I was a charter member of the local loyalty card, which we shall call ActualAwards. I signed up with them from the start and had been a regular user from the get-go, especially when they signed on Telekom Malaysia as a partner company. (”I’m already paying for my phone; why shouldn’t I get ActualPoints for it?”)

I hardly complained when they lost Telekom Malaysia a few years later. ActualAwards is a free service, anyway. I overlooked the horribly mangled grammar and spelling in the ActualAwards newsletters. They’re free, right?

In the mean time, I earned many ActualPoints from their partner petrol supplier, whom we shall name Nastroliam.

Out of the blue, several years back, Nastroliam sent me a mailer informing me that their loyalty programme, “Ceria”, would henceforth be managed by ActualAwards. Okay, it didn’t matter–both were free, and I was a member of both anyway. So, one card less to carry.

And we lived happily for a few years after.

Until another out-of-the-blue posting arrived from jolly Nastroliam, half a year back, announcing that henceforth they were terminating their relationship with ActualAwards and reviving their Ceria card under their own auspices. My ActualAwards-Ceria card would be invalid from April 30, they told me. I was invited to fill up a form at any Nastroliam petrol station to be a member of the new Ceria card.

Wait–what?

They converted my ActualAwards card back then, without asking, into an ActualAwards-Ceria card, then announced that they’re cancelling the ActualAwards-Ceria card, and inconveniencing me with a new sign-up?

That was too unbelievable to me. Surely they were just cancelling the Ceria part of the programme, and my card would revert to its pre-Nastroliam-molested state?

So I clicked on the feedback form on the Nastroliam website, which forwarded me to the feedback form on the ActualAwards site. I wrote in to clarify the situation.

No reply.

Two weeks later, I sent an email to ActualAwards, copying my original message to them and restating my query.

No reply.

Meanwhile, April 30 approached.

I decided to join the new ActualAwards-Ceria disloyalty programme.

I made a redemption for cash vouchers, emptying my ActualPoints account. And I’ll stick with BonusLink and Shell from now on.

Thank you for the excellent service, ActualAwards and Nastroliam.

–

I should probably tell you that the official communications from Nastroliam actually told me to either:

1. Sign up for their new Ceria card or
2. Make a redemption to clear my ActualPoints before April 30.

Is my ActualAwards card still valid for merchants other than Nastroliam? Was Nastroliam screwing ActualAwards?

Honestly, I still don’t know, nor do I care anymore.

Communicate with your customers–and communicate well–or lose them. I know Nastroliam can afford to lose me and a thousand mes, but that’s not the point. I–and a thousand mes–am worth more than this kind of customer disservice.

You are worth more.

Sophisticated markets like the US have gone beyond customer satisfaction. They’re aiming for customer delight.

In Malaysia, if we get satisfactory service, we’re delighted.

Malaysians, you deserve better service; start asking for it.

The author, proud owner of a brand new old stylus

My uncle wrote this piece. I thought it would be important to keep for posterity.

“Tommy, did you know that a ’stylus’ used to mean a needle designed to make music from albums? A ’stylus’ wasn’t always that little thing you use to navigate your mobile phone…”

“You mean ’stylus’ is another word for finger, grandpa?” little Tommy responds, looking up from his iPhone 5G.

In Search of a Stylus

By Lim Sze Choong

“What do you call this thing?” asked my 21 year-old niece.

“A record!” we laughed.

The urge to play records resurfaced recently out of the blue. There was this old turntable left lying in one corner of our house, untouched for years. Its stylus must have got too worn out to produce decent music way back then, and we must have abandoned it for something more exciting at that time, like a cassette deck, for example. Overshadowed by superior technology and crisper sounds, the old turntable must have then been left in the cold.

Some thirty years have passed. One day my son noticed the old turntable he used to meddle with when he was a kid. Wondering whether it was still working, we cleaned it up and turned on the power. To our surprise, the old workhorse was still turning! We cleaned an old record and put it on, and …yep, just as we suspected – the old stylus was worn out. So worn out in fact it skated across the record in ungainly fashion, eliciting a gurgle from the speakers.

Thus began our search for a new stylus. Asking around the shops in Seremban where we lived drew a blank. So we knew we had to venture out. Friends and family suggested the older parts of KL or Penang. Some suggested Singapore or Hong Kong. We surfed the net for a BSR P128R stylus, and found very similar looking stuff listed in the UK. The asking price was ₤17. But we were unsure of its compatibility.

