WoNoJo.com: July 2007

Monday, July 30

Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER)

Today's an 'awesome' day for many in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia after years of envying mega regional projects in central region (Kuala Lumpur, Cyberjaya, Putrajaya and Sepang) and later southern region (Iskandar Development Region in Johor) -- It's the day for the launching of Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) to cover the states of Perlis, Kedah and Penang and northern region of Perak. After the launching activities in Alor Star and Kangar earlier today, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi will resume launching activities in Butterworth, Penang and Kerian, Perak tomorrow.

Wilayah Utara Malaysia adalah kawasan yang kaya dengan anugerah alam dan tinggi dengan potensi. Jika diberi peluang untuk berkembang dengan lebih giat, kemajuan wilayah ini akan dapat meningkatkan tahap daya saing negara dan memastikan hasilnya dirasai rakyat dengan lebih seimbang. Inilah rasional utama bagi penubuhan Wilayah Ekonomi Koridor Utara.

Pembangunan Koridor Utara juga akan menumpukan perhatian ke atas isu-isu sosial seperti pembangunan desa, modernisasi pertanian dan kemiskinan. Isu-isu ini harus ditangani melalui pendekatan yang lebih berkesan dan mesra-pasaran. Ke arah ini, penggubalan Rangka Tindakan Koridor Utara telah diterajui oleh sektor swasta bagi memastikan bahawa program-program yang dibangunkan berlandas prinsip-prinsip yang mampan dan komersil.

Yang Amat Berhormat
Dato’ Seri Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmad Badawi
Perdana Menteri Malaysia

The North of Malaysia is a region rich in resources and potential. If the region is given opportunity to flourish, the country’s overall competitiveness will be strengthened and prosperity will be better distributed. This is the main rationale for the formation of the Northern Corridor Economic Region.

The development of the Northern Corridor will also focus attention on social issues such as rural development, agriculture modernisation and poverty. These are areas that must be addressed with improved, market-led approaches. To this end, the Northern Corridor Blueprint was spearheaded by private sector input to ensure the development of commercially sustainable measures and programmes.

Yang Amat Berhormat
Dato’ Seri Abdullah Bin Haji Ahmad Badawi
Prime Minister of Malaysia

Of all the details of this mega-plan, I'm most interested in the infrastructure that's coming up to this region.

We won't get additional (small) airports in remote areas like Balik Pulau or towns in Perlis...

But commuter and monorail trains are coming. Though, before folks in Balik Pulau get excited seeing the blue lines seemingly touching Balik Pulau, the line actually stops at Farlim, Air Itam. I had wish the we'd have train lines connecting the island of Penang and Seberang Perai, but we'd instead get a second bridge, one that is to supersede the existing Penang Bridge to be the third longest in Asia, bringing the number of bridges in Malaysia in the top-10 longest bridges in the world to two at number nine and ten respectively. And if only the high-speed trains would continue until Bukit Kayu Hitam and Padang Besar, the northern region would prosper at high pace... but I suppose, the thoughts that more people would go to tourism destinations in Thailand instead would spoil some of the benefits, entirely at our cost (unless if Thailand would share the financial cost and link it up all the way to Bangkok ;-))!

Though, Rapid Penang is going to be launched and start service tomorrow. Still, the routes doesn't seem that enticing for BP-ites as in order to reach Georgetown, they'd still need to go through the long routes using -- passing through the bumpy and dangerous roads of Genting and Teluk Kumbar, and a long trip from south of the island. An alternative public transport method is by taking Rapid Penang to Teluk Bahang, and another bus or two in order to reach destinations in Georgetown. I was imagining that Balik Pulau would be a major settlement area should the train or public bus routes would connect the growing district at the other side of the island to the high-growth areas of Bayan Lepas and Georgetown.

For now, residing in Seberang Prai, which would be a major transportation hub of the NCER seems rather enticing...

I really look forward to cruise the seaside expressway though, to enjoy good seafood in Kuala Perlis or make more ferry trips to Langkawi from Kuala Muda, Kedah. And shouldn't TEKIH connects with the 'Spine' expressway near Baling so we may make more trips to Ulu Legong Hot Water park. Hmm... I wonder what's in or will be of Kota Putra at the northern tip of Kedah.

Read the entire details on NCER (WEKU) blueprints from NCER brochure or read the entire launching speech by Dato Seri Abdullah today (in Malay Language)

Or browse the news clips below, as published on various media sources for a period of two weeks, from 11 JUL until 25 JUL 2007, as a prelude to this launching day:

More related updates from the online press over the past two weeks:

If you're in this affected region, we'd like to hear from you: how will this initiative affect you - your family, your job and/or your business? How will this affect general economy and business environment throughout Malaysia?

Saturday, July 28

Innovate Without Emigrate

Thomas L Friedman, a American award-winning columnist said in among others, his best-selling book entitled "The World Is Flat: Brief History of the Twenty-first Century", "...you can innovate without having to emigrate!". He subsequently stressed so too in his speech at M.I.T. on 16 MAY 2005 (see video at MITWorld).

