My big big Secret..

My friends, I am going to reveal one of my big big secret, please promise me not to tell anyone, u swear? It happen two weeks ago, when I meet this lovely girl name Wendy…

Ha ha ha ha, obviously this is not a post about my love affairs (and btw I don’t have any love affairs) but this is more about my dreams. I am writing this post to tell the universal law of attraction and my readers what I want to achieve in my career in 3-5 years time. According to the book "The Secret", to make one's dream comes true, we just need to ask for it, visualize our needs, write it down in detail somewhere and feel it. One day, what you have request/dream will come true ……

So, here is my “Secret”.

Date: 2011/2012
Venue: KL Hilton Hotel, Lobby

Wendy, from The Edge Magazine : "Hi James, thanks for your valuable time to do this interview."

Me: "It’s my pleasure."

Wendy: "First of all, could u share with our readers how u end up in ur current job, i.e Google Creative Director for Asian region."

Me: “I have always wanted to work with Google, so 4-5 years ago, I decided to apply for a technical job position at Google. However, given that I am already 35 years old that time, and working as a boring software development manager but not as talented (in terms of technical) as most of Google staff, and does not hold any working permit for US/India/China (where Google R&D centre is based), my chance of Google granting me an interview 4-5 years ago is very,very, very slim, :-(

So, instead of going via the normal route of applying a job at Google (i.e upload my resume to Google jobs portal and throwing my CV into giant black hole), I have to try another route.

I am very creative person, I also have ideas to make life easy, and some of my crazy ideas are very “Google” when I discuss some of my Google idea with my friends, and most of them agree that idea will work. So I decided to post my ideas to Google at my blog, and hope that Google HR will one day notice my creativity and call me for an interview. After posting about 10-15 ideas, I finally got call from Google HR for an interview, and after couple of more interviews and tests, I ended up with my current job position.”

Wendy: “Wow, that’s a unique way getting a company’s attention. So tell me, what is the job scope for Creative Director, i.e what do you need to do and deliver.”

Me: “Well, as Creative director for Google, I have to invent and deliver three-four ideas (i.e new Google services) to Google per year, The 2 -3 ideas must be profitable, and rest of ideas are platforms to improve community lifestyle, like free education for poor people, making our earth greener, reduce the gap of digital divine and etc.

My daily work involves discussing ideas to product and user groups, do a quick POC of my idea with my team, perform market survey about the idea, and finally work closely with product development group to implement the idea”

Wendy: “Oh, that’s a very fun and exciting job, so Khoo, tell me, where u get ur creative juice for all these great ideas.”

Me: “Hmmm, good question, and I don’t think I have answer for that, new idea will strike me out of no where, while driving, while watching movie, at the beach and even day dreaming. Hm..ok,, seriously, if I really have to put a answer on this question, I believed most of my creativities are from my observation. I like to do a lot of research, try out new things, observe people, and always aware of happenings around me.

Let me give u an example, the idea of “SMS Protect Me” came about after I read a news report that the rate of Malaysia women Malaysia being hit, raped, even murdered is increasing each year, and the sad part is most of victims are just doing day to day activities like taking a cab back home, jogging, shopping, waiting for someone to pick them up, and etc. So while driving to work, I am thinking is there any way to prevent this or reduce the crime rate, and out of sudden, my friend SMS me to go for breakfast. This is how the idea strike me.”

Wendy: “Cool, so James, or shall I address u as Mr Coolboy, out of so many ideas u invented, do u have one idea u very proud off?”

Me: “Hm, another good question. Well, if I have to pick one, I will pick "Google earth points", as I am very concern about our environment, and I wants our children have better place to live tomorrow. I am glad that the launch of Google earth points are very well receive by many parties, a recent study shows that, since launch of Google earth points, Google and other partners have help reduce global carbon emission by a total of 3-4%. Thanks to all the loving and caring Google users.

Oh, oh speaking of Google earth points, let’s me reveal this great marketing plan to u, thanks to Toyota. Starting next month, for anyone who purchase new Toyota 5 star green energy efficient car, Toyota will automatically granted purchaser for total 10 million Google earth points, 10 million Google earth points will entitled user to redeem latest Android Phone with 1 year unlimited voice, video calls, and unlimited usage of premium Google service for a year, Isn’t that exciting?”

Wendy: “This is a very good news, do tell us more”

Me: “Sure, wait till next month, at our press conference. Ha ha”

Wendy: “…

Stay tune for part two.

