The Ramadan Blogging Project 2008

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Ramadan is coming. If you have a blog, I have an idea…

1. Reply to this post saying that you would like to be part of the project, with your blog site in your comments.
2. In the whole of Ramadan, blog about the beauty of Islam. No complaints, no ill remarks about anyone, no sarcasm about anything. Just blog purely on your love of Islam and its many facets throughout the whole month.
3. If many blogs participate (estimated by the number of comments in this entry), we’ll pick the best entries and compile them, possibly into an eBook…OR
4. Turn them into a physical book. (I’ll update my readers after Ramadan)

Copy this address http://www.hafihz.com/contests/ramadanblogging08/ and forward to as many Muslim bloggers as possible. You can also blog about this idea with a link to my site.

Let’s make this Ramadan meaningful even in our blogging.

Fight Fires, Don’t Drown

That one-of-a-kind migraine you feel when you see something done awfully wrong, and you have the skills to correct it.

You roll up your sleeves, pick the nearest, most powerful hose available, and start distinguishing all the fires you see with joy (and little anger too). You pour out the frameworks, knock some heads, with one united voice guiding your body and head…

“Wake up your idea!”

Sometimes though, the hose is really too strong. You end up sweeping people away, and drowning some. So while you’re trying to put out the fires, you might just end up drowning people…

And yourself.

Don’t get to that point. If you’re sunk, we’d have to wait for another time for another hero to emerge and set things right. Correct problems wisely and with patience. Yes, it erks the living lights out of you how things are done, but correcting problems at the expense of hurting feelings and causing chaos is not the way to go.

Just like threading a needle. You aim for the eye of the needle gently. Once that’s done, you can done pull firmly.

Thread lightly.

Spreading Cheating is Not Cool

Every morning when I go to work now, at about the 4th bus stop a dad will board the bus with his young son (maybe primary 2?). And everyday, he’ll tap his and his son’s ezlink on the exit reader as he walks pass the exit doors immediately after entry. Effectively, he has paid zilch for his bus ride.

I wonder what sort of signals he’s giving his young son. Young people learn by emulating the older ones. So if the older ones who matter to them are cheating, the young ones may pick up the habit, thinking that it’s okay, thinking that it’s cool.

Please don’t encourage your students to cheat. If you do, that’s your business. Don’t spread the virus. Don’t tell people that they can enter university classes for free and make it sound cool. Try saying that to the student who toils during the weekends to survive getting a tertiary education to support her two ill parents and maybe someday give them a better home.

Uphold the ethics of entrepreneurship.

Pitching Yesterday’s News

It’s a disease of pitching some have. The poor salesman attempts to give great insight, but uses facts that are dusty, and stuff that almost everyone knows. It’s worse when you knew the fact eons ago.

And he sounds extremely convinced (not leaving any room to probability or other factors), and wonders why you’re not.

I think marketeers (or anyone in the act of talking clients) should have an annual meeting, to discuss phrases and ideas which should not be used anymore, simply because they’re old. Some examples

• “You know, actually customers don’t like ads”
• “You see, marketing is all about branding”

Really? Wow.

It’s not that the concepts are wrong or right, but it’s the way they’re presented. The “You know actually” or “You see… all about” is extremely juxtaposing and signals a lack of tact and experience. It’s not actually this… nor all about that. It’s more than that. So when the pitcher sounds like the universe revolves around him by making these absolute statements, and makes it worse by presenting basics as thought they are “extraordinary information” (showing a lack of exposure and reading on the part of the one pitching)…

He’ll soon be yesterday’s news too.

Get People Better Than You

For quite some time, I’ve been in the advisory seat. I would have short meetups and advice businesses on their marketing angles.

Today I was the client. It was a short meetup with the creatives agency incharge of designing our ads. Me and my manager fed him with the concept, and showed him 6 prototypes of 6 different angles of approach.

He came with a 7th. We loved it.

If you’re paying someone, it emphasizes the point. Surround yourself with people better than you in the different areas of life. Don’t pay for mediocrity. And if you’re worried of feeling inferior, therin lies the test of your ability to lead people with better skills than you.

Attempt to lead leaders. It’s a fail-safe way to continue growing after school days.

When Your Branding Gets to You

Sometimes it benefits you. Sometimes it rings.

I’m talking about self-branding (what people know you as). Take me: I’m the marketing/malay/nus/wrote the book/business/entrepreneurial guy whose supposed to help you with your business/marketing/ …

You get the idea.

Sometimes I’d just like to introduce myself as the guy who likes Nasi Ayam. Or the one who likes Nasi Lemak with fish, not chicken. You know, I really like Nasi Lemak with fish. If you bought me Nasi Lemak, and you remembered that I like fish, then that may just make my day.

So while we’re networking about your entreneurial venture or your marketing woes, please buy me Nasi Lemak with fish too. I’m Hafihz…

With the H.

Cover Story in Teens’ Crossroads Magazine

My 4th article for Darul Arqam’s Teens’ Crossroads magazine, and InsyaAllah not the last. The brief given was to write an article which would uplift and motivate the youths when faced with setbacks in their school days. I had chosen the title “The Art of Failing Forward“.

You can download the article via a link under eLearning.

Silly Promotions Copywriting

2 recent examples:

• “All items at 73% of price” - It’s bad enough that the customer has to take awhile to figure out that it’s therefore at 27% sale (which would have been visually easier to understand). Challenging the customer to try and mentally calculate what’s 27% off anything is another story altogether.
• “$40 per hour (minimum 4 hours)” - Why can’t you just tell me “Minimum 4 hours for $160″ instead of having me do a quick and unnecessary mental sum?

Dear businessman, on your product the price tag is your favourtie part. And it’s the part customers hate the most too. So please make something which is already painful for the customer easier on the eyes. We want to enjoy shopping…

And not do unnecessary calculations.

Breaking News: Singapore Yahoo Auctions Closing Down

I’ve been trying to access Yahoo Auctions Singapore for the past month. Today, this is what I saw:

Nice. Comments, anyone?

Look for Whinocerous

This is a short follow up to the previous article on being customer centric. In this article, I want to take you to the marketing zoo…

Lots of animals hang about in the marketing zoo. Some are beautiful but silent. Others look like they’re not alive, but when they move they sometimes stun you. Some too make lots of noise.

Let’s go to a section of the zoo called “Target Market”. In this section, the animals have different looks. But they all like your ABC bananas. Some however make lots of noise. They’re called the whinocerous.

You love these animals because they are the ones you want to have whining. Careful now, don’t listen to the other sounds you might hear when you’re still with the whinocerous. Take care of the whinocerous, cause they are in the Target Market section, your first favourite section. When the whinocerous don’t make noise anymore, then we might try taking our ABC bananas to the animals we remembered (or still are) making noise…

The monkeys.

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