HANZKY

Finally, we had our first best of beauty awarding night last November 17. This is something we have talked about since loooong time ago, so it felt surreal to finally make it to live.  If you want to know winners you can click here for skincare, makeup and hair body & nail. Yep, we have 3 categories now so there are almost 70 product categories and that many winners. Everything is purely member votes so whoever the winners are, it's all members choice.

What made that night even more special was the 2 videos that were played in the beginning of the event, thanks to our talented video team. I've watched the video before but watching it in the big screen of Soehanna hall made it even more emotional. I couldn't believe that our journey can be captured so well in such a short video. Imagining it makes me want to shed tears of happiness already.

Anyway, another thing that also made the event special was the fact that our community helped made it possible. First, of course by filling out the survey that recceived 7200 responses. And the rest is by doing these things below...


Syita, the project coordinator. Syita is one of our first community members who then joined Female Daily as an intern. She joined us full time as she graduated for until 2 years ago when she decided to go full force on her Amaya Wedding business. Having her to coordinate so many things in the event is a blessing because she made it easy and smooth for us. Witnessing how far she has grown, leading the team and being in a full-authority mode makes me burst with pride. I love seeing a #girlboss like her that take full charge of her life. This girl will go places :).

When I received email from Gyanda informing me about the video shoot, the talent and the project I just stucked in one name and replied..

What?
Bambang Pamungkas?
Seriously?

have.to.take.jib.to.the.office.

I just figured that hashtag recently, if not I would have used it for every post about this DELL Inspiron 11 series 3000 :o). Anyway, I've used this laptop for 3 months now. I have to admit, sometimes work gets in the way for me to explore this laptop more. So most of the time, it's just email, browsing, microsoft office, and that's about it! Because of that, I'm still figuring new things that this laptop has to offer, which is a good thing because I keep getting surprises.

In case you're wondering, nope,  my bag is not this neat most of the time. It only happens when I changed bag, or after I clean up the mess on Sunday night.

Anyway, featured here is my Chanel GST that I got 4 years ago. For work bags, I’m always looking for something that fits my daily essential. I don’t want it to be oversized, just enough to fit my laptop to avoid bringing two bags to meetings. Other than the size, leather is a must! Non leather bags can look too casual sometimes, especially when it’s slouchy. Oh speaking of slouchyness, I like my work bag structured to lend a more professional look. It also has to be solid and neutral color so I don’t have to change bag when I wear prints.

So, what’s inside it?

• My Dell Inspiron 11 series 3000 laptop. Thank God for this light and thin laptop I have no problem carrying it in my bag. It weighs in at 1.4 kg. Sometimes, my makeup bag is heavier than this laptop :D. Just like I can be picky with bag, I’m also very particular with my laptop. Specs and features are important but design is ultra important for me. The thinner and the lighter it is, the better! Second requirement is it has to look sleek and modern, techy but feminine. In this Dell laptop, I also like the fact that the body is actually plastic but it’s made to look and feel like aluminium. Plastic doesn’t scratch easily, which is of course a plus especially since I carry it in my bag without a laptop case sometimes. So design wise it’s perfect for me. 
• Louis Vuitton Sarah Wallet. It has more receipt than it has cash..*sigh*
• Michael Kors business card case
• Eyeglasses case that I got from Scoop
• Female Daily Makeup pouch. The makeup pouch and the inside deserves a separate post. 

If you like to see what others carry in their bag, you can see the What's Inside Her Bag column in Female Daily. 

Well, not that I don't need it anymore, but surprisingly I don't use it that much with this Dell Inspiron 11 Series 3000. I charged it all night and I don't have to charge it again during the day the next day if I don't use it non stop.

Yang namanya interview, pasti dong harus siap menjawab berbagai macam pertanyaan dari beberapa interviewer sekaligus. Kalo di Female Daily Network ada ibu HRD dan juga usernya yang akan menjadi supervisor si kandidat ini kalo diterima. Usernya berarti bisa Managing Editor, bisa IT Manager, Account Director, Finance Manager dan lain sebagainya.