[Google Idea] gLove.google.com

Wow, it's been a long time since I post "Google Please hire me" series, well, for fans that follow this series (ahem..as if I got many fans that read my blog, Haha), so sorry for the delay

Anyway, my 6th idea to Google is a Mobile match maker application for lonely hearts. The application utilizing Mobile Phone with 3G and GPS service, such as Google Android phone. Although there are many variance of mobile match making application out there, there are many cool features of my application. Here how the application should work:

• First of all, user needs to register themselves via Google love matching website (i.e glove.google.com), entering their personal's detail such as name, age, birthday, astrology sign, preferences, language, hobbies, and etc.


• User can also choose to upload their picture, and enter criteria of their preferred partner (race, age range, hobbies, and etc)


• Once register, user proceed to download the mobile match making application from the web site.


• Once the application is activated, and sign on, user is presented a real time love chart, shown below:
  

• Heart shapes represent love match found from user existing location. The three circles here help user to visualize on how far/near between each love match and the user. For example, inner circle means the love match is about 250 meter between user and potential love match, middle circle is about 500 meter and distance on outer circle is about 1 KM.

• Color of love shapes shows match compatibility, red color > 90%, green color > 80%, and yellow >70%
  

• User could click on any love shape to view more information about the love match, as shown in picture below.
  
  
• If user like the love match found, user could opted to:
  
• Get more info about the user.
• Send a short message to the user
• Invite user to play online love quiz, where system will ask both the user and the potential partner a series of love/compatibilities questions (like top ten prefer movies, top ten place to spend romantic holiday) and at the end, present both parties each other answer.
• Play "find me if u can", where system present both parties hints (about 30 steps NW from XYZ Shopping center) to find each other.

The application/portal will be designed as open platform which enable third party developer to develop interesting "plugins" (can be free of charge for user, or needs to purchase with credit) to enhance the mobile application.

To further increase the chance for each other to fall in love, following are some examples of such third party app.
- An app that study how compatible they are base on their birthday and astrology sign.
- A app that study user's circle of friend, and provide a social graph (with interesting graphic) how they are related to each other. For example, if Mr A match with Ms D, the app could show A knows B from Primary School, B is friend of C, and C working together with D at company XYZ.


Please note that, to find a closer match, user do needs to informs the server where is he/she, so that the server is able to find one's soul mate that is located near to his/her current location. If the application detected that there is no GPS Signal, it will use following channels to find user's location, example:

a) Mobile Cell tower - Use of mobile cell tower to find user's location.
b) Wifi access points.
c) Base on the trail of the movement (GPS) of the person until he goes indoor.
d) if all above fail, the app will ask user's to enter his/her location (e.g Sungai Wang, Mid Valley) and find closer match..

On top of that, We partner with other big shopping centers to further promote this mobile application, i.e special discount is given for "Love is in the air" user, each shopping mall could have a giant display on their info desk, or main entrance showing real time info how many "Love is in the air" user is in their shopping center, each with interesting statistics, for example-

- There are total of 10 5-stars most wanted bachelor in this building, and 15 5-stars single lady in the building.
- There are total 10 pair of people are 90% match with each other, are u one of them? quickly find your match now, and claim (together with your potential partner) your free movie tickets in next 30 minutes here..

I believe with the right marketing and development, this will be killer application.
So, that's it, what do u think? do share me your thoughts on the comments page, stay tune for my next idea.

PS: As always, if anyone find these ideas interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.

Cheers

One World One Dream

[Google Idea] SMS Protect Me

Last month, a 8 years old girl was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered. Till now, our police still trying their very best to looks for the monster. Almost every month, there always a news about a girl being kidnapped, rapped, or worst being killed. I am shocked when and where the accident happen, it happen while the victims taking late bus home, jogging early morning at public park, waiting to be pick up by friend, or taking car from shopping mall car park, and normal routine u and me are doing every day. I feels sick and upset when reading this kind of news.. What is going wrong with our world? what have happen to our soul? I am constantly thinking how technology could help to prevent his kind of situation, and this is how I come out the idea of SMS protect me service.

Here how it work.

1. First, user needs to register themselves via a portal, given their contact detail, and group of 5 emergency contact numbers (User relative and friend).

2. Upon registration, user are given a pair of PIN number, one number is use for protect me event registration (see below), one PIN number is use for emergency.

3. When user feels unsafe at any place at any time, he/she could register a protect me event via SMS, with the format of [user pin] [event's detail] [event duration]. Here are few examples:

   • I waiting my friend to pick me up at office building A, and my pin code is “1234”, I will key in “1234, waiting friend at Office Bulding A, Gate 2, 20 minutes”

   • I am taking a cab back home at late night, “1234, taking cab number WEB1023 home, 30 minutes”

   • I am going to take my car from public car park, “1234, taking my car at Shopping Mall Apple, car park at floor B2, bay 92, 10 minutes”

4. User send in the protect me event to a local service center number, system will registered the event

5. When event expired, system will sends user confirmation SMS to end the protect me event

6. To reply, user have to key in their pin number, follow by “yes” to end the protect me event, or “extend 10 minutes” to extend the event.

