Archive for the ‘Business talks’ Category

Changing How your World Works

Posted: February 22, 2012 in Active Minority, Business talks, Travel, tourism & Me
Tags: , , ,
2

I remember the first time I took a real job back in 1999, a small boutique office located on the premises of a 5star hotel, serving as a travel agency and as a General Sales Agent for a reputed airline, it was boutique because it was a small red and white theme colored office, tucked in between the shades of luscious palm trees and murmurs of water fountains to greet passing travelers.

We were a 5 “sometimes 6″ employees operation. A manager was there, his assistant, me, the accountant (or the finance manager as believed frequently by himself) and particularly, an office-boy who is approximately 90+ years old. This office was located a minute of walk away from home, and so, that office quite often became a visiting spot to me as a child, while my father arranged for his travels. and so, I got to spend a lot of time watching the same travel agents servicing my father back then, becoming coworkers to me when I got tagged to adulthood later on.

Still watching the same office boy, with the same wrinkles (a couple of teeth less) while he frequently draw clueless smiles. I even remember his constant appeals to my father to bring some lemons from the tree we had back home, only to make some lemon tea for the office employees, and even as I grew older into that job, I kept on the legacy of lemon flow.

Aside from that, everything went as it should be, I started to learn how to interact with travelers more, I embraced a more professional attitude, answered some calls here and there, drank and served a lot of tea and coffee, and eventually made some sales. I even started to work for them without the need of a salary, and every now and then, the accountant (AKA. Finance Manager) would reach out and give me some money, and even though he gave it to me only to feed his egoistic bossy attitude, I was always appreciative to whatever I accomplished, no matter how small it was. A couple of fights later I quit my job for an attitude he threw at me, but we remained friends nevertheless. (he’s now serving time for embezzlement)

I realized the need for a mature management approach, something that would help me gain more skills, and be a little bit aggressive toward sales. The earlier job taught me how to be nice and shut up when my rights are abused, I now need someone who will at least pay to abuse those rights! only for me to discover a well seasoned travel mentor, who probably admired my tolerance, and tested it with smashing phones on walls, and broken chairs of frustration while popping pills to numb obsessive compulsive tendencies (Admitted and frequently announced and proved by himself) only for him to explode on the drums of my mistakes!!! (I quit that job before having a nervous breakdown)

Years go by, many suits and uniforms to wear and buy, the more I advance and grow the more I spent and the less I saved, but why is it when I raise, so does my expenses! Where are all those efficiency tactics?… in the meantime “Ah” I finally made it… My own company, an executive office, with all the latest technologies and protocols money could ever buy for any CEO to become even more successful. Spending 4 times the original budget, with a 2 year marathon path to obtain “Not one, or two…Not even three or four, but FIVE trading licenses” while searching for employees, training them for 6 months or was it 7…I wasn’t sure! it needed to take as much time as it needed for us to rebuild an office, redesign it again from scratch “Not once, but twice” and pay salaries for 20 individuals throughout the whole process, while freezing all operations until we are licensed to start. What do you get at the end…? spoiled Employees and Employers. And regardless of the many mistakes I have accomplished in those years. I realized …it was time for me to retire!

Its time to stop wasting my energy on people who do not want to learn, and start focusing on what I need to learn instead “because apparently, I know nothing” even with that corner office. Because only then I thought, after all those years of dealing with people, screening them, literally hunting or haunting them, training them, observing them, even sometimes try and nurture them, mentally, emotionally and financially, for what… for NOTHING.

now I am retired from my devilish advocates, what can I do; I don’t want to spend more money on lost causes, nor I even want to try. shall I search online…huh, I barely can trust people offline, and the though of searching for work or hiring people online makes me almost want to laugh! but apparently what I should’ve been doing is Cry! because the solution was right there in-front of me and I couldn’t even see it…

Countless, endless days fuzed with nights, a printed square on my lap, surfing and clicking on dreamy thoughts of a small ATM machine built into my laptop screen. and since I was already living a dream ‘retired at 30′ I thought to myself “it won’t hurt to dream once more”.

realizing that, in order for me to make this dream a reality, there are certain things I will need to establish before any new discovery, and so I started preparing a list of thoughts… maybe you should too!

1- I was not ready to engage in any other business ventures, but at the same time, I realized that I need to create a method to raise more money, and even-though I had the mindset of being retired ‘that of being with no bosses around to control my income’ I still needed to be realistic in terms of making money, so my first thought was, for me to find something I can do, learn or research.

2- I knew I had a set of skills, and so I listed everything down, not necessarily in details, but just enough to recognize and open potentials.

