The Pricks in Politics

When I was younger, I used to think that it is better to keep my political views to myself - just to avoid any trouble because my frank opinions may just be misunderstood.  Now, too many of my relatives are involved in politics - be it pro or anti-opposition.  When I say too many, I really do mean TOO MANY.  When we all get together, we do exchange our opinions on the outlook of our political scene, especially in Sabah.  The resignation of our granduncle, Datuk Seri Wilfred Bumburing, did not shock any of us actually.  In fact, we were comtemplating among ourselves on which party that he would join when he resigns.  Well, he retired from UPKO (a component party of BN) and join PR.  I guess he has his own reasons - will try to ask him on what's his motivation to do the move.  Hahaha!

Anyway, unlike Tun M, I am always with the view of "It is always better to be with the devil that you know than the devil that you don't" - in politics, there is no such thing as being an angel la.  When a person is too nice, he will not be able to be a politician.  This is my personal view - politics always has that 'dirty' element in it.  I mean, come on, when the others are playing dirty, those 'new naive' politicians will have no choice but either to join them or be 'killed' in the process.  Whatever it is, we, the mere mortals, will just try to sway ourselves from getting ourselves entangled in any political issues.

Recently something caught my attention, which triggered myself to be a bit more vocal in my political opinion.  Like I've said before, I am not a pro-government nor am I a pro-opposition.  I believe that in any country, it is always for the best when there is a good mixture of government and opposition representatives in the parliament.  It creates balance.

Anyway, back to the original topic.  This is about the recent Budget Report 2013, where the PM, announced that, "The Government will allocate RM386 million to ensure the prices of essential goods in Sabah and Sarawak as well as in Labuan are sold at lower prices through the opening of 57 KR1M (Kedai Rakyat 1 Malaysia); and to bear the cost of delivering products from Peninsular Malaysia to Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan including the interior areas."

I don't want to say whether it was a good idea for the PM to just make a general statement like that in his plan but I am sure that he is aware that every single point that he tabulates during his budget plan presentation, will be criticised to the max by the opposition parties - what more, GE13 is so nearby.

What I don't like is the statement from the opposition parties!  I mean, if you want to make criticisms, please be more prepared with facts rather than shooting 'blanks' la.

Check out this media statement by Tony Pua Kiam Wee, DAP National Publicity Secretary & MP for Petaling Jaya Utara on Tuesday, 2nd October 2012.


Pua's big header of "Why is the Federal Government helping Mydin make astronomical profit to set up 57 KR1M in Sabah and Sarawak with RM386 million?" really amazes me on how shallow a politician's mind could be - if Pua wants to trick the public to turn against the Government by making such a remark, he has made a mistake - we are not stupid fool la.  There are so many other things that he could pinpoint on the mistakes that the Government has made.  Oh well, the remark is not accurate at all!  First and foremost, who is helping who here?  I don't think a big corporate company like Mydin will need any help to gain profit from the Government la.  In fact, in the case of KR1M, Mydin is helping the Government to manage these shops as part of the company's CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) - check out this video by Mydin's Managing Director.  Other big retailers will not even want to be part of it because they have to invest their resources (which could be used to gain profit for their own company) to assist in setting up KR1M stores.

One more thing, where did Pua get the data that Mydin is making astronomical profit out of this KR1M deal?  Even a layman will know that you get better profit if you sell things more expensive.  The items in KR1M are cheap because the profit out of the items is low!  I think Mydin would be better off sticking with their own business.  Its MD explained this in an article that just came out today that it is NOT a fast way to get rich!

Pua also said, "We call upon the Government to make available the RM386 million to all small retail outlets already in existence throughout Sabah and Sarawak to ensure that the maximum number of retailers and consumers will benefit from the programme to sell basic necessities at lower prices."  Seriously, I want to ask him, if he has millions to invest, will he want to risk the money on someone who has little experience in retail supply chain, or someone who has only a single shop, or a company who has a proven track record of opening various formats of stores across the country?  Simple risk calculation, right?  I think that even if the Government offers KR1M to any other businessman, not many will take it up.  In fact, according to the Malaysian Digest article, after realizing how the model of opening KR1M is not a fast way to gain richness, a lot of those who were keen before, decided not to pursue it.

