Are you interested to hire me to help in your business or organization? I’m available to work for you for FREE one day in a week! I can help in projects such as IT, Internet presence and marketing.

You may wonder why there is such free lunch under the sun. Yes there are, but not in this case. I’m actually being trained to be a “consultant” to businesses and organizations in my MBA study.

I need to understand a company or organization in and out, so that I may write about it as a case study. I suppose the best way to understand a company is to work within it. Would you accept me?

Why I Do This?

I’m currently an MBA student in Graduate School of Management (GSM) in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). I have chosen a road less traveled by choosing to do a practical subject in Case Writing & Analysis, instead of the more academic Business Research Methods. For your information, we can choose either one of these two routes to get our master degree.

The reason I chose to do a case study is because I want to be trained in analyzing real life business problems and issues and proposing effective strategies to overcome the problems.

It is in essence like a business consultant going into your organization, learn about problems you are facing, and propose solutions to your company. Isn’t it free consulting service for your company from my business school through a student like me?

So I’m thinking working in an organization (although I’m not required to) in order to understand its issues in and out. In exchange, I offer my skills in helping your business. When I say I work for you, I mean seriously working for you like your staff and helping your company.

Here Are Some Problems

But the problem is, you will need to share information about your company to me and my case supervisor (a lecturer who is supervising this project). The reality is that, not many companies in Malaysia and this part of the world will want to share information out.

But you can be different! In US, many companies approach business schools to have them used as business cases in business courses. This is not only a way to get free business consulting advice and fulfill corporate social responsibilities, but also a way to get their names out. So why not in Malaysia too?

The Solution

The good news is that, information about your company is protected. Any financial information and trade secret is to be known by me and my supervisor only. We will produce a case study report. In that report, these information can be disguised:

• Company name
• People’s names
• Brand names
• Financial data
• Company location

So if you don’t want your names out in the public, you don’t have to worry. The case study report will be kept for reference in my business school. A very well-written case may be modified, used in teaching and even published in academic journal. But such further actions will need your permission first.

Will You Hire Me?

So are you facing any issue and problem in management, finance, marketing, human resources, information system or whatever? Please let us in and help you. I’m posting this not only to help myself but also for my classmates.

I don’t limit myself to organization of any type, size, in any field. You can be a trading company, service business, online Internet business, startup business, non-profit organization, non-governmental organization (NGO), social enterprise, government agency, education institution or charitable organization.

You have little to lose but much to gain. Please contact me here if you are willing to discuss. Thank you.

If interested, please email me at ricky [at] rickysoo.com with your contact details.  My job is simply to forward your emails to the customer.  Please don’t ask me anything about the project as I don’t have the details.

By the way, I find software developers from India very agressive in promoting themselves via email and even phone calls.  Don’t you think so?

• To maintain an existing match-making web site
• To develop an online job portal
• To develop a business networking web site
• To develop an online charity web site
• To develop a web site plus web application for a non-profit nationwide sports event – This is a volunteer and non-paying job. But I guess the web programmer will be given due recognition and a plus point in his or her portfolio.

As for me, I’m not a web designer and not in web development business. I developed and still maintain my own sites (yeah, I know I should not do it myself). I was a programmer and I still can program well in PHP (and that’s the only programming language I still know now!)

It’s good to have a gift in web development and programming. But it’s one thing to be a “technician” doing programming, it’s another thing to be an “entrepreneur” in business world. To turn from owning a job to a business, and from working in a business to working on a business, I just have to come out of my comfort zone called programming.

Sometimes I’m asked to develop web sites, from both commercial and not-for-profit sources. But my time commitment does not allow me to take in any of these jobs. Sacrificing precious hours for these web projects means I have to sacrifice time for other more important life goals, though sometimes these projects are good and worthy ones. In other words, doing web development projects simply drags my feet from achieving what I want!

The good thing is that, both projects are very similar. The same web pages and coding from the first project can be reused for the second project with just a little modification.  They are basically the same sites but for two different organizations.