3- I started thinking out of the box, and trying to create instead of researching for something that has been already created, and thus I decided to try and find something to learn first, at least keep me focused on a goal, and with a little bit of willpower I can progress to something better. Positivity is KEY

4- I came to a realization that, since I do not want to engage in a new business venture for now, and I cannot find any Jobs that would match my credentials, and since I am practically on my retirement holiday, how about a new adventure!

5- I took my wife and traveled to a small island in the middle of nowhere, literally feeling far away from the world we know and feel everyday, and where the only thing we are able to do is to spend time on reflecting and relaxing, only to find myself starting to write, expressing different emotions, experiences, while realizing that writing is the best way for me to reflect and learn more from my mistakes (Finally there is a record to prove it :-)

From that moment on, I truly felt free, and thanks to Google and some well invested time to research, surfing a new cyber of this world, leading me to a new identity, one that I could even trust, without the need to meet or fit with anyone or anything else.

But How does it work…

Many-times, I wished that I could have a non-bias mediator, between me and my employers, or me and my employees, which only meant the risk of more resources with no guaranteed results, but here is where the beauty of online technologies surface, creating a medium where employees are guaranteed payments upon accomplishing work, and employers paying work fees to employees only when the work is truly done. Not only that, but you get to apply for jobs as an employee by competing on bidding and relaying on quality of work, and employers get to offer jobs and receive best bids on them from both financial and quality aspects.

But that is not all, once I was able to go through their guidelines on how to develop my work and income, I was already starting to obtain new skills, especially through applying to tasks related to things I liked doing the most and not only related to my education or level of experience, while being away from routinized tasks, and increasing my multitasking abilities, aside from having many helpful tools for both employees and employers, such as the wide range of available online tests for employees as a proof to their efficiency, and an effective documentation to different skills that covers what any employer needs or employee wants. I found it to be the best application to be introduced to any individual or group of individuals who are willing to catch up with the train of the inevitable domination of the online world. Because the only sense you get to feel from singing up with this network is truly “changing how the world works”.


Click on the above image to JOIN

The great thing about Odesk is the relatively easy use of the application. I have been through most online freelance networks and nothing offers the same flexibility, organization and potential that this network has, especially if you are new to the online world and want to change the potentials in the ways you want to make money now, or in the near future, but is still in general, a great tool for any online contractors looking for more variety of work and/or motivated skillful employees with results, history and most importantly “feedback’s” from employers on employees and vice versa.

I even enjoy engaging with their support and help system, either live through their application, or for a much more fun networking experience through their social media networks or Blogs and other links associated with this rich network, while having a powerful success element most businesses online or offline forget; a support team and management with attitudes that can only be described as a treat, while offering a structured and maintained platform for any individual to achieve goals based on effort, efficiency, organization and result, and if you’re wondering that you still need anything else, try contacting one of their “Happiness Engineers”.

To me that’s all what I really needed, to accomplish things; a holistic operational system that provides constant opportunities to me, as an Employee, contractor or Employer “it doesn’t matter anymore” because I finally have my manager, my accountant and employees, and I don’t even have a Desk.

Budget your skies !

Posted: July 15, 2011 in Business talks, Travel, tourism & Me
Tags: , , ,
0

In the early years of my travel & tourism career, people had to go to the Airline office, or the travel agency to book their flights, ‘back then’ making and confirming a flight reservation took about 20+ minutes to process and confirm, going back and forth ‘on the phone’ with airline personals, sometimes it took even longer when the high season is near to come, which meant that higher demand during the season became an inconvenience to some extent.

I also needed another 30+ minutes to issue ONE airline ticket ‘manually’ prepared, in comparison to other travel agents I was fast in writing all aspects of the price rules and calculations, we even had to use countless amounts of paper to calculate how much the ticket would cost ‘which was not as easy as it would seem’ especially going through various ‘mathematical equations’ that relies on distance and locations, seasons and dates as well, not to forget the ‘huge’ inconvenience of worrying about this paper ticket with the same worries of bad scenarios in carrying or losing a passport.

Your only resource to calculate ticket prices as a travel agent was through a regularly updated guidebook of over 3000 pages issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to calculate ticket prices from and for each season. and even though the process was extremely inefficient and slow, from  regularly turning all those pages, taking hours to just be able to calculate the price of each ticket you issue during the day. People used to consider going to the Airline office or the Travel agency to be the beginning of their holiday and where designing memories starts to happen naturally and literally.

Travel agents investing time with their clients and guests, discussing various details for their guests desired destinations, drinking their favorite coffee or lemon mint tea, and no matter how much time it took to finalize a reservation or issue an Airline ticket, there was always time for a good laugh with a client, or a discussion for another potential exciting trip in the near future.

