Wilson Ng started helping the family business since 9 years old. Since then, he had dreamt to be a successful entrepreneur, one who starts great businesses ( he has started 7) from scratch with insight, guts and initiative. He keeps his focus on growing the business by creating value-- not on politics, or wasteful distractions. He brings the same focus to community service, teaching, life and family.
This is the main page which contains all postings. The reader can also choose a category: techdrivenlife, on life, on business, quotes, jokes, tidbits & reading reviews. A new category, EntrepreViews, talks on entrepreneurship and also answer reader's queries.
Pls. check out my new compilation in easy-to-read format the selected business articles of enduring value here.
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Sunday, October 09, 2005 |
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Moving Bizdrivenlife I am now updating and moving to the new bizdrivenlife site here. I will still maintain this site as a mirror site for some days and weeks, but most of my new posts will be at the new site. In the next few days, I will also transfer the www.bizdrivenlife.net so that if you are using this as your marker, you will be redirected there. If you are using my feedburner RSS to download my posts, which is as follows: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ReflectionsOfABusiness-drivenLife, then I have redirected it to download from the new site, so you don't need to do anything. However, if you are not downloading anything new, pls. go to my new site, and subscribe to the Feedburner RSS on the upper left corner of the blog. I hope that by moving my blog into WordPress, I can be more flexible, and it will be easier for you to search, locate the information you want, as well as notice the better organization of the new site. The same 8 subcategories will still be there, and I have taken also the liberty of transferring some of the top posts the last few weeks there. My selected writings for the last one year is also there. I am hoping with this new setup, I will be able to more easily communicate with you, and scale even better heights. As usual, thank you for your support, and your comments are always welcome. 11:04:59 PM  comment [] trackback []
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Saturday, October 08, 2005 |
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Revisiting the Virtue of Being Frugal " on life" I am a frugal person, and I have said once too often that I believe happiness is being able to live without. There are a lot of people that says being smart in spending is not hip in this world, and sometimes it gives the wrong impression. I am not sure about it not being hip, but surely there is more to life than going with trends that might not make sense, just to be seen as cool. I would rather deal with business partners who appreciate that this value can put a businessman on very firm footing, and if you are just trying to impress people with nothing but that you have loads of cash and is foolishly willing to splurge it on something unnecessary, I am not sure if you are attracting the right business partner at all in terms of building companies that lasts. I am not saying we should not spend on things that make sense, and definitely it is not about not being generous. AFter all, while I advocate smart spending, I also believe that the whole purpose in life is to be happy, and the most important element on it to be happy is to afford to be generous. While I make sure I don't spoil myself with useless things, happiness does consist on giving some nice gifts to friends, and also on treating them out ocassionally for lunch or dinner. What is your philosophy in life in terms of spending money? 4:50:10 PM comment [] trackback []
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MVP Summit 2005 "on technology" The Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Summit was held in Seattle , Washington from Sept 28 to Oct 1. This year, over 1,500 of Microsoft’s MVP were there to attend various sessions and conference. Speakers include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Group VP’s Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin. Here are some pictures.