So my wife and I went to Hong Kong. Of course we did not go there for the express purpose of searching for a stylus! Our son and daughter-in-law are working there, and we decided to visit. It was our second visit, so we were quite able to find our way around. You cannot really get lost in Hong Kong, with its efficient and dependable rail systems which are interlinked. Armed with a map, you could easily find your way to the nearest MTR station, and get back on track.

We were browsing around Wan Chai when my watch needed a new battery. The guy at the roadside stall was friendly, and began chatting with us as he attended to my watch. We told him about our search for a stylus, and showed him our sample. He stroked his chin and then wrote down on paper – Sham Shui Po, Upliu Street. That’s where we should look, he said.

The next day, we found our way to Sham Shui Po, a quaint part of town with shops displaying a wide variety of ornamental and needlework accessories. We soon located Upliu Street. It was a street turned pedestrian walk, with stalls selling an interesting array of knick knacks. And then we found it – a shop with a signboard proclaiming ‘Hospital for Trumpets’ in Chinese, meaning ‘Workshop for Loudspeakers’.

We went in to enquire about our stylus. The proprietor brought out a small cardboard boxful of similar looking stuff. My wife and I nodded at each other with wide eyes, and examined them closely. Yep, they did seem to be of similar design. The asking price was HK$130 each. Excited at the prospect of having found what we were looking for, we settled for it. But being less than 100% sure of its suitability, we bought just one.

A week later, we were back in Malaysia. We dusted off our old turntable once more and tried on our new stylus. To our delight, it fitted! Nervously, we put on a record and played it. Our eyes widened! Strains of old time music filled the air! We let out a cheer! Yes, it worked! We are playing records again in our house! That walk down Upliu Street in Sham Shui Po had been worth it!

Somehow, Friday has crept up on me again.

If you’re familiar with Twitter, then you’re familiar with the phenomenon of #FollowFriday. It was started by Micah Baldwin, who decided to recommend remarkable “followees” to his followers. One of his friends then suggested that he use the tag #FollowFriday for that purpose. It was quickly adopted by Tweeters everywhere.

Recently, I took the common suggestion of using an autofollow service–meaning that my account automatically follows those who follow me. I do it, as some recommend, as a courtesy, but also to discover new and notable Tweeple.

Which brings me to this: Some Twitter users are, well, Twits. They will “spam” you with offers for this and that and the other, without first engaging in useful conversation. (It’s not technically spam if you agree to follow them, whether manually or automatically. I use the term loosely, more in a “they’ll repeatedly send you self-serving, useless tweets” kind of way.) Read more »

I just had my haircut, and it triggered the memory of Sivin’s blog post, “7 Pleasures That Keep Me Sane“.

Item No. 1 on his list was having a haircut. I know he’d just had his haircut before he posted that ;).

Well, I agree with item 1. A haircut is tremendously relaxing–especially with the extras thrown in. We’ll get to that later. Read more »

When you’re familiar with a certain genre, you start to recognise common refrains. One common refrain of the internet marketing genre is, “Make Money While You Sleep!”

I’d grown tired of hearing that one, and had more or less relegated it to the recycle bin of my mind, when, last night, my wife sent me a Scripture verse. Read more »

So, this afternoon, a bunch of us went to see Sonia play the piccolo with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Collective savages we Malaysians are, the audience applauded between movements. Traditionally, you’re not supposed to clap until the whole composition is played out, see.

In the balcony opposite from where the wife and I were sitting, there was a lady who was terribly distraught at this unseemly behaviour. Every time the audience broke out in applause, she would erupt in a fit of tut-tuts, tsks, snorts, glares and head-shakes. (So our friends in that balcony reported.) Read more »

I occasionally wonder who among my friends, like me, has the vanity necessity of googling himself.

Today I read on Erna Mahyuni’s blog, that she has a Google Alert setup to notify her of online mentions of her name.

Consider this post a test of that notification system.

Erna?

I’m an early adopter. Of free stuff. I’ve got them all, and dropped them most.

One thing that has remained and become integral to my existence, is Gmail.

I took on Gmail when it came out on Apr 1, 2004, offering 1 GB of email storage. People thought it was an April Fool’s joke–typical storage back then was 5 MB, as Yahoo offered. That sounds like the joke now. Read more »

Seth Godin says that you shouldn’t listen to your critics–you’ll never satisfy them. He says you shouldn’t listen to your fans–they’re too satisfied.

Godin says you should listen to your sneezers, because they’re the ones who spread your word. Read more »

At the D5 Conference, during the famous Gates & Jobs interview, Bill Gates said that one of the greatest contributions of Steve Jobs to the industry, was his amazing sense of style. (Yet, in 1998, Gates derided the yummy jelly iMac by saying, “I guess they’re innovating in colours”. Huh.)

