Working from home and working remote

Working from home and working remote



 The idea of working from home is very new to the Malaysian work scene. Working remote, is almost alien! One of our founders is doing both. See how she manages to work, be a mom and deal with the time zone.


Can you tell us about yourself and how did you get yourself to work from home?
I’m Tazz and I was once an English teacher. I enjoyed teaching immensely and still keep in touch with the kids I used to teach via social media and the occasional postcards.

After I got married to an American, it was decided that I would quit teaching, as my impending move to the US would make that very difficult!

I had been writing for an online newspaper for about two years then, and found out they were looking for a new sub-editor.

Although my background was in education with a degree in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) and I had no experience working in the media, thanks to my writing stint with them, my editor was more than happy to hire me as a sub-editor.

My bosses have been awesome and allow us to work remotely.

We work on the honour system, which means I do what I’m supposed to do, and they’ll continue allowing us to work remotely.

So far it has worked out well and we are all happy with the arrangement.

 Please tell us how your day starts and when do you start work?
My days start very early. I have requested to be put on the afternoon shift, which starts at 4pm Malaysian time, 4am US time.

 I wake up a bit earlier than 4, and work until noon, or 12am Malaysian time.

I get a one-hour break, which I often use to cuddle with my baby or take care of chores.

How do you organize your home and your work in one roof? Do you have a dedicated office space?
Usually in the morning, I work in the living room or at the kitchen table.

My son sleeps mostly in the morning, so since our master bedroom is downstairs (and he still sleeps with us since we’re still nursing), it makes it easier to stay on the ground floor so I can hear him when he wakes up.

During my shift, he’d play and explore the house.

We have a room upstairs, a playroom/sewing room.

Sometimes I’d take him upstairs so he can play while I work.

It all depends on how we feel that day.

My house is pretty much my office.

Sometimes I work in my jammies!

How do you organize your time between being a mom and work?
This is very hard to answer! I find myself being both at the same time sometimes.

For example, sometimes, especially when my son was younger, he wanted to be held all the time, so I had to hold him and focus on my work at the same time.

Babywearing has helped me attend to his needs and focus on my work.

If you are a working mother with a young baby, this might be the solution to your problem.

I feel like there need to be the ability to shift fluidly between the two roles.

Some days my son wakes up earlier and refuses to go back to sleep, so I would have to entertain him or play with him.

My colleagues are very understanding usually when I tell them I need to attend to my son, and will cover for me while I am gone.

 The nature of my work is very flexible and so I don’t have a hard time deciding which is more important, my job or my family.

Both are important to me, and I strive to be the best at doing both.

How disciplined do you need to be to do your work and to be a mom?
Since my work is shift-based, to me that time, 4-12 is time for me to work.

Occasionally, my son would come to me wanting attention and I would not be able to attend to him as there is a pressing story (that just came in which need to be upload NOW), so I would try to distract him with toys or books.

If you are a work-at-home-mom who freelances/run your own business, then there needs to be some sort of routine.

Having a routine helps create that feeling that you are working.

Make sure your child knows that there is time for work, and time when they can come and play with you.

With a child as young as mine, that might be difficult to do, especially when, to him, the computer is something else for him to chew on!

But WAHM friends with older kids have shared that, once explained, their children understand that mummy needs to work and will play during the specified time.

It is very easy to get sucked into watching the latest show on TV instead of focusing on your work, so make sure you dedicate some time for work and for leisure.

Sometimes I like having music as background noise, especially when I’m working on something stressful.

It helps your brain relax.

If your work requires you to stare at the computer for hours like mine does, make sure you take a little break to rest your eyes.

Are you able to find work-life balance that is considered difficult to achieve by those who commute to an office?
Definitely.

I love that I am able to work and generate an income while at the same time, be home with my son.

I don’t have to leave the house.

I’m able to watch my son grow and save on daycare costs (which is exorbitant here in the US).

My editor has been kind enough to roster me to work on weekdays, so I would have my weekends free to spend with my family.

Occasionally I would be scheduled to work on a weekend, but since that very rarely happens, I do not mind it one bit when I have to.

Plus, it is not hard for me to work, since I work from home and do not even need to leave my house.

