Moving out…

Dear all,

I am no longer using this blog for posting. please go to vidinur.com for new posting and the old one…

New year resolution

How many of us can not keep the last year resolution.. I see a lot of hands up… yours truly included.. . Why is soo hard to keep the commitment…? my answer would be : lack of determination do to the unenthusiastic, less interesting, low urgency result that we will get. Quite mouthful, but it just me… others may have different reason or dare I say “excuse”.

Knowing that historically the resolution will fail anyway,  why bother to have a new year resolution then..? To me it’s nice to have a goal in your life… without goal (such as resolution) we will going no where. I actually doubt that it is really fail though… If I do not have resolution last year, my weight will gone up to the roof and hit jackpot, or I may have no some savings although far cry from the resolution target. I even become a member of Fitness First club, but using it is another story.

So yea… I will have new year resolution to continue last years resolution… so help me God…

To give me and you a bit of motivation, lets watch the following video, enjoy..

Macbook Pro

Ok just let you know that I acquired a MacBook Pro in the past few ours, its a pre-owned, 3 years old Macbook Pro though… In case you want to know : its 2.33Ghz, 15.4 inch Intel C2Duo. So by all mean this post is not to brag about it.

That’s Actually what I like about the current society, the obsolete cycle is very fast, and we think that our gadget that we bought just few months or years back is now obsolete and try to replace it with the newer version.

So when a friend offer me this notebook, I immediately fell in love, its beautiful, all works as suppose to and it comes with other accessories too. It was offered at 50% off the original purchase, so without much of thinking I ask him to lower down the price and bought it.

Little that I know, the price of this notebook fell like crazy in the past two years… someone offering the same product at about 60 – 75% of their original price…! I am so surprise knowing how they value this beautiful beast.

Not that I regret buying this product at higher price, I think it’s only fair knowing how the previous owner care this gadget, and he is my close friend… My only regret is that I bought this simply because of impulse, and overkill for my need.. , now I have to justify how can I use this gadget to the full extend and actually helping me in making money to recover the investment.

So I’ll start using it to write blogs… and now leave me to admire this beautiful Notebook as if there is no new MacBook Pro coming in to the market..

Cheers

Minutemaid Pulpy Orange after 2 years of launch

The good thing working in a research company is you can track the performance of a product that fascinated you… I wrote about Minute Maid Pulpy Orange about a year ago, and checking their performance again now… most of the New Product Launch will not last for one year if they fail.

I can see that this product is have very good performance compared to last year, so why this product can be quite successful. I asked some friends who bought this product for their lunch and this is one of them.

Q. Why do buy this product ? Obviously you like it but why you like it…?

A. More fiber is good, thats you got more from this juice

Q. Wait, you think this is juice…? The manufacturer never said it is juice loh… I am pretty sure that it just flavored water

A. Really…? but it has pulp in it, and it is coming from the orange right…?

Q.  Yes, they just added the pulp which probably a by product of a real orange juice. So is that why you buy this product… you think it is juice?

A. Yes… But I like the flavor too, its not too bad and the pulp is healthier choice… come to think of it, it seems on the bit expensive side yah, if this is not juice.

Some more interview with other purchasers, I can say that most of them like the pulp which they think its healthier choice. Like the flavor regardless of this product is real juice or not.

So I probably can say that the product acceptance is (very) good, some of them think that this is real juice with pulp but they OK with the flavor.  Combined with heavy communication and attractive ad make this product is successful in the market

So… good job Minutemaid Pulpy Orange…

A great team

I have been in many different teams during my career,  some of them really great, most of them is so – so and few are sucks.

In a great team I always feel that we are on the winning team even if we are not achieving the target.  So why I feel that way:

1. The whole team seems to give an all out effort to achieve the target or out do the other team
2. The team mate that is capable and accountable doing their task and willing to help each other
3. The leader is fair, people oriented, willing to take risk in doing something new

There are a lot of other things, but for me that is a good team about. It seems very obvious isn’t it, but I dare you to think : Are you in a great team now…?

Is your team now giving an all out effort to achieve the target, or thinking to move to other company or simply floating like a wood in a river. If that the case, do we know why and what to do?

Are we giving the right job to the right people? Are the team member enjoy what they do? Are they proud to be your team?

And the last but very important thing in a team… the leader… howmany of you see the leader is backing away (buang body) from problems, and ask you to sort it out, or chicken out in making risky decision, or stealing away ideas, or simply ignoring problems in the team (i.e work load).  I saw some… and this make the team really sucks.

Short market update on Nov 2009

Despite all the macro economic  indicator (GDP, Inflation, Interest rate, federal reserve) is showing positive trend In Indonesia, we see that the consumers still reluctant to spend their money. Even in the festive season during lebaran period, the retail trend   is showing a slower growth rate compare to last year.

This year growth is ‘low’ single digit compare to the same festive season year ago. Which previously was always be in the double digit growth.

There are only two product category that grow faster than last year growth namely : Syrup and Beverages.  Syrup is growing faster because the key player give a significant discount, while beverage is because one of the new brand coming in to the market who does really well uplifting the beverage category market which otherwise has similarly weak performance as other categories.

Thats short update on Indonesia Economic as of  Nov 2009, Contact Nielsen Indonesia for more info

Vidi Nur Ma’rufin

We all are stupid…

Many times I heard someone talking about how stupid is one particular client… This is an  acute phenomena when you talk to  research or advertising agency, computer / software related industry etc etc.

