Forget flowers and fruits, give me free WiFi !!

What's the deal with hotels charging for wireless internet access?? Its downright highway robbery, as evidenced in the pile of prepaid cards I took a photo of.

I attended a conference (a telecomm conference some more mind you) in Bangkok recently and had to endure 4 days of no decent internet access. I stayed at Fraser Suites http://bangkok.frasershospitality.com/ which is a lovely place, but scored terrible on internet access. While they had good wireless coverage even in the rooms, access to the wireless is NOT free and also access is only tied to each laptop - meaning, if you have 3 people staying at their 2 bedroom service apartments with say 3 laptops, you have to pay three times for wireless access at USD10/= per day. Then at the Hilton Millenium where my conference was held, not only they did not provide any wireless they insisted that I purchase a prepaid card of USD10/= per hour access. All in all, my partner and I spend a total of over USD80/= (or RM270/=) worth of internet access for the 4 days. That's obscene blackmail.

What annoys me is that, the conference organisers and the hotel people don't even have a clue that access wireless on your laptop is totally different from checking your occasional email in the free internet access PCs set up in the lobby. I need the access during the conference not only to catch up with emails, but need it for messaging with my office and also to research what the conference speakers are speaking on, especially when the speaker get boring. And you can’t very well spend the whole conference being in the lobby using the free wired internet access provided. For a conference (especially an IT related one) that charges USD595/=, they should have just given everyone a free password for wireless internet access.

It's even worse when you are staying off site like what I did. Not only you have to pay for wireless internet access at your hotel room, they also make you pay for the wireless in the conference hotel. To make matters worse, even the wireless that I paid for at Fraser Suites is dismal in speed and performance. With all the sophisticated network management hardware and software that they have, its cumbersome and annoying to use. While I understand I need to pay small fee for internet access, but this is getting ridiculous, considering that the room rate is around USD100 - USD150 for a typical 5-star hotel.

In fact, forget the fresh flowers or basket of fruits in the room, just give me FREE WiFi. In fact, I think most hotels probably spend a lot more on flowers in their lobby than they do on providing decent wireless internet in their public areas. After all, it's really nothing except sticking a WiFi router to the flat rate DSL line which probably cost the hotel USD20 a month.

Here's my prediction:
Just as the advent of mobile phones which killed the hotel phone revenues, after hearing horror stories in the 70s and 80s that hotels were charging up to 10 times for making local calls on their land line. I believe one of these days those hotels who charge exorbitant prices for internet access will one day see those revenues disappear, when 3G, 4G or WiMAX roaming becomes more prevasive.

So bottom line is , next time my criteria for choosing a hotel anywhere on business or holiday would be if they can provide affordable and reasonable broadband wireless internet or better yet, Free WiFi !!

Hunting for Pleasure

I had the opportunity to meet recently with Mr. Ricky Koo, the founder of Take a Break Events. Our organisation, Technopreuers Association in Malaysia (TeAM) http://www.team.net.my/ had engaged Take A Break to organised our first TeAM ICT Treasure Hunt fund raising event. Essentially his company’s expertise is to organise treasure hunts, an event rather unique to Malaysia. Usually used as a fun and social event, teams of 2 - 4 are given maps, clues and puzzlies and questions to solve while travelling along a designated route either in car, public transport or on foot. Team that scores the highest points by solving and answering the questions will be declared winners. TAB Events role is to create the route and the challenges for the participants as the event's “clerk of course”.

Speaking with Ricky I am beginning to realise he is truly an entrepreneur living the dream. Starting off as a weekend hobby, today Ricky and his team are considered one of the premier company in the art of treasure hunting event organising. Last year his company had organised over 100+ hunts nationwide and even some overseas in China, HongKong and Taiwan. If you are a regular hunter, you will probably know his Hunters World website at http://www.geocities.com/machunter_koo/

“ Getting paid for doing something I enjoy and at same time able to enjoy driving around the country with my wife “ Ricky explained... “plus I get to travel and enjoy all the favourite foods along the way” as I spent time with him doing the reccee for our TeAM ICT Hunt route in CyberJaya. After nearly 28 years being in the advertising and printing business, in 2000 he gave it all up much to the shock of his wife, Roselyn. “ It took us a while to get used to giving up our then successful advertising business, but today we are enjoying it. “ Ricky further explained, “for first two years of TAB, it was a struggle as we tried to do too much and everything perfectly. But over the years, we manage to find a good balance of fun and revenue. “ Many people has asked Ricky to build the business bigger, but he is happy to keep it small.

