Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Identify different kinds of intelligence in your child

A child may have one or several types of intelligence. You can understand your child better by knowing what types of intelligence that your child has. This will enable you to find out what kind of activities are suitable for your child so as to help your child to learn better and faster. I have done a research in the internet and have found that there are about seven types of intelligence.

Visual-Spatial
Doing puzzles, reading, writing, drawing, visual arts, having a good sense of direction, designing objects, fixing things

Verbal- Linguistic
Speaking, storytelling, writing, listening, using humour, remembering information, using language cleverly

Logical-Mathematical
Problem solving, categorizing classifying, working with geometric shapes

Bodily-Kinaesthetic
Dancing, sports, acting, anything requiring physical coordination, creating with hands

Musical-Rhythmic
Singing, playing musical instruments, composing music

Interpersonal
Able to see other's point of view, listening, able to pick up on cues from others, good at forming good relations with other people, conflict resolution; good leaders

Intrapersonal
Figuring out their own strengths and weaknesses, analyzing, understanding themselves and how they relate to others

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Starting a Business vs Going into Finance

Starting a business appears to be the next cool thing to say, as a counterpoint to folks looking to get into finance. But when you ask, am not sure if you have fully thought thru the question yourself, instead if simply asking as a throwaway line.

It's definitely easier to talk about going into business than actually doing so, and most people that actually talk about it never take the first step towards it. First of all, its a huge financial risk. Most people who talk about going into business think of restaurant or retail shop ie stuff they are familiar with. That's the worst kind of business - super competitive and very high capital requirements of $200k to 500k, which you can lose in less than 6 months if the business fails. I've seen a few friends fail and lose 20 years of savings in 6 months and take 10 years to recover. Either that it you lose money from trusted family and friends.

Either that or you can choose a low capital business such as trading or real estate , but earnings are super volatile and most will struggle along for years potentially never getting rich.

Of course, I have a friend who went into his fathers business, is now CEO and has a collection of sports cars now. I also know of a few business men from the older generation that got rich of government concessions in Indonesia, but money is almost never clean.

So the notion of starting a business is romantic, buffeted by examples we all have of less educated friends who have made it very big in business, after starting from scratch. But if you turn a critical and objective eye to it, I have to concede that its not all roses. most (but obviously not all) successful business men either have a head start either via a family business, family money, family contacts or by being very agile in a fast changing market by doing stuff that's not clearly legal (Indonesia example above or new money from China or Russia).

Striving to get into finance is not easy, but its a risk free way of potentially becoming rich (albeit on a much smaller scale than a successful business man). No one ever said that getting rich is easy anyways ...

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

APEA 2011
Published June 28, 2011
Evolution of leadership qualities
Having a good grasp of people, functional management skills and market knowledge will go a long way in tackling cross-border challenges for entrepreneurs, says NA BOON CHONG


THE profile of a successful entrepreneur is one who sees and acts on opportunities, is oriented towards achievement, has concern for a high quality of work, is committed to work contract and is self confident, according to an early study by David McClelland.

Armed with such a drive, it is natural that entrepreneurs seek out opportunities in new frontiers to expand their businesses once they have achieved success in their home markets. While the initial overseas foray is propelled by entrepreneurship, leadership competence needs to evolve in the life cycle of the overseas business.
We would define leadership competence as comprising three major skill sets: people management, functional management and market knowledge. We take, as an example, a client whose HR practices and business expansion we have helped support for a number of years.
People management
We saw its products and services migrate from serving a homogenous market to customisation and then mass customisation for greater efficiency. Its value chain activities moved from being highly concentrated in its home country to a networked and distributed model.
As a result, the requirement on leadership changed progressively in the following manner.
Level 1

  • Works effectively with people from cultures other than his/her own

  • Builds effective relationships with people from other cultures

  • Willing to travel on work assignments
    Level 2

  • Seeks to understand cultural differences and the impact on work processes

  • Recognises the impact of his/her own cultural attributes on others

  • Builds effective relationships across diverse cultures and work groups

  • Performs effectively in cultures other than one's own in work groups where there is multi-cultural membership in face-to-face or virtual environment
    Level 3

  • Leads and works effectively in groups where there is multi-cultural membership in face-to-face or virtual environment.

