pitching + vsee + pitching

Right, now is the real catching up.

First up, the external pitching two weeks back. A couple of them left impressions in me, mainly 1) Dr. Dana's AED game, and 2) the candlestick thing.

I am not sure how many of us in the audience were interested in the candlestick thing he was talking about, because I have the impression that most of us sitting there have no interest in growing money. Or maybe its just me.

There were quite a few times I exited LT19 at night only to be greeted by formally dressed peers tucking into buffet, which was when I realised while I was inside LT19 for some geek event or lecture, some bank was holding some other event in the neighbouring LT17. I always find the scene hilarious, maybe because of the stark contrast between their attire and mine. Haha.

Maybe Gary Ong would have better chances talking to them.

Anyway I am a simple person; I'm not in the least bit interested in investments and stocks, at least not at this point of time. If I ever need some adrenaline from gambling, I prefer to dabble in the simplicities of 4D and Toto (Q: What is the probability of winning 4D? A: 50%. tio and bo tio).

On the other hand, I am very impressed by Dr Dana and his motivation to get people to be familiar with AEDs. In fact I think that his cause is so noble, a game seems too..insignificant? There should be better ways of spreading the use of AEDs around I guess.

Of course, not to say that games (or digital media in general) won't work, as can be seen in this case, but to create a good game that actually teaches will not be easy. Anyway games can only help so much.

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Last week there was the VSee talk. As the CEO, Milton, started talking about their collaborations with the US Navy Seals, immediately one question came up in my mind: During their strike on Osama in Pakistan which Obama and his aides observed real-time in the US, did the Navy Seals used VSee? I don't need an answer, but I won't be surprised if it was a yes.

On to what he said, he mentioned some very interesting points.

Be bored. I agree to a certain extent, because sometimes on my long MRT trips to school or to home, my mind will start to wander and I start thinking of random ideas and stuff. But that's not the only way either. Sometimes interacting with friends helps too.

Reply emails fast. Alright I'm guilty of that. Will take note of it and improve.

The Sandwich Method. I think this has been taught to us in secondary school. If my memory has not failed me, when we were taught how to write 公函, or official letters, during our Higher Chinese lessons, I remembered my teacher telling us, write something to praise the organization we are writing to first, then write our complaints/improvements/feedbacks/requests, and end off with a "Hope to hear from you soon!" Haha.

Break our patterns in our lives. Right I should try this too.

The one single thing that left a deep impression in me was not Milton's point actually, but Steve Jobs', which Milton highlighted. It was about Steve Jobs deciding to cancel his business meeting to have dinner with the girl he met after asking himself if he was going to die soon, which would he choose.

This is in line with one of his many quotes/philosophies:
".. almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

I should ask myself this more often. Maybe if I have started asking earlier, some things might have turned out differently.

Somehow the last bit of the talk became a little relationship consultation session, which was amusing haha. What I can say is that the dynamics of human relationships are complicated; its never good to be too demanding, but too much of "Yes Dear" and "I'm sorry" may not be good either. Its all about finding the right balance and compromise towards each other.

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Last Friday was pitching, and it seemed like many of us are jumping onto the gamification bandwagon. It remains to be seen how successful gamification techniques are; while there is JFDI Academy, there are also a million failures for every Facebook or Twitter.

Many people don't know how hard it is to drive taxis in Singapore. Sometimes its not that they want to avoid flag-down customers so they can earn that additional $2.50 booking fee (maybe some do *shrugs*), but when you have to pay $90+ taxi rental fee every day, and diesel costs, plus feed your family, sometimes you just want to earn as much as possible.

In any case, if anyone wants to work on taxi booking, a suggestion will be to work with the smaller companies; recently there was this news report quoting an expert saying that they should band together to develop an integrated taxi booking system, so as to compete with ComfortDelgro.