We hope you weren’t in a big rush to outfit your household with devices that use Apple’s HomeKit automation technology — you may be waiting a little while. Recode tipsters claim that Apple started certifying HomeKit gear later than it wanted, pushin…
This is part of the #CareerAdvice series – featuring successful professionals who share their advice to people who would want to take their career to the next level.
What’s the main formula for career growth and advancement? While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula, Faizolhardi Zubairy, Head the Digital Media at PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad, shares how his journey from Information Technology to eventually digital marketing has been the results of him constantly stretching his limits and the importance of learning soft skills.
Faizolhardi Zubairy, Head of Digital Media at PETRONAS Dagangan Berhad
Can you tell us a bit about how you started your career? What are some of your best moments in your professional life?
I was an IT graduate and my passion has always been the Internet. I started off as an intern and my primary role was as a web programmer. Then I slowly ventured into different aspects of IT world such as networking, IT service management and the likes.
I was lucky to have had good mentors and the opportunities to explore and learn from the team. From the onset, it was never about the job, title or salary. It’s about feeding my passion and hunger to learn and connect with the subject matter experts in their respective fields.
One of the best moments in my professional life was after the internship. I joined a visionary company, powered by a bunch of passionate people who wanted to build the first digital entertainment hub in 1999.
It was a lean set up and we had to be innovative to optimize our resources to run the show. The business didn’t take off due to lack of funding and infrastructure, but the experience and connection gained was invaluable.
This was where I fell in love with digital media.
If you could advise your 20-year-old-self today, what would you tell him?
I would have told myself to take more risks early in my career. By taking risks, you are forced to learn, whether you succeed or fail.
You need to always push yourself outside your comfort zone. Nothing changes if you are not taking risks in your career.
And when nothing changes, that is when you feel stuck and eventually you’ll lose sight of your goals and career trajectory.
By not stretching your comfort zone, you’re not exploiting the full capacity of your career growth.
What has been the most valuable advice you’ve ever gotten when you were facing challenges in your career?
Hone your soft skills. While your technical skills may get your foot in the door, your people skills will open more doors for you.
Your work ethic, attitude, communication skills, negotiation skills, emotional intelligence and leadership are the soft skills that are crucial for career success.
What would you advise the millennial just starting with their career or aiming to take their careers to the next level?
Remember that things may change as you progress through career. Your interests will evolve and so does your skills, as it will deepen over time.
Work experience will give you depth, knowledge and wisdom, which in turn helps you refine your career aspirations.
Learn more from Faizolhardi by connecting with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Enjoyed this? Watch out for the next #CareerAdvice series or share your own. Connect with me on Twitter @jonharules, LinkedIn and my blog, Digital Marketing in Asia.
As travelers, we’re always looking for places to unplug, unwind and totally disconnect from the hectic world we live in. Away from human buzz, we’re able to get in touch with ourselves while truly getting away.
So apparently, we should head to this single square inch of land in Olympic National Park — it’s known as the quietest place in America.
Back in the 80s, acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton began a mission to find the quietest places in the U.S. — armed with a tape recorder, he looked for places where he could record a whole tape’s worth of sound without one human interruption from noises like planes, voices or cars. By the early 90s, he had concluded there were less than 12 of these “quiet places” in the entire lower 48 states.
And one of them is inside Olympic National Park.
The park is on Washington’s northwest coast, draped in rainforest and stretching from wooded mountains all the way to ocean tide pools. It’s known as a majestic place for both hidden beaches and glacier hikes.
To keep this place ultra-quiet, Hempton launched One Square Inch, in which he makes extreme efforts to protect one especially quiet inch of the park, a particular spot on the forested Hoh River Trail. Hempton has put in requests to airlines, asking that they re-route planes away from this inch of land to preserve its quietness. The theory is that by protecting this single inch of space from noise pollution, he’ll end up saving large areas around it — potentially the whole park — as a result.
To get to “One Square Inch,” aka the quietest place in America, visit Olympic National Park and head to the Visitor Center at Hoh Rain Forest. Take an approximately two-hour hike among ancient ferns to a mossy log, located at precisely 47° 51.959N and 123° 52.221W. You are now in what is quite possibly the quietest place in the continental United States.
Soak up the silence.
h/t BBC Travel
Whether real or faux, leather will never steer us wrong and it will never go out of style.
This wardrobe staple, not exclusive to the jacket, can be easily integrated into your everyday outfit. There’s no better fabric to help you overcome the occasional “I have nothing to wear” syndrome — just one pop of leather can spice up your ensemble and help you channel your inner biker girl.
This week Instagram was feelin’ the leather love — from heeled booties, to leggings and sleek backpacks, our feeds just confirmed that any leather clothing item or accessory will always be cool.
