For the first time, Malaysia’s top rank entrepreneurs come together to share the X-factor that bolstered their journey to success in the inaugural Thinking. Doing. Growing. Business and Marketing Conference at the Berjaya Times Square Hotel on May 5, 2012.

Here’s a glimpse of our speakers. The brief biographies are now published in the TDG website.

Noel Chelliah is the founder of DailyMuscle Athletic Consulting. He is also a certified Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant and personal trainer. His life – changing transformation from being an overweight to a physically fit personality made him a highly credible and inspiring coach to a diverse group of people. To reach more individuals, he has authored a complete 30-day Lifestyle Change System called the BodyRedemption System, and a 28-day Eating Plan known as Transformational Fasting. He absolutely loves to write and has published numerous articles on wellness, exercise, nutrition and lifestyle change online. The persistence and discipline he developed over the years has provided him the push not to give up on prospective clients who refuse his first invitations. This ushered him to the success he is enjoying at the moment. Noel certainly has the expert stamina and strength to share about the follow-up mindset.

Ben and Jo Foo is a husband and wife team at the helm of CupCake Chic’s successful growth. Ben Foo took advantage of his experience in building brands while Jo Foo drew much of her inspiration from having to work in her early years to help her family. Together they founded Malaysia’s famous CupCake Chic. Endowed with complementary skills and common interests, Ben and Jo Foo were able to add one branch after another since they started a couple of years ago. Their penchant for standardization and systemization gave them the key to achieve their franchisor status early in 2012. As they take on a ready stance to indulge the region’s sweet tooth in a bold expansion strategy, they are also ready to share their secrets so we can follow in their footsteps.

Arthur Tan is an alternative investment strategist and a well sought after event host. With his extensive experience in the financial industry on top of his outstanding education in economics and finance in one of Australia’s finest universities, he was able to establish his own investment business. Today, as more individuals from Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei grew their wealth through Arthur’s expertise in financial management, Arthur’s investment business grew as well. He is a strong advocate financial literacy and has been a frequent guest speaker not just on finance but also on the fast becoming popular event hosting. Arthur has also been engaged in commercial assignments, being a celebrity himself. This experience is reason enough for him to competently share valuable insights on celebrity and personality branding.

Wai Hong Fong is co-founder and the CEO of OZHut, a multi-niche online retail business in Australia. In a very short period of less than 5 years, Wai Hong was able to grow OZHut to be a multi-million dollar online business. Armed with a degree in Media and Communications, this Malaysian young lad led OZHut to be hailed as finalist in the Online Retailer Industry Awards – Emerging Star Category, Best eCommerce Store in the Smart Company’s Web Awards and Best eBusiness in Price, Waterhouse, Cooper’s My Business Award within 2 years since its founding. Wai Hong was also named as among the Hot 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs in 2010. Behind this remarkable rise to business success despite his age and experience, are principles that he stays anchored on. Wai Hong is a self-confessed social entrepreneur as he describes himself as “passionate about building strong businesses that thrive and in turn are able to help us grow healthy communities that cherish our families, our lives and our well-being.”

Aleksandra Ola Krainski is Google, Inc.’s Program Manager for Strategic Operations.
Ola works on a range of strategic projects at Google which aim at improving the user experience for existing Google products and bringing new products specifically designed to the needs of people in Emerging Markets (Latin America, Southeast Asia, India, Middle East and Africa). Ola is also the specialist for external Google Business Groups which are local user communities of Google products interested to learn how to use the web technology to improve the performance of your business.

The TDG Conference is a great opportunity to learn from the entrepreneurs with the X-factor. Hurry! The seats are running out fast so you better reserve yours now.

Is your sales seemingly glued at dangerously low levels for what seemed like forever? Are you having trouble raking in cash to cover your operational expenses? Are you left breathless catching up with your supplier obligations? Are you not attracting clients like you thought you would? Do you encounter more customer complaints for your comfort? If your answer to any, or worse all, of these questions is yes, then you are certainly in trouble.

Surely, you do not want your hard – earned savings to just dwindle away; your carefully safeguarded reputation marred due to delinquent borrowed capital; and your venture capitalists disappointed and betrayed.

Studies have shown that within the first five years, more than 5 out of 10 business start – ups succumb to the brutal forces of obsolescence, competition and bankruptcy. Guess what? This means that about half of the business start – ups do succeed. While half of Malaysia’s businesses are having a tremendously hard time staying afloat, the other half are continuously building up their income and profits.

