Blob blob?

Woah it’s been a while since I wrote anything on my blog. Well seeing the new interface of Friendster I hv decided to write again….well not today,  but just to post photos. Well I got a Nokia E65 around Febuary and it takes really crappy photos (as all camera phones without autofocus does). It was also around that time that I got interested in lomography, an art form photography where u use a crappy vignet camera and crappy film to take photos (it’s now costly). So i’m here to introduce my blend of camera phone/lomography type photos which I call Mobile-graphy!

Free Hugs Campaign is spreading to Japan as well, but this looks so wrong…

Free Hugs Video

    Fear fascinates me. It is a force which governs
almost everything we do, a positive force if you may. Why so? Look around you,
the reason that you live in a place that is safe is because of laws that are
enforced in a country, laws that protect, laws that were made with fear in
mind. If not for law and order, we all probably be killed by now, just because
we can kill. However , in the real world, it is because of the fear of going to
jail or the fears of execution or perhaps the fear of going to hell, that
prohibits us to act on a whim. I’ve heard somewhere that hating someone is as
good as murder, it’s just without the opportunity to do so. How true…

    Fear governs us. Why? It’s instincts. From
birth, humans or any other organism on earth have only one true goal, that is
to survive. Yes, survival is what makes us respond to fear. We fear death, to
be lonely, to be hated, to feel pain. Physical survival is more evident in
harsh laws which brings death penalty. It is also evident in how doctors and
scientist are hard pressed to find a way to extend our lifespan or the simple
fact that doctors earn a lot. The rest of the fears we face today involves our
emotional survival. As the body has needs to survive, so does the soul. Perhaps
the most important thing for the soul is companionship. Even the most hardened
criminals fear the isolation chamber, the lack of human contact will eventually
break anyone.

    We are creatures of habit, we fear change. We
fear losing our jobs, even though that may be a blessing in disguise. We
believe that by a certain degree that we can predict how things will turn out.
So losing your job is predicted as a bad thing, and such we fear it. Getting a
promotion is considered a good thing and we welcome that. We predict that it
aids our survival, making more money and thus being able to fulfill Maslow’s
Hierarchy Of Needs better. In the corporate world, promotion is distributing
skills inefficiently. Promoting a person that is a skillful engineer to a
senior engineer means that his skills as an engineer won’t be used, but instead
he needs to manage people, which is what he is unskilled at. So he sucks at his
job and eventually gets laid off. The higher the corporate level, the more
mismatch of the skills we have, I’ll get to it next time. In fact predicting
every factor in your life is useless unless you can predict your own death
accurately.

 
    We fear something less if we have some sort of
control over it. (Peter Sandman’s
"control" principle). From the book "Freakonomics", death
by terrorist attack is considered dreadful but death by heart disease isn’t. As
such, we fear thing that we think we can control, like driving a car over
taking a flight by plane. Our predicting mind which is primed for survival has
just failed us. Even though speeding will exponentially increase your chance of
dying, we still do it because we think were in control. Sometimes, people skimp
on the safety of their car just to safe the money. A flimsy Proton is around
RM30K while a safer Toyota Vios is around RM65K. Is the lives of you family and
yourself only worth RM35K? We still make such decisions because it is in our
control, so we fear less of the outcome. But alas, little do they realize that
there’s a reason the call it "accident".

    Fear is an excellent incentive, it is highly
evident in how the world is govern by it. Dangling a carrot in front of a
donkey is never as effective as whipping it. "Do your job or you’re
fired!" or "do your job and get promoted!", which will make you
work as hard as a horse? Perhaps fear works that well because it has been
strongly ingrained in our childhood. If we did something wrong, we get spanked.
When we did something right, we get nothing. Thus, fear makes a better
motivator than incentives.

