Lia Golledge's Blog, page 20

Life After Crisis

Let's talk about life.

Lately I met a lot of people who share me their personal problems. And as far as I remember, everybody have problems.

Problems are there, not only to be solved, but also be the point of our learning process. So, if you face problems then whine, pity yourself, sulk and giving up, then it's too bad. Because you have a good chance to use your problems as your turning point, because after falling down you have no other way but up and fly higher.

After all the drama that happened in my life, I feel like I fear nothing. Because I know I own nothing. There's an expired code in everything. That if it's the time to un-mine, then it's indeed will gone.

I have completely understood that this is the road that I must take to get me somewhere. A better where.

But I still have anger and hatred that I need to work on. I'm getting there.

Now I feel like giving more of anything I have. Could be money, knowledge, love, anything… In the hope to finally get my main purpose of living.

I also tried to take logical lesson out of it as well. Just like when I asked my friend Chandler, who got hit by a grenade a year ago and survived. I asked him, what kind of lesson and value did he take from the awful life changing experience.

He look deeply in my eyes and said, "Ollie. The biggest lesson was: I need to get an insurance."

I was laughing on the bitter truth in his words. He's right. If God decide to give you a second chance, then your job is to be able to afford it.

Unromantic logic.

Yet now I decide to romantically live my life to the fullest, loving every moment and kicking thru hopes and dreams…

Because I simply… deserve it.
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On the First ASEAN Bloggers Conference

I am honored to be invited along with Unspun and Herman Saksono to attend The 1st Malaysian ASEAN Regional Bloggers Conference – Blogging Mindfully and Responsibly in Intercontinental, Kuala Lumpur (KL), 23 – 24 April 2011.

I was totally clueless about what's happened in ASEAN blogosphere. So, what I have in mind about this conference is all about creating friendship with bloggers from all over ASEAN countries (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, VietNam). But the first moment I step in KL and meet other bloggers, I realized that this is far more serious than that.

Responsible blogging. This is the conference all about. Good point from one of the speakers in the conference: being responsible is a state of mind, whether or not you're blogging. So, just be responsible. Period.

Most of Indonesian bloggers will frowned to hear the term of responsible blogging. Because most of estimatedly 4,8 million blogs in Indonesia talk about personal, lifestyle, and all fun stuff. I only can mention Politikana.com and Perspektif.net as Indonesian political blogs. As a reader, I see the blogs are well moderated and also have a 'responsible content' by default. (Responsible content means all the facts and datas shown in blog are 'valid')

But if we see the condition of most ASEAN countries that attend the conference (34 bloggers from 8 ASEAN countries), responsible blogging that has been discussed, actually become relevant.

On the first day of the conference, bloggers from each ASEAN countries sharing their insight of blogging environment in their country.

In Brunei, there are only social blogging. No political blogging. Blogging about the Royal Family is a big NO NO. They mostly blog about food and doing photo journalism.

In Cambodia, the government is still very paranoid with bloggers. A blogger once being sued for printing a sensitive blog post and distribute it among his colleagues.

In Singapore, a critical Blog has gazetted as a 'political association'. This means the Blog must now follow the tight rules set for political parties in Singapore. This is in anticipation of the upcoming general elections, which now has been set on 17 May.

In Thailand, there's lesse majeste law which translate to 'injury to the Monarch'. So if your blog 'injured the Monarch', it can be blocked.

In Vietnam, bloggers would 'talk in circle' in their writing to 'safely' express their political view.

In Malaysia, Blog House Malaysia shared that Malaysian blogs could break stories to offline medias. From what I've heard, the athmosphere could be tense between the bloggers and the government due to critical posts toward the government.

Only in The Philippines, blogging situation is pretty much alike with Indonesian. We mostly blog about the lifestyle and we're free to gather and form a community.

On day 2 of the conference, the Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir Mohammad & wife, the patron of Blog House Malaysia, and also Prime Minister of Malaysia Najib Razak & wife Rosmah Mansor, has attended to show their support.

I was introduced to Ibu Rosmah as, "The BIG blogger from Jakarta." And I was like, "Haha…." (I swear I see her cringed. She must thought I've wrote so many critical posts to Indonesian government or something).

When I sit beside ibu Rosmah for lunch (It's a round table lunch bloggers conference, and I sit in VVIP table :D), we didn't talk much. But when PM Najib Razak mentioned me in his speech, "I am told the Asean bloggers who are here include some of their most influential, including heads of the countries' respective blogger associations and a lady blogger from Jakarta who is also the author of 17 books." She turned to me and smile, and I nodded gracefully :)) Check PM Najib Razak full keynote speech transcript at ASEAN Bloggers Conference.

I explained to the First Lady, that I blog mostly about entrepreneurship and writing. I also explain the blogging situation in Indonesia, where we mostly blog about lifestyle. One thing leads to another and we started to discuss about education and she told me all about her activities and programs in education (which also has been my concerned, that's why me and friends initiate http://bincangedukasi.com)

I thanked the PM for mentioning me, and explained about Indonesian blogger conference called Pesta Blogger. I also asked him about how he manage his twitter @NajibRazak. He said that he twit mostly at night and rarely twit personal stuff. He asked me, "Did SBY twit?" I said, "No…."

Well, in Indonesia, twitter is big (We're #1 in Asia). And to penetrate twitter, officials must be very careful and have a deep research on what to say and what no to say, or it would backfire instead… Learning from our infamous minister twitter *ehm*

The conference resulting a KL consensus, basically a declaration of how we could make ASEAN a better blogging place. Check the 5 points of KL consensus here in ASEAN Blogger Networks.

On Monday, our photos & news are on a lot of media (including The New Straits Times) & TV in Malaysia. Some of my Malaysian friends reporting that they saw me on TV, yay

Hopefully, all of us could benefit from each other experience and we could form a stronger ASEAN through blogging. A very interesting idea from Unspun & Minh about ASEAN blogs aggregator website. I think it's a great idea and we should do that.

