Latest Online Scam

I received an email asking for an appointment to discuss on something to do with this person life and wealth. The sender, known as Alexia Oko wanted to share with me an important issue concerning inheritance wealth and her 'wicked' uncles who wants to kill her.

Sound interesting? To me, it is another online scam. Just beware. Many such scams are trying different ways to look for their victims. So, let us share with others about this.

Top 5 Tips for Essay Writing in Exam

Most of the final examination would requires a student to write a full essay, especially you are asked to discuss on a particular topic, compare and contrast, analyse, evaluate and give recommendations. Therefore, you will need to make sure that you can present your essay in a professional and yet resourceful manner. Remember, your examiner will be looking for good content of your answer and at the same time, the ease of reading your essay for understanding. That's how you can earn more marks for your answer given.

The following are 5 simple tips to improve your essay:

#1: Essay should consist of 'introduction, body and conclusion';

#2: Use paragraphs to differentiate the main discussion points;

#3: Provide a simple heading for each section of discussion (i.e. The Advantages of Using Mass Media); 

#4: Construct short and simple sentences for the ease of understanding; 

#5: Don't start your essay by giving examples. Examples should be given after your explanation on the discussion point.

All the best!

Top 5 Tools Needed For Examination

As a student, final examination is always the most challenging and stressful assessement. However, you can reduce the stress and challenges by preparing yourself well, not just to have the knowledge and skills to answer the exam questions but to have the right tools ready to go for your final examination.
The top 5 tools needed for examination:
#1: Ball Pen (preferably black color)
Always bring more than 1 pen when you go for exam as contingency. You will never know when the ball pen will run out of ink, got stuck or leaking. Why black? It makes your answer bold and solid - looks more confident and easy to read.
#2: A Watch
You need to time yourself because it is better to have enough time to attempt all the questions rather than spend all the time on a few questions. Do not rely on the clock in the exam hall. Nothing is better to have your own timer on your desk.
#3: Correction Tape
If possible, use the correction tap instead of liquid type corrector. You need time to wait for it to dry and it may not be smooth for you to make the necessary corrections. If not dried, it may be very messy too.
#4: Ruler
It is good to have a ruler in case you need to draw lines. For example, drawing tables, charts, diagrams or underlying key points/titles for essay.
#5: Water Bottle
Exam hall can be very cold and dry. Always make sure you have some water to drink when you feel thirsty. Thirsty means unfulfilled needs; means tense. You can think better if you can minimize the tense.
There you go, the top 5 tools for exam.
Good luck!

Beat the Traffic Jam!

How to beat the bad traffic jam in Kuala Lumpur city center? - Timing!

In normal working days, the jam will normally starts around 6.00pm but most of the time unpredictable and unexpected things can happen. Therefore, no matter how good is your planning and time yourself, you may still ended up stuck somewhere in the traffic. In normal days, timing is not the best strategy unless you have very good luck.

However, during the fasting month (puasa), the traffic can be more predictable.

Many companies allows their Muslim staffs to leave early. Some as early as 4.30pm. Mostly around 5.00pm. As such, the traffic was being normalised when people starts to leave their offices in different time. With this, the traffic may starts to pile up as early as 5.00pm but won't be that bad as not all can leave early.

The peak of the traffic might be at 6.00-6.30pm as all other working people will start leaving the office at 6.00pm. If you leave on time at 6.00pm, most probably you will reach home around 7.00pm+.

Now, what does this mean? By 7.30pm, the road should be cleaared. Firstly, many has already gone home and most probably reached home. Secondly, the break for fasting is around 7.25pm so many of our Muslim friends will be ready at home or at restaurants for their dinner.

Now, this is what I call the right timing. If you are off the road to head home or to any where, this is the best time. 7.30pm - 8.00pm is the best! Road will be cleared and smooth drive to your destination. You will save time, save fuel, less polution to the environment, better mood and less stress in driving! That's the fun of driving home during this fasting month.

Enjoy the smooth traffic everyone! Cheers!!!

The Problem is, the Problem!