How can that be?
The continued pressure of the global financial crisis casting a cloud over business confidence; competition transcending beyond national borders; the unstoppable ballooning of information easily accessible and available to consumers; the unending proliferation of customer options on products and services; the never-ending rapid growth of social media – these and many other national and global trends have left both start – up and veteran business owners alike breathless as they play catch up to these developments to survive and thrive.

What separates the business failures from the winners?

provides you the perfect environment and opportunity to know and discover the most profitable secrets that has repeatedly made the winners head and shoulders above their business failures counterparts – success formulas that can boost your bottom line to double, triple, and even quadruple! Learn how you can start getting the right mindset that will bring out the most innovative strategies you can use to achieve your business goals.

TDG (short of Thinking. Doing. Growing.) is Malaysia’s playground for the most successful business owners and entrepreneurs, and where success stories come together to breed even more success stories – the next one could be yours!

Here is a quick view of what you can learn during the conference:

How to develop the mindset of a multi-million dollar entrepreneur

Deadly mistakes everyone in business makes, yet often overlooks (and how to avoid them)

Closely-held secrets from the people who have been there, done that, and growing ever bigger still

The single fastest way to explode your business. Structured networking opportunities to build lucrative alliances.

Actionable information that will massively profit you once you implement them – No fluffy overviews here.

Why should you join TDG? I’ll tell you why.

You will get first-hand business success formulas from crème de la crème entrepreneurs. The most successful entrepreneurs of this generation have come up with the smartest ways and moves to overcome daunting business challenges. If they are able to do it, there’s no reason why you can’t. They will tell you their secrets.

You will be updated with the latest business trends. Say goodbye to obsolete information that takes you nowhere but the last place in the tough battle for business supremacy. While most business owners fail because of their inability to access and adapt to the latest market trends, the profitable ones remain ahead of the race because of their ability to proactively respond to market development.

You will expand your business network. You will be able to get up-close and personal with business and entrepreneurship savvy personalities, non-government entities and prospective clients, automatically growing your business network base.

Hurry! Limited seats available. Don’t miss out on this worthwhile opportunity! Reserve a seat NOW!

Social media has indeed become a very powerful tool being used by businesses both big and small businesses. Traditional marketing alone has become seldomly used by companies these days. Still, there are many ways in which traditional methods still have an edge. One of these is when it comes to regulation. Newspapers, TV and other sources of media can be controlled to some degree. Even when customers don’t like what is being advertised, their opinions can’t really have such huge effects.

When it comes to social media, there is no controlling what and how news is spread. This can be a good thing if it is in favor of your business. The problem arises when comments are negative. One unhappy client simply needs to post something negative on their site and in minutes, your ‘bad’ reputation is is spread. Shrugging off such a spread as ‘temporary’  can be dangerous. Companies must act so that they can control how this news is spread.

One very important thing to consider is how you talk to your customers on these social media sites. Talking ‘at’ them gives a selfish impression that won’t be good at all. Your customers will think of you as simply a company trying to get something from them. A better way to interact is to talk ‘with’ them instead. Try and direct these converstations to involve  youself but also be a good listener.

The way news spreads on social media isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, many defects have been identified because of customers’ complaints on these sites. The key here is to build your integrity online and get your customers to trust you.

Marketers must find creative ways of directing these conversations, involving themselves, and, most importantly, listening to what’s being said.  Using this information, adjustments can be made to more effectively serve buyers’ needs.

Read more here.

Credit: maximumpc.com

Internet rage has come to a totally new level thanks to social media. Comments that are full of obscene language, derogatory terms and all the foul speech you can think of.  If you are a company using social media to get clients and get those sales up, is internet rage good for your company? Here are some things to think about:

It’s more of a protest. When people express their disgust on something posted on your wall, it’s not like they’re just being bad. Usually, they do have valid reasons behind these comments. Social media has therefore become a place people can protest about anything they want without worrying about facing any consequences.  Is this good for your company then? Well, since many people who share the sentiments will ‘like’ or comment in the same manner, you’ll be able to determine if there is need to address their complaints.

It moves to action. Think of it-without social media, how would you know what your customers really feel about your product? How would you know if you have to change  your strategies or something?  You wouldn’t. You’d be in the dark just hoping your doing the right thing and chances are by the time you realize your unpopularity, you would  have had a lot of losses made.  With internet rage though, you get to change course before it’s too late.

