Speed-Matching

I learn a new concept recently - speed-matching!

Speed-Matching is a facilitated interaction between two groups to discover opportunities where co-operation might lead to potential mutual value. An opportunity typically arises by matching a challenge from one group with a solution from the other. The purpose is to identify typically 3-5 opportunities with a significant mutual value, each with a rough doable plan for realising them.

Speed-Matching is like “speed dating” where both rely on many one-to-one interactions. However, in Speed-Matching each interaction is always positive and is intended to find as many matches as possible.

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Women Inventors

That's the title of a book written by Stephen Currie that I've just read recently.
In the book, he has written about the following ladies:

Temple Grandin
A professor who invented ways to do better animal livestock farming. Interestingly, she is autistic and is a strong autism advocator. A movie has been made about her in 2010.

Madame CJ Walker
An entrepreneur of successful beauty and hair care products who invented new ways of marketing them.

Rose O'Neill
An illustrator who created a popular comic and doll craze Kewpie.

Grace Hopper
A computer scientist and US Navy officer who is a pioneer in the field, developed the first compiler of computer programming language, and conceptualised the idea of machine-independent programming language (leading to COBOL).

Margaret Knight
An inventor (mechanical engineer?) who invented a number of machines (she has almost 100 patents), mostly for industrial uses including to make shoes, but also with engines. She is most famous for her machine that produces (cheap) flat-bottomed paper bags.


It's amazing how inventors in America are filing patents left, right, and center even in the early nineteenth century.

Do we have such a culture in Malaysia?
Sure we have the official body in the form of Perbadanan Harta Intelek Malaysia, or Intellectual Property Corporations of Malaysia, but we don't seem to hear much about the happenings in the media.

Wait. The website share their statistics. Cool. Let's check it out.

I attempted to replicate the tables here, but they come out weird (yes, I'm clueless with html programming!), so please click here to see the numbers for yourself.

For the past 3 years, the annual number of patents filed (applied) has exceeded one thousand per annum, with about a fifth of them being granted. And the Malaysia has been the third countries with the most patent and certificates of utility innovation granted after USA and Japan. Wow! What patents are those? I would like to know!

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Assets-for-rent

Ever since I read Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad Poor Dad, where he advised people to build assets that could generate income, I have been trying to think of what are the assets that could fit the bill (generate income) outside the usual things that will come to mind when talking about assets for example real property, mutual funds, bonds, shares and the likes. What are the things that are smaller in value, that can be bought with cash, and can generate income? (if you have any answer/idea, please leave a comment!)

Of course, there's a lot of businesses revolving around this concept, which is to purchase assets and rent them out, some easy examples being car rental, lorry/moving services or canopies-for-rent.

Some examples of items with even smaller value:
- books
Example: Q'reazant
- toys
Example: RentAToy.com
- wedding needs eg dresses/gowns, pelamin
- costumes

Last Saturday, we took the kids to Zoo Melaka. We brought our pushchair for our 1-year-old, but we noticed that there were quite a number of families who were holding their babies in their arms (some are 'wearing' their babies so that's okay too, not as tiring as having to depend solely on your arms!). Don't they get tired? They may intentionally choose to carry their babies, but I imagine a service offering pushchairs for rent in places of attraction would be quite welcomed and an added value to visitors!

This service is already available in certain shopping complexes (the one that I know of is Alamanda, Putrajaya). When we went to Gold Coast, Australia back in 2010, we also rented a stroller when we went to Dreamworld.

This is how I imagine the process would be like. First, the entrepreneur would need to give a proposal to the authority or management of the place of attraction that has been identified as having a potentially significant demand. She would need to sell on the idea that this service will be appreciated by their customers and can even be added as a feature in their brochure/flyer. Then if the management has bought the idea, then she can proceed to negotiate the monthly fee to be paid to the management and what facilities (if any) is expected. Let's say the management is happy with RM1000/month (figure is plucked-from-the-air, no basis hehe).

Capital. Purchase of the pushchairs, of course. Go for a good quality ones, but not necessarily branded. The one I'm using, for example, cost only RM220, and it passed European safety standard. Ok, using Zoo Melaka as an example, I would probably go for 5 units to begin with, though this is probably more on the low side for weekend and peak times. So, total investment is RM1100.

Staff. The entreprenuer would need to hire a worker who will be manning the 'stall'. Expected salary ... my guess is around RM800/month? It's an easy task but very boring. The staff would also need to be relieved during breaks.

Rental. How does RM20 rental per entry with RM30 as deposit sounds? Fair? Let's say the take-up rate is 6 times a day on average (ok, another pluck-from-air figure, no research/survey at all), the the total proceeds is RM3600.

Operation. Ideally, if the exit point is near the entry point, then the staff could watch out for possible theft. (Yes, that's a risk that needs to be mitigated). But if it's not, then it could be quite tricky.

Challenges:
1) Get a good trustworthy staff.
2) Avoid theft. Would a higher deposit help?

So, on a monthly basis, the profit is 3600 - (1000+800) = 1800. This means the entrepreneur could recover the investment cost (1100) in just one month.

And then, of course, repeat this process for other places of attractions :)

Of course, this could also be a direct initiative by the management of the places of attractions, as an added source of income.

(Gosh, writing this makes me feel like an 'armchair entrepreneur' because I just think them out but I don't execute them.)

Image credit to mypushchair.co.uk

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TR's 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2012

Technology Review is a magazine published by MIT. Every year, the editors reviewed and selected 50 companies they think are the most innovative. Go to the original link - you'll be able to click each box to read why it has been chosen together with a link to a full article on the company.

Here's a couple example:

First Solar
Why: It is reducing the cost of utility-­scale photovoltaic installations.
Key innovation: First Solar constrains costs with vertical integration of everything from plant construction to the manufacture of high-efficiency cadmium telluride cells.