    Fear is something we deemed negative, we consider
it stopping us from pursuing our dreams and such. But then again even the judgment of the mind is flawed so how can we be sure of what are the
irrational fears create by ourselves? Fear is a natural mechanism for survival,
it isn’t something to be despised but rather to be understood. If the world was
without fear, imagine the number of suicides we’d have because no one is afraid
to die? Not all fears are meant to be conquered, only those that we manifest
ourselves, for if we were to stare at fear straight in the eyes, all we would
find is our own reflections…

Finally, after years of using a old Compaq Laptop (6yo), I finally get to buy a new laptop. After much thought, i finally opted for a performance laptop which was a bit heavier but manageable. I bought a ASUS Z99S Series at the recent PIKOM Fair. They bundled in an additional 1GB RAM and a RM600 rebate so at RM3.6K it was a sweet deal. The outstanding feature is the gorgeous 14"WXGA. 1280 x 800 res. The screen is a glossy type face, so it smudges easily, however, the great display makes up for it, perfect for my graphic designing with CS2. Build, it’s solid though with a plain exterior. Well, HPs are IMHO are more aesthetically pleasing with their scratch resistant glossy surfaces. Well, on the bright side, it’s not such a smudge magnet, though not a head turner like HPs. Mine a Core 2 DUO T7300 2.0GHZ, and equipped with a nVIDIA GeForce 8400M G with 128mb dedicated memory, great news as it doesn’t suck my RAM. This laptop is surprisingly fast for a Vista after a bit of tweaking, normally laptops that I’ve serviced with Vista  installed move like sludge. My guess is the RAM, mine’s a 2GB, and without anything running, the CPU meter will show a 49% Ram usage, means Vista sucks up at least a Gig of RAM. So, to all you thinking of getting a Vista, do get RAM of at least 2GB or more. Keyboard feels very tactile, it feels a bit stiff initially but you’ll get used to it. Perhaps to only really gripe i have with the laptop is the mid range audio frequencies resonates with the laptop plastic, producing a squeaky high pitch sound, really annoying if yo ask me. Granted, audio is it’s weakest point, a 5/10 if you ask me. However I’ve found that Winamp’s "Laptop speaker" equalizer preset actually clears the squeak! Bravo Winamp! However, I still need to find a video player to do the same for the squeak when watching movies, so for now i’m using headphones. Bloatware is minimum, thank God! All i needed to do was to throw out Norton and all is well. Pity Office 2007 wasn’t given, only a 2 month trial instead. So i installed OpenOffice, hope it suits my needs, fingers crossed. All in all, it’s a really good buy for such specs. Oh and did i mentioned it has 5USB ports? 2left 1right 2back. Perfect for ergonomics and power users. Good stuff! (^-^)   

So what is selling anyway? According to
WordWeb, selling is “The exchange of goods for an agreed sum of money.”
Essentially it’s bartering with money as an intermediate. For a barter to work,
the person with the money (the buyer) must believe that what he is trading for
the money is of equivalent or more than the value of the money. The person
trading the good (the seller) however already knows the actual value of the
goods.

Addressing the want

More often than not, when people buy, they
base is on feelings rather than rationality. When the buyer perceives the value
of the item, it is not solely based on the material used. Which car
advertisement is better: 1.a car with the specs slapped beside it, or 2.Two
people sitting in the car, cruising along a mountain pass. Overseeing them is
the beautiful blue beach. The passengers smile confidently while the car
glimmers elegantly when shone by the sun. Paints a different picture doesn’t
it? Ever heard of the saying “Sell the sizzle, not the steak”? Apparently it
bodes true here. Next time, watch how McDonalds promote their burgers on TV and
you’ll know what I mean! So to sell something, always appeal to the buyer’s
emotional side. Sell the experience of using the product, the joys of it. Like
say if you are trying to sell mp3 players, talk about how great is it to stroll
down the streets listening to your favourite tunes while whistling to it. Talk
about how carefree you’ll be with it and how you’ll lose yourself to its
pristine quality audio. Sell the experience and then only sell the specs. No
matter how great the product is, without the “want” factor, it won’t sell. So
that said, the design of the product is perhaps the most important. Mp3 players
sell mostly because designs, not by the specs, hence the success of the iPod.
Design addresses the “want”, it makes it desirable to the eyes. An ugly looking
mp3 player with lots of features won’t sell as well compared to the sleek
looking mp3 player with just the bare minimum features.

