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This might be lengthy, but it is something that we see or hear, especially in the Information age.

This is part of a research on IS value proposition.

An abstract…
Elaborated here are several benefits that have been reaped by organizations:

Upgrading of faster Computing power

Upgrading of Computer hardware is necessary, because only high performance machines are able to meet the demand of today’s software. Investing in higher end computers mean that productivity will increase, because computers are less likely to have problems, while staff can use faster and better applications. Another reason is due to the rate of software requirements that are constantly changing. With each new release of software, developers add in more features and functionalities, therefore it will be counter-productive to continue using older computer hardware.

The upgrading of faster hardware enables the company to progress with any technological needs, to run faster and powerful applications to complete our tasks. For example, engineers doing designing work will need faster machines, due to the new software releases that requires high performance computer.

Another example might be web application programmers who create web applications that are so rich and complex, it is just impossible to run with older machines. It is therefore a need to ensure that hardware are compatible and matched correctly with software advancements.

Faster/Stable Internet access, supporting all users for online activities

With more web-based applications developed online, we see the need to enhance internet bandwidth in the organization. In today’s IT age, businesses depend on the internet for communications, sales & marketing, global presence and support. It is a new platform that can transform the way traditional companies run their business, help in reducing costs and provide a convenient way to present information to all potential and existing customers.

Faster internet in a company will help in the overall experience in internet usage. For example, a business may deal with more clients from the online domain, and this means that internet should be always on. In some occasions, staff may need to talk with clients or meetings with different offices of a different time zone; which means the internet should be online 24/7.

Another example may be for the systems to be enabled with some software or applications to allow better performance in the hardware, which means we may need to download software faster. An add-on improvement to the internet access may be wireless enabled office, where people with laptops no longer need wired network access.

Investing in portability tools, such as laptops and notebooks

For any mobile sales personnel, forums & meetings, a laptop will come in handy. With the power of portability, sales person can carry information with a laptop or notebook, to engage clients, edit proposals, give presentations, and ensure information stays by his side. It eliminates the need to transfer data across internet and reduces problems that might occur. From a management perspective, laptops are a great tool, from presentations to meetings. A laptop can also aid in the visual and graphical aspects that can influence the overall experience of an audience by giving a better impression in presentations.

For example, with a laptop on hand, the mobile sales engineer can load any software, presentations, applications and any other online forms onto the mobile device, making it convenient for him and his client. And if there is wireless internet access, it is even better since most services require the internet as well.

Investing into Internet Business, Ecommerce and Online services

In traditional businesses, information were sent and received via expensive and costly channel. Sales and marketing for a company can only be accomplished by using telephone, fax machines, posters, banners, TV/newspaper advertisements and salesperson agents. By using the internet as a marketing tool, it increases productivity by bringing down the cost of marketing, allowing cheaper and efficient marketing campaigns, while increasing presence and exposure of a company in the global market.

On the sales part, delivery of products and services can be done on the internet. When two countries far apart need to close a deal, the internet can assist both parties to cut down time and money. This cannot possibility happen with traditional telephone, not forgetting expensive long-distance call charges. The internet provides email functionality so that both parties can communicate conveniently over a different time zone.

For example, traditional avenue of marketing a new campaign requires some efforts in printing brochures and banners, training staff to understand what the new product is, ensuring there is enough customer support, getting media advertisements and etc.

With the internet, the sales and marketing can be done online, while information may be available online too, for anyone with internet access to understand more. Advertising can be done online as well. Customer support means that more staff will need to attend a wider range of customer queries, which in turn saves money on employing more staff.

Improving digital security access, by improving systems security and policies that ensures information are protected

The need to protect information, in the form of digital data, is a necessity and a basic requirement in safe guarding Information Systems. When computers were created, security or data access was not a concern because information was meant to be distributed freely.

In today’s businesses, not every piece of information should be known to everyone, and only on a “need to know” basis. The benefit is noticeable only if information had been compromise, either by espionage or information theft. This could result in bigger losses to the company, though there won’t be significant gains in revenue or productivity in the short to mid term.

For example, a big company that already implemented their resources online, in the form of web applicatiobs, has a need to protect their assets. What if a hacker is able to by password the security or the application and retrieve its database of customers or credit card number database? This was what happen to Paypal, Myspace, Microsoft, and some of other small to medium companies. This reduces customer confidence in the product or the company in general.

Another example will be if an internet staff gets access to sensitive information, like sales figures, pre-launch details, or some other information that shouldn’t be known to others. The information may be leaked out by the internal staff, which may in turn affect the people and others related to it.

 
 
So with all these reasons, we now have an understanding on Information System and what value it can bring to an organization, with an intangible investments or long term costs point of view to a company.

Here’s an abstract

WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Listening to your favorite music may be helpful to maintaining a healthy heart, according to a study.

The research team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced they had shown for the first time the emotions aroused by music enjoyed by the listener to be beneficial to a healthy blood vessel function.

