:: MIS Insights ::

Can you provide a caption or insight about this picture?

One caption will be chosen among all entries. One winner will get an mp3 player in the year 2016! Another winner will get free webhosting for 12 months and a free subdomain from paminta.com!

So hurry up! The more entries you send, the more chances of winning!

Mechanics / Disclaimer:

• I will choose the winner on September 30, 2006. My Pareto-based criteria is 80% “Because I like It”, 20% “Because it’s witty/funny”
• I declare the contractual limits and requirements of the webhosting package. Batteries and domain name not included.
• I have the right to cancel and terminate the contracts involved in this contest anytime I want.
• All submitted jokes become the property of the community and may be regurtitated as wanted.

Rationale. One of the important traits of an MIS professional is his creativity. The usefulness of learned skills, past experiences and stock knowledge can be amplified by a creative mind. The ability to think out of the box, to spot the obvious and to frame a situation from different perspectives are indispensable characteristics in an MIS professional.

A barrel of oil costs an average of US$75 dollars right now. With more and more energy-dependent industries sprouting left and right, the price of such limited and elastic good has nowhere to go but up. Businessweek speculates over what could happen once this black gold hits a US$100 per barrel. When it does happen, what could be in store for the Philippines?

In my opinion, a 33% increase ($75 -> $100) in oil prices can mean the end of the world for the Philippines.

The Book Says: Once oil prices increase, an inevitable rise in transportation fare will trigger an avalanche of price increases in the basic commodities of man. According to Economics 101, consumer spending will decrease, revenues will drop, businesses will get killed and ultimately, the economy will go down. Theoretically.

I Say: However, that’s nothing we haven’t experiencd before. Gas prices have doubled in the past two years but Filipinos are still standing in the ring. I think this is because Filipinos are like cockroaches. You can throw Filipinos in any working condition or let him/her engage in the most inhumane activities but they’d still find a way to get through. Whether it’s uncanny adaptation skills or the inability to respond otherwise to the situation, Filipinos have proven to be a resilient race - thanks in part to centuries of colonization and the teachings of our passive Christian heritage. [I say this part in behalf of the majority of the Filipinos. On the other hand, I do recognize that not every Filipino is a Christian.]

The Book Says: Social unrest will increase. Protests of the following flavors will show up:

• Unemployment woes due to the death of businesses
• Requests for wage increase to offset the avalanche of price increases
• Inadequacy of the government, standard operating procedure

Unfortunately, this does nothing but discourage investors from dealing with us. As such, the government will be prompted to raise tax rates again to compensate for the decrease in the country’s ca$h flow.

I Say: Why are people dependent on the government to provide us with what we do not have? I think Filipinos have grown too fond of looking for what they do not have. We are too much of a Dona Victorina to realize that we have many opportunities / blessings right in front of us.

For instance, being in a capitalistic nation with a democratic government does have its perks despite the bullcrap that we have to put up with. There is no rule prohibiting people from setting up their own businesses or practices. Why wait to be employed, when one can employ themselves? In this way, not only did you get a job, but you can also help someone else by employing them! Imagine if everyone thought like that…

The article at Businessweek talked about what could happen to the major players in the global economy - where, obviously, the Philippines wasn’t included. Why? Because Filipinos want to be Bosses, but not employers. Can you spot the difference?

I hope we don’t allow the cockroaches to be gassed first at US$100 before we do something about the situation. Let’s do what we have to do to save the cockroaches. And let’s do it now.

I’m thankful to God. My family. My teachers. My friends. For what I have and what I don’t have.

Two weekends ago, I was complaining about how bored I was. After having lived la vida loca in Ateneo, getting stuck with two or three small projects at a time got me restless. It wasn’t enough to while away my time. Sure, it gave me lots of time to do what I wanted to do - watch movies, exercise, play games, read, etc. However, such lifestyle left me feeling empty and unfulfilled at the end of the day. It made me miss the sleepless nights that the relentless assault of overlapping deadlines that academic and non-academic commitments brought.

That was two weekends ago though. Fast-forward to today and I’m head up to my arse with projects that aren’t small and aren’t few. It’s not bothering me though. The sheer thrill of having so much to do with so little time makes my blood tingle with anticipation for the exciting months to come.

