Foods and beverages that must be tried when you visit, Australia

Most (but not many) travellers demand to enjoy local specialty like food or beverage when they visited a region, village, city or even a country.

This time is Australia.

Its quite hard to find local flavour there coz Australia is a "salad", a mixed country consist of many culture and races so the people (or restaurant) tend to bring culinary flavour from their origin, luckily i found two traditional beverages and two traditional foods there.

The first two beverages is Bundaberg Ginger Beer and Solo soda. Ginger beer actually just a soda with ginger taste, better to serve chilled ;)

Solo soda is one of the traditional pub non-alcohol beverage, taste almost similar to Sprite, but i think Solo is has stronger lemon taste.

The first food must be tried is Vegemite, this authentic Australian spread or jam made from fermented barley which is side product of beer making. Taste like cheese (a bit) but it wont make you drunk anyway.
Some said that if you ate Vegemite, it will fluent your english and has australian accent :p

The second food must tried in Australia is Kangaroo steak! Yep, Kangaroo!
I recommend you to buy it in local supermarket like Coles or Woolworths than order it in steak house/restaurant (in case it will cost higher). In Coles 0.5kg Kangaroo steak costs around A$11, already marinated.
The meat is solid dark red, not marbling like wagyu or other beef cut.
The taste depends on the seasoning/marinating ingredients.
To grill it, dont make it well done, but try to make it medium/half to avoid it become hard.
Taste? Delicious! :q

Akhir Pekan

Bertemu sabtu itu seru,
Ia menyapa dengan manis,
seolah tahu bahwa aku perlu liburan setelah stress berat senin hingga jumat.
"ayo bagus, mari kita bersenang-senang, nonton film, jalan-jalan, makan-makan, bermalas-malasan seeeeepuasnya... Semuanya boleh!"
Aaaah Ia tahu aku cinta hari sabtu, padahal aku lahir dihari rabu.

Malam minggupun tiba,
Aku merasa memasuki pertapaan panjang, sebuah penghayatan akan indahnya akhir pekan... Akhir pekan yang tak kan kusia-siakan tiap momennya.

Ketika sampai dihari minggu,
the fun is still in the air! Bersenang-senang, sepuasnya, segila-gilanya!

Ketika senja pun tiba,
😳
Terasa sedih dan sendu
Ku tau hal ini pasti datang...

Why people put saturday and sunday too close, while they put monday and friday so far .__.

Failure

Nobody likes failure, but maybe somebody likes to laugh at us when we failed (maybe, but figure out how very negative-thinking I am).
But thats about somebody else, what about ourself?

Nobody likes failure.

Approved, achieved, passed, accomplished and succeed are words that required us to be perfect on doing/implementing our assignment/task. But what happened when we failed?

Having failure feels like somebody pointed a gun to your face, and you feel helpless....

Anger,
sad,
confusion,
denial, hopeless and many negative and desperate emotional words we can mentioned. World felt like torn apart, crushed, no favorite songs can cure the pain :(

Its hard, very hard some said.

Negative emotion is overwhelmed, and suspicion is around (see the word at the opening, that even I thought that somebody out there is happy with my failure!!).
What a toxic mind!

And the process continue to analyze what's wrong with it. I think there's two aspect that we can put the blame is, internally mine and external factor.

Internal factor is about what's wrong with us:
Did I well-prepared for this task?
What effort has I've done to achieve it?

External factor is about outside factor that may caused failure, anything can be the cause, mythical, irrational, coincidence or rational-logical reasons can be made, but I prefer to make things simple.

Dont compare yourself to other,
Everybody is unique, even twins are unidentic. So nobody has the same skills or intelligent level to other.

This is the best that I can do,
Remember those effort that you've put so hard, very hard to finished it.

Grateful for what you've achieve,
Yeah, there's always comparison between A and B etc, but still be grateful for any kind of small things that you've achieved today. Health and being surrounded by family and friends are small things that might be missed from our eye sight.

I just read a blog from Dondi Hananto, about capital for enterpreneur. See the notes here: http://www.dondihananto.com/. In the encore, he wrote in Bahasa Indonesia and I summarize it in English: "don't blame yourself or external factor, but focused on the solution of the problem"

I read that and WOW! He's god damn right.
myself, somebody or anything can be blamed, but it wont change the previous result. So its better to take the responsibility, not to blame somebody or the situation and start focused on the solution, how to solve/re-encounter/change the situation/problem!

Like Incubus said: "Just a phase, and it soon be over"

Menggigil di Melbourne

Hawa dingin
Perlahan,
Merayap,
Mengendap,
Mengalir, membungkus tubuh,
Membekukan sendi, mematirasakan jari-jari,
Membekukan bibir,
Membekukan setiap tarikan nafas,
Dingin, menusuk kulit menghujam tulang.

