Razor Sharp Memory for Greater Productivity and Effectiveness

Developing a razor sharp memory is achievable and attainable by everyone. Age or any other factor does not hinder you. Having an excellent memory will make you more productive and effective within your organisation. You can remember anything and everything that you want, if you know how it is done.

If you think about it, practically half of our life is based on trying to remember something that we should do or should have done or something that we have to do. This is a tedious process and a major hindrance to productivity. Despite the fact that we have many audio-visual aids to help us remember – these are unreliable as compared to our hidden potential to remember with the limitless power of your mind.

In this workshop you will learn how you can customised the various memory enhancement technique to help you remember your work schedule, project management and day to day organisation of your office. You will notice that with a little commitment and having a right mental attitude, you will easily be able to remember all the major categories of information in your office and as an added bonus in your personal life.

The techniques taught is very similar to learning how to ride a bicycle. You need to actually practice with it before you can see any development in yourself. But the ultimate end result is that you will be able to remember if you try. The memory techniques taught will help to:

• Enhance the memory power for personal effectiveness
• Increase the retention power and absorption power to improve work performance
• Develop the ability to retain and recall names, facts, faces and figures
• Improve relationships and rapport building through the abilities to remember important customers and clients.

There are five levels of memory enhancement and these are progressive. These two day workshop will bring you to level three of the technique.

19 to 20 November 20085 November 2008
► Register for this run
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$590.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$472.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$531.00


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100 Best MBA Admission Tips

Under current economy situation, I think the best option is to further study if you are being retrenched. Why? It is very difficult to find a job now, even you can get one, very likely the pay cannot be matched with your last drawn salary. And this will have a serious impact on your future, as people always refer to your last drawn salary to decide your salary. They are not going to refer to your last last drawn salary.

If you go for school now, hopefully after one to two years, the economy is get better by then, with the new degree and new skill. Start all over again. Here got a blog on 100 Best MBA Admission Tips All in One List. It sound interesting.

It talks about the selection of the school, GMAT tips, scholarships etc.. quite a complete guide. I think it will be greatly useful if you are going to get a MBA.


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Course on XML and Web Services

This two-day comprehensive course is aimed at introducing IT professionals to the fundamentals of XML and Web Services. The course effectively combines instruction on the principles of XML and the foundations of Web Services technology. The hands-on XML module focuses on key XML technologies, such as Document Type definition (DTD), cascading style sheets (CSS), and Extensible Style Language for Transformation (XSLT). The Web Services module focuses not only on Web Services concepts, technologies and standards, but also on the business value of Web Services. Case studies will be used to illustrate the business component of Web services and how organizations are reaping benefits through this technology.

Upon completion of this course, the participant will be able to:
• Create a well formed and valid XML document
• Design a DTD for XML documents
• Use a CSS to format an XML document
• Use XSLT and XPath to transform an XML document
• Gain an understanding of Web Services technologies and standards
• Understand business value of Web Services

RUN 1: 17 to 18 November 20083 November 2008► Register for RUN 1
RUN 2: 1 to 2 December 200817 November 2008► Register for RUN 2
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$590.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$472.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$531.00


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Malaysia Minister says "Prepare to lose jobs in Singapore"

Here is an article from The Star (a Malaysia newspaper):

The 300,000 Malay­sians employed in the island republic have been advised to gear up for retrenchment if the country continues to slide into a recession.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said that although the technical recession experienced by Singapore has not yet translated into unemployment, it was better for Malaysians to be prepared.

“If there is unemployment due to a recession, our workers will be hit,” he told The Star here yesterday.

“They need to work on retraining and acquiring new skills to ensure they have jobs during such times.”

He said that Malaysians accounted for about 30% of the foreign workforce in Singapore.

Dr Subramaniam said that many of the Malaysian workers in Singapore were unskilled and employed in the manufacturing sector.

Asked about whether the ministry had a contingency plan for such a situation in Malaysia, he said that Malaysia would have excess job vacancies as work presently being done by foreigners could be offered to locals instead.

