British aid worker Helen Johnston was rescued along with a Kenyan aid worker and two Afghan aid workers, who were abducted in May, British Foreign Office confirmed on Saturday.
The life sentence for Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak, which was issued by the New Cairo criminal court Saturday, left Egyptian expatriates in Dubai divided over the degree of punishment and their country's future, Xinhua learnt in a quick survey.
EVERYONE has heard of Greg Smith. After all, it’s not every day that a top executive at Goldman Sachs resigned in such a public and high-profile way. He told the whole world, via an op-ed piece in The New York Times, that he could no longer stomach the company culture which he described “as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it”.
Hailed as a hero by many, especially on the social media sites, Smith was nevertheless also castigated by commentators who questioned his real motive. “The reason he’s been at Goldman Sachs for 12 years is that he liked the name and probably liked the money,” one wrote.
We all learn, from day one, that we should never burn our bridges when we part ways with our employers. After all, we no longer live in an era where we serve only one employer throughout our working life.
Rolling stones do gather a lot of moss these days.
So while employers do understand when we move to greener pastures, they are unlikely to be sympathetic to you if you decide to badmouth them on your way out.
And bosses do talk to other bosses, more so if you work in a niche industry where everyone knows, well, everyone.
A Goldman Sachs sign is seen above their booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, in this January 19, 2011 file photo. A Goldman Sachs executive director published a withering resignation letter in the New York Times, saying the investment bank is a “toxic and destructive” place where managing directors referred to their own clients as “muppets.” – REUTERS
As much as I salute Greg Smith for his courage to place his resignation letter in the public domain, I think the rest of us mortal souls will prefer more down-to-earth advice on how to quit a job.
I am no expert on this but here is a short list of dos and don’ts which may be useful.
1. Don’t bash your boss, or your company, on social media or anywhere else
It is amazing how people on FaceBook share so openly about the goings-on in the office, including all the nasty stuff about the bosses. Hello there! If stupidity is an acceptable reason for you to lose your job, the boss will show you the door straight away. Sometimes, even private conversations in public places, like restaurants, can have ramifications beyond your control.
Someone who intends to hire you may have second thoughts as chances are if you say bad things about your previous boss, you are more likely to say the same about him. A good principle to follow is: Don’t say anything about anyone in private what you would not say in public.
2. Don’t play poker with your offers
After you get an offer, you may be tempted to check if your boss would make you a counter-offer. The people who play poker with their offer letters are those with huge egos who think that the office cannot run without them.
Although some employers may play along and give you the raise you demand, you can be sure that the relationship will never be the same again.
3. Do keep your options open
It has been said that no one leaves a company but a boss. So, while a situation may arise where you no longer find it easy to work with your immediate boss, always remember that circumstances may change which may make it possible for you to return to the company in the future.
So you may have to eat humble pie if your exit remarks are vicious and harmful to the reputation of the company. I can’t imagine Greg Smith getting a job at Goldman Sachs again, unless he buys the company.
4. Do be professional to the last day of employment
All of us have to give notice before quitting. It’s not as dramatic as what we see in the movies when you are immediately told to pack up and go. So from the time you give your notice until the official last day, conduct yourself with full professionalism. If there are things to pass on, do so in an orderly manner. Say your goodbyes without being too emotional about it.
5. Do stay away from your old office
I got this advice from a friend many years ago. He said it is natural, when you move into a new job, that you will actually regret having made the move. In a new environment, you suddenly yearn for the old job where you are comfortable with friends.
Many make the mistake of going back to hang out with their former colleagues and this only adds to their frustrations. His advice: Make a conscious effort to keep away from your former colleagues for at least six months. Concentrate on your new job and build up new relationships first. Then hanging out with old friends after that won’t be so traumatic.
Deputy executive editor Soo Ewe Jin is glad that a new column, Talking HR, is now available on StarBiz every Tuesday. All of us in the working world will benefit from the good advice given by the professionals.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook unveiled plans for the biggest ever Internet IPO that could raise as much as $10 billion, but made it clear CEO Mark Zuckerbergwill exercise almost complete control over the company, leaving investors with little say.The Harvard dropout, who launched the social networking phenomenon from his dorm room, will control 56.9 percent of the voting shares in a company expected to be valued at up to $100 billion when it goes public. Facebook says it has 845 million active monthly users.
Wednesday’s long-awaited filing kicks off a process that will culminate in Silicon Valley’s biggest coming-out party since the heyday of the dotcom boom and bust.
In its filing Facebook says it is seeking to raise $5 billion, but that is a figure used to calculate registration fees among others and analysts estimate it could tap investors for $10 billion.
That would value the company at $100 billion, dwarfing storied tech giants such as Hewlett Packard Co, while validating the explosive growth worldwide of social media as communication and entertainment.
Zuckerberg’s economic control of about 28 percent of the shares would be worth $28 billion at a $100 billion valuation, ranking him as the fourth-richest American.
The 27-year-old’s ownership position means Facebook, a company dissected in 2010′s Oscar-winning “The Social Network”, will not need to appoint a majority of independent directors or set up board committees to oversee compensation and other matters.
The company’s ownership structure and bylaws go against shareholder-friendly corporate governance practices put in place in the United States after years of investor activism.
As Facebook states in its prospectus, Zuckerberg will “control all matters submitted to stockholders for vote, as well as the overall management and direction of our company.”
Zuckerberg struck deals with several Facebook investors that granted him voting rights over their shares in all or most situations. Those included Yuri Milner’s DST Global, venture capital firm The Founders Fund, and entities affiliated with Technology Crossover Ventures, the IPO filing shows.
“Zuckerberg, at the time, probably had his choice of investors,” said Steven Kaplan, a professor at University of Chicago‘s Booth School of Business, who researches venture capital and corporate governance. “He basically had the ability to say ‘my way or the highway.’”
“The downside of doing this is that the value of Facebook may be slightly lower than it would be if he were not retaining control.”
Facebook could make its market debut in the middle of the year based on the usual timetable of IPOs.
Its IPO prospectus shows that Facebook generated $3.71 billion in revenue and made $1 billion in net profit last year, up 65 percent from the $606 million it made in 2010.
“We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television,” Zuckerberg said in a letter accompanying the documents. “Today, our society has reached another tipping point.”
“The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented.”