Like MIT President Emeritus Charles M. Vest, I'm not in full agreement with what Tom laid out in his books or various articles and speeches, but, his views on globalization (or glocalization, as he mentioned too), and the trends of outsourcing, offshoring and open sourcing are worth to be explored:

Download a full 75-minute audio (32kbps)/video (56-220kbps) of the speech by Tom Fiendman in RealPlayer stream format from MIT World.

Trivia: The guy is not a certified economist, but his wife who hails from one of the top-100 richest families in America that had helped pioneered shopping malls since the 50s, is.

The following is an article penned by Friedman not long afterwards as published on the Sept 5, 2005 issue of The New York Times Upfront magazine (published by Scholastic, Inc), focusing on globalization wave as observed from China and India:

[view fullscreen at SlideShare or read the text version at FindArticles.]

Here's another slide to learn on the impact of "flat world, flat web" on educational classrooms"

Friday, July 27

More micro enterprises going online...

A rough check on participants of a local exposition of micro enterprises in Penang in 2004 showed that about only 10% of the companies or micropreneurs have listed an email address as one of their contact methods. This year, in 2007, more than 50% of these micro enterprises are listed with respective email address, specifically for the companies that are going to participate at an upcoming Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang 2007 exhibition that's to be held at Dewan Milenium, Kepala Batas on 4 & 5 AUG 2007.

That's more than five-fold of growth in just three years - a good sign that micro enterprises are getting more ready for IT to spice up their business marketing and operation. Of course this positive growth reflects present Internet usage penetration reaching 50% of the population and a decent growth in the number of Internet usage during the 27-month (Jan 2005-Mar 2007) period: 13.4 to 13.9-million dialup users and 500,000+ to 990,000+ broadband users -- according to Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). Or according to Aneki.com, Malaysia is listed as top 16th in the world in terms of the number of Internet users, ahead of its neighbors including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. According to Aneki which bases its data on figures provided by US CIA, Malaysia has experienced 265% in growth in terms of number of Internet users between 2000 and 2007 -- Back in 2000, based on Nielsen Netratings or Computer Industry Almanac data which InternetWorldStats relied on for its world-ranking figures, Malaysia did not even make it in the top-20 lists for Internet users, penetration, and broadband subscribers, but now we obviously are (at no less than 1% of world's usage)!

Or simply because micro entrepreneurs in Penang are getting more and more exposed to IT over several related events like Penang i-Land (2004), Launching of Penang MSC-status cyber city and Global Technopreneur Forum (2005), Penang Technopreneur Blueprint (2006) and an upcoming MSC-related event in Penang in October 2007.

Still, only about 10% of these micro enterprises have their own domain name or website to showcase their products and services. And a quick validation on the email addresses supplied by these micropreneurs shows that about 10% of them are invalid -- either honest mistakes or simply means that they don't really use those email accounts anyway.

It's time for us to embark on a mission to advocate more use of Internet and e-commerce among the micro enterprises in Malaysia... starting with Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang -- we'll be at Booth #107. FREE Web.com/WAP.mobi Development service worth RM600+! (LIMITED TO 20 PATRONS -- Contact us for details). BONUS: FREE domain name worth RM28+ with paid hosting. See you there!

The Professionalization of Internet TV

Laurie Sullivan: Next New Networks, ON Networks, Revision3, 60 Frames, Vuguru, Telegraph Ave Productions, WatchMojo — what do these companies have in common? They all use Moore’s Law and low-cost distribution over the Internet to disrupt the studio model, in the process building audiences that can rival a small cable channel. They are professionalizing internet TV.

Read more on the state of Internet TV business and more forecasts at NewTeeVee Blog.

Thursday, July 26

Use Web 2.0 to Promote Your Business

We hear a lot about "Web 2.0" these days. It sounds neat and it's trendy to talk about blogging and social media. But does it really affect our businesses? Is Web 2.0 just for kids and tech-hipsters or is it something we business owners should use to help promote our businesses?

Kevin Stirtz offers the following list on how to effectively use Web 2.0 for your business:-

Have a plan.
Make sure your target audience is online.
Create good content.
Don't sell.
Start with a free hosted blog.
Talk to kids
Do it yourself.
Buy a camcorder and start shooting
Buy an inexpensive audio recorder
Surf 'till it Hurts (make new friends)

Read the full article at American Chronicle.

One problem however: Stirtz is posting complete articles that he had syndicated to various web-based media sites, on his own blog -- this perhaps prompted Google's automated PageRank system to flag his blog as a duplicate, hence a ZERO page rank for its front page. Good tips, one bad move! Or maybe, Google's PR just need to grow smarter.

Monday, July 23

Offshoring is part of the solution, not the problem

I've been away from 'home' (aka primary workplace) for quite the whole of last week which explains on the lack of most recent posts. Still, I managed to take care of several administrative work chores for my other businesses and put up a few blog posts on several other blogs from a remote location. More updates on my my recent outstation trips coming up, once I settle a few other pressing work -- got to take care of existing clients first ;-)

Here's a nice article on outsourcing vs. offshoring I picked up from the vast resource of Slideshare -- a very useful social sharing web 2.0 application indeed: instead of sharing just audio and video or plain files, this one lets you share presentations that can be viewed full-screen. The service currently supports Microsoft Powerpoint ppt and pps formats as well as OpenOffice (odp) and the popular Adobe Acrobat (pdf - for exports from other applications).