What should y0u do about it? Blocking or banning people who tend to post ‘negative’ comments on  your wall really won’t get you anywhere. If you block them on your page, they simply might start a new page focused on ‘bringing you down’! Yep, a thousand ‘angry’ comments is far better and easier to deal with than a thousand ‘pages’. The truth is, internet rage can be used to  your benefit. You can address serious concerns as they come and change  your company’s direction with these comments.

Read more here.

Practically all social media sites now have some button that allows you to express your ‘approval’ or like to whatever is being said or posted. This ‘like’ button may seem to be like a way to seeing who’s popular or for companies to endorse their products but what has happened with this ‘like’ button?

Stereotyping. Let’s say your friend posts some picture and you decide you ‘like’ it. The only other choice if you’ve enable the button that is is ‘dislike’. The fact is you probably have your own personal opinion on the picture, there’s something you like about it. This is where the problem comes in-the like button has ended up stereotyping everything you say.It’s either you like it or not. That viewpoint is really narrow. It makes things too easy.

Deceptive. Getting the most likes has become a ‘popularity’ game many companies play. The fact is that some things can’t be compared! So how can you generalize them into ‘like’?

Here’s another interesting scenario:

In response to people Liking criticism of the Queensland Police Service, the QPS tried to explain how to use the Like button:

“The ‘like’ button is used to show interest in a topic and to help alert other FB friends, or even to ensure you’re informed of updates.

“It does not literally mean that you like something, please refrain from continuing this debate.”

More than 1,200 Facebook users then Liked that comment. Were all those users endorsing the same concept, and how many were being sarcastic?

Something worth thinking about right? How do you know what the person liked about your post? Were they just doing it because they had nothing to comment? Do they sincerely agree with you? Or do they just like the fact that you were able to say that? It’s a mess!

Then there’s something that I’m sure you’ve noticed especially on Facebook. My friend for example posted a status with a photo saying ‘this was the last shot I had with my cam before I heard a crack’. Obviously not good news at all but vioala-people liked it!Why?

Did they sympathize? Did they like the fact that his cam broke?

The ‘like’ button has made people lazy. Instead of really understanding something and expressing their opinion, they just ‘like’ it. Sometimes not even knowing what exactly they liked.

The social media war for your opinion, then, is also a war between institutional control of public assessment on the one hand, and personal freedom of expression on the other.

Source article here.

Posting assignments, announcements and other ‘informative’ stuff on social media sites such as Facebook has become the norm. Teachers seem to have found an easy and effective way to interact with their students. On the students part, they now are able to even ask help in solving problems or pose any questions with their teachers. Is this ‘connection’ right in a moral sense or has some barrier been crossed?

There is no doubt that keeping the lines of communication open will indeed be useful in the classroom and will be a great help in taking care of the academic needs of each student. But there are other problems that have emerged.

As a former Abington educator heads to court following allegations of inappropriate interaction with teenagers on Facebook, school districts that do not have policies governing online social networking are working to complete them as soon as possible.

Schools officials say they want not only to protect students from predators, but also to protect teachers who have good intentions from getting involved in students’ lives in inappropriate ways or ways that create the appearance of impropriety.

The problem comes in drawing the line between what is an acceptable student-teacher relationship and what is inappropriate. Having personal information and photos available to teachers may be the start of the development of improper relationships.

Is prohibiting staff from accepting Facebook friend requests an extreme measure though? It depends on whose side you look at it. For innocent teachers who just want to help their students and students who just want to be helped, it may ‘bad thing’. On the other hand, think about those predators out there, just waiting for another victim and those innocent kids who become their prey-doesn’t your blood boil?!

Their is no other way for school authorities to protect their students and teachers as well.  Though teachers should know better what to do and say on Facebook, it may turn out to be an ‘unnecessary temptation’. Besides, how did they fare when there was no Facebook or Internet for that matter? Maybe, it’s better keep things traditional.

Read more here.

Facebook has 750 million confirmed users, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Skype has the world’s largest network for online voice and video calling services, so they are teaming up to put the two programs together, allowing Facebook users to dial directly from within their Facebook browser, avoiding having to download and activity separate Skype operating software to make calls.

This is a major PLUS for Facebook. The application is both useful and everybody will be sure to want to try it out as soon as they can. The application is also really easy. All you do is click on a friend and ‘call’ them without even launching Skype!