Zuckerberg agreed to cut his compensation from $1.48 million last year to $1 effective January 1, 2013, following the example of Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Facebook’s chief operating officer and Zuckerberg’s top lieutenant, Sheryl Sandberg, earned $30.8 million in total compensation last year.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Overview of the company: http://link.reuters.com/rev36s
User growth over the years: http://link.reuters.com/mut36s
Bankers fees — how low? http://link.reuters.com/fep36s
Top 10 global IPOs: http://link.reuters.com/myn36s
Facebook’s growing popularity has pressured entrenched Internet companies from Yahoo to Google Inc. In 2011, the social network overtook Yahoo to become the top provider of online display ads in the United States by revenue, industry research firm eMarketer says.
A $10 billion IPO would be the fourth-largest in U.S. history after Visa Inc, General Motors, and AT&T Wireless, Thomson Reuters data shows.
The $5 billion figure in Wednesday’s prospectus was an initial, reference figure — a basis for registration fees, among other things — and could change based on investor demand.
The prospectus said 85 percent of Facebook’s 2011 revenue was derived from advertising. Social-gaming company Zynga, creator of Farmville, accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s revenue last year.
Their IPOs had mixed receptions. The last debut, from Zynga, closed 5 percent below its IPO price during its first trading day in December.
Google raised just shy of $2 billion in 2004, while Groupon last year tapped $700 million and Zynga $1 billion.
THE HACKER WAY
Facebook aims to be more attractive to potential large advertisers. It has improved its ad targeting capabilities as it collects user data through new features such as the Timeline, said George John, founder of Rocket Fuel, a digital marketing company.
Advertising revenue increased 69 percent in 2011 from 2010, and its average revenue per ad increased 18 percent.
“As Facebook gathers more and more users’ time and data, it makes sense for advertisers to get more serious about allocating more budget to Facebook,” he said.
In its prospectus, Facebook revealed an effective 2011 tax rate of 41 percent and warned it could climb in 2012. That rate surpasses the average corporate rate of 35 percent and far outstrips industry peers like Apple, which through offshore businesses pay far less.
Yet in his letter to investors, Zuckerberg stressed Facebook’s “social mission” over the pursuit of profits.
“Facebook was not originally founded to be a company,” he said. “Simply put: we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”
He laid out his vision for a company that remained grounded in an engineering culture, devoting several paragraphs of his letter to what he called “The Hacker Way” at Facebook.
Some of Facebook’s most successful products – including Timeline, chat and video – emerged from “hackathons” where coders gathered to build out prototypes and compare notes, Zuckerberg wrote.
“Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete,” he said. “There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: ‘Code wins arguments.’”
(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr, Poornima Gupta and Gerry Shih, Writing by Edwin Chan, Editing by Peter Lauria and Tiffany Wu)
How Facebook makes money could change
Diversification may mean lessening dependence on online ads
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Facebook Inc.’s initial public offering filing paints a clearer picture of how the social networking giant makes money — though experts say that picture could change in the months and years ahead.
Reuters
Facebook says it makes 85% of its revenue from advertising.
A big chunk, about 85%, comes from online advertising, pitting Facebook FB 0.00% against such industry leader Google Inc. GOOG -0.03% as well as Yahoo Inc. YHOO +1.46% and Microsoft MSFT +0.20% , which together run the Bing search engine.
But increasingly, some of Facebook’s dollars are coming from payments and fees, mainly from the cut the company gets other firm’s transaction on the site. The bulk of that flow — about 12% — currently comes from Zynga Inc ZNGA +2.46% , shares of which soared Thursday as investors realized how big a role the social gaming firm plays in Facebook’s business. Read story on Zynga’s gains.
But some analysts see Facebook pushing to find other revenue streams. One argues that it’s part of the company grand ambition to become the site where most Web users hang out — and hopefully spend their money.
“Think of Facebook City,” said analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies Inc. “Ultimately, while they would never create a walled garden, they could create a community where once you come in, you pretty much have all you need there.”
Facebook’s goal, he said, is have more users making purchases, do their banking or even making dinner reservations in the site.
“Initially, everyone just figured that he would tie advertising to everybody’s front page,” Bajarin said, referring to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. “When Zuckerberg got up and started creating a platform, that’s when we began to realize that he was going beyond the traditional advertising model.”
Bajarin added that “it’s very clear that, to Zuckerberg and his team, this could be a platform for delivering applications.”
Payments and other fees made up only 1% of Facebook’s total revenue of $345 million in the March quarter of 2010, while 99% came from advertising, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By the end of 2011, 17% of Facebook’s revenue came from payments and fees, while 83% flowed from advertising.
A new kind of advertising
The company has spawned new kinds of online advertising, based on the interactions of Facebook’s 845 million users.
Through sponsored stories ads, a business or group can pay to highlight certain posts from a user’s friend network or other Facebook pages. Fan ads lets users to become a fan for product or brand by clicking “become a fan.”
How exactly does Facebook’s ad business work? We still don’t know, Peter Kafka reports on digits.
IDC analyst Karsten Weide said advertising will probably remain Facebook’s main revenue source, saying, “The low hanging fruit is really advertising.”
And Facebook certainly has momentum in that space due largely the site’s growing attraction to brand advertisers and also small and medium-sized businesses, Weide said. In fact, Facebook overtook Yahoo in the No. 2 spot in display ad revenues in the third quarter of 2011, according to IDC data. Google was No. 1.
“It’s growing pretty fast,” Weide said. “Brand advertisers are moving a lot money into Facebook.”
And that’s mainly because of the potential that every ad will go viral through Facebook’s user networks. “That’s what they think is happening,” he said, referring to brand advertisers. “Its hot and its sexy.”
The catch, Weide said, is that the effectiveness of Facebook ads is still hard to measure. “Right now, it’s an article of faith for many brand marketers,” he added.
Finding other models
Which could be a reason why it really makes sense for Facebook to look for other revenue sources, including those beyond advertising. There’s been speculation that the company could move into the search business, a market dominated by Google.
Facebook appears to be staying conservative in its accounting choices, after several other Internet IPOs sparked questions over how they presented their financial reports this year, Emily Chasan reports on Markets Hub.
“It would be the obvious step,” Weide said. “It would hurt Google a lot.”
Giving users the ability to more easily purchase products or services on Facebook could also open up another robust stream of revenue, said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter.
“As soon as they give users a reason to register a credit card, we’re going to see a dramatic increase in impulse purchases,” he said.
Crawford Del Prete, also of IDC, said Facebook “has an unbelievably wide view in terms of the ways they think they can make money.” But that’s where some of the risks come in, he added.
“Between here and when those other revenue streams are a significant percentage of revenue, it could be a very unpredictable business model,” he said.
In other words, Facebook City’s viability is not assured.
