Vietnam… First Visit in 7 Years – HCMC Places to Go

I’d love to say that it feels like only yesterday but I reckon it’s about seven years since I did a flying visit to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to visit my cousin Clare who was working there.

And the place seems to have grown up a lot!

I was a bit disappointed really as the roads seemed more sedate and a lot less chaos. Luckily the method for crossing the road hasn’t changed Continue reading Vietnam… First Visit in 7 Years – HCMC Places to Go

From Zero to One and Korea to Singapore

When joining Veeva one of the CEO book read recommendations was Zero to One by Peter Thiel… His ideas at least, even if he didn’t write it. On the way back from a recent work trip to Korea  I dropped in to a book shop not realising that all the books would be in Korean!

I now know that the smaller the selection the better the choice as the shop had a great selection including Continue reading From Zero to One and Korea to Singapore

edX – Microsoft: DAT206x: Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel

For years I’ve been the resident Excel guru who knows how to run a pivot table and not stuff up a vlookup.

This year I thought I would take my meagre skills and try and super charge them by adding buzz words like analysing and visualization. And now I’m a data scientist and paid a million dollars a year! So I’m still no data scientist but I have learnt some nifty Excel tips and tricks and heap of things that I didn’t know were possible.

Format As Table

What does this do?

Continue reading edX – Microsoft: DAT206x: Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel

Real Life Sales Examples – Seafood

I’ve just finished a trip to Bintan Island with my girlfriend. (And we managed to survive!) Not only was it good for helping me progress towards my goals of travelling more but I felt like I learnt some valuable lessons with the trip as well.

The first is that beef bacon is terrible. It just doesn’t have the right texture or taste. I’d even take turkey bacon over beef bacon. I need to reconsider if I could live in a muslim country based on this learning.

More seriously I saw some interesting examples of sales tactics. The first was at a Cui Yong Kelong. There were so many steps to this sales process. Continue reading Real Life Sales Examples – Seafood

Corporate Buzzword: The perception of you is…

A certain manager at my office has introduced a number of new corporate buzzwords and my favourite at the moment is “The perception of you is…”.

Let’s analyse this a little:

  • I’m not willing to tell you directly what I think of your performance
  • I’m trying to soften the blow and make it seem less personal
  • I’m trying to set goals for you without taking ownership of those goals
  • I’m not willing to make this a two-way conversation where I am also a part of the success or failure in that perception
  • I don’t want to make this a two-way conversation about your perception of me

Continue reading Corporate Buzzword: The perception of you is…