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.

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

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??

We are all tourist…

Tourist is some one who want to see or experience something extra-ordinary, that’s my own dictionary, but that is something that entertainment industry knows from the beginning. They make things extraordinary out of something ordinary. that is their job.

Before, my favorite TV program is termehek-mehek because I thought it was an original record on how they find the “lost love” and find out why some one leave their love. But not anymore when I learn that it was all scripted.

In gossip TV program, twisting what a celebrity have said , is not uncommon, to give us (the tourist) extra ordinary news. A simple question to celebrity like “when will you maried?” an answer of “have no plan yet” can be twisted into gossip that the person is lonely, can’t have boy friend, or just toying” with a younger man.

I can’t blame them because they did it for our amusement. The more we enjoy the program the higher the rating, the fiercer they twisting the facts.

But what if we know the “truth”…? say you know how a magician do their trick…? will we still enjoy the show… I doubt it.  It is the same reason why we not using this technique on our clients, colleagues or spouse… most of the time, they are not a tourist…

Vidi Nur Marufin

Job security…

There are million ways to lose the job sometimes it has nothing to do with the performance, some of them are:

• Economic crisis : it happens now.. Thousand jobs are lost
• New management (style): you or your job desc. suddenly not needed
• Merger: one company can not have two heads or too many troops
• Office politics: wrong ass to please and you are a goner..
• etc etc…

In fact our job can be very secure, provided that we really passionate and love about our job. We can always do our job regardless of the company and the boss.

Say I am very passionate about car and its mechanics. If my current company fired me for any reason, I still can do my job in other company or better yet make my own company. if they fired me, it’s basically their lost.

Many wrongly associate loyal to the Job and loyal to the company. Loyal to the company or current boss means nothing, loyal to you job can make a really big difference….

Vidi Nur Ma’rufin

Happy Nation Ressurection day

What is our (as generation) contribution to this beloved nation??: to put that into perspective:

In 1908 when everything is scarce and rare, a bunch of young and braves including Dr. Soetomo, Dr. Wahidin Soedirohoesodo, Dr. Goenawan dan Suryadi Suryadiningrat (Ki Hadjar Dewantara) decided to fight imperialist by educating Indonesian. They lay down the foundation for our independence.

In 1945 or so… again bunch of young and brave declaring Indonesian Independence, fighting the imperialist who are significantly stronger and better armed. Many many died to provide us freedom that we currently enjoy

In the 70’s when the country is still young and chaotic, the generation managed to lay foundation for food independent…

In the 80’s it is time to speak up to the world about this nation right..? The diplomats in this era is fighting our right on the sea… we are now having 60 times (yes sixty times or 6000%) fishing (and other sea resources) area that we can tap compare to the time when we declare our independence…

Now again… the question : what is our contribution to this nation beside being obese and helping McDonalds and other junk food thriving in this country…?

Selamat Hari Kebangkitan National

Vidi Nur Ma’rufin

Increase the product value

At this time around where most consumer seem very sensitive about the price, more than ever they looking for more value in any product that they consume. Hence increasing benefit can be a reason to increase the price and relatively maintaining or increasing the consumer base.

As we know, value is a combination of price and benefit (and the consumer needs too). There are a lot of ways to increase the value of the product, some of them we use a lot here

• Cut down the price : Give discount is the (relatively) easy to do to instantly increasing the value of the product. But this can hurt the value of the brand if we do it longer than necessary.
• Freebies: BOGOF (buy one get one free), Extrafill, banded with free product also add some additional values. although I believe it will hurt the brand if we do it longer term, some brands here in Indonesia do BOGOF and Extrafill forever (can you name one?)
• Maintaining the price while competitor increase their price is also adding some values. If a brand reducing the content or changing the ingredient with cheaper one to maintain the price. Is that increasing the value of the product? To me this is bit dodgy as we usually “hope” that the consumer will not notice the difference.

There are a many other ways to increase the product value, and usually Communication will play a very important role in increasing the value of the product

I like the idea of skin care product, they start to change the name of the variant with their benefit rather than the fruits. Instead of calling Bengkoang variant, they now call it white glow, instead of avocado they call it smooth & nourishing skin or something like that. It give some sense of innovation to the old boring product.

So if we going to increase the price of our product, what can we do to increase the value of the product?

Provide smaller packs, adding nutritional ingredient, change packaging and label, communicate the “forgotten benefit”, longer guarantee time, toll free support, trainings, two in one, bundled etc etc… the list can go on forever pick one or two…
Cheers

Vidi Nur Marufin

A good question…

Today is the first day in the office after some sleepless night… Met wit with one of the colleague before start working and He said that he have a good questions for all of us, and the question is:

” Why you are here…? What prevent you doing a cool thing to your self…?”

Yes that’s a very good question indeed, sometime our day-to-day job hindering us to think what a new or cool things we can do today… and it is not necessary job related. How about:

• Investing a some money on a stock and watch it grow (or dissapear)
• Delegate some task to the boss (its gonabe cool if you can do it)
• Make things simpler
• Write article and send it to newspaper
• Blogging, twitting or FB-ing.. be in contact with younger generation… yes you are old…
• Call client for lunch
• Learn new things… morse code anyone???
• New business plan?
• New project idea for next meeting?
• Paint your hair with carrot like color
• Misbehave…
• etc..

Don’t let your talent rotting deep buried in your day to day task…. ask that questions to yourself again and often… Thanks to TY for sharing that questions.

Vidi Nur Ma’rufin

Client servicing VS client Enslaving

All of us who work on the client service area, sometime has one or two clients who seems  to “abuse” us with lots of queries and very tight deadline which almost impossible to do. We probably will try the best we can to  finish all the queries and meet the deadline which sometimes cost us our health. If that happen many times, we probably fall into what so called client slaving although intentionally it supposed to be client servicing.

As client service, our job is to make our clients delighted,  and client will always win… no client,  no job , no business period.   So back to our example above, if with all the effort, we can finish the query in time, and client still not delighted or take it for granted, then we officially are client’s slave.

Let’s not forget, that both client and us will need each other. Client need our help and we need their business. Everyone know that to delight our clients, we should know what they need and try to exceed their expectation. But how we do it  without burning our self.

Client is also a human being just like us, so talk with them, ask questions, do help them outside the work scope etc etc… in short be friend with them and they will not abusing us.

We should however, as a friend, help them in time of crisis , sometime we need to work on their queries with a very tight deadline, but not every time. Ask them if this going to happen again in the future, might as well have a plan for it.

So if our client servicing is now gone sour… it is probably time to think about our relationship with client.

Cheers

Vidi Nur Marufin