So Ricky, Congrats for being a true entrepreneur and living your dream.

The Magnificent Shiny Disc Hero

One of the most funny advertisements http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyty6ebn1sI recently is the saga of the "Magnificent Shiny Disc Hero" , a character created by the Malaysia Astro satellite TV to promote their new On Demand video pay-per-view channel. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/11/nation/18558215&sec=nation

It reminds me of the entrepreneurial nature of why VCD or DVD sellers in Malaysia are so popular and successful. A couple of years back I had the opportunity to run a mega shopping centre and what kept the mall alive during the economic crisis were the DVD sellers. They are friendly and not demanding bunch as they would rent any space you give them and best of all, they pay cash for their rentals and on time.

Here are some other reasons :

Meeting the Market Demand - the always have the latest and best movies available. And most of the time, they rarely run out of stock of popular DVD titles. And no matter how many customers they have in the store, they can always find the right DVD using their magic 4 digit coding system.

Wide and Deep Product Line - they carry wide range of products, some even have the whole popular TV series season in a nice package. And if that's not enough, they have ample supply of accessories such as MP3 music, DVD jacket sleeves or folders.

Time to Market - most often, they will have the latest movies, at time even those currently showing currently in the cinemas. Those wanting to catch up with the latest TV series, can easily obtain the full latest season.

Close to Market / Consumers - most DVD vendors understand the concept of location location location. Find a popular "pasar malam" (night market) and the DVD sellers are there. They are in shopping malls, your favorite Starbucks or mamak stores, in your neighborhood retail area. Some DVD sellers in areas such as SS2 or SubangJaya even open till late hours to cater to the midnight supper crowd. I bet some will even deliver to your house if you are a regular enough customer. Similarly, in Beijing one can sip their latte in the favorite coffee joint while being served by the ever willing DVD peddlers, who would patiently wait for you to make your choice selections and then promptly deliver your DVDs to your table without fuss.

Prompt and Quick Service - normally manned by 2 or 3 young guys, they can whip out the shiny disc of your chosen titles in less time it takes for you to pull ringgit out of your wallet. Except for when they need to get the discs from nearby (due to the authorities crackdown) they can normally deliver 10 titles to you in less than 5 minutes. Most are run by energetic young people and ready to offer their opinion and reviews of movies

Product Knowledge - some DVD sellers even provide latest Blockbuster reviews of latest movies or recommends movies depending on what the customer enjoys watching. There are times, customers who are just browsing can ask them for recommendations and reviews.

Excellent Customer Service - DVD sellers are always a friendly lot, and if you are not happy with the discs, they will swap it for you. They will never chase you out at closing time... often patiently waiting for you to make your selections without hassling you.

Simple Effective Marketing Programmes - some have implemented frequent customer card (ala Starbucks style). If you gather 10 stamps, you are entitled to one free DVD. Their simple little card has kept customers loyal, and there is never a problem if you forgot your loyalty card as they gladly give you another. No fancy advertising, just go where people are hovering over tables in night market, chances are you will find the DVD peddlers.

Standing Behind their product - Any blurred or cam job movies, they will take it back. Some even take back movies you don't like and didn't think its up to your taste.

Piracy and politics aside, on a scale of 1 - 10, I give them a full 10 and think DVD sellers excel really well in their entrepreneurial ability and their market and customer focus. Now, if only half of the Malaysian retailers or government departments follow the principles and the spirit of entrepreneurialism of the DVD sellers... the world would be a better place for us customers, I should think....

Proud to be Malaysian

It was worth being there and spending 3 hours in the warm morning Malaysian sun to witness the celebrations of the 50th National Day at Dataran Merdeka.

As everyone young and old, present sang with the Jalur Gemilang waving in the air, the message held by this young Malaysian tells it all.

Happy 50th Merdeka, Malaysia.

Happy 50th Merdeka Malaysia.

Its 3.30am in the morning.. as I park my car near the Dataran Merdeka (Indepedence Plaza) in downtown Kuala Lumpur, coming here early to capture the morning celebrations of the 50th Merdeka (Independence Day) Parade starting in a couple of hours on August 31st.

