Lesson 10: Business Planning!

Its been a busy week for me this week after spending whole of my last week in lab rushing my lab assignment project. After the lab assessment on Monday, I have been busy with other reports and FYP assignments..... And guess what.. its time to submit our Business Plan for this module soon too.

We had a detail seminar and discussion with Prof Gilbert last Thursday on Business Planning as well as what is expected from us in our Business Plan reports. We went through quite a few topics such as Developing a Business Plan, Starting a business, Characteristics of small business, The risk in starting a business and the Reasons for Failure of a business. Lastly we were also introduced to Storytelling.

I was lucky that I have the exposure to starting a small business in a young age of 19, when my elder brother give up his job then to start up a small retail business in the fashion industry. And of course later on in the years, I went on to start my interest cum hobby fashion design label, Labelless. These have been some great experiences and exposure I have pick up and value them along these years.

As Prof Gilbert went through the points presented in the Powerpoint slides on the topics on starting up a small business mention above. I could not help but keep knotting my head in agreedment with the pointers and facts presented. And when he mention that sometimes a business is not consider a failure if the party exit by selling away his/her business, rings a bell in my mind. Because my elder brother have since exit his business for 3 years after running it for a good 4 years. Many have consider my brother's business a failure but yet in our eyes the truth is very much the other way.

As he saw a good opportunity to exit the business at its peak when someone made a great offer to him too much for him to say "No". And the best part of it is not the cash return from the sale of the business away but the experiences, contacts made and lesson learn during these 4 years in charge and running of the business is seem invaluable to both of us. And of course, today I am still holding on to my own 'Baby' clothing label business in face of the intense competition in the market from many new start ups from young folks just like what I did 3 years back. Okay, so much about some of my experiences to share with you guys but not to bored you people to sleep.

I got to received a comment from Prof Gilbert some 2 days back which I thought why not to share it here and of course with people reading my blog if something could be created from here.
Here is the comment posted as well as my reply:

cellprof said...

I wonder how we could test whether a podcast is a good way to deliver my lectures? anybody's lectures?

BTW, the "meaning of life" is probably a circular question. I think the answer is "life is". See Wikipedia for an effort to explore this topic.

March 26, 2007 6:24 AM

MB362Gabriel said...

I guess a good way to find out is to have a short lecture deliver thru Podcast to the class make available in Edventure with a short online MCQ assignment related to the lecture deliver. Why not?

I always ask myself the question "meaning of life" but I have never seriously gone into exploring the topic till tonight. And the one answer I like best that I just found in Wikipedia is 'to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general'.

March 26, 2007 9:08 AM

I really think that we should give it a try since the course is to really let us not only learn about Web 2.0 but of course also to experience it. Since the NTU is also promoting E-learning where this week is the E-learning week in my school where all our lectures are being deliver online in the Edventure. Maybe we can have a short lecture deliver with the Podcast on MB362 discussion from Prof Gilbert?

And to find out if it is really useful and working, I would suggest that the Podcast lecture is followed with a short MCQ quiz and feedback session in the Edventure at the end of the Podcast session. This will help to collectively get the feedback from us (students) to help Prof Gilbert (lecturers) find out more about our experiences if Podcast will be a sucessful tools to aids in the Education systems.

I really think this will work much better than the present Wiki homework. As this have been a problem which Prof Gilbert have ask for solution and comments from us why its not working. On my personal point of view, I enjoy blogging more than updating the Wiki as I felt the Wiki lack the interactivity between me and my readers. As my blog allows me to receive comments from my readers which I truly enjoy reading these comments as it bring about connectivity between us. But for the Wiki, I kind of a update and full stop thingy. Which does not encourage me to actually log back in every week to input my thoughts.

Hopefully my suggestion with the Podcast lecture deliver and online quiz and comments may work much better than the Wiki?? Maybe the next batch of students taking MB362 will know the answer...