Michelle Susanto

Even though the business presentation is over, I think about the online party-planning company quite often. Not that I’m interested in doing such business, but because it’s actually my first time knowing that such company really exist. A little too late probably, but better late than never.

What attracts me the most to this business, or e-Business in general, is how people nowadays are very dependent on technology, and how much technology makes life much easier. The section in business that got impacted the most because of the internet is obviously marketing. They save cost because they don’t have to print lots of flyers to advertise their product , they can use facebook or use forums online to update their members and emails for some general informations. Because of this, they can also save time and cost which then can be allocated to other sectors of the business. And for online party planning company, they benefitted for not having to have physical office base.

The easy access to the whole world through internet has helped small businesses to start without having to worry too much about the fixed cost because it is definitely cheaper than if they have to start their shop physically, for example. Thanks for the US Army back in the 1950 for developing the internet! 🙂

Garuda Indonesia (GIA) is the national airline of Indonesia and and is named after the Garuda bird in the myths, and is fully owned by the Indonesian Government. The airline flies to a number of destinations in Asia, Middle East, Europe and Australia. A few years ago it also flew to Vancouver! GIA is listed as a 4-star airline and just got the ‘World’s Most Improved Airline’ a few months ago during the 2010 World Airline Awards.

No, I have no interest in Airline business. The only thing that makes me write about this airline is their professionalism compared to any other airline business in Indonesia that I know. Last week, GIA decided to integrate their operation control system. A little too late for them, but better late than never. Anyway. The transition did not go smoothly; apparently the technician team were a little careless, and they forgot to plug this one cable, which causes the crew rotation system to get lost… with no backup. This caused catastrophe in almost all Indonesian airports, especially the one in Jakarta, and disadvantaged thousands of people. As a result, they have to cancel tens of flights and keep the pilgrim congregation in Mecca for another few days because the flight got delayed for more than a day.

What’s so professional about this? Well, GIA is responsible for all the chaoses they made. They provide accommodations for people affected by this glitch, they refund the ticket and reschedule the tickets. Probably this is the standard for international airlines, but for Indonesian airlines to provide such thing, it’s a miracle, a dream comes true. Anyway, they announced that they are now part of the SkyTeam Alliance Member. Good job, Garuda! Hope your professionalism becomes the standard of all Indonesian airline companies.

I searched about Social Entrepreneur for last class and I wondered whether there’s an Indonesian Social Entrepreneur. Apparently, the first person I found is this woman named Tri Mumpuni. I read the article about her and her work here, and it’s amazing how IBEKA Foundation (Yayasan Institut Bisnis dan Ekonomi Kerakyatan or People’s Business and Economic Institute), has built five dozen small power plants that also serve as engines for economic development, and provided electricity for nearly 400,000 people. However that is not enough for her, so Mumpuni and IBEKA are thinking bigger. She recently flew to Vienna to nail down a 30 million euro bank loan for a 2 megawatt project and is seeking $98 million in U.S. Agency for International Development support for 32 new projects.

I’ve heard about this woman for a couple of times when I was in Indonesia, but never knew that her job is classified as a Social Entrepreneur, because people call her ‘social activist’ in Indonesia. Now that the definition of Social Entrepreneur is clear, I think more people in Indonesia should also know the difference between social activist and social entrepreneur. Social activists fight for a cause, social entrepreneur do something for the cause they fight for.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968.html

I just saw this in one of my friend’s Facebook profile, and I think this is interesting. It’s basically talking about how Facebook’s application (note that this is not about Facebook itself) store and use users’ data to other parties. I used to use lots of applications, like Pet Society, FarmVille, and Texas Hold’Em Poker and all, deleted them without knowing about any of the privacy issues that arise (because I need to catch up with my works) and glad I did it.

The applications that I still use are developed by Facebook, and as one comment from my first blog post said: Though they have the right to sue you when you use that picture you upload on Facebook commercially, will they ever do it? I mean, the consequences of them suing one of their users’ picture is too big. People will leave Facebook and go for other social networking sites (or other developer may create some other social networking sites which provides similar sevices like Facebook without the ‘picture-owning’ part), and there’s really nothing advantageous about doing it. For applications, however, there are lots of application developers who violates the rule because they have access to their users’ information (like what the article pointed out).

Anyway. Here’s one funny comic strip about the effect of social networking on humanbeing. And, do you really think that life was much simpler when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits?

Let me shift a bit from technology posts this time. I was having a conversation with my friends about the comm101 assignment when we suddenly shift and talk about cereals. I told them how I miss koko krunch and honey stars (produced by Nestle) and how we couldn’t seem to find them here (it’s so common back home!)… and some other brands which are very different here and in Indonesia. When I first came here, the first restaurant I went to was McDonald, because I thought that well, it tastes decent and should be edible just like the one back home. Apparently I was wrong. The burger here is less salty, and they don’t have fried chicken (the only thing that McDonald was famous for in Indonesia)!