“Their experimenting with trying to figure out how to engage people online beyond advertising is admirable and could be cool,” Del Prete said. “But they could spend a lot of money and, you know what, people don’t engage. Those are expensive lessons to learn.”
Still, Bajarin of Creative Strategies Inc. stressed that for now, “their platform is paying off nicely.”
“And by the way, they’re just getting started,” he added.
Benjamin Pimentel is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco.
Chunk of Facebook profit tied to game company Zynga
By Alex Pham Physorg.com
Facebook Inc., whose initial public offering is slated to be one of the biggest debuts in U.S. stock market history, has disclosed its heavy reliance on a single customer – Zynga Inc.
In its S-1 regulatory filing Wednesday, Facebook reported that it received 12 percent of its revenue in 2011 from Zynga, whose social games such as “CityVille” and “Mafia Wars” have drawn several hundred million players to Facebook over the years. Zynga launched its own IPO in December.
With $3.7 billion in total annual revenue for Facebook, that translates to roughly $444 million in direct payments from Zynga.
That figure does not include the revenue Facebook receives from displaying advertising around Zynga’s games, which accounted for a “significant number of pages,” according to the social network’s public filing. Zynga’s games pull in 56 million players a day, according to AppData.com, a site that tracks Facebook traffic.
For Facebook, Zynga is both an asset and a potential liability: “We currently generate significant revenue as a result of our relationship with Zynga, and, if we are unable to successfully maintain this relationship, our financial results could be harmed,” the Silicon Valley social network giant wrote among its “Risk Factors.”
Facebook has reason for its unease. While Zynga’s fortunes are now tightly entwined with Facebook and the social network’s 845 million active users, the San Francisco social gaming company has made it clear that it wants to expand its games beyond Facebook. Part of the reason is that Facebook charges a 30 percent levy on the sale of all virtual goods sold via applications on its platform – including games from Zynga.
In October, Zynga unveiled a new online destination where its players can congregate outside of Facebook. It’s also pushing heavily into mobile games, both on Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s Android Marketplace.
(c)2012 the Los Angeles Times
Distributed by MCT Information Services
WE all know that people and businesses who don’t adapt get phased out. Generation X, of which I am part of, has seen the evolution of technology transform how we live our daily lives.
From the VHS tape to the DVD and Blu-ray discs, and from snailmail to email, there are numerous examples how one way of doing things has given way to a faster, better and cheaper methods.
The bankruptcy of Kodak is the latest proof of how businesses can become irrelevant if they don’t keep up with the times. Research In Motion Ltd, the maker of BlackBerry phones, is feeling what Nokia has gone through. The digital age is moving along at breakneck speed and is transforming a multitude of industries and leaving an indelible mark on people and businesses.
There are companies that have done well to make changes on the fly. Most famous is Apple and before that Corning, which was – and maybe still is – famous for its cookingware rather than its fibre optics.
The need to transform is also not lost on corporate Malaysia. A lot of the big banks have done so and have become a lot better at what they do today. MMC Corp changed from a miner to an infrastructure player and the likes of Genting and IOI have expanded dramatically in the business they are in to become world giants today.
That transformation is also seen in the big institutions in Malaysia. The Employees Provident Fund restructured its portfolio from owning 400-plus stocks, some of which most punters will not touch today, to a leaner portfolio of around 100. Its narrower focus has allowed it to take the plunge into private equity and property and, as a result, the returns it can make for depositors should also improve in time.
The same can be said of Khazanah Nasional Bhd. In 2004, when Khazanah first started under new “management”, it had a bunch of old assets sitting in its books. They included stakes in some of the largest companies in the country, but sitting idle and waiting for results was not the way to go.
Khazanah restructured its portfolio, and from a bunch of companies that was heavily leaning towards utilities and telecoms, it invested in new businesses and industries. New investments were in part funded by monies from asset sales such as the divestment of Khazanah’s legacy stakes in Pos Malaysia and Proton.
As a result, Khazanah’s returns improved. During a recent briefing with the media, Khazanah revealed that if it had just sat on it and relied on the government-linked companies’ transformation programme alone, its returns would have been a meagre 2% a year.
But it did not do that and instead invested in new businesses which it felt will bring better growth. Those new investments brought in a return of 22% a year.
One such investment is the hospital business. Integrated Healthcare Holdings (IHH), which consists of hospital investments such as Apollo Hospital Enterprise Ltd and Parkway Holdings, recently made a big acquisition in Turkey when it bought Acibadem.
Healthcare in the demographics in which IHH operates will be hugely lucrative. India, South-East Asia and now Turkey have the desired young but ageing population with growing incomes.
IHH is slated for a massive listing and the changes that some entities in corporate Malaysia have undertaken should be a showcase of how transforming when it needs to be done should be the course of action.
● Deputy news editor Jagdev Singh Sidhu wonders when the retirement age in the private sector will be raised.
The desire to learn and bring about improvements within, is what makes a young job-seeker employable.
THE QUEST for self- improvement is a quality that needs to be nurtured long before one embarks on a task. Every other day I receive resumès in my e-mail asking for a chance at an interesting career. After opening the mail, I usually scroll down to look for anything, that makes me want to read further and usually it would be the section on hobbies and other activities.
I must admit that I am particularly drawn to those who have excelled in sports and activities that are not work related. Besides this, conferences, meets or expeditions be it a scout jamboree or leadership training programme will help the resumè stand out too.
During one team-building programme I conducted for young executives of a company, I had an interesting conversation with a participant who talked about his college days and how he and his friends used the great outdoors to their benefit while living on a tight budget.
“We would go camping, trekking and fishing during college break. We wanted to go to Sabah but had no money, so we took up part time work in a fabric shop and even set up a roadside stall selling fruits we bought from the wholesale market!
Up in the air: The group unable to contain their joy and excitement as they wave their hands.
“Finally, we raised enough money to get to Sepilok, Sabah. We also managed to climb Gunung Kinabalu,” he said adding that he and his friends would try to make a yearly trip just to be together.
When I left, I was thinking of how I could fit him into my company. Although he did not have the relevant experience, I was willing to train him as a trainee facilitator because I was encouraged by his attitude.
A quick assessment told me he was creative (from the way he went about raising the money for his trip) and curious in his quest to seek information. He also had self-motivation (the limited funds did not deter him from being adventurous) and was a team player (he made a collective effort in raising funds and wanted to keep in touch with his friends).