I don’t know what’s with me and MIS, but these are the moments that make me feel alive. These are the times that make me grow as a professional and as a person. For instance:

• Pipboy as a construction worker. In the beginning, I was all for writing code manually for every project that I got. Nothing gives me more pleasure than writing new software code that addresses the client’s needs. It’s like balancing an accounting problem in an exam on the first try - but better!
• Pipboy as a foreman. After a while though, my projects became repetitive. To avoid copy-pasting code which was effective but crude, I started compiling my functions into libraries. This allowed me to reuse code in my projects. It cut down development time and this allowed me to take in more projects at the same time.
• Pipboy as an architect. Even though most solutions to the scenarios that I encountered were within reach of my function libraries, no two projects are exactly alike. For every project, there was always a little tweaking and customization needed by the client. This forced me to improvise. Since last summer, I’ve been working on a meta-program. I call it The Regurtitator 2000. It’s a program that writes my PHP and MySQL code for me. It’s not yet complete, but i think it will all be worth the effort and just in time for the upcoming deluge of projects coming my way.
• Pipboy as a visionary. Up Next? My own IDE.

I don’t claim to be the most elegant coder or the brightest programmer out there though. There are a hell lot of people who are smarter, experienced and more knowledgeable than I am. From where I stand though, I guarantee results aligned with a company’s business objectives. It’s not enough to create a database that can keep a company’s data. There must also be a way to harness such data into information that will be useful to different types of people. This is just a sample of what I bring in to the table.

If you’re a subordinate to a fellow programmer in the field, chances are, elegant code and A+ algorithms are a must. However, if you’re like me who’s dealing mostly with Small and Medium Enterprise Company Owners or Management-level IT heads, they won’t be looking at your code. They’ll be looking for business results. And in this e-business-enabled economy that we have, it’s not the e that brings home the bacon - it’s the business.

APC wrote an article about how new hires are shying away from workplaces that have restricted internet. From banning certain websites, online tools (Instant Messaging) and ultimately, total internet lockdown, restrictions left and right are being set up to guide (or limit) what people can do at the workplace.

Kirah defines ‘digital immigrants’ as people who were not born into the digital lifestyle and view it as a distraction rather than an integral part of life. The younger generation of workers have been using computers and mobile phones since birth and she calls them ‘digital natives’.

From a Digital Immigrant perspective, management is just doing everything it can to make the workplace as productive as possible. There’s nothing wrong with this. Management not only has a right to do this, but are obligated to do so for the sake of the shareholders. For instance, non-work-related e-mail can easily eat up an hour’s worth of work everyday from an employee. The logic goes, In minimizing distractions, employees can focus on work.

Digital Natives would disagree though. Humans were born to be distracted. Humans need a break, a period of rest or some diversion from what they’re doing once in a while. Even soldiers need a break from the war.

The only problem is when we get too many breaks to the point that it hurts productivity. This is where pro-active management comes in. While reactive management will try to keep blocking services to guide its employees, pro-active management will educate its employees on the proper use of the internet at work. Like the hallway printer isn’t meant for printing your favorite song lyrics, the internet is also a tool that can be helpful if properly managed. If college students didn’t learn that playing TextTwist during class was bad, it is management’s right and obligation to teach them once they get into the workplace.

There are two types of people in this world.

Those who create options.
Those who choose from the options

Which one are you?

-=+=-

For the past two weeks, I got hold of two books that made me postpone my filing of SEC registration papers.

The first was Elements of Business Fianance by G Miranda. The book talked about the different entities (ex. Partnerships, Corporations, Etc.) one can create in the Philippines. It also dabbled on management topics for proper financing and cost control.

I got this book because I wanted the right legal representation for the different types of services I offer. What would I need for my web hosting, web development and systems analysis and design services? Is it a sole proprietorship, partnership or a corporation? At first glance, I wanted to go for incorporation since it provided the most ways to raise funds (stocks) and offered protection (limited liability). However, the exorbitant tax rates are very discouraging. Besides all the monthly reports and annual financial statement paperwork, corporations are charged higher tax rates than other entities.

