Over the last few weeks, I have been talking about reinventing myself. One of the ways to achieve that was to use online training to learn about new things. The deeper I get into it, the more I am convinced that this is the next big wave of learning for everyone, especially for someone looking to change careers. Like on demand TV, we can simply zero in on a topic we have an interest in, to trigger an appropraite online course. An old dog like me can now learn new tricks with ease.

The major players in this field are Udemy and Coursera. There are so many free introductory courses available. Since I started, I have not had to pay a dime yet. I am amazed at how much I can pick up from the structured and organized courses they have online, at my own pace  and at my own time. I just make a point to commit a few hours each day to diligently sit in front of my computer to run through the courses I selected, to absorb what they have to teach me. In time, if I am really interested in a certain topic, I can then do a deep dive into it and pay for the more comprehensive ones that will also provide certifications. Most of the paid ones are between $20 to $80 and we do have a SkillFuture fund to tap on to further subsidize the costs.

To date, I have done 4 : Entrepreneurship, Hashtag Marketing, Python for Beginners, Building a Website using WordPress. Internet Marketing is such a huge phenomenon (see my early post) – I see a possible potential for myself, combining my previous marketing experience and being creative about it. The world is my oyster!

https://www.themuse.com/advice/13-cheap-or-free-online-classes-you-can-take-to-boost-your-digital-skills

 

This has been a pet interest for me since 2012 – the concept of setting up a Retirement Village (RV), as my cohort go into the second half of our lives.

As a country becomes more affluent, the middle class segment continues to increase. The aging population would also create a demand for RV like services where retirees can engage in active aging lifestyles. Currently, well-developed RVs can only  be found in the US and Holland, with some in Japan and Australia.

In Asia, RVs are mostly just a concept at the moment and it has not taken root here in a big way yet. If you look around your community and talk to the seniors, you will realized that there is a huge demand for this non-existent RV service. Nursing homes traditionally have the stigma of being just accommodations for those preparing to die. There is currently no community environments in existence for middle-income retirees who yearn for an active independent lifestyle, living together with like-minded people who wants a higher quality of life.

As I look into this RV concept and speak to others with similar views, I am starting to have a strong feeling that this could potentially become a huge business opportunity. If it takes off in one country, the RV concept should be able to be rolled out to other Asian countries, as the overall population ages and we see a bulging middle class emerging.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_community

An FT article hit me in the nuts today. I shared it with some friends and most agreed that this trend is already showing itself in Asia, while the article states this as a fact in London now.

The title reads : “In search of the missing office minority – the over-fifties”. Apparently, we hardly get to see anyone over fifty in the workplace nowadays, unlike the good old days where people worked well into retirement age. It seems that the over-fifties are a dying breed in the office and “old” people continue to disappear from the work scene.

As we live longer, the irony of the whole situation seems tragic. If we have at least 20 to 30 more years to go, then where do we go from here? I happen to be on the wrong side of fifty very soon and this thought scares me. As we move gracefully into the sunset, what comes next?

https://t.co/OC1vHLecex

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1f76a3fa-20dc-11e6-9d4d-c11776a5124d.html#axzz4AEec4tet

 

This was one of the exceptional Mondays where I had a really pleasant day. With my sisters and brother in law, we had a lovely day excursion up north.

The destination was a small town where the pace of life was slower. A large shopping mall was the town center and it was surrounded by lots of shopping, food outlets and spas to entertain us for a while.

We headed off at 9 am and the scenic car trip took us about an hour. We started off with a late morning tea break while the car was sent for a comprehensive cleaning at an unbelievable bargain ($5). This was followed by a leisurely lunch as  we chillax… We then split up for our individual hedonistic shopping pleasure, as we all had different taste and preferences. Finally, a foot massage to end the perfect day. We headed home after some last minute grocery shopping (some prices were more than 50% cheaper), knowing that it was a fulfilling and well spent day.

