Blog@Ridz.sg

Microloans – a more sustainable way to help?

Ridz — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:06:53 +0000

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
- Chinese Proverb

Each time someone comes with that donation card or tin, i’m very likely to smile and say, “No thanks.” I suppose I’m not so much of a donations person.

Why? I feel that donations result in the beneficiaries being too dependent on goodwill. And while I know there are cases where donations may be the only way for some organisations to survive because the community they serve are totally disabled, I think most can probably find a sustainable model that creates some sort of value in exchange for money. Take www.doing.gd for instance, they try to create a sustainable model whereby people inflicted with leprosy and amputees can make sandals which are then sold. This means that the lepers can earn a living and the people who part with their money do so much less because they ‘pity’ but because there’s an actual product they want to buy. Relying on goodwill is very dangerous because it could be withdrawn at any given moment leaving the beneficiaries stranded.

So for me, I choose to make a difference through microloans or microcredit(specifically Kiva). As defined by wikipedia, “Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to those in poverty designed to spur entrepreneurship” I think it’s a much better way of helping them because you lend them money to start little businesses which then generate employment for their villages and towns. It could mean that some people no longer have to work in hazardous jobs in unsafe mining operations or jobless folks don’t have to resort to begging or committing crime. And because it’s a micro-loan, the money that’s lent is usually returned(as with all loans there is a risk) and we can then re-loan it to someone else. In comparison to donations, this becomes a more sustainable way to help people out of poverty by giving them the necessary resources to be independent(and not be dependent on goodwill). Better yet, the efforts would be totally their own – their own people helping themselves which potentially gives them the confidence to tackle bigger issues in their lives and communities.

Also, statistically, microloans also have a much lower default rate as compared to traditional loans with many describing it as low as 1%. It’s interesting because there’s actually social pressure at work here. Several institutions have followed the Grameen Bank model have used the instrument of joint liability to achieve this – loans are issued to individual borrowers but a whole group of people(the village or some self-formed group) are held liable. Because of that, borrowers have a greater sense of responsibility because they must not burden their neighbours. I suppose in that sense, it’s an extension of the guarantor system most of us are accustomed to. Just imagine if your whole neighbourhood is held liable, you’d probably pay up on time so that you don’t have your neighbours getting all pissed at you.

So in the end, I feel that microloans provide so much more social mileage so long as the organisation managing the loans have proper procedures.

What do you think? Are you taking part in some form of micro-lending? If not, why?

( I have taken part in Kiva for most of this year and currently have 8 loans under my account, 5 of which have been fully repaid. You can view my page here. If you would like to start taking part in Kiva, you can also join my Lending Team where we can track our collective effort)

What is Basecamp and How I Use It

Ridz — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:22:44 +0000

Somehow these past couple of weeks have seen me having to talk to people about how I use Basecamp from 37signals quite a bit. So I thought I’d just introduce you to how I use it and why I like it.

I see a simple project management system having to do a few things:

Allows the team(with or without the client) to discuss stuff.
Tasks to be assigned and tracked
How these tasks relate to key milestones

Basecamp does all this for me well without additional features that would overwhelm the team.

It has a few key sections for each project that you create:-

Overview - A feed of the activities within a project(e.g. Someone comments on stuff, completed todo items, announcements, impending milestones, etc. )
Messages - much like a forum it allows someone to create a message and everyone else can reply to it. Useful for discussions. It sends out an email notification when a new message is created and recipients can just reply via email to add a comment to the message.
To-Dos – Self-Explanatory. You can create multiple lists and indicate which ones are related to which milestones. Once all the lists related to a particular milestone is emptied, the milestone is considered achieved.
Milestones – Self-Explanatory.
Writeboards – A simple wiki board complete with the ability to rollback to a previous state.
Chat – A Chatroom that can be made available to people outside of basecamp as well. A transcript is auto-saved so you can review it later.
Files - File storage.
( Click Here to See a tour )

With my team usually extremely descentralised(sometimes not meeting for up to a month or more), Basecamp really provides a simple framework to get things going.

We often start off a project by bouncing lots of emails and once a basic understanding is reached, I start a Basecamp project and rope in the relevant people. From there, the Milestones are mapped and simple todo lists are created.

From there, work starts and as we hit problems, we either have discussions via the message board or if it’s complex enough an issue, we’ll call for an online meeting using the chatroom. Anyone who can’t attend the meeting will be asked to review the transcript. Please note that in very complex issues, it’s still best to meet up physically so that visual models can be presented and stuff. ( I have, however, recently discovered the usefulness of skype’s screen broadcast. Great for presenting powerpoint slides remotely )

The role of the project manager here is to then keep a keen eye on the milestone.

In projects where a client is also given access to the project, he basically has access to the messaging board and can only view the todo lists and milestones(we wouldn’t want a crazy client to start assigning tasks now do we?)

Basically everything really just runs up to the milestones.
What needs to be done to achieve it? Jot down in the task lists and assign it to people and have a deadline(or not).
How to go about a certain task? Discuss either on the online chat or via a messaging system

I like Basecamp because it does these things for me remarkably well by not having all the other things in it. No meeting management tools to get used to, no sales system that I need to learn, no CRM that comes with it. (Note: 37signals has other products that can be integrated but it’s not forced on you like how some opensource tools deploy everything and overwhelm the user).

And because the client can be involved, the updating process is transparent. The need to consistently update a client is minimised because he can go and see it himself.