There is one quality that is immediately obvious from a resumè that includes a list of extra-curricular activities and that is the writer’s quest for knowledge and self improvement. There are also some things that will never change with time, regardless of which day and age we are in, and that is the desire for growth
If we dwell further into this topic we will also find that it is not about the conferences or the number of training programmes that one has attended. In fact, it is about the attitude towards learning. The desire to question and the keeness to know about whatever that’s happening around him. It is about wanting to be better. Despite the rapid changes in the training milieu, employers still want and need the same thing — an individual who takes it upon himself to grow and does it with a great attitude.
My corporate contemporaries have complained about sales employees who would not go any further to reach out to a bigger market because they cannot speak a different dialect or language as a reason for not venturing out. My contemporaries are disturbed that their employees are not taking the initiative to learn a language or dialect on their own and instead expect their employers to formally hire speicalists to teach languages.
Employees cannot demand to get training as training is not a right. An employee is expected to constantly improve himself and keep up with trends in the market place because being paid a salary would mean they are expected to add value to the company.
On my first job, that was exactly what I was told. Being young and fresh, I was naive to think that I would be given the opportunity to learn and be an asset to the company.
How shocked I was when my boss took me into his room and told me that he was cutting my pay because I was learning too much at the firm! “If I pay you to learn then you are gaining more than me, so I should not pay you so much.”
He highlighted the reality that organisations pay for talent. The more talented you are and add value to the business, the more you will be paid. You are not paid to learn in the company. You are paid to apply what you have learnt. So, before one can apply his knowledge he must first acquire it even before he sends out his resumès.
This takes the discussion back to extra-curricular activities while in school and colleges.
To make these activities work for you during the interviews, always relate it to how it can help you perform better. For instance, tell them you were a King Scout in school and that has taught you to lead and keep a group of people with different personalities together. Talk about the challenges that you have learnt from all your activities that were not course-related and how you have learnt to network with others.
Also remember not to overdo the focus on extra-curricular activities. This may lead the employer to think that you will be distracted and that you will not put the job as priority.
Extra-curricular activities are meant to help you at the interview, so chart it carefully for a winning number.
Paul Kam is a lawyer by training. He has worked with private and public sector leaders and has designed and led several transformation, alignment and strategic change initiatives. With his understanding of market conditions in various industries, he is passionate about shifting and aligning mindsets and behaviours of leaders and employees. He is a member of the Malaysian Institute of Management and is also a certified team profiler and a life and wealth coach.
By Deborah Sweeney, Forbes Contributor, West Coast CEO who knows small business and entrepreneurs.
Truly a Lightbulb Moment
Got a resolution for 2012 at the workplace yet?
Or better yet, what are the resolutions that your employees have for the company next year?
These resolutions could be lofty. Nab every sales call, land the biggest accounts, open offices in every major city overseas. They could be set on a smaller scale too. Leave earlier in the morning to avoid getting caught in traffic, ask for more beverage options in the kitchen, delegate tasks to other department members more often. All good goals for any team to work towards, but difficult for a CEO to process when they don’t know what their staff resolves to work towards, if they plan on working toward anything at all.
If you’re stuck in a place where the progress forward looks cloudy, this is the time to work on building a better work team for 2012. A team that is roaring and ready to go and certain of how their place in the company can lead to its eventual success. Building this team takes time, talent, and creativity. Sometimes it requires hiring new people and firing those who aren’t doing their part. More than just shooting off a couple of emails and hoping for the best, your team for 2012 will rely on you to think outside of the box as well as inside at some of the common sense bits that get overlooked. From new hires to clones, here are my tips on the building for the better within your company team.
Not every person who gets hired for your business needs to be strictly all about business. Who will handle the legal division of your firm, the public relations aspect of your brand, the IT work for when the computers suddenly crash? A grad degree in business is attractive on paper, but not useful in every setting. Look into hiring candidates with backgrounds in other studies like communications that you would typically pass over.
2. Don’t Hire A Clone Of Yourself
Great minds think alike, but a greater mind will want to work with a team that expresses a slew of opinions and ideas across the board. Working with a team that is just like you won’t challenge your company to grow in a new direction if you all agree on the same things all the time. It’s easy to want to hire someone just like you, but more rewarding in the long run if you get someone to offer what you cannot to the table.
3. Allow Employees To Be Involved In The Hiring Process
Get an idea of whether or not a potential employee will be a good fit within their department by inviting the managers and senior staff members to the job interviews. They may have questions and concerns related to their field that you won’t touch on that decide whether or not a future hire is the best decision to make
4. Explain Company Culture To Your New Team Members Early
Welcome to the team! Beyond just your employee handbook, there are rules to the game of working within the company. Some work teams are much more by-the-book in terms of how to conduct yourself and may be much more quiet and soft-spoken. Others are willy-nilly and a lot more extroverted and open to embracing new ideas with members encouraged to leave their shyness at the door. A new hire needs to know the company culture early on so this isn’t so much of a shock to their system.
5. Answer Questions, Communicate Often
Future goals and upcoming projects will have a series of questions that come with them, especially if a team member is new. Hold plenty of open discussions and meetings to provide insight into what you’re working on. Keeping communication lines between all team members and yourself is key to the success of the project and the overall organization as a whole.
6. Hire People With Different And Complimentary Personalities
Much like not having dozens of clones of yourself, don’t do a similar thing with your favorite employee (and don’t play favorites either). It’s cliche to say it, but your team needs to have the snowflake effect where no two think or behave exactly the same despite having similar strengths in their field. Personality goes a long way and can work to give your company the face and voice it needs if it doesn’t already have a defined one.
7. Hire Milliennials
They are young, eager to please, tech savvy, and well educated. And if you treat them well, they will stay with your company (though not forever which is to be expected). Interview the bright young things and bring them on to see what they’re made of. You might find yourself to be pleasantly surprised.
8. Pay Your Interns
It isn’t a practice that every company commits to or can commit to, but at the very least offer a stipend if you decide to bring in seasonal interns.
Gets kind of hard to create a voice for your online persona if the person creating it has never visited your office or interacted with your employees before doesn’t it?
10. Offer Flexible Schedules
This is a rule of thumb for both new hires and longtime employees. Circumstances do arise where not every member of the team can be there to make a meeting. If multiple members can’t do it or aren’t ready just yet, offer to reschedule the event. Employees with additional commitments outside of work like family or school will also appreciate a flexible schedule in being able to accommodate their lives and still work.
11. Encourage Employees To Pursue Outside Interests
Beyond just being a CEO, you may serve as a mentor to some of your staff. And your staff isn’t here solely for the company itself. They may be actively pursuing acting on the side or writing or engaging in other hobbies that could turn into their next career move later on. Have lunch with your staff both new and old to see what they’re all about on the side of their full-time job. Encourage them to share their published work with you or invite you to the opening of a gallery they have a painting featured in. Your acknowledgment of what they are truly passionate about is worth more than you think it might be.