That’s why I got another book - How to Protect Your Property and Business from Lawsuits by J Lopez. This one examines the legal characteristics of the above-mentioned entities in detail.

As a primer to the Philippine Asset Protection Law, it shows other ways of protecting your business besides choosing the right legal entity. The book’s numerous examples and historical snippets illustrating possible legal business scenarios have been very helpful.

This weekend, I will scour bookstores for discussions on proper Financial Reporting and Taxation Laws in the Philippines. After protecting your company from industrial threats (competitors and what-not), one always has to stay on “the good side” (the government).

I’m very glad that there are Filipino books and writers like these out there. The books might have cost a mere Php500 ($US10), but compared to the knowledge I have acquired or the interview fee of attorneys or lawyers, these books are priceless. Though I do plan to team up with an attorney or lawyer someday, I need to learn some legal jargon first so that we can communicate properly and effectively.

As such, I feel like I never really left school (save the fact that I’m still at the Ateneo everyday for gym and business matters). There are so many things that I’m still learning (Doing Business Legally), re-learning (Economics, Statistics) and want to learn more about (Accounting). Learning makes my time worthwhile. The more that I learn, the more options I create.

With it’s recent battery recall and appalling customer support, Dell seems to be in quite a fix right now - devaluating stocks and all. It seems that no company is really invulnerable to the brutality of the global economy, even one of the biggest names in computer hardware can have its bad days.

Practices can be copied

Much of its woes can be attributed to its focus on cost-cutting leadership. While definitely a big advantage over any type of economy, they bet so much on their 1990s-then-state-of-the-art assembly line. With such tactic subject to imitation and improvement from others, there is simply no long-lasting benefit or advantage for the company. For example, with the maturity of the internet, component suppliers are able to collaborate with Dell’s competitors for tighter Just-in-time inventory schedules that reduce costs. Dell should look for other ways to reach out for the market. Acquiring Alienware was a good move, but I have yet to see Dell’s economies of scale work for Alienware.

Outsourced Opportunities or Problems?

With Dell outsourcing their tech support to the Philippines, I’m quite curious how much Filipinos contributed to Dell’s current situation - whether we were partly responsible or we were actually the lesser of Asian evils. It makes me wonder, “Is Dell in the Philippines for the quality (show me a bunch of 100 random Filipinos who don’t think they’re good in English), price (show me how much an American Call Center Agent earns in an hour and I’ll show you how much a Filipino Agent earns in a day) or the price for quality ratio (the best bang for the buck amongst Asian nations for the moment)?

If it’s about quality, then I believe we only have a decade at most worth of advantage as compared to our fellow Asian neighbors. Remember that these are contract-based projects. It’s not unusual for foreigners to close outsourced factories and relocate to more favorable countries. The quality of education has gone down while distractions have increased in numbers. It’s funny that more malls are being inaugurated in the Philippines every year than hospitals and schools are - combined. I’m not saying malls are bad, mmmkay? I’m saying that there are other things that Filipinos could be doing with their spare time and money.

The Big Picture

What’s gotten shares plunging are caused by analysts whose predictions weren’t met. In my opinion, I think these analysts failed to see that computers have gotten way more powerful than they were before. The word processing, spreadsheet crunching and web browsing needs of the Average Juan de La Cruz hasn’t stimulated any need for greater computing horsepower over the past few years. Everything just works. Why fix something that isn’t broke? Moreover, everyone’s hurting because of delayed sales caused by MS Vista. Everyone wants to see Vista first before getting their Vista-capable machines.

Lastly, the battery recall is something that shouldn’t really get as much negative reaction that it does. For a company as big as Dell, there is no fast and easy way to switch battery suppliers. An environment with a more critical quality assurance and testing might have helped, but how can you test a battery for its problems? The best form of user testing is when the user actually uses the product. Even Apple has announced for a battery recall recently.

Let us not forget though that Dell does not only transact with the masses. They also have Server offerings for supramundane computing needs. Their recent changes to use Opteron and increased Linux are signs of entrance to a possibly bigger market base.

However sad that the picture might seem for Dell, they’re still ending the year with a profit of more than US$3 Billion. How Dell-icious is that?

Can you spot the difference?

