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Sometimes, I really want to blame it squarely on the schools. Especially fancy tertiary institutions that spin PR about how their graduates will become masters of the universe. Be it for recruitment, marketing or funding purposes, there is a dire consequence of such spin – unrealistic expectations borne by fresh graduates.

It is a phenomenon experienced in all developed economies, and across industries. Young recruits and interview candidates expect to be in positions that are high profile and high impact. They want to be in charge of marketing strategies when they have little domain knowledge. Or even having visited the real-world places where the commercial and human activities take place. Tell them that their entry level positions require maybe a few years of grind like hitting the stores, number crunching and mind-numbing paperwork, and they make for the exit faster than a premature ejaculation.

As I read the business magazines, I find scant consolation that CXOs of major corporations face the same recruitment and human resource issues as our small interactive agency. Even when the candidates say they really want a get into the Internet field, what they really mean is they want to work on big brand accounts that allow them to score big points. They want to do award-winning creative work; take control of the online marketing destiny of a product; write codes for the next YouTube. And if you do not mind, please pay them very well because they have the potential to deliver for you.

It is a good thing I do not do the first line of interviews, which is handled by our operations director at Convertium. Wait till you hear her stories. She tells me that the human resource conferences she attends talk about the issue of the millennium generation – kids coming into the market with rose-tinted glasses and a major dose of entitlement. I tell her to give as good as she gets from the kids.

Whatever happened to simple values (and logic) like, if I perform well please pay me more and promote me? To make matters even more fun in Singapore, even “foreign talents” from neighbouring countries are being caught in the zeitgeist of asking for the world before showing the goods. And it does not help that we have an “official” culture of pay-more, pay-more.

So, coming back to the tertiary institutions, yes, your under-graduates are smart kids. They probably know a lot about something or other. But please do not lead them on to think without reservation that the world is their oyster. Expect them to taste some cockles first.

In a recent edition of Fortune magazine, the focus was on excellence. How great performers in all fields rose to the top, and stayed there. Findings from prominent researchers concluded that excellence is not a result of innate gifts or advantages.

What the Fortune article succinctly puts forth is that, to succeed, individuals AND companies, must understand, focus on and practise again and again, the things that lead to excellence. Whether there is a “natural” advantage in the first place is immaterial. No matter what advantage nature and circumstances may have given you, you will not rise to the top of the pile without deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is not the same as doing things you like, or want to, over and over again. It is knowing what you have to do, then putting a plan together, and systematically, consistently and frequently tackling and improving skills over an extended period of time.
So, according to the deliberate- practice model, excellence requires:

• A clear and detailed understanding of the network of skills that are necessary for high-level achievement in a given field.
• A structured and very disciplined approach to practising and improving each and every skill-set in the network.

Even if it means pain. That, at Convertium, we dose out a fair bit to ourselves. People have a natural (there’s the word again) tendency to rebel against structure, processes and discipline. Especially in a creative field. But in our strive for excellence, it is indeed our daily, deliberate practice of our craft that keeps us on track. Not only do we love what we do (a given), we know what we have to do in order to be better. Sometimes it hurts, but the results are worth it.

Here’s a cheat list, courtesy of Fortune, on deliberate practice:

The Internet is the great cost eliminator and impact multiplier for DM. Traditionally, it was expensive to finely segment and target consumers with many customised DM packs. Unit costs go up with every variant. Large volume DM was too costly due to mail charges, especially overseas. To make things more difficult, data capturing was tediously manual (data entry, anyone?), and database management and analytics was an arcane science – and way too expensive,

What the Internet has changed for DM includes eliminating high costs for customization and personalisation of the communication venhicle. Smart marketers know that they can afford to change, fine-tune and send out many different variations of the same marketing campaign, without fear of significant incremental costs. Try that with a print campaign.

Every behaviour pattern and action take online can be tracked and analysed. Hence, online DM offers the marketer the chance to efficiently gather data and learn from quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs). Business owners should be glad to know how each cent of their marketing investment is delivering on results, since all content exposure, data collection, and calls-to-action can be monitored.

So, if content management and database technologies are becoming more affordable, if traditional DM best practices can be transferred online to enjoy huge efficiencies, why then are more companies not gearing up for it? Polite answer: inertia. Brutal truth: most business people are not intellectually and emotionally ready for the challenge and accountability of Internet-speed marketing.

Three Threats: Competitors, Customers, Company

The Internet can destroy your business on three fronts.

Competitors – they start leveraging the Internet to adopt and transform tried and tested business best practices. The Internet allows companies to be more imaginative with their strategies and tactics because it is totally open-ended.

Customers - they are abandoning traditional media and spending more time getting informed and making decisions online. Your customers are now in control of what they what to see, hear and do. You do not control the message anymore.