I remember as a child always without fail waking up early in the morning of August 31st to catch the parade on television. This would be my third time seeing it live. The other two times were actually participating in the national day parade as school children doing the parade celebrations exercise routines.

As a young nation, Malaysia has progressed well and held its own against the other larger or richer nations in the South East region. Just as a small entrepreneurial company starting out in 1957, its has become one of the more successful countries in ASEAN. In spite of all its many issues on politics, judicary and at time strained race relations, it has done well in growing up as a nation of diverse cultures and races. Surrounding me, I see KL buildings all lighted up and for this 50th, even projected images on the building facades, as symbols of the success of Malaysia. Even the twin towers and the KL Towers are decked in red, blue and yellow of our nations colors. Malaysia compared to most troubled nations of the world is still the most peaceful, free and prosperous place that I call home. Glad to be part of the journey.

Happy 50th Birthday, Malaysia! I am proud to be part of your success.

Tools of the Entrepreneur

My partner and I just had a meeting recently with a prospective investor in one of our new ventures. As we had all the business plan writeup and powerpoint slides ready, it went well. Our experience reminded me of how important having good computing and presentation skills is to the entrepreneur. Somehow, convincing potential investors or customer is so much easier when you have your thoughts prepared in a concise powerpoint presentation.

Powerpoint skills - One of the first is knowing your way around a powerpoint presentation. Most of the time, busy business people, especially prospective investors in your venture would not have time to ready your business plan, so powerpoint is concise and help guide your thoughts. But it amazes me sometimes why entrepreneurs do not bother to learn this skill. I was in a conference last year where one speaker gave his entire presentation in edit mode, instead of slideshow mode. Another time, the speaker did not know how to flip his slides backwards or turn on/off the slides.

Good executive summary - The second is of course, being able to come up with an executive summary less than 3 pages with concise explanation of your plan. Handing the exeuctive summary to the prospective investor is much better than printing the entire powerpoint slides and giving it to him.

Hide your desktop - Please make sure you remove all folders on your laptop desktop, and while you are at it turn off all email reminders and pop ups. It would be quite embarassing for the prospective investors to see folders like "jokes", "you tube videos" or worse other confidential folder names on the desktop, when your powerpoint closes & your Windows desktop is revealed. Better yet, just create a New User in your Windows, and use that user profile everytime you need to do presentations.

A good projector helps - lastly, it really helps if you have a good LCD projector and more importantly know how to use it. Learn how to make simple adjustments like brightnesss, zoom, focus and image shifting for the presentation environment. Almost always, most small offices will not have a projector ready and even in meeting rooms where there are projectors installed, chances are no one around knows how to operate it. I happen to own the HP 3130, (unfortunately HP discontinued it) http://www.ciao.co.uk/HP_Digital_Projector_Mp3130__5784143 one of the few small projectors on the market that stands upright. Its small to bring along, easy to operate and setup. I remembered once, the person I was presenting to was so impressed with my HP projector that he liked my presentation even before I started....

To me, getting these basics correct will help the entrepreneur sell his ideas to potential investors. So, may your next big pitch with powerpoint is a good one...

Visitor on Top

I visited the Menara Sunway, the corporate headoffice of Sunway Group http://www.sunway.com.my/ for a meeting, and was pleasantly surprised as I drove into their visitor carpark. Most office buildings in Kuala Lumpur would make all their visitors drive down to the basement carpark, usually in B2, B3 or worse (as in the VisionCity building) B4. In Menara Sunway, visitors gets to park in their B1 lots, sparing me the head spinning effort of spiraling down 3 or 4 down ramps. Instead, the folks at Sunway have made their employees and staff park on the lower floors and in the outdoor parking lot. This is indeed a refreshing change.

Actually, it really does make any sense to put visitors on top. After all, most visitors would be spending 1 - 2 hours in the building, why make them spiral down 3 or 4 floors of parking. Until today, I still do not see the logic of building managers making their visitors do that.