But are we not all stupid…? if you think you are not stupid, try to beat bunch of high school students in counter strike or dota warcraft game.  Something looks easy if we living and breathing the same stuff everyday, and we can not be smart of  anything. So you may be the expert on something and become a complete fool in something else.

So calling someone else is stupid have no value, we can only be smarter if we walk and talk with the client, give your reason why something should be done in other way. You maybe smarter on that particular area, but the other migh have different consideration. If some one is genuinely stupid, he might not be talking to you… if you not talking to anyone… then ….

Vidi nur Marufin

Will change the blogging style

I usually writing a long blog… it take sometime to read it… and longer time to write it.  After using twitter for some time, I realize that we can actually write shorter more focus but still convey the message that we want… not 100% as we would like but still much easier to read and even shorter time to write… all in all everyone will be happy.

So in the future, my blog will be like a longer version of my twitter account but not as long as the previous post… enjoy and come here often..

Vidi Nur marufin

Bank HSBC bisa menjual data pribadi anda?

Saya baru saja mendapatkan kartu HSBC, beserta beberapa brosur termasuk didalamnya adalah perjanjian / syarat dan ketentuan yang beberapa klausulnya di rubah oleh pihak HSBC. Ada satu perubahan yang besar dalam perjanjian tersebut yang menurut saya sangat mengganggu privasi kita semua yaitu klausul 13.2

Dimana yang sebelumnya dinyatakan sebagai berikut :

13. Informasi Kepada Pihak Ketiga

13.2 Pemegang Kartu sepakat atas pengungkapan posisi kreditnya kepada perusahaan Kartu Kredit atau lembaga keuangan lain yang mungkin sedang memproses memutuskan pemberian hak istimewa pinjaman uang atau Kredit kepada Pemegang Kartu Kredit

dan sekarang menjadi

13.2 Pemegang Kartu sepakat atas pengungkapan posisi kreditnya kepada perusahaan Kartu Kredit atau lembaga keuangan lain yang mungkin sedang memproses memutuskan pemberian hak istimewa, pinjaman uang atau Kredit kepada Pemegang Kartu Kredit. Pemegang kartu dengan ini menyatakan setuju dan memberi kuasa kepada bank untuk:

a. Mengungkapkan data/ Informasi pemegang kartu (dan / atau pemegang kartu tambahan) kepada pihak ketiga yang merupakan rekanan usaha dan telah terikat dalam suatu perjanjian dengan bank dan membebaskan bank dari segala tuntutan dan / klaim atas segala resiko yang timbul karenanya.

b. Menggunakan semua data dan informasi tersebut untuk segala keperluan lainnya sepanjang dimungkinkan dan diperkenankan oleh ketentuan perunda-undangan yang berlaku, termasuk tetapi tidak terbatas untuk tujuan pemasaran, dimana apabila diperlukan persetujuan dari pihak ketiga manapun untuk menggunakan data dan informasi tersebut, pemegang kartu menyatakan dan menjamin bahwa persetujuan tersebut telah didapatkan dan untuk itu Pemegang Kartu dengan ini menjamin dan membebaskan bank dari segala tanggung jawab yang timbul dari kegagalan pemegang kartu untuk memenuhi ketentuan tersebut.

Saya tidak terlalu tahu banyak tentang bahasa legal.. tapi menurut saya ini adalah penjelasan yang bertelel tele bahwa :

1. Pihak Bank dapat menggunakan semua informasi data pribadi nasabahnya untuk keperluan apapun termasuk di berikan /pertukarkan/ diperjual belikan kepada pihak lain.
2. Bila pemegang kartu merugi baik materi maupun immateri karena hal tersebut diatas, maka bank tidak bertanggung jawab dan pemegang kartu tidak dapat menuntutnya.

Misalnya sekarang ada orang yang mengetahui data pribadi anda, (nomor telpon anda, alamat anda, nomor telpon salah satu keluarga anda, berapa limit kartu kredit anda dll).  Kemudian dia menelepon nomor kerabat anda dan mengatakan bahwa anda sedang mengalami kecelakaan dan membutuhkan dana dengan segera (setelah menghubungi anda untuk mematikan telepon anda). Dia bisa mengatakan alamat dan juga mungkin nama ibu kandung, maka kerabat anda akan panik dan melakukan apa yang dia minta.

Bila itu terjadi Anda akan akan di pihak yang sangat dirugikan baik material maupun immaterial. Sedangkan pihak bank tidak akan mau tahu tentang hal tersebut diatas, toh mereka sudah mendapatkan keuntungan dari sharing data pribadi anda, apapun itu.

Bagi yang mengerti hukum, bisakah kita menolak klausul yang “tidak senonoh” ini… bila banyak yang keberatan mungkin kita bisa mengajukan petisi, saya yakin bukan hanya HSBC saja yang memiliki klausul ini.

Make something out of nothing

Remember when we still a kid? We can make a toy  from almost anything available around us, orange skin, banana, scraped wood, etc etc.  But when we get older, why we can not (rarely) do that anymore. Is there no free stuff anymore? or our imagination or creativity is died away.

This group band called Kuburan is one example that they can make a song out of nothing, even if they don’t remember the lyric, they still can make a song out of it.

There are a lot of free stuff now nowadays such as email, facebook, blog, ebook,  news portal etc etc… so why only few of us using it at the maximum potential? Can we make something out of it? Can we use it to make our job easier? any ideas??