I prepared a slide as well last night for an upcoming promotion of instant website building service:

Don't hesitate to offer me feedbacks/comments on this slide and the overall slide-sharing service. Thanks in advance!

Thursday, July 19

ADVERTORIAL: Mega-saving month on domains for Pajama Enterprises

Dear Pajama Entrepreneurs,

Earlier this month on 7/7/07, 1oasis.net, Pajamanation Malaysia's partner for web solutions announced its Merdeka-50 offer: 50% August hosting discount, and free domain name with a full-year hosting prepayment. The offer was announced through several opt-in mailing lists, and partner blogs.

Today, 1oasis.net has more good news for Pajama Enterprises in Malaysia -- Even lower prices for Domain Names, Web Site Builder and Digital SSL certificate to make it more affordable for pajama enterprises to start their own professional web presence and commerce:-

.com, .net, .org, .info, .name and .biz top-level domains are now just RM28/year !! If you have your domain registered elsewhere for RM40 etc. or more, transfer the existing domain to 1oasis.net for the same or more services for just RM27 for another year extension. Register domains in bulk and save even more.
Lower prices for .eu and .tv too for just RM35 & RM99 respectively to enable you to target to a specific region or mark your website of a specific theme -- Europe and "television" in this case. And .*.uk and .us are also down to RM29/year!
To promote Malaysians to come up with more .MOBI websites, prices for the domain has been slashed further. And if that's not enough, here's our BETTER OFFER: FREE Website Builder with each .MOBI domains!! Now, you can build websites for mobile platform, quickly, for FREE.
EXTRA BONUS: FREE Privacy Protection with every Domain name!
Publish your website faster, and at less cost too: Website Builder now costs as low as RM3/month for a 1-page online brochure, up to just RM18/month for a full-blown 500-page e-commerce website. All 1oasis.net hosting and website builder packages come with iron-clad 30-day money-back GUARANTEE. What have you got to loose to try it?
For secure online transactions, get a digital certificate, now from just RM99/year (from previously RM199/year!). Prices for all other certificates include wild-card ones have also been reduced substantially -- SAVE RM100 and more instantly.

All offers 1-to-6 above are valid until MIDNIGHT, 31 JUL 2007.

Get them now while these offers last and while your desired domain names are still available -- 10,000s are being snapped EACH DAY!

Regards,

Team 1Oasis .Net Hosting
"Celebrating our NINTH YEAR offering Web Hosting service"

PS: DIY Linux Plesk Pro web & email hosting account with 1000-MB space available for just RM60/year -- inquire for more details. (offer above does not apply for this plan)

PPS: Virtual/Semi & Full Celeron/P4/C2D Dedicated Server Running Linux/Windows (with optional Plesk/Cpanel) account with 10-GB to 2x300-GB storage (with optional RAID-1 setup) and 500-GB to 2-TB monthly transfer or more also available from under RM120/month. Server comes with 24x7 physical security, network monitoring and email+phone+web SUPPORT. ASSISTED PLAN available for RM350/mth. INQUIRE for details/custom quote.

NOTE: Cash back will be disbursed via PayPal (preferred) or to your Maybank account (if requested).

Visit us at Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang at Dewan Millenium, Kepala Batas on 4 & 5 AUGUST 2007.

Saturday, July 14

Outsource Non-Core Processes for a Competitive Edge

by seeley

Business process is the skeleton of a certain business activity. It involves the description of different tasks and possible outcomes that are associated with a specific business activity. It is essential in crafting the business goals of a certain corporate organization, which is clearly defined in the organization's business strategy.

Business process is classified into three categories, which are as follows:

The management processes, which is followed to run the operation of the business and comply with all existing yet relevant requirements.
The operational processes, which is followed in delivering the business value to clients, and is considered as an integral part of a corporate organization's core business.
The supporting processes, which is followed to support the core-based processes. It includes accounting, information technology (IT) support, and recruitment processes.

Being the skeleton of your organization's business activity, you must give utmost importance to your business process as a whole. This is extremely important since the success or failure in achieving the goals of your business will largely depend on the process that you have followed, together with your business strategies and plans. Thus, without an effective business process, your business is as good as dead when the time comes.

Realizing the importance of a business process in achieving their business objectives, there are companies that prefer to outsource some or all of their business process (most specifically the non-core processes) to third-party organizations.

The main motive in outsourcing a business process is to allow the business to invest most of their time, financial, and human resources into core activities and focus on building effective strategies, which will fuel the growth of the company.

Since the global marketplace is fast-changing and highly-competitive, your business must concentrate on improving productivity while trimming down unnecessary costs. Non-core business processes are being outsourced since the tasks involved in these processes consumes time, essential resources, and energy. Thus, outsourcing these non-core business processes will help you achieve a cost-efficient system.

Non-core business processes that can be outsourced range from production to customer service to support functions (such as software development). Most companies that are outsourcing their business process are from Western countries and they are delegating the work to outsourcing firms located offshore, especially countries located on the Eastern hemisphere, such as China, Philippines, India, and Malaysia.