But what I wonder is–with Microsoft’s “bottomless” resources, could they not hire an industrial designer with Job’s degree of aesthetic skill–or even better?

Obviously, Microsoft’s problem with style exists higher up the food chain. Surely there are great artists in Microsoft. I suspect that they could not squeeze past the bottleneck. At Apple, there is no style bottleneck because the top man is an aesthete.

Power geeks may pooh-pooh the value of the physical beauty of gadgets, but in this matter, Steve Jobs is right. Design is very important to consumers (not just “artists”–you don’t have to be a chef to know the food tastes good).

The top man needs to care about the end product. It sounds so obvious, doesn’t it?

I just had a depressing thought. Maybe the other guys in the computer industry do care–and still come out with clunky stuff only engineers can grok.

Then, they need to hire some good designers, listen to them, and get out of their way.

Here’s a hypothesis: The iPhone is a hit because it runs a mobile-optimised version of Mac OS X in a hardware interface that lets you do what you want while staying politely out of your way. What say you?

1. A Google News Alert for [san francisco coffee] led me to this girl’s post which mentions a quiet “San Francisco Coffee in Parkson”.
2. I’m thrilled, and store the info for later use.
3. Tumtetetumtum… Read more »

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”

- Albert Einstein

Did Malcolm Gladwell Rip Me Off?

By Michael Masterson

I’m a big fan of Malcolm Gladwell. His books, especially The Tipping Point, have validated many of my long-held business philosophies.

But when his new book, Outliers, came out a few months ago, I started getting e-mails from friends and colleagues with disturbing news.

“Did you see Malcolm Gladwell’s new book? It’s great… but it looks like Gladwell borrowed one of your ideas. Didn’t you write about how many hours it takes to master a skill several years ago?”

I did. (Way back in 2000.) Read more »

W0uld y0u bel1eve that some_one who wr0t3 lik.e th1s was a leg1timate inter_net market3r?

See what the fool says:

This e-mail was sent to you because you subscribed to at
least one of our mailing_lists. If you feel that I’ve breached
your privacy or at any time you would like to rem0ve yourself
from our mailing_list, please feel 'free to do so by sending
an E-mail with "Rem0ve" as the subject to greatbeeper.rem0ve@gmail.com
and I will honor your "0pt 0ut" requests, rem0ved your email address
personally and immediately from my emailist.

Uh, no. I think that once you decided to spam, you threw your "honor" out the window.

Write you a personal email to request to be "rem0ved"?
Uhuh, I don't think so.
I'll just hit the button that says "Report spam" - after I rant about you on my blog.

Tell me if you can understand what on earth these guys are trying to say.
It's as though they're writing in a foreign language closely related to English.
What on earth?

A bit of advice in corporate communications: be smart, not "clever"!

———- Forwarded message ———-

- deleted -

we have gone to great lengths to ensure the privacy of our members. please reciprocate and remove this content from your website.

Following a courteous note (excerpted above) from one of the writers of the original email, I have removed it.
I still have no idea what the original email was trying to say.
If you have to choose between clever or clear writing, choose the latter - especially if your message is going out across the spectrum of cultures and levels of English proficiency.

FINISHING this book was like waking from a dream, and what a dream it was. The Seduction of Water is a layered story, a myth retold in New York lingo.
—Seductive Intrigue review by Alpha Lim

This four-year-old article popped up today in my Google Alerts vanity search (what, you don’t have one? you don’t?).

Rereading it affirms to me that I made the right decision to sharpen my writing by joining the advertising industry.
I found the book review somewhat lyrical, but at the same time, I was thinking, “Dude, get to the point”.

I get to the point much quicker nowadays.
(Click here! Call now! Act fast!)

Are you learning something new every week?
If not, why are you still at that job?

Paying the bills, oh yea.
Go ahead and pay today’s bills, but don’t let your skills entropy to the point where you can’t pay tomorrow’s bills.
Your work isn’t about money, it’s about value, really.
Value to your employer, your customer, your client, your dependents, your causes, you.
Don’t sell any of them short.

(Remember, the taxman wants some value, too!)

I see your face and smile
and then I wonder
why can’t I just get down to work?

your sparkling eyes distract me
your perfect white teeth taunt me
I should just get down to work

I love the way your hair falls into place
it makes me think of GTD workflow
now I’ll really get down to work

My latest pen adventure began with my insurance agent.