Selain siap untuk ditanya, pas interview juga harus siap bertanya, karena akan ada saatnya kamu dipersilakan untuk bertanya. Dan memang seharusnya kamu udah punya banyak pertanyaan. Ini calon tempat kamu kerja, loh...tempat di mana kamu akan menghabiskan waktu untuk berbulan-bulan dan mungkin bertahun-tahun ke depan. If you don't have any questions at all then we take it maybe you just don't care?

Trus..boleh tanya apa aja? Kebetulan kemarin baru Interview 6 kandidat untuk posisi editor. Jadi masih fresh banget di kepala. Basically, you can ask about anything, we are pretty much an open book and we are a bit narsistic sometimes so we love to share our story :p. Tapi pertanyaannya mesti yang pinteran dikit yah, not something that can't be found by a click away dan bikin kamu ketauan kalo belum research. Jadi jangan sampe keluar pertanyaan..'Kalo Female Daily sama Mommies Daily itu satu perusahaan bukan, sih?'..errr...

Trus juga ya, jangan...JANGAN tanya office hoursnya dari jam berapa sampe jam berapa? Plis deh, itu bikin ilfeel banget.

Beberapa waktu yang lalu saya diundang oleh Rosa Djalal untuk sharing di acara inaugurasi yayasan Women For The World nya, yang bertemakan Invest in Women, Transform the World.

With such a strong mission and a cause I truly believe in, of course lah I wouldn't say no to share my story to 200 aspiring women entrepreneurs. Seneng banget sih bisa sharing sama mereka dan juga denger ceritanya mereka, all the triumphs and the struggles. Pulangnya juga bawa beragam oleh-oleh karena banyak dari mereka yang bisnisnya makanan dan kerajinan tangan.



Di awal-awal slide, saya menceritakan tentang Female Daily sekarang, dari mulai misinya, produknya, manfaatnya, komunitasnya, timnya, cara memonetizenya dan lain-lain. Semuanya sebenernya bukan rahasia lagi sih untuk pembaca atau membernya Female Daily.

Nah di slide-slide berikutnya, saya lebih menceritakan hal-hal yang nggak kasat mata, yang di belakang layar, yang bisa membuat Female Daily bisa bertahan selama 10 tahun ini, walaupun secara business mungkin baru bisa dihitung dari 2009 ya. Ternyata, formula Female Daily itu, setelah dipelajari, terdiri dari 5 P.

Passion
Basi sih kedengerannya, tapi bener deh, without passion to write, passion about beauty, passion about women, passion about digital world I wouldn't last this long.

Plan
Passion will only go so far if it's not backed by a solid plan. Dan jangan sedih kalo nggak punya plan dari awal sih, all you have to do is START. Start with what you have and better tools will come along way. In my case, I started with a laptop on my lap. The laptop you own now or about to buy can open you to a window of opportunities asal kita nggak cuma konsumsi apa yang ada didigital aja, tapi juga berkarya di situ.

Setelah mulai, coba dievaluasi lagi, apa sih yang bisa diimprove? Gimana supaya pembacanya naik terus? Gimana supaya isinya lebih berbobot? Kira-kira kerjasama dengan siapa ya yang bisa menaikan kredibilitas? Intinya NEVER STOP Improving and have goals, kira-kira 6 bulan lagi pengen achieve apa. Female Daily juga jalannya gitu kok, mulai dari sebuah blog sederhana, template dan hosting gratisan sampai akhirnya beli domain sendiri, beli kamera supaya foto-fotonya lebih bagus, launching forumnya dan lain-lain. So just st

