Last week I have a little discussion with my friend Sandy about bosses. There are many type of bosses, cool boss, generous boss, bad boss, stupid boss, and many more... you name it. You probably lucky enough to have a good boss, but what would you do if you get a bad boss? Do you try your best to please him? Or you probably disobey him and pretend as he is not exist, you feel that's OK as long as you get your work done. 

Well, some people try to please their boss the others don't. The problem is whatever you do, how good your work will be nothing without recognition by your superior. Your career in the company is mostly on their hands.

I agree with Sandy when he said that we need to always please our boss because they are the one who can promote you to a better position. Bosses sometimes made us crazy and miserable, and we don't like it but it's their job. Our job is to make them happy or the alternative is leave the company and find new job.

This statement perhaps a bit controversial but I do think it has a point.

What do you think? Do you agree that staff's job is to please the boss? Share your thought here.

A recent study shows that the Internet has become one of the most important sources for tourist information acquisition, where many web surfers indicate that they visited tourism websites when planning for vacations. This trend encourages many players in tourism industry to go online and try to catch these potential customers.

However, because of so many information can be obtained in the Internet, tourists are often overwhelmed by this huge amount of available information online, and cannot locate what they intended to find. This convenience of searching can become a frustrating experience.

Living in Bali, one of the popular tourist destination in the world, this fact is tickling me to write about it. Internet has so much potential, it holds so many information for us to grab. The problem is how to get the right information? For marketer and seller, how to stands out the crowd and be chosen by these potential customers? Next step, how to convert vacation planning and information searching activity into sales?

First of all, I don't think Tourism player need to have their own website with sales function like e-ticketing. While this can be an alternative sales channel for them but I prefer they stick with their business and not bothered by internet and programming complexity. A website with nice information is perfect for them, no need to have sales function.

Why I suggest that when we all know that Internet can be a perfect alternative channel? Because there are many websites and company out there who are focusing on this kind activity. They are well-recognized, have a lot of loyal customers, and has skill set to promote and sell tourism destination both online and offline. In my opinion, the perfect way for tourist destination management to promote and sell their product is by co-operating with these people (which usually are Travel Agent), and let them do the selling for you. The tourist destination management's job is just to make sure they network to these agents as many as they can, in order tourists to see and reach their product.

This business model not only can save money, but also more effective then trying to go and sell online yourself.

Starting from Friday, 12 June 2009 you are able to choose a username for your Facebook account to easily directs someone to your profile. It was a big change for the social-networking company that has so far used unique numerical identifications to identify its members, but not anymore... you can now access my profile by going to Facebook.com/muhammad.suhada

It was like a landrush, everyone want to have a very good name for their account. Now, what is it means for business?  One thing I have in mind and probably the best thing, your profile is most likely easier to find by search engine. Hey, that's good, your business will be easier to find and it means more sales coming.

But wait, isn't this something that Twitter already offered?  Don't you think Facebook is playing as a follower? It's probably just another attack from Facebook to Twitter but in my opinion they can't beat Twitter easily just by offering vanity URLs for their member's profile. There is something that separate Facebook with Twitter which called "confirmation". With Twitter, I can follow anyone I like and vice versa, no need the other party to confirm the relationship. This makes us easier to promote or even sell our products to the followers.

What do you think?

PS: Even though I'm questioning this movement from Facebook but I am very happy to claim my username as I believe it is still a tool to help business to grow.

When talking about e-Business, one question often comes up: to niche or not to niche? I usually metaphor this to real life condition, when you want to buy something, do you go to Hypermarket or Specialty Store?

I bet most people will answer it with the magic word "depends". It really depends on what to buy. in hypermarket you will find a wide range of merchandise to select but usually they don't have an extensive width and depth of stock in the item they offered. While specialty store specializes and focus in a specific range of merchandise. They usually have an extensive width and depth of stock in the item and really have the expertise and knowledge about the merchandise they sell.

When you plan to open a store, you probably need to look at some points below before you can choose between the two:

• Market
  Hypermarket, as its merchandise, doesn't bound to specific audience. There's no demographic border here, you can a take them all if you can but there is no guarantee these people will loyal and do repetition orders as the merchandises sold are not unique and can be found somewhere else. People go to the Hypermarket usually are budget-conscious.
  While Specialty Store has a specific but loyal customers. Why I say loyal? because this kind of store is focus to a specific product. People who go here is surely someone who has interest or even a fan. These people are not budget-conscious and obviously will do repetition orders.
• Expertise
  Do you have the expertise for all goods you sell? Customers will love if someone in store has capability and expertise on the products so their questions can be answered and therefore convinced them to buy.
• Value chain
  Having many things to sell means you must deal with many many suppliers, and probably many many distribution channel too.
• Investment
  Relatively big for Hypermarket as you need to have wide-range of merchandise, suppliers, and distribution.

With the pros and cons above, it's really up to you which one to choose. My suggestion is don't go for Hypermarket if you half-hearted and doesn't have good value chain. Hypermarket is huge, need extra work to make it success but once you get it you will smile at it. Specialty store is relative easier to do but one thing to remember that the customer is usually knows what they are looking for and they will know your capability.. This can be a boomerang if you don't have passion on it.

With this metaphor, can you now choose whether to niche or not to niche?

Let's discuss it here.

The answer is depends.

In my opinion, the decision whether to take a master degree or not is depends on what and where you are right now and what do you want to achieve. For example if you are satisfied with your current career then clearly you don't need to pursue master degree. Another example which I don't think needs a master degree either is people who enjoys their practical skills and want to learn more about the skills, well they should go to some courses or hand-on training and not to school. Contrastly, people who take master degree usually wants or have obsession to leap to a better career or want to move to different type of work.

I'm not saying that the people who don't take a master is bad, not at all. Because at the end, it's not the master degree who can boost your career, knowledge or skills. It's you! If we read biographies of successful people, you will be surprised that most of them didn't back to school for a master. So what is the point having master degree? Is it just a waste of money and time?

Well, here is my list of why I think you need to get master degree (despite the time and money issue :p):

• It looks good on your curriculum vitae, not just good but I bet it's increasing your probability to get interviewed when you apply for a job. Believe it or not, it's an added value that the recruiters appreciate.
• Broaden your insight
• Enhance your communication skill
• Enhance your analytical and problem solving skill
• Networks

That's the top 5 on my "Why do you need master degree" list, and I want to underline number 5 - Networks. Why? The simple answer is probably you will meet your future clients or consultants there.

But again, master degree is not the only factor that impact your career. The main factor is you!