albahk

- Corporate Real estate / Office leasing, book: “The Essential Guide to Corporate Real Estate”

http://www.corenetglobal.org/mycorenetglobal/tcontent.aspx?I...

Startups/Companies looking at the corporate/office occupier market, i.e. WeWork, VTS, etc

WeWork (or any flexible space provider like Regus etc) provides a way for companies to avoid large ($) and long fixed lease commitments by taking shorter term flexible commitments, and they pay a premium for that.

Why would a company do that? Well, the same reason companies pay by the minute for cloud servers - to more accurately match their demand for office space/server resources.

When the economy tanks or other uncertainties face a company, the first thing to get the chop are big long leases for new office space with upfront capital investment on fitouts. So, a prudent CFO is LESS likely to sign a traditional lease and instead go to wework for a year-to-year commitment while they ride out the economic turmoil.

In addition, if the CFO or management see potential layoffs coming, they are even more likely to take up flexible space so when layoffs happen, they can also shed the office space.

I think during a downturn in the economy is when flexible office shines as a prudent option for businesses.

The press seems to focus on the free coffee/beer to position flexible office as a premium or luxury product and use the flawed logic that when the economy falters, a “luxury” coworking space will be the first thing that gets cut from a company’s budget.

Free OpenStreetMap Data extracts (be kind, it is a rushed POC at the moment)

http://propdata.io

I have created a free site containing extracts from OpenStreetMap data. Unlike the metro extracts sites (Geofabrik, Mapzen), my goal is to extract specific datasets such as buildings, schools, hospitals, fast food restaurants etc from OSM rather than standard map/gis data.

My overall goal is to make the extracts available, and then to encourage people who use them and get value to actively update OSM to improve the quality of the data they are interested in. By doing this, the overall quality and coverage of data in OSM should (in theory) be improved.

Some legitimate use cases:

- Single page property websites/subdomains created by brokers (www.123mainstreet.com)

- parked domain landing pages

Wanted to say I am having this exact problem right now. I ended up solving it using Campaign Monitor and zapier to get signups into Highrise CRM. I will look at using your system next time - any chance you've thought about making the data available in a structured way, such as csv/json either in the email or attached?

If you want high-impact stuff, why not go to Singapore and get involved with one of the many #fintech incubators or accelerators. Some large banks like DBS and insurers like AIA/MetLife are creating these programs to work on wellness, big data, health, financial innovation (payments, remittances, bitcoin etc). The businesses provide the problems/issues and guidance while you can work on the tech side of solving the issue.

Just my 2c, not knowing exactly how feasible this is for you.

http://www.88-gong.com

http://www.startupshk.com/

http://www.hkcocoon.org/en/index.aspx

http://hkcommons.com

http://jobs.webwednesday.asia

I think the US is overplaying their influence on HK. People in HK regularly protest (on the street, even) against Beijing's apparent interference in local politics or social matters such as education and elections. At the end of the day HK is part of China and this how they act towards Beijing. I don't think the US can waltz in to HK and apply their special brand of moral pressure for HK to 'do the right thing'...

If HK's poor air quality is caused by locally-produced pollution why does the air quality in HK significantly improve during Mainland Chinese National Holidays (when factories in Southern China shut down but HK's so called pollution-generators like public transport, shipping and power stations remain operating as per normal)?

I agree that roadside pollution levels especially in Causeway Bay and Mongkok are most likely caused by local transport, but the clear-air and high visibility during Golden weeks and CNY suggest significant contributions from north of the border.

If Thailand is an option I would go for The Library at Koh Samui. http://www.thelibrary.co.th/

Just out of the way enough to avoid the drunk losers passed out on the beach at patong etc

Just clicked your link and went to a domain placeholder page - I think you are missing a "b" from dribbble.

I travelled to Jakarta quite a few times over the past year and was surprised to see literally thousands of people hitching on the main roads of the CBD.

Turns out they are 'Jockeys' that people pay to pick up so they can drive on the major downtown roads that have a 3-person min for each car. It's essentially hitch hiking to go no where.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/jakarta/jockeys-and-ojeks-mor...

I planned my departure in my head for a long long time but never got any traction with side-projects - which is understandable in hindsight. Then one day I got sat down with the boss and tried to hide the grin from my face as they explained the redundancy package I was being offered (7 months salary).

