Richard Yong

The Bell Curve. Normalised Life.

Normal distribution. 68.27%. It's a fascinating number. Number of hours slept. Number of times someone knocks on a door. Number of times you roll over in bed. Your salary. Your number of bedrooms in your home. Most people will have or do all these things within a very narrow band. 68.27% of any population actually.

From day 1, when you are born, statisticians put you into the curve. Whether it's your weight, your height, your smarts, your money or your death. It all fits on the curve somewhere.

Normal is good. You're just like everyone else, no one is going to question you, because you're part of the 68.27% of the population.

Normal is safe.

Most advice is normal.

What's funny is that normal is so different for different people. Normally it's whoever you're brought up with. Researchers call this the 'normalisation period' when you are 'teaming.' In reality, it's about fitting in. People like people like themselves, and most of all people like to be liked.

I think it's more important to build your own normal. For me, that means I want to see as many groups, teams, people and have as many experiences as possible.

For some people they might be happy with their normal, and they'll either never want, or never will go out and explore the possibilities. Me? I kind of envy these guys, but also... I kind of don't.

Flickr Cred: viasta2

Bamgoogled.

Once upon a time, 'Richard Yong' was a google search term for a crazy Singaporean politician criminal, some New Zealand model and a Richard Yong from Hong Kong's Face book.

No longer.

I've finally made it to the front page of google searches for Richard Yong.

Only 7 more ranks to hit the top!

Flickr cred: Ohmang75 and the criminal Richard Yong.

Stupid people make money. The sky is falling.

So I've heard a few things about how the market is going to go.

South.

20% drop? Maybe.

Financial's in Australia have dropped at least 10-20% in the last few weeks alone. The sky is falling. If I were still in stocks in Australia I'd get the hell out and make the most of 8% interest rates on cash accounts.

I'm not bailing yet on the markets. Video games are a recession's best friend. Unemployment rates soaring? Petrol prices hitting all time highs? I just hope the Jone's are staying home to play their Wii.

So. How exactly do stupid people make money?

Ok. I'm being facetious, I don't mean stupid people. I mean your average mom and dad investor who 'dabbles' in the stock market, or a Japanese house wife dabbling in some forex gambling. Basically your average white collar John Doe who reads the Weekend Business Roundup and has CNBC.

Stupid people make money by luck. If you had put in $20,000 into the stock market 8 years ago, and had thrown darts at a board of investment picks you would have doubled your money. Blindfolded. Even after all the recent falls.

Stupid people have been lucky. And good for them, you don't need to be a genius to get on the gravy train, and nor should you need to be. You can bet that if there is a a gravy train, I'll be the first one on.

An article recently criticised the generation of stupid investors educated on a staple diet of CNBC, Bloomberg and Jim Cramer. It mentioned how they are the ones stuck like deer in the headlights right now. They were brought up on looking at P/E ratios (price to earnings) but either forgot, or don't care about where the E came from. Trust me earnings matter.

Funnily enough, the same investors, also worked in the white collar firms, and funnily enough, these execs also forgot that where the E comes from is more important than just making loads of it.

So it's come full circle, we educate a generation of stupid people, we put stupid people in charge of our firms and we ask them to invest in our firms. In the gaming world, they call this GG.

Now don't take this the wrong way. I'm not labelling an entire generation of people as not smart, or incapable of functioning as sentient intelligent human beings. Stupid is a term I'm using for people who are obviously smart enough to make themselves money to invest. These guys might be lawyers, accountants or doctors, for all I know, or care. But I see it time and time again, people with a fortune to invest and their only explanation for their investing is 'it's a bank. Banks are good, right?'

Stupid people make money (except when the sky is falling).

The sky is falling.

Flickrcred: Motherpie

Don't get caught with your pants down, how a painting taught a 7 year old about subprime. (Hint: NEVER SELL ON CREDIT)

My Uncle owns a furniture store in Alor Setar, Malaysia. This isn't particularly remarkable, except it was also where I spent  most of my swelteringly hot summer holidays, cooped up inside the only air conditioned place in town, the office. This was where I learned the basics of credit.