PatientsLikeMe
Why: Online social connections and shared data offer a new way to improve the understanding and treatment of disease.
Key innovation: Published a peer-reviewed study, based on data volunteered by site users, that countered the results of a clinical trial assessing the effects of lithium on ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

There's also other names which will be familiar to you like Apple, Google, IBM, Intel, Facebook, Twitter, Shell, Samsung, Zynga and many more.

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Agensi Inovasi Malaysia

I had the opportunity to listen to someone who was in Agensi Inovasi Malaysia talk during lunchtime just now ('was', because he is now in HDC).

Agensi Inovasi Malaysia is, in the words from their website here: a statutory body set up by the Government via AIM Act 2010, with the primary purpose of being the driving force behind Malaysia’s push towards establishing an “innovation economy” and the country’s aspirations of achieving a high-income nation status.

Vision: Wealth creation through Knowledge, Technology & Innovation

Mission: To stimulate and develop the innovation eco-system in Malaysia towards achieving the vision 2020

The National Innovation Strategy, or “Innovating Malaysia” is the official government framework for driving innovation. This holistic strategy recognises the challenges of creating a highly innovative “eco-system” and understands the need to engage with every element of society.



Under the first thrust, the point Build Futureskills today garners a lot of interest in the hall just now. The invited speaker spoke about a study done by the agency that shows children in the agre bracket 4-6 years old shows a lot of creativity but this declines when the same measure is used for primary school students. Audience is keen to know about what changes are being done in the education system in Malaysia to reduce the focus on rote learning and incorporate innovative thinking, but it seems that the agency is still at its study and engage stage.

Quadruple Helix sounds bombastic, no? But it simply means four segments working closely together: government, industry, university/academia, and society/rakyat.

Ok, here are the focused areas for inno-accelerator:
- Agri-bio
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Clean & Green
- Green Technology
- Nanotechnology
- Automtive
- Biotechnology
- Economics
- Medicinal & Aromatic Plant
- Telecommunication

Check-out a few success stories shared in the website on Manufacturing Water Bottles, Testing Aircraft Wings, and Mobile Office Apps.

There's also quite a few research papers being shared here.

Coincidently, AIM is in the news today, because the PM just launched the Proton Green Mobility Challenge yesterday.

From here:

The Proton Green Mobility Challenge brings together teams from 10 local universities, who will compete to build the best performing electric vehicle based on a standard Proton Saga.

Teams are each given one car, a battery set, a motor and controller unit, a telematic unit and RM20,000 seed fund to build their machine.

They have until October to complete a working model, which will then be tested at the Sepang International Circuit in four categories farthest distance, quarter-mile acceleration, fastest time for two laps and maximum velocity (V-max).

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Holidays and annual leave

This post is waaaayyyy late (by more than 2 months), but hey, better late than never, right?

When I spoke to a Singaporean colleague, he said that over there, the annual leave cycle ends on 31 March annually, while the school holidays is in Decembers. What this means is, the percentage of workers taking their leave in December will not be as big as Malaysia. Parents who wishes to spend more time with their children and take them for holidays do so in December, while the others will do so in March (or the first quarter of the year).

This is a win-win situation. Offices/workplace won't be too under-staffed, and holiday-makers won't need to fight over hotel vacancies and perhaps hotels won't increase their peak period premiums too much.

And the best thing is, it's a very simple change that is easy to implement, and yet has a tangible impact. Of course, one could argue that everyone should plan properly and not leave it till last minute (Dec) to take their annual leaves, but behavioral change is more difficult to attain than a simple policy change.

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I just know how to drive a car

Ok, even that, I may not know so well.

I went to a tyre service workshop yesterday and left spending three times as much as I originally expected. My thoughts:

1. In the case where the income of a business is directly proportionate to what service/items they would advise or recommend to their clients or customers, such as workshops, or even clinics (doctors selling medicine?), what's stopping them from using this to their benefit other than professional ethics (and fear of God, of course)? In the case of my visit yesterday, I planned to change one tyre, but it seems that there's another tyre that needed to be changed as well upon their inspection. Okay, I accept that because I could see the damaged part, but there were also some other services ... well, I can't even remember what they were without looking at the bill. And those were less visible to the (very) untrained eye. That's why when we shop around for workshops, we ask for recommendations - are they trustworthy and honest and will not take advantage of us? Perhaps I should look for another tyre shop.

2. I'm not very diligent when it comes to keeping records of my car maintenance. My husband had repeatedly reminded me to jot down in a log book, but I still procrastinate, believing that keeping all the receipts in the glove box is a valid alternative. If a workshop keeps all these record (digitally) by car registration, it will be added value for a car owner like me, and would possibly keep me loyal to their business. Provided of course, that they are trustworthy and honest (see point 1).

3. Maintaining a car is quite complex (at least to someone as clueless as me). You go one workshop for normal services, a different for the tyres, a different one for batteries, a different one for engine repairs, a different one for cosmetic repairs, yet a different one for air-cond, and so on and so forth. There is probably already a one-stop-centre for all your automotive needs, but I don't think I have seen one yet. I guess the industry is indeed complex, and each segments is a specialised one, such that the current model is the optimum model?

4. When a car is sent for repairs and it is detained at the workshop for three, four days or even longer, it is rare that it's owner has spare cars to use. Usually he or she would need to perhaps arrange a less convenient routine with the spouse (share) or borrow a family or friend's car, or perhaps use the public transport. What if the workshop offers cars for rent (at a special price), or perhaps make an arrangement with a car rent business? The owner's car is stuck at the workshops as a 'collateral' or 'deposit'. The thing to be careful about is not to abuse the customer's trust by purposely prolonging the repair works in order to get more income from the rental business.

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