While more and more companies are becoming comfortable with outsourcing their business processes, outsourcing most of their learning and development functions is still a new approach to many learning professionals.

Moving the training and learning model that is completely in-house to one that will be handled by other individuals outside the business is a big leap. However, as mentioned earlier, it is important that these processes receive equal importance and consideration for the benefit of your business as a whole.

Thus, despite the fact that business process outsourcing as a new approach, many training and learning professionals are starting to get the grip of the new system and subsequently will follow the outsourcing trend.

Business processes, especially the non-core ones, need to be given equal importance and attention to achieve efficient business operation. Outsourcing these business processes will not be a waste of time and financial resources, but rather a strategy to be followed.

Surviving in this highly-competitive global marketplace is not as easy as you think. You need an option that will work to your advantage - and that is outsourcing.

About the Author

Premier outsource service.
http://www.raxsolutions.com

Obtain the comprehensive guide to strategic outsourcing
Outsourcing handbook.
http://www.outsourcehandbook.com

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Friday, July 13

Outsource Your Brain for Science

A new project from the University of Oxford (UK), the University of Portsmouth (UK) and Johns Hopkins University (US) aims to harness the power of the human brain to identify and classify galaxies and stars. On the GalaxyZoo website, users are asked to identify the objects in photographs as spiral or elliptical galaxies, the direction of rotation, or if the photo depicts a star or merger of galaxies. The site launched yesterday and says they have already had an "amazing response."

Wrote Josh Catone at Read/Write Web.

GalaxyZoo.org describes itself as "the project which harnesses the power of the internet - and your brain - to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you'll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you'll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky."

Why do we need you?

‘It’s not just for fun’ said Kevin Schawinski of Astrophysics at Oxford University where the data will be analysed. ‘The human brain is actually better than a computer at pattern recognition tasks like this. Whether you spend five minutes, fifteen minutes or five hours using the site your contribution will be invaluable.’ Visitors will be able to print out posters of the galaxies they have explored and even compete to see who’s the best virtual astronomer.

For more information visit www.galaxyzoo.org or contact:

Dr Chris Lintott (+44 (0)1865 273638, mobile: +44 (0)7808 167288)
Kevin Schawinski (+44 (0)1865 273642) or
Professor Bob Nichol (+44 (0)23 9284 3117; mobile +44 (0)7963792049)

Alternatively, contact
the University of Oxford Press Office on +44 (0)1865 283877 or email: press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk

If you fancy outsourcing your time, energy or unused computing power, the least, check out other similar distributed computing project as listed by Catone:

Read/Write Web also published on the same day, a list of "top-5 hottest product launches in 2007" -- in first-half of 2007 that is, and they are all "Web 2.0" as the website focuses on such products:-

Joost (our #1 too!)
Pownce
Mahalo
Tumblr
Babelgum
(BONUS): Tremors

I've personally used only two of these. How about you? Any other good products in 2007 that you'd vote for?

And... if you'd want to come up with more new Web 2.0 ones quickly for 2007 launch, you might want to outsource the project, immediately, from the start!

Thursday, July 12

Malaysia is world's fifth preferred outsourcing location

MALAYSIA has been ranked fifth in the world's most preferred locations for shared services and outsourcing (SSO), up from sixth last year, in a study conducted by global consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

"Malaysia has improved since last year.

"Over here, we see a concerted effort by the Government to attract the attention of global Fortune 500 companies," said Frost & Sullivan's vice-president, information and communications technology practice, Nitin Bhat.

"While the Government may make certain efforts, it ultimately (depends on) the service providers, whether they are local or multinational," he said when commenting on Malaysia's prospects of climbing up the rankings at a presentation in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

In the study, India maintained its top ranking, followed by China, Ireland and Singapore which also retained their second, third and fourth positions respectively.

Nitin said with Malaysia's infrastructure of good quality, and if all the relevant elements work together, there is a chance for the country to go up the rankings, especially with the small margin between the countries ranked third and fourth.

"But at the same time, it is a dynamic world and nothing can prevent Mexico or Dubai, or for that matter Poland, from moving up much faster (than Malaysia)," he said. - Bernama

Women-lead ICT based enterprises?

Some questions on this topic were raised by Lena Zúniga, a blogger for the upcoming Global Knowledge Partnership 2007 event that is to be hosted in Kuala Lumpur later this year:-

Are (there) micro, small and medium enterprises economic models that actually translate into benefits to local communities? What are the conditions for entrepreneurial initiatives to spread their benefits?
Self employment does not eliminate the fact that most women work double shifts and take most of the load of domestic work and family responsibilities. How do we address this and other challenges of women entrepreneurs in developing countries?
What capacities are needed to strengthen women lead medium, small and even microenterprises, and what strategies have proved successful to deliver these capacities?
Are there experiences in public policy, government support and international cooperation for the support of this specific sector?

Feel free to submit your opinions on these questions. For feedbacks accumulated so far, refer GKP forum website at GK3onlineinteractions.net.

You may also subscribe to the GKP moderated email group/mailing list to participate in the on-going and future discussions.

Sunday, July 8

Can Software as a Service (SaaS) projects be done offshore?

