Char from Casual Keystrokes tagged me a couple days ago asking me to share my secret successful habits, and well, frankly, everyone knows the secret to success is its actually no big secret. Its hard work!

Here are my top 3 anyway!

1. A learner’s attitude – I think having a learner’s attitude is by far the most essential element for success. In this world of change, the things in the buzz today get outdated by tomorrow. We must recognize this, and realise that the only way to keep current is to keep learning. The other aspect of the learner’s attitude is how it affects your personality. Accepting to learn makes you a humble person, and this makes it easy and pleasant for anyone to communicate with you.
2. Daring to do what I want – I believe that everyone should really live their own lives and do what they really want to do. Too many people fall into the “system”, the “rat race” or whatever they call it, and they regret it when its too late (and I hear this personally from the people are stuck in that rat race). That is why I have taken time to think whether the system is really for me, and really go all out to define my own life. In one of Tony’s recent post, he asks “Is your story worth reading?” Is your life as interesting as you wish it to be?
3. Self Discipline – Well, there are times where I fall off and get into a blunder, lazing around not getting any work done, but one essential element of working at home is self discipline. If you schedule says you have to work, then you have to work, no matter how sleepy you are. Having a schedule is one part of the story, following it is the part that defines how successful you are.

I’ll pass this on to a few Singapore bloggers:

1. Calvin Woon
2. John Tan
3. Glenn Tan
4. Alvin Phang

What are your successful habits? Here, go ahead and share yours!

IBM/Lenovo has taken one step ahead of their competitors by installing a “message centre” application together with the IBM Thinkpad laptops. This application sits in the system tray, and occasionally, a message or two will pop up, informing me of any product or driver updates that is available.

I thought it was a nifty application, since it effectively bypasses email – we all know how ineffective email marketing can be now, that most people are receiving more spam than real solicited email.

However, a couple of days ago, I received a message that simply just says “A battery error is detected.” – there was no further information given! There was no hyperlink to click on, there were no instructions on what I should do!

I was going like… “Battery error. Erm. So what? What should I do?” The most hilarious thing about this is, I don’t even have my laptop battery inserted at that time! I normally remove my battery when I am on AC power (to preserve the battery life).

So what did I do?

Nothing.

What could I do anyway?

I still think that the application is a very useful one for companies to get any message out to their customers. However, thought has to be put in before sending out each message. Messages like what I have received can do nothing but induce panic in your customers! I am lucky to be tech savvy, I know that even if there is a battery error all I need to do is to get a replacement. All my data is still in place. I really wonder how the less tech savvy customers would react to a message like this!

It would’ve been so much better to at least provide a hyperlink (or even just a web address if hyperlink functionality is not built into the product!) to a page where I can find more information, or instructions on what I should do. Isn’t it?

If you are interested to use a software like this to bypass email and get in touch with your customers direct, do check out desktop marketer.

For those who have followed this blog for a couple of months now, you must already realised that I really enjoy sharing the interesting things I have found as I have progressed, and particularly for this blog, the stuff I’ve learnt about marketing though social media, or rather more specifically, through the use of blogs.

I aspire to be able to reach out to more people and be able to share with them the fun and excitement of the online world, about the blogosphere and help them make friends like the ones I’ve made through this blog.

However, something that has been really mind boggling for me is really “What are the prerequisites of being a consultant or trainer?” Must you have 20 years of experience in the field before you are qualified to teach? If you are teaching people to “get massive traffic to your blog”, must you already “have massive traffic to your blog?”

People who know me better know that I am a hard nut perfectionist, and its tough for me to get on with my career as a trainer when I’ve got beliefs like this. Sometimes, I feel I’m “not good enough to teach“.

At the same time, I see some others teaching practically junk and charging people for it. I feel frustrated. I know I can do better.

What are your thoughts? What are the prerequisites of a consultant or trainer? Let’s just say you want to attend a class on grooming your dog. Would you listen to a trainer that has loads of theoretical knowledge (from books) that works, but don’t even keep a dog himself?

Man… IT show 2007 is coming up next week.

I remember the times when I used to go to these large scale IT shows… sometimes twice or three times within the same week! That was the time when I was all crazed about tweaking and what we call “modding” our personal computers, overclocking our CPUs and installing enormous fans to cool the system down.

Now I work with a laptop. It really helps me to focus on the business aspect of technology.

We used to have just one show a year! Now we have SITEX, COMEX, PC Show, and IT Show… so much, its lost its appeal (at least to me).

… but then again, maybe its time for me to get a web cam I guess I will still drop by on one of the days to squeeze with the crowd and update myself with the latest hardware gadgets.

Ever been frustrated teaching people how some HTML tags work? Try this. (h/t: Presentation Zen)

A picture paints a thousand words. True.