Purpose
Trus, business has to solve problems. Tapi menurut saya jalan menuju ke situnya bisa berbeda-beda. Ada yang memang udah ketauan problemnya apa dan langsung bikin bisnis untuk memberikan solusinya. It's not the case with Female Daily. I just started with what I like and little did I know ternyata I was filling a gap karena ternyata di Indonesia belum ada, pada saat itu, sebuah blog yang membahas tentang fashion dan beauty, belum ada sebuah online komunitas yang bisa membuat perempuan Indonesia belajar dan kenalan satu sama lain. Dan ternyata, yang mungkin terlihat sepele seperti lipstick dan moisturizer membawa impact yang cukup besar terhadap kehidupan para pembaca dan membernya. Ada yang jadi lebih bisa merawat dirinya, ada yang menjadi lebih percaya diri, ada yang belajar tentang ASI dan sukses menyusui anaknya sampai 2 tahun, ada yang belajar tentang investasi dan lain-lain. Alhamdulillah, ternyata cukup banyak membawa manfaat dan kalau webnya lagi down banyak banget yang protes dan nyariin.

Jadi bisa dicoba tuh, CLOSE DOWN your business for a few days and see if anyone notice it. Kalo ternyata nggak ada yang protes berarti keberadaannya kurang significant so you have to find a way on how make more impact to your customers or suppliers. This brings me to a point that being an entrepreneur is not about what we can get but what we can give or contribute to other people. It's not what in it for us. It's something bigger than ourselves. 

Profit
Well, no business will survive without making money. Well kecuali startup yang belom apa-apa udah diinvest and banking on growth. Saya sendiri cukup conventional, dalam arti, boleh lah fundraising untuk pertumbuhan yang lebih cepat, tapi tetap, kita harus tau gimana cari uangnya kan. Kalo dari awal cuma kepikiran 1 channel untuk jualan nggak papa, begitu kita jalanin, pasti akan ada cara-cara lain untuk jualan asal jangan menghalalkan segala cara. Mommies Daily nggak pernah terima iklan susu formula walaupun tawarannya banyak banget. Tapi kita percaya walaupun satu pintu ditutup, pintu-pintu lain akan banyak terbuka.

Perseverance
Yang terakhir, apalagi kalo bukan ketekunan. Nothing is instant about building a business...it's all about process. Kalo orang yang baru lihat Female Daily mungkin akan mikir 'enak yaa kantornya besar, timnya udah lebih dari 30, baru diinvest' dan lain-lain. Mereka nggak tau kalo dulu kantor Female Daily cuma muat 3 meja yang mejanya juga beli bekas di Manggarai, belum lagi bocor dan kebanjiran, nggak bisa menyediakan laptop dan asuransi untuk timnya. Foundersnya nggak gajian? Trust me, it happened! So if you are facing a challenge right now, don't worry, just focus on what you are going TO not what you are going THROUGH :)

You see, it's a brand that supports entrepreneurship and women! How can I not embrace it? :)

It's sleek, affordable, two-in one, can be used for the whole family, reliable and backed with a remarkable story. Those sealed the deal for me.

I've always loved listening to him and reading his book because for me he shows the real face of Islam. The Islam that is warm, loving and all around beautiful.

In the first few pages I found his quote "Bacalah Al-Qur'an seakan-akan dia diturunkan kepadamu" and I was stunned because I've never thought of that. Now that I see it that way, I can see how relatable it is to our daily life and how it can guides us every step of the way. The answer is all there, we just have to look.

There was a story about his relationship with Soeharto especially since he stepped down, losing the first lady and until the former President took his final breath. He gave his eulogy and stood by his belief that you should just speak good about other people whether they are still alive or not.


This reminds me of the talk he gave during break-fasting event at Mbak Elaa's house two weeks ago. He said that it's not the big thing that Allah is asking from you, like going to Hajj or perform Umrah every single year. Allah likes the things you do on your everyday life, He prefers you to forgive and be nice to people who've hurt you. We never know which good deeds that will bring us to heaven, that's why we have to plant kindness and good deeds.

It was also mentioned in the book that for him, one of the worst things we can do is to stop where we are now, not improving and not trying to achieve perfection. Exactly what he said during the talk that Allah likes those who are willing to go the extra mile!