By Emmy Gengler

Sometime I get these incredulous looks from people when I tell them that we are able to do SaaS (Software as a Service) projects offshore, and not only the software development portion, but we involve offshore resources from the very beginning of any transition to SaaS project.

There is value to be had in involving offshore resources from the very beginning:

Begins the knowledge transfer process immediately giving the offshore team a much better understanding of what needs to be developed.
Optimum use of onshore and offshore resources provides for a better use of monetary funds by the client.

What can offshore resources actually be involved with? Below is a list, in chronological order of the types of activities we involve offshore resources in before development of the application even starts:

Write the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) based on the lists of required functionality
Develop use cases
Technical architecture design
Detailed design
Design Look & Feel of the new site - show sample screen shots
Prototype

Read the rest of the article at Sourcing Blogosphere.

Saturday, July 7

Heboh on TV, just not on the Internet yet...

TV3's Jom Heboh Carnival (formerly promoted as Sure Heboh but later rejected as too 'rojak') returns to Penang this weekend (Sat to Sun, 7-8 JUL 2007), meeting fans and city crowds in Penang at its new venue on the island (instead of the earlier planned but recently bad rapped Stadium Batu Kawan over a football match fiasco) -- The newly opened QueensBay Mall after the recent successful showdown in Danga Bay, Johor Baru (9-10 JUN 2007).

If you haven't been to one of these gatherings (I've been to several including joining as a vendor twice -- in Kepala Batas, Penang and Kangar Perlis couple years ago), check out what the buzz is all about:

The official promotional clip

First Malaysian Idol winner, Jaclyn Victor having a duet on Ceritera Cinta with Amir Sofaz

Sure, it's popular, and it gets heavy promotion on the TV channel owned by the organizer TV3 or the parent company, Media Prima, but in 2007, it turns out to be not so 'heboh' on the Internet.

A google search for news on this carnival that gets attended by 100,000s at each of its stop returns only ONE news result - the recent news article at New Straits Times, regarding the local authorities promise to avoid another embarrassing road traffic problem.

There are also only SEVEN videos posted at YouTube on this Jom Heboh event from Mar 17 until June 15, 2007.

A search on Google groups & usenet also returns only a handful of postings (less than 20) mentioning the event "karnival tv3" or "jom heboh 2007" with many of the postings talk mostly on the negativeness of such gatherings. As expected, also no mentioning of "jom heboh" in indexed books, scholarly materials, products search (what, no souvenirs?), patents etc.

With millions of people have likely already attended this event throughout the country for the past many years, it's surprising that only a few hundred people have bothered to blog about it at all. If you'd think that only fans aren't interested to talk much about it online, even TV3 and hosts like QueensBay mention nothing about Jom Heboh 2007 @ Penang on their respective websites! After all, the company/organizer also failed to secure jomheboh.com domain name (first registered by an anonymous registrant on Mar 2006). What's going on Media Prima?

It's no surprise that the websites for its popularly branded TV & radio stations (NTV7, 8TV, TV9, Hot.Fm etc) and related agencies (Grand Brilliance, E-media - aggregator of its print publications etc.) are getting much less hits/'viewership' compared to some individual Malaysia-based bloggers'!

[The last time there was a dedicated site on this event was back in 2004, when TMNET was its major event partner and thus set up a lively site at its BlueHyppo.com network. Since 2005 however, other major partners like Maxis have been doing poorly at promoting the event online except undertaking several Hotlink prepaid mobile special plan in conjunction with the event. See also 'Jom Heboh 2007' page by Dutch Lady which only has info on 2006 events]

Check out the event yourself, and perhaps you'd have more to say online about Jom Heboh than its organizers:-

For Jom Heboh fans, more stops for the year are as the following:-

Kuala Lumpur: Stadium Nasional, Bukit Jalil (4-5 AUG)
Sarawak: Stadium Negeri, Petra Jaya, Kuching (3-4 NOV)
Selangor: Stadium Melawati, Shah Alam (8-9 DEC)

UPDATE (8jul07): If event organizers in Malaysia can learn a lesson or two on how to run effective 'world-class' events in Malaysia, please see how these folks run Live Earth 7-Point Pledge on 7/7/07 (millions of video views on the Internet on a single day, compared to just 100s-1000s for the Jom 'Not-So 'Heboh after months/years!!) and Countdown to Apple's iPhone TGiF Night. Look, I'm not trying to be against mainstream media companies -- I'm just suggesting here that you market more virally and thus reach your potential audience more effectively. So, take the pill, and be healthier tomorrow. Don't let another "World's Telecommunications Day" missing on the 'online' platform itself again!

Live Earth 7-Point Pledge on 7/7/07

THE LIGHTS GO OUT ON LIVE EARTH LONDON BUT THE BEAT GOES ON IN RIO DE JANEIRO AND NEW YORK

Live Earth Global Concerts Have Reached More Than 10 Million Visitors Online at MSN – Most Simultaneous Viewers of Any Online Concert Ever

London (July 7, 2007) – The London leg of 24-hour, 7-continent Live Earth concert series closed in emphatic fashion tonight with a rousing speech from actor, Terence Stamp and a stirring closing set from pop icon, Madonna that included “Hey You” – the song she created for Live Earth – “Ray of Light,” “La Isla Bonita” and “Hung Up”.