One more thing to add, having multiple retail outlets across the country to get into KR1M project will be a total management nightmare - consistencies in processes and even item assortments will be gone and tracking the returns of the money invested will not be easy!  At the end of the day, isn't it commonsense that in order to minimise the risk of project failure (in this case, involving millions of ringgit), you would want the project to be handled by ONE party (this is simple project management la!).  The more party is involved in a project, the more complex the project management would be!  I mean, HELLOOOOO, how does he think that he could run a country without even deducing such a simple common-sense?

Another politician who made a statement about this issue is the Kota Kinabalu MP, Dr Hiew King Cheu.  I realized that a lot of these so-called educated politicians just like to make general statements without getting their facts right - Dr Hiew said, "...KR1M shop is a direct competitor to take away the business and income of the local small business and sundry shop or kedai runcit. This KR1M has the government finance and capital support, and it is selling goods at very price would definitely "slaughter" the existing small businesses. How can the Kedai Runcit survive? This will even affect the business of the supermarkets too."  Doesn't he know that the kedai runcit can purchase these items from KR1M (at lesser prices) and re-sell the items in their shops.  In this case, the kedai runcits will gain more customers too!  From the selling prices, I am sure that KR1M has always been targetted to assist the needy who are living in towns/cities.  The target audience is specific and the range of products is limited to essential items.  Therefore, I don't think that the sundry shops/kedai runcits will be 'slaughtered' by KR1M.

Having said all the above, there is one thing that I do agree with Pua.  It is the transparency of the allocated budget!  The Government has always been 'weak' in this.  They should be more open in terms of how the money is disbursed and show that there is no hanky-panky going on in the background.  Well, that's what we, as the public, hope la...  The Government needs to win back our trust so what's the harm of being transparent to your potential voters, unless of course, you have something to hide la...

In conclusion, the PRICKS are those politicians who choose to just say whatever they want without doing proper research, playing TRICKS to the public, thinking that we could be fooled.  In this era where technology is available to everyone, news travel and rumours get spread so much faster than before, it is hard to fool the people la!

In the end, the people will decide!  Personally, most of the people in politics are always with 2 faces - it is up to us to see which party is good for us and the country.

I will leave all of you with the above pic that I find to be, in a way, true to certain extend.

Until my next post, let's pray that our country will be more peaceful and we can live in harmony regardless of our race, personal faith and sexual preference!

Note: My Vote

"Political reality is very different from what it looks like outside. Always harder to be working than to observe & criticize" - tweet from Hannah Yeoh

When I read the tweet above, it does make sense.  Yes! It is always easier to talk and criticize than to be in that person's shoes.  Now that we are about to have our next general election (God knows when now), a lot of efforts can be seen from every sides; ruling and opposition parties are trying to out-do each other.  Strategies are planned and people are 'pulled' from everywhere.

I know a lot of my relatives and friends in Sabah are very active in various political parties.  Some, did asked about my view on our country's political scene.  To be honest, I am not a fan of politics, mainly because of one reason: corruption!  I have heard a lot of stories on how 'business' transactions are done in favour of one political party.  I think that modern politics is always associated to personal gain.  Most politicians (please note that I put the word MOST here) are in politics for their own gain first then for the people - that too, certain sets of people who are in their favour.  In its true essence, politics is meant for the benefits of the citizens.  But, all of us, mere mortal citizens, are aware that our politicians are in politics not 100% for us.  You can see how when it's near an election, then only we see their faces in their areas.  There are so many things that could be done to assist the poor, the illiterates, the under-developed villages etc.  The attention is only given to these groups only when media is present or when the topic is 'hot'.