That’s me in the Experimental Music Project Museum ( EMP Museum) in Seattle where the MVP Dinner was held. comment [] trackback []
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Thursday, October 06, 2005 |
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TrainMan (On Life ) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled)
I was on a plane going over some movie selections when I chanced upon a really nice movie. It is a Japanese movie called TrainMan, and some of my friends who know about it says that it is quite a popular movie that was just recently released. They say this story come from a web board, then a book, then a play then a movie. So it was a popular story that hit a lot of fans, especially the Japanese. The movie stars Takayuki Yamada and Miki Nakatni. Why am I talking about a movie? Basically because the movie is about Information technology, and it highlights the changes in the ways we work and live because of technology, but at the end, it shows that with all the changes, we are still basically the same. The movie revolves around a 22 year old single male, who is what you would call a computer geek. He has never dated anybody in his life, and he was content to spend his job as a computer engineer. He would only have 2 hobbies – going to Akahibara ( Then one day, he saved a young woman from a drunk on the train on his way home, and he became attracted to her. Not knowing what to do, he went to a chat board site, and started telling his story – basically, it was his outlet, and it was also a cry for help. What should he do? How can he develop a friendship with the girl. From his post, he was able to tell his story, and he was able to make friends with about 9 people who come from different walks of life – a housewife, a househusband, a female professional, some single geeks, a businessman and others. These group of people became his advisers, even though they did not know one another. TrainMan is basically the call name that the actor put on when he sign to the web site. So the story starts. These informal group of advisers share their expertise and their advice, and of course, their advice basically stems from where they come from. For instance, when TrainMan dated the girl, there were different interpretations on why the girl would insist that each pay his own during meals. When the girl gave Trainman a gift of tea cups, there were different versions on what it meant. So this group advises TrainMan, and help give him suggestions – on where to bring the girl for dates, on what kind of wine to order, on what to wear and others. TrainMan also, as his relationship progresses found out what he has been missing – that while computers were great, and going to chat sites, and internet surfing and watching movies alone was enjoyable before, he began to find out that a meaningful friendship was actually something that was much much more. At any rate, I think you basically can guess what happens at the end of the movie ( it is after all, a movie, right?), but it is quite an informative and entertaining romantic comedy, as well as a good glean on life that is now shaped by texting, and chatting. At the end, with the successful relationship, his advisers started to think – if they were able, through giving Trainman courage, and advice, enable Trainman to make his life for the better, was there something else also for them? Shouldn’t they also get out of their world, and start to forming relationships, instead of a life just chatting, and playing video games. So some of his advisers started to gain courage. Some started to sport new clothes, and new hairstyles. Knowing the happiness that the success gave to RainMan, 3 sworn bachelors started to look at girls with new meaning. At the end, it was both an entertaining and refreshing look on life. And for sure, there is more to life than facing the computer screen, even how if how real the virtualization makes it to be. comment [] trackback []
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The Billionaires of IT "on technology" Four out of Five richest men in the planet earned it through IT. In total, based on the reports of Forbes Magazine, there are 34 billionaires who made it through information technology. 1. Bill Gates, Microsoft, $51 billion
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Monday, October 03, 2005 |
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Good Health (On Life ) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) I just got this off from Forbes Magazine from a column of Paul Johnson. He says, quoting Lord Beaverbrook, the British Press Baron, saying, " Look after your good health. You may be the richest man in the world. You may be the most powerful man in the world. But if you lose your good health, you will be the most miserable man in the world." Sometimes, simple utterances like this get us thinking in a way we have not before. What do you think? 11:55:18 AM comment [] trackback []
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Saturday, October 01, 2005 |
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The Here and Now (On Life ) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) My 3 Think Days was over a couple of days ago. Having some time for yourself to think , and just do certain things was certainly a good way to just step back, and reflect. Let me share to you one aspect of my discoveries. One of the things I found out that I think is MY problem ( I wrote about it, because I think, it is also an issue for many people) , is that I may have the habit of too much focus on the future. Not having much time, I may focus too much in super organizing and in making sure of efficiency too much of things to come. This is fine except that it prevents me from enjoying or being more aware of the present, the here and now. To create an analogy, it is good to save money. There are some people though, that save too much money. Instead of enjoying a reasonable part of their income, and saving a prudent part of it, they starve the present, and save too much for the future. Then saving money becomes a habit, and maybe the person will found out that they cared too much of the future that they enjoyed the present much less. Then they get old, and found out that the things they were saving for never came to be, and they had too much savings, but no great experiences, and it was too late to enjoy what you were saving