And by the end of the day, it's still about friendship and understanding between ASEAN countries. See this video to understand what I'm talking about

Thank you Blog House Malaysia & committee for inviting us.

Syed Akbar Ali, president

Akramshah Sanusi, vice president

Tony Yew, secretary

Firdaus Abdullah, assistant secretary

Zakhir Mohamad, treasurer

Datuk Nuraina Samad, exco

Eric Woon , exco

Shamsul Akmar, exco

Salahuddin Hisham, exco

Endie Shazalie Akbar, exco

Rocky Bru, adviser

You all did a great job with the conference! And always a nice conversation with you guys…!

Also to my new friends all over ASEAN:

Brunei (Reeda Malik and Rano Iskandar) – Always busy taking pics

Cambodia (Sopheap Chak, Kounila Keo and Ramana Sorn) – You rock, girls! Bong Se Lang Ong Te?

Philippines (Tonyo Cruz and Blogie Robillo) – Love your sense of humor :)) Tonyo, you promised me Robin Padilla!

Singapore (Prof. Cherian George) – Love the concept of focus week blogging

Thailand (Chandler Vandergrift) – He's unique because he's a Canadian represent Thailand blogger (and almost killed by M79 grenade!)

Vietnam (Hy Huynh and Anh Minh Do) – American born Vietnamese, they're very funny boys :))

Malaysia (Abigail Law and friends) – Stay happy and powerful!

Plus

India (Anirudh Bhati) – Hope you have fun extending your visit in KL *cough* *glance to Nila*

I will miss you all!

Love and see you all in Jakarta!

Check all pictures of ASEAN Bloggers Conference in my Flickr
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Kartini & Technology

Today is Kartini day. She's been an inspiration for many Indonesian women to achieve more in their life. She wrote letters to her bestfriend, Stella, in Europe regularly, share her insights about women condition in Indonesia. And how she wanted women to get more education, equal to men.

Mr J. H. Abendanon, the Minister for Culture, Religion and Industry in the East Indies, collected and published the letters that Kartini had sent. The book was titled Door Duisternis tot Licht (Out of Dark Comes Light) and was published in 1911.

Now, Indonesian women have the same opportunities to study and pursue highest career. In technology & social media era, we also have the chance to express our mind.

So, what's next?

For me, (all of) you are today's Kartini. And your job is to empower other women, use the tools we've widely known and use: internet, laptops and smartphones, and to inspire others that, whatever they want to do: doing business, writing, crafting, etc, they're too can make a difference, one step at a time.

Happy Kartini day!
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On Being Productive – How I Work

A lot of people coming to me and ask how did I manage my time and do all those writing and business things and eventually becoming productive. And I don't really have a proper answer. I actually have told everyone that I just do it. I just do everything at once. And it doesn't seem to satisfy 'em. Now by request of my friend on twitter Daniel @darosi I'll try to sit, thinking and write down about how I work.

Before I start, I must tell you that this is all about mindset. For me, I have to produce something or making progress of something every single day.

Today must be better than yesterday and tomorrow must be better than today – Hadits

Thus, there are times in my life, when I thought I haven't create anything for the day and I can't sleep. Then I create a new blog, and I can sleep well :))

What I often heard from people, on why they're not pursuing their dream, doing what they want to do, achieve more, is lack of time.

"I don't have time."

But isn't it strange that we all have the same amount of time as brilliant Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Why they seem to have more time to build such empire & wealth?

My twitter profile pretty much describing how I use my time:

Wrote 19 books in 5 years. Owner of @kutukutubuku@desainweb@nulisbuku@tempalabsCommittee member of @freshforum@GirlsinTechID@startuplokal@bincangedukasi

And that's not all. Describing me need more than 140 characters :))

My attitude towards time is this: I make time.

If needed, I will sleep less.

Now that you already know and set your mindset, I will tell you the technical how-to & how I work.

My typical day started at 5 am. Sometimes earlier around 4 am. That will give me 5 hours sleeping and I already fresh.

I will start my day with reading latest news from Fireboard in my iPad. I read mostly about technology and writing. This is also how I try to seek inspirations for my startups or for my writings. If I found great content, I will immediately share it too to twitter. This way I indirectly maintain my followers too.

7 am, I will start writing (while having breakfast and sip my herbal tea). If I have a book writing project, I will continue writing it. If I don't, I will write blog posts. I write with target & schedule (not only in writing actually but also in business). And that make me focus on finishing my book. If after some calculation, to finish a 200 pages book in 2 months, I have to write 2 hours per day, and must produce 3 pages on that 2 hours, then I'll do it. If I can't make it today, then I'll bring it tomorrow, so my target would be heavier, 6 pages for the same 2 hours. Consistency and commitment to fulfill the deadline is what I believe.

Writing with target doesn't mean you don't love what you write (because it sounds too mechanic). I'm pretty much in love with my writing, and I love my readers most. That's why by finishing the book on time, I believe I can give benefits to my readers faster, and that's what motivate me.

9 am. Start checking emails. I received around 100 emails a day. All kinds of it. And they're not spam. All invitations to speak, meeting, and schedule related, I forward it to my assistant @navikaanggun. All emails with documents, agreements, proposals goes to my other assistant to read and make a summary for me. All emails that needed research also goes to my assistant. I personally answer interviews from media, emails from my business partners & associates, friends and everyone that I think only me can answer. Yes, I delegate, so I can have more time to think conceptual, find new opportunities and think about 'what's next'.

11 am. I go to either a meeting (about works) or to office. I choose 11 am to avoid crazy morning traffic. But yeah, even at 11 am I still got stuck in some points of the streets. I read book or magazine on the way. I also write. Maybe business ideas. Plans. Or poetry.

To see clearly of what I have to achieve today, or this week, or this month, I use Mind Map app on iPad called MindNode. It's very useful to write down whatever on my mind and make plan. I also use MindNode for outline writing, early stage of book writing. And also to solve problems. If you don't have iPad, you could use a piece of paper and pen to create your mind map. Read a book Mind Map by Tony Buzan.