I can vividly remember the stale smell of the off white wall paper, the cool bare polished concrete floor and the rhythmic rattle and hum of the twenty year old air conditioner, beating time to my 'busy office work.'

In the corner, on the ground, sat an odd looking print.

The vignette was made up of two contrasting scenes, one was a large, rosy cheeked, coated business man smoking a pipe, and the other, a poor skinny man with an empty safe. The motto on the fat rich man:

I never sell on credit.

Poor old skinny with his empty pockets proclaimed:

I sold on credit.

At 7, I had no idea what credit was. Over the years I spent there though, my parents taught me that selling on credit was a way of letting people have things now, while they could pay for it later.

Fast forward nearly 20 years, and the world is drunk on credit. Buy now pay later. Use your home equity, buy a new car. Borrow to get that whizzbang doohickey you always wanted. No money? sure we'll loan you 100% of the value!

It's all 'cheers, how you doing' when wages grow and assets appreciate and the gen X'ers cash their retirements out on their homes. But what happens when the party is over?

Well. For one, when no one wants to lend you anymore money, things start going awry.

Then you wake up. You've got a hangover, but you're not sure how you got to that point.

Sounds like drinking too much right? Well it's exactly what's happening now with Subprime (it's not over yet!). People went too far with selling on credit.

Everyone who sold on credit is now the skinny dude saying I sold on credit. The scary thing is, that they aren't so skinny, and aren't so easy to spot, they are your average white collar, suited, mom and dad. In fact, if they were there during the party, they've probably cashed out their bonuses and left shareholders (hrmm moms and dads too) out in the cold.

Here is a hilarious primer on the subprime crisis (retold by two stick figures, no less) that I totally recommend, it'll take 2 minutes:

 http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn

Personally I've got a different view of credit. It's not about selling on credit. It's about the uses.

Credit is for:

• Buying an asset.
• Buying something that helps you make money.
• Buying something that keeps you living.
• Emergencies

Credit is not for:

• Getting that xyz that I always wanted, and is on sale.
• Buying stuff for fun.
• Betting on the market.
• 'Getting the lifestyle I always wanted. Man'

These are my own little rules, I'd love to hear yours.

My hope is that these rules make sure, unlike most of the Financials right now, that I'll never be caught with my pants down.

Flickr cred: Regenade98

Lenovo Part III: The customer is wrong... the customer is always wrong.

So I've had issues with Lenovo.

They replaced the screen yesterday. But it was cracked, no problem, as long as they come back and fix it (but if you note below, they don't think it's worth the cost benefit, they'd rather just throw me a bone)

Back in February I sprung for the extra gigabyte of RAM. I thought it would be fantastic for the slow as snails Microsoft Vista.

Well last night I thought I'd check if anything else was wrong with my lemon of a laptop (it's actually a great laptop, but my specific one - lemon).

Lo and behold. It's missing an entire gigabyte of RAM that I paid for. After all I've seen at Lenovo... I just wasn't that surprised. Great laptop, horrible service. They must have run out of money after they hired all those engineers (I don't believe there are better laptop engineers out there!)

Here is an email I sent to the relevant parties at Lenovo and IBM (and Apple). I also sent further private emails to the CEO of Lenovo (Bill Amelio) and IBM (Sam Palmisano).

------------------------------------------------

To all involved,

I understand the effort and expense you have all gone to in replacing my screen. I appreciate the expense, time and effort. There is no doubt in my mind that people have worked very hard behind the scenes to help make things right. You have all been one of them and I do appreciate that. However, there are still some ongoing concerns and there are outlined below.

Attached are pictures of  what has been mentioned as 'something we probably don't cover under warranty, as I have heard from third party sources, but could be wrong, that the damage is purely superficial and does not impact the use of the screen.' yeah right, look at the pictures.