The crowd of 65,000 people at Wembley Stadium – and the millions watching worldwide – were treated to an all-star line-up that also included Razorlight, Snow Patrol, Black Eyed Peas, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Beastie Boys, Pussycat Dolls, James Blunt, Genesis, Damien Rice, David Gray, Kasabian, Paolo Nutini, John Legend, Duran Duran, Bloc Party, Corinne Bailey Rae, Terra Naomi, Keane, Foo Fighters and Spinal Tap.

At the last count, the Live Earth global concerts had reached more than 10 million visitors online – the most simultaneous viewers of any online concert — and inspired change in viewers worldwide.

“The climate crisis requires a global solution. Live Earth is using an unprecedented media architecture to reach a global audience,” said Kevin Wall, Founder and Executive Producer of Live Earth.

Live Earth London was presented by numerous special guests, including Chris Moyles, Eddie Izzard, Alan Carr, Ricky Gervais, Miranda Richardson, Thandie Newton, Chris Rock, Russell Brand, Rob Reiner, Neve Campbell, June Sarpong, David Tennant and Geri Halliwell.

Special broadcasts were beamed in from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, and also from the British Antarctic Research Station in Antarctica where Nunatak, the band of the British Scientific Team, performed their self-written song “Would You Do It All Again”.

And for those late night revelers, the party is still going on across the pond. A huge beach party is seeing the sun set on Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, while The Police, Kanye West and John Mayer are closing Live Earth with “Message in a Bottle” at Giants Stadium in the New York area.
The 24-hour, 7-continent series of concert events on 7.7.07 have brought together more than 100 artists and 2 billion people to inspire a global movement to ‘Answer the Call’ and help solve the climate crisis.

In addition to providing over 100 simple actions people can take in their daily lives, which will have a tremendous positive impact when carried out on a mass scale, Live Earth is asking people to support a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 and a comprehensive international treaty on global warming by 2009.

“Nations all over the world are making progress in tackling the climate crisis. But too many proposals fall short of the strong, decisive action that’s needed. Individual nations alone cannot solve this crisis. The nations of the world must join together as one if we are to succeed,” said Al Gore, Live Earth Partner and the chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

The Live Earth Pledge

I Pledge:

To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;
To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become “carbon neutral;”
To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;
To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;
To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;
To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,
To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

Additionally, Live Earth is asking people to commit to making changes at home, at work, while getting around, while shopping, in their communities and to urge changes by their governments. People can make their commitments and find solutions against the climate crisis at www.liveearth.org, www.LiveEarth.MSN.com, or by sending a text message of “SOS” to 82004.

The names of people making commitments and signing the pledge through their computers or mobile phones on July 7th were shown on the Live Earth web site, on the screens at the concerts around the world, and on the global TV broadcasts.

In the UK, people will be able to find out how they can make personal and political changes to combat climate change by visiting one of Live Earth’s two legacy partners, ‘We’re in this Together’ www.together.com or ‘I Count’ www.icount.org.uk.

ABOUT LIVE EARTH

Live Earth is a monumental music event that will bring together more than 2 billion people on July 7, 2007 to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth will stage concerts in New York , London , Sydney , Tokyo , Shanghai , Rio de Janeiro , Johannesburg and Hamburg , and will feature more than 150 of the world’s best music acts – a mix of both legendary music acts like The Police, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Madonna with the latest headliners like Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson.

Live Earth’s 24 hours of music across 7 continents will deliver a worldwide call to action and the solutions necessary to answer that call. Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve the climate crisis. Live Earth is partnering with the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group, Stop Climate Chaos and other international organizations in this ongoing effort. Live Earth was founded by Kevin Wall, CEO of Control Room, the company producing the concerts globally. Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection and a Partner of Live Earth.

Exclusive online media partner MSN is helping Live Earth reach people in every corner of the globe. Live Earth London will be streamed live at http://liveearth.uk.msn.com. MSN’s 39 localized web portals worldwide attract 465 million monthly users.

smart is the world’s only automaker serving as an Official Partner. Unlike any other vehicle, the new smart fortwo combines a modern, individual lifestyle with environmental protection by setting the standard in urban mobility and offering the lowest CO2 emission of any vehicle on the market. smart responds to environmental demands with innovative, technologically sound solutions and as a result produces positive and credible answers to the question of ecological driving.

Philips, as the world’s leading lighting supplier, joins Live Earth as an Official Partner. Philips was the first to introduce the energy saving light bulb in 1980 and has put environmental product improvement at the heart of its business with its EcoDesign program since 1994, increasing its green product range year by year.