While Basecamp is not a free service, I think it’s totally worth paying for it. You can check it out for your team too by signing up for a paying account – they have a first 30 day free policy so you can try it out risk free.

If you have questions about or if you need help in implementing Basecamp as a system to use in your team or business, drop me a note and i’d be more than willing to help.

Note: I DO NOT work for 37signals. I just find it really useful and want to spread the love. This blog is managed by setting up a 1-man project on Basecamp and 2 teams creating sub-sites that are in development are also being managed on Basecamp. My company Ridz Technologies is also fully managed on Basecamp.

Do you use Basecamp and have best practice tips to share?

The William concept stove that makes me want to cook even if i don’t know how.

Ridz — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 21:56:15 +0000

On sundays I’ll try to share stuff that’s interesting or fun. Chill people. Chill.

Here’s a concept stove that’s so awesome I could see myself spending hours in the kitchen just trying to optimise the arrangement of my pots and pans to be able to use the maximum number of them. It’ll be like playing Civilization but on a stove. ;p

5 invites to the new Digg.com to give away

Ridz — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:33:10 +0000

I recently got an invite to the new Digg.com and i’m actually liking this new one because it seems a lot cleaner. Anyway, I’ve got 5 invites to give away so if you’d like one, drop a comment on the Facebook page update here. If more than 5 people respond, i’ll just randomly allocate them tonight.

Have a good weekend!

TEDxBiopolis on September 11

Ridz — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:27:32 +0000

Just thought I’d share that if you missed TEDxSingapore, TEDxBiopolis will be held at Biopolis on the 11th September, 7pm-10pm.

You can check out their page for more info registration instructions.

August BlinkBl-nk: On profit being the sole motivation.

Ridz — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:07:33 +0000

I went to this month’s BlinkBl-nk session and it was seriously quite a party with lots of brains passed around the room(or maybe I was just seated in the right part of the venue). Part of this month’s speaker lineup was this guy who spoke about how entrepreneurs are like geishas. He went on to talk about how both start out in debt and work their way to pay it off, both start out at the bottom of the food chain, etc… Normal comparisons. Interesting, but normal.

But then he talks about being profit driven and that entrepreneurs are driven by one thing and one thing only – profit. And this is the part that gets to me because, that may be the motivations of some people, I think it’s rarely the right motivations for most successful entrepreneurs. And the reason why I say that is quite simple – money is merely a means to an end. Whether a business entity or an individual, cash is used to ‘buy dreams’. For the latter it might be about buying a nice house or going on vacations. For the former, it could be to spread or achieve the mission of the company. Yes, companies have to be mindful of the bottom-line and maximise profits… but only so far as it helps to maximise growth or the pursuit of the dream.

I hope it was a joke when he says he would sell his grandmother’s ashes if someone actually wanted to buy it. Gee.

It’ll be sad if we had a society of rich but soul-less bunch of people.

Oh wait. Aren’t we already like that?

BlackBerry App World 2.0 Comes to Singapore. Paids apps now accessible.

Ridz — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:40:50 +0000

After much wait, it’s finally here! We can now browse..and BUY applications!

After updating, you can set up the payment options by going to “My World” and opening up the menu…

Click Here to Download

[View with PicLens]

Interesting Find: Indian Male Pole Dancing

Ridz — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:51:47 +0000

The way they ‘mount the pole’ makes me wonder what happens if they slam themselves too hard against the pole. Ouch.

Yahoo! Southeast Asia’s new outfit and the age old question – What is Yahoo! ?

Ridz — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:15:02 +0000

Yesterday Yahoo! Southeast Asia held a small party at their new office at Mapletree Anson along Anson Road with a whole bunch of people – VCs, Angels, Developers, Media, Bloggers and quite possibly a few other types – as a office warming of sorts and also to speak a bit more about the direction that Yahoo! is taking.

Once again, they attempted to answer the question “What is Yahoo!?” – something that has been attempted time and time again. I’m not sure if the persistence has paid off or if their message and direction is solidifying but I’m starting to see what they’re trying to do which is to bring localised content(whether it’s news or apps) to the user. With assets like sg.yfittopostblog.com where they work with local bloggers to deliver local blog articles to acquisitions of startups like Koprol in Indonesia, they are clearly investing in trying to do that.

From the business perspective Yahoo! is no different from many internet companies in that much of what they do is to drive revenue for display ads(although this is supposedly not a basis for decision making – something I totally agree is a good way of making sure you’re kept relevent to the users and not being too advertiser centric).

In many ways, I still think Yahoo! never left the ‘portal’ age and is trying to evolve that into something that’s a smarter beast – one that you can decide how it behaves to suit your own needs while it learns about you.

Is it a good thing? I don’t know. I’ve been disconnected from yahoo services for far too long to be able to make any kind of guess.

But I do wish them all the best because other than Google needing a competitor, Yahoo! was where my internet experience started and it holds nostalgic value to me.

I do, afterall, still have the urge to instinctively type “yahoo.com” when I need to go do a search.

[View with PicLens]

Barcamp 6 is on its way

Ridz — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:19:56 +0000

Just in case you haven’t heard, Barcamp 6 is on the way.

For the first time, it’s going to be a 2 day session held over at Singapore City Hall and from what I hear, more people will actually be flying in from overseas.

This should be interesting…

Head on over to their site to find out more and register.