Musings

How I choose to Work

I’ve worked with customers who cover different fields of industry, and range in size from one-person operations to listed companies since 1999. For customers large or small, I offer the same customer orientated approach.

Most people choose to work for a company.

I choose to work with a customer and walk away when the time is right or it’s no longer the right environment.

I’m not getting paid a salary, I’m getting paid for the service (hopefully good in their eyes) of improving processes and solving their problems.

This is why OT & Appraisals are a foreign concept to me since I don’t generally care about them. I also find the concept of “my boss” strange which might make it odd to work with me for some people. Technically you are my customer whom I don’t always think is right 😉

This approach has a great positive benefit of finding better customers to work with over the past 14 years.

The downside? Some customers are better than others and it can get hard to walk away when you make new friends and get into new areas of responsibility. My current customer is a 2.5 year long project that I originally thought would be 4-5 years long so it’s definitely tough to leave.

For those asking me when is my last day at iProperty, it happened already for me on 1st May but I just so happen to have a 3 months notice period. I guess you’ll know when the day is when I stop posting stuff on Yammer.

It’s kinda nice to have only ONE project to focus on now. The odd thing is I find myself holding back on comments on most things now coz “stepping on people’s toes” isn’t so nice when you are leaving and can’t repair the damage if the person is actually ok out of work context.

My next customer is going to be in an industry which is foreign to me (for now) but the concepts are not. E-commerce, Logistics, Analytics & Subscription Service, it’s going to be a great place to practice what I believe in and teach me the important parts about running such a business.

I’m also finally starting up company #4 at the same time (4th time the charm?).
3 companies and many _what not to do_ lessons should (I hope) make this an interesting challenge at the same time.

My goal at 25 year mark (just 10+ years to go) is to create a few more companies, meet new friends, find a few more great customers and hopefully teach some folks along the way some of the stuff I’ve learnt.

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Development, Musings

How many languages do you know?

Sudden thought occurred to me that I’ve been learning programming since 1989 and how quickly its now 20 years.
Here’s a chronological order of the languages picked up so far.

I’m looking forward to doing more of PHP, Objective-C, Ruby and HTML 5! and who knows what else in the coming years. Might even re-visit Java since Android needs it.

For code editing, after a few years of using Visual Studio, I find myself using Dreamweaver and Eclipse more. Apatana and Netbeans have also taken residence so shall see which IDE takes over. Otherwise there’s always Notepad++.

Updated for 2010/2011:

  • Comfortable with: jQuery
  • Still Learning: Ruby (+Rails), Objective-C, jQuery Mobile, HTML5/CSS3
  • Trying best not to take up Java (with Android)
  • Development on new Macbook Air, getting to love console again 🙂
  • More Git, Less SVN. Loving Heroku

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Getting Beta Island launched for IconnectE

Client: IconnectE Pte Ltd
Business Type: Business Networking
Project: IconnectE Web Consultant
Website: www.iconnecte.com

On9 Systems was first approached in early August to help revamp IconnectE. By applying a methodology of systematic planning and requirements gathering process, we are proud to launch Beta Island for IconnectE.

Working with Jeshua Ting and the tireless IconnectE Team, we are proud to take part in this exciting online business network focused on helping businesses succeed in networking.

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Web Hosting and Electronic Direct Mail Design for Avocent International Pte Ltd

Client: Avocent International Pte Ltd
Business Type: Network Centralized Management Solutions
Project: Web Hosting and Electronic Direct Mail Design
Website: www.avocent-asia.com

Avocent International was looking for a reliable host for their Asia Pacific marketing portal and appointed On9 Systems to maintain and serve their website avocent-asia.com. We were also engaged to assist in creating the Electronic Direct Mailers for use in their marketing campaigns.

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Web Hosting and Website Design with Blog for 字 Concepts

Client: 字 Concepts
Business Type: Copyrighting, Editing, Proofreading and Translation Services
Project: Web Hosting and Website Design with Blog
Website: www.ziconcepts.com

字 Concepts believes that a good presentation is essential in business. No matter in the English or Chinese language, their aim is to help clients better their presentation, be it an advertisement, a brochure or websites.

On9 Systems helped provide the logo design and web blog setup for 字 Concepts to manage their online presence easily with WordPress.

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Web Hosting and Website Design with Blog for Christian Family & Social Movement

Client: Christian Family & Social Movement
Business Type: Catholic Lay Apostolate organization
Project: Web Hosting and Website Design with Blog
Website: www.cfsm.org.sg

The Christian Family and Social Movement (Singapore), CFSM(S) is a Catholic Lay Apostolate organization. On9 Systems was approached to provide the organization with web hosting and a website that could present their ideas and photos from events. WordPress was chosen together with customizations of the Epsilon theme to provide a website within their budget.

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