Live Earth is partnering with companies on a local level who share the commitment to helping people live a more energy efficient lifestyle. PepsiCo, an Official Partner of Live Earth, is committed to making a difference with eco-friendlier packaging, energy and water conservation and waste reduction. It’s all part of PepsiCo’s commitment to Performance with Purpose — to do better by doing better. Esurance, the direct-to-consumer personal auto insurance company, joins Live Earth as an Official Sponsor and is the latest extension of Esurance’s efforts to conserve energy and preserve the planet’s precious resources. For more than seven years, Esurance policyholders have helped save thousands of trees by buying their auto insurance online and using electronic documents. An official partner of Live Earth, The Absolut Spirits Company, Inc., a subsidiary of V&S Group, produces and markets ABSOLUT® VODKA, Level ™ Vodka, FRÏS® Vodka , Plymouth™ Gin and Cruzan® Rum. The Absolut Spirits Company focuses on reducing the impact on climate change, sustainable agriculture and optimizing use of natural resources as mandated by V&S Group. To view details on the company’s efforts to combat global warming, visit www.vsgroup.com and click on “Corporate Responsibility/Environment.” Intelsat, the leading provider of fixed satellite services worldwide, is the official satellite capacity sponsor to Live Earth, providing the global high definition infrastructure for an unforgettable viewer experience. Intelsat connects the planet to Live Earth through its network of 52 satellites and global terrestrial facilities.

For more information, visit http://liveearth.org or http://liveearth.msn.com.

###

Disabilities not a barrier to success

A blog post by Zul Musa at SkorCareer.com pointed me to a story that many of us would have otherwise missed, one published a month ago on The Star.

Consider that Kamaruddin Ibrahim, a 47-year old disabled man is working fifteen hours a day growing his car repair workshop business in Kota Bharu, Kelantan (while plentiful other fully able youths from that northern town are migrating to big cities like Penang and Kuala Lumpur). With his determination for fifteen years, this father of six who has been cheated by a 'friend-cum-business partner' in his previous venture, and while still having a hard to time to even stand or walk properly is able to employ five workers including a 50-year old disabled man.

If this guy can succeed in business, anyone can!

And with ICT and skills many of us have acquired or is acquiring in colleges and universities, there should be many of us Malaysians able to chart our own entrepreneurial career and own business. No excuses now!

At Pajamanation Malaysia, disabled workers are one of the groups we want to devote our energy to assist. We believe, many of them are capable of insourcing and delivering excellent microjobs to the existing 100,000s of business entities in Malaysia. eHomeMakers.net for instance is already focussing on this group of workers, especially women. We plan to work closely with similar not-for-profit groups and government agencies to realize this goal of providing the fair opportunities to all Malaysians not minding their physical abilities, gender or ethnicity.

Join us today at Pajamanation.com and contribute in the healthy business and employment environment in Malaysia. It's FREE BTW!

Thursday, July 5

Business entities in Malaysia reached another high record

Malaysia now has 756,245 registered companies in the country as of 31 DEC 2006, according Commerce & Consumer Report 2006 or Companies Commissions of Malaysia (SSM). That's one company every 33 individual in Malaysia, based on the latest statistics of 26.64-million population by Department of Statistics Malaysi a (or about two million less according to US-CIA report in 2007).

Of course as we've stated earlier, only about 500,000 of these companies are actively operating as of last year per January 2007 report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Malaysian SMEs which also states that the micro companies constitute about 80% in numbers of all active business entities in Malaysia.

Here are some big numbers revealed in the Star's news report headlined "Number of firms registered in Malaysia reach record 756,245":

KUCHING: The number of local and foreign companies registered in the country touched a new high of 756,245 as of Dec 31 last year.
The number of new local firms registered last year grew by 5.4% to 752,078.
The growth was more impressive for the registration of new foreign companies, which jumped to 41 from 30 in 2006, an increase of 36.7%, according to the 2006 Commerce and Consumer Report launched here on Thursday.
With the increase, the report said the total number of foreign companies on the register reached 4,172.
Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Mohd Shafie Apdal, who launched the report, said the number of new business registrations in the second half of last year showed a strong rise of 22.5%.
The ministry’s statistics for the first quarter of this year revealed that 9,841 new companies were registered, up from 8,909 in the fourth quarter of last year.
Mohd Shafie said the overall growth of 5.9% in the wholesale and retail trade, hotel and restaurant sectors was the same as that of the overall economy last year.
“Its contribution to the GDP remained unchanged at 14.7%, making it the second largest services sub-sector after finance, insurance, business and real estate,” he added.
In a separate press statement, the ministry said the Tribunal of Consumer Claims received 1,886 claims in the first three months of this year.
Of the number, 1,085 claims were on goods and the other 801 were about services.

Feeling entrepreneurial now?

Now, imagine what you can sell to these 500,000 local businesses... Imagine selling your products and/or services to 1% of these businesses, i.e. 5,000 enterprising customers. Or what you can buy from them!

Tuesday, July 3

Shuth's mistake: "Delaying to outsource"

Hafiz Latib (fondly known as Bitol among his online peers) of the InternetMuda.com online marketing resource online newsletter (who also runs an an Internet graphic-related business through CheapestCovers.com) has done an excellent job in compiling a list of mistakes to have been admittedly done by dozens of Malaysia-based respected Internet Marketers (the locally called "otais" [old-timers] among their fellow IM-ers and loyal "followers').

Subscribers to his list receive a tip from different otais (or IM Gurus) every five days or so.

Tip #19 of Bitol's serial email newsletter is by Mohd Suhaimy (nicknamed: Shuth). Here's a full re-print of this most recent tip in Malay (published with permission from the original writer), followed by a rough translation into English:

...Kesilapan yang saya lakukan ini bukanlah kesilapan sewaktu saya memulakan perniagaan internet, tetapi, ianya adalah kesilapan selepas saya mempunyai perniagaan internet dan sewaktu cuba memperkembangkannya.

