Simon Said:

I am by all means breaking my rules for starting to Twitter.

I regard Facebook and other social networking sites are evil.

So why I have change my mind about Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, there are certain aspects in Twitter that is similar to Facebook.

Even if I block people from following me on Twitter. They can still see who I follow, my interest etc. The main reason is, Twitter is for grown ups!

This is the main advantage. There is no boundary for words either. You can chat to pretty much everyone (given they are on Twitter).

Twitting is email 2.0 with an open directory of the world.

However, I will not give up blogging, because I am long-winded.

Please FOLLOW ME at

http://www.twitter.com/simon628

Cheers Thanks Bye
Simon

Posted by Simon in Public, Simon | No Comments

What is Twitter?

My take on it. It is text messaging to the world.

Send short message and tell everyone what you are see, doing, eating etc.

It is bit like voluntary (CCTV like) message surveillance.

It is lazy blogging too. It is like telling you I have a new mobile and then stop there without telling you any details.

Remember RSS feed! It is not that different.

I just setup one, and don’t worry, I won’t tell everyone when I leave the house, so you can break in!

Followers!!! now you can follow me at

http://www.twitter.com/simon628

Si

Posted by Simon in Public, Simon | No Comments

You can only make money out of something if you can brand it.

Branding is very important and makes perfect business sense.

A product is not the same without a brand. This is also true for service.

Have you not heard of priority service, gold service, silver service etc. These are branding.

Even Credit Card has branding, Gold card, Platinum card, Black card etc.

The name is the important part of branding, whether this is the company name or the product name. Then there is the logo, slogan, etc…

The M&S food advert is a good example. It is promoting M&S branded foods are different and better. It is also trying add luxurious to their branding of food. You would pay high price, because you think you get something better quality. This might be the case, but do we actually know? or is it just a gimmick?

Anyway, branding make business sense.

Name, Logo, Statement or Slogan

Just some for my work! (for fun)

Is it energy efficiency or carbon management?

It is not just an awareness programme. It is an engagement programme that will change the world.

It is not just an opportunities database. It is an robotic project manager that help you track progress and savings

It is not just an technical audit. It is world leading expert innovation and advice.

Whether it is right or wrong, big part of the value of the product or service is in the Brand.

And I have to say life would be boring withing branding…

Posted by Simon in Enviros, Golden Words, Public | No Comments

Yet another study on the benefits of Green Tea.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8108831.stm

Posted by Simon in Public | No Comments

Do you go to somewhere with good service?

Yes, but do you buy service no?

You go out there are buy a product. In retail, people say service is very very important. Customer is always right and all that. Don’t upset the customer etc etc.

What is the price of service? When you paid for your satellite TV, broadband connection. How much goes to service that you might not need? (Obviously you are expecting 100% service and 0% problem) should we assume this at the start?

Service is significant in a normally human to human contact. Shopping at supermarket is an example of this. The TV/broadband example is one that with minimal contact. There is clearly a balance between desired service, expected service, free service and paid service. We all think that the desired service is the expected service and it should be free!

How about me working in consultancy? Only service and no product. The product you get is our service. It is one that is difficult price up. What is the right price and what is good value? It is really market equilibrium that levels the price. OK how come there is no price war?

For a product, say a can of beans. It is on sale for 30p. The margin is 15p. So I can make less money and drive competition down and offer sale at 20p. This happen all the time, clearing stock, increasing volume sale, taking market share and also building the brand.

Why consultancy don’t have special offer or discount? Even at this time!

Taking market share, driving competitors out.

Even recently HSBC, a bank has join in at the January sale. It is all promotion. The same service but cheaper!

In consultancy, you would never reduce the fee rate. The fee rate can only go up. May be in period of time like now, even consultancy should give customer discount! (we can increase the rate then bring it back down, I didn’t say the discount should be real!)

Simon

Posted by Simon in Intelligence Resource Methodology | No Comments

Recession has one big impact of stopping positive change and technology improvement.

Even if the chance is there, the risk SEEMS to be increased and put the spanner in the works.

In the UK, manufacturing has been on a constant decline over the last 10 years and now the credit crunch has pretty much kill off manufacturing. The UK is becoming just a services nation. Just selling, advertising, marketing, etc. These are soft skills replacing the hard skills.

The current generation of graduates are forced into this service market. The business workplace has pushed people into more commercial.

I have to say a service market turn majority of the people’s brains off. Don’t take me work, there would still be clever, smart and creative people. But for majority people in a services market, they will just become a process, a computer processing. Human evolving to be a computer. I thought we would suppose to  develop the computer to become more like us.

We have to fight even harder at this time to keep montivation on being creative and maintain engineering and technology skills.

I for one will keep fighting for a continue technology revolution.

I am an engineer, no services please.

Posted by Simon in Public, Technology | No Comments

In my last post, I was talking about taking a bet on. The fact is that I was taking a chance. In my eyes, it was to my favour. I estimated it was more like 65:35 ish.

Everyone has a different sense on risk. Someone will always go for a 50:50, but some would be more cautious and wait for 80:20s.

In the game of Texas Hold’em poker, this is clearly demonstrated, and even force win from 80:20 down.

Any good poker play will be able to calculate the ODDS (chance), the BET (risk) and the POT (reward).

The chance and the risk are different. You might a small chance to win but the risk is low, and you might decide to go for it. There are load of scenarios and there is also a missing factor Confidence.

Sometime confidence can become arrogrant and confusingly allow someone to think the Chance has increased.

Should we assess our chance, our risk and reward every time we make a decision.

The opposite to Confidence is Nervous and Panic. We all know that this will have a negative effect.

What if we block out all emotion. So turning off emotional integellience and do we actually make a better decision or deliver bette result. But without emotions, we would just be a computer.

On the other hand, can we use confidence to overturn risk into chance.

also when you in nervous or panic mode, does the body release more adrenaline to help you flight. Turn on the turbo so to speed.

Whatever situation, calm head is needed and I would suggest you try to not react and cut out all the emotion. See what happens!

Simon

Posted by Simon in Intelligence Resource Methodology | No Comments

Someone in the office bet me £1 today on Pakistan to win after Sri Lanka posted a score of 151 in the World Twenty20 Cricket match.

I, the poker player, did a very quick assessment on the odd and thought he was on a losing bet.

Yes it is only a pound but the mind process of assessing the odd is very fascinating.

150 was a par score really and the run chase should be exciting. But I made the assessment that Sri Lanka has too much spinners just in Murali and Pakistan’s batting form is poor. So it was easy to take his pound! My knowledge was key here.

There was a bit of fun for him, and a little bit more for me.

Any more bets please. I will take you on.

Posted by Simon in Public, Rubbish, Simon | No Comments

The busted asymmetrical eyebrow lady from South Park won this year more entertaining than last year The Apprentice.

I think she is good and should be fun to work with. But I don’t think she is the office type though.

Anyway,

Posted by Simon in Public, TV | No Comments

In Simon’s simple terms

A meeting is to share and discuss, to present arguements and reasons. There should be actions and outcome. It is where you bring you mind along to think.

A communication is just to listen. Or in realaity get told what you need to do!

Sometime a meeting can turn into a communication. However you do have a chance, very slim one to challenge by speaking out.

But most of the time, the dicussion has already been taken. Then speaking out would be negative as it is seem rebelling.

Are you lost or are you nodding your head?

I would rather go to real meeting than a communcation. I have a idle super brain that need thinking.

Posted by Simon in Public, Rubbish | No Comments