Thursday, April 29, 2010

Reckoning of the Blue Ocean Part II


Following my previous post of "Have you found your Blue Ocean yet?" this post shows some examples how it may relates to the BaZi.

The BaZi Chart below belongs to Bill Gates born on 28 October 1955, estimate time of birth at 10.00 p.m.
Bill Gates's BaZi Chart

From the chart we can deduct that, Bill Gates Useful God is Bing Fire. Bing Fire can be represents by the Fire of the Sun. One of the sun natures is it bright shining light touching every surface of the earth. The sunlight is also easily available when the sun rises every morning without fail. Look at what Bill Gates has done to Microsoft products so far. It has shipped the Microsoft Operating System to every part in the world for personal computer users as well as office users. One of Bill Gates key vision when he started the company was to have his software running at a workstation on every desk and eventually every home in the world.

Another feature of the sun is that there is only one sun in our solar system. It is a monopoly system where one can only exist. In the latest record in December 2009, Windows market share stand at 92.21% almost dominating the whole world market. If you look at the Month Pillar, where the Jia Zi Bing Xu reside represent a warrior stance. It has never been any mistake that the Microsoft under Bill Gates' leadership is always heading toward monopolization. Microsoft has been known to practice the principle of being genuine, effective and powerful by the strategy of "embracing and extending". Later Microsoft had been criticized for its business tactics with the motto of "embrace, extend and extinguish".

If your Useful God is Bing Fire, besides easily availability of your product, your marketing technique or strategy should be unique and different from others as well because there is only one sun no other replacement.

Another software giant BaZi belongs to Steve Jobs who is born on 24 February 1955 with an estimate birth time at 6.15 a.m.

Steve Jobs'a Bazi Chart

Instead of using Useful God like Bill Gates's BaZi above, I am going to use the Day Master to illustrate Steve Jobs' BaZi. Again we are looking at the Bing Fire with similar natures of Bill Gates' BaZi:
  • One of the sun natures is shining its light at every corner of the earth.
  • One sun in our solar system represents monopolization.
  • The Jia Zi Bing Chen like the Bing Xu also represents a warrior stance.
How Steve Jobs' BaZi differ from Bill Gates in term of products and goals? The Chen Dragon is the earth element that produces thousand things and its represents the Eating God Stars to Steve Jobs. On the Month Pillar in Steve Jobs' BaZi chart the Wu Earth, again the Eating God Star, appears on the Stem. This represents creativity and innovative, and it is Steve priority in his product whereas Bill Gates' BaZi shows the Wealth Star on the Stem of Month Pillar. Bill Gates' Day Master, the Ren Water, which is always reflecting the Sun show that profitability is the main concerned to Bill Gates.

The Chen Dragon also shows that Steve Jobs ability to create variety of products that range from computer hardware to software and to consumer electronics like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Why did the Apple recent products and its partnership with third party is such a success compare to Microsoft especially in term of its mobile OS collaboration of with other mobile manufacturer where Microsoft is least successful?

In Steve Jobs' BaZi, he is in the Luck Pillar of 47 which show a combination of Chen Dragon and You Rooster that form his Wealth Star. Hence you know any collaboration or partnership will be successful during this period of his life. It all started in the year of Ding Hai in 2007 following its success of iPod in 2006 where its saw sharp competition with Microsoft. Ding Hai was the year where the iPhone wave began and became popular. On 9 January 2007, Steve Jobs announced that Apple Computer, Inc. would from that point on be known as Apple Inc. at the Macworld Expo because computers are just one part of the company now. The event also saw the announcement of its iPhone launched on 29 June. The Hai Pig which contained the Ren Water was pulled in by the Yin Tiger on Month Branch as well as the Mao Rabbit on the Hour Branch and Wei Goat on the Year Branch in his BaZi Chart. The Ocean represent by the Ren Water here reflecting the rising Sun, Bing Fire.

Whereas in Bill Gates' BaZi, he is going through Luck Pillar of Geng Chen, a clashed on the Stem and Branch of the Month Pillar of Bing Xu. This is an indication of many obstructions to his work and products during this period of his life. Bill Gates's also at this point using the Bing Fire and Wu Earth element, where he is trying to establish himself philanthropist. Bing Fire is also known for its generosity. This partially has salvaged some bad images that hit Microsoft lately.