To write poetry or note taking while meetings, I use Evernote apps that would sync my note from iPad, iPhone to laptops.

15 pm, after the meetings over, I'll get back to my office. I still pretty much working behind desk. I must meet my partners once in a while and communicating with my team. I've been the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) for my startups. And it's important for me to make sure that everything's under control, technology wise.

17 pm,  the activities will vary. Another meeting is usually on schedule. Mostly will be in a form of networking sessions, executing ideas, business talks, community related meeting, interview with journalists, invitation to events, speak in an event, sharing & discussion with people, etc. I've been running community events like #StartupLokal, Girls in Tech Indonesia, Fresh Forum and Bincang Edukasi. So this is also the time to think about 'em.

21 pm, if I'm lucky I should be home by now. Do light email checking. Plan checking. Reading books. Keeping up with friends. Or exploring things that I want to do next. Including: traveling

midnight, sleep.

All day long, I will keep updating status on my twitter @salsabeela. No strict hours for that :P

"Don't you have a life?"

Of course I have :))

I do what I love, which is precious and keep me wake up every day. And that's living!

I have the bliss of time flexibility, meaning, I can go to beauty salon on Monday morning and go to Bali the next day, just because I want to take picture of sunset. For me, everyday is (as fun as) holiday.

So this is pretty much, my life, and I enjoy it.

One of the thing that will make me look more productive than other is that I make my plans and ideas happen. I act on it.

For me, the right time is always: NOW.
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#StartupLokal 1st Anniversary – a Personal Note

Being one of #StartupLokal initiators to nurture the #StartupLokal @startuplokal community have changed my life. I remember a year ago, I really want to attend the first #StartupLokal meetup when something really bad happened. It was a personal problem that you already know the outcome back in January 2011.

In the emotional roller coaster that time, I drag myself to come to the 3rd #StartupLokal meetup where I met @nuniek again after a long while and first time knowing @SaGad. I saw a huge enthusiasm in the community, when they listened to startup founders who just got back from Echelon 2010 in Singapore, telling their story about that startup competition. At that time, I think of nothing but supporting them. After 2 more meetups, @SaGad ask me to become one of the initiators. I refused, because I thought I don't have spare time anymore. But when @nataliardianto ask me with the same request, and told me that this won't take a lot of time, only few meetings, that's all hehe :)), I finally said yes. And it maybe one of the best decisions that I ever made in my life.

So, long story short, I started 'working' with them (@SaGad @Nuniek @NataliArdianto). Meeting a lot of important people. Taking care of our regular events. Thinking ahead about our next plan. We do it all without questioning rewards or expecting anything but networking and opportunities that might struck us along the way. When Enterprise Ireland invited us to learn more about how to nurture startup environment in Dublin, we never thought #StartupLokal will bring us 'that far', and we're so thankful for the great opportunity.

Last week was #StartupLokal 1st Anniversary. It's been 12x we successfully did the meetups. More and more startups built (Have you seen 'the crowd' at #StartupLokal Showcase?), more people find business partners, more founders got investments, and Indonesian startups environment started to shape. We're so glad to see the growth. That's why to celebrate, we create a special 1 day party at Platinum XXI & IndoChine, FX, Jakarta. The topic was "Digital Heros go Global", featuring Indonesian startups that going global like Eevent.com @EdySulistyo & Sixreps.com @DennySantoso

We also launch our book: #StartupLokal Kita: Ide, Dedikasi, Strategi self published at NulisBuku.com. Huge credit for Rhein Mahatma @reintweets and Joshua Kevin @oleeoebi who have been working hard to collect the article, writing, editing in such tight deadline. The book is about how Indonesian startup founders found their idea, build strategy and dedicate themselves in their startup. We're preparing the English version and should be available within couple of months.

The idea of the party itself was a sudden decision (we have plan A and it didn't worked out), and I'd like to thank Sitra WIMAX, for being our main sponsor, Weber Shandwick for PR related help, Enterprise Ireland for supporting & brought great speakers like Pat O'Riordan (EI) & Paul Costigan (Movidius), Nokia as our yearly sponsored, all our friends from the media that attend the event and last but not least #StartupLokal volunteers that have been working very hard together with us. I'm so grateful to have you all onboard.

To my partners, it's been  full of pressure weeks for us, and it was hard (because all of us have the ego of tigers), but we manage to stay amazingly solid together, all for the community!

So, happy birthday my baby #StartupLokal ! Hopefully all our plans for your future will realized and the dream of making Sillicon Valley of Asia  in Indonesia will soon come true!

Check pictures of #StartupLokal anniversary (Photo by @DezigPhoto)

What the media says about #StartupLokal anniversary:

Kompas

Visi 2020, Pemodal Lokal Ramai Berinvestasi
Setahun #StartupLokal Menjadi Katalis
"Think Global, Act Local" Masih Berlaku
"Go Global" Tak Perlu ke Mana-mana
"Saya Terima karena Tawarannya Akses"

Bisnis Indonesia

http://yfrog.com/h2bwunlj

Indopos

http://plixi.com/p/91945718

DailySocial.net

Selamat Ulang Tahun Untuk #StartupLokal
Happy Birthday #StartupLokal! [en]

MarketPlus.co.id

StartupLokal 1st Anniversary: Digital Heroes Go Global

Ciputra Entrepreneurship

Dari Perayaan Ulang Tahun Pertama StartupLokal
LOCAL ENTREPRENEURS GO GLOBAL [en]

TeknoJurnal

Berbagi Pengalaman Tentang Komunitas #StartupLokal

Chip.co.id

#Startuplokal Kita: Ide, Dedikasi, Strategi

Yahoo News

StartupLokal: Kantor Samsat untuk Usaha Rintisan Lokal

Indonesia Kreatif

Digital Heroes Go Global, Starts Now at #StartupLokal 1st Anniversary

ZDNet

Indonesian tech startups pique investors

Tribun Jabar

http://twitpic.com/4l4m4f

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How to Start a Startup

When I start building my first startup in 2006, online book store Kutukutubuku.com, I don't have anything in mind. All I know, I want to work surrounded by books. And that can only happened if I make my own book store. After years, a friend on twitter @penq, ask me some tips on successfuly starting a startup. So let me analyze my own experience and show you how to start a startup.