Kesilapan saya ialah.. tidak mempunyai "rakan kerja".

Sewaktu memulakan perniagaan internet dulu, saya tidak percaya dengan konsep rakan kerja dan outsource. Pada saya, jika anda boleh membuat kesemuanya sendiri, mengapa anda perlu membazirkan wang mengupah orang lain? Lebih-lebih lagi di dalam perniagaan internet, hampir semuanya boleh dilakukan sendiri.. bermula dari membuat website, marketing, ambil order, urus order dan hantar order.. semuanya boleh dilakukan seorang diri.

Jadi, bekerjalah saya seorang diri di depan komputer setiap hari. Dari pagi sampai ke malam. Namun begitu.., lama-kelamaan, masa bekerja saya menjadi semakin panjang, jika dulu pada waktu malam saya sudah boleh berehat-rehat, tetapi kini, saya terpaksa duduk lagi di depan komputer untuk melayan karenah-karenah pelanggan. Sama ada dari pelanggan baru, hinggalah kepada pelanggan yang sedia ada.

Akhirnya, hari cuti sabtu & ahad saya pun terpaksa dikorbankan, apatah lagi jika hendak pulang ke kampung yang tiada sambungan internet. Boleh mengamuk pelanggan-pelanggan baru yang hendak membuat tempahan, sebab order mereka tidak dapat diuruskan dengan cepat dan pantas.

Dipendekkan cerita, untuk mengatasi masalah tersebut, saya telah mengambil seorang pembantu/rakan/protégé untuk membantu saya menguruskan perniagaan saya. Alhamdulilah, kini, barulah mudah sedikit untuk saya bergerak dan memulakan projek-projek perniagaan yang lain. Jikalau tidak, masa saya hanya habis untuk menguruskan perniagaan internet saya yang 1 itu sahaja. Langsung tidak boleh berkembang...

Jadi, kepada rakan-rakan sekalian, jika anda ingin mengembangkan perniagaan anda, anda sememangnya memerlukan bantuan orang lain.

Jika ada yang mengatakan... "Ahh.. tak perlu orang lain.. aku sorang je pun boleh buat semuanya!".. itu bermakna, perniagaan beliau sebenarnya, masih belum cukup besar dan berkembang. Masih lagi di tahap kecil-kecilan lagi.. pelanggan pun tak ramai..

Jika anda tidak percaya.. cuba anda cari mana-mana perniagaan yang maju .... Pernahkah anda melihat perniagaan-perniagaan yang maju, besar dan untung juta-juta, hanya diuruskan oleh one man show sahaja ?

Sekian...

Shuth
WangCyber.com

The simple-but-concise tip in English [roughly translated by Nasir]:

...This happened not when I was starting my Internet business, but rather after I have already established the business and when I started to grow it.

The mistake was... I DID NOT have a "business partner."

When I started my Internet business, the concept of partnership and outsourcing was not something that I believed in. After all, I was able to perform all the tasks required for my business by myself. I've said to myself, "Why would I want to waste money by paying somebody for these tasks?" I figured that in Internet business especially, almost everything can be done myself -- from setting the website, marketing the products, taking and fulfilling orders -- EVERYTHING can be done by a single person!

So, I worked, and worked alone, in front of the computer every day: From morning till night. Soon, my work hours was becoming longer and longer. If earlier, I was able to take a rest every evening, during the later evenings, I was forced to keep staying in front of the PC to take care of my clients -- both new and existing ones.

It wasn't long before my weekends had to be sacrificed too. I wasn't able to take holidays to go back to my parents' kampong that still lacks Internet access. How could I, or my would-be clients would mad if I failed to fulfill their orders in due time.

To make the story short, I've recently hired an assistant who's now my protégé and business partner to help me manage my business. Praise be to God, I'm now able to move around, and start many more business projects. If not, all my time had to be dedicated to the single Internet business I had back then, and thus I could not have grown my business.

In conclusion, to all my friends, if you want to grow your business, you definitely need others' assistance. If anyone says "Well, I don't need anybody else. I alone can do everything!", that means his business is still not big or have grown enough -- still small and has very few clients.

If you don't believe me, try looking at any other successful businesses that are big and profitable by the millions of dollars/ringgit -- are they managed by a 'one-man show'?

The End.

Shuth

Head to Shuth's decently popular and active a-year-plus-old Web forum called WangCyber.com ("wang" means "money" in Malay --hence, the forum posts are mainly in Malay too) to get more of online money making and technical tips. He also blogs for slight ly over a year now at MohdSuhaimy.com. Suhaimy's company among others, also published and directly retails a Malay-language pop-culture ebook called "Mas Kahwin Yang Hilang" (The Missing Dowry) -- how to make enough money to finance your dream weddings!

Read more about outsourcing or business partnering, especially in Malaysia:

"Innovate or Die!"
(you've repeated heard of this mantra, right?)

"Outsource or Die Slowly!"
(did I just came up with this?)

PajamaMan...

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