The thing I love about being able to work from home is that I am not wasting time commuting and being stuck in traffic jams.

I have some friends leaving home very early just to beat the traffic jam on their way to work, and spending close to 3 hours everyday just commuting.

That sounds horrible to me, and I can never do that.

Even when I was teaching, my house would be very near my workplace; one was so near I could hear the bell ring from my apartment!

My husband commutes to work, spending around 90 minutes each day in his car and he does not enjoy it.

We could move closer to his workplace, but we really like where we are living now, as it is a safe, quiet neighborhood with a very good school nearby, so we feel it is a fair trade off.

After I finish work, I will prepare lunch, taking about a couple of seconds to go from my workstation to the kitchen.

Then I would play with my son, read with him or maybe bake.

In the evening as we wait for daddy to come home, we do yoga together or go for a walk around the block.

I feel like my time is better spent, on things that matter and I feel less stressed compared to when I had to physically be present at the office.

How do you communicate with your colleagues?
We get on GMail and use GChat to communicate with each other.

We also have each other’s phone numbers in case the Internet cuts out (which does happen even in the US!).

We are also friends on social media, so we have various ways of communicating with each other.

Are you able to have a good social interaction with your colleagues?
Yes. Some of them I have never met in real life, but we talk so much with each other we have built a good relationship with one another.

 I share my baby’s pictures and they tell me about their lives.

We trade stories about life, and share a laugh about a funny video.

We usually meet when I’m in Malaysia and my bosses would have a makan-makan session for all of us.

What do you love the most about working from home?
 I do not have the Monday blues!

I love that I am able to be home with my son and watch him grow and develop.

 I was there when he sat up for the first time,

I was the one to catch his first smile – memories which, as a mother, are very dear to me.

We get to save money on daycare costs, which are exorbitant here in the US.

Some working mothers I have spoken to said they actually stopped working outside of the home because when they calculated the daycare costs with how much they were making, they found out it was just a few extra cents, which was so not worth it!

I love that I do not waste time commuting and have no overhead costs.

I don’t spend money on gas or car maintenance and I feel my time is better spent.

What are your greatest challenges?
House chores. I wish I have a magic wand so they get done without me having to do them.

Having said that, I make sure I do certain things on certain days as to not be overwhelmed by them all, and am lucky enough to have a husband who does chores too.

We pick up each other’s slack and I am thankful for that.

For example, he would load the dishwasher and I put the dishes away once they are done.

Running a household is a lot of work and some days when I slack off and not do certain things, I would feel like the worst wife/mother ever for not doing them.

It is hard to keep a neat home when you have a baby who tears into everything!

He recently learned how to open the kitchen cabinets and had a whale of a time taking everything out and rearranging them on the floor all over the house.

We put childproof locks on the doors, but he managed to work his way around them in less than 5 seconds!

As a former teacher, my previous job required me to meet and be around hundreds of people everyday.

Now the only people I see everyday are my husband and son.

It can get lonely, but I have an active social life outside of work, and I get my fair share of people from those activities.

I’m very active in the local babywearing group and am training to be a Babywearing Educator (BWE).

I am also admin of the Malaysian Babywearers Facebook group, where we share and give advice on how parents can babywear safely.

Social media helps keep me connected with others, so I don’t feel as secluded as I thought I would be, working from home.

Would you recommend others to work from home? In your opinion and from your experience, is working from home a good idea?
Yes, and yes.

I find that working from home allows me to spend better quality time with my family.

I also get to work on things I am passionate about – sewing, baking, writing – as I do not have to spend time commuting. I’ve been sharing the things I made with friends and have received orders to make it for them, which is great because now my hobbies are generating an income for me.

I feel like I get more out of the time I have!

I love that I do not have to waste time doing things that I can complete at home very quickly.

For example, during my one-hour break, I can eat, run the dishwasher and put a load of laundry into the washing machine.

If I am working in a conventional office setting, there is no way I can do all that.

Working at home has its challenges.

 It is very easy to fall victim to the charm that is your cosy, comfy bed, especially when everyone else is snoozing away.

It is hard to focus on work when you have a crying child tugging at your legs, wanting to be held.

