#socialwalk

The other day, I posted a quote "Think big, Start small, Begin now" and I never felt the same anymore.

Before I start telling you why, I'm gonna update you with what I've been doing for the past 2 weeks.

After Sprint 4 meeting day, I've gone back to work like usual - Using social media for branding and finding potential clients, doing market research and demonstrate some functional requirement to my CEO.

The week ended and a new busy week starts. I had to go for a 3 days event at Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for Water Malaysia 2011 exhibition. My role was business match maker - to connect the exhibitor to the right person.

During this event, I've learned a lot of things. I learned to have a thick face when talking with exhibitors as well as improving my conversation with them. Not to mention, they are not tech savvy and skeptical about what the internet can provide them. I wished I have more time and they can spare some time with me to tell them the good of internet but as they say, if they are not interested, no matter what you say, it'll still be the same. Apart from that, I've watched KY having meetings with potential event organizer and how he present his points to them - something which I need to improved on. And then, the event was over and I'm back to my daily life as a tech savvy person in my office as well as at home. Boy, was I tired =x

Today, right about just now, I read a few pages of "The Leader Who Had No Title" by Robin Sharma and I realized that even though I've been positive and take actions to show my absolute best at work but then I noticed that even though I've been doing well, I didn't show my absolute best when I'm not at work.

I've been telling myself to start learning Ruby language since the day I start my internship at Socialwalk but until this day I've not started. I've had ideas that I'd like to make into reality and therefore, starting today I'm gonna do what I should do instead of leading a mediocre life and that is:

Today, we had meeting at 11am to discuss and plan what to do in Sprint 4. The meeting, which last for 2 hours if full of feedbacks from others as well as possible solution to these problems:

Exhibitor Database

Buyer Request Posting Board

Classification of Events & Users

Minor Requests

Before, the meeting starts, I had breakfast with KY and I told him about the idea that came into my mind as I was about to sleep and I thought this will be the answer that we're looking for. I was so excited that I wrote everything down in Evernote and even sketched an interface for it. It made me stayed up until 430am in the morning and I didn't have enough sleep. Nevertheless, I talk to KY about this and I was given the green light to share the idea with everyone later in the meeting. I will be part of the on-site team when Water Malaysia 2011 took place in PWTC.

As usual, we had our morning scrum / stand-up meeting and then proceed to have meeting with KY and other Socialwalkers. In the meeting, everyone gave their opinions, feedbacks and best practice to deal with these problems. A lot of relationship between different transaction from different type of users are brought up and I was lost for a bit and eventually managed to catch up. Then we came out with a new feature and page that will be potentially useful in future events and KY asked if there's any fault with the process flow and I said, "Let uki break it, he's the breaker" That's when KY mention about Turtle. We were dumbstruck about what it was and asked KY to explain more. He said there's this saying about Hare, Owl, Turtle and Squirrel (HOTS).

Hare is the one have lots of ideas but not all of them are useful.

Owl is the strategist of the team that oversee the whole operation.

Turtle is the one who always break stuff, criticize or disagree with something.

Squirrel - "I don't care, just give me something to do"

After that, I share the idea with everyone and KY doesn't want us to move towards physical stuff but for now, we will use TV to stream live Twitter updates for the current event. Another point was, there's another Malaysia company that tries to sell the same idea to us except that they have the product ready and far more advanced but didn't thought of what's in it for the event organizers and exhibitors. Part of the reason is the not everyone is tech savvy, there's no internet connection and there's a learning curve to take full advantage of the software. As for now, we will use twitter. Ky actually talked about this to a few event organizers and they don't don't seem to be interested. Also, no one will pay for the product that they don't use. My idea will be put on hold until I find it useful for future events as it's just an extra feature. We concluded the meeting by recapping what we have discussed to make sure that everyone understand it.

Lunch time have to be delayed a while as I have to attend another meeting to discuss about email campaign with the multimillionaire (she joined the meeting earlier but left not long after that as we're getting too technical), KY and another socialwalker(lets call her the timekeeper - she manage the time and make sure everything is delivered on time as well as testing the software). 

From these meetings I had today, I realized that I've a lot to learn and improve. My English, presentation skill, negotiation skill, take into account of what's happening (ideal vs reality), critical thinking of what's the best solution, how well and specific your plan is (I feel this, if I were to do a startup now, it'll be a complete disaster). 

The week is coming to an end and there's so much thing that I wanna share with you people like every single day but you know, after working, you just feel so tired and don't feel like doing anything.

After the first official for interns on 14/3/2011, nothing much happened on the next day. Just doing the normal stuff, doing the market research in Thailand and searching for a suitable image for business matching group in LinkedIn (This goes on and on until Friday, 18.3.2011 when I found a logo that is related to business matching on Socialwalk website - wasted a few days to google it >.<)

On Wednesday, KY came to office and all of use had breakfast together. Just listening to my COO and KY(CEO) talk about how the law and business work is interesting. Topics include shareholders, board of directors, CEO/MD, enterprise, private limited, salary, allowance, tax, tax redemption, rebates, reimbursement, SOCSO, EPF, corporate tax, software as a product law in Sg and US, IPO, market shares, market evaluation cap and auditors. Priceless! 

On Thursday,  I learnt that in UK, kids learn to use computer in kindergarten compared to Malaysia, where you learn how to use Microsoft Office at the age of 14 =.=" How do i know? The COO's nephew (age 13) came to office this whole week cuz it's school holiday now in Malaysia. He lives and study in UK and came back to Malaysia to continue his studies here. His parents want him to know what is it like to be a Malaysian. He came to the office and learning to play with Wordpress and php instead of playing games like any other kids in his age. Another Zuck in making? xD. Socialwalk webpage redesign also went live and I can't tell how awesome it is compared to the old one. New business matching algorithm and new interface. Useless features are removed.

Today, oops, I mean yesterday morning(since it's already 0004h as I'm blogging this), I had my first official meeting with the KY, the CEO of Socialwalk, together with other colleagues(4 fresh grads and 1 intern).

I can't tell you how much I've learnt from this meeting and boy, it was fun xD

The meeting which last for 2 hours is mostly about experience sharing by KY while he was in Singapore last week for the International Furniture Fair Singapore (IFFS) 2011 which is the 3rd largest event/trade show that is held in Singapore(3km in length). The event, which is held for 4 days has attracted many VIP buyers, exhibitors(536), visitors and also local media. There was approximately 170,000 visitors that came to this event every single day. Okay, enough of this "how huge the event is"

Back at the meeting, there are problems and opportunity together with the lesson learnt from this event. Therefore, everyone brainstorm ideas and give suggestions of how we can tackle these problems. Each and everyone of us are participative and voicing out our thoughts. And then, we conclude the meeting and all of us have to email KY our ideas and suggestions for him to execute it in the next event.

Okay, first meeting is done. Now, the dev guys are showing use the work they have done on restructuring Socialwalk webpage. We take down useless features and completely redesign the whole Socialwalk experience that focuses on the feature that our clients want and also the user experience around it. The result was incredible, it's nothing like I've ever seen before. And the best thing is, the changes is going live on 17 March 2011 to demo it to the clients.

After 2 hours of lively session with KY, we went for lunch and talk about news and what's happening around the globe as well as me asking a lil bit about Socialwalk's history and the pay for fresh grads plus my the expectation during my internship together with the reports that I've to submit to MMU faculty.