Thursday, October 10, 2013

Creativity x Start-up x Innovative by Chim Shui Man

Mr Chim Shui Man(詹瑞文/Jim) - Not only he's one of the leading drama kings in Hong Kong who demonstrates great creativity, he also has superior business sense running his own business. It's a great talk organised by The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation Limited with Mr Jim sharing his experiences in a pleasant atmosphere ! 

Mr Jim Chim - seminar by HKMC 
He started by his views on business. Many people want to create their own business but imagine their working life like this: 9am: wake up and work, 10am: chat with customers, 12noon: lunch, 3pm: accounting, 5pm: off work.

The real business enviroment is like a war. If you want to live a life like above, you better apply to be a civil servant in Hong Kong government. 

The most important thing is to EARN money. The interesting thing about drama industry in Hong Kong is - he used to spend money from funding from government and not thinking the concept of making money. 

Then, he introduced 4 personality:
- skillful: stick in own profession, take him as an example, he focuses in drama
- marketing: know how to promote and sales
- management: manage or motivate others
- creative: give directions  

The kind of personality decides your fate. If you don't even think of your dreams, how can you achieve your business success! 

After his graduation in Hong Kong, he applied scholarship to UK to study drama. Starting his career as an actor, he received compliments from UK audience of performing pantomime with "Chinglish". He thought Hong Kong audience would also like this kind of shows, he decided to bring this performance back to Hong Kong.

Coming back to Hong Kong, he just performed on the streets in Sheung Wan with few audience. People at that time only rehearsed their drama in outdoor places in Polytechnic University. Later, he felt that he needed a better place for rehearsing. He borrowed money from finance corporation to rent a place in a factory building and redesigned it. The place was equiped with his first fax machine and a computer. That's the start of his own business.

He also faced hard times running his business. He realized that his industry is in luxury sector. People would buy tickets unless they want to improve their spirital enjoyment. However, the economy was extremely bad in 2008 and it was hard for him to sell the show tickets(男人之虎). He restructured and had lay-offs in his company during financial tsunami. This was a painful process for him.

At that time, he also worked with Giordano to create a series of t-shirts named "Cheer you up" to cheer Hong Kong people during the hard time of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. The sales reached 1 million across the globe. This brings in cash flow for him to overcome the hardness in bad times. The most important thing he recalled from his experience is "CHANGE"! 

He created his own company "PIP "which stands for his living philosophy "Pleasure Imagination Play". He is now still working with passion and sharing his happiness with Chinese speaking audience! 

The last thing he shared is about his understanding of business(生意) which stands for the meaning of life (生命的意義). 

In Q&A session, someone asked how to boost creativity. Jim encouraged using differenet ways to stimulate your brain such as using left hand for eating, change your ways to work, switch to ATV instead of TVB. People get used to their own way of living and don't want to change and that hinder creative minds.

Another guy from a game start-up company said he's facing competitiors copying game ideas. He'd like to know how to prevent this issue. Jim said it's really a problem but the reality is - Samsung beats Apple by making a few changes to iPhone. How you twist the brillant idea into your thing is important in business. 

Friday, July 12, 2013

Lego 香港展覽 - 太古城 Piece of Peace

太古城lego展覽展示了不同城市建築物,細緻得令人歎為觀止! 四十件文化遺產活現眼前,的確擴闊小孩子的眼光! 今次首次衝出日本於香港公展,以宣揚和平為目的,更特別新建三件中國地區的展品,富士山模型更首度曝光。

但你不會知道lego這個王國,其實也經歷過財困。Bloomberg便訪問了"Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry "的作者Robertson講解Lego周轉的策略,Lego如何改寫了創新規劃,征服了玩具業。

Lego磚自1958年於丹麥創立,立即瘋魔全世界,為何Lego後來會有財困呢?原來Lego投入過多資源進行產品研發,利潤減少。當時Lego覺得玩具漸漸電子化,你看現在多數人都使用智能電話玩遊戲,多於實物,Barbie等玩具也試過被電子遊戲超越銷售。

當其他玩具的生產大多東移到中國之時,Lego依然在丹麥生產,令Toys "R" Us、Walmart等玩具零售商的銷售貨架上Lego玩具的售價較其他玩具高,銷售受影響。而現在Lego的生產也不限於丹麥,Mexico也有生產Lego玩具。

你也想去Legoland吧,這是另一個生意模式,Lego t-shirt、手錶、精品等等…Lego也嘗試開發女性市場,但發覺不太成功後,再專注以往的警察、消防員模型。

Customization也是另一個方向,除此以外,Lego還徵求新idea,如果你有一個自己設計的Lego模型,你可參與CUUSOO project,當你的design賣出後,你可獲得1%利潤。詳情︰http://lego.cuusoo.com/guidelines

Lego所賣的不是玩具,而是construction experience,讓小孩子感覺像工程師,建立屬於自己的建築。就像Starbucks賣的不是一杯咖啡,而是experience一樣,這個模式令lego成為玩具王國。

可按此聽全部訪問內容︰
http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/Economics/On_Economy/vD4MTSChHu6Q.mp3


Thursday, June 27, 2013

Heineken® Star Serve Program in HK

Learn to pour perfect draught beer by Heineken Star Serve Program!!! U may think, why why why? Everyone loves to drink beer and why bartenders need to learn to pour beer? 

