Interesting Bites

It was a busy weekend for hubby, who is attending the 3-Day Sony Alpha Convention. He only attended Day 2 and Day 3 because he couldn’t take a miserable one day leave. He blogged about it in his blog.

Sony is very aggresive in their marketing activities, spending marketing dollars on their direct target group.  They have done it very smartly, because this group of people who have invested thousands of dollars on their Sony photography gears are true enthusiast and wouldn’t hesitate to invest more in the near future.  They might have spent thousands of dollars running workshops, outings and conventions as huge as this - but in return, they get loyal Sony users who will keep on supporting Sony.  At the same time, they will go around talking about it and there goes the word-of-mouth-marketing.  The person behind Sony’s DSLR marketing has certainly planned out this very well.  That’s the difference between a large organization like Sony and a small one like my company.

In my company, we are just keeping our head under the sand everyday to get things done.  There is no time to get the head up to look at the big picture, because if we do that, we will be wasting precious time needed to get the work done.  In return, we do not have a proper marketing plan (even though we know the importance of planning for marketing) and 90% of things are ad-hoc rather than planned.  When there is maximum interruption, it causes a lot of stress and pressure and leads to staff resigning prematurely.

I’d love to explore opportunities in bigger firms because I want to be in a team where planning is the key starting point.  If I do get an opportunity, I hope I can get into larger organizations like Sony. 

Meanwhile for hubby, he’s so into Sony for now and all I can say is - their marketing plan is really working!  Now that is marketing - creating the desire to purchase.  Hubby doesn’t need a salesperson to coax him into buying thousands of dollars of photography gears - he’s already convinced!

I have a new baby niece, and I’m just looking at the variety of things I could get her. I’m particularly engrossed with the cute little chairs. How not to fall in love in these?

English Bouquet Chaise Lounge - $ 999.99
From: Dimples and Dandelions

Or maybe a high chair? Look at those leopard prints!

A Kitchen Set? Wow…

It has been a superbly busy week for me - rushing to get all my event preparation up - and its more taxing that anyone could imagine. First thing first, there are 7 foreign speakers that I have to liase with to make sure that their flight arrangements, accomodation, slides are prepared prior to the day, which is less than 1 month from now. And with everyone still so relaxed, I am getting very worried. Called for an emergency meeting, but seemed like other than voicing out my concerns, everything else is still status quo. I am trying my level best to get all the event preps up.

At the same time, I have a new staff to manage the APAC support. Boss still wants me to manage most of the work, even with a new staff. Sigh. I try to get him to do the letter writing (with samples given) and reporting - but boss maintains that its me to do it. I can’t agree with him, and got into very nasty squabble. Delegating the task to him helps me to concentrate on the other important task I have in hand, and that’s the purpose of employing him anyway. Sigh.

For the other company which the my very capable marketing exec is managing, boss is complaining that we are redoing a lot of things. After a relook, then I understand that she’s a bit lost because of the tons of work that she has. I have to try to help her realign her priorities.

As for the graphic designer, he is also very taxed with endless request to get artworks done, and also the updates to the website (after our web developer left in just 3 weeks of work!). There is just too many ad-hoc things that he needs to do, that naturally slows down his work.

We are all working at maximum capacity and someday, one of us is just going to break loose and give up. As the manager of the department, I’m worried and at the same time, I’m also in the same boat as they are. Taxed with work that never seem to end and trying my best to be prepared for whatever is ahead of us. I know that work is never ending, but if we can’t even sit down to plan our timing properly, then failing plan equals planning to fail.

I just hope boss understands that we need to stick to our planning as much as possible. 90% of ad-hoc work stresses everyone, creates unnecessary pressure & disruption and increases mistakes and blunders. I can see all these because I’m on the ground with my team to get the work done - but will the boss see all these?

In the last 2 years ever since I joined the education industry, I have been working on alternate (and sometimes every) Saturday. I used to enjoy having 2 full days of weekend, but the education industry is like that - always having some seminars, function, workshop on the dreaded Saturday. For the participants, it will be just one of the Saturday of the month that they are sacrificing but for us, its almost every precious Saturday.