Pricey issue

Price isn’t the issue; it never was, since
people buy based mostly on emotions. For example, people will gladly part with
a lot of money for say a branded handbag. The amount of money that is used to
pay is just the perceived value of the goods by the buyers. So if he thinks its
worth that much, he is willing to pay for it. So for a Coca-cola bottle
collector, if he perceives the value of a 1964 coke bottle to be worth say…50
bucks, then he would happily part with that much money. But to a normal bloke
like me, I would pay for a bottle of expired coke! No way! So if you can change
the perception of the buyer’s price of your product, the more profit you are
going to gain. In fact, pushing up the prices will make it look like it worth
more. Here an example, two products, equal in quality, one in a stiff plastic
box packaging while one in a pathetic paper packaging, prices 2 and 3 bucks
respectively. If it was me, I’d go for the better packaged one, since is don’t
know about the quality of the product, I would go for the nicer looking ones!
When you buy milk, will you go for the cheap Tesco brand or do you go for more
expensive brands like Dutch Lady? Isn’t milk the same or is there like inferior
quality cows that produce inferior quality milk? Ha ha! That is why headphones
prices differs so drastically, think about Sony or Philips vs Senheisser or
Bose. Which is more expensive and which do you think is better?

What you think you see is what you get

So why does better packaging and better
branding works? It’s because the human mind will make it what it want to be.
You think that Brand A is better than Brand B, Brand A will be better than
Brand B. However this applies to the more ambiguous factors like taste and
personal preferences, like music. A test was conducted to see which drink
people preferred, Coca-cola or Pepsi. In the first test Coca-cola was
preferred. However in the second test, which was a blindfold taste test, Pepsi
won hands on. So basically what you think is what you get, you look at the
Coca-cola tin and suddenly Coca-cola taste better than Pepsi. The same implies
for packaging, if your product looks inferior to the competition, it will
become inferior, regardless of the actual quality.

How to make it want-able

There are 2 things that people want the
most, that is to feel special and the feel belonged to a certain group, pretty contradictory
if you ask me. But combining those two points together, you get people that
want to feel unique by being accepted into a certain group. Buying actually
help define who a person is. I buy health food because I love my body, etc. Now
think about all the ads that were place in order to take advantage of this,
Sony’s “be.like.no.other”, Volkswagen’s “think small” (with the emergence of
the 1^st Beetle, and finally, Apple’s “Think Different”. Basically,
all of them are saying that if you buy my product, you are special and such
belong to this special group where you are unique, different, like no other.
All of us crave for individuality, and we often show that by the things we buy.
Gucci bags are a fashion statement, to show to the world that you’re into
fashion and yes, well to do. You aren’t just selling a product, you are selling
a status.

I’m special!

Exclusivity and uniqueness, is what that
makes people feels special. If there are only limited amounts of that certain
product, like limited edition watches (think high end brands) or dolls, it will
sell regardless of the cost. The rule of scarcity dictates that’s when there is
a limited number of a certain product, it is scarce and thus the demand will be
high for it. With the high demand, people will buy with high price. Secondly is
the unique factor, uniqueness will last for a product until people copies it. Being
unique means to be first in a certain product or feature and that pays of well.
Like Xerox for example, everyone knows that they are the ones which produces
the 1^st photocopy machines, and in that instant when their product
is still unique, the sell like hotcakes. Even when the market now is saturated
with other brands, Xerox will still be reputable in this field, a brand that
everybody trusts. It’s like engraving your names into the heads of both
customers and prospective customers alike, something very permanent and that
will last very long. For a more current example, take the Motorola RAZR, the so
called unique phones of its time with the slim looks. It basically achieves an
iconic status in the newly created slim field and got most of the sales then
that a copycat like Samsung will never achieve by following in its footsteps.
When you think of slim phones, Motorola RAZR is the brand that will pop up in
one’s mind. Pioneering features also enjoy that advantage, not just products.
Take the Olympus SP-550UZ, it’s the 1^st to achieve 18X optical zoom for a
super compact. Most people will buy this regardless that its image quality of Olympus isn’t that good but for
the zoom. Olympus will enjoy this status for its zoom until someone comes up with 25X
or 30X, then everyone will then rush for it. Since the Olympus cameras aren’t that
strong in image quality, the however make the effort to be the best at other
stuff, like its zoom, it’s weatherproof and it’s shockproof capability.

