NU12 # 1 - Kevin Toledo Sentrep

NU12 # 1: New attitude / Paradigm – Kevin Toledo

Defeating Procrastination and Poor Time Management.

Procrastination and poor time management. Those two are the waterloos of my personality. I tend to procrastinate things where "manyana habit" is very evident in me. I really do not know why I tend to do that, but it is really frustrating in the end on how I will manage time to finish different tasks in a very short/little time always left for me to work on those different stuff. Maybe its because I tend to underestimate things where I become too arrogant to think that I can do things and work things out easily, that in the end I tend to lose track of this tasks and always find myself with a limited time to finish a task and thereby sacrificing to provide the best quality that I can give . I must admit, it is a very bad habit that I must change, that I must adopt the new attitude of immediately working  on every task given to me or I am required to do in order to provide quality outputs ahead of time. To start, I would now take down notes on a specific note book for MBA class and at the same time try to have an organizer in order to better manage my schedules.   3

NU12 #2: New Spending Habits / Routine – Kevin Toledo

I'm the person who will not spend in different accessories or clothes unless I really need it. I am also not an impulsive buyer. But I just noticed that although I spend only out of necessity, I still spend a lot on food and transportation. From now on, I'll be budgeting what I spend in food in a day and in transportation. For food, I will bring packed lunch instead, and in transportation, I will not ride a taxi/cab anymore, and or put it in the last option, instead. The savings I generate from it will all be put to investment, most probably in stocks or in fixed income type of investment, as I follow the idea that investment=savings.

NU12 #3: Professionalism – new work, methods, practices – Kevin Toledo

- I have been working with a Japanese firm for almost 2 years now, and I could say that I have learned a lot in terms of professionalism. Following are the lists of practices I have learned in my current job terms of professionalism:

* Being sure all the time. Never assume.  

* Asking why 5 times – When reporting my boss, full knowledge of a certain matter is very important where we have been thought to think naturally by asking "why 5 times" in able to know all underlying reasons/factors why such an incident happened.  

* Working as a team – this is normal in a Japanese firm. Although, there are persons-in-charge (PICs) for every business our division handles, knowledge of what each PICs are doing/handling is a must, and when one is facing a problem, he/she can always ask for support from his/her team in solving such problem, more so from our boss. Whenever one faces a serious problem in business, it is a concern of the whole team and not just by the PIC.

* Accountability – We were trained to think that as if we own the businesses we are handling, where accountability and responsibility to it is embedded to us, PICs are accountable to our GM to whatever happens in the business we handle. Same goes for our boss, that he is accountable to our Branch GM in whatever happens to the businesses our division handles.      

* It is important that you know how to socialize and entertain clients/customers. Businesses are always build upon relationship, in order to do so, one must know how to entertain clients/potential business partners. Knowledge of good restaurants of where to treat clients is important. As my boss always says "Eating and drinking is very important in doing business".

NU12 #4: New processes at work, study  - Kevin M. Toledo

* Contacts database

In doing business, you meet a lot of people and over time, you accumulate business cards. And honestly, I have been a having problem in managing these accumulated business cards, even with the use of different filing system such as using albums or a business card box with alphabetical partitions. With this, I initiated of creating a contacts database for our team. It is just in Excel file where each of our team members can access it and update it in our shared folders in our computer. Since then, it has been easier for us to find contact details of a certain person/company we met.  

* Business Continuity Kit

Whenever one quits his or her job or one has a new assignment overseas that requires for him to transfer to someone the business he/she is handling, I noticed that it really takes time for such transfer of knowledge or for training another person to handle a business. So, internally, I proposed to our team that in order to make business transfers easier, it is better that we record details of every business we handle. Details such us on how it is done, who our contacts are, what do we do or who to contact in every situation/aspect of a particular business, as well as updates of what is happening in that particular business. With such, it will be easier for the new party to learn the job, and easier for the former person-in-charge to transfer handling of a particular business.      

New12 #5: New products / product improvements – Kevin Toledo

·         Electric Bill Manager

I have been noticing that the major cause of high electricity consumption is poor management of electric devices in a household, wherein there are times that these electric devices are left open and running for whole day. To address it, I have thought to invent an electric bill manager device. This device is actually an equipment timer add-on. It can be installed per plug per device or in the electricity main panel board where it can be programmed to run for how much time you want to run it or when you want to run it. It also already gives you a computation through its small screen of how much electricity you will consume on a certain timer setting. This is packed with a software wherein you could actually monitor and project electricity consumption of your household.