In fact, most people who come for interview do not agree on working on Saturdays. I can understand why. However, this is really part and parcel of the job. We do not get time-off or day-off for working on Saturdays too, because its already written in our employment contract that we are supposed to work on alternate Saturdays.

These days, youngers and old-timers alike are looking for work-life balance, and I agree that a balance needs to be in place to maintain a healthy working life. A lot of time, when we push ourselves to the limit, we tend to get ‘burned out’ and lose that motivation to work to the maximum capacity. For bosses, they cannot understand and agree as to why their staff requires rest time because they own the organization (or they have a stake in it) and do not mind the extra hours in it. As for many of us, who are employed, the mentality is that we are paid to do what we are supposed to do. So, there is no reason to work extra hours. And if pushed further, they will resign.

As for me, I’m working hard because I know that the hours I put in will equal additional knowledge gained, which is a necessary preparation for my dream job - my own biz! Additionally, it will also be a good opportunity for me to beef up my management skills, learn tips & tricks of owning a business. When the time comes for me to won a business, I am ready… hopefully!

Its been a while since I wanted to do that, but like all non-technie owners, the thought of hard reset is very intimidating. All those backup softwares does their job very well, but no one can really tell what will go wrong until its been successfully restored. Nevertheless, I had to do this hard reset because my wireless is having some problems, and I’m not able to connect to the internet. My last solution - Hard Reset.

I spoke to hubby about it for a few days, and prepared myself for the worst. I installed a back up software, and did the backup. It generated an exe file that is kept inside my Memory Card, and the gadget soft reset after the backup. It didn’t seem convincing that it kept my entire contact card, sms, programmes…etc inside the exe file. But I did not have a choice. I’ve never done a backup-restore before and naturally I felt edgy about it.

After the hard-reset, I tested the wireless and everything seemed to be working pretty well. Then came the restoration, and it went well as well. Fuh! What a relief. Next was to reinstall some of the cool applications that made my phone my customized version. I upgraded some of the softwares, and threw away those that I have not used for ages. Now, I’m looking for new & challenging games to add into my PDA, but until then, I’m contented to playing my Sudoku.

Tomorrow is another working day. Fridays are the hardest. There is a meeting, then some updates to the principal…etc…etc. I’m having Friday blues! Hahaha…

It was my nephew’s wedding last Saturday. Woke up at 7am to bring Mabel to be baby-sit by my auntie in Segambut. We then went for a quick breakfast nearby before rushing to the St Xavier Francis church in Petaling Jaya for the wedding.

When we reached there, it was still early - about 10am because we were told that it would start at 11am. It was a loooooonnngg wait before the ceremony finally began. A lot of our relatives turned up, so it was an opportunity to see who has gotten older.. hahaha… I’m just kidding. When it was over, we were asked to go to the groom’s house in TTDI for lunch. It was freaking hot Saturday, and after the lunch… I was already half dozing off. It was very tiring - waking up early after a long Friday. We finally reached home at 1:30pm. I took a quick nap and had to wake up at 4pm because there was another reception at Sheraton Subang at 5:30pm. Oh man… why is this wedding so tiring??

I took the NKVE to save time as it was already 4:30 by the time I got ready. And I forgot my lipstick! Damn… .now I look like a zombie! They had this traditional tea ceremony - in which the bride & groom had to serve tea to all their elders. After the whole thing was over, we had to wait some 2 hours before the doors to the grand ballroom was open for dinner. By the time dinner was served, it was 8:30pm. Typical malaysian wedding… its always late. After the whole dinner ended, it was 11pm plus. Damn tired. Drove to Segambut to pick Mabel up and rushed home to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…. When I reached home, it was 12:30am.

Wedding is a long , tiring and exhaustive affair - not only for the couple, but for everyone. I can’t believe I spent one whole day on someone’s wedding, not mine!