I was reflecting on the issues of two presidents our country has.  One was a promising and widely popular one who could have used the opportunity to earn his place in history, but was deposed before his term was over.  One aspired only to be a ‘good’ president, but is now benefitting the windfall of being able to get the credit on setting up the economic foundation and growth again of the country.

I believe sometimes we put too much credit on our own smarts, but a lot of our decisions actually comes from where we get our counsel.  I looked at the actions of many people, and I think leaders ( or people for that matter) are made or unmade depending on the quality of your inner circle who provides you with advice.

Running with the wrong crowd who has their own agendas, or who themselves are inept on the challenges that you are facing will insure that you are listening to the wrong voices, and getting the wrong influences.

Weigh things carefully on what other says.  Does what they say makes sense?  Are they qualified in making the advice that they are giving?  Are there other people that could give you better advice or a better second opinion?

Indeed, the old adage on ” tell me who your friends are ( and who you listen to for advice) and i can tell who you will become” has never been more true.

This is a good take on how cross subsidies can affect pricing, and also consumer choices, and how it can distort prices.

Apple’s iPhone Pricing: What You See Is What You Get: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Why would Apple do this? Because they don’t want to have to sell a video iPod without phone features for more than an iPhone. This strategy means that consumers would buy shiny iPhone touch-screen goodness in a music-and-video-only player for price points of $399, $349, $299, and $249 without feeling like they’re paying more for less.

Just saw the film “Rocky Balboa”, a film by Sylvester Stallone that is the latest installment of the Rocky Series that begun about 30 years ago.

It came in a little bit late in the franchise (after more than 15 years since the last one), and Sylvester as a fighter that is fighting an undeafeated world champion that could well have been his son stretches the story a little bit too far….  Coming in the twilight of his career, it is hardly something that would have been credible enough to be enjoyed… but it did.

The story is about an aging fighter who wants to fight again purportedly to exorcise his past.   As usual with the other Rocky movies, it is a feel good movie with fight sequences well orchestrated.  But I believe the best part is actually the subplot of his son.

His son is blaming Rocky.  He is finding it hard to live in the shadow of a former heavyweight champion, and people compare him to his father too much that he is having problems.  The scene where the dad gives advice is a classic, and if you can take this advice to heart, it would be well worth the whole movie.  Here’s roughly the advice from Rocky.

When you finally grow up, you find that the world will start  hitting you from all directions. Life is not all rainbows and roses.  And if you can’t take it, you start looking for something, or someone (like a long shadow) to blame.  Cowards do that, and you ain’t a coward.

Let me tell you something…. No matter where you are, life is going to pummel you down to your toes.  It will beat you down, and if you don’t have the confidence to take it, you will be kept down.  Its not how hard you hit, but how hard you can take the hits, and still keep moving forward that is going to make you a winner…

Great fell good movie.  4.5 stars out of 5.

As an employer, I had always thought, and this myth has always been peddled, that a company should focus on making the employee happy, then he will work hard and be productive.

This is a persistent myth, and I think it is NOT true.  After years of working with people convinces me that what the company should primarily focus on is  to make the employee useful and productive.  When he is productive, and feels he is doing something worthwhile, and contributing to his team or company, he will be fulfilled AND happy.

A happy employee is just well, happy.  But just because you make him happy, don’t expect that he will be productive!

If youa re an employee,I can also tell you that  looking for happiness in a job is not going to work. and yes, few people are completely happy with their job. I think they are looking for the wrong things. What you should look for in a job is where you can be useful, productive and can contribute. I believe in all of us, there is an innate sense of self worth that finds fulfillment in being able to give  in that community.

Our country is poor.  It is developing fast, but nevertheless, it has a good way to go.  A former Philippine president was noted to have asked his economic advisers why the people were poor.  One of them answered, that basically it is because of the ‘law of supply and demand’.  The president was touted to have quipped, ” Then let us repeal that law.”

And I believe governments all over the world keep trying hard to artificially ‘influence’ this law of supply and demand.  Basically, a journalist recently noted that since a small majority of the people owned a huge amount of wealth, what we can do is simply to double the minimum wage, with a good amount of statistics and facts to show how it would eradicate poverty in one swoop.  With an unemployment and underemployment rate of over 20%, you can imagine what that kind of move would engender — it would virtually fuel inflation, and probably double the unemployed.  Nevertheless, I wrote my reaction to this proposal below which is self - explanatory.

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I am sure you are familiar with the laws of supply and demand, and how for many years, people try to subvert it either by artificially inflating the price a consumer should pay to favor the supplier, or subsidizing it with a price to make the supplier viable while favoring the consumer.

In most cases I know, it does not work, at least not on a long term.  I believe that if you base it on the fact that  if we still have a high amount of unemployment and underemployment despite the low minimum wage set, then it must be that there was an attempt to alter the normal supply and demand by asking the employer to pay a higher price than would otherwise dictate, and therefore is not on equilibrium.