Passion

For me, passion always come first. It's cliche, but you must have a soul in your startup. Or else, it will be just another product. Before I launch Kutukutubuku.com, I already write my first book, and my passion in books is bigger than anyone else around me. And that's what keeps me going til now.

Solve a Problem

Every startup should have a story about where the idea come from. For me, it's all about scratching my own itch. I found a problem, and I turned it into an opportunity. A new startup, to be exact. Before creating Nulisbuku.com, I found difficulties in publishing one of my books. Not because it's a bad book, but because it's simply unabsorb by the market (based on publisher's point of view). I thought, if I, the writer of more than 10 books, could have this difficulties in publishing book, then how about the other junior writer or even writer wanna be? And that inspired me to build NulisBuku.com

Co-Founder

Find a partner to build your startup. Believe me, to build a startup, money is never a problem. All you need just a good partner to start. If you're good in marketing or operational, find a partner that is good in technology. If you're good in technology, find partner who have wide network and good in marketing. If you don't have seed money to starting up, find someone with money! Just find someone to fill your lack. Collaborate! And you're good to go. Come to networking events like #StartupLokal Meetup to find your future co-founder! Psst… Selina @MissDimps from Urbanesia found @Tista, her partner, here, also @SaGad & @DennySantoso of Sixreps!

Plan

I don't like making a business plan. Because all I think was piles of papers with too much words and numbers that I don't really understand what & why it's there :P But surely would enjoy making plan for my startup. So what's the difference? Only the name ('just' plan is less intimidating hehe) and it takes only maximum 2 page to grab all we need. Create your map towards your 'destination'. What's your vision with your startup? What's your startup unique selling points? How you make money? Use mind map to clearly see the overall plan in your head. If you think you need further research, do it. But don't overthink it just yet.

Target

Schedule when you're going to launch your startup, and stick to it. Follow the deadline. And wrap it up when it's time to launch. You might going to find yourself with a little bit buggy websites or unperfect user interface, but just launch it! I said this many time and I'm going to say it again: perfection is a journey! If I postponed the launch of NulisBuku.com just because I thought it's not perfect yet, maybe we haven't been able to inspire  thousands of people to write and hundreds of self published books launched, right now.

Newsworthy

Getting the media attention is critical to boost your startup reputation. Think or create something that has high level of newsworthiness. Nulisbuku.com launch for the first time at Indonesia Book Fair, and with the website launching, we also launch 99 books from 99 writers that we collect in 9 days! We did it all from twitter with hashtag #99writers ;) Create a press release and distribute it to online and offline media. #StartupLokal already partnered with Kompas Tekno. So, if you want to be covered by Kompas Tekno in StartupLokal page, just send email to press at startuplokal.org

Have Fun in Social Media

Be very loveable in social media like twitter and facebook. As a founder, build your personal branding there. More and more journalists watch social media for new entrepreneurs and you might get highlighted just because of twitter ;)

Etc

My partners & I have been bootstrapping for our first startup. We created and do the operational for several months before hiring our first employee. But for NulisBuku.com, we already hired several employees to handle operational. Just analyze your need. Legal, tax and financial stuff also things you should think about, but not too much. You could always outsource it. I didn't like it so I won't talk about it here hehehe.

Up to this point I've managing several startups, and they're generating active & passive income for me. My personal branding helps build my reputation in business, a lot of opportunities coming, and it's all started from there.

Well, I have no other idea and the restaurant is closing. I need to pay my bill. See you and hope to see your new startup launched soon!
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My Style of 4-Hour Work Week

Been eye-ing this book: The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris for quite some time. The concept of working only 4 hour every week really make me curious. It's basically living like a millionaire. So, yesterday, I read reviews about the book and I took several conclusions.

Delegate. Automate.

I'm an entrepreneur who manage several startups. To delegate things is super important for me or otherwise I could lose a huge amount of time doing little things instead and not moving forward.

In his book, Tim suggest people to hire assistant, virtual assistant to be exact, all the way from India. He will manage every little thing for you, from business orders or appointment with friends. At one extreme point, you could even asked your assistant to appologize and send love cards to your girlfriend/wife LOL. Very cute :p

I already did what Tim Ferris suggest. I have assistants. With s. I have assistant who manage my work and schedule. Assistant who help me with content and research. Assistant who helped me in community related. Assistant who handle my personal stuff. I think I'm a little bit over delegate LOL.

Anyway, how I found my assistants? Actually, I call them using the power of wishing (The Secret, remember? :p). I put a photo of Gayle King, Oprah best friend and also her best staff, in my secret blog. I want someone like her to be my assistant: effective, smart, yet still can have a good personal chemistry with me. I also put job descriptions in detail on what my assistant should do, when I found her. Mind you, I don't even have a budget for hiring assistant. One thing lead to another and suddenly, it works! I found her immediately and I started to delegate happily!

So, when I was away for 15 days for business and leisure trips to Dublin & Beijing, my works are pretty much handled, my tax are paid, my turtles alive, and I can enjoy my off time.

Focus on What's Important.

It's so easy to trapped into doing things that drained your energy but is not really important. Like checking email every 5 minutes :p

Now answer this question: what the most important things would you do if you only have 2 hours left of your life today?

Define What You Want.

Some of you will ask, "What other things should I do if I only work for 4 hours?"

Many things you could do, my friends. Tim shows a way to motivate you. List things you want: HAVING, BEING, and DOING.

What do you want to have? A new car, house, anything.