So note to self: don't stop and never think you've done enough. There's always more you can do and there's always things to improve.

More pictures...

Ramadan goes by really fast, doesn't it? Next week is the last week that the office is open, we'll be working from home for the next two weeks. And then I'm going on a two-weeks vacation so I won't see the office until mid-August! This will be the longest time I leave the office.



So far, I haven't been as productive as I would like it to be. I'm sleep deprived, really! Some days I would be like zoning out and it's just hard to concentrate. I'm actually pretty ashamed of myself. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with other areas of my life, I'm spending time with family and eat together every single day. It's the first year that my little girl fast throughout the days, so I just want to make sure I break the fast at home with the kids. I love doing Tahajud and Dhuha pretty regularly too and enjoying Ramadan blessings :). @heyspice orders are picking up and I relaunched @closetquickies and already sent out 5 packages in less than a week.

Today we had a bukber with extended family at home. I ordered Es Pisang Ijo from Gyanda as well as cookies from Niya to give to my aunts, uncles and cousins. The ladies in Female Daily are truly super, managing side business aside from their busy schedules at work :). I also bought many clothes from Riana and let everyone had the festivity of trying out the clothes and competing with each other on which one to get :D. What is Ramadan without sharing, right?

I had last minute work in the kitchen making Cheesy Beef Nachos. It was literally last minute as I started at 5:10, sautéing the onion, ground beef, salsa sauce and cheese sauce and then baked it for 10 minutes. So happy that my last minute fiasco was quite a huge hit and everyone asked for the recipe :D. I know that no picture = hoax but the dish was done a minute before Maghrib, so I didn't have time to take one.

I'm also happy that my mom made the legendary nasi tomat. It reminded me of my childhood, eating lunch together with my dad on Saturday afternoon. I rarely eat rice but for this special dish I won't think twice :).

Anyway, as usual,  I'm just rambling and smiling at 1:30AM and couldn't be more thankful, grateful and humbled for today. Let's hope we make the end of Ramadan better than the beginning :)

I went to Malang last week from Thursday to Sunday, and I just realized that..

• It was the first time I step foot in Terminal 1! It explains to two things: I don't travel enough and when I do I never take other airline except Garuda for domestic travel. I actually like Terminal 1 and it's semi open air concept, it gives a holiday mood as soon as you get closer to the gate.
• It was obviously the first time I took Citilink. I have no complain, really! Both flight leave on time, check in process was efficient and the staff was nice. I will definitely fly with Citilink again. 

The reason why I didn't exercise lately, well what else but the crazy schedule and workload and the fact that I didn't want to lessen the minimal time I have with the kids. I know for sure that exercising actually helps us being more productive even though our schedule is already crazy as it is. But the thing is, I need enough sleep too. Not because I'm lazy but because I try to listen to my body and know what best for it.

The Nike Indonesia people and the agency team is also a joy to work with. They have been spoiling me with Nike goodies that make working out so much more fun. We can be sweating but we still need to look good, right? Learning more about the brand is also an exciting experience for me. Nike is one of the brands that I admire because of its mission and its creative innovation to stay relevant to our daily life and empower us to be #betterforit. They have successfully instil in me that strength is the new standard for beauty.
NTC at Sana Studio where they introduced us about the Nike Pro Bra. Laila Munaf was known for her Zumba in the early days but now she is Indonesia's NTC Master Trainer.

On Kartini's day, I was invited by Yansen to share my entrepreneurship journey at //femaledev summit. Nowadays, I prefer to do a talkshow or panel than a full presentation with slides and everything. It's usually more fun and less preparation on my side. I was on the session with Putri Tanjung, founder of Creativepreneur and a professional gamer Monica Caroline, founder of Nixia Gamer. So it was basically about the creative industry and how technology empowered us.
Anyway, I was asked what I want Female Daily to be in the next 5 years? I told the audience that by then, I hope all smartphones own by Indonesian women will have Female Daily apps on it. I don't know what the numbers will be, some 100 million something? But wouldn't it be awesome that something you build become a big part of people's daily life? I know it's a tall order but let's just do our best and let Allah do the rest :)

More pictures...