Scroll down for some seriously killer looks from our favorite Instagrammers!
The hallway of a home is often easy to overlook. It’s a “transitional” space that you don’t spend much time looking at, unless you’re picking up the scattered shoes that somehow land there.
Yet, a hall has plenty of potential. For example, the empty walls make the perfect canvas for a slightly more dramatic look that might overwhelm an entire room. Or, you can squeeze in some well-chosen furnishings to bring more function. Whether you have a small space or are lucky enough to have a formal entry, these seven decor ideas might inspire you to look at those walls as canvases with great potential.
Shoes were the name of the game on our accessories of the week list with countless A-listers stepping out (pun intended) in footwear for the ages. Resident fashion girl Alexa Chung showed us how a pair of killer flats can make an otherwise neutral outfit pop, Kristen Wiig taught us that there is a way to be stylish and comfortable (they’re called sneakers) and fashion blogger Aimee Song proved that boots can be seasonless.
Below, check out the best accessories we spotted on Hollywood in the past couple of days.
Dakota Johnson’s shoes and purse
The “Fifty Shades of Grey” star took her outfit from blah to brilliant by adding a bright little red purse. We also love how she incorporated some shine with those patent loafers.
Kristen Wiig’s shoes and purse
Between those sneaks and that fringe bag, we’re in fashion heaven.
Aimee Song’s boots
Many people think that thigh-high boots only work in the winter, but pair ’em with bare legs, a mini skirt and an oversized sweater and you’ve got a great look to transition into spring.
Alexa Chung’s flats
Even when you’re wearing a simple outfit, a cool pair of shoes can elevate your look and make it one to remember.
Taylor Swift’s hat and boots
Everyone is obsessed with beanies in the winter, but Swift’s Gigi Burris Millinery wool felt topper is a chicer option that still provides some warmth. We also love how the singer opted for brown leather boots instead of a more traditional hue like black.
Not to be outdone by Dolby opening its own large-format theater, the folks at IMAX are putting one of their massive screens on a cruise ship. Yes. Really. IMAX says that not only is this an industry first, but that the screen will be three decks high…
In his State of the Union address President Obama focused on the People, those abandoned by Republican politics. The President’s prescriptions for the struggling middle class reminded me of our conversation with author and journalist Gay Talese. Mr. Talese attributed his professional inspiration to a line from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman: “Attention must be paid!” My version: “Don’t forget me!”
Whom to remember? The people who make our lives possible. The people who open the way to success. Like everyone else, I’ve been a beneficiary.
Example 1: I had tired of being a big fish at a television station that barely registered on the media scales and — with neither connections nor job offers — was off to make my way in the nation’s second largest television market. Of all those who wished me well, our timid young receptionist’s farewell made the strongest impression (no doubt because she was far more certain of my impending success that I was). “Don’t forget the ‘little people’….don’t forget me!”
Fifteen years later I’d taken a rare few days off from the business we built to indulge an aged friend (101 years aged) who lived three states away. She wanted one last visit to an isolated, old-fashioned spa she’d once loved. It turned out to be a long drive, the hotel was overbooked, and our room was at the far end of a dauntingly long and creaky old wooden-floored hall. Finally unpacking, she discovered she’d left her medications at home!
I left the decision to her. Should we drive back, foregoing the one and only weekend that this was ever going to happen? Her emphatic “No!” meant negotiating for the drugs she needed at the local village pharmacy. Completely spent, she handed me a handful of cash, her platinum credit card and keys to her Mercedes, curled up in her bed and sent me off with an amusingly ambiguous directive: “Don’t forget me!”
Last week I was on the phone with a new, but close friend. Predictable this friendship was not. While my husband and I were college students protesting the war in Vietnam, this big hulk of a tough guy was a Green Beret learning to be cynical on its killing fields. Returning home, his marriage fell apart, he took a series of exceedingly rough jobs and moved around a lot. Finally, he’d settled in northern Wisconsin where, as a child, loving grandparents had made him feel welcome. Now he made his home amidst some good people and too many gun-mad drugstore cowboys and right wing extremists of the Far North Woods.
Yet here we are. True friends. Still, he somehow felt the need to end our chat with “Don’t forget me!”
So what is the “State” of our Union? We’re in a state, all right. Attention must be paid: to our young, who have good cause to fear their future; to our old, afraid that Republicans will take their Social Security; to all of those worried about access to health care; to dark-skinned people fearing any encounter with police; to women who want the right to control their own lives … and bodies; to the rich (some of them) who want to be constructive parts of our communities. Make no mistake. What burdens them burdens all of us.