Do we practise true democracy in the country?  There's doubt to this.  Votes are bought and ballots are rigged - rumours?  Maybe.  But, I have seen for myself where certain party used lorries to deliver zinc pieces to home owners during election.  Is this right and in accordance to the election rules and regulations?  In Sabah, we have those non-Malaysians with our Malaysian Identity Card (IC) casting their votes for their 'sponsors'.  Sad but true, democracy is manipulated fraudulently and its rules are bent just for the sake of winning the election.

Now, talking about our current political scene, the oppositions are gaining a lot of supporters.  I see this as a good thing.  I mean, the current government has never felt threaten in the past and it's about time that they do.  I am not saying that the opposition will be able to take the throne this round but I believe that in anything, it is always good to have check and balance.  If the parliment is monopolized by only the ruling party then decisions made may not have been thought through.  With more opposition members in the parliment, at least, the governing party will be more vigilent and will be kept on their toes by the opposition members - it's only human nature, right?  Afterall, monopoly is never good, what more in ruling a country.

There is so much of political 'heat' now, bloodshed events and sensitive topics (sexual orientation, religion, race etc) are raised without thinking of the consequences, which of course, is not giving any benefit to the public and causing a lot of mixed feelings among us.  Innocents are caught in the middle of the political 'tug of war'.  All we want is to have a peaceful country to live in.  If only there is a way to measure the citizens' happiness (like the iPad game Kingdoms of Camelot) then any government can see whether they can balance the happiness with the economy of the country etc.  Oh well, they just have to learn to listen to the general public more but not having those selective 'hearing' though.

Frankly speaking, I just can't wait till the election is over.  The longer the wait, the more incidents we will face.  At the end, I hope and pray that true democracy will prevail as my vote will remain unknown to others but me!

Till my next post, wishing all my readers, peace and let's vote!

From Captain America to Thor - My Review of The Avengers 2012

To those who have not seen The Avengers, please do not read further as I do not want to be responsible to spoil the movie for you.

I love the movie! It is the best Marvel movie ever! I love the action part of the movie - how the Avengers fight with the fleets of Chitauri in the middle of New York City!  Now, it's always New York City, right?  The city has been through so much and even Marvel likes to use this city as the location of Stark HQ.  Those one-liners are cheeky, although yeah. some are corny ;p  Oh ya, I laughed so much when Hulk hit Loki again and again on the floor - that was so funny!  Check out the YouTube video below:

One thing that I could not help but notice is the similarities between this movie's Dr Banner and the TV-series' Dr Banner.

Don't you guys think that Bill Bixby and Mark Ruffalo have some resemblance?

And how hot is Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow / Agent Natasha Romanoff?  Taken from this site - where she confesses that she wasn't wearing anything underneath that unitard!

I don't mind watching this movie again!  It is just done so brilliantly!  A definite 5 out of 5!

Email: Good or Evil?

This blog entry has been sitting in my draft folder for ages! Been trying to finish it but work just got in the way.  Last night when I was monitoring the stocktake processing, I manage to finish this off!

So, enjoy my "Email: Good or Evil?" posting!

This was the logo used by Digital Trends in their article "Europe's Largest IT Company Bans Email".  Cool eh?

Here's the thing - if we ask any professionals nowadays on what is the most important thing to have for their work, many would say, "Email is critical for my work".  Actually, what they really mean is that "Communication is critical for my work" and the most used tool to communicate is the email system.

Now, let's put it this way.  In a day, we have 24 hours of 60 minutes each - so, in a day, we have 24 x 60 = 1440 minutes.  I receive around 1500 emails daily and 90% of the emails are internal - I am managing 3 projects with various vendors so 10% of the emails come from them.  Thanks to the well-managed spam filter by our data centre team, junk email is rare.  With the large number of received emails, it is hard to do your work and keep up with the incoming emails.  I try to spend each and every free minutes to clear my inbox so that I don't have massive backlog on my email.  If I use half-a-min for an email, that will take, like 12.5 hours already! Wow! A lot more can be accomplished if the 12 hours are spent on proper work.  Gosh, once we start to quantify things, perspective would change drastically!