According to economic data released by Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, the island republic will be the first Asian economy to fall into a technical recession.

A technical recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in economic output.

Dr Subramaniam, after an hour-long meeting with his Singapore counterpart Gan Kim Yong, said they had discussed various issues.

On instances of Malaysian workers being cheated in Singapore, he said that the Malaysian High Commission had received 1,250 com­plaints within the first nine months of this year.

Dr Subramaniam added that there was something wrong with the re­cruitment mechanism and the ministry would have to check on the matter.


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One stop office supplies

Happen to search around for a company or website that will provide service, wide selection of products (mainly printer), and offer great savings. One that I found and pretty impressive is Super Warehouse. It is one technology partner that are offering over 50,000 products, including printer , computer monitors, by the brands that including Apple, HP, Cisco, IBM, Sony, Canon, Epson, Konica Minolta, Lexmark, Xerox and more . For example, just to look at the hp laser jet printers , here nearly list down all the varieties of hp laser jet.

If you are looking for an alternative, you can find the lexmark printers as well, and many other brands. Also not only selling the printers, they offer supplies in one stop as well, such as the printer supplies . They stock thousands of Toner Cartridges and Ink Supplies and offer huge discounts on Bulk Printer Paper and Avery Label orders. Many companies thrive on printing capabilities. Consequently, a laser printer toner cartridge is important because it is replaceable, allowing our clients to continually utilize their printers or fax machines without any decrease in output quality.

But then here comes the problems, most of these suppliers provide any delivery in USA. And the price is very reasonable, so what can we do in Singapore, or in Asia. It appears that there isn't much similar stuff here in local.

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Effective Event Management

Events are part and parcel of the corporate life. There are all types of events being organized ranging from launch of new products to analyst briefings to customer functions to roadshows and press conference etc… A well-organized and effective event will help enhance the corporate image and increase sales potentials whilst a badly organized one will reflect poorly on the organization.

Many marketing professional learn the event organizing skills through trial and error in their career. This course attempt to provide them with the knowledge and skills acquired through experience.

This will be a practical course whereby you learn how to :
- set event objectives
- create an impressive and effective event
- put together a event brief
- select event management companies, partners, sponsors etc..
- plan, budget and control cost
- explore the options available in the market
- avoid the pitfalls

Through this course, the attendee will gain some practical knowledge on organizing an event and some of the pitfalls to avoid as well as understand the different type of events and their requirements.

RUN 2: 11 to 12 November 200828 October 2008
RUN 2 ► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$590.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$472.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$531.00


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Principles and Fundamentals of Facilities Management

With the high cost of inflation and the ever increasing demand for energy and other resources for the management of Built Environment, FM has become an important management disciplines for Asset owners and Developers to enhance the quality of service and value of their assets; as well as a strategic component for the success of its business organization. With globalized competitiveness in business operations, it is imperative for Building professionals, constructors and FM practitioners to appreciate and understand the scope of FM services, its roles and responsibilities, the implementation of FM services to achieve service excellence and to increase occupeirs' productivity, and the measurability and benchmarking of FM service provision to serve as control of quality and road map. This will help turn built environment into assets that have the lowest Life Cycle Cost of operation over its entire economic life span through the provision of efficient and sustainable facilities solutions.

The 2-day program aims to provide the particpants the knowledge of the Principles and Fundamentals of Facilities management for Built Environment, brief introduction of the importance of Sustainable FM for whole Life management of Assets, Performance measurement of the Building Performance and most important of all the future direction of FM practices.

RUN 1: 6 to 7 November 2008
► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$780.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$624.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$702.00


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Creative Namecard - Part 2

Here I am going to show you more creative namecards. Like the one from a lawn care company, they do give you seed inside their namecard. How I wish this is from bank, then they will give you money in their namecards! And best is the divorce lawyer. The namecard can be splitted into two, this is perfectly design and very humour too. Not sure if any couple end up be together again due to this funny namecard.

LAWN CARE COMPANY

DIVORCE LAWYER
FURNITURE MAKER
The 3D chair also looks great right? I am sure these name cards are expensive. So maybe only for certain "high class" people that will spend the money.