for. Other than money, another analogy is my experiences when in school. The teacher is lecturing, and you have 2 choices -- you either put your attention to listen, and try to remember what is being taught, or you can put all your energies to taking notes. I have had frequent experiences of taking too many notes ( just in case I may need to refer back to it), and never again reading the notes. So in retrospect, I would gain much more if I have concentrated on listening than writing something. What is your experience when you are in vacation? This habit, again manifests itself. When we go to a site, we may either focus on enjoying the experience, and the sites, or just like many of us, focus too much not on the experience, but in preserving the experience -- taking too much time to buy souvenirs, take pictures, and record videos, or just plain think about something else. In my case, both. When I am in vacation, I take too much pictures, and i worry too much about the business back home. In retrospect, I have had many vacations which I can barely remember the experience, but which I have tons of pictures, videos and souvenirs that I never took a look again, and memories of the worries that never happened. How about you? Do you prepare too much for what is to come, instead of just heightening your awareness to enjoy the here and now? I read a story once. This was about a tennis champion. She has just won the championship, and she should have been celebrating. Instead, she choose to practice - there were more mountains to scale, and it was important that she did not spend too much celebrating, and the author feels that she will be a winner because of such attitude. I have that attitude too, and I felt I did not enjoy some of the victories as much, because by then, I was planning again how to sustain it, or better it. It might have been a factor that I have been more successful than average, but there is a price. It might also hamper your enjoying the here and now. I guess that is fine when you are 25, but as I am nearing 40, i should think about it differently before life passes me by. What do you think? 4:28:16 AM comment [] trackback []
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005 |
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5 Reasons Why Palm Slide (techdrivenlife) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) In addition to my own analysis of Palm's colorful history and its slide, here is another take from CNET. 4:18:39 PM comment [] trackback []
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Blogging leads to Better Sales I guess when I wrote lengthily about what we tend to accomplish by launching 9 websites the last two months to increase collaboration and cooperation, I am not alone. Here is another story on how blogging have increasse traffic. Blogging is also search engine friendly, and Paul Allen reminds us that you get 6 times more traffic clickthroughs in search engine results than in paid ads. 3:59:57 PM comment [] trackback []
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This I Believe (On Life ) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) After almost 20 years since I started reading and following the company that is Microsoft, I still am amazed at Bill Gates. He was a hero for many of us back in the 80s, but the 90s, it somehow become uncool to be impressed by him as the company became accused of certain practices that led to making too much money. But the more I read of him, the more I am convinced that he is still driven by the same passion, the same intelligence and vision as it was 20 years ago. Many billions, as well as successes and failures later, he is still driven -- which is important. In an interview with NPR ( National Public Radio) which is appropriately titled "This I Believe", he reiterates his vision -- to have a job you love that will mean using your creativity and intelligence to make the world a better place and to pursue that vision relentlessly. After so much innovation of the company ( which I feel they are less credited than what they are contributing), and contributing over 30 billion dollars to fight disease in new ways, I continue to be awed and inspired by the man. I do look forward to be able to continue to have the same passion to tap dance to work, and yes, this will probably be an unpopular piece, but we are all human, and I think before we throw judment, let us try to understand the issues better. For the last few years, he has not been on the driver seat ( not in operations), but in innovation and software design, and I think as we see the whole piece of Microsoft's design coming in together, we have to give him credit - he is smart, he is driven, and he is doing much more than many of us in making this a better world for our children. 3:29:55 PM comment [] trackback []
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Palm goes to Microsoft (on business) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) ( and Lessons on Competing with Microsoft) Last week, one of the bigger news in the tech industry was that two archrivals, Palm and Microsoft has teamed up, and Palm would soon be licensing Windows Mobile for its future Treo Cell phones. Thus the end of the intense rivalry between these two companies which has been running for nearly 8 years. I have used more than 7 PDAs going back a few years, and feel qualified to tell you my version of this colorful story which I have closely followed… Ever since I far back as I could remember, I have been using organizers to try to work out my schedules, my contacts, and my to do list, as well as meeting notes. I was a user of Casio and Sharp organizers back when it could store no more than 200 phone numbers. But it just did not work out, and every year, I would try to get one of those executive planners to start out my year, and it would be a hell of a time trying to transfer some of my contacts, and appointments. Then almost 9 years ago, around April 1996, there was this organizer called the Palm Pilot. Instantly it took the world by storm. It was handy, it was easy to use, and it had enough memory to actually be useful. And it had a handwriting recognition system that was which was fondly called Graffiti. Palm practically popularized the devices we now fondly called the PDA. Within 18 months, it sold over a million devices. And for a while, 3:09:07 PM comment [] trackback []
