Author Archives: Reinaldo (old posts)

In memory of Mustafa ‘John’ Ilhan

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Image copied from crazyjohns.com

John Ilhan was a late Australian entrepreneur. He was born in Turkey in 1965 and passed away on 23 October 2007. In his 42 years of living  he left his city [Melbourne] and community in a better state than which he found it.

What he was most known for were his mobile phone stores – that made the once luxury item, accessible to the wider public. His desire was for everybody to one day own a mobile phone. He had to take on many rivals, obstacles and giants – to achieve this – but in the end he prevailed at playing the game his way and always  achieving a win-win for the customer and his business.

This article expresses the impact John Ilhan has had on me, a young person and a son of migrants to Australia. I also hope to educate my friends and any readers of who John Ilhan was and why his life is important for all Australians to learn from.

I first heard the news of John Ilhan’s death while working at a desk job when the radio announced the event at around lunch time. At that time, I wasn’t very aware of who he was however, it made me feel for his family to lose this man at such a young age. I live in Canberra so Crazy John’s was more famous from the advertising at sporting events than his local stores (there are only two in Canberra). I remember telling the news to a co-worker who knew more about him as she had seen an interview about him on the programme ‘compass’ on the ABC. I felt eager to find out more and went on the internet to get a view of him on google images. I had recognized the face from a show about businessmen and entrepreneurs (it was Catalyst on ABC). It was at that point that I started to discover more about this ‘crazy John’. Continue reading →

Social Networking for Musicians

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Creating an Online Internet Profile (OIP)

For a music band that isn’t connected to a record label, OIP is vital.

The notion that alternative music need not use social networking tools because of pop fads or trends is now outdated. Whether you produce folk music, death hip-hop or political punk rock or even opera, a credible internet presence can do nothing else than enhance your reputation.

Currently the internet is an inexpensive medium that reaches a mass audience of distinct ages and demographics. Being accessible to distant fans can take your success higher than what was possible ten years ago, and this is possible without much budget spent on advertising. Now let’s look at the tools available.

Social Media

The above concept has changed the way we view networking and even critics cannot play down the influence and significance of this trend called web 2.0.

There are more than enough useful applications to use on the internet. While it is advisable to have several appearances or entrance points online, it isn’t necessary to use every one available as maintenance becomes time consuming. It’s best to stick with the most common ones as the audiences there are larger. Now let’s investigate the crucial applications you need to have to create that mass following. Continue reading →

Selling Disaster Recovery Planning and Information Security to Managers

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One of the most difficult aspects for IT professionals is gaining support for IT spending. Executives are skeptical about IT solutions and are very reluctant to release any funds.

This article will focus on the difficulty encountered when trying to sell information security projects and Disaster Recovery Plan projects to business managers or financial officers.

Why is it that so many managers view IT as an additional component of their business operations?

I can suggest a few possible reasons:

  • Bad experiences in the past
  • IT is viewed as a liability instead of an asset
  • Lack of knowledge, complexity, technical language, all intimidate people from becoming IT fluent and aware
  • Inability to perceive the Return On Investment  of any IT-related project
  • Misconceptions about the reality of their current IT situation and state of the organisation
  • Lack of planning. No IT strategy, No roadmap
  • Business plan does not factor in any IT elements or spending

The reality is this. There are two ways to spend money on IT.

  1. You can undertake planned spending OR
  2. You can undertake un-planned spending.

Do you want to allocate $0 to an IT budget forecast and pay as you go along?

Sure, make inaccurate predictions for the next fiscal year that look impressive and then bleed funds from the company’s bank account during the year as incident behind incident occurs.

At the start of the year, your predictions look healthy. The balance sheet is in your favour and you have the extra money to buy more assets. During the year, IT costs go from $0 to $10 000 – sometimes overnight – to cater for your unprecedented incidents or minor disruptions. At the end of the year, 5 disruptions later and $20 000 afterward…you’ve moved from point A to? Continue reading →