7. If system didn't received user's confirmation after certain retry, system will send alert SMS message to his/her configured emergency contact numbers, if user's Telco provider provide Location base services, system will find user location, and alert his/her friend about user location.

8. The emergency number is use when user are in danger, thus is in short and easy to send, user are just require to key in the emergency pin number, with any detail if needed, and send to the local service center number, system will straight away notify user friend and family.

9. The emergency number is also useful when user force to terminate a protect me SMS event, thus, instead of using user given pin to end the event, user could always use their emergency pin to indicate they are in real danger.

Some possible options on extending the services

• Integrate with local police patrolling system.

• Partner with insurance company, user are charge per protect me SMS event, in case on any unwanted incident happen, user are insured.

• Integrate with Phone GPS syetem.
  

So, what do u think? do share me your thoughts on the comments page, stay tune for my next idea.

PS: As always, if anyone (perhaps Yahoo Inc.) find these ideas interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.

Ideas to Google (Part III) - Google CarPool Portal

This is the third part of my series of articles published with the intention of "selling" my ideas to Google and subsequently to be recruited by Google. By the way did anyone from Google notice my blog .... ?

My third idea is the Google CarPool Portal, my contribution to make our earth greener. I admit this idea is not new as there already many CarPool portals on the web. I visited some of portals, and have yet to come across a portal that I consider a successful one. Most of portals I visited have been inactive for a long time, and for those still consider active, I only see an average one or two posts of interested looking for carpool partner per week. In my opinions, some of the reasons why such portals fail.

1) Lack of big marketing push - Success of this kind of portal is pretty much depends on users participation, the more user participate, the better. Most of the portals I visited are run by personal or community, and usually only have limited funds for Marketing.

2) Poor Location Selection - Most of CarPool portal offers only limited origin/destination selection, and often limited to zip code selection, which in my opinion, it's not comprehensive and customizable enough.

3) Poor user interface - Due to budget problem, most portal offer very basic UI for user to locate CarPool Partner.

4) Lack of incentive to do so, let's admit that, people are motivated when awarded by something.


So how can Google help?
Well, if Google do roll out a CarPool Portal, we already iron out our first problem, and if Google adopt my second idea, we solve our fourth problems. Thus, we only needs to deliver a fairly easy to use CarPool Portal to solve problems 2 and 3.

Here's my vision of Google CarPool Portal:
1. Upon login to Google CarPool Portal, user could post one or many CarPool adv, specifying travel origin, and destination using Google Earth/Google Map, where user could specify the location up to street address, or select buildings (such as office building) from Google Earth/Map. User could also entered their prefer travel time slot (e.g From 7-7.30am), and repeat of the travel (e.g Everyday excepts Weekends, once only).

2. Google will attempt to find closer match per CarPool adv, and will present user a list of adv that matches user's CarPool criteria. User could sort the list by origin, destination and travel time slot. User will get notify via Gmail on every new match found when they are not online.

3. While browsing the CarPool match list, if the match adv owner is online, user could chat (via Google Chat) to the owner to seal the deal. Else, user will have to send a private message to the adv owner, and schedule a time to discuss the CarPool adv

4. User and adv owner identity are protected throughout the conversation. The only way for user to communicate with adv owner is via private messages, and online chat from CarPool portal. Is up to the user, and adv owner when is best time to reveal their identity.

5. Once both parties agree to seal to deal, the adv will close. User and adv owner have the option to claim Google Earth points from the Car portal. Also, for security reason, user could opt on telling the portal when the CarPool going to start, who is driving, the Car Plate number, identity of both parties. This is to protect user in case of any unwanted accidents.

6. There is a forum for users to post FAQ, success stories, experiences, and etc.

7. There is also a running counter from Google CarPool Portal main page showing how many Carpools adv being seals, how many petrol has been save, and most importantly, how many CO2 is save from emitted to the air.

So, what do u think? do share me your thoughts on the comments page, stay tune for my next idea.

PS: As always, if anyone (perhaps Yahoo Inc.) find these ideas interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.

Ideas to Google (Part II) - Saving Our Mother Earth

This is the second part of a series of articles to impress Google, if you are a Google employee and reading this could you please forward this to your Recruiter, thanks.