12. Create Jobs Based On Valuable Skills
Want to a hire a new employee, but have nowhere to put them where you know they will really fit in at? Create a position based off of their skill set. You may even wind up creating an entirely new and much needed department!
I recently spoke with Adrian Wooldridge, who is the author of Masters of Management: How the Business Gurus and Their Ideas Have Changed the World – for Better and for Worse. Wooldridge is the management editor and “Schumpeter” columnist of The Economist. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and All Souls College, Oxford, where he held a Prize Fellowship. He was formerly The Economist’s Washington bureau chief and “Lexington” columnist. In this interview, he talks about how the field of management has changed over the past decade, the difference between management and leadership, and more.
How has the field of management changed in the past decade?
Management has been revolutionised by two great changes over the past decade. The first is the rise of the internet. A decade ago the internet was still a fancy reference tool and Google was still a start up. Today the internet is reorganising the world. The internet is not only spawning an entire ecosystem of new businesses. It is reshaping the way that even the most conservative companies organise their business.
The second is the rise of emerging markets. A decade ago we still referred (often pityingly) to the underdeveloped world. Today we regard the emerging world as a hotbed of growth and innovation. Investment houses are pouring money into the BRICs even as they despair about stagnating Europe. Multinationals are ‘offshoring’ research and development as well as manufacturing to India and Brazil.
Are all managers leaders? What’s the difference between management and leadership?
No: not all managers are leaders (and not all leaders are managers: some great leaders such as Winston Churchill have been hopeless everyday managers).
The great distinction between the two lies in the choice of direction: leadership is about choosing where to go while management is about choosing how to get there. Jack Welch was a great business leader because he changed General Electric’s strategic direction with his emphasis on being number one or number two in a business or getting out. A secondary distinction lies in inspiration: the best leaders not only set a direction but inspire their followers to strain every sinew in reaching their new destination. There is nothing second-rate about management: great leaders mean nothing without the nuts-and-bolts men and women who put their visions into practice and make sure that the trains run on time. Incremental changes can sometimes add up to big changes. But given the uncertainty of the current business world—the sudden gusts of change that blow from unexpected directions—leadership is more important now than it was say fifty years ago when ‘organisation man’ ruled the roost.
Can you name a few management gurus that you’ve been observing and explain how they have helped make change?
These astonishing changes of the past decade—the world remade by the internet and turned upside down by emerging markets—have changed the pecking order among business thinkers. You are probably more likely to find a mind-changing article in Wired than in the Harvard Business Review or from an Indian than from an American-first mid-westerner.
The business gurus that I pay most attention to come in two guises: geeks or third-world firstists. Christopher Anderson made waves with his book on The Long Tale (which argued that the world of niches is replacing the world of mass markets). The book has had a huge influence not only with high-tech companies but with other organisations (retailers for example) that are seeing their markets redefined by the internet.
I suspect that his work-in-progress on 3-D printing will also have a big influence (though there is a lot of work in this area). V.G. Govindirajan of Tuck Business Shool has produced exemplary work on ‘frugal innovation’ (the idea that the most interesting form of innovation in the emerging world is about radically reducing costs rather than adding more bells and whistles. This has had a huge impact on General Electric which is producing a new generation of ‘frugal’ medical products. John Hagel and John Seely Brown have produced equally fasinating work on how these ‘frugal products’ will send a wave of disruption through rich countries, as traditional producers are forced to cut costs dramatically or see their markets eaten up by emerging-market giants.
What will the new management gurus of the future look like?
The management gurus of the future will look more like the class of 2010 at CEIBS or the Indian Business School than the class of 2010 at Harvard Business School or Wharton. They will also look more like the class of 2010 at the Stanford School of Engineering than the class of 2010 at the Stanford Business School: white faces will give way to ‘faces of colour’ and classic business school types will give way to engineers and other sorts of geeks.
Masters of Management
For the past century business thinking has been dominated by the United States. The bulk of the business cases have been about American companies. The bulk of the tools and techniques have been dreampt up by American managers. The driving assumption has been that if you don’t measure up to American standards—about how you organise your company or measure your performance—you are doing something wrong. That model was shaken by the rise of Japan but reasserted itself in the 1990s. It is now being shaken up even more thoroughly by the rise of a huge variety of emerging world companies. The business gurus of the future will come from emerging world—not just from India (which has cornered the market for the moment) but also from China, Indonesia, Turkey and Nigeria.
For the past century technology gurus have played second fiddle to strategy gurus (or even marketing gurus). Peter Drucker was less interested in technology than in the sociology of organisations. Tom Peters made little use of his training as an engineer in his voluminous writing. Technology is now at the heart of business thinking rather than an optional add on. Technology gurus are rewiring our thinking about organisations. And gurus from other disciplines face a stark choice: think deeply about what is happening in the world of the internet or face irrelevance.
Golf courses in the centre of development areas are now being targeted for re-development as property prices rocket through the roof.
Caddy Master By WONG SAI WAN
JUST a couple of decades ago, the crowning jewel for any Malaysian developer was to own a golf course and to use that sporting facility to enhance their property sales.
In the 1980s and 1990s, it was unthinkable for a housing developer not to try to have a golf project. Even if they do not have enough land for a full 18 holes, they would try for a nine-hole or at least a driving range.
But how things have changed with the Asian financial crisis of 1998. There were less than a handful of new golf courses built in the past 12 years. In fact, more golf courses have closed down in this period.
KGNS sits on prime land and has been in the news a lot of late.
Fast forward to this year and once again developers are eyeing the golf courses but in a totally different manner. Developers no longer want to build golf-related projects; instead they want to tear them down.
Word has it that, especially in the Klang Valley where the prices of property have gone up tremendously, developers are eyeing golf courses to be turned into property development projects.
An 18-hole golf course with a reasonably sized clubhouse will cover about 50ha and a land of that size in the Klang Valley or even just outside the greater Kuala Lumpur is worth hundreds of millions.
For developers such a large track of land will be worth billions in terms of property for sale especially if it is located near major highways or with railway access to Kuala Lumpur.
Many of such courses when developed between 15 and 20 years ago were located away from the city centre with some built on former estates – usually the lousiest piece of land that is hilly and with plenty of valleys and swampy soil.
Those days this kind of land was considered “rubbish” and too costly to rehabilitate to build good houses that would have fetched the top dollar.