 If your spouse is not very understanding of your work arrangements, then working from home can be a bane rather than something that enriches your life.

I have mad respect for mothers who work out of home and work from home.

Being a dedicated mother is a full time job.

Some mothers I talked to spoke about feeling guilty, about not being able to ‘be there’ for their kids because they are out working, or feeling like they are wrong for being a stay-at-home-mom and not enjoying it.

I always tell them, do not feel bad.

Do what you have to do, to put food on the table, to keep your children happy and healthy, and find fulfilment in what you do.

 I work because I love being able to put my skills to use.

 I did go to university and had a career pre-baby, and feel like I have more to contribute to society.

A lot of women quit the workforce after they have their babies, which to me is such a loss as women have so much to offer to the world.

If you can work from home, do it. I promise you won’t regret it.
– September 6, 2014.


The writer/sub-editor Tazz's son Elias beside her when she's working


 

Believe in yourself and be a genius

September 8, 2014

Telling people that intelligence is genetically fixed may inadvertently hamper learning.

Researchers from Michigan State University say being told that achievement comes from hard work rather than genetics provokes instant changes in brain patterns and could inspire greater effort on the part of those who wish for success.

“Giving people messages that encourage learning and motivation may promote more efficient performance,” says Hans Schroder, a third year doctoral student in clinical psychology whose work is funded by the National Science Foundation. “In contrast, telling people that intelligence is genetically fixed may inadvertently hamper learning.”

Past studies have homed in on the importance of positive reinforcement, although Schroder’s may be the first to provide physiological evidence that believing one is not limited by genetics could increase confidence, effort and perhaps even success.

Schroder told Relaxnews that he worked with a total of 44 undergraduate students, with women slightly outnumbering men.

He divided them at random into two groups in which they were given one of two articles to read, conveying intelligence as being either genetic or trainable in a challenging environment. He then attached participants to electroencephalography machines and asked them to complete a simple computer task under EEG surveillance.

The EEG readings of participants’ brainwaves allowed him to see how much attention participants paid to their mistakes during the task.

“You can pay attention to your mistakes,” he told Relaxnews, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything effective with the material you learned from making them.”

Sure enough, the group that had read the article proclaiming that intelligence is genetic was clearly concerned with performance, for they paid attention to their mistakes in a manner that did not relate to performance on trials after errors.

“We were asking the question as to how the brain communicated the individual’s behavior,” Schroder said. “If you paid attention to the mistakes does that carry over to the next trial? Does it correlate? Are you slower, faster or more accurate?”

As for the group that had read the article saying that genius can arise from a challenging environment, their EEG readings reflected more efficient brain behavior upon mistakes, indicating a belief that they could improve on their performance.

Schroder told Relaxnews that future research would involve exploring the long-term consequences of such messages, with an eye to creating optimal learning.
-AFP Relaxnews

Facebook targets advertisers as 100 million log on in Africa

Facebook targets advertisers as 100 million log on in Africa

 

One in 10 Africans are logging on to Facebook every month, the world's No.1 online social network said on Monday, presenting a new target audience for advertisers.

Of those 100 million people, 80% are accessing the platform via mobiles on a continent with very low internet penetration and smartphone ownership, it said.

 Facebook's global mobile advertising revenue jumped more than 150% in the second quarter, accounting for about 62% of overall ad revenue.

"There is a fantastic opportunity for business as well if you are local or a global business.

Knowing that there is all these people now in Africa that you can connect with, that is exciting as well," said Nicola Mendelsohn, Facebook's vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Seven in 10 African consumers access the internet through their mobile phones, compared with 6% who use desktop computers, according to an Ericsson study earlier this year.

Facebook would be pouring more resources into Africa to understand how consumers use its product and was considering opening an office on the continent in 2015, Mendelsohn said, without saying where the office might be.

The company is customising products to fit the needs of individual countries, she added.

For example, it can now target users based on their internet speeds. Facebook has more than 1.5 million active advertisers and more than 1.3 billion active users globally.

Mendelsohn could not say how much Africa contributes to advertising revenues but said the Europe, Middle East and Africa region makes up 30% of global revenue.
– Reuters, September 5, 2014.
 