Trailblazer

ScoutMaster

My laboratory was a mess with all the tinkering that I had to do the past few days. As such, I spent the better half of the day dusting, recabling and configuring what not. After all the hard work though, I’m very pleased at how The Den looks now.

I went to cPx today to have my computer’s abnormal CPU temperature checked. As I mentioned earlier, my Athlon64 3200+ (socket 939) was simmering at 58 degC idle and boils at 67 full load - without any overclocking. I’ve been using it with an MSI RS480M2-IL motherboard. From what I’ve read in the internet, thirty-two hundreds like mine should run somewhere from 40 to 50 degC normally.

Technician: “What seems to be the problem?”
Me: “My computer[Trailblazer] overheats. CPU temperature reaches 67 degrees at full load. Either when I’m playing CPU-intensive games or have all my work applications running”
Technician: “Please play for a while and try to replicate the situation”
Me: Sure.
…
Trailblazer: 53 degrees C at Idle
Me: “Must be the aircon” <plays Heroes 5 at maximum settings and draws attention of bystanders in the shop>
Trailblazer: 57 degrees C…
Me: “Hmm…” <opens up photoshop, dreamweaver, explorer, firefox, azureus while playing Heroes 5>
Trailblazer: 59 degrees C…
Me: “Hmm…still won’t hang…”
Trailblazer: 58 degrees C…

Me: “Oh Mr. Technician, I don’t think I’ll be able to make it hang. Would it be possible to swap my components with your stock components? I just want to know which component is not working properly.”
Technician: “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t open stock components for such purposes. If you want to, we can send it to the supplier to have it checked.”
Me: <thinks to myself>”That’s a three week wait…”</thinks to myself> Hmm… un momento por favor…

Don’t Wait for Opportunities, Create One

Since I promised my cousins after my graduation that I’d get them a computer, I took this unplanned opportunity to get them one… No, really, I didn’t plan for this. I didn’t see the above-mentioned technical support story coming. Read ahead and see.

Since the PC was going to be used mainly for educational purposes - research, documentation (fancy word for encoding / typing documents) - and a bit of multimedia (listening to sounds, watching videos), picking components was easy.

Cool Dude: How may I help you, sir?
Me: I need a PC, do you have a Celeron Blah?
Cool Dude at the Counter: … Yes, we have stock.
Me: How about XYZ Motherboard?
Cool Dude Using Computer to Verify for Stock: I’m sorry we’re out of stock.
Me: Recommend anything?
Cool Dude Using His Knowledge to Help Me: Sure, let me recommend Motherboard ABC.
Me: Ahhhh… ok. I’ll take that.
Cool Dude at the Counter whose existence has been re-affirmed by my acquiescence to his suggestion: How about a Hard drive?
Me: Sure. What do you have at 80 gigs? … Do you have Kingston?… Etc? …
…
Me: Ahh, I guess that’s it. Where do I pay?
Cool Dude who’s very pleased with his participation at making the sale happen: Over there, sir!
Me: By the way, would you happen to know the normal operating temperature ranges of an Athlon64 3200? I bought a desktop here two months ago and I’m having temperature problems with it. Would it be possible to take out some of your stock components and swap them with mine? I just want to see which component is the culprit.
Cool Dude Who Feels Empowered to The Bones and Who Can’t Say ‘No’ To A Customer Who Just Bought A Desktop: Sure!

ScoutMaster

Ladies and Gentlemen, say hello to ScoutMaster. Lithe and swift, this baby can easily scout through basic multimedia and educational computing territory. While not as buffed as Trailblazer or as fast as Zoom, ScoutMaster can bring you to your destination nice and easy.

• Intel Celeron 3.06D Prescott (346) - I was feeling a bit Intel today after using AMD for the past couple of years.
• Elite P4M800-M7 - It was cheap, compatible and had integrated peripherals - Audio, Video, Lan
• Kingston 512MB 400Mhz - a few hundred more than the generic, why not?
• Lite-On Combo Drive - since they weren’t going to be doing any heavy duty downloading or work, I skipped the DVD-burner
• Western Digital 80GB SATA - offered the best ratio of Pesos to Gigabytes and Gigabytes to Needs
• X-Blade Casing (black) - looks cool. Hey, indulge me.
• Modem - Man does not live on DSL alone.
• 3 Auxiliary Fans - I love auxiliary fans. Two at the front, one at the side and another at the back. I’d place more if I could. But don’t get me one for my birthday. You won’t get invited again.