Price justification

As I’ve said before, price was never the
issue. If a person wanted something bad enough, he will buy it. Always tap on
the emotional side, those that cannot be quantified as that will make your
product sell. There was this incident in the UK
when
people start stealing iPods right? Well if people are as desperate as to steal
for it, don’t you think people will be more than willing to pay for it? Let’s
say you charge a high price, now what? Basically you must help you customers
justify the purchase, now that’s when rationality kicks in, after the purchase!
So how do you do that, well, listing all the features would be great, and don’t
forget about all those unquantifiable ones, like Sony Vaio’s “unique hexagonal
shape” (basically its laptops are chiselled at the side). Yup that means that,
“sturdy aluminium chassis” is also considered a great feature for a camera
(when everyone knows that if it were to drop, it would leave a horrible dent,
or worse!) Features need not make sense, it’s just there to help the buyers
satisfy their rational side when buying something. 

Lean on me

Then again, even with all this, if you
cannot gain the trust of the buyer, it is all for nought. Trust will ensure
repeat business. People buy from you because they like you, not much for the
product. What you say will believe. However, if you screw them over once, trust
is not as easy to gain back. Why is trust so important? Again it satisfies the
emotional side of a sale. The same applies for building rapport.

Conclusion

Well to sum it all up, making a sale is to
make the buyer perceive that it is really worth that much for your product. If
you can paint a picture beautiful enough to make the emotional side of the
buyer crave for it, basically you’re all set. Always aim to satisfy the
emotional side 1^st, if the product is that desirable, people will go
for it regardless of the rational side. People like to feel special and feel
belonged to a certain group. Buyers buy products that reflect on what they are
and what they hope to achieve. Be unique and exclusive in the market, it pays
off. Price is never the issue, you just need to help the buyer justify it
afterwards. Trust is integral for repeat business. People buy from you because
they trust and like you. (You may not be the cheapest car dealer but they’ll
buy from you anyway!)

Ho, ho, I hope this have been an
informative article. I know that it overlaps sales with advertising and
marketing but I believe that they are all essential parts of selling.

Perhaps for some of us, the next few weeks would be the most important times
of our lives. It would be the time when we would decide the path of education
for us, the time when we would etch an important mark in journey in life. The
choice will not only determine what profession you would be in, but also, it
also will change who you are. A psychologist may have different view of the
world than that of an economist. It is a crossroad, one of the single most
important choice you’ll have to make that will determine who you really are,
and your future…so choose wisely….

These are tiny sand balls that crabs living underground push out to make a tunnel in the ground.

Hey, to all of you all going to go overseas, you’ll probably getting homesick once in a while thinking about the Malaysian food, I mean, who doesn’t? Anyway, at least here’s a little something you can bring with you to relive that homesickness! This Ibumie brand Har Mee surprisingly tastes like the real thing! So, before packing your bags to wherever, be sure to get a pack of these. On sale at GAMA. (as far as I know…)

