these people.


In recent years, SAF took an extra step to let more citizens know about SAF Day, and make sure things are done to let our servicemen and servicewomen feel appreciated. SAF arranged with over a hundred of retailers to provide these servicemen and servicewomen with perks, such as discounts and freebies. All the servicemen or servicewomen need to do is just to show their 11B (SAF's identity card) to enjoy these perks.

Sounds pretty nice, isn't it? The people are finally doing something concrete to show their appreciation instead of simply saying it. However, I came across a Facebook status by my superior during my Army days which gave me a second thought about this whole issue. Here's the status:

It may seem like just a simple complain on surface, but if you think deeper, he do makes some sense. Retailers signed up to be part of the campaign to show their appreciate towards the servicemen and servicewomen, but how many of them did that out of sincere appreciation? Is this just another marketing opportunity for these retailers?

From a marketing point of view, there are at least 3 benefits for being part of this campaign. First of all, the retailers will have their brand being seen across all of SAF's official media platforms. This is advertisement for these retailers. Secondly, the retailers can create a positive image for the brand. "Hey look! We are patriotic, and we appreciate what these servicemen and servicewomen had done for us. We will support them." This is good public relations (PR) for these retailers. Last but not least, they get to increase their revenue through this campaign, albeit having a lower profit margin. They will be able to expose their products to more customers. This is a good sales for these retailers.

If these retailers are keen on expressing their sincere appreciation to the servicemen and servicewomen, they could have put in more effort at point-of-sales, to create a better experience for these people. Like the status suggested, these retailers could have just put up a simple sign to let people know that they are part of the campaign. This way, the servicemen and servicewomen need not constantly go online and check whether if a certain store is having any promotion for them. The staff serving the customer could also have taken the initiative to ask the customer if they have 11B, like how they ask for PASSION card, SAFRA card or certain credit cards, instead of having the customer to flash their 11B and needing to double-confirm about their eligibility for the promotion. Simple acts like these count and will add up to improve the shopping/dining experience for these servicemen and servicewomen.

All that being said, these servicemen and servicewomen still got repaid and can enjoy privileges that others can't. I just feel that things could have been done better on the retailers' side to show that they are sincere in showing their appreciation to these servicemen and servicewomen, and not treat this like just another marketing strategy. They deserve something better.

-The god has spoken

Time Is Money

"Time is money" is a saying that is use to tell us that time is valuable, that time is precious. Of course, we do not take it literally. It is just a perceived value that we give time, using a unit that we all understand and agree is valuable. In this article, however, I will share why we can take the saying "Time is money" literally.

Have you ever been in a situation where you need certain things urgently, and you have to pay money to expedite it? Think express delivery service vs normal delivery service. Think hiring a cab vs taking a bus. Think taking a domestic flight vs taking a long journey train. Think buying a car to cut down travelling time. There are many more other examples. These are acts of buying time, literally.

Some of the jobs out there pay you on an hourly rate. You are being paid according to the amount of time you committed. The employers are buying your time, not so much on your effort. Just to prove the point, we also have jobs that pay you according to the amount of effort put in. Those are what we call commissions, and the employers are buying your effort. This, again, is an act of buying time, literally.

As mankind evolves and improves, we are trying to do and achieve more within a fixed period of time known as our lifespan. When we realise that our time is saturated with our many ambitions and desires, we start to buy time. And when we have buyers, we have sellers. Some people buy time from others to fulfill their ambitions. Some people sell their time to others as part of their ambitions.

Human has never-ending desires, and desires take time to be satisfied. As long as there are desires, there will be people buying and selling time. You just need to make sure you get the most value out of your time, because "Time is money".

-The god has spoken

So, What's Next?

Okay, so I'm finally done with a 5-week event for Fraser. It had been a long and tiring, but at the same time a fulfilling experience from which I learned something. While dragging myself home, I feel a sense of emptiness. I asked myself "So, what's next?"

I am sure many of you have this moment when you ask yourself "So, what's next?" We are constantly trying to fill up every minute of our time with activities, keeping ourselves occupied. Why is this the case? Is it because we are afraid of loneliness and boredom?

I think that this is the result of our life is filled with too many activities, especially in such a fast-paced society, so much so that we sub-consciously lost the ability to spend quality time with ourselves. We are used to constantly having activities to spice up our daily life. We need to do something, or the companion of somebody to feel at ease. Being alone, not doing anything, is something that we are not accustomed to.

I am not disagreeing with spicing up our life with interesting activities. In fact, I think we need to have that so as to keep us connected to our peers, to our society. We need to have sufficient social life in order to stay on track with this fast-paced society.

However, connecting with our peers, connecting with society is not enough. We need to connect with ourselves too. We need to constantly take a step back, look at what we have done and reflect on them. From there, we can analyse what we have done right and what we have done wrong, and thus learn from it and improve ourselves. We need a moment of loneliness, quietness, emptiness, so that we can really sit down and do some self-reflections, undisturbed. We need some time and space to converse with ourselves.