Bill Gates & Steve Jobs

George Lucas is born on 14 May 1944, an estimate time of birth at 5.40 a.m. Thanks to his Day Master of Wu Earth, his Star Wars has made a long lasting impression on everyone. On my earlier post, Wu Earth need to promote on it iconic image and loyalty. This was what George Lucas created with his Star Wars, loyalty that lasted for decades.

George Lucas's Bazi Chart

Star Wars was released on 25 May 1977 by 20th Century Fox. No one was expecting this low budget movie to be a hit. By looking at George Lucas' BaZi Chart, you know that it was not an easy feat to pull off. The Shen Monkey did combine with the Si Snake to form wealth and on the Stem, the Ocean reflected the Sun light of the Bing Fire, an indication that during this period of his life his creative and innovative ideas and works will be recognize and became popular in the industry. At the same time, the Shen Monkey also clashed with the Yin Tiger indicating that he had faced many rejections and scarified many things.

George Lucas

In 1971, Universal Studios agreed to make George Lucas' films American Graffiti and Star Wars but Star Wars was rejected at an earlier conception stage. It was only because Alan Ladd, Jr. at Fox Studios liked American Graffiti that he forced through a production and distribution deal for the film. Lucas waived his up-front fee as director and negotiated to own the licensing rights—rights which the studio thought were nearly worthless because no one would have know the success of Star Wars was not just in the film industry but it also hit the street of the younger generation who love the Star Wars' games, toys and collectibles. This decision earned George Lucas hundreds of millions of dollars, as he was able to directly profit from all the licensed created for the franchise. It was also because of the success of Star Wars, Century Fox was saved from its financial difficulty.

Where Bing Fire industry is concerned like the IT and film industries, the present of Ren Water is important. They bring out the best of each other and capture the attention of people just like the picture below.

Sparkling Sea

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Year of Metal Tiger, Geng Yin

Earth Day 2010
A quick reflection on what is happening to the world. Just a quarter over the year, the ferocious Metal Tiger shows it wrath. The battle of Metal and Wood (Heavenly Stem crashes on the Earthly Branches) is a great one indeed. Nope! This Tiger is not the kitty cat you all saw during the Chinese New Year cards or banners.

A recap of what has happened in the world so far when the tough ox year end and the fierce tiger take over:

Natural Disaster and Accident

12 January
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake slammed into Haiti at 5 p.m. It was the most powerful one in a century.

24 January
An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed with 90 people aboard.

19 February    
A 400-year-old minaret collapsed Friday on worshipers in Meknes, Morocco, killing 36.

20 February    
The Madeira floods and mudslides were the result of an extreme weather event that affected Madeira Island in Portugal.

27 February
A massive earthquake measure at 8.8 magnitude hit Chile at 3.34 a.m.

28 February
A winter storm named "Xynthia" battered the western coast of Europe Sunday, its high winds downing trees and power lines and leaving as many as 55 people dead.

22 March
Hail storm hits Perth, Australia causing massive power outages, flooding, and mudslides.

26 March
South Korean navy ship sinks near sea border with North. At least 40 sailors are missing.

06 April
After the most torrential rain for decades caused landslides and flooding at Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro.

9 April
President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior Polish figures have been killed in a plane crash in Russia.

13 April
An earthquake with magnitude of 6.9 hit Jiegu, China at 8 a.m.

17 April
Volcano grip on Europe's airspace. The volcano eruption began March 20 beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in southern Iceland, blowing a hole in the ice. It worsened this week, forcing local evacuations and eventually affecting European airspace.

Volcano Eruption in Europe

20 April
A magnitude of 5.2 earthquake hits Western Australia at 8.17 a.m.

Note that there is hardly water element in the year 2010 Chart below. Then why is there heavy rain that cause flood, hail storm and winter storm still affect the Tiger year? You may say that the effect of the Ox year which belong to the winter stage still exert it presents early of the Tiger year as the Qi takes time to slow die off. Another attribute is that the Tiger year which represents the early spring actually contains water. This theory greatly believed and advocate by my friend, Ailing. The explanation goes that as the ice during the winter starts melting into water during early spring that is on the Tiger month or year. Hence, the strong water Qi is present especially in the month and year of Tiger.

