You may ask “why banking and finance in these times?” From our observations and research of the past and current situation, we have seen that it is a time for a change.

Sales processes alone are not working.

Clients are getting sick of hard selling techniques.

So…

We see through our research and business insight that one of the key factors in business success today is developing and maximising people’s talents. Egyii has built a set of tools and programmes to accelerate people’s performance in themselves and their relationships with others.

For more checkout the website..www.egyii.com.

Trip Allen

Director and CXX Egyii

Singapore
Hi All
During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I’m growing a Moustache (and more). That’s right I’m bringing the Mo back because I’m passionate about tackling men’s health issues and being proactive in the fight against prostate cancer. All we need is $10 or $15 US each… To donate to my Mo you can either:Click this link https://www.movember.com/us/donate (and please use my Registration # 1334641) and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

The money raised by Movember is donated directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation who will use the funds for high-impact research to find better treatments and a cure for prostate cancer.

Did you know:

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in the US and worldwide with one in six American men developing the disease and 27,000 men dying of the disease every year.
Those with a family history of prostate cancer are twice as likely to develop the disease and should have regular annual testing starting at 45. All other men should commence testing at 50.
Prostate cancer is 90% curable if detected and treated early.
For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the details at: [Fundraising Outcomes]. Thanks for your support,

Trip, CXX Egyii

http://egyii.wordpress.com

Movember Foundation
Changing the face of men’s health
www.movember.com

In the Bauhaus train of thought, LESS IS MORE. Think of how much easier life is when this philosophy is utilized? The brainchild behind the Bauhaus movement was Walter Gropius. Any and all Industrial Designers know him as the grandaddy of modern design. Look at the work and the ideas he forged in the 1930′s. WOW.

“Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was a celebrated German architect and teacher, founder of the school of design known as the Bauhaus in Germany, and a leading proponent of modern architecture. “

“This house was his first architectural commission in the United States, built in 1938 as his family home after coming to the US to teach at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. This was Walter Gropius’s home from 1938 until his death in 1969.” (Text courtesy of The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities).

Well I was fortunate enough to be a guide at this house in the early 1990s. Situated in a very conservative and traditionally wealthy Boston suburb (Lexington MA), the Gropius House sits amongst traditional, colonial style mansions. It is a sore thumb- however it is a piece de resistance, a piece of beauty. It exemplifies simplicity.

Less is more…

Trip Allen of the Egyii team

When people think of being creative, they immediately think of the arts: visual arts, dance, music, Etc. So where does creativity fit into everyday issues and the work environment?

Think outside of the box? Better yet, think outside of the circle.

To me creativity is solving your everyday problems.

Personally, I have been called a “creative critter.”  (Hey, I kind of like that moniker). I come up with some wacky ideas around nicknames, odd solutions to crazy things and generally doing things a bit “different.” But where is the practical side to my creativity?  (I call it “practical creativity”).

Practical Creativity

When I tackle a problem, I think “how can I find a solution that is different, the goes beyond the usual. We need something unique, something that makes us stand out..or that makes our decision to do things stand out.” Everyone has run of the mill answers, solutions. But the real root to all of “practical creativity” is why do I want to do something different? To me it is often economical. It is to be better, or run things more efficiently. You may ask how is it economical? It is how I can accomplish a task or a goal and save costs doing it, yet reaching the goals that I need to reach.

As recent example of this is building up our business (yes Egyii). James Irvine and I are looking for ways to run our Performance Acceleration business in the most economical manner. We need to be virtual and to outsource, yet we need to answer to the convententional means of “how’ a business is “supposed” to be run. Expectations are that we have an office, an office address, an office phone, something “physical” (yet we are virtual)…in order to be seen as a viable business (at times, it is very old fashiioned thinking in Singapore..there seems to be a lack of trust that is prevalent). So we have come up with a creative solution. The conventential solution would have costs us between $100-$350 per month. Our solution initally costs $0 (and will eventually cost $4.75 per month). Here is practical creativity for economical solutions (as I would rather have the money in my pockets vs someone else’s, for sure).

How do you achieve practical creativity? The first step is confidence. You really need to take control of yourself and be content with who you are. Then you can cover all aspects of creativity.  My partner, James Irvine writes a lot in this space on the Egyii Blog… http://egyii.wordpress.com/.

So, creativity does NOT have to be artistic. It can be practical, too.

The next topic I will post will be on creativity and personal branding….

Ciao for now.

