Bercuti…

Semenjak dua menjak kembali ke tanahair, rasanya tak pernah lagi kami sekeluarga pergi jejalan bersama. Dah dekat 9 bulan la kalau cam gitu.

Masa di Troy, boleh kata setiap bulan mesti ada saja tempat baru kami terokai kat US sinun. Maybe pasalnya banyak masa yang terluang dan dah tentu tak sesibuk sekarang.

Jadinya kami plan nak ke PD minggu ni. Kebetulan one of my juniors masa di RPI dulu ada buat majlis sedikit di rumahnya, somewhere in PD as well.

Al kisahnya, last Mondah sy buatlah reservation online kat satu hotel ni. Dah terbiasa ngan hotwire.com and kayak.com gamaknya.

So semalam, calling2 la hotel tu to confirm my reservation. Tau apa kisahnya?

“Oh, encik reserved a room guna web ya? Maaf yer, kami memang tak terima reservation encik. Ada problem dengan sistem tu. Memang dah lama dah. Dan kebetulan pula, semua bilik dah penuh this weekend. Maaf yer.”

Err, HELLO!!!???? Habis buat apanya buat website cecantik dan provide the online reservation facility tu? Eye candy jer ker? Oh, tanahairku….

Brand & Me

Tiger Woods, satu dunia kenal dia. Roger Federer, ditto. Ronaldo, ditto as well.

Sebut je nama diaorang ni, we will often associate them with the type of sports they are in: golf, tenis and soccer. Alaaa, sama macam bila kita nak beli ubat gigi, kita cakap nak beli colgate and maggi untuk mee segera.

In a nutshell, they’re the brands. Dapat tangkap tak apa yang saya melalut ni?

Just think for a sec, bila kita terdengar a person’s name yang kita kenal, we will usually develop a mental image about that person based on our previous experience/knowledge/interaction with that person. So, whether we realise or not, kita sendiri is the brand.

How to determine whether you are a good and quality brand or not? Your appearance, your interpersonal skills, your expertise etc, all these count.

At the end of the day, it’s all about arriving to brand recognition… Errr, get what I mean?

Tak pe lah. All of a sudden, I just felt a need to offload some of my thoughts in writing. Later…

More about brand is just a click away http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/brandequity/

Gurney Drive…

9:53 pm. Gurney Drive. Here I am writing from the comfort of one of the bestest* hotels I ever stayed in. Errr well, in fact I think this is the first time I ever stayed in one .  Broadband free. Laju lak tu. K, moving on…

I was over here at Gurney Drive since yesterday to deliver my paper@project. All alone by myself this time around. Ayu and kakak have their own commitments these days. So, not fair for me to drag them together. They sacrificed for me a lot while I was in the States. I couldn’t ask for more, could I?

Since this was my first major presentation since coming back, I fully understood the kind of expectation coming from others aka the crowd later on. So, tiga hari tiga malam asyik dok mengadap cermin. Practice, practice and practice.

The audience? From small2 boss up to BIG2 time Boss . Ada la dekat 100 gitu2. Supposedly mine was scheduled yesterday but due to some technical issues, I was only up on the rostrum this morning.

Nervous? Ada skit2 bro. But it’s true like what people often say, a little bit of nervous helps to keep you on your toes, so to speak. Once you got too comfy, then your presentation is destined for disaster. Period.

Alhamdullilah, I presented my paper quite well (hehehe, masuk lif tekan sendiri). The audience was very receptive even though it was still early in the morning. I saw some nodding heads among the crowd during the 20 minutes time I took to speak, agreeing with some of the points I articulated. That sure helped me a lot.

But in all seriousness, I have to thank the good professors and my dear colleagues at RPI for their kindness and guidance in helping me to become a better presenter. Thanks you guys!

* Aqif like to use this word to describe how grrrreat one thing is. How kewl is that, huh? Make sense for me. Best, bester, bestest…

A little of this, a little bit of that…

I’m back . It’s been a while, huh? Either I was supa busy or I’m teribbly bad when it comes to time management .

So, where should I begin? Lots of things happened over the past a month or so, career-wise and of course, family-wise.

Cerita pasal kerja, Alhamdullilah, dah terima pink form – surat keramat yang satu tu. So, tak lah dok tertanya2 lagi kat mana posting lepas ni. Tapi tanggungjawab dah tentu bertambah.

Ternyata benar. Bulan nie saja, boleh bilang dengan jari berapa hari lekat kat opis. The rest, sama ada attend meeting/kursus atau conduct bengkel.

In fact, pagi tadi sebelum subuh – 3:00 in the morning to be exact, dah ada kat atas jalan nak ke Lumut. Abis taklimat around 11:00 am, I was back on the road heading to Shah Alam. Ouch, SYMP .

Famili? Ayu dah mula kerja di Kota Damansara. Yang bestnya, my better half masuk opis pkl 2:00pm, balik at 6:00 pm. How kewl is that kan? Errr, ada kerja kosong tak Pn Pengurus? Saya tak demand gaji tinggi, janji.

As for Khairina, she’s begining to enjoy her school days di SK Bandar Anggerik. Bahasa Melayu pun dah bertambah bagus. Couldn’t ask for more, could we? But still her fav subject just got to be English…

Kawan pun dah bertambah ramai. Cumanya dia kenal the girls jer, boys sorang tak cam. Katanya, boys are naughty. Hehehe, Abah knows best, my dear.

Aqif? Sebulan jer masuk kintergarden. Sekarang, dia berenti kejap. Pasalnya, tadika kat rumah kami ni tak ada student except from him. Good for his education allright, cumanya his social interaction skills kureng ler skit. Itu yang nak kena mencari tempat baru untuk our dearest baby.

So, there you have it a little of this and a little of that of my life for the time being. Like I seriously miss writing on this blog. Ingat nak kena sambung belajar lagi nampak gayanya cam gini…