Never ditch your guests at a party, period!

This blog is about me ditching my guests, consisting of work colleagues and friends, at a dinner party that I co-host with my flatmate, Avital. Not only I woke up with a minor hang over this morning, I also woke up with a sense of guilt and shame. I have embarrassed myself again!

Towards the end of the dinner party, I unintentionally, went to bed without saying good night to my guests. My behaviour is inexcusable! I cannot say enough how shameful and embarrassed I am about my party etiquette. Yes, it had been a long day. I had an appraisal meeting with the Head of the Division and School, I had two lectures to deliver, and I had to prepare and cook the dinner. Still, I should have never, never ditched my guests at my own dinner party. Other than apologising, how else I can redeem myself?


Pic 1 - starters


Putting my inexcusable sleeping behaviour aside, I think I have cooked a nice dinner for my guests. For starters, we served dim sum (Sainsbury's), crumbed Mozzarella (Sainsbury's), and prunes wrapped in prosciutto (homemade) (see picture 1). For main courses, I cooked satay chicken (satay = a Malaysia peanut-chili sauce), Pad-Thai prawns with seasonal vegetables, and stir-fried pak choys with cherry tomatoes (see picture 2). For dessert, Avital made tiramatsu and it was very yummy.

Pic 2 - Pad-Thai prawns

Going back to my little saga, there is a number of lessons I can learn from it. First, I will discipline myself in terms of my drinking in future parties. I will really pace how much I drink even though there is a plenty of free alcohols being served at a party. Second, I will never desert my guests at a party. I will stay alert until the end of my party, say goodbye to my guests and probably give them a hug. Third and final, I will help cleaning after my party. Poor Avital, she tidied, put the dirty dishes into the dish washing machine, transferred the leftover to the containers, emptied and put the wine bottles into the recycle bin. Thank you for the hard work, Avital.

'Smart' use of smart phones by university students

This blog is about how university students 'smartly' use their smart phones in seminars, and the other possible applications of smart phones in facilitating students' learning and social experience at universities.

26th November, I conducted three seminars for Marketing Principles (an undergraduate level 1 module). In the seminars, students were divided into groups and asked to create a brand name for a moisturising cream. The main purpose of the seminars was to demonstrate the complexity of creating a brand name. Hence, when developing the brand name, students were asked to consider four key criteria: it should be distinctive in terms of its personality; it should convey the product's benefits and/or attributes; it should be easy to pronounce, remember and recognise; and it should be expandable to other product lines or categories. During the brain storming process, at least one student in each had naturally taken out his or her smart phone and started searching for ideas or information on the Internet. One group had even use the smart phone, as a prop, to assist with their presentation. This phenomenon fascinates me because it suggests the possible use of the smart phone in facilitating students' learning.

It is common knowledge that young people frequently use their smart or mobile phones to engage in social activities (e.g. texting friends, checking messages on Facebook, chatting on MSN or Yahoo Messenger). However, we have little knowledge on how young people also use their smart phones to assist with their research or learning activities at the university (or at the school).
In the retailing sector, many retailers (e.g. Tesco and Amazon) have created mobile applications (e.g. websites) for smart phones in order to entice their customers to engage with their brands more frequently and to encourage them to spend more. Perhaps, universities should follow suit of this retail practice. That is, universities should consider developing mobile applications that will enhance the learning and social experiences of their customers, namely, students. Examples of mobile applications that universities can create include:

• library database which students can easily browse for journal articles on their smart phones;
• timetables which students can easily check the room and time of their seminars (many modules tend to have seminars in alternate weeks);
• academic calendar which will remind students about assignment deadlines, exam dates, and major social events, and last but not least;
• digital discount bar codes which students can use to get discounts for meals and/or coffee on campus.

It is no denial that we have become more and more dependent on smart phones in our daily lives, and this is more obvious among young people who are born and bred with information technology. For this reason, universities should start thinking and acting like major retailers (eg Tesco and Amazon) by embracing this digital technology i.e. smart phones and devising plans that enable them to use this digital technology to add value to their customers' experiences, either learning or social experiences or some mix of both. After all, students will be paying a lot more for their education (the tuition fee may go up to £9000 in 2012) and, thus, universities need to find new ways to serve them better. The use of smart phones can be one of these new ways.