Years went by, computers and technology started to become more accessible and easier to use, then the internet was invented, and all of a sudden! Airlines started promoting for all their services online, and more competition started to heat up between Airlines and their Travel agents alike, fueled by increasing demand, Travel agencies turned their backs on their customers, and favored the corporate strategy in Hospitality and Tourism; Serving quantity rather than the quality! Which was understood, since it only takes ‘a couple of minutes’ to finalize all your reservation procedures, and so, clients’ visits became shorted, and coffee and tea became water.

Nowadays most people book their flights online, not only because of the easy accessibility to all flight schedules and the extra details they can input to secure their favorite requirements in choosing their favorite seat, meal and drinks. But the high demand and the necessity of airline travel to business and personal purposes alike, demands more and wider options to suite the increasing needs to find convenient flights with convenient prices.

With more and more rising demand on low cost Airlines, the evolving trend of cheap flights and convenient pricing techniques without sacrificing quality when it comes to economy couch flying, low cost airlines are becoming more and more favorable to the public as a frequent way for their travels, with the extended flexibility of choosing your seat online, or buying your favorite meals and drinks on board, the low cost experience in skies is taking a trend that would probably become the way to travel in the near future, especially with the encouragement of rising fuel prices and manufacturing costs on airline operators, directly effecting the price of airline tickets to unreasonable levels.

When looking at fine examples for low cost airline operators such as Air Asia (www.airasia.com) we no longer look at them as a cheap flights operators, and becoming a reliable regional carrier to an international low cost operator with an extended futuristic view in making international destinations more approachable and affordable to a wider base of the needing public , and is found by most as a perfect solution to their frequent travels whether domestic or international flights alike, and even providing the opportunity to various expatriates to commute more frequently with their loved ones or expanding their business relations to a wider demographic.

We can find various evolving examples of low-cost airlines, as well as the extreme luxurious experiences of flying ‘5 stars’ invading our skies, which makes you realize that, market trends in travel and tourism these days is a reflection to the world global economies separation between the rich and poor. Nevertheless, the effects of technology though ‘rapid’ but is widely appreciated and effective, and although it has created accessibility to all kinds of flights, international or cheap! The final choice remains dependent in the hands of the consumer and how to adapt their budgets or their sense of style when it comes to travel choices.

Mastering the Google game

Posted: July 14, 2011 in Business talks
Tags: , ,
0

Recently, I got busier and more aware of a new trend of projects that is interesting, informative, exciting but worrying at the same time! Previously I’ve talked about ‘The Business of words’ describing the importance of understanding and concentrating on ‘Words’ and their value in today’s businesses whether in the corporate or the online worlds, both of which coexists because of each other, but where the corporate world failed to understand the aspects of consumer power and offered no understanding to its own markets, and ‘in the process’ it seemed as if their consumers disappeared after various blissful financial bubbles that could not be contained.

But the beauty of the online world ‘with all its complexities’ tells a different fact of simplicity of ‘words’ being the master of the game, and offering a full analysis on online consumer power. From ‘Keywords’ to attract the ‘desired’ traffic to a specific website that offers a specific service or product, to actually identifying the ‘exact’ search terms online consumers input when they’re searching for a specific subject, service or product, and other than the fact of this process being ‘necessary’ to benefit all parties by actually directing the desired consumers to the desired product online, which in most cases is considered a win-win situation to both ends; companies get the required ‘traffic’ to their online applications, and online users reach to their ‘required’ demands with the convenience of doing it from home, or anywhere else for that matter!

large corporates such as Google ‘and many others’ mastered this game of words, offering to all sorts of companies access to valuable ‘ready-made’ consumer power against very well studied ‘fees’ that offers both value and efficiency to any business that runs operations online, and although it all relays on ‘directed quantity’ there is no longer any need to understand the consumer behavior in the corporate world, since now all online applications can immediately create customer demand for any of their online products without the need to go and ‘find them’ since whatever we type on the internet is directed the way Google sets ‘priority’ for the results they project thru their engines and Word application processors, all for obvious financial reasons.

But the story behind all this! And the added fact that Google has the power to identify immediate ‘market trends’ through actual keywords online consumers inputs while using search engines, can actually control market trends whenever the ‘mood strikes them’ just by simply considering the endless possibilities of any corporate accessing such powerful information for whatever reason that maybe! The fact still is, companies such as Google with all its revolutionary ‘Ad-words’ applications, obviously have access to identify ‘Global trends’ and with this privilege comes endless worries and bad scenarios of how this privilege can be misused.

These days, almost everybody who functions in the world need to use the world wide web, not only to try and catch up with the new millennium of technology and easy access of information, but it became an essential part of communications, and since all our communications are wired and archived somewhere out there; combining that fact with the intentions of online corporates to identify or even ‘the possibility’ of controlling certain global trends, and in a world where the same online consumers started to lose trust and faith in the corporate worlds ‘including governments’; companies are reconnecting with their ‘lost/missed’ consumer base through the internet, and have even ‘relocated/redirected’ the consumer demands ‘easily’ through keywords and search terms those consumers inputs searching for anything online in the hopes of reaching their demands.