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Creative Namecard - Part 1

Business card represents the image of a company. How strong is a company, can be easily viewed from its business card. Like the number of colors being used. The thickness of the card. How well is the designed etc. Look at these special designed namecards, I am sure you will have a good confidence on them after see their well designed creative namecards.

PHYSICAL TRAINER
COUPLES THERAPIST
DENTIST

Do you feel that you trust them more now? Got some more which I am going to show tomrrow.

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Rapid Prototyping for Rapid Product Development

The course will explain the working principles of the mature technologies and compare their strengths and weaknesses. Video presentation of the SLA, Polyjet, SGC, LOM, FDM, SLS and 3DP processes and parts made by theses processes and several other processes will be exhibited. Industrial examples from various applications (including aerospace, automobile, jewelry, coin, biomedical engineering, etc.”) will be illustrated.

Opposed to a conventional machining process which takes away excess material from a block of work piece, 3-Dimensional Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (3DRPM) produce parts by building one layer upon another in a horizontal manner. This offers many advantages over machining limitations such as the capability to produce complex and difficult-to-machine models (e.g. A sphere in a thin-necked bottle, straight corners of pockets in typical engineering components, small, intricate jewellery ring). Jigs and fixtures are also no longer needed.

Because 3DRPM is linked to CAD/CAM systems, it is able to produce a component in a short turn around time. As a result, it has great potential, especially for today’s products, which have very short product life.

There are currently no less than 30 different 3DRPM namely, Stereolithography (SLA), Solid Ground Curing (SGC), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM), Fused Deposition Modeling, Direct Shell Production Casting (DSPC), Multiphase Jet Solidification (MJS), and EOS’s EOSINT Systems. Among the newest systems are CAM-LEM’s CL 100, Shape Deposition Manufacturing, Acrom’s Electro Beam Melting and Aeromet Corporation’s Lasform Technology.

RUN 1: 30 to 31 October & 3 November 2008
► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$1080.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$864.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$972.00


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Marketing is a Life Skill

I find this is interesting, so should share it here...

1) - The unique selling point (USP) is something that supports brand position.

2) - Never compete on price.

3) - Always pick a targeted, narrower market.

4) - Focus on how you can dominate your niche. Niche positioning is part of branding.

5) - A brand does not cost you millions to build, but you must give your customer something to believe in.

6) - You must have a long term vision for your marketing efforts.

7) - Marketing results are emotion-driven, not logic-driven.

8) - Marketing support is more important than marketing itself. Don't underestimate the power of marketing support.

9) - Your promotional message must cover multiple media.

10) - It is NOT what U want, it is what the market want.


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One-day Japanese Business & Cultural Seminar

Course Objectives
- To learn Japanese culture
- To understand Japanese business style, business mind and national characters
- To understand tips and knacks to socialize with Japanese well
- To learn useful daily greetings

Trainer
Ms Kazue Kaneko
• Graduated from Kobe University, worked in Osaka and Tokyo for 2 years
• Completed Japanese teaching methodology intensive course in Bryn Mawr collage in the US
• Taught Japanese for two years at University of South in USA
• Obtained MA of Japanese applied Linguistics in the University of New South Wales, Australia
• Took up part time Japanese teaching during the MA course above
• Taught Japanese at a Singapore polytechnic, a private language school and a government ministry
• Business development manager and Japanese teacher at Nihongo Bashi Pte Ltd for two years. Took charge of courseware development.
• Founded Japanese Language & Cultural training providing company, J-Biz Communication. Director –cum- Instructor
• Part-time instructor at Nanyang Technological University
• A member of Japanese Language Teachers' Association in Singapore

RUN 2: 5 November 2008
► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$350.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$280.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$315.00

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Speed Reading for Greater Business Productivity

The knowledge-based economy of this new era demands the individual to allocate more time and resources to learn new things and learn them fast. What has been learnt becomes outdated equally fast as well. There is a need for the student of today to develop self-fulfilling learning skills, which will propel him into this new era. The key to success lies very much on the ability of the individual student to learn the information fast.