Every Monday, we have a sharing session in the office where we update everyone on what's going on, what we are working on, the progress, announcement and everything. The update can be just a one liner or something that involves a presentation. Then, at the end of the session someone will present about a topic that interest him/her, and it can be about anything, doesn't have to be about work at all. Recent topics included:

• How to survive a horror movie! haha, this one was hilarious. 
• Bagaimana supaya tidak terkena begal. This one was important but the advices were amusing
• Kiat supaya bisa bertahan sampai gajian berikutnya :D
• 10 ways to stimulate your brain
• What your body language says about you
• Top mispronounced words in English

LOVE LOVE LOVE this video created by our creative team. Good job Dhany for coming up with the idea although some cheated with two or more words..haha..

I went through the draft folder and found this written in 2012. To make it more current, let me throw in a recent Today's Outfit picture in here :D



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Last Friday, I had quite a hectic morning schedule. I had 8 AM appointment with my trainer, so I left the house around 7:20 with Jehan, and she dropped me off in the gym first before going to school. I took a shower in the gym and went to hair salon right away to get my hair blow dried because I was about to get my picture taken for my profile in SWA. And then I stopped by at Starbucks, by 10AM I already sat in the meeting room with our partner from Singapore.

One of the things that I'm forever grateful for is the living arrangement I have now. My house is not far from the office and the kids school. Even Oki's office is still considerably near. Not to mention that I live practically in the same roof with my mom and my sister family. Everything is available in Kemang (where the office is located) area, so our activity is just revolved around the area.

So when people ask me how I can do all that, the answer is simply because I'm just lucky to have everything within reach. I cannot imagine if I have to go through the horrendous 2 hours traffic to get to the office or if I don't have a driver to take and pick up my kids to school. I don't want to sound righteous by claiming I have a good time management skill or that I work really hard to get to the point of where I'm at right now. Some things I experience is based on my own hard work, but there are luck factor that contributes into the whole thing. Like when we found the house that have two different areas in one compound so my mom and I can still live together. Or my luck in finding and keeping domestic helpers and other things.

A lot people thought that having a business means you will have a very flexible schedule. That is somewhat true. Although I go to the office everyday, I have more freedom to manage and rearrange it should I have family matters I need to attend to. But there are also many times when I can't come to the briefing in my kids' school because I already set a meeting with clients or people from overseas that make you feel bad about cancelling the meeting. And workload wise, it is way heavier than if you're employed by a company because you don't have a specific job to work on, you have almost everything on your plate.

As an entrepreneur, we don't have a job description.  I don't work only whenever I want to. I go to the office everyday, most of the time among the first few people arrived. And it's not rare I found myself the last to go home too. Often time, I bring my laptop home and would continue work until past midnight or find myself in a coffee shop on the weekend.  To have more time for work, I rarely take long lunch. Most of the time it's a delivery or a takeout. I never go out with friends! Well, maybe once every 3 months to have dinner or lunch. I never walk around mall just because. I only go to malls to have meetings or press event to attend, or if the kids need to buy something. I also don't watch TV! It's been more than a year that I never turn my TV on. Oh and I also never go to a spa, not even once and if I go to a salon it's because of a haircut, or a quick blow dry for big events, not for luxury treatment. To shorten time, I usually shampoo the hair at home so I can just get it blow dried right away.

What else? I'm sure there are more things that I do/don't do to accommodate my role as an entrepreneur, a mother and a wife (and daughter, granddaughter, sister, daughter in law, etc, etc). One thing for sure, there are a lot of things that we sacrifice or giving up too.

So anyway, I'm just rambling :D

Last week, we were interviewing people for some position in the office. We always do a back to back interview in one batch, unless it's a director position, then we'll take a more personal approach.