No one to blame, but myself!

On the 21st November, I came home at around 1710 after visiting some friends in Newbury (Berkshire) over the weekend. Like usual, I went to my room to drop off my travel bag and netbook. At first, I did not notice anything unusual in my room. But, a few minutes later, I realised that my Lenovo laptop had disappeared from my study desk. The laptop was unplugged from the power cord and the mouse. I got a bit annoyed as I thought one of my flatmates might have borrowed my laptop without telling me. I would not mind lending my laptop to any of them. But, he or she should have asked for my permission or should have, at least, informed me. I 'hate' people borrowing my stuff without telling me.

Call me a control freak if you wish, but I would like to know who is borrowing what from me and, preferably, when the stuff will be returned. Harbouring my annoyance, I thought I would unpack my travel bag first before questioning the flatmate whom I suspected to have borrowed my laptop. When unpacking my travel bag, I found some coins it. As usual, I tended to 'transfer' the coins into my work bag so that I can use it to buy coffee or snacks at university. Right at this moment, I realised that my work bag has also gone missing. That is really bizarre! I doubted that any of my flatmates would have borrowed my work bag in addition to my Lenovo laptop. It did not take me long to realise that my room has been broken into. The burglar(s) must have entered my bedroom through one of the windows and taken the laptop and my work bag. Neither of the windows in my bedroom was shut and locked. I seldom shut my bedroom windows, an act which now proves to be unwise. My bedroom is facing the backyard garden and I often get breeze flowing into my room. For this reason, I like leaving my windows to catch the breeze.

Because of my carelessness for not locking the windows, I now have to pay for the price. That is, a burglar has entered into my bedroom and nicked my belongings (a Lenovo laptop and a brown canvass bag). In the bag, it also contained my staff card, office keys, and a digital audio recorder. I have reported the burglary to the police. An officer named Ed dropped by last night to take a statement. Another officer named Eddie came by this morning to undertake the forensic test. This afternoon I also received a call from another officer (I cannot remember his name) hoping to meet me at my residence to talk about crime prevention procedures. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet this officer as I was at university preparing my lecture for this Thursday. I wonder if he was called Ed or Eddie. Edward seems a popular name in the Surrey police department.

This burglary has provided me with a learning lesson. That is, unless you have a sensor alarm at your residence, you should never leave the windows unlocked when you go out or go away for the weekend. I just wish that the burglar will treat my Lenovo laptop well as it has been a very good laptop (it seldom breaks down) and it has travelled with me to many places (eg Australia, Malaysia, and Switzerland). I have had this laptop for many years. Goodbye Lenovo, may you rest in peace!

How long will you wait for your Starbucks?

In a cafe, how long are you willing to wait to be served? Do you have a maximum duration that you are willing to wait until you will wait no more and leave the cafe and probably feeling annoyed? Last week I visited some friends in Newbury (Berkshire). Since we had no idea on what to do on Sunday, we drove to the Newbury Retail Park to have a bit of wondering around and kill some time. One of my friends, Ian, suggested to check out the new Starbucks at the Retail Park. Ian is a big fan of Starbucks. He thinks Starbucks is a fantastic cafe. Sadly, I do not share his passion for Starbucks.

This Starbucks at the Retail Park is not the first one. There used to be a Starbucks on the second floor of the Borders bookstore. But, the bookstore closed down in June this year so did the Starbucks. I presume this new Starbucks is the one from the Borders bookstore and it has made a geographical transition from a bookstore to a fashion retail store. This new Starbucks is located on the second floor of the New Look store. The collaboration between Starbucks and New Look is pretty novel, at least to me. I have not seen many Starbucks built inside the New Look stores, not in London, Oxford, Reading, and Guildford. When we arrived at this new Starbucks, it was not that busy. There was a queue next to the counter and a few people were waiting to be served. There were two female staff, also known as coffee barrister, serving behind the counter. Looking at the ratio between the number of waiting customers and staff members, our impression was that it would not take long to get served and to acquire our coffee. Sadly, our impression was wrong. Instead, we waited for around 20 minutes to get served. After placing our order, we waited for another 10 to 15 minutes for our coffee. More shockingly, the staff member had forgotten one of our order. It was my order actually.