I have no doubt that the Philippines will grow, and Filipinos will become richer.  But I always believe that it will be better served by focusing on the other side.    By analogy, I mean that it is hard for a buyer to pay P2,000 for a China copycat watch that would normally be worth P1,000, but it is not difficult to find a buyer willing to pay P100,000 for a genuine Rolex watch that is otherwise worth P110,000.  If you want a businessman to go crazy and throw money at you, let him see the value proposition of it, and they will fight over it.  I always tell my people that the best long term businesses are not those that create something worth P100 with a cost of P180 and is able to sell it for P200 (because of market protection), but rather one that creates a value of P200 with a cost of only P100, and sells it for P180.

And therefore, the solution of the problem must be that instead of forcing employers to pay a higher price, focus be put in making sure that we educate and equip our people.  When their skills and experience brought to the work can bring P50,000 per month  to the company, I am sure every entrepreneur would work for the chance to hire him at P35,000 or more irregardless of how much is the minimum wage.

Of course, we know that we cannot be entirely be a free economy.  Safeguards must be put, and minimum standards have to be instituted to protect the people who still cannot afford to protect themselves, and therefore a good minimum base is ideal.

Also, by not being an entirely free economy as yet, ( meaning if we restrict foreign businesses in conducting businesses here in the Philippines), we also have a double edged sword of protecting the local businessmen, but also preventing the coming in of employers who otherwise ( because of the markets that they served) have the need and resources, and therefore sees more value in the skills of our labor, and willingly able to pay more for it.

These moves ( providing good minimum base, and allowing the labor free access to world employers to allow them to get the best price) will be a good short term solution, but long term, the sustainable way to progress is to insure that the people we are trying to move up will gather the skills and education that will allow them to move up.  In short, I am a firm believer that success cannot be bestowed, and at best, every successful person should at first conduct himself as a person who have earned that right, and becomes worthy of that success, before becoming a success.

One of the hotter news items this week was Apple’s introduction of a cell phone. The debates about it make me recall an anecdote when somebody meet the CEO of Rolex, and asked him, “ Did you hear about this latest technology on the timepiece market?”

The Rolex CEO was purportedly heard to say, “ Oh, I don’t quite know.”

The person then proceeded to say how come the CEO would not know. But he defined the wrong industry. Rolex, according to analyst, is not on the timepiece market, but rather on the luxury brand market. Much of the value of owning a Rolex watch is not about owning the latest technology , pinpoint accuracy or watch features. Buying a Rolex watch rather is about resale value, jewelry investment, lifestyles, as well as how it makes the owner feels when people swoon over his watch. It is as much as branding and image. It is the same thing to say that Louie Vitton or Hermes is not just about bags.

Over the last few years, Apple had taken this route. Apple products is really not

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Here was one of my local articles for our newspaper on why I support a starter edition — lower price points opens up new markets.
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A review of whether Office 2007’s Ribbon interface is more intuitive.

iTWire - Question: why do I need to upgrade to Office 2007?

Microsoft may want us to believe that we’re working in the dark by using its horribly bloated Office 2003 with the archaic menu system. We could become vastly more productive if we learned to use the new Ribbon interface of Office 2007. However, most of us users in the real world don’t see it that way. All we see is a learning curve.

There are many reasons why a person succeed in business. It can be due to hard work, or strong business foundation. In many instances, though many success or motivation books do not regard it, it is due to timing and luck. Sometimes you make it simply because you were in the right place in the right time.

Of course, you cannot go through life trying to succeed through luck, becaue you may get it, or you may not. However, it is important if you succeed due to luck to recognize it as such. It is not good for the ego, but yes, sometimes people succeed even if what they were doing, or their abilities dictate they should not have.

On the other hand, I HAVE KNOWn people who succeeded because of good fortune and luck, and incorrectly inferred that it was due to their abilities. That being so, they pushed their luck too far, and lost the initial success that they got. It is important more than ever, that you understand yourself, the iron logic of success, and good fortune. If you succeed through good luck, it is important to understand that it is the lest reliable of all factors to correctly repeat it.

As a business, we set up Server farms and data centers.  This is a full room of storage, servers, switches and another equipment that powers and connect the computer infrastructure of companies and agencies.

We also set up Enterprise Resource Planning and mission critical software, the most important component being the Executive Dashboard, where you garner the most critical data and you can summarize as well as slice and dice the information.

It is hard to monitor dozens of equipment, as well as the numerous data.  So in the design of servers and also ERP Business Inteliligence, the obvious way has been the use of green, yellow and red buttons.  When you see statistics that have the green light, that means it is within the range of acceptable performance.  When you see yellow, that means there is caution, and the result may be borderline.  Read the rest of this entry »