The team, who in a 2005 study noted the cardiovascular benefits of laughter, presented their work at the 2008 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

“I was impressed with the highly significant differences both before and after listening to joyful music as well as between joyful and anxious music,” said head researcher Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Read the fulll article by clicking here: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20081112/tts-health-us-heart-music-972e412.html
 
 

Previously on this post here: http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/09/the-human-7-intelligences, I mention about human beings like us not able to fully develop our intelligences. May the fault be the education system, the society, or just plain ignorance, we just don’t know our strengths and weaknesses.

Here I will just like to talk alittle about myself, how I try to develop my strengths whenever I have the chance, and how you could use this as an example to help yourself. I may not be the best, but if it helps, that would be worth your time reading.

So what activities I do to “train” all of the 7 intelligences ? Mainly:

1) IQ, Intelligence Quotient

7) Physical Excellence

 
 
Lets go through one by one.

1) IQ, Intelligence Quotient.
It is one of the hardest to achieve. It is our education system, that has completed taken over. It measures our ability to calculate Mathematics, Science, Logic etc etc.

In my opinion, this is a bad measurement. Because in the 20th century, alot of emphasis has been placed on IQ in regards to academic results. This is then judged by either your Parents, the society, or the employer hiring you.

How I do it:
All I can suggest is not to be lazy and I hope the best in your education system. (Because I am have this worst amongst all others.)

 
 
2) EQ, Emotional Intelligence Quotient.
A few factors affects it. Being strong EQ, it means you are aware of emotionals your family members, your colleague, your friends, the people you talk to, or just any stranger.

How I do it:
Reading eyes cues, looking at body languages, hearing voice tones, putting yourself into their shoes, and asking questions you should and shouldn’t, are some of my practises on developing strong EQ. Your senses should be telling you that people around you are happy, sad, annoyed, or just bored. If you could tell that just by watching, you’ve somewhat grasp hold of the basics.

 
 
3) Intrapersonal, self-intelligent.
By being street smart, it helps alot. Knowing what’s going on around us, cause-and-effect, understands clearly how things happen and the need to know, is what makes this up… I guess.

Hmm examples could be… You understand how the economy works and why things happen that way, like stocks and market shares. Or it could be thinking deep as to why you failed in an interview ? What about the cause of high turn over rates and staff quiting jobs, due to so-so reasons.

What about the reasons what the F1 racing is about (girls… high speed cars… advertising…franchise…) or why credit companies loves you when you borrow money, or even how the government policies work, to make sure a country prosper.

How I do it:
For every cause, theres an effect. For every action, there is a reaction. It is there for you to find out, to get a clear picture of the entire situation. Every wrong move you make leads to a result / feedback…

Using 2..3.. or 4 angles to look at a particular piece of news, decision, event, or subject gets your brain moving, leading you to become street smarter. There are people who simply don’t bother, and there are those who search an answer for themselves.

 
 
4) Spatial, Touch and Feel.
The rest of this article are mostly developed by activities like sports or involvement in some kind of activities.

Getting yourself, or your kids involved in sports is the best way to develop this. I am not getting at being phyiscally strong, but rather to be alert while playing games, while having a touch and feel bout games.

How I do it:
I always love to become better at something, but not too good at it. Let’s say I am able to pick up all types of ball games… except probably hockey and squash. Then there are games such as billiards, pool and snooker, where you are both physically and mentally challenged. It is the same as how Golf is played too.

Being an IT engineer, you’ve got to try, test, engineer, and make sure things work. This means you have to hands-on to touch and get a feeling of how things work. In other words, practise makes perfect, as these activites requires you to constantly practise and master the skills and techniques.

 
 
5) Auditory, Sensitivity to sounds
Have you guessed it right ? It is talking about music here? More or less yes! Although I have my personal site at http://www.singwithpiano.com, this is rather how sensitive you are to sounds, not just music.

How I do it:
I used to join a choir, since I was 12, all the way till I am 21. That doesn’t include when I started singing in halls when I was 5. Which means the ability to differentiate a good and bad music, not just vocals.

Then I learnt how to play beautful pieces on a Piano. Before buying one, I had to pick from over 60 over pianos. I had the chance to feel, touch, play and listen to each individual piano, and the ones that suited me. This chance allowed me to exceled both in the spatial and auditory senses. This is when speech intelligent comes in, because they are all linked up.

 
 
6) Verbal, Speech Intelligence
Verbal communication skills has become one of the 21th century top priorities, when employers hires someone. If the person can’t communicate well, problems are harder to solve, than any other technical issues. Communication is about listening, and talking, not one way but two ways.

How I do it:
I taught Martial Arts for 4 years during my teens. I’m responsibile for a class, which means I had to take charge of the safety, training and examination of those students in my class.I had to teach, by demonstration, as well as to talk to them. This helped in my public speech as as well thinking on my feet!

I am still practising my verbal skills to reach the next level, by giving free piano tutorials in my music site. Though not very good at it yet, I’ll try my best. The aim is to say it in a simple way everyone understood you, period.

 
 
7) Physical Excellence
This describes the very good sportsmen you see in Olympics, soccer, or just any sports athletic. They have what we call the sportsment blood… or the reflexes that allows them to excel in sports activites.
This includes using each person’s strength and weakness to make a great team.