Picture no. one is timestamped 15 minutes after the technician left, I realised I better have evidence, as all along the way I have been treated like I have been wrong, and have only received a replacement screen as some sort of 'above the realms of normal service' exception. Note you cannot see the crack from front on, and neither the technician nor myself noticed it, until I looked at an angle after I had turned the machine off. The next picture is after one day of normal use. It has cracked all the way through. I am still using it, but I will not be moving it.

As for your offer of a full refund.

I reject your refund offer. The cost of downtime as I try to get another laptop running is not negotiable. This machine has already cost me money in down time. A refund offer does not even begin to cover the cost of my time.

As I have mentioned from day dot, all I have ever wanted is a laptop that works.

I do not enjoy being treated like I am wrong, and that somehow I am responsible for your loss of money on this transaction. I very well know you are losing money on this. I do not care.

You bought into a contract to supply me with a laptop that worked and as specified. You did not.

When you repaired it, you went into contract with me to repair it correctly. You did not.

Here is a summary of events, and let me know if this isn't how you see it.

What I did wrong:

• I broke my power jack, and then paid you guys to fix it.

What it has cost me:

• Time. Downtime for my business
• Money. My Vodafone wireless internet still gets paid even if I don't have a laptop to use it on.

What you guys did wrong from the moment I bought it:

• 6 weeks to ship
• Brown stained screen
• Broken microphone
• No Multitouch as specifically ordered on the phone (check your recording)
• Did not supply and install 1 extra gigabyte of ram, as specifically ordered and paid for (I'll agree that I did not notice this till two days ago, but it was an unexpected surprise)

What you guys did wrong since repair:

• Took 6 weeks to repair, of which for 4 weeks you lost my signed agreement for repair and did not begin repairs on my machine until my laptop had been sitting in your repair shop for 4 weeks.
• Still did not supply a Multitouch screen.
• Treated me like some kind of cost blackhole and therefore something to be avoided at all cost.

What you guys did right:

• Given me onsite service, the technician was fantastic. Apart from the broken screen, I was very much impressed by his work.

And now:

• You want me to take a refund of invoice amount?

It's going to cost me to take that refund, and you're refunding me... wait for it.., for RAM you never even installed!?

Here is my non-negotiable offer of three options:

Send a technician to my house next week.

Replace broken screen (Multitouch or SXGA your choice, whatever is faster)
Install the RAM that was paid for but never received or installed
Extend my warranty to 3 years from the minute the technician leaves my house.
Provide me with a heavy discount on the next X series tablet.

Or.

Replace the screen with the one the technician took away (a non multitouch), install and supply the RAM. Swap my X61T for the next X series tablet at launch.

Or

Replace it with another X61T Multitouch,  replace the hard disk with the one I'm using now so that no data is lost.
Provide me with a heavy discount on the next X series tablet.

I honestly love your laptops. When they work. I want to tell the world how great they are. I could have taken a refund a long time ago, and just shut the hell up. but I stayed and fought because I actually do like the laptop. I wouldn't have made the purchase otherwise. I know you guys can do better too. I'm not a customer that wants to go away. I want to tell everyone how awesome Lenovo is.

Problems are somethings that we deal with everyday, and they aren't anything to worry about. It's only when they blow out of proportion and aren't handled right, then they become something that is an issue.

Regards,

Richard Yong
Mobile: +61 412588389
Skype: richardwryong
Email: richardwryong@gmail.com
Web: www.richardyong.com

flickr cred: Irina Soulki

Not being what you aren't - A Warren Buffet Story.

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

That's a $200 billion dollar company's website.

They are a reinsurance and investment company. They know that, and they make sure you know that, they do it by making it clear what they do not do.

Here are some things they do not do:

• Web design
• PR
• Logistics (AGM, first Saturday of May)
• Executive lounging
• Excitement
• Buy expensive things (They bought a company once, the CEO was late... looking for unexpired parking meters)
• Hire writers

I think there's a story here around being who you are being made up of what you do, but more importantly what you do not do.