See, she handed me her Mont Blanc to sign the papers for my boy’s insurance plan.
(I’ve since come to learn that Mont Blancs are legendary for their writing feel.)
Anyway, filling in the forms with that unnecessarily luxurious pen caused a crisis of longing in me.
(Insurance agents have a collection of unnecessarily luxurious items meant for causing crises of longing.)

I had previously settled happily on the Kilometrico black medium ballpen. (Bought three packs of it, in fact.)
And just recently - at that time - I had moved on to the Faber-Castell black medium ballpen.
Years ago, I used to swear by a Parker Jotter with a black medium ballpen refill.
Haha. Mr Consistent, that’s me. (In some things.)

Anyway:
That Mont-Blanc-inspired crisis of longing made me challenge my values again.
I wanted something smooth. With a highly opaque ink.
Some googling later, I had (re)discovered the Pilot G2, favourite of geeks the world over.
Go ahead - google it. You’ll find it right next to the geeks and their Moleskines.

And then, in my googles, I discovered that Parker makes gel ink refills for their ballpens.
Duh. Why didn’t someone say something before?

Well, long story short, I bought a Parker black medium gel ink refill.
I’m one happy camper right now.
Except for one thing, maybe - medium nibs are just right for oil-based ballpen inks, but too fat for water-based gel inks, which tend to bleed more.
I’ll try out a Parker black fine gel ink refill and report back here.
If that works out, I will have come full circle.

Almost. Instead of a Parker Jotter (or needlessly thick-girthed Mont Blanc aimed at the male market, heh), I’m using a surprisingly hefted click-action ballpen that I got for free at some tech event I can’t even remember.
Use has rubbed off the sponsor’s markings, leaving me with a nice faux metal pen with black trimmings (that’s rather wider-girthed than a Jotter).

What’s with all this rambling? Would anyone be interested to know these things?
I don’t know. I’m just sharing.
You know - they way they do at Alcoholics Anonymous.

I just saw Iron Man last night.
(late, I know.)
the most eye-popping scene for me, was when they showed a series of famous magazine covers featuring Tony Stark, and the Forbes one yelled:

Tony Stark Takes the Reigns at 21

aiyaiyaiyaiyai.

maybe they were going for:

Tony Stark Takes the Reins at 21

or even:

Tony Stark Takes the Reign at 21

but surely, surely, surely, not “Tony Stark Takes the Reigns at 21″?

you really should hire a pro.
avoid long term shame with a little up-front pain.
get yourself a writer/editor.

even Iron Man needs one.

give me a call, drop me a line, okay?
(I don’t laugh at clients.)

Dear Friend,

I had planned to write a thoughtful, considered Christmas message.
but instead, I offer you this greeting from Santa and his reindeer, which a friend sent to me (thanks, Elaine):

Merry Christmas!

this Christmas, we’re grateful for the gift of your friendship and the present of your presence, which we hope to enjoy more fully in the coming year…

with love from Alpha, Adeline & Seth

PS: check out Seth’s first composition…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwxVR_Yv2qI&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6]

My life changed when I decided, one day, that “make a lot of money” would be my number one goal. Focusing on that goal and making it a priority changed my income… from about $50,000 a year to seven-plus figures. It changed my business status from that of a nameless employee to that of an employer of hundreds. It changed my lifestyle from one of making minimum payments on credit card statements to the kind happy movies provide for their heroes.

But it also had two negative consequences:

1. I gave up thousands of hours of good times with friends and family.

2. I did a few things I wish I hadn’t.

It was 1982 when I set that goal. I had just been hired as editorial director for a fledgling publishing company in South Florida. Although I knew that there are more important things in life than money, I figured that if I made the money first, I could then have everything else too. (I knew nothing about making money. I had come from a family of teachers.)

It worked. Big time. But, as I said, there were unexpected side effects.

Thinking back, I realize that I could have made all the money I wanted without suffering those side effects. So if you are at the beginning of your wealth-accumulating journey, I have some observations and suggestions for you that may be helpful.

Let’s start with this. Perhaps the best thing about having “make a lot of money” as my number one goal was that it made subsequent business decisions much easier.

Prior to establishing money as my priority, I was never sure if I was making the right call. Faced with multiple options, I could see some merit in just about all of them. I’d force myself to pick one… and then worry that it might have been the wrong one.

But now that I knew what I wanted, there was no longer such uncertainty and self-doubt. I’d listen to a question or problem and ask myself, “What solution would give me the best return in terms of money?”

Suddenly, complicated problems were simple to resolve and difficult questions were easily answered. I went from being an editor who was ambivalent about marketing and argumentative about quality to a businessman who had an “amazingly good” instinct about what would sell and what wouldn’t.