Butir air terasa seperti jarum,

Mengigil,
Gemeretak sekujur tubuh,
Semakin ku berlari, semakin kuat hujaman jarum-jarum beku ini,

Kemana ku harus pergi?
Dimanakah sumber kehangatan itu?
Dimana?

NIkwax Waterproof Spray

Winter is coming to Melbourne, because there is no snow in Melbourne, except in certain mountain region such Mt Buller etc that means there going to be a heavy rain. I decided to buy a waterproof spray. So I went to a sky equipment store in Surrey Hills and the salesperson recommend me Nikwax. A waterproof water-based repellent cost A$30. 

One of the annoying thing is that the bootle color is purple and there is a "purple" word stated on the label as well. But I want to applied in my brown-summer jacket. I remember I asked about this to the salesperson but I dont remember what the answer he gave to me. So I decided to open the bottle although there might be warranty broken, and see the solution's color looks like, it is clear -__-

Why should they stated "purple" in fact that the solution is clear colored?

Nikwax also has website to help customer seek infos about their product, unfortunately not about the "purple" thing on the label. But it quite helpful.

A bootle can be applied for 1-2 clothes, depends on size. The instruction is very clear stated on the bottle. So lets begin the work.

Because its a waterproof spray, you should expect smell things after applied the spray on fabric, so prefer to do it in well circulated areas or even outdoor. Just spray part by part and repeated again until whole fabric is covered.

But the sprinkler on Nikwax that I've used is not very good, the spray is not well diffused as fog/mist, it more like stream divided into two direction. Yeah, bad sprinkler, should manage bout it. So I apply the spray randomly but still measure the spray coverage on my jacket. Front, back, arms and collar side.

Make sure you clean any excessive product on fabric.

The result is great, I've tested it by drop a drop of water and the water wont permeate through garment. But the real test is when I take a walk on a rainy day with the jacket....

The spray in only applicable in outside of a garment, if you need a inside-out waterproof spray Nikwax has the solution (like a detergent) product. Because the product is water based waterproof spray, it approximate that the solution will diminished when garment is washed more than 3-5 times.

Thats my experience when bought a Nikwax spray, hope its useful :)

Starbucks price in four countries

This time, fun writing. No more serious stuff :p

As coffee addict, who doesn't know Starbucks? The famous coffee chain in the world. 

So what's the special thing about Starbucks that I want to write today is about the price. I've been to three countries and I want to compare prices in Indonesia, Germany and Australia.

In Indonesia, the small/short cup of Caramel Frappuccino cost Rp. 34,000 or A$ 3.6, while in Australia it cost  A$ 5.3! On the other hand, a Tall Caramel Frappuccino in Berlin cost 3.90 Euro or A$ 4.9!

Here is some hint for what size is Starbucks cups has: 

Short - 8oz
Tall - 12oz
Grande - 16oz
Venti - 20oz

What I've bought in Berlin was Caramel Frappuccino in Tall size, as shown in this receipt.

So lets summarise the result on a table.

No.	Country	SBUX size	Price (AUD)
1.	Indonesia	Short	3.6
2.	Australia	Short	5.3
3.	Germany	Tall	4.9
4.	Japan	Short	5.2

The Japanese's Starbucks price was contributed from a friend that previously visited there, she said that the Short caramel Frappuccino cost Y 420 or A$ 5.2.

Well, the not-so-surprising data is that Starbucks coffee price is relatively low in developing country such Indonesia. But in developed countries as shown on table above it is quite surprising that Starbucks price is relative cheaper in Germany than in Australia and Japan!

I think I want to drink a coffee, not iced-coffee, but a hot black coffee from my kitchen :q

Happy sipping folks!

Pilkada dalam Perspektif Marketing II

Tulisan ini merupakan lanjutan dari dari tulisan mengenai pilkada dalam perspektif marketing menggunakan analisis Rossiter (2011). Tulisan bagian pertama dapat dilihat disini. Dibagian kedua ini akan dibahas strategi kedua bagaimana new entrant dapat menggusur dominasi market leader (incumbent) dengan promosi besar-besaran dan strategi promosi yang efektif.

Strategi promosi besar-besaran? Ya! Strategi promosi besar-besaran demi membangun awareness konsumen dapat mengubur sang market leader. Semakin sering produk new entrant dipromosikan besar-besaran melalui berbagai media, cetak, elektronik, digital, visual bahkan lisan dengan dana tak terbatas dapat mendongkrak new entrant memenangi pertarungan. Setelah konsumen terpapar media promosi, maka awarenessnya akan tumbuh. Melalui teknik-teknik periklanan tertentu sehingga konsumen akan tertarik dengan produknya, yaitu visi dan misi dari kandidat.