BaZi Chart For Geng Yin

Business

08 February
Toyota recalled thousands of Prius cars.

21 February
4,000 pilots of German airline Lufthansa had gone on strike for four days in a dispute over job security.

20 March
British Airway's cabin crew on strike due to downsizing.

22 March
Google stops censoring search results in China.

21 April
Goldman Sachs faces a lawsuit that accused Goldman of bundling bad mortgage securities to clients, in the knowledge that another client, hedge fund manager John Paulson, would bet against these toxic assets by shorting them.

Apple soars with 90% increase in profits.

Apple products

Political

13 January
Google reports China-based attack evidently to gain access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, says pullout possible.

23 February
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has signed a framework ceasefire deal with one of Darfur's main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem).

25 February
Afghan flag was raised over the battle-scarred enclave of Marjah, a ceremony symbolizing the presence of the Afghan government in the Taliban stronghold.

03 March
Greece debt and budget crisis had caused strike across public sector.

09 March
Israel has announced the building of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, in a move that threatens to overshadow US Vice-President Joe Biden's visit. The move has also angered Palestinians.

20 March
Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal goes global.

22 March
U.S. passed a new healthcare bill.

29 March
Moscow's subway attacks by terrorists.

07 April
Political unrest and uprising in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Prime Minister, Abhisit, declared state of emergency in Thailand.

9 April
President Lech Kaczynski and scores of other senior Polish figures have been killed in a plane crash in Russia.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Hey! Lets Party…


Are you free? You are cordially invited to My Birthday Virtual Party on 22 May from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.(GMT+8.00) Kuala Lumpur, Singapore.

What to expect and bring along?

You can bring a backlink to my blog here and also my another blog, Gem of Intuition.

Chit chat with me at MSN Messenger from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. [Messenger Address: bazichic@gmail.com]. Ask any questions you like. Yeah! Any question. Free of charge.

Yep! Since there is a FU YIN on my Month Pillar might as well. Yeah! You can bash me up all you like. Fill in the comments of your likes and dislikes of my blogs. For a starter let me help you with a few; 
Hmm! I hate it when you didn't update your blog regularly.
Hey! You were supposed to update Weekly Update on weekly basis on every Monday. WHAT HaPPen?
Gee! You are running a BRA Ad. Thought this supposed to be a BaZi blog.
[Sorry guy! There is a RM2,000 cash to be won]
I'm sick and tired when you blog about shopaholic self. Don't you have any better to do? [Do you have to remind me? Ceh! :-P]

Drop in some suggestions on what you like to read on this blog too. Your suggestions and ideas are greatly appreciated.

For your information, because of the FU YIN I will NOT be accepting any consultation during the month of May starting from 5 May to 6 June.

Cheers! See you all on 22 May.
Josephine

Love World Love Sloggi




Josephine

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Have you found your Blue Ocean yet? Part I

Before everyone gets paranoia, I just want to clarify that everyone and every business can have their own marketing plan or strategy without relating it to their own BaZi. This post is for the small businesses, sole-proprietors and freelancers who have little or no budget to run a mega marketing plan with money to splash in advertisement, branding or packaging their products and services. Big corporation and business have the capacity to employ the experts to do the research and planning to ensure that their products and services capture the right market as well as the distribution of the products runs smoothly. Yes, marketing and distribution of a business's products and services run hand in hand. In fact it is part of the whole business strategy of a company.

Usually smaller businesses, sole-proprietorships and freelancers offer their speciality on products and services that are unique. It is very hard for them to draw the fine line to separate their business from themselves. Their existence is very important for the business to go on. If you fit into this category you may want to refer to your BaZi as a guide to where you should concentrate your limited resources for your marketing strategy.