Being? Feeling peace, spiritual, feel the bliss of time flexibility

Doing? Maybe doing that social activities you've been wanting to do, or learning new skills and languages

All that, you can have, if you put values in your list, set target when will you achieve em, and be always inspired to fulfill the deadline.

Now, I am not working 4 hours a week, I still work (smart) as much as I want (and enjoying it), but I feel like I already have things I want enough. I feel the bliss of time flexibility, and I could do anything I want like traveling, writing and pursue my other passions. All on the age 27 and I'm happy.

When I was just finishing college, my psychic friend said I could retire at the age of 35. That time I could never imagine. But now, it's something I could work on (and you are too).

Good luck!
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Learning from Ireland

With the rate of unemployment rising every year in Indonesia, that eventually will create more social & economical issues, now we have to focus on starting our own company and absorbing more human resources.

The famous Indonesian Donald Trump, Ciputra, said right now Indonesia only has 400,000 entrepreneurs out of 250 million population. That's less than 1% of the population. Compare that with 7% for nearby Singapore. Ciputra plan to encourage, create and mentor 4 million entrepreneurs or 2% of the country's population by changing the country's mindset.

One of ways to change a mindset is by thinking outside the box, and in our case is: thinking outside the country. Then, off we go to Dublin, Ireland.

My partners Natali Ardianto, Nuniek Tirta, Sanny Gaddafi and I, have been creating routine monthly event called #StartupLokal Meetup, to gather startup business owners, investors, media and enthusiasts. The enthusiasm of #StartupLokal community has been amazing, more new audiences attending the event, more new startups launched and more investors coming. Now we're ready to design concept to help build the best environment for Indonesian startups.

As our government still focusing on something else, Irish government through Enterprise Ireland showed their interest in showing #StartupLokal how they build system to help their local startups grow, by creating one special division for startup called High Potential Start Ups (HPSU) division in Enterprise Ireland and creating business incubation on campus.

Taking picture in front of Enterprise Ireland office, we're using Lazuli Sarae batik denim

Ireland obviously have a better approach to encouraging small business. Taxes are lower. Ireland's corporate rate is less than one-third the combined state and federal rate in the US. Companies like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and rumoured has it, Twitter, are opening their office in Ireland, creating a reputation for Ireland as The Silicon Valley of Europe. They also have lower regulatory barriers for entrepreneur, greater access to capital & mentorship, and more positive beliefs in the value of small business.

That's why we're so excited when Enterprise Ireland, via Patrick O' Riordan, invite us to visit Dublin to learn more about how they've been nurturing the startups & build condusive environment for 20 years.

I've been curious with the guidelines of managing startups, because our vision for #StartupLokal community is not only for making meetups, but eventually create better ecosystem for startups, just like what Enterprise Ireland did. And we're so ready to absorbs the knowledge.

The meeting with Kevin Sherry, Manager International Sales & Partnering of Enterprise Ireland, also with John Convery from HPSU division really open my eyes and inspired me. A lot of useful knowledge that we can use & implement to grow the community. We're cooking something now!

This is John Convery's presentation that you might check to inspire you to adapt and doing your own piece of social responsibility.

HPSU presentation 14 march 2011





View more presentations from Sanny Gaddafi

Here we also meet Philip Watson @ei_pwatson, The Marketing Executive of Enterprise Ireland and David Scanlon @ei_dscanlon the online marketing guy at Enterprise Ireland and we've been exchanging insights about Indonesian market. Really nice to meet you guys and it was a great discussion, hope we could do it again in Jakarta

Irish Local Startups

After meeting Enterprise Ireland officials, we're also scheduled to meet some Irish Local Startups. We met Dublin Web Summit founders, the equivalent of #StartupLokal in Ireland, where we found so many similarity in their story with our own. We also met Miriam Magner CEO & founder of Career Decisions, Darren Bowler Product Marketing Manager of Movidius, Brian Kiefel Managing Director of Retail Media System, and Arthur Cagney Director Market Development of Newbay Software.

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We're sharing insights about Indonesian market behavior with them. And this is the point where I realized that we're doing it differently:

In Indonesia, mobile market is BIG. Irish don't use mobile phone to connect with the internet or social media as intense as we do. They don't have traffic jam (even though they claimed to have one, oh boy, believe me guys, it's barely a traffic jam). They can just connect at home or at the office and that usually not for socializing, but for working.
We Indonesian naturally love to chat and connect socially, that's why social media is also big in Indonesia, we're #2 in Facebook and #1 in Twitter in users, globally! Connect social media & mobile in Indonesia, and you're good to go
We're early adaptors, we'd love to try everything's new from gadgets to new social media websites.
We took a lot of pictures and share it with our friends. We took pictures of food, and it's normal, while Patrick puzzled and asked, "Why you took food pictures, again?" Music and photos are valuable for us and combined it with mobile, you'll get the idea how to sell us stuff hehe
They're amazed that I bring 5 mobile gadgets in my cute bag, while it might completely normal in Indonesia for one person to have 2 mobile phones (okay, maybe I'm not that normal even in Indonesian standard LOL)

One thing I note is about B2B. All of the startups that been introduced to us are mainly doing B2B. I realized now that they way we do B2B is slightly different, or in my case, it's different. We have 250 million of population. In 2008 our internet users was 7,9% of the population. If we estimated that internet user in Indonesia are around 25 million people, that's already 6x Irish population. And what I've been doing (with my startups Kutukutubuku.com & NulisBuku.com) was aiming for B2B but thru B2C. While we gain reputation on consumer market, individual references will go up to the corporate level. And that's, in my opinion, effective in Indonesia.

Every now and then in the meeting, I will nudge Sanny and exchange glances with Natali, because I'm amazed on how Irish Government through Enterprise Ireland been really really helpful to help the growth of their startups. Patrick has been in the meeting the whole time, guiding our discussion and taking note on how he could help connecting their startups with Indonesian partners and help creating access to market. That, I can only dream, happening in Indonesia.

Business Incubation

Day two of our business trip in Ireland was filled with tour to several business incubation on campus.

