My Year in Review: 2014

"It's been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it." – that's the default tag line of recent Facebook's new feature: Year in Review. You can easily generate a nice post based on your photos in 2014 with only a few clicks, instead of writing a long post like this boring blog post. However, Facebook algorithm wasn't perfect, it forced painful memories of some users back to the surface.

xkcd 1302: Year in Review

Before you waste time reading the remaining paragraphs, I suggest you to check these cool "year in review" by Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Tumblr, and TED. My most favourite one are from Google..



.. and from TED.



And yeah, like my Facebook post said, 2014 has been a great year for me :)

Trip to Mount Bromo

Mount Bromo is an active volcano located around an hour drive from Malang, East Java. It is part of Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park. Bromo is not the highest peak of Tengger massif (~ 2.3k metres), but is the most well known, as it's one of the most visited tourist attractions in East Java province. Mount Bromo sits in the middle of a vast plain called "Sea of Sand" (Segara Wedi). You can also find a Hindu temple (Pura Luhur Poten) in the sandy plain, as the name of Bromo is actually derived from Javanese pronunciation of Brahma, the creator god in Hinduism.

Mt. Bromo in the Morning

Last November I had a chance to visit (Malang and) Bromo with some good friends. We got the open trip info from a travelling daily deals site. You can also find other open trips from other backpacking forums, such as Backpacker Indonesia. We departed from Pasar Senen Station on Friday afternoon by train to Malang. It took more than 16 hours to get there! Anyway, our train, Matarmaja, was the best-valued public transportation, cost Rp 130,000 ($11) only for Jakarta - Malang roundtrip!! Other trains would cost $100. If you want to have more comfortable trip, you can take 90-minutes direct flight to Malang for $130-$200 (roundtrip).

Jakarta - Malang : more than 16 hours by train

Mini Drama "Ada Apa Dengan Cinta"

I think this is the most awesome Indonesian branded entertainment this year! Fyi, AADC is one of the most popular Indonesian movies in the third millennium. Well played, LINE!!



And who doesn't love the script?

adalah cinta yang mengubah jalannya waktu
karena cinta waktu terbagi dua
denganmu dan rindu
untuk kembali ke masa
**
bener gak ada yang mau lo sampein lagi?
karena semua orang bisa mulai dari awal.
***
jadi beda,
satu purnama di new york dan di jakarta?
****
detik tidak pernah melangkah mundur
tapi kertas putih itu selalu ada

waktu tidak pernah berjalan mundur
dan hari tidak pernah terulang

tetapi
pagi selalu menawarkan cerita yang baru

untuk semua pertanyaan
yang belum pernah terjawab

Kudos to the creative team behind this marketing campaign! Even other popular brands and netizens are following the moment to get viral. Happy weekend! Cheers!


Oh, and I'm wondering.. what really makes marketing campaigns go viral? Is it the emotions developed creatively combined with scientific approach?

Banda Neira

Banda Neira is one of ten volcanic islands in the Banda Archipelago in Maluku province, eastern Indonesia. It is located about 132 km southeast of Ambon. Banda Neira, along with Banda Islands, were famous as Spice Islands since they were the source of spices, especially nutmeg and mace. Nowadays Banda Islands are among the top destinations for divers from around the world despite its remote location. It is also one of the most-favored cruising areas in Southeast Asia. Hope someday I will travel there! #crossingfingers

Banda from the Top of Gunung Api – © Ismawan Ismail

Anyway, in this post I don't want to talk about that island since I haven't visited there (yet). So let me introduce you, Banda Neira, an acoustic-pop indie band (duo) from Indonesia. I watched their live performance last week in Salihara and it was simply great. They call their genre as nelangsa riang, which means "miserably happy", even though it is not miserable at all. The lyrics is so poetical – far from melancholy mainstream pop nowadays – that's why I love indie! The music is so easy-listening and quite addictive. The male voice is.. 'simple', yet if I play their songs loudly in my room, I guess my neighbor may think it's my voice :)). And the female voice is.. gorgeous, so is she, @rarasekar :'). Their background story is also interesting, coming from Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung. This band easily goes to my favorite indie playlist on iTunes, following Mocca, Float, Efek Rumah Kaca, Sore, White Shoes and The Couples Company, etc. Thus, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Banda Neira, my newest favorite indie band! Worth listening! :)



And here are the lovely lyrics, in no particular order. My most favorite songs are "Kau Keluhkan" and "Ke Entah Berantah". What's yours?

Trip to Dieng Plateau

Last August there was the 5th Dieng Culture Festival, held in the beautiful highlands of Dieng Plateau in Central Java. It is located in Wonosobo, a small city in Central Java, around 8-hours away from Jakarta. There you could watch several art and cultural performances, while enjoying the beautiful highland view.