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Lives Lived "on life " I just happened to come across an announcement of a departure of an accomplished person at the age of 49. I don't normally read this part of the news, but the way it was written had a sense of appeal in the way his life was examined. To quote:" The death of a good man always come too soon.... It was so unfair, many who knew him said... But his life was not a waste. He was an over-achiever of the very best kind, the kind that strives and achieves without fanfare, show or self-aggrandizing. He had, at the time in his life, received many of the rewards one hopes will come for a life well-lived... A man of great tact, he could deal with difficult human encounters with quiet good humour and equanimity." That, I hope, other than the first sentence, would also apply to me, when it is my time to go. 4:34:18 AM comment [] trackback []
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Blogging "on technology" Blogging can be addictive, and just like in sports or business, once you get the hang of it, you want to beat yesterday's records. How do I get more pageviews? How do I interact more? And the more you blog, the more possibilities you see, and the more things you thought about which is outside the confines of the parameters you have set about when you started blogging. I have learned a lot not only from the interaction, but from the numerous technologies available on how to share information, and how to pubish and manage content. I definitely would have earned a hundred times more if I put my efforts on other things but I have an advantage some other bloggers don't. Our company is relatively a major player in the computer technology arena in our place, and even if it is not earning, I can easily justify the various web sites in terms of branding, and user mind share. It certainly can be a better payoff than direct advertising. And definitely understanding how web sites work, interact, and in the future, generate commerce is also something we believe our company should collectively learn. It was a learning process that I wanted to undertake, specifically being in the IT industry. My goal was to understand the processes to organize, publish, retrieve and discover semi-structured and unstructured information inside or outside the organization, and present it in an organized, relevant, and context-appropriate manner. It is also understanding the technology and interfaces that support collaboration and the identification, formation and ongoing support of communities. 4:05:05 AM comment [] trackback []
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Monday, September 26, 2005 |
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Generating Buzz (tidbits) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) One of the best way to market the company is to generate word of mouth. Mostly people will talk about the company or product when the product is exceptionally good or the service is really great. source: http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=56055 1:11:48 PM comment [] trackback []
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3 Think Days (On Life ) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) A few weeks ago, I wrote an article in contemplating whether I would ever be able to afford a 'think week'. This is a twice a year practice of Bill Gates, in which he would seclude himself for one week from his employees, friends and family, and just spend the week in solitude reading, and contemplating. Well, I did it, though only for 3 days- and this is the first day. In between two events, I was able to squeeze in 3 days in which I have nothing to do -- and I just checked myself in a hotel somewhere beside the river in Canada. This hotel is a little bit far from shopping centers, and nobody knows me here. It has excellent internet facilities, a good health club, and a lot of trails where you can just basically walk, sit down and read, and just enjoy your own self. The good thing is that there is nothing here to look forward to, except time for yourself to read, think and write. I just came back from a stroll, and watch the cars zoom past the highway. I do that everyday for over 20 years ( travel and race to the next stop) , trying to work out solutions to as many challenges as I can, and gearing myself whether I would be able to hit my goal for the day or for the week, or simply whether I would be able to pacify a disgruntled customer, talk sense to a colleague, or buy something for the kids. Today, there were no such pressures. It is a great feeling that for a brief period of time, life zooms past you, and you did not have to be in the race. I watch as people try to beat their next deadline, and go forward to their next appointment, or working themselves up in a hurry to go to the next show, or club. Sometimes, life just feels almost like a perpetual race that would never end. Today went by even faster, and I know pretty soon, I will be lamenting that this will soon be over. There are still loads of reading materials, and writing that i want to do, but this time, I am doing my best just to make my own pace. I will just take in what I can, and let life takes its due time. I may be posting more than usual here on some of the readings, or on some of the things I think about, and it would be great to hear from you as well. I have travelled to dozens of countries and cities trying to admire their best sites, and overwhelming wonders, and during those breaks, it has always been under pressure to buy souvenirs, or take in as much scenery, or a race against time to go to the next stop. Hopefully, the ultimate luxury, I hope to avail of myself is just to take time off just to listen to your inner beat. It shouldn't be expensive, and it is a little bit of a paradox that we would spend time just to be away from all the friends and family that we worked so hard to live with and have a great time, but why don't you give it a try? 9:43:29 AM comment [] trackback []
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Getting Traffic (techdrivenlife) (selected articles in bizdrivenlife compiled) These are some of my loose recollections of what to do in order to get traffic. This is just a beginners guide. Many fine articles are available in the web on how to get better traffic. One of the best ways is to put a search on Search Engine Optimization.