Company –your management and staff are unable to stop fearing (or sneering) the Internet and start loving it. It surprises no one that many people are still resistant to the Internet as a business tool. They either do not understand the technological potentials, are too comfortable with traditional practices, or simply do not have the aptitude to deal with dynamic data and highly quantifiable activities.

The role of the business leader is, thus, to identify and prioritise the threat(s) to his/her company, products and services. And do something about it before the 3Cs rear their ugly heads.

Here’s something I wrote in a 15-min struggle against a post-lunch slumber somes years ago. I believe I lost that day.

Contrary to popular belief, the Spanish siesta is not symptomatic of a work-shy culture. Spain has been, till recently, an agricultural, rural society. People worked in the open, or in buildings without luxuries like air-conditioning or climate control. With the Spanish sun being intolerably hot, the best way to get over the hottest period of the day (the afternoon), was to sleep it away because no work could be done in the heat anyway. As such, people woke very early in the morning, worked till early afternoon, and then knocked off.

In addition, the Spanish heat also meant that it was difficult to sleep at night. As such, many Spanish towns and villages had taverns and restaurants that were opened till the early morning because people just could not sleep. To compensate, they slept during the afternoons for a couple of hours.

It was also not uncommon for Spanish business meetings and functions to be scheduled late at night because people did continue to work after the afternoon siesta. In fact, in the European Union today, the Spanish working hours are the longest. But the Brits will soon make them toe the line.

Now, it has been scientifically and anthropologically researched that the siesta is very beneficial to physical, mental and emotional well-being – especially in the post-industrial age of deadlines and endless chase for productivity.

Of course, it would be hard and darn disruptive to have a two hour siesta nowadays. The work culture that we practise today stems from the Northern European’s Protestant work ethics. They never had a need for siestas because of their better climate. And unlike the Catholic Spanish, the Protestant Europeans sought to prove their worth and justify their doctrine of pre-destined salvation by working like mad for it. The logic went something like “even if I am pre-destined to be saved, I have to work like mad to produce the goods because that is the only way I (and others) would know that I am pre-destined for better things, like eternal salvation”.

Hence, the lifestyle that we lead nowadays. Always striving, never stopping. So, STOP right now, rest your elbows on your desk, put your face into the palms of your hands, and close your eyes for 15 mins.

Let the power nap start! Rejuvenate; enter R.E.M. and dream a little; let your drool dribble down your sleeves. Then wake up feeling a bit more relaxed, feeling sharper and ready to work till 11pm because if you do not, that intern is going to get your job!

(If you are working at Convertium, drop the thought of a power nap right now.)

This is almost like the operating motto of our company. And it works well on both client and internal projects.

In a world where people expect results without investment – or blood, sweat and tears – long-term goals are often an after-thought. But it need not be so. In fact, I believe that it is very necessary to think big, have clear strategic goals, before getting down to the nitty-gritties of making things work.

That is why, in our pitches to clients, and even our own internal business justifications, we would go in with the big idea. We do not sell pushing tins and bottles, but category domination. We do not sing and dance about thousands of eyeballs, but would rather tell the story about how Davids can defeat Goliaths.

Then, only then, do we get to the tactical stuff. How to go after the low-hanging fruits. How to produce the quick wins that would justify the initial investment and win confidence. Still, no matter how small or ambitious the tactics may be, they answer to the over-arching strategic, the big picture. There is no two ways about this. All things big and small must point towards a holy grail. If not, the smartest and most creative tactics are not the stepping stones to greatness that they ought to be. Of course, we also like the fact that adherence to a great (and mutually agreed) strategy is an efficient way of eliminating wasteful and unnecessary work.

Once we taste the low-hanging fruits, we want the juicer stuff that are higher up. To climb a tree, it is better to act on the initial momentum and scurry up in decisive fashion. This is much smarter than clinging on to the trunk, hoping for the energy to slowly inch your way upwards. Same thing with web tactics and initiatives. We have seen too many plans fall by the wayside due to short attention span or poor stamina by those started them. The Internet and its opportunities are not quick fixes for the lazy.

To succeed online, one has to keep learning, testing, and reapplying oneself to better tactics, one after another. For those who stop after the first act, you will never get the complete picture, you will not get to the payoff. You will also need to remember that there is no standing still in cyberspace. Everything, everyone is in constant motion. That means your target audience and your competitors.

Hence, when planning to use the Internet for marketing or business, first think big. Then go for quick wins, and start with tactics that match your resources. Finally, and most importantly, do not give up or rest on your laurels. Build up as quickly as possible. Internet marketing is not for sprinters. That is why at Convertium, you will find most of us are slender and trim, just like the marathon runners.

Believe it or not (better believe), recent research suggests that people judge the appeal of a website in the blink of an eye (source: Microsoft Windows Magazine Mar 06). 50 milliseconds, and people make up their mind whether they like the website or not.