Telaga Warna, Dieng Plateau

The easiest way to go to Dieng is taking flight or train to Semarang or Jogjakarta, and then get public bus to Wonosobo (~3 hours) and transfer to small bus to Dieng (~1 hour). However, my group chose to rent a bus from Jakarta to Wonosobo. It took almost 10 hours due to traffic problems along the way to get there (normally it takes ~ 8 hours).

Dieng is 8 hours away from Jakarta by bus.

Kesalahan Logika

Kesalahan logika, atau yang sering disebut juga logical fallacy, merupakan cacat atau sesat penalaran, yang tidak hanya sering (secara tak sengaja) digunakan oleh orang-orang yang kemampuan penalarannya terbatas, tetapi juga sering (secara sengaja) digunakan oleh orang-orang tertentu, termasuk media, untuk mempengaruhi orang lain.

Berikut ini beberapa contoh logical fallacy yang mungkin tidak asing bagi kita. Semoga kita tidak terjebak propaganda, atau malah melakukan kesalahan penalaran, baik sengaja maupun tidak sengaja.

thou shalt not commit logical fallacies – © yourlogicalfallacyis.com

strawman
Melebih-lebihkan, menyalahartikan atau bahkan memalsukan argumen seseorang, demi membuat argumen Anda yang menyerangnya terdengar lebih masuk akal.

Contoh: Jocovic berargumen bahwa berdasarkan pengamatannya di lapangan, nelayan dan petani tidak senang dengan koperasi karena yang mendapatkan modal hanya pengurusnya saja, sehingga hal ini perlu diperbaiki. Mendengar hal tersebut, lawan politik Jocovic menyatakan bahwa Jocovic menolak koperasi; koperasi tidak diperlukan di desa.

Dilbert 2010-05-30

Business Model

A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. In general, there are four main areas of business: customers, offers, infrastructure, and financial viability.

 Business Model Structure

Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, authors of "Business Model Generation", described business model components very well into nine building blocks:
  1. Customer Segments
    - For whom are we creating value?
    - Who are our most important customers?
    - Mass, niche, segmented, diversified, or multi-sided markets?
  2. Value Propositions
    - What value do we deliver to the customer?
    - Which one of our customer’s problems are we helping to solve?
    - What bundles of products and services are we offering to each segment?
  3. Channels
    - Through which channels do our customers want to be reached?
    - How are we reaching them now?
    - How are we integrating them with consumer decision journey?
  4. Customer Relationships
    - What type of relationship does each of our customer expect us to establish and maintain with them?
    - How costly are they?

Mastering Interpersonal Skills

This post is basically a summary of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (1936). I think we should read this book at least once in a lifetime.

Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (1888-1955)

To handle people..


Principle #1 - Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive. Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them. Let's try to figure out why they do what they do. That's a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all. As Dr. Johnson said: "God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days." Why should you and I?

Principle #2 - Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Emerson said: "Every man I meet is my superior in some way, In that, I learn of him." If that was true of Emerson, isn't it likely to be a thousand times more true of you and me? Let's cease thinking of our accomplishments, our wants. Let's try to figure out the other person's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise," and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime. The only way you can get people to do anything is by giving them what they want.

Principle #3 - Arouse in the other person an eager want.
The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it. Remember: "First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way."

UT Korea: Introduction to Business

“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.”
― Margaret Fuller

Last year, I joined Indonesia Open University (Universitas Terbuka) in Korea as a tutor/lecturer. Universitas Terbuka (UT) is an Indonesian university that applies long distance and open learning system. Most students are working full-time and not able to further their studies in face-to-face prominent higher education institutions in a daily basis. In UT Korea, they have both face-to-face and online tutorial; half of all courses in the curriculum are delivered with face-to-face tutorial every week, and another half with online tutorial. Here in Korea, they provide only three undergraduate programs: Management, Communication Science, and English Education.

I participated in Management program, teaching Introduction to Business. It is a fundamental course to provide basic framework thinking for students to learn advanced courses such as: HR Management, Operations Management, Marketing Management, and Finance Management. The course is designed to give the overview about how a business organization works.

It was a nice experience for me to share my knowledge to all students. It's been a while since the last time I taught in a class about 5 years ago (lab-work assistant). I enjoy teaching or sharing ideas ― not limited in the classroom. I hope 20 years from now I can go back to ITB and teach Informatics or Business students ^^. Here are my lecture notes, all delivered in Bahasa Indonesia. I hope it is useful for many people. Enjoy!

Module 1: Business Environment

Module 2: Business Entity, Management, Enterpreneurship