Ramadan and Goal Setting

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With the discipline that it entails for a duration of about 30 days, Ramadan is an excellent opportunity for the following:

1. Break bad habits
2. Install new good habits
3. Accomplish pending goals

Spend your Ramadan wisely for yourself in this world, and for the life beyond. Have a good one.

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.

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.

There is A Deeper World Than This

I’ve decided to categorize this under “Islam” too, and I think you’ll understand why. Enjoy this song the best way you can. c”,)

In the empire of the senses
You’re the queen of all you survey
All the cities all the nations
Everything that falls your way
There is a deeper world than this
That you don’t understand
There is a deeper world that this
Tugging at your hand

Every ripple on the ocean
Every leaf on every tree
Every sand dune in the desert
Every power we never see
There is a deeper wave than this
Swelling in the world
There is a deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl

Feel it rising in the cities
Feel it sweeping over land
Over borders, over frontiers
Nothing will its power withstand
There is no deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl

All the bloodshed all the anger
All the weapons all the greed
All the armies all the missiles
All the symbols of your fear
There is a deeper wave than this
Listen to me girl

At the still point of destruction
At the center of the fury
All the angels all the devils
All around us can’t you see
There is a deeper wave than this
Rising in the land
There is a deeper wave than this
Nothing will withstand

I say love is the seventh wave

Beijing Olympics 2008 Begins

Go, and amaze us.

The Art of The Forum

So today I was at Bugis, near Masjid Sultan, on stage together with AbangAbu, Fadzuli and Shaheed. A forum of some sorts, where the stall owners and anyone in that area could ask questions related to business. Think Forum Perdana meets The Apprentice, with a pinch of rojak.

It was going well, all smiles and all as we tried to answer as best as we could (looking as best as we could) amidst the humid weather. Then this “ha-you-gen” (the streetfighter fireball sound that Ryu and Ken make… oh come on, don’t pretend you don’t know!) like question came salvo-ing at me, a question that I think will haunt me for some time to come…

“What is the best marketing strategy you have for me?”

A giant gong-like sound went in my head.

I did not answer the question as well as I expected myself to. Then in the bus and walking home I was still thinking of my response. The question itself was okay, no points deducted for the generality of it (it is a public forum, so what do you expect Hafihz?). However what followed came the realization of how to answer forum questions when you’re a panelist.

The Art of The Forum: Answer with Finesse.

Idea Plus Square Equals Origami

Amazing.

The Next 5000 Days of The Web

Eerily reminds me of The Matrix.

Your Life in a Flash

Super cool and presentable. Spice up your About Page with this gem:

Have Adab with Knowledge

Life and its many colours [part 2]. In my networks there is one segment who never made it through university, and are now threading their own paths. I have no problems with this at all.

But I have a strong objection against turning back and ridiculing the institution. Juxtapositions are made that these sort of institutions are very theoretical and do not produce people who shape the world. I beg to differ on two counts, and challenge anyone who has these sort of views to a debate with me (did I mention I used to be a primary school debating champion? oh yes… the days where I Iearnt the art of persuasion in my short shorts…):

1. Theories at university level are extremely sound, and become theories after passing through peer reviews in academic journals. These theories are not your Sunday afternoon “I think…” moments while sipping coffee. They are based on a multitude of facts and case studies. Also, graduates from such institutions have hands on experiential experience as well as set from the faculty. These programs literally inject these individuals into established places where the meat is, for them to filter and learn the application of these theories. So the whole jublaa (I believe I just coined a new word… Oxford, please register it) of theories but no practicality of these institutions does not have a strong base that supports contention. Theories can be challenged, but please, provide some evidence before nonchalantly brushing aside a scholarship of work behind such frameworks. There is no Adab (code of courtesy and decorum) in that at all.
2. It’s very cool to fathom the movers and shakers as being street smarts, and those who’ve graduated from university as well, the “unrealistic”. You’d hear these sort of nuances coming from those who’ve framed themselves cool of course… the “street smarts”. All this is a waste of time. People who change the world come from all walks of life.

On a another note, and specifically towards Marketing, I’ve spent a good deal of time sharing what I’ve learnt. Some accept it well while others question. I again have no problems with the latter, but the adab must be there. Please respect the knowledge, not my knowledge, but the knowledge itself. Our discovery of knowledge grows when ideas are questioned seriously and not finger pointed at just for the sake of it. My asatizah readers might be able to relate to this one: it is a trivial bug in the ways at which some religious doctrines are discussed and debated by persons without the qualification to do so. I feel the same with Marketing, and suspect it’s stretched across fields of knowledge.

If you do want to reject, please share the evidence as well. Of course, the same is true for me, I should share the facts and data to support my claims. But we share according to standards. Not doing so is tantamount to error on the part of the person with the knowledge. For example, if a professor in geography was asked by a kindergarten student what is global warming, the last thing you’d hear is the proff going into stratosphere and precipation mean values. No, he would explain it by what the child knows is his world: The world gets hotter by man made stuff (for example). And that’s it. So similarly even if you’re in business, I will look at your level, and answer according to what you understand. So for example, if you asked me what’s wrong with your marketing, I won’t say something like “Your VRIO model is weak, and your Porter’s five forces shows extreme strain which might liquidate your…”  ….

I’d just say: You need a website. Khalas.

Subhanaka la ‘ilmalana illaa ma ‘allamtana, innaka antal’aliimulhakiim.

Glory be to You, we have no knowledge except for what You have taught us. Verily it is You, the All-Knower, the All-Wise.

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