Anyway, of course there's all kind of people with their own characters and personalities. And we usually know either we want to hire them or not within the first 5 minutes. There were many times when I told them straight away at the end of the interview that there won't be a follow up. I did it to save my time and their time and energy. And I don't have to feel bad because they won't leave the office with a false hope.

To my surprise, one of the interviewees last week has disability. He had physical disability as well as problems in speaking where he spoke in garbled manner, which is hard to understand what he was saying word per word. On paper, his experiences look really good, which is why we invited him for an interview. I couldn't help but wonder whether he was born like that or is it something that happened recently. Either way, his accomplishment is amazing. Not once he mentioned about his limitation, making it an excuse. He didn't even see the need to explain himself. With him, it's all business. He was also full of life, excited to take on more challenges and shared his past experiences with pride.

On the other hand, the next interview was this young woman who looked promising on paper. She get both her bachelor and master overseas and just started a new job but already looking for another opportunity because she wants something...err...closer from her house. And her current office is not too far from Kemang. She doesn't know anything about Female Daily and she asked how multitasking is her job gonna be and did/said other interview mishaps. Argghh, I was done after the first 5 minutes. It's just so sad when people have all the privileges but they don't use it to their advantage. And worse, they have this deep sense of self entitlement even before proving their worth.

So there, two very different individuals. One of them is grateful to be given the opportunity to live by doing more. The other one just seems to take things for granted.

• Wedding dress have pockets now. You know, to take selfie on the pelaminan and document everything as well as to share the excitements on social media.
• Best tweet/picture using the official hashtag during the reception will win a prize!
• Bridezilla choose makeup artists or photographers or other business supporting their wedding based on how many followers they have on the Instagram. Why? So they will take pictures of the wedding and mention the bride and the groom so they get many likes and new followers.

The restaurant has just opened for the last few weeks in Plaza Senayan. It wasn't our favorite back in the States but hey let's just try it and see how it is here. The Pretzel Cheese Dip was the bomb! So good that I brought home the remaining cheese dip -__-. My quessadila burger was really satisfying. And it didn't make me feel so guilty knowing I picked a better option. Hey, at least the bun is thinner than the usual burger, and I shared it with Oki.  Jib sirloin steak was good he said. The chicken finger and the aglio olio are not something we will reorder. It was still empty at noon so our food came out fast. It was still a bit too early for lunch on the weekend but the man has to rush tending the weekend job..he is been so busy over the weekend. So, thank you for making the time :).

I went to Ikea last week with Je and as we were approaching the place, there were a huge empty land around the area. And Jehan casually said "Mommy, I think we should build something like Disneyland here. So while the parents shop in Ikea the kids can just wait here and play" :D

We made our new year wish before we went to sleep. Hers were:

• To grow strong and have muscle! I'm especially proud of this one because that means I have successfully instilled in her the importance of exercise.
• To be able to do splits. I notice a lot of girls her age into gymnastic now.
• For her parents to stay and look young. Oh Je, is this even possible?
• To have the magic wand. This girl still believes in magic somehow :)

She is currently into black clothes. She loves to wear her black legging with her black Uniqlo tanktop and a black or dark blue cardigan. She said black is cool!

Ohh and recently she just told me not to call or associate her with sweet or cute anymore. "Don't call me sweet, don't call me sweetie pie, don't call me sweetheart. I'm COOL, not sweet" -__-

Her recent milestone was going on school-camping for one night. She's been out of town or sleep in my grandma's without me but this school-camping was the first without any family member :)

Don't grow up too fast, Je!

• 5 Mega-trends reshaping the global economy:  The rise of emerging markets (Asian company made it to 500 Fortunes company has doubled), Aging populations, The Digital Age, Resource Scarcity, The Market State. 
• Laeaders have tougher job than ever. In order to survive, leaders have to be:  Ready for 'trend breaks', Tri-Sector Athelete (government, civil society & the business), Receptor and Connector, Equipped with Strong Sense of purpose, Calmed in the eye of the hurricane, Always ON, Marathoners & a Sprinter, Telescope and Microscope