China super rich find creative ways to manage health as well as wealth

China super rich find creative ways to manage health as well as wealth


Favorite sports for the Chinese wealthy include golfing, riding horses and sailing.

Monday, Sep 08, 2014
 China Daily/Asia News Network
By Shi jing

CHINA - The lives of the super rich are always of great interest to ordinary people.

How billionaires snowball their personal wealth, what they do in their leisure time, how many days a year they spend on business trips, what kind of gifts they send to their friends and relatives－even their astrological or Chinese zodiac signs－are probed, apparently giving inspiration or setting trends.

The number of rich people has been expanding in China over the past few years.

According to the Hurun Report, the Shanghai-based media group that documents every aspect of the rising ranks of the Chinese rich, more than 2.9 million Chinese people had personal wealth of more than 6 million yuan (S$1.23 million) by the end of last year－100,000 more than a year earlier.

The number of rich people with personal wealth of over 100 million yuan increased by 2,500 to reach 67,000 by last year, the Hurun Report said.

Although the means by which these rich people accumulated wealth varies from person to person, their preferred ways of spending money are quite often the same.

Their favourite investment, despite the recent downturns, is still property.

According to the Hurun Report, the current favourite property in Shanghai is a golf villa.

The average price of a 350-square-meter golf villa in Shanghai has risen 6 million yuan this year to reach 25 million yuan.

Such villas are eagerly pursued, the report said, since rich people seemingly believe they are "scarce resources worth investing in".

Another important area of investment by rich people is their personal health, according to Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and chief researcher of the Hurun Report.

"Basically, they manage their health by eating healthfully and exercising regularly," Hoogewerf said.

 "The second important thing is a regular medical checkup.

Medical trips, medical clubs, and even placenta injection are more widely accepted by high-net-worth individuals."

As the Hurun Report has discovered, more than 80 per cent of China's wealthy have a medical checkup annually, and 14 per cent of them have one every six months.

One-fourth of the super rich in China get a physical checkup twice a year.

About 40 per cent of these rich people prefer overseas hospitals or organisations.

The average expenditure for such a medical checkup is 1,500 yuan, but the super wealthy are likely to spend 3,500 yuan each time.Zhang Hongyi, the Shanghai-based chief executive officer of a joint venture between China and Switzerland, has a physical checkup once a year at a cost of 2,000 yuan each.

Additionally, he visits his personal doctor at a foreign clinic in Shanghai every three months for health advice.

"For me, health is the most important thing," Zhang said. "I will not be able to fulfil my job without good health. It's worth investing in it."

He spends one hour every morning jogging, and he goes golfing if he has the time.

According to the Hurun Report, golf is one of the favourite sports among individuals with higher net worth.

As a result, it is even more expensive now to be admitted into a golf club in Shanghai.

The membership fee of the Sheshan International Golf Club in west Shanghai has risen from 2.3 million yuan last year to 2.7 million yuan this year.

Wealthy people also are huge collectors.

Artworks, especially ancient Chinese calligraphy and paintings, are gaining popularity.China's fourth-richest man, Wang Jianlin, who has a personal wealth of at least 90.3 billion yuan and is chairman of the privately-owned property developer Dalian Wanda Group, is very active in the art world.

Last year, Wang spent 172 million yuan for a Picasso original at Christie's auction house in New York.

Luxury Watches
Watches are still the cup of tea of the Chinese super rich.

According to the Hurun Report, Patek Philippe remains the most preferred complex functional watch brand, while Cartier is the most preferred jewelry watch brand.

Jiang Lei, general manager of a real estate company in Shanghai, has a collection of luxury watches at home.

To him, brands such as Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin are must-haves when it comes to luxury watches.

But usually he will not wear them, as he considers them to be "too much of a display".

Therefore, he prefers to wear a Rolex or Blancpain when he is conducting business.

"I am also a huge fan of Chinese ancient calligraphy and paintings," Jiang said.

"But there are too many counterfeits in the market.

Amateur collectors can easily be deceived.

Also, the prices of these artworks have been much hyped.

So to be on the safe side, I find watches much safer to invest in.

