How to steal and get caught?

Case 1

Plan - Two young men came up with the idea that they can walk into Corporate HQ, buy $500,000 worth of vouchers, pay for it with a cheque and use the vouchers to buy everything they want for a wonderful Christmas.

What are the things they did not think about?

1. Whose cheque should they use? Take one from your father's or my father's cheque book?
2. They will walk into Corporate HQ without any costume/disguise as nobody will remember their faces.
3. The maximum time window they have to use the $500,000 vouchers would be between 4pm today and 2pm on Wednesday assuming Corporate banks in the cheque on Tuesday and the Bank actually inform Corporate that their cheque has been dishonoured on Wed.
4. They do not have to plan on what are the things that are the most expensive and most portable to buy and carry to their car.
5. At $2,000 per laptop, they just need to buy 250 laptops from 10 supermarkets. At $100 per can of abalone, we just need to buy 5,000 cans. They don't care whether they have enough stock.
6. They also don't care about how to convert the merchandise in cash.
7. They don't have to worry about security cameras located at shopping malls filming their biggest crime of the month.
8. They will just wait at Hougang and Bukit Batok conveniently for the police to visit them.
9. They don't need to plan their escape by driving 250 laptops/5,000 cans across the Causeway or get a boat to ferry to them to don't know where.

Merry Christmas

Case 2

Plan - A serial shoplifter bought and collected two Hermes bags worth $67,500 from an online shop. She managed to convince the seller that she has banked in the money.

What are the things that the serial shoplifter did not consider?

1. The online shop could trace her from the basic information that she has given eg. email address or handphone number or location of delivery.
2. She could be traced to her IP address.
3. She just want to know how $67,500 Hermes bags feel like and did not know it is a crime.
4. Of course, she wasn't thinking about running anywhere.

Physical office is passe

The new term is "collaborative centre". So say Mr Neil Jackson, the Senior Director for Education of Microsoft Asia Pacific. Many years ago, I remembered IBM used the term "hot desking".

Microsoft is busy nowadays reconfiguring its offices. There will be no room for its senior managers no more. The rooms, if any, are configured for 3 persons or 15 people etc to use working intensively on specific projects. When he was in Sydney for several days recently, he just sat on any available chair then and interacted with people around him. The next day, he sat on another chair and interacted with another group of neighbours of the day.

The dynamic of interaction and possibility of collaboration change every day.

Another change in his office life - Previously he spent 70% of his time having physical face-to-face meeting and 30% on video conferencing. Nowadays it is the other way around.