It’s deeply reassuring when our President shows how he is paying attention. Remembering. And his numbers don’t lie. Barack Obama continues to lead us away from the Great Republican Recession. It’s far past time to attend to the (growing) multitude of people and challenges reactionaries have willfully ignored, or abandoned.
So thanks be to our Founding Fathers for giving veto power to the person elected by the entire nation. Let us be a nation of good people with constructive actions, striving to live up to our ideals, caring for each other and the earth, refusing to abdicate to the cynical, giving instead of taking, knowing when enough is enough, standing up for and with all those people who have been forgotten. And continue the struggle for justice, for all.
Thank you, Mr. President. We needed that. Now we too must remember and pay attention. We’re all in this together.
You’ve probably heard the output of Avid’s Pro Tools audio production software, even if you don’t know what it’s like — it’s virtually a staple of the music industry, and spawned now-famous (or infamous) effects like Auto Tune. There hasn’t been a c…
ATHENS, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Greeks vote on Sunday in a historic election expected to bring in a government led by the leftwing Syriza party, which has promised to take on international lenders and roll back painful austerity measures imposed during years of economic crisis.
Barring a huge upset, victory for Syriza, which has led opinion polls for months, would produce the first euro zone government openly committed to canceling the austerity terms of its EU and IMF-backed bailout program.
A Syriza win would represent another turning point for Europe after last week’s announcement by the European Central Bank of a massive injection of cash into the bloc’s flagging economy after years of trying to clamp down on budgets and pushing countries to pass structural reforms.
Polls are due to open at 7.00 a.m. (0500 GMT) and are due to close at 7.00 p.m. with the first exit poll expected immediately after voting ends.
While Syriza is expected to form the biggest group in the 300-seat parliament, it is unclear if it will be able to govern alone or have to form a coalition with one or more of the smaller parties.
Final polls on Friday gave the party led by 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras a lead of up to 6.7 points with 31.2 to 33.4 percent of the vote, close to the level needed for an outright victory.
Three out of four polls showed Syriza widening the gap over the center-right New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.
After its most severe crisis since the fall of its military junta in 1974, Greece’s economy has shrunk by some 25 percent, thousands of businesses have closed, wages and pensions have been slashed and unemployment among young people is over 50 percent.
At the same time, its massive public debt has climbed from 146 percent of gross domestic product in 2010 to 175.5 percent last year, the second highest in the world.
The Greek economy last year emerged from recession for the first time in six years and unemployment has begun to come down slightly, but it may be years before the country recovers.
Tsipras’ campaign slogan “Hope is coming!” has resonated with austerity-weary voters, despite Samaras’ warnings that a Syriza government could bankrupt Greece.
“We are voting for Alexis Tsipras to put an end to this misery,” said Stavroula Gourdourou, an unemployed mother who will vote for Syriza for the first time. “Enough is enough! We won’t let them destroy our children.”
Renouncing much of the firebrand rhetoric that was once his hallmark, Tsipras has promised to keep Greece in the euro and dropped threats to “tear up” the tough requirements of its 240 billion-euro bailout.
He has promised to renegotiate a deal with the European Commission, ECB and International Monetary Fund “troika” and write off much of Greece’s 320 billion-euro debt, despite clear signs from partners including Germany that they would refuse.
At the same time, he wants to raise the minimum wage, cut power prices for low income families, cut taxes and reverse pension and public sector pay cuts.
For a factbox on how Greek elections work, please click:
NEGOTIATIONS
Financial markets have been on edge ahead of the elections, although the ECB’s massive bond-buying program and growing confidence that a Syriza-led government could compromise with its creditors boosted confidence last week.
Syriza would need around 40 percent of the vote to be guaranteed a majority but it could win with less depending on how well other parties perform.
If not, it may need to form a coalition with a small party such as the centrist To Potami, the center-left PASOK or the anti-bailout Independent Greeks or form a minority government, relying on ad hoc support from other parties.
With sky-high borrowing costs keeping Athens out of the markets, whichever government emerges will have to negotiate an extension to a Feb. 28 deadline, when Greece’s program with the euro zone expires.
Although it would keep access to IMF funding, Greece still needs support from Europe, with almost 10 billion euros in debt repayments falling due over the summer.
Samaras made some progress with reforms demanded by the troika, reducing government red tape and selling state assets. Greece also had a primary budget surplus, net of interest payments, last year. But deep-seated economic problems remain, from inefficient industries and over-powerful lobbies to widespread corruption and tax evasion.
Syriza officials have said they would seek a six-month “truce” whereby the bailout program would be put on hold while talks with creditors begin. However, they face stiff resistance from the rest of Europe, raising the specter of Greece being forced out of the euro if no agreement is reached. ($1 = 0.8923 euros) (Additional reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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