How I do it:
If you look at all the other intelligences, combine point 3 and 4, add alittle bit of point 1, and guess what ? That is physicall excellence. In sports, team sports, there are many coordination, strategies and communications involved.

I played lots of hide and seek and catching games when I was young, as well as involved in sports meet where I took part in all the field events like, long jump, triple jump and high jump. Then I play all the ball games, mainly soccer and basketball, while learning Martial Arts till today.

Have you ever seen someone who never like to perspire or hate to even move a muscle. I feel they are very slow in reactions and might not communicate well, involving body languages. This is why it is better for your child to be involved in sports, it helps.
 
  

To end, This is a long piece of article which shows why humans are afterall still the smartest mammals on earth. It is ok to be ignorance now, and regret later why your Life ended up different from others.

That’s all ! Time for a long break ~

Even though with the current recession, the drop in share price of AIG, followed by Lehman Brothers Bank, and now the US recession, the Asia’s economy is still going strong. Currently in the Asia region, we see a slight increase of the impact felt from the US economy downturn.

Bigger companies are starting to cut jobs, restructure, etc. to save cost. Though we are still seeing a huge number of companies hiring, but it is not immediate. When the demand of services and goods drop, which also means a drop in sales and profits, will impact the companies here, say 6 to 12 months.

I have a few friends in the Banking sector, and all they say is that business are “not as usual”. Cost cutting measures take place, and they wonder if they are even needed. It is good if management regroup, reassign resources to other departments, get employees into training so they can be tasked on other work.

Recently, Citigroup announced jobs cut of 50,000, FIFTY thousand jobs, All aroud the world ! ANd I believe a majority are the senior or higher management staff (because you can save more by axing higher paid ones). Now this makes me wonder if my money should remain with them, but I guess it should be. After all they are strong in the Asia market region.

Let’s hope we could survive this period so that things won’t turn out as bad.

Having ate quite a bit during my KL trp last month, I felt my stomach growing !!!

I have my own set of exercises that I do to keep my tummy flat, but after going through youtube, I found this. This is somewhat similar to what I have in mind so you might want to try it at home.

Please try this only if you think you are comfortable with the normal situps and that you have been physically exercising.

These are some of the pictures for my Kuala Lumpur trip in October. I was there for a training conference called Hack in the Box, but the Main Focus was the eating, shopping, and eating…

Kuala Lumpur Twin Towers.

A picture of the buffet breakfast I had during my 4 day hotel stay - Crowne Plaza Hotel Kuala Lumpur. This hotel is situated beside KLCC, about a 5 minutes walk. It is also a 5 minutes walk to the nearby Pavilion shopping mall. Their breakfast is nice and there’s alot of variety too.

Theres also a monorail just directly in front of the Hotel, and it took us 4 stations to reach China town.
Things were quite expensive around the region of KLCC twin towers, and Bukit Bintang - The Pavilion. My shopping actually starts right at China town. I bought a lot of nice T-shirts, about 15-30 rm each.

View Larger Map

Theres also Times Square, a 10 storey shopping mall with a mini Theme Park inside the mall. This is a 2 station ride from our hotel.

I think I’ve missed out on the October report. Currently I have a net worth of $9,520 SGD with that of the citibank’s step-up saving account.

With the bad recession hitting Asia, Citibank are introducing 1-year time deposits, with a minimum amount of 10,000 sgd, @ 1.4% interest P.A. This sounds like a not so bad deal, considering if you had 50,000 which would give you a 1.6%, or a returns of 800 a year.

At such a bad time I rather be save with my money than sorry, but it may also be the best time to invest into the stocks market!

Savings: $500 ($9,500)

Passive earnings: $5.00 (step up interest)

This was taken from an email forwarded to me. There’s no source, but I hope to find it and link it here. Heres the story:

“Once upon a time in a village in India , a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10.

The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts. The man further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50.’

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere! Welcome to WALL STREET. ”

There you have, the wall street humour. This is also how Wall Street and the stock exchange operates, that lead to our current economic situation.

The follow post was taken from my music site. I had some wonderful performance with a group of people who worked hard to make it all possible. These are some photos taken during one of my music performance at a graduation ceremoney for a group graduating students.

I am honoured to be the pianist for this performance, accompanied by a guitarist, a bassist, and a drummist (they are a band themselves), along with 3 wonderful ladies who sang for the graduating students. Here are some pictures:

 
The ladies and me.

 
The guitarist and me, taken while we were packing up… wires and stuff…

 
The ladies with an informal picture !

This was the instrument used. It costs $250 just to rent it for a day, and we had it for 2 days!

Hope you enjoyed this as much as I do !

Recently on my music site http://www.singwithpiano.com, I posted some photos taken of a music performance where I was involved. I was the pianist, accompanied by 3 very beautiful female vocalist, and a team of professional band members, including a drummist, a guitarist and a bassist.

We had a lot of fun, and alot of rehearsals, and it was the process that was memorable, not the hardwork. Do view the article here:
http://www.singwithpiano.com/2008/10/photos-from-my-music-performance/