Within 18 months of my making this transformation, our business went from a negative worth of more than a million dollars to a million dollars in the black. And then it got better! Two years later, my partner/boss gave me a plaque that read “Michael Masterson: Marketing Genius.”

That’s what’s good about making wealth building your priority.

The mistake I made was in how I dealt with this priority. Lacking the experience I have now, I made two big mistakes:

1. I was too short-term-oriented.

2. I ignored my instincts about quality.

What that amounted to was this: I sometimes promoted products that weren’t as good as they could have been. Since I knew I could sell the heck out of them, and since I believed that selling the heck out of them was the only thing that mattered, I’d allow inferior products to reach the marketplace.

I didn’t do this all the time. It was probably the exception rather than the rule. But whenever I did it, I regretted it. And that’s the point of today’s message.

If you want to make wealth building your number one goal, go for it. But make sure you go after that wealth with a long-range view of making profits and a serious commitment to creating good products.

If you do it that way, it will be a little tougher at first. You will have to spend more money improving the product and you’ll have to wait a little longer for it to be produced. But in the long run you’ll make more money and will be happier, because your customers will stay with you and reward you with continued buying.

I was talking to “Eliza” this weekend about her career. She was considering a job offer that would double her income and put her on a rapid road to wealth. “I am tempted to take the offer,” she told me, “but I don’t want to make money the center of my life. I want to do good for people.”

Had she said this to me many years ago, I would have told her to get real. Now, I realized that her instinct was right. She should never make the pursuit of money her primary objective. She should be in a business that she wants to be in. She should sell products she’s proud of selling. She should find some way to make her business interests coincide with her personal ethics and dreams.

“Yes,” I said to Eliza,” make the good you can do for people your primary goal. But pay attention to the money as well, because it will be the best and simplest way to measure the financial health of your business.”

You should be in business to provide people with something of value. If you conduct your business correctly and offer them a good deal - and if the product you sell is something they really want - you’ll make plenty of money.

Russ Whitney put it this way in his book Millionaire Real Estate Mentor: “Money is a result, not a cause. If you get into business solely for the money, chances are you will never be great at what you’re doing. That’s why so many people fail at network-marketing businesses - they’re attracted by the promise of big profits, but then they realize they have to sell soap or vitamins or lotions or whatever, and don’t want to do that. Get into a business that you like, learn it thoroughly, and do it right. The money will come automatically.”

I’ve heard the same thing said by professional athletes. The guys who do it right - who have long, successful careers - play because they love to play. People like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods don’t work as hard as they do for the money. They do it because they want to be the best. And in being the best, they earn amazing amounts of money. The money is the result, not the cause.

Money isn’t the root of all evil, but the love of money is.

Don’t love money. Love the idea of your business. Love the good that it does. Love the fact that in some way your products meet the needs or wants of your customers. See money for what it is - a neutral indicator of how good you are at doing what you do. If the value you provide is worth the money you get for it, people will buy what you’re selling. The better the value you give, the more money you will get.

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, a free newsletter dedicated to making money, improving health and secrets to success. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

What's it like to live with Aids?
what's it like when a positive test result is a negative thing?
what's it like to die alone and discarded?

I hope you'll never know these things.

Except in World Vision's One Life Revolution.

it's an immersive art installation. that's how I'd describe it if you were to ask me.
you listen to a narrated audio soundtrack as you walk through a life-like recreation of three innocent HIV sufferers' worlds.

the person who emerges from the back door will be a different person from the one who walked in the front door.

do it.

it's harrowing, but it's like an engaging movie or a passionate play. for us.
for them, it's life. and death.

http://worldvision.com.my/onelife/
next installation: Berjaya Times Square, Nov 28 - Dec 1, 2008

They say a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind…, originally uploaded by alphalim.

… They are just jealous.

Want to see where I write?

when you have a clean desk, you can be more productive.
and you can gloat.
click through the photo to Flickr, for a guided tour!

just having a little fun, maybe to assuage the pain of loss.
we just saw the Hayashis off at the airport.
Takeshi was our church’s seminary intern for four years during his studies here in Malaysia.

we will miss you all.

It’s freebie season.
I’ve told you about the Tribes free audiobook.
now, here’s the Tribes Q&A pdf–also free.

Seth Godin has this thing about spreading his ideas far and wide.
I’m happy to oblige.
he’s got some great ideas.
the idea of Tribes–that people want to belong and not just buy–is highly recommended.

go get the free pdf!