But two decades on things have changed. The Klang Valley has grown and the Government has adopted the concept of the Greater Kuala Lumpur where they expect almost 10 million people will live in.
This expanded Kuala Lumpur will stretch all the way from Sungai Buloh in the North all the way to Kajang/Semenyih in the south; Klang/Banting in the west to Bukit Tinggi in the east.
More than 40 golf courses are located within this very large area and every single one of them have suddenly become prime land and worth a lot of money. The landowners who previously thought they were sitting on a worthless piece of property now find that they have a gold mine.
From the likes of Rahman Putra Golf & Country Club to the now defunct Emville Golf & Country Club, these are now prime properties. Even the Kampung Kuantan Golf Club and Kundang Lakes Golf & Country Club which were the starting grounds for many golfers in the Klang Valley may not be safe from the hands of developers in a few years time.
Already, Kajang Hill Golf & Country Club has been sold to Dijaya Corporation Bhd for redevelopment for RM228mil into mixed development with an estimated gross development value (GDV) of RM2bil.
Dijaya, which owns Tropicana Golf & Country Club in Petaling Jaya, plans to develop the more than 80ha site that now sits the golf course and the clubhouse facilities into a new project called Tropicana Kajang.
The deal was struck in September and club members were then informed that they had less than a year left to play on its Par 72 championship course layout measuring 7,148 yards.
Kajang Hill was owned by the Japanese company Taiyo Resort (KL) Bhd. It was not the most exciting golf course but it had unique Japanese features set in tropical settings.
There is now a rush by golfers to play there before the course is closed down for good.
Word is abound about all sorts of other courses been targeted by land hungry developers. Among them is said to be the Kelab Golf Negara Subang which sits right smack beside of the Federal Highway in Petaling Jaya.
The present committee decided to not renew a Caveat the club had placed on the land thus allowing the Federal Land Commissioner to act on the land title.
Speculation is rife that there are some people eyeing the land of one of KGNS two 18 holes. There is no concrete proof but a hurriedly called EGM by the members has appointed a panel to look into the matter.
KGNS is reported to be sitting on land worth some RM5bil – a sum that some people deemed too valuable for golf.
This is what worries the golfing community that both courses on the outskirts as well as those within the city limits are being eyed for re-development.
This is made worse by the fact, many of the commercial club owners are only just too keen to sell or redevelop the land. It would seem that only a recession or the burst of the property bubble would prevent this from happening.
Till next month, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Dijaya in RM228mil land deal for Kajang Hill Golf Club land
I was a member of the Kajang Hill Golf Club and I received notice to terminate the membership from November 2011. However, they are paying back the monies that we paid to join. So, I was expecting some news on this. This was confirmed in today’s papers. The owner, a Japanese Datuk is going to make a lot of money in this deal.
However, if you go to the vicinity of the area, the whole place is going to be developed very soon. The size of the whole area is huge with the other areas combined.
The prices of the properties here is also very high (by Kajang standards), mind you. So it’s left to be seen how the place will eventually turn out.
Until the next time, cheers.
The Star, Tuesday September 6, 2011
Dijaya in RM228mil land deal
Purchase of freehold land from Taiyo to cater for increasing demand for property in Kajang
PETALING JAYA: Dijaya Corp Bhd has entered into a conditional sale and purchase agreement with Taiyo Resort (KL) Bhd to acquire five parcels of freehold land in Mukim Semenyih, Ulu Langat, Selangor, measuring approximately 80.33ha for RM228mil cash.
The parcels of land are currently held under the operations of Kajang Hill Golf Club, it added.
Dijaya said the land would be transformed into a mixed development consisting of landed houses, condominiums, apartments and shop offices with an expected gross development value of about RM2bil.
“The development, known as Tropicana Kajang, will be another future revenue generator for the group and shall contribute positively to its financial performance,” it said in a separate statement.
Dijaya said the freehold land had an upside potential in terms of capital appreciation because of the increasing demand for residential and commercial properties in Kajang, as seen in other developments such as Nadayu 92, Tiara Residence, Ramal Villa, Twin Palm and Jade Hills, just to name a few.
“With increasing population and expanding residential properties in and around Kajang, the proposed development of commercial properties will cater to the rising demand for office and retail spaces.
“Furthermore, the proposed Kajang-Sungai Buloh MY Rapid Transit project will enhance the investment potential of Kajang, presenting a greater opportunity to property investors,” it said.
“The land deal provides an opportunity for the group to introduce more development in Kajang with quality and prestige synonymous with our Tropicana brand,” he said.
Dijaya said the purchase price was arrived at on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis after several considerations including the reasonably low land cost of RM26.36 per sq ft which will enable TCSS to price its proposed development competitively and with reasonable margins.
On the financing for the purchase, Dijaya said it would be funded through internally funds and/or bank borrowings.
“The exact mix of internally generated funds and bank borrowings will be determined by the management of the company at a later stage, after taking into consideration Dijaya Corp and its subsidiaries’ gearing level, interest costs and internal cash requirements for its business operations,” it said.
The group’s net gearing is expected to rise to 0.22 times post-land acquisition assuming about RM114mil, representing approximately 50% of the purchase price, is financed via borrowings. As at Dec 31, 2010, Dijaya was in a net cash position.
Young people who just whine at the demands of their employers or prefer to stay within the confines of Daddy’s home won’t go far.
THERE was a time when most youngsters could not wait to move out of their parents’ homes.
For those living outside the Klang Valley, moving to Kuala Lumpur meant the beginning of a new life, start of a career and, of course, being away from the watchful eyes of their parents.
The independence that came with it for young adults was just too irresistible. Living alone or sharing an apartment with friends offered better privacy than staying with the folks, even if it ate into their pay.
But many unmarried young Malaysian adults, especially among the urban middle class, are now opting to stay with their parents.
They have become a lot smarter. They get to keep their salaries while enjoying the comforts of a proper home and do not have to pay for the utility and household food bills. They also have the maid to take care of their demands, which include washing their cars.
No wonder our kids grumble when they are picked for National Service, which is really just like an outward bound training programme compared with the real McCoy in Singapore. There, they are dressed and treated like real soldiers.
Living such pampered lifestyles, where many seem to have their own cars even when they are still in college, these young adults’ outlook has also changed.
Employers have found that many job entrants snub a RM2,500 starting salary even when they have yet to prove themselves. Some already receive pocket money of about RM1,000 a month and fear losing their allowances from their parents once they start working. For these spoiled kids, it’s just bad mathematics.