  • Respects and is sensitive to others' cultural values in leading

  • Addresses impact of own cultural values on others

  • Looks for best practices outside of own area

  • Recognises the local business implications of regional and global trends and events
    Level 4

  • Plans for portability of processes and products

  • Customise solutions based on cultural norms

  • Keeps current on the global, economic, political and legal events occurring in the region and the world, and the impact on the company's business

  • Supports collaboration across borders and regions to improve customer satisfaction

  • Creates development opportunities for culturally diverse members of the organisation
    Level 5

  • Builds a vision for the company's long-term success as a regional and global player

  • Balances geography goals with corporate goals

  • Understands the business impact for the company's long-term position in various markets

  • Promotes respect throughout the company for value-added by way of culturally diverse elements of the workforce
    The above became the basis to develop management styles in an increasingly complex regional business as well as to assess a leaders' ability to perform.
    Functional management
    As the company grows its regional footprint, the following key functional skills need to be developed internally or 'bought' from the outside.
    Financial: Characterised by advanced financial management skills that bring together cross-border accounting, risk management, international capital markets knowledge, ability to manage across exchange rates and related risks, and international financial structures. It also includes trade and export related skills.
    Business development: Ranges from relationship building with international policy bodies, governments and corporate players to cross-border business planning, multiple alliance management, mergers and acquisitions and go-to-market strategies for international companies.
    Product development: Ability to understand and analyse international customer behaviour and preferences, international trend-spotting, intellectual property rights and related skills. Also includes fundamental skills such as product customisation, research & development and product design.
    Marketing: Integrates the elements of marketing management across borders with the ability to set up and manage complex distribution channels for cross-border operations; ranges from international branding and brand management, sales force effectiveness, customer relationship management, advertising and promotion (international messaging) and distribution management.
    Human resource: Reflects the challenges of managing across multiple cultures, legal environments and labour economies; includes international rewards, international careers and staffing, international organisation design and structures and international talent and leadership development.
    Manufacturing or supply chain: Brings together the complexities of managing and integrating multiple manufacturing operations across multiple countries with the added complexity of multiple supplier relationships; includes also international vendor and supplier network management, manufacturing management for international operations, supply chain planning and management and labour relations.
    Market knowledge
    Last but not least, with the rapid development of many emerging markets, what is known about a particular market becomes obsolete very quickly.
    Take China as an example. The early stage of economic development was around the eastern coastal cities, such as Shanghai. But as development moved inland to cities such as Chengdu, the market characteristics and challenges became different - and quite quickly. Aon Hewitt's People Risk Index global study found differences in the risk profiles of these types of Chinese cities. (Refer to table: the higher the number, the riskier).
    Chengdu's highest risk categories are employment practices and talent development, whereas demographics are the least of its worries. The Chengdu market has seen difficulties in attracting and retaining talent, and has pushed up the salary costs for certain industries. However, Shanghai displays a different sort of profile.
    Putting them all together
    An entrepreneur that keeps up to date with the market, applies the appropriate degree of functional oversight, and underpins all that with the right people management skills, will go a long way in growing his or her overseas business.
    The writer is managing director, executive compensation and performance, South-east Asia, Aon Hewitt

  • Saturday, June 25, 2011

    Don't Chase Money

    I wouldn't want to be rich.
    I just want to be successful.

    Many people embark on the wrong journey of working for money.
    And working for all the wrong and senseless goals.

    I can be successful, but poor at the same time.
    Money comes and go, but not ideas and spirit.

    Work on what you like to do. And excel in it.
    Only then will success, wealth and happiness come your way.

    Saturday, May 21, 2011

    An American investment banker and the Mexican

    An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

    The Mexican replied, "only a little while."

    The American then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish?

    The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs.

    The American then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"

    The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

    The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise."

    The Mexican fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

    To which the American replied, "15-20 years."

    "But what then?"

    The American laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

    "Millions.. Then what?"

    The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

    Visual Basic (VB) write to text file

    Dim FILE_NAME as String = "C:\my text file.txt"
    Dim myText as String = "Hello World"

    Dim fileWriter As New System.IO.StreamWriter(FILE_NAME)
    fileWriter.WriteLine(myText)
    objWriter.Close()

    Visual Basic code: Enabling Select All function in TextBox

    For VB developers:

    If you're using System.Windows.Form.Text, you might notice that press Ctrl+A does not enable the select all function to select all text in the text box. This function needs to be coded:

    Object, ByVal _
        e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyPressEventArgs) Handles _
        TextBox2.KeyPress
        If e.KeyChar = Convert.ToChar(1) Then
            DirectCast(sender, TextBox).SelectAll()
            e.Handled = True
        End If
    End Sub