                                                                             
NU12 #6: New business ideas – Kevin Toledo

-       One-stop pulutan

-       Mobile mechanics – home service

-       Home service car wash

NU12 #7: Serendipity walk – take a walk along a busy street near you. List down as many business opportunities you can think of. Just list down. – Kevin Toledo

Serendipity Walk at Pablo Ocampo (Vito Cruz, near St. Scholastic's College)

Vito Cruz is a very busy street where a lot of establishments are located such as fast food restaurants, print shops,  internet café's, laundry shops, grocery, 24-hour convenience store. Most of these establishments cater to the student populations of the schools situated in the area (St. Scholastica's College & DLSU). But still as I take the serendipity walk, I realized that establishments such as the following that I listed down must also be created, as Vito Cruz area is not just populated by students, but families as well. It has residential areas where the following establishments I listed down must be addressed.    

-   Pet grooming center

-   Veterinary Clinic

-   One-stop Pulutan station

-    Bakery

-   Pharmaceutical Drug Store

NU12 #8: What pisses you off at the mall? What do you suggest? – Kevin Toledo

Open escalators

For safety reasons, I have been pissed off on how mall developers and owners have been failing to consider enough safety measures in putting up escalators, considering that most mall goers are families with kids. Personally, I think that there should be some sort of polycarbonate/glass enclosure in the escalator railings to prevent accidents of falling from it. Further, signs of "watch for your head" is not enough in certain escalator placements. It cannot 100% assure that putting such precautions/signs would prevent a certain accident from happening. By putting up these glass/polycarbonate enclosures, it will surely eliminate possibility of a person riding it from getting its neck broken.    

NU12 #9: What pisses you off at the neighborhood? What do you suggest? – Kevin Toledo

Riding in tandem snatchers/hold-uppers

Safety and security has never been guaranteed in the Philippines, and many have been victims of crimes such as kidnapping, hold-ups, snatching, etc. This time, most common is the riding in tandem schemes of snatching and hold-ups. This has been a problem in our neighborhood for quite a time already, and even if it is being reported to the police authorities, no sustainable solutions have been provided. Even our "barangay tanods" cannot solve it and is threatened as well. This really pisses me off. And the solution I can think off is an automatic blocking mechanism in every street-end in order to easier catch these riding in tandems. These mechanisms have proximity sensors strategically located in the streets and  are designed to be activated by barangay tanods remotely whenever a snatching incident is witnessed. The mechanism will work in such a manner that the motorcycle that is used by these snatchers will be automatically detected by the proximity sensors and be surprised by these blocking mechanism thereby throwing them off from the motorcycle and immobilizing them for a few minutes.These blocking mechanisms are of course designed to alarm the people in the neighborhood that there is an on-going crime incident. Also, this mechanism is designed to alarm the nearest police station with a guarantee that police help will come in just 2-mins.     

NU12 #10: What pisses you off in your office/ What do you think must be done? - Kevin Toledo

Time consuming Biometric Finger Print logi-n-log-out System

This year, our office adopted biometrics system in replacement of the manual time-in and time-out system. This system was adopted for efficiency of getting time records and for safety purposes. I really support the idea as it should indeed provide efficiency and record better data. However, it did not really provide efficiency and it pisses me off where the finger scanning really takes time before it could identify the employee's finger print. There are also times that these finger print scanner would actually fail to recognize finger prints. Further, whenever a group of people logs in or out at the same time, it would always create a queue and before the last person could log in his/her finger print, minutes has already passed, so as back-up the guard still manually logs the time-in and time out of the employees.

The problem lies with the system provider where the software being used to identify our (employees) finger prints really takes time.  This doesn't justify the cost of availing the service and the technology. As a solution, I recommend that the system and technology provider must upgrade whatever software it uses in order to improve its finger scanning process.   

NU12 #11: What pisses you off at AGSB? What must be done? – Kevin Toledo

Limited availability of electric plugs around the campus. 

Whenever I needed to charge my mobile phone or laptop, it pisses me off that it is really difficult for me to find electric plugs I can use to recharge electronic devices. These should be addressed, as providing extra plugs should not be costly. 

Poor and Inefficient Internet Access

It pisses me off to think that the AGSB Rockwell campus cannot provide a decent internet connection to its students. Aside from the poor internet connection, it has limited wi-fi spots  and accessibility. Internet connection was very difficult during our Infote Class wherein we had to attend class online most especially if we will be asked to report on a particular date, the group would always resort to pay for internet access outside the campus and or just avail free internet access of some coffee shops. With such, AGSB must address this by providing more wi-fi spots within the campus as well as upgrading to a higher internet connection type. 

NU12 #12: Business opportunities you can think of. Just list down. – Kevin Toledo

- Organic fastfood restaurant in DLSU area

- Siomai Stand in GT Tower's food court

- On-call Automotive Mechanics

- To-Go Coffee Stall in Ayala

- To-Go Sandwich Stand in Ayala

- Home Service Car-Wash

- On-call House Help Services

Best regards,

Kevin