The web sites are to be developed using Microsoft technologies such as ASP or ASP.NET.  Customer is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and you need to be physically here to see the customer.

Please contact me here if you are interested.

Some clients are asking me whether they should start a blog and how to start one. Some even ask whether they can outsource the blogging to me. Here is one example. But sorry, blogging is not my business.

I looked around. Is there any “bloggers for hire” service in Malaysia? No, I couldn’t find. Do you know of anyone? Please let me know!

For now, I just started a new category in my directory of IT solution providers called business blogging so that I can redirect my clients to these providers whenever they need blogging service.

So if you are interested to blog for businesses, please register yourself. It’s free to register! I don’t earn a single cent from you!

Furthermore, many hosting customers often ask me to refer them good web designers to develop their web sites.

If you follow my blog posts, I’ve been seeking web designers from time to time for various projects.  Every time the responses have been great.  Thanks!

But from now onwards I would like to make better use of the IT solution directory I have built over the last few years.  It includes not only web designers, but many other IT service providers as well, such as software development, computer repair and even web hosting service!

Whenever there are new enquiries on web design jobs, I will first pass them first to the registered partners.  I will post on this blog only when I can’t find a suitable one.

Whether you are a company or freelancer, you are welcome.  So what are you waiting for?  Register here as a partner. It’s free of charge!

The job description includes:

• Blog for the web site about their CDs, products, services and anything, perhaps at least once or twice a week.
• Maintain their web site content through a content management system (CMS). Your job is to put in new CDs as they arise from time to time. No web design knowledge is required.

These are the basic requirements:

• A passion to blog.
• Knows Mandarin as the web site is bi-lingual, English and Chinese.
• Able to meet the customer in Kuala Lumpur whenever necessary.

This is a part-time job. If you are interested, please contact me here. Please quote your price on monthly basis.

By the way, is there any bloggers for hire service in Malaysia? Interested to start one?

Expected first year membership is 20,000, increasing to 50,000 in second year, and 100,000 in third year. Concurrent users are 2000 and more as time goes by.

Services required:

1. Web application development - You will need a few months and a team of developers to build the whole application.
2. Server solution to support the web application – Consider the bandwidth usage, space requirements, concurrent connections and other issues.
3. Maintenance of the server - You need to manage the server and fix any problem whenever there is any problem.

I can’t reveal much details now. Please don’t ask me what the project is about. You can discuss with the customer later.

If you are interested to provide all or any of the above services, please contact me here with your contact details. I will pass your details to the customer. They will contact you and you can ask them then.

I will need a one-time 10% commission out of the project

And if the new business plan works, I will have MANY projects to pass on to you.

But I’m looking for SEO-conscious web developers only. It is not necessary you know everything about SEO but you should know the basics enough to design a web site in a way that will not hinder the search optimization work to be done later.

For now, I’m looking for local partners only who can meet up with our clients in Klang Valley of Malaysia.

So if you are interested in partnership, please reply with your name, company name, contact number, email address and portfolio. I will meet up with you personally for details.

I’m also looking for outsource SEO experts. Better still, I would love to let you handle both web development and SEO if you like. You can contact me here.

Update: The business plan has been scrapped and I no longer have many projects for you.  But you are still welcome to join as partner web designers here.

A education centre in Bukit Tinggi 2, Klang is looking for Japanese speaker as part-time Japanese teacher.

He or she should be able to speak English, has a fun and cheerful personality.  Experience is preferred but not necessary.

If you or anyone you know are interested, please contact us here.  We will forward your email to the person in charge.

Update 20th October 2008 – Due to lack of response from the education centre, we no longer help to forward your email to them.  Please DO NOT send to us any more.

So if you or anyone you know can teach Java or VB.NET, please contact me here and I will forward it your contact details to the college.  The college will contact you once shortlisted.

By the way, the college principal asked me whether I could do the job. Of course I can’t! The only programming language I’m still in touch with is PHP with MySQL. The rest? I’ve given all back to my lecturers!