After we had got our coffee, the queue extended from a few people to, at least, 10 or 12 people. I was surprised to see that these people were willing to wait for their Starbucks. This incident raises a question in my mind, namely, how long are customers willing to wait to be served? Is there a maximum duration that customers are willing to wait before they leave a retail premise before acquiring anything? I compared this incident with the incident of people queueing for hours to purchase an iPhone 4. I can understand why people are willing to wait for hours at the Apple store in either Covent Garden or Regent Street to buy iPhone 4. This is because the Apple store in Covent Garden and Regent Street are the few places you can buy a contract-free iPhone 4. Otherwise, you will have to sign a contract with a telecommunication service provider like O2, Vodafone or Orange if you wish to have a iPhone 4. The contract generally lasts between 18 and 24 months.

I do not understand why people are willing to wait for, at least half an hour, to have coffee at Starbucks. Unlike the iPhone 4, the types of coffee offered by Starbucks, I think, are not unique or innovative. You can acquire similar types of coffee, let it be cafe latte or iced coffee, at Costa or Cafe Nero. Going back to the incident at the new Starbucks I mentioned earlier, I noticed that people were queueing for a long time to have their Starbucks. No one, I mean no one, retreated from the queue. People did not seem bothered with the queue at all. I cannot help wonder why. Was it because it was a Sunday and people were not in a hurry and/or they had nothing else to do? Or was it because they loved Starbucks so much and thus they were willing to wait for the coffee? Was it because they perceived the coffee or experience at Starbucks was so unique and they could not get it somewhere else? Neither at Costa nor Cafe Nero. Maybe, I will find the answers for my questions from my friend, Ian. After all, he is a die-hard fan of Starbucks. Ian, can you tell me why people will wait for their Starbucks? How long will people wait to be served at Starbucks before heading to the exit?

A series of events between June and Oct

It has been a while since I update my blog. I have just checked. My last blog was published on the 27th August. So many things or events have happened since that date.

Completion of my PhD. On the 26th June, I submitted my PhD. But, you never guess how and where I submitted my PhD. I submitted it in Lausanne, Switzerland while I was attending a teaching workshop at IMD. I submitted it through email. The night before my submission, I hardly got any sleep. I finished my training at the workshop at around 5, I had a quick bite with my parents, and then I continued working my PhD until 3am the next day. I had, technically, two to three hours sleep. Then, I emailed my thesis to the Office of Research and Higher Degree at USQ. Off I went to attend the teaching workshop. I was dead tired, but I still managed to concentrate at the workshop.

Mum and dad visiting in June/July. While I was striving to complete my PhD in June, mum and dad visited me in June and they stayed for a month. Having mum and dad here gave me extra motivation and moral support to complete my PhD. We travelled to many places such as Brussels (Belgium), Lausanne and Geneva (Switzerland), Rome (Italy), and Paris (France). They were very relieved that I finally completed and submitted my thesis as they had been waiting for a long time. It was a great experience to travel with my parents. Of course, there were times I wished I were travelling alone as I could dictate what I would like to do and where I would like to go. Travelling with your parents, you need to put them first. Hence, I tended to plan the travel plan around their interests. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the experience of travelling with my parents as it was a great opportunity to bond with my parents and to get to know my parents better. Our travelling plan was hampered by an unpleasant incident in Rome. Dad's wallet was stolen and this had left a 'bad taste' in our travelling experience. This incident had also taught us a great lesson. That is, you should never take the train in Rome during peak hours, especially from the airport to the city, and especially when you have huge luggage. These are tell-tale signs that you are a tourist and, thus, you will become an easy target for the 'pick-pocketing' gang. Mum and dad left on the 16th July, and I missed their presence once they had gone.