The day has come that Egyii (Performance Acceleration!) has finally hit the airwaves…the W.W.WEB.

http://egyii.wordpress.com

My partner in the Egyii business (a consultancy on Performance Acceleration), James Irvine (whom I call The Master), will be doing daily dips and dives into the swimming pool of personal development. James has a solid background in NLP, change management, relationship management, Etc. and has spent years building tools that allow people to take control of their lives and situations.

What a powerful force in the Singapore learning and development market!

Egyii

Egyii helps people take personal control of their performance. By becoming more flexible, resilient and resourceful, people will lead the race to build a competitive advantage through better leadership, better customer relationships, and better internal support. That leads to increased productivity, sales and customer loyalty… and this translates to more profit.

And to use an appropriate quote…

“Every company has a largely untapped, enormous potential for breakthrough improvements in employee productivity, customer retention and profitability, and authentic sustainable growth.” – John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund, Principles of The Gallup Organisation and authors of Human Sigma – Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter

Wow. Egyii. Sounds EDGY doesn’t it? Launch coming soon.

FYI…The Kapuas mud snake (Enhydris gyii) is a native of Borneo, and can change its color sponteneously, …

There is always lots of talk about innovation and creativity in the workplace, but what happens when the economy slows down and companies are struggling to breathe? Cutting costs, sacking people and taking short cuts is always the first measure. People panic and they can’t think. It is all about survival.

Let’s sit back and look long term for once. How do we survive? And what do most people do during a crisis to survive? Innovate. Innovation will pull us out of these tough time. So, innovation from top down and all throughout all organizations- it needs to be encouraged. From the folks sweeping the floors to the ivory tower- it need to be a group effort…and it needs to be fostered.

At the company that my partner, James Irvine, and I run, called Egyii, we focus on personal development. Our focus in on the finance industry,,,and of course it is in a mess. We are seeing that, historically (back in 1997 during the Asian crisis), the financial institutions dropped all focus on people development and went into survival mode. It took years to regain the right people, the right teams, to face the fast growing demands in Asia. Will we see this again this time around?

Companies and institutions need to look long term at people, for innovation and development. People are your greatest asset…so pull yourself out of survival mode and start focusing on where you can make a difference. It will work both short and long term.

Here is an article on some fantastic ideas on how Singapore can transform itself. It is penned by Tyler Brûlé, the editor-in-chief of Monocle magazine. If you dont read Monocle it is well woth the read. This was published in the FT October 18.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d8f1cae-9cad-11dd-a42e-000077b07658.html

I believe that both will ultimately bring success to the youth of today.

Let’s look at it from an Asian perspective. In Asia, rote learning and long hours of studying are prevalent. Mummy and Daddy force the kids to study hard…study hard, make good grades, go to good schools and you will be successful. Go into any McDonald’s on a weekend and observe the kids crunching math problems. Become an engineer, and accountant or a doctor. I tell you I worked hard in school but I had a balanced life. The discipline is good, but the long term affects are detramental.

And what happens to the kids when they get home? They go into cyberspace…chatrooms, Facebook, internet games. There are no social skills exercised. Kids need to be in social situations and life will be easier…sports, games, parties and summer jobs such as retail, sales or waitering (make my kid work on summer holidays…what? He/She must study!).

A recent study by Christy Lleras, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sociologist, “states in her work, that pupils described by teachers as conscientious, motivated, and able to relate well to peers and adults earned an average $3,200 more yearly than those with equally good test scores but poorer social skills.”  See the following article: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/10/1023_btw/3.htm. (yes I know it is a US study…but it applies to Singapore which is a service economy!)

So get out there, kids, and discover art, creativity, games, parties, music. Open up your minds, get your head out of the books, and have fun. You will succeed in the long run.

A current interpretation is as follows:

Design Thinking is about learning and developing highly transferable skills such as teamworking, problem-solving and communication- that helps people succeed , not just in creative thinking, but life in general.

Design Thinking plays a powerful role in the origination of new products, particularly in bringing focus and relevance to innovative concepts. How do designers think? How does creativity and innovation work? How can businesses create a climate for creative thinking and for fostering innovative ideas?

We all give credit to Tim Brown of IDEO, which is one of the most innovative industrail design firms today, and who coined the term “Design Thinking” and made it popular.

And of course, George Kembel, Executive Director, Stanford d.school, brings some reality to it all in the recent NY Times article

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05unbox.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=stanford&st=cse&oref=slogin#

“It would be overreaching to say that design thinking solves everything. That’s putting it too high on a pedestal.  Business thinking plus design thinking ends up being far more powerful.”

By the way, in order to expedite matters, I prefer to call it “Design Doing.”