August 2005 - Association of Dutch Businessmen

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BUSINESS that can sabotage your career 6. Forgetting to check for spelling and grammar In the early days of e-mail, someone created the notion that this form of communication did not have to be letter perfect. Wrong. It does. It is a representation of you. If you don’t check to be sure e-mail is correct, people will question the caliber of other work you do. Use proper capitalization and punctuation, and always check your spelling. Remember that your spellchecker will catch misspelled words, but not misused ones. It cannot tell whether you meant to say “from” or “form,” “for” or “fro”, “he” or “the.” 7. Writing the great American novel E-mail is meant to be brief. Keep your message short. Use only a few paragraphs and a few sentences per paragraph. People skim their e-mail so a long missive is wasted. If you find yourself writing an overly long message, pick up the phone or call a meeting. 8. Forwarding e-mail without permission Most everyone is guilty of this one, but think about it! If the message was sent to you and only you, why would you take responsibility for passing it on? Too often confidential information has gone global because of someone’s lack of judgment. Unless you are asked or request permission, do not forward anything that was sent just to you. 9. Thinking that no one else will ever see your e-mail Once it has left your mailbox, you have no idea where your e-mail will end up. Don’t use the Internet to send anything that you couldn’t stand to see on a billboard on your way to work the next day. Use other means to communicate personal or sensitive information. 10. Leaving off your signature Always close with your name, even though it is included at the top of the e-mail, and add contact information such as your phone, fax and street address. The recipient may want to call to talk further or send you documents that cannot be e-mailed. Creating a formal signature block with all that data is the most professional approach. 11. Expecting an instant response Not everyone is sitting in front of the computer with e-mail turned on. The beauty of Internet communication is that it is convenient. It is not an interruption. People can check their messages when it suits them, not you. If your communication is so important that you need to hear back right away, use the phone. 12. Completing the “To” line first The name or address of the person to whom you are writing is actually the last piece of information you should enter. Check everything else over carefully first. Proof for grammar, punctuation, spelling and clarity. Did you say what needed to be said? How was your “tone of voice”? If you were the least bit emotional when you wrote the e-mail, did you let it sit for a period of time? Did you include the attachment you wanted to send? If you enter the recipient’s name first, a mere slip of the finger can send a message before its’ time. You can never take it back. E-mail makes everything easier and faster including making a powerful business impression and establishing positive professional relationships. The businessperson who uses the technology effectively and appropriately will see the results of that effort reflected in the bottom line. © 2005, Lydia Ramsey. Lydia Ramsey is a business etiquette expert, professional speaker, corporate trainer and author of Manners That Sell - Adding the Polish That Brings Profits. She has been quoted or featured in The New York Times, Investors’ Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Inc., Real Simple and Woman’s Day. 11 Vol.15 • No. 6 • July/August 2005
SINGAPORE The New Downtown, Over the next decennia, a new Downtown will take shape around Marina Bay. It is poised to usher in a whole new experience of living and working in the city and by the water. The New Downtown is planned as a ‘City-in-a-garden’ offering a distinctive location for business, living, working and leisure, around-the-clock. Providing a total integrated work-live-play environment, the area will be a flourishing community, anchored around an international business and financial hub that expands seamlessly from the existing Central Business District. The initial planning for the area dates back to the 1985 master plan and has through various intermittent planning stages, resulted in three Planning Areas - Downtown Core (Central and Bay front sub zones), Straits View and Marina South - which are collectively referred to as the new Downtown. In all, some 313ha of land had earlier been reclaimed and is now made available for developers to shape the development of Singapore’s new downtown. For the first time, a large area of land covering some 50ha will be zoned “White” at the Central and Bay front sub zones. This new zoning offers developers the opportunity and challenge to transform this vacant piece of land into a new city. White sites zone is a new land use zoning which has been introduced to give more flexibility to the developers over the future use of land. The remaining 144ha of land in Straits View and Marina South has been safeguarded for future long-term development and is marked as reserve sites until specific uses are finalised. The first white site in the New Downtown, located at the corner of Pickering Street Extension and Raffles Quay has been completed by now with amongst others a new building for NTUC. Also part of the New Downtown is the Business and Financial Centre (BFC). The BFC site was sold on 7th July and is a key initiative aimed at enhancing Singapore’s position as a global business and financial hub. An important consideration is to frame Marina Bay with developments that will help Singapore’s economic development in the future. The casino development or Integrated Resort (IR) as it is commonly known is an example of this. Singapore will offer a 12-hectare site along the bay for the IR that would include a casino, a convention centre, a hotel, restaurants and shops. The property is scheduled to be sold by the end of the year. Unlike the existing CBD, the New Downtown will not be a place for business only. When night falls, the place will take on a new look with the skyline adorned with glittering lights. Activities will continue after office hours. This is made possible because the new downtown will offer living in the city. The area will offer a variety of housing with magnificent views out across the waterfront and parks and all the city’s attractions and convenience close at hand. It will be a place for people to return home and to unwind after work. To meet this aim, some land parcels totalling about 9.6ha fronting both Marina City Park and the Maxwell Road Extension have been earmarked for future residential development. The high-density, high-rise commercial and residential developments will be complimented by a series of low-density, low-rise developments for food and beverage, recreation and lifestyle-related uses to build up a critical mass of development early and create a unique set of amenities for visitors and people working and living within the area. The new Downtown will be a place of convenience with state-of-the-art infrastructure. Additional rail transit lines and stations will complement the existing Marina Bay MRT Station to improve accessibility. Living in the city means that the office is just a short walk from home or a few stops away on the transit system. The New Downtown will be linked to the existing CBD via the extension of the existing Pickering Street and Cross Street. This pair of one-way boulevards will form the gateway into the new Downtown, extending through Marina South and Straits View as a major spine that links the existing CBD to the sea. Hub car park stations, integrated within developments or formed by connecting car parks 12 Vol.15 • No. 6 • July/August 2005
Page 1 and 2: Jul/Aug 2005 MITA 373/03/2001
Page 3 and 4: A monthly publication of the Associ
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Page 20 and 21: BIZZ AGENDA Health & You Seminar &
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August 2005 - Association of Dutch Businessmen

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