Indonesia universities mindset are still the same old mission to train students to be employees. And that's too bad because we now want to create more jobs, thus students should be introduced of ways and supported to be entrepreneur from the very early stage of their study. Enterprise Ireland support campus to build business incubation of their own, where not only students, but also other people, encouraged to use the campus facilities to do research and development and build their own startup.

We were only visiting Synergy Center at Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT) Dublin, NovaUCD (Innovation & Technology Transfer Center) at University College Dublin and The Digital Hub, but from what I've heard, all campus in Dublin already have incubation facilities (!) This is the point where I nudge Sanny one more time.

My first mindset about an incubation is always about a place where new startups could work and build their empire from scratch. That's all. After visiting all the incubation, I finally learned that an incubation needs a lot more than that.

The incubation should assist innovators and entrepreneurs to take their ideas from proof of principle to full commercial success, one of the way is by giving access to mentorship. I found out that Enterprise Ireland has its own National Mentor Panel where there are group of experts are ready to mentor when needed. We should have that kind of mentor panel too!

Research and Development (R & D) is one of the most important part in doing business that, unlike us, they all handle very seriously. A solid idea  could be funded with serious amount of fund to do R & D in the incubation facility. And you could get more fund once you manage to build the business plan out of your idea. Awesome.

One of IT Tallaght lecturers, Stephen Howell @saorog created an interface between the Microsoft Kinect and and open source programme (Scratch) for teaching programming ideas to kids. You can see his work here

One small but important detail that all the incubations have is a place where people could sit and hang out, could form as a cafe, or bench all over the facility. Because they believe that great ideas, often come from human interaction & connection on  a casual conversation over a coffee, or just a minute or two idle time sitting in the hallway. Amazing way of thinking!

All 3 incubation that we visit offer slightly different method for startups to use their facilities. Synergy Center doing routine workshop and seminar for networking, NovaUCD create special program every year for startups to pitch and get a chance to use their facility for 9 months to incubate their ideas, and Digital Hub, located in the heart of Dublin just in front of Guinness Storehouse,  focused on digital content & technology enterprises.

We have learned all complete details on how they manage their incubation and that will be very useful to apply it in Indonesia. I'm so excited!

Books & Publishing Industry

Ireland have many great poet and authors inspired by the beautiful country, such as the legendary Oscar Wilde (I went to his house in Dublin!), William Butler Yeats (where the National Library of Ireland making a special tribute to Yeats),  and of course the popular young writer Cecilia Ahern of PS: I Love You.

Pat has been kindly arranged a meeting over dinner for me and Claire Kilroy, beautiful Irish writer that has published 3 novels. I bought one of her novels, TenderWire, and I love love how she write description and details in simple but yet sophisticated words that makes readers feel related and connected to the story.

I've been admiring the fact that there are a lot of poetry books in Irish bookstores. I saw this rack full of poetry books that I never, I repeat, NEVER, seen anything like that in Indonesia. A lot of people love to write poetry, but publishers have been reluctant to publish it on commercial consideration. When I told Claire about it, she told me that Irish government have funded poetry books to get published as an effort to preserved culture & art in Ireland. *Jaw dropped*

I went to 2 different libraries in Ireland, the classic and oldest one in Trinity College Dublin where they keep Book of Kells for 300 years now. The Long Room has amazed me with the amazing amount of collection and how it stored systematically (mind you, it's a library aged hundreds of years). And the National Library of Ireland. What more should I say. They're not offering just books, but   enjoying the beauty of writing, to be totally and fully experience the book. I remember our own national library and cringed.

If you've been my followers on twitter, readers on my blog, friends on my facebook, you'll know my HUGE passion about books & writing. My dream is as simple as seeing more Indonesian kids reading books, just like the kid I saw on a plane to Paris

Finally

I have a lot of plans in my mind about how to adopt what I've seen in Ireland to Indonesia. And I'm burning right now!

Thank you very much Enterprise Ireland for inviting us, hope to have a long term partnership and we could continue support each other.

I love Dublin so much, it's a beautiful city, hope I can visit Ireland again in near future and this time I should chase the rainbow end and find that hidden pot of gold kept by The Leprechauns ;)

Last but not least:

Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country – John F. Kennedy

Read more articles about our visit in:

Jakarta Globe (Shirley @Shirleydaily, the Globe Asia journalist, doing the interview at 2 am and come out with this several hours later, Sláinte!)

InfoKomputer

StartupLokal.org

Sanny Gaddafi Blog

Nuniek Blog for our leisure part (this is our first time to Europe, all new experience, the beauty, the freezing weather :D)

Also check photos of our Dublin Trip on my Flickr

All statistic sources are from Businessweek.com & Techcrunch.com
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My Worry Free Beijing Trip

Saya tidak pernah terpikir untuk mengunjungi China. Sebagai salah satu negara dengan kekuatan ekonomi terbesar dan tempat yang sarat dengan peninggalan kebudayaan bernilai historis yang tinggi, China sangat membuat penasaran untuk dikunjungi. Namun ada beberapa sebab yang membuat saya ragu-ragu: faktor bahasa, kesulitan mendapatkan makanan halal, dan cerita-cerita horor tentang toilet-nya.

Maka ketika Indo Citra Tamasya (ICT) @IndoTamasya mengajak saya jalan-jalan ke Beijing selama 4 hari 3 malam, saya langsung bersemangat! Kendala bahasa sudah pasti bisa ditanggulangi karena tour guide ICT di Beijing berbahasa Indonesia, kami di-guide menuju tempat-tempat yang menarik di China termasuk peninggalan Islam di China dan masalah makanan juga beres karena kami selalu makan Halal food di Muslim restaurant. Benar-benar nyaman dan worry free. Kita bisa konsentrasi menikmati Beijing!

Perjalanan Jakarta – Beijing memakan waktu sekitar 8 jam dengan transit di XiaMen sekitar 30 menit, untuk melewati imigrasi. Imigrasi nggak ada di bandara Beijing, hanya di XiaMen. Aneh juga.