 

 

Had a bit of a nostalgic adventure today. I was at the gym of my Alumni club and it happened to be located within my old uni campus. I had been thinking of doing this before and today was as good a time as any – to take a walk through the campus that I spent 3 years of my life to obtain my degree, to try to relive the happy moments I had there more than 26 years ago.

Though the campus looks a bit run down now, most buildings seemed to have been frozen in time. The majority of the lecture and tutorial rooms are still there, except that there are more new add-on structures over the years.  I visited quite a few of the canteens (the way to the man’s heart is via his stomach) to check out if my favourite food stalls still exist (nope, all have disappeared).  The sports center had just been demolished, making way for a new one. This was our favourite place where we spent countless hours at the swimming pool, sometimes in between lessons in order to get a great tan. My 3 years of hostel living was also a great exposure to the uni way of life. This was also the place where I met my future wife to be. I see more new hostels now while some of the old ones are gone. Ah, to be young again…

I remember the orientation camps we went through, the yearly D&D balls we attended with the dress up themes and being involved in some of the organizing committees, AIESEC games, plus some of the crazy things we did during campus hostel life. Some of the friendships we developed then and have cultivated over the years have turned into a group of really close good friends. I will be celebrating our 50th together this year with this group and our spouses on an an overseas trip!

We were still so young then and not jaded by the real working world yet. We had no fear and were excited to face the future in front of us. It is unbelievable that it was such a long long time ago, but the memories and experiences are still so fresh in my mind, like it just happened yesterday.

 

 

 

 

A newbie like me had no idea what the fuss is all about when one insert hashtags in social media. Naively, I thought it was just a way for my post to look cuter… So I signed up for a free Udemy course on Hashtag Marketing today. What an eye opener this was !!!

This has enlightened me on the power of social media on the internet. This totally transforms the way we do internet marketing. The sky is the limit and the world is your audience. There are countless ways you can maximize your marketing campaign and it is only limited by your imagination.

I discovered that there are tools to help one choose effective keywords to link and compliment your original hashtag to get greater coverage : RiteTag, HashTracking, Keyhole, Trendsmap. Then there are search engines (Twubs, SocialMention, TagBoard) to refine your hashtags in order to zero in on targeted audience (could be by geography or product preference). There are also analytic tools like Twitonomy to provide statistical data and track the hashtag hit rates. You can even do a reverse enquiry and send your marketing message to the users of these keyword hashtags, to zoom in on the people who are most likely to buy your product. Finally, there are websites (JVZ00, ClickBank, OfferVault) that provide a list of online products you can sell, to earn commissions that are as high as 50 to 100% of the sales price!!!

It is like you are now a one-man advertising agency. You choose the online product you want to sell and then create a targeted marketing campaign using hashtags to reach the desired audience, constantly fine tuning the tags based on real-time market analytics. How powerful is that?!?

Another strong woman to highlight today : Sheryl Sandberg

It is amazing what a super woman like her had done so far, actively managing FB and pushing the Lean In initiative at the same time. Yet personal tragedy that struck a year ago could not stop her irrepressible spirit.

She advises the Berkeley graduates to count our blessings every day, that finding gratitude and appreciation is key to resilience. She teaches how we can bounce back from hardship via the three P’s – Personalization, Pervasiveness and Permanence.

Great thoughts of the day I learnt today. It’s a highly worthy message I should share with my friends :     http://m.omeleto.com/224862/

What is Failure? Is it a lack of success or is it a process of learning, picking oneself up and becoming stronger in the process? Is it good for you and should we encourage it?

If you ask someone from a startup, the probability of failure is expected to be high but then success when it happens is so much more fulfilling. Do we shelter our kids from failure (hence the strawberry generation of entitlement) or do we let them fail, abet occasionally to toughen them up for their own good to face the real world?

Came across this article today that is making the rounds in the virtual world. A Princeton professor has listed down his failures in his CV. Let’s embrace them and perhaps learn from failures. It is a celebration that we are all human after all and that it is ok to not succeed sometimes.  C’est la vie !!!

Click to access Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures.pdf