With the new Google+ released and Myspace under new management, Facebook really shouldn’t ‘sit back and relax’ though it still is the mostly used social media site. Zuckerberg thinks this new application is what Facebook needs to put it on top of all the rest-does he have a point?

Let’s see what Facebook has for now. There’s instant messaging which isn’t so unique. Then there’s the text messaging with no charge. And finally the recent Video and Voice calling which will eventually be functional even when friends are offline. So you would basically be able to call anyone you wish on your Facebook and their phone would ring with your call!

In conclusion, for now, there is no doubt Facebook has got an edge. If it keeps up its innovation and creativity, all other networks may have a hard time catching up.

Read more here.

Credit: jboye.com

Making use of social media in improving the scope of your business has proven to be extremely effective. The only thing that you’ll have a problem with is creating the best and most effective process for your social media.  This will take quite a lot of time and money so it’s best that you make the best use of it. Here are a couple of useful tips that will help you.

1. Make the most of what you have. This involves making sure that your team does what is expected of them. A lot of money can be saved if you know how to utilize your resources instead of getting more and more workers.
2. Make your plan nimble.

Walter says, “The biggest issue is the amount of time it takes to make a decision internally. It is a time of ‘now marketing,’ or what I call ‘agile marketing’ — we cannot afford to spend too much time making decisions or creating elaborate processes of approval. We need to act quickly and nimbly; otherwise, the opportunity is gone forever. This is the biggest hindrance to digital creativity.”

“Most companies like an effective triage system to pass information around the company directing who will respond and how,” says Owyang. “As a result, more than one business group may respond to customers — reducing efficiency and of course, potentially confusing customers.”

3. Minimize tools and consultants. When it comes to tools, the fact               is that they usually perform nearly the same function. If you use all of                 them, you may end up wasting time with similar tools.Try and only use               one of each kind and use it to the full.

As for consultants, these only cost money so don’t use them  if you                        really don’t have to. The information they provide can usually be found             online so it may be better that you simply do some research.

4. Be a good learner. There are a lot of places that you can learn new                    stuff about social media. Join pages, forums and be on the look out for                  sites that offer valuable info on this.

These are just a few ways that you can make the most of your social media and avoid spending too much time and money on your marketing.

Read more tips here.

Credit:oracledigital.com

Everyone who’s been using social media for marketing their company surely know that this alone cannot guarantee your success. Not only will you have a hard time balancing your efforts on all those social media sites.  There are a few tools and platforms that can be a huge help to get those sites organized.

1. Verticalresponse.com- This sites imports your ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ on  your favorite sites to your email. This helps you keep all your updates in your mail.
2. Livego.com- This is another ‘all in one’ site that can keep all your social media accounts in one place. You can log into all your sites and update them on a single site. This is definitely far more convenient than having to log into all your sites one by one.
3. yamlabs.com- ‘Yet Another Meeting’ is a nice place where you can organize your stuff. You can keep your agendas, notes and all in this single site.
4. Mywebcareer.com-this site is able to analyze data from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.The strengh of your networks is used as a basis. It also gives advice for improvement.

If you get all the right tools and use the right platforms for your social media marketing, you’ll be able to get the best results.

Read more here.

Allegations that hackers hijacked the Fox News Twitter feed Monday and used it to tweet incorrectly that President Obama had been assassinated have showed the dark side of social media.

Imagine that?Hackers take control of the Fox News Twitter- a site everyone is sure to believe in and tweets this really bad news. What does this say about social media in general then? It definitely has its dark side.

No matter how useful it may be for your business or for keeping in touch with friends, the fact remains that you really are in danger online. Not only do these ‘criminals’ hack into sites but they post subtle messages and hide them in links to alleged funny videos.  But how do they do it?

Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, said in a statement: “The network was not in control of the account once it was hacked, and Twitter was unreachable until late morning eastern time yesterday. The tweets were taken down as soon as Twitter gave back control of the account to the network.”

This shows the ‘sad’ truth-Twitter, Facebook and all other social networking sites really can’t stop these hackers. For users, everything you put out there has the potential to be hacked into. Lesson: BEWARE.

As for the social networking sites, well lets say people shouldn’t believe everything they see there. I mean look at Twitter, if hackers were able to hack into Fox News, whose to say they aren’t the ones behind whatever news you hear there!

Conclusion-it’s a risk entering these networks but you just have to make sure it’s a risk worth taking.

Read the entire article here.