Mulai di pesawat, Air China, makanan yang di-serve sudah Halal & Muslim food. Biasanya kita dapat makanan duluan dan membuat sirik orang di sekitar hihi.

Begitu mendarat di Beijing kesan pertama saya selalu tentang bandara dan saya selalu jadi bete kalo inget bandara kita di Jakarta yang 'berkarakter' itu. Karena lain dari yang lain LOL. Bandara Beijing is HUGE dan modern abis. Waktu di Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam juga bandaranya udah oke punya. Bahkan bandara kecil di XiaMen pun udah bagus. Why oh why, bandara kita masi gitu-gitu aja hiks hiks. Btw, begitu turun dari pesawat, langsung kedinginan karena meskipun dikabarkan sudah keluar dari winter tapi suhu masih rendah untuk ukuran kita orang Indonesia. Saya cepat-cepat lari ke dalam gedung airport dengan harapan bisa dapat pemanas, tapi ternyata tetap dingin T_T Ini karena atap-nya di desain nggak nutup 100% hingga bisa nyerap udara dari luar dan hopefully hemat energi. Bener juga sih.

Kami dijemput tour guide kami, Ahua, yang selalu menggiring kami dengan bendera biru-nya dan ucapan, "Ayo sini yaaa…." dan petualangan kami di Beijing pun resmi dimulai.

The Food

Selama 4 hari di Beijing, kami mencoba makanan dari berbagai propinsi di China seperti Xibei, Xin Jiang, Beijing sendiri dan Mongolian food. Dan tentunya, yang bikin tenang, semua makanannya Halal! Bahkan sarapan di hotel juga nggak was-was karena hotel kami, Long Ding Hua Hotel, tidak serve pork sama sekali.

Chinese food sebenarnya nggak asing lagi karena di sini juga banyak Chinese restaurant. Bedanya tentu rasa yang original sesuai dengan taste orang di China. Bagi kita some of the food mungkin berasa plain, dan if you can't handle it you can bring your own kecap or something. Kalau saya sih nggak ada masalah, because I like it plain, and all the food was delicious!

Cara serve makanan di Chinese restaurant adalah serentak dalam 10-12 ragam makanan. If you like to eat, just like me, you'll love China

My favorite food selama di China adalah Peking Roasted Duck & Steamboat, where Ahua order 12 plates of beef because there are 12 people in our dining table! Satu orang satu piring, katanya. Hiyaaa…

Places of Interests

Denger dari Ahua, Beijing adalah pusat pemerintahan dan ibukota China. Penduduknya 18 juta orang (dari total 1,3 Miliar penduduk China) dan luasnya 4x kota Jakarta. Di Beijing nggak ada motor sama sekali, hanya ada sepeda. Katanya sih nggak boleh sama pemerintah. That's why meskipun macet, tapi lalu lintas di Beijing menurut saya cukup terkendali. Alias semacet-macetnya masih bisa merayap dengan pasti. Nggak kayak di Jakarta yang luar binasa semrawut.

Di Beijing ada banyak banget peninggalan sejarahnya. Salah satu yang wajib dikunjungi, letaknya 2 jam perjalanan dari Beijing, it's the Great Wall of China! Panjangnya 6.400 kilometer dan tinggi 8 meter yang dulu dibangun untuk menahan serangan bangsa Mongol dari utara. Ini adalah bangunan terpanjang yang pernah dibangun oleh manusia! OMG, saya manjat sekilo aja ngos-ngosan, nggak kebayang gimana dulu bikinnya -_- It's a beautiful place, Alhamdulillah I got a chance to experience it (I'm wearing "I climbed the great wall" t-shirt now)

Kami juga mengunjungi Tiananmen Square, yang dulu cuma bisa saya lihat di buku sejarah. Lapangan luas ini berbatasan dengan the Great Hall of the People dan Chairman Mao's Mausoleum.

Tak jauh dari situ kami masuk untuk tour ke Forbidden City, komplek istana raja China yang udah berumur 500 tahun. Tempatnya luas banget, dari satu gerbang ke gerbang lain, satu istana ke istana lain, kayaknya bangunannya nggak abis-abis. Konon ada 9999 kamar di situ, dan kalau semua kamar itu tiap hari ditinggali bergantian, kita baru selesai di kamar terakhir pada umur 27 tahun. Cool!

Jika rumahnya raja aja kayak gitu, maka kebayang lah tamannya kayak apa. Summer Palace, dibangun tahun 1750, digunakan untuk tinggal raja selama musim panas. Selain bangunan istana, di sini ada danau buatan yang besar banget, dan kuil serta jembatan. Tipe garden kayak gini biasa kita tiru untuk halaman belakang rumah kita tapi tentu saja dalam versi mini *hiks* Tempatnya indah dan memang cocok untuk hang out raja di musim panas.

Di bagian urban area-nya, kami mengunjungi Beijing Old town yang bernama Hutong area. Beberapa kali saya dan Elly (my room mate, journalist from Aulia magazine), bertanya-tanya dalam hati karena nggak melihat rumah satu pun di Beijing, hanya apartment. Nah, di Hutong ini lah kami, sambil naik rickshaw,  melihat dari dekat kehidupan masyarakat Beijing.

Seperti ingin membuktikan eksistensi & keperluan Olympic Beijing 2008, Beijing membangun Olympic Stadium super modern, Bird Nest & Water Cube. Memang keren euy. Kapan ya GBK bisa gini *merenung*

Islam in China

Selain mengunjungi tempat-tempat wisata populer, kami juga mengunjungi masjid-masjid di Beijing. Meski katanya minoritas, jumlah muslim di China itu hampir 100 juta orang! Berarti secara jumlah penduduk muslim, China bisa bersanding dengan Indonesia & India. Pantes kalau saya melihat cukup banyak restoran Muslim di seputaran Beijing.