Some, I have been told, receive pocket money of at least RM2,000 a month because they maintain a lifestyle that includes having regular sessions at Starbucks and clubs and, of course, raking up bills for the mobile phone and iPad.
So, the result is they can be choosy. This attitude is an issue faced by many employers these days.
We do not need an in-depth survey to know the condition of the job market. A managing director of a media company told me last week that a young applicant refused to accept her job offer because the office was located in Petaling Jaya.
“She said her home was in Cheras and having to wake up early to beat the traffic jam to PJ wasn’t appealing. So she just turned us down,” she said.
Good workers are hard to come by and it does not help that Malaysian employers are not quite prepared to offer competitive salaries, conscious of the fact that this would add to their costs.
Young staff bring in greater energy, freshness and a better outlook but these don’t necessarily come with more passion or loyalty. Young Malaysians today would probably have worked in at least six companies, maybe even more, within a short period.
The good ones know they would be talent scouted or they would simply leave for other jobs that offered better salaries and perks.
This writer has worked for The Star for 27 years, which probably makes me a Jurassic subject here. I have had only one employer and while it may seem strange to many young people, those of my generation would understand.
I travelled around campus on a motorcycle, which was regarded as a privilege then, and I used the same kap cai when I started work in Penang.
Getting my first car, which was the result of some serious saving, was a great achievement. And it was a second-hand car.
The biggest headache for employers today, however, is the inability of many job seekers to speak and write well in English. This is high on the list of minimum requirements.
Recruitment advertisements, whether in print or online, state clearly that English is an absolute essential, but many job seekers cannot pass this first hurdle.
“It has become a norm to hear applicants speaking in Bahasa Malaysia or Mandarin when they call up. You can tell that they cannot even carry out a simple conversation in English,’’ an employer tells me.
But as Malaysian companies look beyond the local market, which is really tiny in comparison to Indonesia, India, China or the Middle East, they would acknowledge that applicants who speak more than just English would be more marketable.
My non-Chinese friends are often annoyed when they read job advertisements specifying Mandarin-speaking candidates. I tell them many Malaysian Chinese from English-medium schools would share their feelings.
“Bananas” like me – yellow outside but white inside – would struggle like my non-Chinese brethren if we were in China because of our language handicap. The reality is that many companies need to do business in China, which has become the world’s most important market. And with Europe on the decline economically, China’s status has become even more powerful.
So there really is nothing discriminatory about those advertisements. A Malay who can speak and write Chinese would probably get the job. There are two Malay reporters in The Star with these skills and they are regarded as gems.
Dubai is also a strategic hub with many multi-national companies setting up their regional headquarters there. Surely, job seekers who speak Arabic would enjoy an advantage there.
The question is how ready are our young adults to learn new skills, including language and even social networking skills, to make them more marketable?
We won’t go far if we continue to whine at the demands of our employers or just prefer to stay within the confines of Daddy’s home.
The New Deal proposals for Malaysians have caught the attention of some young people who hope they will become a reality.
THE youths of today are a generation in a hurry. Born into the digital age, the pace in which their world spins often leaves their parents and the establishment struggling to keep up with their expectations.
They sometimes lament that established institutions are out of tune with their needs and aspirations, whether politically, economically or socially.
The young generation is also much bolder and articulate in expressing their needs and dissatisfaction.
Deal for all: In the New Deal, Dr Chua is believed to be speaking for a 1Malaysia and is bent on pushing for equal rights for all Malaysians.
When the MCA announced a New Deal for Malaysia based on fairness and bravery last week, where affirmative action must be based on needs and merits, as well as others, it drew both plaudits and scepticism from the young.
Even as they welcomed party president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek‘s speech on the New Deal, they expressed scepticism over whether it would receive the necessary support from other Barisan Nasional partners to be realised.
“Reading the speech, I was filled with great hope for the future, my future and the future of the youth today,” says 25-year-old Vince Chong, deputy chairman of the National Young Lawyers’ Committee of the Bar Council.
“That is essentially the crux of Dr Chua’s speech he was selling hope. And the reforms that he proposed as key points for the New Deal are exceptionally appealing.
It is about time the MCA speaks up so that they are part of the making of policy proposals. – WAN SAIFUL WAN JAN
“But I am also alive to (the fact) that reality may not allow it. The road to realise all key points of the New Deal is exceptionally tough. And there must be the political will to back it, not only from Barisan members but also members of the Opposition,” adds Wong.
The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), a non-profit think tank, has described MCA’s call as a “very bold move” even though there is nothing “radical” in the New Deal.
“The announcement (New Deal) was very exciting, not because of the content but because MCA as one of the senior partners of Barisan National is beginning to speak out,” Ideas chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan says.
“And it is about time that the party speaks up so that they are part of the making of policy proposals,” adds Wan Saiful.
Under the New Deal proposal, affirmative action must be based on needs and merits. If any particular group is poor, it must continue to receive help.
Last month, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak reportedly said that any affirmative action to help bumiputras should be based on meritocracy to ensure only the deserving ones are promoted,
“Hopefully, with MCA speaking out, the PM will feel he has the political support to implement it,” says Wan Saiful.
As a Malay, Wan Saiful, 36, personally believes it is “unfair” to have policies based on race.
“Malays are beginning to speak out against affirmative action,” Wan Saiful observes.
“There will always be extremist elements from all races. But there are also unifying forces from progressive elements of many parties,” he says, adding that his organisation is “more than willing” to talk to people from all races who need help or to listen to their concerns.
Political scientist Ong Kian Ming of UCSI University describes the New Deal as “bold” and, in some ways, beyond what Najib has proposed as part of the political transformation programme.
“For example, Dr Chua called for the abolition of the restriction in the AUKU (University and University Colleges Act) which prevents students from being members of political parties,” says Ong.
“His outreach to young voters and the emphasis on demands beyond that of the immediate concerns of the Chinese community show that he is in touch with political reality post 2008,” he says.
However, Dr Chua faces challenges in making the New Deal a reality as much would depend on the votes MCA can recapture in the next general election as well as how much support the party will get from Umno.
“The New Deal has many good aspirations but the larger electorate will quickly move on to focus on Najib’s transformational agenda rather than the MCA’s own transformational agenda,” adds Ong.
Najib appears not to be relying on MCA and MIC to reach out to the Chinese and Indian voters but is instead relying on his own popularity, according to Ong.
“This may not be sufficient in swinging enough votes to win back some of the seats which MCA lost in 2008 especially in areas with strong PR incumbents and relatively weak MCA candidates,” he says.
For Chew Hoong Ling, 31, the most important part of the New Deal is the economic proposal.