Sisters visiting in Oct. This year must be the year of visiting Jason. Sam and Nat visited me in October. Unlike mum and dad, they stayed for two weeks only. They arrived on the 1st October and left on the 15th October. The next day after their departure, I flew to Spain, San Sebastian to be more specific, for a guest lecture at the University of Deusto. Since the teaching semester at Surrey started in early October, as compared to mum and dad, I had lesser free time to travel with Sam and Nat. Nevertheless, I still managed to travel to Amsterdam and Paris with them. They also travelled to Brussels, but on their own. It was an interesting and novel experience to travel with my sisters as we never did that when we were younger. I guess it was because we did not have the disposable income. Besides Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris, Sam and Nat also visited London, Bath, and Portsmouth Harbour. They were very keen to explore the shopping outlets in these cities.

Guest lecture in Spain. As I mentioned earlier, I flew to San Sebastian for a guest lecture at the University of Deusto. Since there is no direct flight from London to San Sebastian, I stopped over in Madrid for two nights. I love both Madrid and San Sebastian as both cities are unique in their own ways. Madrid is very vibrant and dynamic, whereas San Sebastian is very relaxing and coastal. This guest lecture was a great learning experience for me as, before this guest lecture, I had never taught at a Spanish university. I was told by a Spanish colleague at Surrey that Spanish students are quite passive in class. Having this pre-conception, I was worried that the guest lecture was going to be very boring as I would be doing all the talking. Surprisingly, the students attending my guest lecture were not as passive as I had imagined them to be. On the contrary, they were quite participative and chatty. I had chosen experiential marketing as the focus of my lecture and Starbucks as the case study. The attendance was quite satisfactory as there were around 40 students attended the lecture. The coordinator at Deusto with the attendance rate.

Passed my PhD with minor revision. 1st November is a big day for me as this was the day I received the result of my PhD via email. To my greatest relief, I have passed my PhD with minor revisions. Out of the three examiners, two recommended minor revisions and one (an author I have quoted frequently in my dissertation) recommended major revisions. Based on these results, the independent reviewer at USQ, Professor Ronel Erwee, recommended minor revisions for my dissertation. Thanks, Buddha. I have passed my PhD finally. I never thought this day would ever come as I had spent a long time on my PhD. While mum and dad were extremely pleased and excited with the result, I felt mostly relieved than anything else. I am glad that the PhD journey is nearly over. Once I have completed and submitted the revisions and the Associate Dean of Research has approved the revisions, I should receive my PhD degree. I cannot wait to end this PhD journey so that I can start a new journey.

What is it like to be a MSc supervisor?

This is a reflection on my recent supervision experience with a group of MSc students. I must say the experience has been challenging and, yet, not very rewarding or stimulating. The experience has been very challenging because I have to work extremely hard just to get my students to produce a 'passable' dissertation.Very few of them, in my opinion, will get top marks (i.e. 70 and above). But, most of them should pass their dissertations if they work hard. Many of them are clueless on how to conduct a research project and how to write a thesis. Since they have to submit their dissertation in early September and many of them did not start writing until mid-April, I as a supervisor, basically have less than five months to guide my students on how to conduct a research and how to write a 'decent' dissertation.

The supervision process could have been less challenging if I only had two or three students to supervise. Unfortunately, I have nine students this year and some of my colleagues have twelve students. Each of my students has a different research topic and, thus, this has made the supervision process more complicated and demanding. As a supervisor, I basically have to familiarise myself with nine different domains of marketing literature, ranging from consumer involvement and consumer attitude to consumer experiences and consumer decision making process.

I do not mind the supervision experience to be challenging as long as it is rewarding or stimulating, especially, in an intellectual way. Unfortunately, the supervision experience so far has not been rewarding or stimulating. Many of my students seem to lack the ability to exercise independent and logical thinking. Many of them have constantly asked for 'advice' and their definition of 'advice' is 'tell me the answers' or 'tell me what to do next'. Many of them just want to be spoon-fed. Many of them tend to choose the easiest way to seek the answers for their questions, that is, emailing me. Very few of them will take other initiatives to seek the answers for their questions such as reading journal articles or textbooks.