 If I really like some pieces of artwork, I will simply buy some duplicates," he said.

Meanwhile, rich people generally follow tight schedules.

But probably one of the keys to their success is that they never forget to give themselves a break.

Therefore, travel is second only to health as a so-called spiritual investment, the Hurun Report has found.

Chinese people with high net worth took four trips on average last year, with at least one trip overseas.

More than half of them choose to travel abroad on national holidays.

For a domestic trip, the Chinese super rich will spend at least 43,000 yuan per person.

The expenditure for an overseas trip will be at least 110,000 yuan.

Overseas Weddings
Very popular nowadays is an overseas wedding ceremony combined with traveling, according to HHtravel, a high-end luxury travel brand under the large Chinese travel agency Ctrip.com.

About 40 per cent of China's wealthy are interested in an overseas travel wedding, and about 70 per cent of rich people born in the 1980s have shown interest in such a trip.

One of the most asked-about products under HHtravel is the travel wedding at Santorini, a Greek island.

The 10-day trip will cost at least 199,000 yuan for each person, with business class flights on fivestar airline Qatar Airways, an exclusive photographer, and helicopter and yachting trips provided.

Ji Xiaojing, director of HHtravel's European trips department, said the overseas travel wedding has huge potential in the Chinese market, especially among those with personal wealth of at least 10 million yuan.

"These customers have unique tastes and styles.

Therefore, we have to make sure everything is well-planned and high-end.

All our staff serving these customers know exactly their needs and preferences and have an acute sense of quality," said Ji.
 

Malaysians and Thais love their mobile phones

Puteri Sabira

 | August 22, 2014

A Telenor Group study shows Malaysians and Thais are among the world’s most mobile Internet-hungry.

KUALA LUMPUR: A Telenor Group study has revealed that young mobile Internet users in Malaysia and Thailand are among the most smartphone-savvy in the world.

Known as ‘digital frontrunners’, with ages ranging from 16-35 years old, this group was found to rely on their mobile phones for an unexpectedly wide variety of connectivity needs.

Sigve Brekke, Telenor Group EVP and Head of Asia Operations said, “The progress we are seeing in the adoption of the latest mobile applications in the Southeast Asian market is rapid.”

The study included over 2,600 people in Malaysia, Thailand, Sweden and Norway.

Despite Malaysia’s and Thailand’s ICT infrastructure not being nearly as mature as that of Norway’s or Sweden’s, Malaysians and Thais still beat their peers when it comes to using more communication platforms.

The study also revealed that this trend meant there was massive business development potential in Southeast Asia in the arena of mobile communications technology.

“This indicates to us that the opportunities for sustained growth in the mobile technology space in these markets may be bigger than we expected,” Sigve explained.

The study also revealed that 81 per cent of Malaysians and Thais used chat apps for daily communication with WhatsApp and WeChat being the favourites in Malaysia while Line and Facebook messenger were preferred among the Thais.

He is 20, going on millions

Report from My Paper (Singapore) dated 18 August 2014 :-

He is 20, going on millions


MAKING WAVES: Mr Guay is still in university, but his digital marketing agency is already worth more than half-a-million dollars.

SINGAPORE - When you are 20 years old, you usually depend on your parents to pay your university fees and give you pocket money.

Nickson Guay is on scholarship at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and runs - with a team of seven - his own company, worth more than half-a-million dollars.

If you do try your hand at business at 20, there's a good chance that your parents are bankrolling it.

Mr Guay was nine years old when his father was bankrupted, and he lived on between $2 and $5 a day for most of his school years.

When you are 20, you wear T-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

That's the only aspect in which Mr Guay acts his age.

He looks every inch a university student.

Last year, he founded digital marketing agency Marketlight with a start-up capital of $25,000.

Now it's worth 20 times that amount.

The agency specialises in helping its clients grow their business using social media, search-engine optimisation and content marketing.

The money is a welcome change from his tough early days, when the family had to scrimp to get by.

 Worse still, his parents divorced when he was 18.

"I was afraid that I would not have enough money to pay my university tuition fees...and started to think about how people became millionaires at such a young age," he said.