Visitors on Top makes economic and common sense :

1. As tenants of buildings will know their way around the lower basement parking floors as they are there each day, rather than visitors getting lost trying to find empty slots. Their constant driving around generates heat in the basement car parks.
2. Tenants driving into the building in the morning will park their cars and by 10am or so, their car engines will probably have cooled therefore causing less strain on the carpark ventilation system for the rest of the day
3. When visitors are forced to park at the lower basement floors, they are actually causing more wear and tear on the up/down ramps and as heat rises, their warm engines will cause more strain on the ventilation system throughout the day. The heat generated makes most basement car parks unbearably hot in KL, especially in integrated office cum shopping malls.
4. It can easily be proven that the ventilation fans in the basement care parks can account for more than 10% - 20% to the total cost of running a typical office building.
5. A B1 or B4 has no relevance to tenants who usually drive in & out once each work day, and besides the different floors is just a push of a button on the lift panel.
6. Even worse is the bosses, senior managers or main tenants of buildings have their parking lots right on the upper floors, when they are usually the ones that needs it the least, as they usually have their personal drivers in tow.
7. Besides, VIP or anchor tenants are usually the ones paying the least on a per square foot for their office space (due to the space they occupy) so why give them convenient B1 parking.

Unless someone has a good argument for NOT putting visitors on B1, I think there should be a law that building owners have to allocate the top basement floors to visitor parking.

Building with the worst visitor carparks in Kuala Lumpur are Phileo Damansara, Phileo Avenue, Central Plaza (its reverse - you have to spiral at least 7 floors up, before you can find visitor parking!), Vision City towers... anyone has more to add ?

So, if you have the power to change, please make visitors park on top!!

Refilling Makes $$$ and Sense

Just had an old business associate drop by my office earlier. He and his identical twin brother is involved in a successful business of locks and locksmithing. Over the years, they have supplied locksets to a few of my wife's property projects, including our office.

Anyway, he dropped by to share with me his new venture, http://www.cartridgeworld.com.my/ which is a franchise to refill printer cartridges. Immediately, I think he will do really well considering the importance of laser printers in offices today. Just a quick check on my Hewlett Packard laser printer - the printer cost us approximately RM2,699 when we bought it, but I think for the past 1 year I have spent double that amount for ink cartidges replacements. Each cartridge (and we need 4 of them - black, magenta, cyan and yellow) cost approximately RM350/=. That's nearly half the cost of the printer, each time I print 400 - 500 pages of documents.

Best of all, the cartridge refilling business has low inventory (only powder), requires scalable manpower and recurring revenue. So, next time you wanna go out and buy new cartridges, consider saving the old ones and give Eric at Cartridge World SS2 PJ branch a call at 03-7877 9988.

He will not only come by your office to pick up your used cartridges but will refill and send it back to you in good condition, plus with guarantee too. Now, that really makes sense and $$$.

EXOTIC Dilemma

One of the newest restuarants near my office in Desa Sri Hartamas is a new place called EXOTIC started by a nice Vietnamese chinese lady and her husband. They moved from Canada and settled in Malaysia over 10 years ago, and started their new restuarant venture a month ago.

Being one for trying new things, I have been having my lunch there quite regularly. They have a simple but delicious lunch menu and slowly they have been attracting the office lunch time crowd. Its an efficient and clean little place and food is reasonable. They have also renovated the public place next to their restuarant and upgraded the sunshade awnings too. Generally, they have made the corner brighter from the previous mamak restuarant which was really badly run and had non-edible food.

Anyway, here lies the entrepreneurial challenge for the EXOTIC owners.

Around 3 weeks ago, the neighborhood had the priviledge of being visited by the mayor of Kuala Lumpur followed by an army of city hall officials supposedly to clean up and improve the area. Instead of making positive changes to the neighborhood such as getting rid of the illegal parking companies, haphazard parking, poorly installed meters and dirty streets, the officials have picked on one aspect of the neighborhood - unauthorised renovations. Many corner restuarants in order to increase their al fresco dining space has expanded into the public space next to their rented shoplots. As there are no proper guidelines from City Hall (or DBKL) these are considered illegal renovations. So, the DBKL officials came by last week and handed the EXOTIC owners an official letter to remove the illegal renovations.

It is SAD that enterprising restuarants owners who take the trouble to improve an otherwise dead public space by relaying the flooring, planting flowers, install lightings and awnings has instead been give 7 days to tear down everything. Of course the EXOTIC retuarant owners are banding together with a few others in the neighborhood to protest against the tear down of their renovations.

So typical of DBKL - and while the real problems of the neighborhood remains unsolved.