Many people may think that a good leader should anticipate the problem before it exist and operates in a way to prevent the problem to exist. However, can we really do that? Can we really anticipate problems and prevent it to happen? I don't think so...
There are many things in our life that we cannot have any control at all. Most of the problems that we encountered were hardly anticipated. That's life!
So, what do we need to do in our daily life? Instead of thinking of how to anticipate and prevent from any problems, why not we learn to solve a problem more effectively and efficiently? Yes, we should anticipate for better skills and knowledge to solve our problems, and not just to spend our time to think of what problems that might exist in our daily life.
I personally think that one should know how to identify the root cause of a problem in order to solve it effectively and efficiently. More thoughts should be given on developing our critical thinking skills and further enhance our knowledge in various aspects. We just need to improve our intellectual mind and train our positive attitude towards problem. With that, we should be able to handle all kinds of problems in life and remain optimistic of our future.
As such, don't waste time to worry about what might happen (uncontrollable) but focus on strengthening yourself (controllable) to handle a problem, when it exist!
Think positive as nothing cannot be solve if we know what is the root cause of the problem!
Cheers!

McDonald's Happy Meal Versus Minions

Are you a fan of McDonald's Happy Meal or the Minions in the movie, Despicable Me? The recent craze in Malaysia recently saw the increase in demand for the Happy Meal with the free Minion toy series. Is this a coincident or merely another effective marketing strategy?

We can analyse this emerging phenomena by applying the diffusion and adoption process of consumer (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2010). McDonald's has increases the adoption process of their newly launched toy series for the Happy Meal, embarking on the opportunity from the highly publicised movie, Despicable Me 2. How they did it? Let's look at the possible elements of consumer diffusion process being managed by the world's most popular fast food brand:

1. The Innovation
As usual, the toys that comes with Happy Meal will have playable special features or movements. This would different the toys with other retail version of the toys by major producers.

2. Channel of Communications

At the introductory stage of the new Happy Meal toys series, McDonald's has been shouting about their offerings using integrated channels such as mass advertisement and on social network. This helps to create awareness and building up the momentum of buying even before the commencement of sales; especially triggering the needs to possess, not just satisfying physiological needs, but social needs, self-esteem and self-actualisation (Maslow's hierarchy of needs)

3. Social System

With the current social system, many consumers are influence by the need of possession (materialism personality traits). Hence, a toy in Happy Meal has always been promoted to the parents with children where they not just get to eat and drink, but to play! This become a norm to many as an value added consumption process, especially when the Minions are Free! Well, not just children who likes free toys, but all ages, that's our social system here.

4. Time

The prolong time of releasing the Minions with various models in batches build up the demand from extensive Word-of-Mouth, especially when news and on social media started to cover this craze for Minions.

Of course there are many different views on this marketing phenomena, and the above is just one of my very personal view. Let's wait until the next Tsunami of Happy Meal next time, we shall learn more!

Cheers!

Top 5 Questions by Students - In The Class

As a student, what are the most common questions you have asked in the class? How about these 5 Questions below:

#5: May I go to toilet/refill water?

When nature calls....what else can you say; 'Sure'!

#4: Can we have a short break?
I really want to know if cinema nowadays give short break to the audience while watching a movie!

#3: Can you repeat?

People say 'do it right at the first time'...but in actual life, we like to repeat, and repeat, and repeat...

#2: Got tips?
I wonder what services the students have provided in the class that their tutor should give them tips :S

#1: Can ar?
This is the most challenging question to the tutor!

Which one of these questions is your favourite? Try to observe yourself and your peers in the class and you can easily pick up some of these...enjoy your class!

What Role You Play?

Red pen, blue pen and black pen. Is it matter which pen I use? Well, it doesn't matter which pen we use as long as we know the purpose of using the pen! Many use only blue and black, but I use red the most. Why? ~ because I am a lecturer and I mark papers most of the time. For financial institutions, black is a must for writing or signing on legal documents. We have a choice but the choices comes with impact and consequences.

Everyone has a role to play and we have to play it well. It doesn't matter who you are, what you know, how much you earn and so on...it just doesn't matter. As long as you are given a role, you must have a clear understanding on the role, the importance and impact of this role to others, and how we are suppose to perform this role.

Yet, our role switches from time to time of even playing multiple roles simultaneously. Hence, we should have a clear mindset and rationality when we act and make decision. Sound like a very holistic thing to do, but yes, we have to because we are not living in a close-world by ourself. So, see the causality, see the impact to others, see the consequences...Let's be a holistic person in managing our life and play our roles well for the sake of our peaceful world! Cheers!