This program gives the participants an overview of how to improve reading speed and comprehension. If their reading speed is doubled, half of every hour spent reading their journals, memorandum, articles and other reading sources could be more profitably used for important revision and other activities. It is a fact that people who read faster tend to comprehend better. This workshop will also cover the dynamics of how the human brain and mind perceives information and processes it. By understanding this, they are better able to focus their attention to what is being read and comprehend it better.

Course Outline
• Fundamentals of Speed Reading
• Finding out how you read
• Understanding mind’s perception
• Eye Exercise
• Discovering your individual learning pattern
• Using “finger/pointer” technique of speed reading
• Training the eye to follow words quickly
• Improving vocabulary by guessing words
• Learning how to remember what you have read
• Increasing reading speed to 1000 words per minute
• Using “Peripheral vision” technique to speed read
• Learning “adaptive reading” for reports and technical materials
• Learning to idea scan what has been read

RUN 2: 3 to 4 November 2008
RUN 2 ► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$590.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$472.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$531.00

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Understanding Sales for Engineers

You’ve been in the technical field for most of your career until the movement to management. Now the expectations and business drivers have shifted and no longer are you building the products – now you’ve been tasked to sell them.

Many times, engineers and technical people find themselves assuming this type of role after some years and for some the transition is smooth. Yet for other’s they find the bevy of new soft silks, demand to drive revenue, expand the customer base and be more market centric sometimes overwhelming; and not something they enjoy.

This course is designed specifically to help engineers or technical personnel without prior knowledge of selling make the transition from a technical role to a sales role. Participants will be fully grounded in the all the latest principles in sales. After this course, participants will be versed in different selling techniques and strategies that will allow them to go out into the market and generate leads resulting in sales, and more importantly come to accept their new role and enjoy the challenges.

Course Objectives
• To understand the fundamentals of sales.
• How to use the techniques in a practical environment
• To identify and apply traits of successful salespeople
• Understand the ‘back-to basics’ of sales

RUN 2: 30 to 31 October 2008
RUN 2 ► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$590.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$472.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$531.00

Case Study: Managing “Greek” Risk around Earnings Announcements

Steve Meizinger is a Director of Education at the International Securities Exchange with twenty years of Equity Options trading experience. Steve has worked at three different U.S. options exchanges, facilitating trades between professional traders and customers and has been an Equity Options Specialist on the trading floor. Through those roles, Steve learned how to adapt to changing trading environments and implemented many different options strategies, which he now shares with the rest of the options-trading community. Steve has written articles for the Options Industry Council and travels throughout North America teaching options strategies. Steve serves as an instructor for ISE and the Options Industry Council. Steve has a B.S degree in Finance from Rider University in Lawrenceville N.J

Managing "Greek" Risk around Earnings Announcements
October 14, 2008, 7:30pm Singapore Standard Time
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Trade the Aussie: Trade your View of the Australian Dollar Relative to the U.S Dollar
October 7, 2008, 7:30pm SST

Managing "Greek" Risk around Earnings Announcements
October 14, 2008, 7:30pm SST

Options Pricing
October 16, 2008, 7:30pm SST

Trading GLD Options
October 27, 2008, 7:30pm SST


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Eight Effective Strategies for Creative Problem Solving and Decision Making

As the 21st Century begins to unfold together with its uncertainties and challenges there is dire need to improve our ability to think creatively and find solutions to seemingly impossible situations. Creativity is not necessarily an inborn skill and it is something that can be nurtured with the right training and perception. The two guiding principles of creativity is ‘synergy’ – the way in which information is perceived and ‘synthesis’ the way in which we process the information. Both these applied in tandem will allow us to relate previously unrelated concepts and ideas which is the crux of what creativity is all about.