Taught by Heineken Draught Master Franck Evers, he showed how to make a world class beer into world class drinking experience! Each Heineken office has a mini-bar for demonstration! 

He started by what irrates you when drinking beer? Most people answer with foam, followed by smell, freshness, glass, etc... He also explained the foam is for "protection"! Preventing the carbon dioxide from the beer to escape and oxygen from getting in to affect the freshness of beer.

WIth 5 simple steps, you can pour your own Star Serve Heineken Beer to perfection! 

Step 1: RINSE: Rinse the glass to make it clean and cold
Step 2: POUR: Pour with the glass at a 45" angle for a full, satisfying head
Step 3: SKIM: Skim off the foam at a 45" angle to seal the head
Step 4: CHECK: Check that the head sits on the horizontal line of the star
Step 5: SERVE: Serve on a coaster with the logo facing your customer! 

5 simple steps to perfection!
He asked one of the guests to pour beer in front of the audience. The first pouring was bad! Too much foam inside the beer and no one wanted to drink! The guest was given one more chance to try pouring beer, this time Franck set an aim for the guest. With an aim, the guest showed an improvement for the second beer.

He showed us an interesting experience too. When a person start drinking beer in front of the audience, everyone in the room shows the "swallow" and "feel thirst" and wants to drink beer! that's funny! We were given a chance to pour our own beer and drank together! 

In the end, Franck Evers presented a certificate to all participants, certifiying we can pour a qualified Heinken beer, a good customer engagement program! 


Wednesday, June 12, 2013

南海十三郎

this song from "南海十三郎" is really funny!!!

Oh Oh my sweet heart, I'm captured by your eyes.
See now I am 10 feet high.
I don't know how it starts.
Love at first sight have u ever learnt?

Thursday, May 09, 2013

城鎮化概念一覽

1. 鐵路  - 建鐵路 vs. 收鐵路貨運費
2. 汽車
3. 輸油汽管道
4. 內地航空
5. 航運股
6. 電力為基礎建設
7. 水務股
8. 城市建設水泥
9. 建設城市要用工具
10. 內房股
11. 銀行 (金融改革)
12. 國外品牌 (能打進內地,或是被內地企業收購對象)

Friday, March 29, 2013

Networking that impact your bottom line Part II

Joined a valuable event by SME Creativity Centre. Daniel Tse, owner of presence.hk, is the presenter of the event. He taught networking skills that is extremely useful in real business.

He started by recapping main points in his networking skills part 1. How to make people remember you. There are 20 topics you can learn and some are like wine tasting, sports, etc. Find common topics that interest your clients. It's like playing ball games, you shoot a ball to others and if others can't return back, please change your topic and make the flow of your networking better.

He recommended a book "7 Habits of highly effective people" by Stephen Covey which teaches networking skills and etiquette in business. He recalled one of his clients who claimed even manager grades colleagues didn't have appropriate business etiquette.

Why etiquette is important? It's vital for relationship building. A famous writer, Emily Post, claims that most clients will like your company, then know and finally trust your company and make business with you. Every detail is key! The situation is like when you enter a room with nice carpets, good atmosphere, beautiful installation but with a pin on the floor! You get hurt and leave a bad impression of the room even with good decorations.

Three "B"s to bear in mind during business lunch: Be sincere, Be caring and Be respectful. Your clients will know if you are sincere to them or not. Keep the same manner to people lower grades than you. Your client is observing how you behave!

Other things to keep in mind is "MAM", which stands for "Mouth", "Animal" and "Mess". When you are the host of business lunch, please beware of the following:

  • Type of cuisine (research what your client like)
  • Restaurants that've been tried & tested (Don't try new restaurants as the quality & service is not stable)
  • Offer options in dates (at least 2) and invite early
Dress appropriate unless you work for fashion industry. Always dress up rather than dress down. Wait for guest at lobby at least 10 minutes before event.

When is the right time to discuss business in a meal? After starter? Dessert? The answer is after main meal. If you meet a client during lunch, especially a guy, he must be hungry at that time and can't concentrate on what you're presenting. Be patient and let your client eat something first before your discussion. 

Order food that is of medium price, clean, tidy and easy to eat such as fillet or risotto.  Don't be adventurous.