Governments however didn’t anticipate that their online consumers would ‘rebel’ against them, not only because those governments didn’t create suggestion boxes or complaint forms on their websites, but because they have failed their customers in all aspects when it comes to final end results as well as the process that reached to those unsatisfactory results, and in a time where all government consumers are ‘unsatisfied’ with their government performances; its just a matter of time till governments start using companies such as Google to Keyword those customers and identify their new search-terms!

Goodbye 20′s Hello 30′s

Posted: June 23, 2011 in Active Minority, Business talks, Travel, tourism & Me
Tags: , , , ,
0

All through-out my 20′s I always looked forward to my 30′s, not just because of the roller-coaster ride I was tripping on the past 15 years, but because this type of roller-coasters can only be done once. I have enjoyed the fact that I went through all of it, but I would never wish to go through it all together again, nor I would like for anyone ‘in it’ to see me repeat it again, simply because my life was all about how I can please everyone and anyone around me and live-up to their expectations, whether in business or personal relations, most of which have failed due to the reasons that usually are deliberated behind closed door.

But throughout all those failures, I was lucky enough to ‘ironically’ have some successful speed-bumps created by those same failures in every job or project I undertook the past 15 years, that’s why I was ‘and still’ grateful for those experiences, and thank God I wont have to go through them again. Not just because of careless teachers and professors who didn’t like constructive arguments, because they’re not text-book! or manipulative employers who think ‘just because they know my father’ I can work for free, or an extreme ‘on medication’ obsessive compulsive mentor that taught me how to be extreme with an attitude of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ to unappreciative passionless employees and colleagues, to inattentive employees and business partners who never got to know what true creative potential is. Mostly it was my fault because I agreed to live in those terms, where people forgot and even stopped any efforts to understand and appreciate the concept of responsibility, and actually having confidence and guts was their ultimate fear, and without spoon-feeding them I ended up growing monsters.

I am glad I’m finished with my 20′s and I can say that I am corporate-free in my 30′s. No more office cubicle boxes, and free from any cluster-phobia traumas, no more A/C ‘Controlled life’, no more budget deadlines, or salary cuts, firing or hiring. No more morning sad lifeless faces , no more waking up because you have to wake up, no more ‘expectations’ from clueless childish co-workers, no more disappointments, no more hiding, and most certainly “no more excuses”. Yes! no more need to do this. Why they have to know that! and why they need to understand this or that! and what I need to do for this? or create for that? or even ‘clown’ this or bread that!!! Time to choose my own battles, attend to my own pleasures, and develop the ones who want to learn how to develop in their way. (Read: Freelancing Corporate Loyalty)

One thing I knew in my 20′s about my 30′s, is that I’ll be reborn, I will be free, and I will have total control of my life, whether people like it or not, it doesn’t matter anymore, it doesn’t even matter that I am 30 years old anymore. It doesn’t matter anymore because life was ‘and still is’ ironically decided and my self-actualization levels have already paved the road for me to walk through it, while watching bystanders on the sidewalks awaiting the signal-light for life instructions in the cross-roads they ‘wished’ to undertake.

Thanks to everybody who cares or not, who dares or not, who shares or not, even who hates me or not, without you I would not have the passion to hate, love, or to care, share, dare or to play, and so I wish you all the best in your life pursuits wherever they maybe.

The business of words

Posted: June 5, 2011 in Business talks
Tags: , , ,
0

One of the most important aspects of online business against the actual business world of communication skills, sales strategies and marketing plans, is ‘Words’ and those words pretty much define everybody in the “cyber world”, and in these days, the online business is rapidly increasing, and the necessity of ‘product quality’ in the content of this business is essential ‘unlike the actual business world’ as long as you have good language skills and grammar, that can pretty much qualify you to dig in the online business and find what you ‘like’ or have ‘passion’ for you to adopt, develop, research or communicate with.

I say passion, because for such cyber world, the chances of meeting ‘your resources’ and ‘customers’ are much less comparing to real life business resources and customers, and this is where it is really important to present yourself accurately and to show your ‘real sentiments’ towards your audience in order to grow you resources, knowledge and even writing skills, since the internet provide important assets in accessing information

We all know, the online world is filled with business scams, and most normal people can recognize more and more the real motivations of various online communities and where the corporate world theories and practices would fail in the face of those ‘communities mentalities’ and where words matter way beyond their traditional meanings, the need to ‘read & listen’ to those words are essential to those who decide to surf the online business world.