Semua orang tahu Samsung, produsen elektronik dari Korea Selatan ini giat beriklan diseantero Indonesia diberbagai media mempromosikan TV, handphone, laptop.

Sekedar cerita lama, kakak saya punya monitor PC dan handphone Samsung, bukan Android tapi OS Bada! 

(waktu itu OS Android belum masuk Indonesia).

Hasilnya saat ini? Setidaknya ada salah satu teman, saudara atau tetangga kita yang punya produk Samsung (maaf, agak sulit mencari data valid soal market share Samsung). 

Terlepas dari price positioning, Samsung berhasil membangun awareness dan attraction lebih dibandingkan kompetitor. 

Apakah masih ada manfaat dengan menghamburkan dana besar-besaran memasang spanduk disana-sini, memaku poster/banner dipohon untuk membangun awareness dan attraction pemilih? 

Tidak semua kandidat memiliki dana tak terbatas. Rossiter menawarkan aternatif ketiga yaitu dengan menggunakan sarana promosi lebih efektif.

Kemudian semua orang berbicara mengenai promosi melalui internet, sub klasifikasi social media lalu terbagi lagi menjadi social media platform seperti Facebook, Twitter, Blog dan YouTube. Internet marketing itu murah, personal, tepat sasaran, interaktif dan efektif.

Menurut penulis, efektif disini berarti menentukan target market (segmentation) lalu mengoptimalkan penggunaan media promosi. Alasannya adalah berapa jumlah pengguna internet di Indonesia?  

sepengetahuan penulis berdasarkan data dari BPS tahun 2011, sekitar 11% penduduk Indonesia yang menggunakan internet, dan dari sekian persen tersebut berapa persen yang masuk dalam daftar pemilih?

Dalam daftar pemilih biasanya bisa dibagi dalam klasifikasi umur tertentu, 17-25 tahun, 26-35 tahun dst. Dalam klasifikasi umur ini (segmentation), para tim sukses dapat menganalisa rentang umur dengan jumlah terbesar dan menganalisis preferensi pemilih dalam mengakses informasi, apakah menggunakan internet, koran, majalah, TV, radio atau melalui teman sepergaulan.

Pengalaman saya mengikuti dua kali pemilu presiden, internet masih menjadi barang mahal dan ketika itu kampanye melalui internet masih langka. Saya mencari informasi melalui koran dan TV. Mungkin tidak banyak remaja seumuran saya saat itu yang membaca Kompas sabtu sampai kepala berasap :p

Saat ini, sepak terjang Faisal Basri dan Biem Benyamin sebagai salah satu calon independen menarik untuk diperhatikan, mereka dengan modal (yang saya duga) tidak sebanyak calon yang lain menggunakan social media dan menyasar kaum muda sebagai target market. Dalam beberapa testimoni YouTube, para public figure tanpa dibayar menyatakan dukungannya kepada Faisal-Biem. Ini sangat penting dimana konsumen menjadi prosumer, saat konsumen menjadi ambassador dan advokat dari brand yang mereka dukung! Apalagi prosumernya adalah public figure!

Sebuah senjata dalam senjata yang mematikan dalam marketing!

Mari kita lihat contoh segmentasi berdasarkan range umur Provinsi DKI Jakarta.

No.	Range Umur (tahun)	Jumlah Pemilih (jiwa)
1.	15-35	4.152.064
2.	36-55	2.425.600
3.	56-75	670.517
4.	76-98	61.860
	Total Jumlah Pemilih	7.310.041

Data ini penulis olah dari BPS tahun 2010. Setelah melihat tabel ini, maka dahi akan mengernyit, 

mata memicing, 

tangan bertopang dagu, 

gigi terkatup rapat dan 

bibir membulat mengeluarkan suara "ooo..."

Jadi, Faisal-Biem mendekati segmen mana Juli 2012 ini? Segmen terbesar 15-35 tahun dengan share 56,79%! Diasumsikan orang-orang dengan range umur 15-35 tahun adalah orang yang setidaknya paham dengan internet dan memiliki akun social network seperti Facebook atau Twitter.

Oh ya, kenapa data umurnya dimulai dari 15 tahun? karena data ini dibuat tahun 2010, sehingga jika kita hitung tahun 2012 (saat ini), maka mereka yang berumur 15 tahun sudah termasuk sebagai pemilih. 

Apakah strategi ini akan berhasil, mengingat rata-rata hanya 11% penduduk Indonesia yang melek internet?

Apakah teori konsumen-prosumer akan mampu mengantar Faisal-Biem meraih DKI-1?

Apakah justru market leader yang akan menang?

Ataukah dengan budget kampanye raksasa, kandidat lain yang akan menang?

 

Kita saksikan Juli ini! :p