Fresh Week – Plan, Work Hard, Succeed

…I can talk to the internet and it never gets bored………..I was going to write this as an internal staff memo, but why not make it a blog entry to share with anyone who cares to read! A lot going on, so hope to get to the point and not bore everyone:

I will first talk about our current projects and work here at Shadstone:

1) new office – today my friend Kitty Lee got me in touch with a great warehouse / office space outside of Shekou, near the Shekou theatre. Its an older building, high ceilings, 2nd floor walk up – but has lots of “character” and flexibility as office / warehouse. Think it will be perfect for our shipping and ecommerce projects. Plus customers can visit to see the products and buy on the spot. I sent a list of questions to Jojo to talk to the owner about, this current lease ends in Feb, we will see what happens, not urgent but making plans.

2) looking to hire – we have a lot of work coming in for ecommerce, with loadpipe , electrapour, and other web promotion projects we need to keep the steady flow of good team members. We are mostly looking for entry to mid level website HTML people to create and maintain domains.

3) Loadpipe – I made aversion 2.0 IT plan for the programmer, and also have him reviewing the bugs / revisions on the current edition. Will bargain and discuss, hope to get some improvements on it soon. Also, seems close to getting a few more regular customers, and discussing with multiple US fulfillment centers about cooperation – Webgistix company and I have been chatting over the weekend via email too. Things getting interesting.

4) Electrapour – have the version 2.0 going to USA and UK after months of production. I have a phone call tomorrow with the New York City patent holder to give him an update. I am confident we will land some good sales and exposure, also developing a whole product line of LED bar products (glasses, ice cubes, and more) to cross promote and build value in the brand.

5) Samba Nights Bar – after talking to the restaurant owner of Gaucho, Tony, it is still in planning phase. We did do a couple parties to get a feel for what people thought. David Ho and I are talking about him taking more of a lead on this project. Just a matter of “time” vs “ROI”.

6) New york Bar Store .com – I am getting back to one of my first ecommerce projects, hoping to fix the financial crisis it is going through. Restructuring, bargaining, and re-building the whole shopping cart and processing backend. A good project, but consuming a lot of time. Believe it will help the team learn ecommerce in USA and will be a fruitful return once things are streamlined. Christmas holiday rush will be a strain though…..hold on to your butts and enjoy the ride!

7) Website promotion – we are doing a great job promoting all these projects and I am extremely pleased at how we are working as a team to get the job done. Once we get even more organized, experienced, and familiar with how everyone works, it will be even bigger and brigher future.

Now….my schedule for the next few weeks is a bit crazy….while I work all weekend, weekday, and night, I do have a real LIFE, and sadly, my grandmother (nana!) has fallen deeply ill and was rushed to the hospital late last week. My parents, and uncles are taking best care of her….but I feel I have to get over there and see how things are going.

1) Hong Kong – my university friend from New Jersey is in Hong Kong for a week or so. I am going to try to see her this Tuesday, meet her friends and family. Also want to do some banking (HSBC is giving me trouble , again!) and check up on my Hong Kong company accountant (he is too quiet….something is up, annual filing is due!)

2) Beijing – leaving this Thursday for almost a week. Scheduling some meeting s with Internet companies, mainly to discuss loadpipe and integration on the internet. Also, Jon Conte (most of the team met him when he came to Shenzhen) is finishing up his term at Beijing university, so he has a place for me to sleep & I can save on a hotel. Plus its been since Oct/Nov 2007 since I was last in Beijing. A good friend’s (Yuki Sun) birthday too. So lots of business to attend to.

3) USA – seems to be more urgent then ever (been 1.5 years since I was to United States) that my Nana (grandmother) is sick, but its due for a visit anyway. BUT I am filing my work permit….is this going to get in the way? Well first have to go to Florida to spend time with grandma….hope she gets well. Then hope to do some business, see my university and coworkers in New Jersey, New York City. then get up to Connecticut to see my high school and grade school pals. Talk business of course too, with friends and people I ahve been networking with on linkedin, facebook, twitter, and finding me through my websites. Hope to get some good business for all the projects open – especially loadpipe fulfillment and ecommerce.

Hope this keeps everyone up to date on what I am doing. Glad I made this blog years ago, as Marie Balaan says….I can talk to the internet and it never gets bored! sO I just keep on talking