There are few methods which I feel can be used in the study of five elements and Ten Gods in BaZi that can guide the small business owner on the marketing strategy that they can undertake. Marketing and distribution strategy open up opportunities, i.e. new market, increase in market shares and good name, for your products and services. Where opportunity is concern, it can relate to the one's Useful God. Another method is to find the element in your children palace. The children palace also represents your output palace and, hence, it is also your products and services. You also can use your Day Master as a referencing point in determining your marketing strategy too.

Once you know the elements of the above components (Useful God, Output Palace and Day Master) you can choose either one for your marketing plan. Of course, the Useful God is our first choice. If you can use all the three components together it would be even better.

The following are the elements in relation to the marketing counterpart. Besides the elements, the Ten Gods can also be used in interpreting the marketing strategy that you can carry out.

The wood element is about networking especially for Yi Wood. There are a lot of small businesses depends on word of mouths to market their products and services. Even big corporations adopt this strategy by employing agents to do their sales like insurance, unit trust and multi-level-marketing agents. This enables the services to meet the people in a more personal level. It is very useful if your products and services relates or touch people life in a personal way like insurance for health purpose, unit trust for retirement and multi-level marketing where products are a daily necessity i.e. foods and toiletry. The Companion Stars, Rob Wealth and Friend Stars, can relates to this strategy as well because Companion Stars are about people matter.

While Jia Wood is also about networking, it is slightly different from Yi Wood. Jia Wood is about branching out. It associates with distribution of the products and services to reach their customers at the ground level. It gives a feeling of public and business like term. For example the banks have many branches across the country as well as in the world. Or like McDonald and KFC have their franchises all over the world.

The Fire element is always related to media advertising like the radio and TV commercial that's always run at the peak hour (where its irritates everyone because commercial period is too long). All these are big budget marketing, smaller businesses hardly have the kind of money to run that kind of promotion. This type of marketing has the Bing Fire feature. Although in some of the advertisement, the ideas and stories line may contain some other elements in it. For example, the Digi's Yellow Man with the line "I will FOLLOW you" and the 7-Up's Frizzy Hair Boy called Fido Dido created a wave for their product image. Everyone loves the advertisement. Guess what! It has the water element features. Advertisement like the PETRONAS shown during the festive seasons usually run the ideas of patriotism has the Geng Metal element.

Bing Fire like Sun shines on to every part of the world. This relates very much to the Sun newspaper where they offer their newspaper to the people for free. You can find the newspaper at every corner or at three foot way on the street. This is the Sun quality, easily available and it is free too.


Besides the Bing Fire, running a marketing strategy, with the Ding Fire element is more economical. Ding Fire features are about showing people the way, guiding them and also educating them. Hence, giving information is part of the Ding Fire natures. Likewise, the Gui Water and Ji Earth can also adopt this strategy. These two elements is about nurturing others, being resourceful and creative. Blogging is part of this elements as marketing strategy which is quite popular nowadays. If you have read the article written by Joey Yap "Braving the new world" you will know the Jia Zi for blogging is Gui Wei which contains exactly the three elements of Gui Water, Ji Earth and Ding Fire with an additional of Yi Wood, which is networking at personal level.

Besides blogging, distributing flyers that give information of your products and services, and advertisement in the newspaper which has a short article of your products and services also fall into these three elements.

Likewise, contributing articles to the newspaper or giving talk on the radio station like what Joey Yap has done and now follow David Koh about Chinese Metaphysics is also part of the marketing strategy that falls under giving information which is related to the Gui Water, Ding Fire, Ji Earth and Yi Wood. Information, research and education relates to your Resource Star.

Where Wu Earth, Geng Metal and Xin Metal are concerned, branding and creating a good name for your product and services are important. Wu Earth and the metal elements natures are being loyal and trustworthy as well as about doing the right thing. Ensuring your products that are safe to use especially in the foods industry is very important and, hence, the Wu Earth and Geng Metal plays an important role. Wu Earth and Geng Metal is also part of the elements that offer protection and security.

The features mentioned above also relates to the Influence Stars that are the Direct Officer and Seven Killings.

Milo which is one of Nestle products has created a powerful brand image. Even if you go anywhere, you will notice that people from younger to older generation refer to chocolate and cocoa beverages as Milo. The brand loyalty is so strong that it has replaced the name of the ingredient that makes Milo with "Milo" itself.