While ScoutMaster was being assembled, a series of component swaps determined Trailblazer’s heating problems. It turns out that my processor wasn’t really overheating. It was just a fscked up case of a malfunctioning motherboard temperature probe. Another motherboard read my thirtytwo hundred at 31degC. Wow! That’s so Cool!

With such a problem, I had no choice but to send the mobo to the supplier for fixing and miss the services of Trailblazer for a good three weeks. At this point, I am very thankful for having spare machines at my disposal because my work and projects won’t get disrupted. I can always plug Trailblazer’s hard drive into Grunt or ScoutMaster - or have Zoom (or even Swoosh!) retrieve my files from my external hard drive to resume work. Doesn’t it feel good to have redundancy at work?

So, join me in the next few days, as I explore the capabilities of my “New” desktop. Well, it is mine, until I hand it over to my cousins in about two weeks time. You have to “break-in” and do a bit of stress-testing on these things, you know.

Businessweek relasead an article about Asia’s Best Entrepreneurs under 25.

From the article, a good number of the young guns are building empires using Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Notable services provided by these entrepreneurs range from web and mobile application development to IT consultancy.

There are 21 professionals listed in the article and none of them are from the Philippines. Eh? I’m not surprised that there were no Filipinos on the list.

• Copycats. An unprotected product or service is easy prey for dopplegangers. Unless you can protect your business idea with proper brand management and a huge barriers to entry (cost or legal), most ingenious ideas are bound to get oversaturated in the Philippine market Quickly.
• The Philippine economy is not very friendly for start-up businesses. Rents, Utilities and Operating Costs keep going up every year. The laws which protect SMEs have yet to be made easily accessible to everyone.
• Our Educational System is geared toward producing employees, not employers. There aren’t enough classes that talk about Practical Risk Management or Innovative Product Design within the standard course curricula - or courses that can bring out the entrepreneur in everyone.
• Nepotism keeps wealth within reach of the founding families, but stifles far-reaching benefits for everyone.
• Politics. Trapo. Enough Said.

However, I believe that the opportunities are out there just waiting to be taken advantage of. As much as limiting as the local setting is for doing business, remember that we are now part of the Global economy. We shouldn’t just look for opportunities to do business in the Philippines, but abroad also as well. Unless the product you’re marketing in the Philippines is dirt-cheaper than the ones being imported from China, one is better off looking for international customers.

Change dictates that the Competition for Customers is now global.

Now, let us do something good today that can be talked about for years and decades to come.

Once upon a time, I was waiting in line to pay for my tuition fee at college. There were two options to pay for the tuition - cash or cheque. That day, I had cash on hand, hoping that it would have the faster or shorter line of the two.

The registration committee wanted to make sure everyone was waiting at the right line. So, a volunteer went around asking, “Who are the people paying in cheque? Take this line please…”

Since I was with Jonathan Ang, I told him, “Hey shouldn’t you be there? You’re paying in tsek”

——-

I needed some cash last week and all I had were account receivables in the form of cheques. Fortunately, both of them were Metrobank-issued cheques, so I assumed there wasn’t going to be any problems cashing them out.

In the morning, I went to Metrobank-Katipunan to cash them out but it turns out that the first cheque I had was issued by a Metrobank branch that didn’t have any arrangements with the Katipunan branch. Eh?

The second cheque was marked for deposit only at my bank account. Ergo, no instant conversions to liquid assets. Eh?

In Tagalog, both cheques couldn’t be cashed out right then and there.

Later in the afternoon, I went to Metrobank-Tandang Sora with an in-genius plan. I would deposit the cheque at my Metrobank bank account, then withdraw it on the spot. That should get around my first round of obstacles right?

Wrong. There’s a three day wait in clearing your cheques. Therefore, you could only withdraw your moolah after three working days.

——-

You don’t have to cash out cheques at the issuing bank if it’s your name is written on it.

——-

Hope this helps.