It's a dificult thing, and it took me six years of dawdling before I realised who I wasn't going to be. I wasn't clear about what I wasn't willing to do, and in return I ended up being everything to everyone, the Jack of All Trades. If you let others control your destiny, you end up being and doing what others want and not what you want.   

Can you imagine how uncomfortable some companies would be if they dropped their PR division, or fired their homepage designers?

It's the difference between the Doing Men, and the Maybe and Sorry Men.

Are you clear about who you aren't?

Are you clear about about what you won't do?

Some thoughts for Monday.

Flickr Cred: Thomas Hawk

The title is once again tongue in cheek. I was reading some scrawled pen marks in 'The One Minute Manager' by Blanchard and Johnson, it said 'No one does nothing to you, you do it to yourself.' Nice meaning, odd writing.

Oh and Activision blew analysts expectations away, putting on over 15% on Friday.

With Heart - Sleepless nights looking for the next Berkshire Hathaway

I sat with my eyebrows furrowed, deep in concentration.

Too many stocks, too little money. Age old problem, and here I was trying to scry an answer.

8 weeks ago, the market was dipping low, and an opportune moment to reinvest large chunks of cash. Here were the decisions keeping me up at night:

1. Activision. You know them as the makers of Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 4. They are merging with Blizzard. You know them as the makers of World of Warcraft and Starcraft.

2. Take Two Interactive. You know them as Grand Theft Auto IV. Electronic Arts (famous for SimCity, The Sims and all those sport games) were offering to buy them.

3. AMP Chinese stock fund. This makes sense, the Chinese Yuan will appreciate for the next few decades, but so will the mining Aussie dollar. The Chinese stock market is set to grow.

4. Challenger. I've spoken about these guys before. They run a tight ship, and buying in would mean a 'P/B' ratio of 1. That means for every dollar you invest, you're actually getting ONE dollar of the underlying 'net assets.'  A simplistic view is if they go bankrupt today, they will sell all their assets, pay off all their debts, and hopefully you'll get about what you paid back.

This is rare in finance companies. My expectation is that although their mortgage division will stifle, in a recession people will consume less, but save more. This means low interest rates, high inflation and increased use of financial planners and managed funds. Which is right up Challenger's alley.

They aren't wall street heroes either, they are extremely cost conscious and you won't be seeing their staff flying around in hired Bentleys or private jets. I like that. You know those corporate executives with private jets?  They aren't looking after their shareholders.

The decision I made in the end wasn't that hard.

I liked Activision, they had heart. EA didn't have heart, and Grand Theft Auto, while I would play it, doesn't seem to be the most tasteful game in the world. EA's slogan is 'it's in the game.' I think Activision and Blizzard have the same motto:

With heart.

Oh by the way, Activision announced they doubled last years revenue to $2.9 billion dollars. This is a company valued at $8 billion. Just WOW. 

epilogue - I just checked the opening price of ATVI (Activision) it's now pushing over $30. At this rate I can kick up my feet for another month. I haven't closed out my position yet, as I believe this stock has further to go (no I'm not giving advice, and nor should you construe it as such, this is ALL opinion!)

Flickr cred: TeeRish

Doing the right thing - Lenovo revisited, a cautionary tale on the Sorry Men.

Doing the right thing is almost never about just doing your job.

It's easy to do your job, it lets you say I'm just.

I'm just a customer service assistant, packer, accountant, finance clerk, cleaner, checkout clerk or security guard. But that's how you lose the plot.

I've had an ongoing debacle with Lenovo.

On the face of it, it's a simple business.

Build and sell laptops. If you had to write a plot summary for the Lenovo movie, those would be the 4 words.

Some people they hire are fantastic. But everybody in Lenovo has a 'title.' That's great if it gives you something valuable to do, but not if it robs you of power. Worst of all, it should never distract anybody from your business (which is to build and sell laptops, just in case Lenovo staff read this and forgot).

