The Quality 136

I got this great list from Tom Peters Website.

Read through the list, my favorites are #'s 3, 6, 21, 38, 45, 67, 113, 114, 131, 134.

It's a good reminder of solid fundamentals for organizations who'd like to ZOOM.

Download the Powerpoint HERE.

A Father's Day Thought

I've always looked up to URC. They are present everywhere I go in South East Asia, I take their plane going there, and I use their unlimited Sun service everyday.

They've touched me, as a customer in many many ways. One of my heroes therefore is Lance Gokongwei. And it was a treat reading an interview of him in today's paper.

Read it HERE.

A few strong lines in the interview:

• There can only be one boss, and my dad is the boss
• I always believe that the best lessons learned from my father John Gokongwei Jr., are from his examples: work hard, live with integrity and simplicity, constantly be curious and open to new ideas.
• Although he [John Gokongwei Jr] spent a lot of hours at work, he never failed to set aside time for dinner with the family every night.
• Success has been built on learning from previous successes and mistakes.

The thought that filled my morning

Business is a Marathon, Not a Sprint.

My team just came back from KL/Sing

My team just came back from a trip from Malaysia and Singapore. I had a healthy discussion with Genesis Office yesterday on the next steps in cracking the next countries.

I got surprised when the registration for our brands are shorter than I expected. This may mean cracking the markets earlier than expected. I guess this is one of the unexpected advantages of having long registration lead times in the Philippines - we're trained to handle challenging registrations.

I hope we could get the project moving. I am calling it Project Four/Four, meaning we'll go for four product registration first before going in at full force.

Ca, Gian and Helen near Petronas Towers

Imagination is More Powerful Than Money Or Time

Allow me to illustrate by mentioning Kyle MacDonald. I don't know how I missed this story but this made my jaw drop.

Kyle started with one red paperclip, traded one item after the other and reached his goal... a house.

He documented the whole thing in his blog.

Imagination is more powerful than money or time.

The red paperclip that started Kyle MacDonald's trades leading to a house

An Early & Simple Celebration Tomorrow

A healthy list of thanks (people first always):

• Brian, our original backpack intrapreneur Ninja back in '06 is headed for Vietnam to lead our business.
• Apple is on her way to speedy recovery.
• Goodluck to Arden on his new opportunities.
• A new brand is on the shelves after 5 months of "from thought-to-shelf."

What more could you ask? :)

To my team in Manila, see you for a little gathering around yet another crossroad for many. And when confronted with forks in the road, my view has always been it's not which path you choose as long as you promise me you'd run off like a madman to the chosen unknown.

Reflect on this

Got this online just now,

"Champions give something more when they have nothing left."

Stepping Away from Front Line Action

It's hard. I honestly feel I should be part of the team braving new countries. See, as I write this post Helen & Ca are on a Cebu Pacific flight to Malaysia. Gian from Ho Chi Minh is in a Tiger flight as well to rendezvous in Kuala Lumpur.

After a few nights of digging for gold in KL, they will take a bus to Singapore to take part in the three day Philippine Trade Fair in Singapore we were invited to by the kind and beautiful people of Philippine DTI Singapore (Maraming Salamat Po!). This would be another stab at the advanced country. Two birds with one stone - NICE! And I'm not part of it.

I'm here... at home. Working on the analysis part. Someone has to play the role, I owe it to the people who gave their hearts to the company to do a better job at managing the business and put a stop (ok, maybe a pause) on the action-packed dailies.

I need a drink.... hmmm let me grab one hehehe

Shopping Styles of Filipino Consumer

Just in case you've missed last Monday's gem in Philippine Star.

The study was made by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) Worldpanel Philippines. Gives us a peak on formal market research FOR FREE!!!

Read it HERE.

My take:

• The Filipino consumer is young. We’re a baby making country. The trend of getting old as a population will be later on, especially compared to other industrialized countries like Japan and Singapore.
• Marrying at a later age means more Cycles sales due to better accessibility to disposable income.
• Don’t believe everything written, don’t generalize – the internet was not mentioned. This is because penetration is less for the rural areas, HOWEVER, for the customers we are talking to internet penetration is very high.
• If you’re good at sachet marketing, then stick to the Philippines. Other countries are less developed in this format.
• The Filipino shopper segment called “Meticulous Mommas” as labelled by TNS is our customer for Cycles.

The Secret to Success

You all know the answer to this one. Don't pretend not knowing. All the big names point to this fact, but people don't readily accept it because it makes us uncomfortable.

Alan Mulally, the current CEO of Ford tells us everyday from his office at 5:15am.

We're Ready to Play Ball!

I don't play basketball. People find it strange. Am I really that much of a geek growing up not to play? All I remember is that I had continuous finger injury which led me to turn my back on the game.

I'm doing my iMondays and I think the basketball analogy I mentioned to the team is happening. Slowly but surely, the message is sticking. I'm not yet done, of course. There are a lot more things to be done. A lot of trust that has to happen. A lot of people to forget themselves first, and work together towards a goal.

This is hard. But not impossible. I've been to many ups and downs in my career, but now I think I am emotionally ready, and perhaps experience-ready to play beyond Grade 2 basketball. A big thank you for people who are working hard right now, trusting me, making this work.

Cycles storms Cebu

Cycles was recently part of Guess Kids event at Ayala Activity Center in Cebu. Normally we have our giant Cycles Playhouse - you know the huge inflatable slide.

Unfortunately it was just too big to bring to Cebu... maybe next time!

Thanks Guess Kids for having us!

Cycles materials preparing for a big day!

I always knew Clara (our brand associate in Cebu) had artistic talent

Kids enjoying face painting, in this case... arm-painting

Cebu is one of the places where we are aggressively building our base for Cycles. I can feel a lot of moms are just waiting to be part of Cycles in some way, if they're not looking for it already. My kids love going on vacations to Cebu so definitely this is one market which has a very bright future for us.

Special thanks to Clara and the rest of the team for making the Cebu leg possible!