So, it was planned but I was still pushed in the end - and it was great.

I applied for a job back in my old industry and now working there. I have a wife and 2.5 year old daughter so in the grand scheme of things it was the only real thing I could do. I will save a bit and learn a bit more and do it smarter next time.

Thanks for the comment - glad I can contribute something in my ultra niche of knowledge and experience.

Coming from a commercial real-estate consultant (as opposed to a programmer/startup guru) these are the things many companies would do well to consider when doing office fitout.

- Don't put boardroom/meeting rooms against the windows with the best views, leave them internal and put your employees where the best views/natural light is;

- Avoid a single monolithic meeting room and go for two smaller rooms with a common wall that can be pulled back. Large meeting rooms for >30 ppl at once tend to be under-utilised most of the time;

- If the expected budget is more than US$100k consider bringing on a project manager - they will generally earn back their fees with keeping everything in budget and fixing potentially costly issues as they arise rather than 6 months later;

- Don't try to cut costs on anything that an employee touches, sits on or uses i.e. chairs, desks, coffee machine etc. It is almost always a false economy to cut costs here;

- Ask the landlord to contribute some money to the fitout (can't hurt to ask);

- If you are going open-plan try to avoid offices around the perimeter windows as they will tend to block the natural light from getting into the main office;

- Hardwood/concrete floors sound like a good idea but keep in mind they can be quite noisy in high-traffic areas.

Would like to use something like this to create charts from Excel and put them on our Intranet without my data ever leaving our network. Is this a use case you would support?

As far as I know, realestate.com.au is not owned by Homeaway.com - its listed on the ASX under REA Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REA_Group

The app is downloaded via the App Store - according to the terms of the app store, aren't Apple entitled to claim 30% of transactions through the app?

edit: Or, at the very least, entitled to 30% of the fees charged by Square to the merchant?

Yes. Just transferred 31 domains from GoDaddy to Namecheap. Would like to transfer more but Namecheap doesn't accept .asia domains.

Hong Kong is a great place for business and for most important purposes (GFW, law, freedom of speech, immigration, language, etc) it is a different 'country' to China.

Another place to check out is the govt sponsored incubator at Cyberport http://www.cyberport.hk/en/about_cyberport/our_5_centres/ent...

Look forward to seeing you around HK

Replying to the OP but with similar to the point above, I cannot plan gift-giving this far out for many reasons. The major one being in 8 months I may have a completely different gift idea in mind.

One suggestion I humbly propose is get me to sign up and purchase one gift first. As part of this process, ask me to input further information on:

- Family members' birthdays; - spouse/partner anniversary date; - parent's wedding anniversary, etc;

And coming up to those dates, send me a personalised email like "Hey, Tara's birthday is coming up in a month, check out these gifts we can gift-wrap and send to her..."

This startup does something similar http://www.bugherd.com/

Agreed with the parent and I would also like to add please consider not using periods to Make. Your. Statement. Seem. Profound.

I'm in the same boat as many others here. I am a bit of a control freak with my content so I prefer self-hosted Wordpress. If I your product can give me a wordpress theme at the end of it that I can self-install I would pay $20 for that.

For the money. It keeps me focused and since money is what I use to buy food for my family, pay rent, my children's education etc I am morally comfortable with money as my goal in starting a company.

Hong Kong, China

I'm amused at the mindset of trying to do low-volume and hence (for the factory) low-profit manufacturing runs in China and complaining when it turns out to be more difficult than uploading a file and waiting for a box of Apple-quality products to arrive at your front door.

Simple economics - if it was easy, everyone could do it.

I work on construction projects in China so I have an idea of the difficulties re: quality and expectations

I live in Hong Kong and do a lot work here and in China... what financial crisis? HK is overheating and China is going nuts. Until it all falls apart here things are going well.

Its a great step for NFC adoption in the US but permit me to brag a little by showing you the NFC-payment system in Hong Kong (Octopus Card) which you can use in:

- all public transport (subway, bus, tram, ferry, etc)

- shops (7-11, drugstore etc)

- as access card to buildings, offices, residence

... and on a run-down boat which charges you HK$1.80 per ride (US$0.23). This is the ultimate Mom and Pop shop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_EtTiLP_EE