Masjid-masjid yang kami kunjungi antara lain Niujie Mosque, which is the oldest Mosque with over one thousand year's history, dan Nan Dou Ya Mosque. Bentuk masjid-nya sudah mengalami akulturasi budaya dengan budaya China. Jadi bentuknya nggak berkubah tapi sarat ukiran dan ornamen China. Sayangnya selama mengunjungi mesjid, saya nggak melihat anak muda Muslim di China ngumpul di situ. Mungkin ada perkumpulan khususnya kali ya.

Attraction

Selain teh dan obat-obatan tradisional, Ahua claim kalau crobatic show di China adalah yang terbaik. Waktu saya nonton, saya harus setuju. Gila… itu atraksinya benar-benar nggak masuk akal. Kok bisa badan dilipet kayak gitu and juggling sampe 7 bola? Dan yang paling keren adalah waktu atraksi motor yang sampe 6 atau 7 motor masuk ke dalam lingkaran. Hiy serem…

Shopping in China

Belanja adalah salah satu bagian yang paling saya tunggu-tunggu. Maklum lah cewek *alesan*

Jika ingin belanja keperluan rumah tangga, di deket mesjid NiuJie ada Muslim Super Market which is the only one in Beijing.

Kalau mau cuci mata atau belanja barang branded bisa ke shopping ke the famous Wang Fu Jing Shopping Street (kayak Orchard Road di Singapore kali ya). Deket situ juga ada food market-nya yang rame banget in the night.

Last but not least: the real China shopping experience in Xiu Shui Market! For me, belanja di Xiu Shui market adalah tantangan! It's a battlefield. Saya sempat bertemu my twitter & fellow writer @noniwibisono & suami di Beijing. Noni kasih tips saat belanja di Xiu Shui market. Katanya, minimal kita harus tawar 1/4 dari harga awal. Bushet.

Maka dengan semangat untuk menang dan berbekal mata uang Yuan, saya dan Elly pun terjun ke medan pertempuran. Target pertama saya adalah beli coat. Keep in mind that I'm not a good bargainer. In Indonesia, I keep losing. But here, I intend to win!

Jadi, setelah saya berkali-kali belanja bermacam hal di Xiu Shiu market, saya menemukan pattern-nya. Begini lah kira-kira pattern saat saya belanja Coat yang bisa diaplikasikan untuk belanja lainnya:

Jika kamu menemukan barang yang kamu suka, pastikan it's fit (kalo coat atau baju ya coba dulu) dan pastikan kamu benar-benar ingin membelinya. Pedagang di Xiu Shiu nggak nggak akan melepaskan kamu begitu kamu sudah memegang barang dagangan mereka. Literally!
Begitu coat yang saya suka ternyata fit, mereka membuka harga: 2198 Yuan atau 200 US$ atau Rp 2.000.000 . Gila kali -_- Saya tawar: 20 US$ atau Rp 200.000 atau tawar 10% dari harga awal yang ditawarkan. Semua proses tawar menawar dilakukan dengan kalkulator.
And the battle begin. Mbak-mbak seller akan merepet in English. "Lady… you want to kill me?" jawab aja sambil senyum, "Yes!" hehe.
Dia akan push kita untuk naikin penawaran, but STICK to your price. Dan dia akan mengomel panjang pendek. Biarkan saja. Ini permainan mental.
Jika sudah terlalu lama, berjalanlah menjauh. Most likely dia akan menahan anda dengan tubuhnya atau menarik tangan Anda. Dalam kasus saya, tangan saya ditarik sampe harus minta tolong Elly untuk tarik saya keluar dari toko haha. But, STICK to your price still.
Dia akan terus mengomel dan bilang kalau barangnya bagus begini dan begitu. STICK to your price still sambil berjalan menjauh.
Jalan 4 langkah, dia memanggil dan bilang kalau final price dari dia itu Rp  300.000 alias tetap lebih tinggi dari penawaran kita. STICK to your price and ignore.
Dia akan bilang, "OKAY!" dan kembali lah ke tokonya. Dia akan change her mind, "Rp 250.000 deh!" and if she said that, walked away aja lagi.
Begitu seterusnya sampe kalau udah nggak sabar, bilang yang tegas, yang intinya mau gue bayar nggak nih??
Most likely you'll get the price that you want. I got that coat with my asking price: 200 yuan

I win 95% of the time. I only lost 1 time when I bought gantungan kunci. Saya ngalah dan ngasi pedagangnya 5 Yuan more than I bargain :p

Semua barang di sini murah-murah sekali. Selain coat ada tas, dompet, jewelry, elektronik stuff, and many more.

Pengalaman belanja yang penuh adrenalin ini ternyata sangat addictive, sampai-sampai saya dan Elly adalah orang terakhir yang kembali ke bis setelah 45 minutes late dari jadwal. Kami bahkan harus dipanggil pake pengeras suara LOL *malu2in*

Padahal belum sepet beli iPhone China yang harganya Rp 200.000 hihi

Oh ya, I make a video about the art of bargaining in Xiu Shiu market Check it out!

About the toilet, it's completely fine! Selama di Beijing nggak ada yang aneh-aneh. Hanya ada sekali waktu di airport di Xiamen waktu mau pulang, itu juga udah ada social alert-nya kok dari orang-orang yang memperingatkan agar kita nggak masuk ke bilik yang 'bermasalah' Don't worry ;)

So… it was unforgettable trip, and I'm glad that my first visit in China ditemani sama ICT (with the beautiful owners @mdevhi and @NengTria and lots of new happy friends). Benar-benar tenang, worry free, makanan halal, waktu sholat terjaga, dan melihat betapa luasnya kota Beijing dan betapa susahnya orang sini ngomong Inggris, saya nggak kebayang deh kalo kesini sendirian >.<;

The budget for traveling to China is relatively affordable, compared with the rich experience, and you could contact Indo Citra Tamasya directly or follow their twitter @IndoTamasya for more info ;)

Click here for more photos of my Beijing Trip

If you have more tips about traveling in China, please share ya!
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