“People will not complain and will even close an eye when they have enough to eat. But when people struggle while the leaders are seen to be lavish and corrupt, the people will turn the tables (against them),” says Chew, a member of the National Youth Consultative Council.
Chew is calling for the empowerment of youths to give them the opportunity to be entrepreneurs and not just employees.
“We have babies born every year but the leadership hoards positions for over 10 years. How can young people climb up the (corporate) ladder in their lifetime?
“There should be policies to empower youths in other sectors and facilitate youth groups to be entrepreneurs,” she says.
For the young who are well educated, they have no patience to wait for changes as their education affords them the mobility to move to places with better opportunities. This mobility also gives them the ability to effect changes to their lives without intervention from the state.
“Brain drain will continue to happen until major reforms are made by the ruling government where there is meritocracy, where contracts are given out based on merit,” says William Lee, 27, a web designer.
Lee, who graduated from Monash University, Melbourne with a degree in electrical and computer systems engineering, is planning to leave for Australia.
“I plan to leave the country as a back-up plan’, in case things don’t work out here,” he says.
Lee says he and his friends started their own businesses with their own efforts.
“We did it ourself. Nobody helped us.”
Ann, a financial executive, believes Dr Chua speaks for all Malaysians in his New Deal.
“Given his ideology of the New Deal, I would say he is really speaking 1Malaysia and pushing for equal rights for all Malaysians.”
In the following weeks, Sunday Star will explore the key points of the New Deal articulated by Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.
With the fast-rising giant that is today’s China, few established things can be assumed to be the same.
EVENTS that have become established through routine tend not to create a fuss, whatever the contentious issue may be.
However, when routine events produce surprising results, the implications may multiply exponentially. Such is the case with annual US arms sales to Taiwan, and China’s angry reactions to them.
Even though different years may see different combinations of disagreements between Beijing and Washington, the arms sales drama played out between the two capitals over a largely silent Taipei is an annual soap opera worth noting for the scale of its implications.
US plans to sell Taiwan US$6.4bil (RM20.3bil) of weapons last year strained relations between Beijing and Washington badly. Not only was this the largest amount in nearly 20 years, it came together with several other disagreements at the time.
The result was that Beijing suspended military relations with the US from January, besides considering sanctions against private US arms makers involved. The sale was a left-over from the preceding Bush administration’s policy that the Obama White House had tried to usher through.
This year it was “arms sales to Taiwan time” in Washington again. Taiwan had asked for a considerable package, but the US had been having second thoughts.
Taipei had sought a range of new weapons including a new fleet of F-16 jet fighters. But this time Washington said no, mindful of Beijing’s ire.
Instead of the new F-16s, Taiwan will instead get US$5.85bil (RM18.5bil) of “upgrades” for its existing fleet. That in turn led to some bipartisan criticism of the Obama administration in Congress.
Interestingly, Taiwan did not complain about the downgraded weapons sales. Instead it officially congratulated Washington for “going ahead” with its arms sales programme, all too aware of its weak position in the strategic triangle.
For China, any US military aid to Taiwan is still military assistance that could be used to attack the mainland, so Beijing protested all the same. But the atmosphere this time has become less antagonistic.
Just as the US had said no to Taiwan, albeit within limits, China’s protests were largely limited to news media commentaries and defence establishment statements. Both the US and China have come to a new understanding of each other’s concerns and their mutual interests.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi assured US businessmen in New York that bilateral relations would continue to grow, right after asking Washington to stop the jet upgrades. Those upgrades were not going to stop, especially when they were already a softer alternative to the full-blown sale of new F-16s, and China seemed satisfied enough with that.
Military might
The other issues at stake this year include China’s own military development, of which China watchers in the US are taking due note. However, a more significant factor for the US is a possible run on the dollar given that so much of US wealth, and loans, lies in China’s hands.
For its part, China is arranging for its next president, Xi Jinping, to visit Washington later this year. That means no souring of relations with the US is to be advised.
The US itself is gearing up for a presidential election next year. Washington is therefore understandably on its toes for now in regard to its relations with a fast-rising China.
All of this seems to leave some of the smaller countries in East Asia somewhat disoriented. Accustomed to US military and diplomatic dominance in the region for more than half a century, any sign of the US receding into the Pacific distance can be disconcerting for them.
This applies particularly to those countries that had hosted US military bases for decades.
Two days ago, the Philippines tried to form an Asean front by establishing a panel of legal experts in dealing with China’s claim over disputed islands in the South China Sea. The government of President Benigno Aquino III has consistently been active on this issue, notwithstanding the limited response it has received.
One reason for the apparent lack of Asean enthusiasm for Aquino’s plans is that he is trying to tackle a huge and long-established issue as Asean’s youngest leader with no clear direction.
Another reason is that Manila is sending confusing if not also conflicting signals over the issue. Last week the Philippines announced that Aquino would bring the issue of the disputed islands to Japan on his visit to Tokyo.
Japan has no involvement with claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, although like the Philippines and Taiwan it has a security arrangement with the United States. Those arrangements vary in their terms and degree of US obligations, so taken together they are asymmetrical and non-comparable.
There is a sense in Asean that if disputes within Asean have yet to be solved within and by Asean, they are unlikely to be solved outside Asean.
To compound the confusion further, President Aquino was in Beijing from late last month to early this month soliciting for Chinese investment in the Philippines. From 2009 to 2010, bilateral trade grew more than 35%.
Aquino then said the trade was mostly in China’s favour, and he would like to balance it. He is more likely to succeed there than in competing claims over territory.
A current strand of opinion among US strategic thinkers is that the Philippines is beginning to see China as a “big brother” substitute for the US in East Asia. But given Manila’s actions and policies so far, nobody is likely to know what the Philippines wants to do, least of all Filipino lawmakers themselves.
A Chinese manned submersible sets sail Sunday for the Mariana Trench in the western pacific. In a few days, it will dive 7,000 meters, hopefully setting a new record for deep-sea dives.
A Goldman Sachs sign is seen above their booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, in this January 19, 2011 file photo. A Goldman Sachs executive director published a withering resignation letter in the New York Times, saying the investment bank is a “toxic and destructive” place where managing directors referred to their own clients as “muppets.” – REUTERS
Facebook’s log-on screen. (Reuters)
Up in the air: The group unable to contain their joy and excitement as they wave their hands.
KGNS sits on prime land and has been in the news a lot of late.
BJCC Golf and Country Club News
It is about time the MCA speaks up so that they are part of the making of policy proposals. – WAN SAIFUL WAN JAN