Day 1
Understanding the Mind and the Brain
Introduction to the 6 ‘I’s of creative thinking
Evaluation the individual creative potential
Understanding Barriers to Creative Thinking
Learning to SYNERGISE and SYNTHESIZE
Escaping the Paradigm trap
Learning the elements of Brainstorming
Introducing the Eight Strategies - SCRAMBLE
Case study on the usage of Eight Strategies

Day 2
Applying SCRAMBLE to the daily life
Customising each of the Eight strategies
Group discussion on the usage of SCRAMBLE
Understanding the correlations between the different forms of thinking
Developing an action plan for implementing the Eight Strategies

RUN 1: 28 to 29 October 200814 October 2008
RUN 1 ► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$590.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$472.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$531.00

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Seven Tips to a Better Review

Happen to read this article http://www.salary.com/personal/layoutscripts/psnl_articles.asp?tab=psn&cat=cat040&ser=ser031&part=par556, which I find it quite useful, so to share with all of you.. Maybe you will find that many of the words are common sense, but that is the case, always we just forget and ignore the common sense.

Myth 1: My input is ignored during the performance review process.
Keep a journal documenting your key achievements on a weekly or even daily basis so you can easily reference your accomplishments over the entire performance review period.

Myth 2: My performance does not affect my salary.
Be prepared for your review meeting by conducting a self assessment and research your market value.

Myth 3: Performance reviews do not lead to improved performance.
Use the performance feedback to understand what is important to the company and to identify areas where you can improve. Focus your efforts over the coming months on demonstrating improvement and alignment with company goals.

Myth 4: Performance reviews only happen once a year.
Take notes and be sure to record anything notable in your work journal.

Seven Tips to a Better Review
1. Track your contributions
2. Compile your greatest achievements
3. Research your market value
4. Present your findings
5. Listen to your feedback
6. Confirm the accomplishments and areas that could be improved
7. Create a plan to achieve your goals


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Reliability in Design

Reliability theory is a probabilistic design approach to the problem of the design characteristic life. It is about estimating, controlling, and managing the probability of failure in devices, equipment and systems. Since reliability parameters must be defined in probabilistic terms, parameters such as random variables, density and distribution functions are utilized in the course. This course introduces the basic concepts, formulas, applications of reliability theory, design techniques, methods for specifying reliability, quantitatively, and the relationship between reliability and cost. It also covers the procedures for allocating reliability to each of the elements of an equipment or system to meet the overall reliability requirement, and for modeling and predicting equipment/system reliability.

During a product development program, a design is developed to meet previously defined reliability requirements. There are a host of design principles and tools of which the designer should be aware and should use as required to achieve a reliable system design.

They include:
1) parts management,
2) part derating,
3) reliable circuit design,
4) redundancy,
5) environmental design,
6) fault tree analysis,
7) design for testability,
8) design reviews, and cost considerations.

RUN 1: 23 to 24 October 20089 October 2008
► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$780.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$624.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$702.00


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Market Research - Fundamentals, Cases and Research Techniques

Instructional Approach This will follow a seminar cum workshop approach, lectures followed by practical sessions. Participants will be divided into teams to work on a short project to get a practical understanding of the course. They can work on a topic that relates to the organization that they are working for. Case studies and video presentations will be used to give a better understanding of the course.

Course Outline
- The global market environment – Local vs. global. Understanding the local markets
- Market Research – The advantages and application of Market information - Case studies and reviews
- Target – Market Segmentation
- Consumer Behavior- Understanding consumers and developing a consumer profile.
- Planning a Market Research Study.-the Process and types.
- Workshop on working on a proposal for a MR study –Defining objectives and planning the study
- Methods of conducting MR studies
- Workshop on Designing questionnaires and Interview schedules
- Methodologies and working with professional partners
- Data collection- Survey or Focus Group
- Analyzing Data collected and interpreting in terms of the objectives
- Evaluate the data collected
- How to use the data –applications for decision making
- Plan a new strategy based on data collected
- Evaluate the strategy.
- Presentation of the Case Study

RUN 2: 23 to 24 October 20089 October 2008
► CLICK HERE to Register Online
Time: 9.00am - 5.00pm
Venue: NTU@one-north campus, Executive Centre
Fee: Standard: SGD$720.00 NTU Alumni: SGD$576.00 Group (3 & above): SGD$648.00

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