So, instead of constantly asking "So, what's next?", you may want to consider letting your mind run wild once in awhile and think back on the stuff you have done lately, try to see if you could have done it any better. You don't learn just from others, you can learn from yourself too, learn from your past mistakes.

Strike a balance. Assign sufficient time for you to connect with your peers, the society, and yourself.

Now that I'm almost done with this article. So, what's next?

-The god has spoken

Product-Driven Behaviours Or Behaviour-Driven Products?

I have been working with a particular bunch of part timers for the past three or four weeks, and I observed a trend. Each and everyone of them carries at least one portable charger for their mobile phone, or they call it power bank nowadays, with them. For those who forgot to bring their's, they could be borrowing power bank from the others as early as 12pm.

Apparently, people are losing the habit of charging their phones at night. Of course, the heavy usage of their phone plays an important part too. So why are they not charging their phones at night when they are sleeping? The common answer I got is that they always text their friends till they fall asleep.

As a person who are deeply into mobile phone technology, I know that phones, especially flagship phones, are getting bigger and bigger batteries. According to gsmarena.com*, the flagship phones released since 2013 can last at least 60 hours in a single charge on normal usage. Normal usage is defined as 1 hour of watching videos, 1 hour of talking on phone, 1 hour of surfing the net every 24 hours. That's 3 hours of battery-sapping activities per day, and the phone should still last you at least two and a half day before you need to charge it up. 

Remember the days (just 3 to 4 years ago) when flagship phones only had around 1200 to 1500mAH of battery (iPhone 4 has 1420mAH)? We never had problem with battery life, and didn't need a portable charger. Now the flagships all have around 2500 to 3000mAH (Galaxy S5 has 2800mAH), and yet users need to carry a portable charger with them. Mathematically speaking, we are spending approximately four to five times more time using our mobile phone as compared to 4 years ago. 

I started to wonder is it the increase in usage of mobile phone that prompted manufacturers to create phones with bigger batteries, or manufacturers creating phones with bigger batteries spoiled consumers to use their mobile phones more often? I am more inclined to think that it is the consumers' increasing usage that prompted manufacturers to create phones with bigger batteries. 

Too often we have moments in our daily life that we cannot do anything but to wait, such as waiting for elevators, waiting for public transport, waiting for food to be served, travelling time etc. These are time when people have nothing to do, and mobile phone, or more specifically smartphones, are the perfect solution. It allows people to entertain themselves during these moments, be it playing games, surfing the net, or browsing through social media platforms to see updates of their friends. 

Other than that, smartphones gradually became the "excuse" to not talk to each other. There are moments when we have nothing to talk about to another person. In the past, there will be an awkward silence, and everyone will be waiting for someone else to break the silence. Right now, when we have nothing to talk about, we just start using our smartphones. Everyone will be occupied and no one will notice the awkward silence. The word "Phubbing" was created to describe such an act.

Of course, we have the all-popular application known as "Whatsapp" taking over the traditional SMS. As of 22 April 2014, Whatsapp has more than 500 million active users monthly. Whatsapp has more functions than our traditional SMS, which makes majority of the consumer prefer using Whatsapp over SMS. However, one of the only few downside of Whatsapp as compared to SMS is that it requires internet connection, and it doesn't take a genius to know that using internet connection, be it 3G/4G or Wi-fi, is more taxing on the battery of the phone. 

There are many more reasons why consumers are using their mobile phones more than ever, and it doesn't seem like the reliance on mobile phones will go south in anytime soon. It is exactly this behaviour that prompted manufacturers to make bigger batteries for phone. It is exactly this behaviour that popularised portable charger. Therefore, I believe that it is the behaviour of consumers that drives product. What about you?

*gsmarena.com is a leading website that provides news and detailed reviews on mobile phones

-The god has spoken

Be Considerate: Leave A&E for the Emergencies!

My wrist was in pain since last week, and it worsened today, so I decided to get it treated. As it was almost 10pm by the time I end work and go home, the General Practioners (GPs) that I knew were all closed, so I went to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital's A&E department.

The waiting area was crowded with patients. Despite so, I didn't wait too long for my registration. I was told to wait before the triage for my turn. Being the "kiasu"* guy, I waited at the front row of seats. While waiting for my turn, I saw many other patients with way more serious conditions than mine. I even managed to hear some of them when they explained to the staff about their condition. A man in his 50s got his toe smashed by a 10kg rock. An old lady got a fish bone stuck in the throat. A middle-age man scalded himself with boiling water. Another old lady was vomiting as she was explaining her condition.

I suddenly felt ashamed that I was wasting time and resources for such a minor condition. As if it wasn't enough, a screen at my 2 o'clock direction read something like "Non-emergency cases take up time for the emergency cases". I almost wanted to cancel my request, but my $108 receipt held me back.

I waited for less than an hour before it was my turn to see the doctor. After explaining to the doctor my condition, she told me that it should be just a strain, but recommended me to take x-ray just to be sure. After getting my wrist x-rayed, the doctor assured me that there wasn't any fracture or whatnot. I went over to the pharmacy to collect my medicine before I head back home. Before I left, I turned back and looked at the waiting area. The waiting area was the same as when I entered - crowded with patients.