As a human being, I do, sometimes, get frustrated with the flood of emails I receive from my students. As much as I try to be patient in guiding them through the research process, some of them do not seem to get it. Some of them do not seem to understand why they need to provide a theoretical framework in their Literature Review chapter, why they need to develop an interview protocol before conducting an in-depth interview, why they need to have a Data Analysis Strategy section in their Methodology chapter. Their lack of understanding on these basic research issues makes me wonder about the knowledge they have learnt from their undergraduate degrees (and other degrees). Surely, many of them would have studied a research module in their undergraduate degrees.

Maybe, I am being too harsh on my students. Maybe, I should blame the educational culture in their origin countries. Many of my students are international students from China and Thailand. In these countries, pupils are accustomed to being told what to do and what to learn by their teachers or lectures. In these countries, pupils are not encouraged to challenge the views of their teachers or lecturers, but merely accept whatever their teachers or lecturers say are correct. It is this kind of educational culture that have created a problem for their learning process in a Western country like UK. That is, they lack the ability to think for themselves, both independently and logically. Throughout this supervision experience, I do sincerely hope that my students have learnt to be more confident with their own ideas or opinions and to be more independent in problem solving. Am I hoping too much from my students?

Murketing - what is it?

I just finished a book titled 'I'm with the brand'. This book is written by Rob Walker, who is a columnist for New York Times Magazines. This book is not of those (boring) branding textbooks, which typically focuses on branding theoretical frameworks. This book is about the relationship between branding and consumer culture. Hence, this book covers many consumer-centric issues, ranging from rationale (not rational) consumption, self concept to media consumption, sub-cultures and ethics. I have mixed feelings after reading this book. I feel 'refreshed' and  'inspired' as Rob has put forward many ideas that challenge the current thinking and practice of marketing. I feel 'informed' because he has provided many examples about how companies constantlt tap into consumers' sub-cultures to acquire novel ideas and inspiration in order to develop their branding strategies.

Besides feeling positive after reading Rob's book, I also feel 'ashamed' because I realise that I am, what Rob described as, a typical 'rationale' consumer. Rob discussed the concept of rationale thinking and consumption in Chapter Three. Rob put a strong emphasis on the distinction between 'rationale' and 'rational' consumption. Rationale consumption is about consumers making a purchase based on their self-generated rationales or justifications. Put it bluntly, consumers convince themselves that they need to make purchase. On the other hand, rational consumption is about making a purchase based on one's needs, rather than, one's wants or desires. Hence, rational consumption, strictly speaking, should be based on an objective and functional evaluation process. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, our basic needs are generally related to food, a shelter, some clothes (to keep us warm and protected) and, maybe, an automobile. But, do we need to have more than one pair of pants? Two automobiles? Three types of breakfast cereals? Four jackets or blazers? Five underwears? Six pairs of socks? And, a dozen of shirts or t-shirts?

Because of this rationale consumption, it sparks the emergence of MURKETING. Let's get back to the key theme of this blog ie Murketing. Rob introduced this terminology in this book to highlight the fact that consumers and marketing often intertwine with each other. The distinction between these two entities is consumers and marketing is often murky. Rob argued that many consumers might like to claim that they can see through marketing or they are immuned from marketing, but the reality is no consumer is immune from marketing. We, as consumers, are part of marketing. We are, in fact, living in a marketed society. Most of us, knowingly or not knowingly, are the marketers of many brands, especially brands that we like. Look around your living room, kitchen and/or garage, many products or merchandises occupy in these spaces have brands. Perhaps, a Samsung or LG flatscreen tv, a Nintendo Wii, an iPhone or Blackberry lying on the coffee table, a BMW or Fiat parking in the garage, a set of Tefal cookwares in your kitchen's cabinet, a box of Kellog's cereal on top of your fridge and so on.