Hoiio Technopreneurship Challenge just wants cheap coders?

While its pretty obvious and common to see companies come to schools on the pretext of holding competitions to get students to solve business problems (branding, outreach, marketing.. etc) for them, this one feels like attempt to acquire code on the cheap.

Really have to read the Terms and Conditions carefully these days:

Excerpts (bold for emphasis) :

3.2 All intellectual property rights, if any, in the idea or concept demonstrated by the Solution will remain with the Sponsor. By entering this Contest and, specifically, by accepting any prize in connection with this Contest, each participating team agrees to grants to the Sponsor a royalty free, exclusive license in respect of all such intellectual property rights, if any, for the purposes of commercial exploitation of the idea or concept demonstrated by the Solution. By entering this Contest, each participating team grants to the Sponsor an option to exclusively license such intellectual property, if any, for the period of one (1) year following conclusion of the Contest, for the purposes of commercial exploitation of the idea or concept demonstrated by the Solution on detailed terms (to include any applicable royalties) to be agreed between the participating team and the Sponsor.

Simply -Winning solutions to become free for company to exploit (only if you take the prize... aha!) . Others are optional.

Bank of America loses $50 Million due to Wrongful Arrest!

I believe the importance of treating your customers right for a business's survival can't be stressed enough. Simply put, bad business decisions even at the seemingly low level of any firm can be financial suicide.

This very thing happened to Bank of America when they apparently mistreated one of their account holders, putting him into a lot of needless trouble with the police. Obviously, this guy didn't turn out very happy to have been treated like a criminal, spent thousands of dollars getting out of the mess and not getting at least a pipsqueak of an apology from the Bank.

Result? -- He spreads the word, causes a wave of anger in Bank of America customers who then promptly marched up to the bank and closed a cool US$50m million worth of accounts!

Shinnick was hauled to jail, stripped of his clothing and put into an orange jumpsuit. His father posted $4,500 bond to spring him. Shinnick ended up spending $14,000 to get out of the mess Bank of America caused.

Bank of America refused to reimburse Shinnick, and so Shinnick took his story to a consumer advocate radio show host, Clark Howard. Lots of Bank of America customers were disgusted by BofA's callousness and have closed their accounts with the bank. Howard says they've pulled $50 million from B of A.

More on this story over at : BoingBoing

Avoid Worldwide Cameras Centre at Peninsula Plaza for its Unethical Service!

For those who have been following my blog for some time, you would probably know how highly I regard service as a competitive edge to any business, especially the frontline type which face the consumers. Hence, when I got caught in a terrible, unethical act by Worldwide Cameras Centre at Peninsula Plaza over the weekend, I thought it was only right to do what I can to warn other netizens to prevent them from falling prey. I believe that the democratized power the Internet can help to bring them to justice so this is just a little bit on my part :

(Just take this as a Public Service Announcement, stay tuned for more regular posting coming up soon!)

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The Story:

Basically, I was trying to buy 4 boxes of Polaroid film from the shop on Sunday afternoon. I managed to see the box of film I needed and so pointed it out to the shopkeeper to enquire about the pricing and he told me that it was $35 per box. I was fine with that pricing as its more or less the average I've seen around so I said I'll take 4 boxes. But he had no stock in the shop so he got his colleague to run back to their nearby stock room to pick it up.

During this time, since we were waiting, I paid up (foolishly) for the 4 boxes I wanted as I needed to go somewhere else after that.

Then, when the colleague came back, he passed me 2 boxes instead, claiming then he understood that I wanted 4 packs and not 4 boxes! (Polaroid 600 series film normally comes in 1 box of 2 packs/cartridges) and would not budge on giving me a refund.

No matter how I spoke to the staff, who were ever so friendly a moment ago, they just gave a cold shoulder and even ignored me to serve the other customers.Later, I even called the manager of the shop (a certain Mr. Ling) saying that I wanted to either get a refund or lodge a complaint and all he did was to tell me mockingly to "go ahead and complain if I want to".

Luckily, the difference in amount wasn't too much but I'm definitely taking this as a lesson. But, I thought it was appropriate to bring this up to caution people a little as I believe in the power of word of mouth.Caveat Emptor!

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Worldwide Cameras Centre
111 North Bridge Road, #01-38,
Penisula Plaza, Singapore 179098

(Along the main road facing Funan)
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And to Mr. Ling and your merry men, let me say “Nemo me impune lacessit!”

(Also on : http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=218801 )

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30th August Update : Boo yeah, It seems that I have been tomorrow-ed! Would just like to add on that this one goes out to all the other unfortunate consumers also who have been suffering in silence after getting mistreated by unethical retailers. So join me to spread the bad word about such bad service!