Dear readers, please be considerate. Do not misuse the A&E department of a hospital. There are patients in great pain waiting to see the doctor. If your condition is not that serious, visit any polyclinics or GPs near you. If they are closed, try to endure if you can. Imagine yourself being the one who is in serious pain, but your consultation got pushed back by people with minor conditions. How will you feel? So let me reiterate my point, DO NOT misuse the A&E department. A simple act like this will help to let those in pain to get attended to faster.

*kiasu - afraid of losing out

-The god has spoken

How to Say No

I was having dinner earlier today with a group of part timers from an event that I'm currently working on. Together with us was one guy whom I had not met before. I couldn't care less about him as I was pretty hungry. Despite so, I portioned out some of my attention to listen to their conversation.

The guy whom I had not met before was trying to convince one of the part timers to join him in a Multi-level Marketing (MLM) scheme. I had heard enough stories in the past about MLM to know that MLM isn't good, and I was pretty certain that the part timer wasn't keen to be part of the scheme too from his replies, but wasn't sure how to reject him. I thought that I could lend a helping hand, so I decided to interrupt the conversation.

"Hi, I was listening to your conversation just now, and the prospect of this plan sounds promising. Can I have your name card?" 

"Errr... I don't have a name card." 

"You are working for this company, yet you don't have a name card, and you are representing this company as you are talking to us?" 

"Wait, let me show you my distribution license." He began to clumsily search for it in his bag for about 15 seconds. "You see, this is my distribution license." He hands over a bulky transparent plastic card holder that was flipped to the page with his license.  

"So these numbers represents your distribution license ID? How do I verify it? And under which authority was this license sanctioned by?" 

He started clicking his pen and stutter "Errr... I don't know, but if you all are interested, you can attend the talk that I mentioned earlier on. All your doubts will be clarified there." Signs of nervousness. 

I started questioning the identity of him and the company, and he couldn't answer.  

"Alright, let's give you the benefit of doubt. Just leave your contact with him (the part timer), and if he is intereted or has any questions, he will contact you. Sounds good?" 

"Yeah, good. He already has my contact."

I thought I just did something great, but after some clarifications with another part timer, I then realised that the MLM guy was the friend of the part timer. And I felt bad suddenly, as I was pretty rude, and that could have put the part timer in an awkward spot. I regretted being too harsh, as I should have tried to understand their relationship better before acting.

Feeling apologetic, I kept reflecting on the incident and thought how I could have handled the situation better while on my way back home. I came to the conclusion that there are two ways to reject someone:

1. Direct
2. Indirect

As you are reading this, you may be thinking "duh... I don't need you to tell me that", but my analysis of these two ways of rejection may help you decide how to reject somebody in the future.

Direct Rejection

A direct rejection often involves using a firm, or even harsh tone, and you are straight to the point in expressing your disinterest in whatever the speaker is presenting. Some techniques includes criticism, sarcasm, expressing doubts on the item being presented. What I did earlier on was a direct rejection.

Let's do a simple SWOT analysis* for this form of rejection.

Strengths,  Direct rejection is straight to the point. It allows little points for the opposition to leverage on and continue his presentation, thus ending the presentation swiftly. It also express your disinterest and displeasure in a strong manner, creating a deterrence effect.

Weaknesses.  Direct rejection may come across as being offensive, especially in Asian's culture where harmony and good relationship is vital.

Opportunities.  The opposition will better know what you are not interested in, and may be able to offer something different that may interest you. If he doesn't have alternate proposal, he will leave you alone. 

Threats,  You may leave a negative impression to the opposition. If the opposition is someone related to you, the relationship may turn sour. Even if he has a better alternate proposal, he may not want to share it with you.

Indirect Rejection

An indirect rejection involves using a polite tone, and tends to go in circles before reaching your point. Some techniques includes expressing uncertainty over prospect of proposal, giving excuses, postponing, bring up/create stories that depict negativity of the item proposed.

Let's now do a SWOT analysis for indirection rejection too.

Strengths,  Indirect rejection allows both party to engage in a calm conversation, even though you are gradually steering it towards your favour. It is polite and not offensive. It leaves spaces for the opposition to retreat without making the encounter awkward.

Weaknesses.  Indirect rejection takes a longer time for opposition to get the message that you are uninterested. It leaves a lot of leveraging points for a experienced presenter to exploit and continue his persuasion.

Opportunities,   The opposition will still feel positive about you, and may offer you better proposals that may interest you. The relationship between both parties will not be hurt much, therefore retaining/making a friend, and allows future collaborations. 

Threats.  The opposition may feel that you are a soft person, and will continue to present you with other proposals.

I hope my analysis can help you decide when to use which method of rejection in the future when you come across annoying salesperson, insurance agent etc. However, I will still advice you to listen to their speech with an open mind before you shut them out. Sometimes, they may really have something great in stall for you.

*A SWOT analysis is a method to understand something through its Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat.

-The god has spoken