To site a recent case, Toyota, one of the famous Japanese car manufacturing, has recalled many models of their cars thus making huge losses. There were many controversial in the company regarding the recall but what is important here is to ensure that the company image to manufacture quality and safe cars is intact. The message is "No customer safety will be compromised". Therefore, Wu Earth and Geng Metal qualities win through. Although the current situation may not be favourable to Toyota but rest assures the current recall will fortify and assures their customers that Toyota's cars are of the top qualities.

Many of the big corporation will not hesitate to recall their faulty products if necessary because if they do not do so, the brand they have created will lose out. Recent scare of melamine case had made many diary companies recalled their products as well.

Another good example is the Lee Kam Kee's Oyster Sauce which at one time used to be very famous household products. However in June 2001, Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) singled out various brands of Chinese and SouthEast Asian sauces and Lee Kum Kee products with known carcinogens 3-MCPD and 1,3-DCP contamination at levels hundreds of times higher than those deemed safe by the UK and European Union. In July 2001, FSA issued another statement clearing Lee Kum Kee's name after the company produced laboratory certificates from accredited, reputable laboratories. These certificates shows that Lee Kum Kee products now comply with the proposed EU limit for 3-MCPD but 1,3-DCP has no standard to meet. Although, the company has take the necessary stepped but the scare of contamination had caused a huge dent on Lee Kam Kee's image as well as the brand itself.

Where creating a brand name is concerned, the two important features to create are trust and safety.

There are other products and services that create the brand name by creating the feel good image. It uses a lot of beautiful packaging and stylish imaging. These features relate to Xin Metal. High end fashion, watches and car uses this strategy to market their products. The companies of these products appoint an ambassador to promote their products by showing-off their stylishness. Those ambassadors are usually the famous models and public figures.

Besides engaging a famous ambassador to promote your products, you can also package your products with nice qualities material whereby it give an image of higher value and quality. This is what Xin Metal does, to execute a quality icon.

What can cause a wave? The Ren Water element, the ocean is the wave. Ren Water always associates with mystery, intelligent, innovative and creativeness.

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne come up with the "Blue Ocean Strategy". Blue Ocean Strategy is a business strategy that creates new demand in an uncontested market space then by competing head-to-head with other suppliers for known customers in an existing industry. I am not sure how far the "Blue Ocean Strategy" relates to the Ren Water element as I have yet to read the book but the first key concept of the strategy is about value innovation which is also a feature of Ren Water.

There are a few products and services that are causing new waves at the moment. They are the Apple products i.e. iPod, iPhone and iPad, facebook and twitter. These are all innovative products.

The dot.com industry during the year 2000 is also a wave. It is about a spirit of entrepreneurship at that time that made everyone want to be part of it without logical and rational behind the whole scheme.

Imagine! "The surfer dudes who run into the ocean with high waves on their fragile surfing board". Some people may think this is madness but this is the beauty of the mysterious ocean, the Ren Water, that call on to you.

George Lucas, the famous film producer, was able to create this wave with his film, Star Wars (A New Hope in 1977, The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Return of The Jedi in 1983). Every child then wanted a piece of the Star Wars toys. The Star War wave is so strong that even his latest three episodes of the movie flopped; it does not affect the image of Star War in the people's mind much. Star Wars is still one piece of a great movie.

My brother has a good numbers of the Star Wars toys collection till now. You know what? He does not even let his son touch it. I think he is crazy when it come to Star Wars. I cannot really comprehend with his obsession on the Star Wars' stuff. How about you guys out there?

There are also famous singers who created wave of people to attend their concerts like Michael Jackson, Beetles, Bon Jovi and Elvis Presley. People mindlessly love the performance.

There are also lesser waves where little or no innovation involved. This little wave may have some relation to Gui Water element. McDonald created a few in Malaysia with the "Hello Kitty" and "Snoopy" toys. Do you still remember the amount of people queuing for the "Hello Kitty"? Can you tell me why it is so important to have one of those "Hello Kitty" now? I bet nobody know or remember.


Josephine





To be continue…