My second idea is to make our Mother Earth a better place to live. We can't deny that our environment has change dynamically in past few years, the temperature is increasingly hotter each year, CO2 is rising, and there is more frequent floods, typhoons and thunder storms almost everywhere. Seriously, if we don't do anything now, things will get worst, and our children may be victims to this global warming phenonmenal. We need to do something and should Google take the initiative to step in to help and create an awareness (I think they should ....)?

Here I would like to introduce Google Earth Points...

FAQ
1. What is Google Earth Points
Google Earth Points is a points reward system for individual who have take extra effort and making our earth greener, and help slowing down Global Warming effect, thus everyone has better place to live.

2. What can one do with Google Earth Points
Well, a lot, Google earth points can be use to redeem any non free Google services, for example, we could redeem 100,000 Google Earth Points per 100 MB Gmail storage, or redeem 10,000 points to download a mobile application from Google partner, or increase photos upload limit, and etc.


3. How can one earn Google Earth Points
I have a lot of ideas how one can earn Google earth points but in general it could break down to the following categories:

By Personal Pledge
One will pledge how he/she is going to help to save our mother earth on Google Earth Portal (by submitting a youtube video), and the pledge must be verifiable by third party with upload video showings the promise be carry out. Google Earth Portal then will calculate Google earth points base on the pledge, and award points accordingly.

Here are some of the example:
-One could pledge to cycle to work at least one day a week to his office. His office is about 10KM away from his home, thus in a way, thus save X amount of CO2 emitted to the air, and Google Earth Points is the awarded base on X amount of CO2 emitted he save per week

-One family could pledge they will plants 4 trees at their backyard, now 4 trees will recycle X amount of CO2, and thus, they will get certain number of Google Earth Points.

-One lady pledge she will carpool with her friend.


By summiting cool ideas on saving Earth resources to Google Earth Portal
Anyone could summit cool ideas on how we could save our limited earth resources like how our electric, water, petrol usages to Google Earth Portal, a monthly competition will be carried out to all of us to vote the most coolest idea, and Google Earth Points will then be awarded base on the ranking.


From Consumer Product Vendor
Google could partner with any Consumer product vendor that produce "Greener" product (which needs to certify by some environmental control body, like organic vegetables, non chemical detergent, energy saver computer, and etc), and to give away a number Google Earth points when we purchase those product.

Why Google Earth Points
Most of time, average people (me included) do aware the environmental issue, and we do sometime put in our effort on making this earth a better place to live, but there is still more we could do..

For example, in my previous company, I know 3 of my colleague are staying nearby, but it never come to our mind of car pooling, even though the petrol price is expansive that time. I never planted a single tree in my life, I take my car out for breakfast even is just 5 minutes walk from where I stay..

Thus, with Google earth points, I am hoping this service will start cultivate people habit of doing their part on saving our mother earth.. including myself, as people love accumulate points, and get awarded, isn't it.


So, what do u think? do share me your thoughts on the comments page, stay tune for my next idea

PS: If anyone (perhaps Yahoo Inc.) finds these ideas interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.

Google Please Hire Me (Ideas to Google)

I always wanted to work at Google so that I can bring my dog to work, enjoy yummy yummy meals and work with all the cool people at Google. Given my current status:
- A 35 years old bored software development manager and performing mostly boring management stuff.
- Technically strong but yet I believe I am not as good as most of Google staff.
- Does not hold any working permit for US/India/China

Thus, the chance Google granting me an interview is very, very slim, :-(

Thus, instead of going via the normal route of applying a job at Google (i.e upload my resume to Google jobs portal and throwing my CV into giant black hole), I will try another route.

Starting from today and for every two weeks, I will try to post some of my crazy ideas to Google in my Blog. Hopefully, Google HR will one day notice my creativity and call me for an interview. Wish me luck.

My first idea to Google is "Google Mobile Phone Address Book" service.


Summary:
Google mobile phone address book services comprise of the following modules:

1. A web portal for user to manage their contacts
2. A mobile application for user to upload and sync contacts to Google mobile phone address book portal

Why:

1. Each phone vendor uses native address book format so there isn't an easy way to migrate our address book from our vendor to another (When you are switching phone, or lost your phone).
2. It is difficult for user to backup their address book.

Propose Features:

1. The propose web portal will understand address book format from different vendor and provide data conversion service.
2. User could login to the web portal to manage their contact (insert, delete, update)
3. User could download a customzied mobile app from the web portal that allow them to sync/update their contact to the address book portal.
4. If user change to a new phone, he/she could download the mobile app for the new phone and request full address book download from the web portal. Web portal will automatically convert to address book data format
5. Integrated with Gmail, user could send SMS to his/her contact using gmail interface.

That's all for now. Stay tune for my next crazy idea.

PS: If anyone finds this interesting and wants to further build up those ideas, do drop me an email.