What is the purpose of maintaining a website? Normally, for a business site, to enhance your business. Nobody wants to be a webmaster of a website where there are no visitors. Much like opening a store, the more people who visit the better. Even if it is a personal website, or a personal blog page, you want more people to visit. That, after all, is the promise of the internet. With almost a billion people now surfing daily, why can't we even get a hundred visitors to visit us per day? So things like properly designing a website, making it 'sticky' so people want to return, are important. Of course, one way to get more visitors to visit is to make sure that all your company documents and correspondence carry your web site address, and you advertise or let as many people know as much as possible. The other is trying to make sure people want to come back – and that is to make sure your website is interesting and up to date. Who wants to go to the website, when you visit last quarter, and yesterday, it was exactly the same? That is the reason why merchants change their shop windows every few weeks, or every so often. You want to inform people that you have something new always to offer. The other way to build up traffic is through search engines. Evidently, over a hundred million engine searches are made everyday, some say even more than two hundred million. So, being properly listed in search engines, and make sure that when people search the directory they will find you -- much akin as you advertise in the yellow pages . If you are a computer company in Manila, you want to make sure that when people go to the Manila yellow pages directory, and search for computers, you would come out prominently and visibly. Currently, there are over a thousand search engines, but estimates that only three search engines handle over 90% of all searches – and that is Google, Yahoo and MSN Search. So you want to know how to be prominent there. Let us talk about Google, which is the number 1 search engine currently. There are 2 ways to do this -- first is you want to get prominent ranking, and second is you want to advertise. When you do a search on google, on let us say, computers, you will find two answers. First on the left are the websites that google feels is most relevant to your search. This is not paid , but google ranks you based on the relevance of your website to the person's search. The right side will also presents some websites that deals with computers, but this time, in the form of advertisements. Google allows you to advertise your website through www.google.com/adwords. In here, you choose how you plan to advertise, what kind of keywords you want to bid on ( how much you are willing to pay to be clicked), and other features. So it goes without saying that if you are willing to pay a lot of money, the higher you get into the advertisers ranking, and the more frequent you will come out. However, you have to pay everytime you come out, or everytime your link is clicked. This can get very expensive. If you want free advertising, then what you need to do is to try to work out your site so that it will come out prominently in the ranking. This is desirable, because of 2 things. First, is most people will not click on advertisements, but rather on the results of the search. And second of course, is that it does not cost money. And of course, it is important to be ahead in the search, since most people ( even with thousands of results) will most likely see the first 20 or 30 results only. For your website to be well ahead in this search will bring enormous new traffic to your site. Needless to say, there are thousands of debates and thousands of offers in the internet on how to do this. All you have to do is to a search on SEO which is the acronym of Search Engine Optimization, and you will find thousands of theories, and thousands of offerings on how to come out ahead on Google and Other searches. The way google does this is complex, but there is one thing though that we know for a fact – Google, and now increasingly almost every search engines scour all web sites, and rank them. The higher your rank, the more higher you go on the search. And the basic principle is one—your web site will rank higher the more people connect to your site . This was the fundamental principle the founder of Google, Larry Page and Sergei Bren learned while they were studying in Stanford. If you have good academic material, you would be cited a lot in academic journals, something like a reference. The more famous and authoritative your work, the more other writers will quote you. They brought that to the internet world and therefore rank websites and pages depending on how many sites connect to it. So, we do know ( but there are many) that the more websites connect to you, the higher your ranking will be. The way to optimize the ranking is quite complex, but hopefully at least, you know the most important one. Try to make your websites as well researched, and authoritative as possible, and people who think your website is cool or relevant, will link to you, and that will increase your rankings.
At the end, there is the tricks of the trade, and there is learning the trade. Designing websites is just like any other activity. The best way to get people interested in you is to be interested in them. This is another way to get traffic that is increasingly not being recognized. It is simply to visit and link to other web sites. Visit them, read them, and give them good comments to show that you are interested in their topic. You do that a couple of times, and it is more likely than not that these bloggers will come visiting your site.
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2005 -- June , May , April, March , February, January
2004 -- December, November, October, September
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