While this may sound superficial, it is not dissimilar to the thinking we have at Convertium. All websites, regardless whether they are one-off marketing tactics or CMS-driven content heavy portals, should create a very good first impression.

Of course, a Flash-based website would probably look, well, flashier, than a templated HTML CMS site. This does not mean that non-Flash or content-heavy website cannot have a “wow” factor. What it takes is a decent creative brief, and good information architecture planning, to identify creative opportunities for any type of website.

A question that is so important, but seldom asked, is what would make the target audience go “wow” after the first web page is loaded. The initial “wow” will translate into a self-motivated interest to further explore the website. If subsequent web pages and onsite interaction continue the initial good impression, you can be assured that your target audience would be positively cultivated in your favour.

On the other hand, if the first impression is less than positive, then every subsequent web page and second of user experience will have a mental hurdle to overcome.

You have 50 milliseconds to score points with your target audience. So, please do not stinge on good design – it makes the difference whether your audience clicks through or clicks away.

You know that success smells sweet. Sometimes it is not unlike that whiff you get at your favourite club. Intriguing, with a hint of excitement and unspoken pleasure. Then the knock, knock, knocking on your door at midnight. Bad dream.

Got to confess. Like a rock star’s favourite plant, our recipe for doing good work is similarly organic. Generous application of the brain, and a whole lot of heart.

It goes something like this. With the Internet, the landscape changes every nanosecond. We need to be mentally robust and intellectually curious to keep up with opportunities. Make sure the competition does not steal a march on our clients.

Content, design, technology. Sure takes quite a few heads to keep track of all these stuff. And make them work together – you know, to make money for you.

Think, think, think. Data, behaviour, analysis. Length, breadth, depth, and time. The space-time continuum is a thematic union that provides a complete framework of all natural phenomena. You can go mad on these things. Who needs the smokes?

Which brings us to the heart bit. We love our jobs. Our office is right above a cheap bar in Chinatown. (There is also this famous traditional Chinese medicine shop next door, which sort of keeps the yin-yang in harmony.)

We do what we do because we enjoy the marathon of new media. The view is breathtaking when you travel broadband. Ideas become reality so much faster, too. Take no prisoners, give no quarter, and remember to scrape off the road-kill before you come in.

Read a lot, view a lot, use a lot. Repeat daily. Brain and heart at work. That is how we create interesting things. The bar downstairs helps a little, even though they do not have that sweet smell.

Get your online business and marketing to smell sweeter. Light us up.

I first read about the book “Freakonomics” in the usual business magazines, which sang praises of it. Having now read it myself, I have to agree. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading (it is a sheer pleasure) and who loves to have some mind stretching in the process.

It is not a book that give you answers to specific issues. Neither does it give you mental templates for quick fixes or your next business document.

“Freakonomics”, as its authors mention, has no unifying theme, but is an exercise to encourage people to think sensibly about the world we live in. Most of the book is based on the unique research of Steven Levitt, the US’s most talented economist under 40. His writing partner, Stephen Dubner, is a New York Times writer with the intellectual acumen to translate Levitt’s profound research into a very enjoyable layman’s read.

In short, “Freakonomics” shows how conventional wisdom, and seemingly obvious realities, are not necessarily the truths when they are subjected to robust analysis. Levitt enjoys asking very basic and simple questions abouy daily life. He then applies his economic tools of the trade to expose the truth, or alternate thinking, behind what we commonly accept or fail to ask.

Try the following subjects covered in the book:

• the true cause of the dramatic fall in crime rate in the US (ans: legalised abortion)
• exposing corruption in the national sport of Japan, sumo (makes Singapore football match-fixing look like child’s play)
• why obsessive parents actually add little value to their children’s future prospects (genes and family background are more important)
• why drug dealers still live with their mothers (only those at the top of the pyramid get rich – sound familiar?)
• why your real estate agent is not motivated to get you the best price for your house (simple mathematics at its best)
• how the Ku Klux Klan collasped due to the effort of one man (a truly inspiring story)
• exposing school teachers who cheat when under pressure to increase pass rates (wonder whether the same happen in Singapore)

“Freakonomics” is unqiue as it also draws on the field research and real life heroics of individuals to supply the raw materials for Levitt to apply his economic analysis. Regression analysis not sounded so exciting and meaningful. I even felt a tinge of nostalgia and yearned for significant differences.

For a layman like me, this book, besides being an enjoyable weekend read, serves as a reminder that the truth is not what the politicians or powers that be claim. Nor is it commonly accepted notions. The book also serves as a warning not to be lazy or negligent in applying our logic and intellectual faculty. God has given us an immense gift in our mental abilities – let’s not let it go to waste.