Here are some real life quotes (not strictly verbatim) from Lenovo staff:

'I'm just in sales, I don't know technical, you'll have to ask the engineers'

'Sorry I know the website might say it's available, but it's actually not, there's no option in my process'

'I don't know about that sir, you'll have to ask someone else'

'Sorry sir, that's not possible it's not part of the process'

'Sorry sir, that's not in our policy to receive pdfs in emails, only faxes.' (Anyone spot the irony here?)

'I'm just in customer service, you'll have to ask repairs for an ETA.'

What if they started focusing on doing the right thing? They might take a leaf out of Vodafone and Optus who had the following to say to me:

'Look you are a great customer, I know we're not wrong here, and you're not wrong, we're sorry you had a problem, and look it's a waste of time for us to escalate this to management... I'm not suppose to do this, but look lets just waive the fee this once okay!'

'Oh it's disappointing that you're cancelling your account Mr. Yong, but let me check with my manager right now if we can waive your exit fee anyway, you've been with us a long time! Please wait one moment <brief pause> It's been approved, thanks for your patience sir.'

The conversation changes. Completely.

It's Friday, so relax. But on Monday, think about doing the right thing, not just your job description.

Next time you get asked what you do, whether you're the cleaner or the CEO, you might say 'I'm helping mums and dads save money,' or 'I'm helping make and sell the best laptops', 'Helping kids grow into good people' or 'I'm making sure our customers want to use us again.'

A hint for Lenovo: Fire everyone with the job description 'Sorry - that's not my responsibility', then spend that money on hiring half the number of people and give them the job description 'Goal #1 Help Lenovo make and sell laptops. Goal #2 Create and retain customers. Goal #3 Spend saved 'Sorry Men' money on creating and keeping good customers.'

You'll have spent $0 dollars more, and gotten rid of the Sorry Men.

Risk, Return on Investment and demanding profit.

People generally expect too little return from their business. Why? Because they never measured the risk.

Owning your own business should never be about buying yourself a job, it should always be about maximising your ROI (return on investment).

ROI is really just a fancy jargon term for making sure you earn more money than the risk you take on.

64.2% of small businesses fail within 10 years.  How's that for risk?

It's the reason why restaurants and retail stores are a horrible proposition for most people. The maximum expected income or return will never even closely reflect the amount of risk (overheads, employing people, initial startup costs, sanity)

It's a relative measure and opens up vast avenues when it comes to working out which option to pick when launching a new business. Look at these two examples:

1. Uni student launches an advertising based, content driven web site for under $2000 and starts earning ~$5000 a year. So 250% ROI.

2. Restaurant opens costing just under $250,000 to purchase and launch. What ROI does the owner need to make it a worthwhile proposition? Would it be better to be the uni student? Legitimate questions, and a reason I would never run a restaurant unless it was a hobby, or it was my ultimate passion.

If you're thinking about launching a business, and before you go neck deep in debt, make sure you ask yourself two simple questions (then go and work out the complex calculations!):

1. What's the risk of my failure?
2. So if I succeed, how much do I need to make it worth my risk of failure?

Oh and a third one serious one:

3. Is this a romantic dream, or is this about doing what I love and being able to support my family and my life?

The risk is more than most people probably imagine. It's also a very good reason to hang on to a job, the risk is low, and for many, the ROI is o.k. For businesses, it impacts the way their price and the way they go to market.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with personal ROI!

flickr credit:  opacity

I've added a fancy button up on the right, that's an RSS feed button. It'll let you keep track of all the headlines on your favourite sites. If you've never used it, click it and see where it brings you, it's like an online book mark and it'll book mark this site. Experiment and have fun (I'm new to RSS too!)

Work Voyeurism - Perspective

Okay, so I live in an apartment right next to some office blocks.

I have a bad habit when it's late at night, of peering over at my office colleagues to see who is still at work.

Without fail, the lady in the picture (taken at midnight) is always there, even Fridays.

I decided it could only be down to a few reasons.

• She really really loves her work, it's everything she dreamed she would do when she grew up
• Her family will die if she doesn't work
• She is finding the cure for cancer
• She is stopping world poverty

I really really hope so...

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one - John Lennon