Why do they call "birthdays" birthday? It’s not
the day you were born, perhaps its the correct number of day and month but you
were born XX years on that day. And why is it something to be celebrated
anyway? Perhaps its to show that, hey congrats on living this many years, congrats
on surviving this far! Just a thought, birthdays shouldn’t be call birthdays,
but rather a "congratulation in getting one year closer to the day you die
day!" Ha ha, but then again, I guess that wouldn’t be all that cheerful is
it? I guess there would not be all that colourful balloons, that birthday cake
or, for some, that clown! If that happened, I guess birthdays would then look
like a funeral service! Not so cheery ain’t it? In place of the balloons would
be flowers, in place of a clown, a pastor in place of a cake, well…I guess it
would still be a cake but a less fancy one, for after service refreshments!
Ooh, I guess then the parents would be crying…"Boo hoo, my child has one
year less to live, and he wasted it playing Nintendo games!!!" Ha ha! Wow,
imagine if that actually happened..now that’ll be really strange! =)

After a grueling 3 weeks of frantic study, stpm is now over! I can hear the birds chirping, I can see the rainbow just over KOMTAR, or maybe I’m just hallucinating after being in the pressure pot for months! Ha ha!
Anyhow, I’ll just get on to my article…

Names, we give them to everything, cars, food, people… In fact everything that is known is given a name. It helps us to identify things with ease, allowing us humans to speak on the same wave length so to speak. For example, one does not have to go to a painful ordeal of describing 2 blades with handles attached together by an axis just to get a scissors! Yes, that would be quite fuss. However, it is also interesting to note that how naming can in fact alter the way we look at things, which comes to my point.

Instead of trying to explain it, it is more appropriate to show with a simple example. If I were to say “fish eggs” most would look at me with disgust, the picture of a slimy gooey mass would form in your mind. However, if I were to say caviar, now that would be different no? Its funny how we just by slapping a new name to it, fish eggs suddenly becomes a food for the rich wealthy and famous when the fact is, it’s still fish eggs. Goose liver is dirt cheap here in the market, but walk into a French restaurant and order foie grass, and boy do the prices really rise up! Just by placing in a flashy name in place of the old one and poof, it’s a “delicacy”, reserved to the rich and famous!

“Milt, (especially from salmon, blowfish and crabs) is a delicacy in most countries.” Let me rephrase that, “Sperm, (especially from salmon, blowfish and crabs) is a delicacy in most countries.” Uh huh, you know that stuff from the crab, the creamy stuff you find after you remove the upper shell? Yup, that’s no cream cheese…

Why is it that we eat a beef burger and not a cow burger? Lamb is called mutton, pig is called pork. I tell you why, the minute I mention pig chop, a gross disgusting image of an animal that eats anything (even s–t!) pops up to your head, losing all sense of appetite. Or, imagine a lamb so cute like in those nursery rhymes you heard so much about, now imagine slashing it’s throat, skinning it, chopping it up, and then grilling it, yum yum…The naming is done so that we do not associate the animals with the food we eat, or else McD will go broke, ha ha. Can you look at a cow and salivate? I don’t think so.

Perhaps the most popular form of naming is fancy names concocted by marketing geniuses to drain all your money. Starbucks, my favourite example, gives ridiculous names to the sizes of their coffee, tall (How tall is small? Strange…), grande (Medium is grand? Wow…) and venti (Means twenty, twenty bucks coffee perhaps?). All those jargons actually make Starbucks feel really exquisite, but seriously, it just small, medium and large. And don’t even get me started on the types of coffee, Latte is actually coffee with milk, cappuccino is coffee with chocolate and blah blah blah… I mean, come on, do you seriously have to stamp every slight variation of a simple cup of coffee with a name? It’s just plain stupid!!! To sum it up, here’s a neat line from Tom Hanks from “You’ve Got Mail”: “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino!”

After all that, perhaps I’ll go get a Kopi Peng at the coffee shop (That’s Frappe to you Starbuck-ers!). Oh and here’s a delicacy that you (err…me?No thanks!) may like to try, someday: Prairie oysters!

…and mind you, they don’t look like oysters!
Lol