While his friends were enjoying life before national service (NS) and university by clubbing and travelling,

Mr Guay attended multiple networking sessions and started reading voraciously on entrepreneurship.

He did not think he was losing out, though. "I think going to parties is a waste of time. It distracts you from making an impact," said the young chief executive.

Success didn't come immediately for Mr Guay.

 "After struggling through hundreds of meetings, four lousy business plans and two failed product demonstrations, and losing 90 per cent of my hard-earned money overnight,

I was finally on the route to success," he said.

He was still serving his NS when, with some financial help from an investor, he launched Marketlight.

"I gained special permission from my superiors to run my business during NS, but agreed to focus on NS as my main duty," said Mr Guay.

After completing his duties, he would call his team in the evenings. For the first nine months, he didn't pay himself. "I had to pay my employees and other costs...I had only my NS allowance to depend on," he said.

His hard work paid off when property agents took notice of Marketlight and tapped on it to widen their reach online.

Even Temasek's Vertex Venture Holdings took an interest in the business, but Mr Guay declined its investment.

"We are still growing and are not ready for such a partnership at this point in time.

We will be raising money at the end of the year," he said.

He does, however, have plans for Marketlight to earn $3 million in revenue by the end of next year, and to launch a second tech start-up.

"I want to be the first Singaporean to create a billion-dollar tech start-up...my main purpose in life is to contribute something important to the world. Nothing else really matters."



 

World's top 10 youngest billionaires in 2014

Report from China Daily / Asia News Network dated 14 August 2014 :-

World's top 10 youngest billionaires in 2014


Upper (left to right): Mark Zuckerberg, Scott Duncan, Fahd Hariri, Albert Von Thurn und Taxis. Lower (left to right): Drew Houston, Perenna Kei & family, Eduardo Saverin

According to the Forbes Billionaires list in 2014, 31 of the 1,645 members are under the age of 40.

That elite group no longer includes Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page as both of whom have crossed into their 40's.

This year, there's a newcomer to the list - Perenna Kei who displaces former Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz as the youngest billionaire.

Let's take a look at the top 10 youngest billionaires in the world in 2014, according to Forbes.com.

No 10: Fahd Hariri
Age: 33 Net Worth: $1.2 billion Fahd Hariri is the youngest son of slain Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He graduated from the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture de Paris in 2004.

No 9: Yang Huiyan
Age: 32 Net Worth: $6.9 billion As China's richest woman, she is vice chairman of real estate developer Country Garden.

No 8: Eduardo Saverin
Age: 31 Net Worth: $4.1 billion As Facebook cofounder, he rarely makes media appearances and now spends his time as an angel investor.

No 7: Scott Duncan
Age: 31 Net Worth: $6.3 billion As one of Texas' most eligible bachelors, he is $1.2 billion richer than a year ago thanks to a rise in the stock price of Enterprise Products Partners and a generous dividend plan.

No 6: Albert von Thurn und Taxis
Age: 30 Net Worth: $3.8 billion His assets include real estate, art and 36,000 hectares of woodland in Germany, one of the largest forest holdings in Europe.

No 5: Drew Houston
Age: 30 Net Worth: $1.2 billion Dropbox cofounder and CEO Drew Houston is Silicon Valley's newest billionaire after his San Francisco-based tech company raised a new round of funding in January valued just under $10 billion.

No 4: Anton Kathrein, Jr
Age: 29 Net Worth: $1.35 billion Anton Kathrein, Jr. is the third generation to lead his family's Kathrein-Werke AG, "the oldest and largest antenna manufacturer in the world," according to the company's website

No 3: Mark Zuckerberg
Age: 29
Net Worth: $28.5 billion
Zuckerberg's net worth is set to more than double as Facebook's shares are up more than 130 per cent over the past year as of mid-February.

No 2: Dustin Moskovitz
Age: 29
Net Worth: $6.8 billion
Mark Zuckerberg's former roommate and cofounder of Facebook, Moskovitz left the social network in 2008 to start Asana, a software company.

No 1: Perenna Kei & family
Age: 24
Net Worth: $1.3 billion
Kei has an 85 per cent stake in Logan Property Holdings through different companies and a family trust.