Then I realized one thing. The brand may be the same, but to adjust to the culture where they have their product is also one way for them to market their product. However, in some cases, they also serve the same thing. For example, Starbucks. I am a coffee lover, and Starbucks is one of my favorite coffee shops. I remembered vividly how Caramel Macchiato tastes like, and I was surprised to find out that it tastes the same here too!

Well, as I write this, I wonder, what are the things that affects the company to either adjust their product to the market or to keep their product uniform in all parts of the world? Is it a form of glocalization, and is it always the best thing to do by a transnational company to survive?

Youtube, the biggest video-hosting website available, is a great mean to market your product, to support your business, or even to market yourself (Justin Bieber, KevJumba, NiggaHigga, you name it). Here’s the amateur video made by user to explain the history of youtube:

Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there are almost no way of sharing videos with other people online… and this is where YouTube comes in. Being the first in their market (I believe), YouTube made it possible for anyone with an (acceptable) Internet connection to post videos that people worldwide can enjoy within a few minutes. I believe this is why people know YouTube better than they know the competitors, like Metacafe and Vimeo, simply because of its high compatibility, simple layout, and large database.

In case you guys haven’t notice — I love technology. Its vast improvement and the unexpected things that people develop keep me in awe almost all the time. For example, the BlackBerry. The first BlackBerry was introduced around 10 years ago in form of a two-way pagers, and now it is the second most popular smartphone company with around 20% market share, and it keeps on widening its target market, like what they did just a few days ago — they announced their BlackBerry Playbook.

Though I am not part of BlackBerry (I wish I can, but that’s another thing), I think one of the reasons why they decided to go into the tablet PC section is because of the success that Apple Inc. experiences from the launching of iPad. There has been lots and lots of argument about the pros and cons of the iPad, but that does not stop people from purchasing the iPad, that in the first three months they managed to sell 3.7 million iPads all around the world. Another reason why they launch the PlayBook is because they have seen the weaknesses that iPad has, so they are able to promote the product by saying that they have these features that iPad does not have.

One last thing, there are certain groups of people who love BlackBerry products and are addicted to it, just like there are groups of people who always buy Apple’s products no matter what others say… and these groups of people usually are good marketers for the product. Anyway, will you buy the PlayBook? (If yes, please let me know, I’d like to see it too! 🙂 )

Facebook, Google Group, Vista, Twitter — I think we are all familiar with these brands of online service. For the past few decades, there has been a significant improvement on technology sector and more people use them from time to time. Nowadays, people exchange email address and Facebook profile when they meet new people, and teachers announce assignment on either blackboard system or google groups. These new methods to interact with people is a good thing. It’s time efficient — since groups don’t have to meet in a specific place, they can work using VoIP applications such as Skype and edit documents using GoogleDocs, get real-time responses from people all around the world using Twitter, and many more.

For multinational corporations, the existence of all these applications also help them minimize cost for development, because they no longer have to send people to fix problems or to train the employers, they can now do video conference for training, or to have cross-nation meetings, which also is more time efficient.

However, like everything else, there’s always another side of this usage of technology in work, security and privacy issue as the top two concerns. So, what do you think about the usage and dependancy on technology at work? To what extent should people use technology at work and what things cannot be replaced by technology?

I guess everyone who happens to stumble on this blog knows what Facebook is, who owns it (it’s Mark Zuckerberg, in case you don’t know) and how awesome it is. Facebook is currently one of the most popular social networking sites with around 500 million users up to July 2010. However, for the past year, Facebook has faced some controversy, from being blocked in several countries to protests due to its terms of service regarding intellectual property (read here) and for the usage of your profile to advertise items or services. (Hey, I bet 80% of you just click on the ‘I agree’ button without reading the terms of service)

I personally think that Facebook is great and useful, but after exploring more about the ways that they gain profits I come to a conclusion that in some areas, Facebook crosses the boundary of ethics such as privacy and intellectual properties. The one thing that disturbs me the most is the issue of intellectual properties, and that’s because I store at least 6,000 pictures in around 100 different albums, and each one of these pictures are now claimed to be Facebook’s, which means that if I use the same picture I uploaded to advertise something else without  asking permission from Facebook, they have the right to sue me, because that picture is theirs now. This is a dilemma for the users since one way to socialize with others is through pictures of events and memories that they share. From a user’s perspective, I disagree on this, however since we use Facebook for free, we can’t really protest against them. However,probably on Facebook’s side they’re trying to make this as an excuse — that because the services they offer are free, they deserve to use some of our data to gain profits. So, what do you think? Is it ethical for companies to use client’s data because the client use their services for free?

September 15, 2010