Most of the internal emails I received, are of type "for-info-only" but they are cluttering my inbox, making it difficult for me to filter the urgent emails out of the "for-info-only".  Some senders just want to loop you in, just in case ;p  Honestly, I am also guilty of these so-called "for-info-only" emails.  I would write an email TO a particular set of people for them to action on the content but I would CC those who just need to know that the task has been delegated and will be followed up.  I also need most things to be done via email because I use it as my personal tracking system.  Having verbal communication is great but people tend to forget so, usually, I will put down the discussion into an email to ensure that I do not forget anything and that I can refer to the email for future references.

Catch 22 situation eh? To email or not to email?  For me, the "for-info-only" emails are good to read when you have enough time in your hands so can they be channelled through other tools other than email?  I think that taking email tool out of an organization like what Atos did would require a lot of effort to educate and change people on how to use an alternative communication tool like Yammer or Podio.  But if it could take away even half of my incoming emails daily, I would want to give it a chance!

Verdict of Email: Good or Evil? You decide!

Till my next post, peace and adios!

Hammer the Yammer

Nailing Yammer into our organization!

"The first step is the hardest" - I do believe in this proverb.  It is always difficult to adopt something new or to impose change.  Those who have read the book, "Who moved my cheese?" will be able to relate to the process of changing people's mindsets.

My objective, at the end of the day, is to reduce internal emails by using Yammer to be our collaborative tool but since this is the beginning of a long journey, I can already see some challenges at hand.

Firstly, Yammer vs Email.  Email is very personal.  You can control who to address it to and therefore, you can write it with those intended audience in mind.  Language and email mannerism can be tailored accordingly.  Social networking, on the other hand, is opened to a wider audience thus, making it a bit more complicated for an email-person to adapt to.  How does one write things in social network channel as compared to writing an email?  This is where Yammer groups can be used to assist those users - when writing to a particular group, you imagine as if you are presenting in front of them so your updates in Yammer can still be tailored to a particular group of people.  Now, when you write an update in "All Company", you just have to imagine that you are presenting in front of the entire company so you, in one way or another, automatically tailor your updates as if you have your colleagues from same and other departments as well as your bosses present in front of you.

Next, Yammer vs Facebook (FB). Well, it does not help that Yammer does look like Facebook.  Therefore, the young users in our company tend to use Yammer as if it is their FB page.  They identify themselves as someone who we don't know of - using nicknames that are not familiar in our working environment.  Talking about profile picture, some are not bothered to put up their photos at all while some, put their kids' pics as their profile pics. I mean, I'm sure that you want to show how your kids are etc, but just ensure that you put up your pic as well.  No one knows who you are if your kids' photo is your profile pic and your name is put as 'Lady Gaga', right?  For this cases, just to remind them that this is a professional network and not personal social network.  Once professional is mentioned, then people will change their names and pictures to be more professional.  Save those glamorous nicknames and nice photos for your FB page, ya?

"What are you working on?" vs "What's on your mind?". Although in Yammer, it clearly asks for "What are you working on?", we still get updates like "I am hungry and lunchtime is still so far away" or "It's raining outside and I need Nescafe".  Yes, these are the typical facebook status updates.  Again, Yammer vs Facebook syndrome here.  So, just need to ensure that the users are guided accordingly on what are the suitable updates in Yammer.  Actually, you just have to remind them that the bosses are reading your updates in Yammer and then, the users will be more cautious before clicking on the Yammer update button :)

Novelists in our midst.  I think that there are times when we need to stress that updates should be limited to a few sentences or at most, a paragraph.  Some users tend to use the Update section to write 'novel'.  Other colleagues are reading Yammer to get quick updates on things that are relevant to their current task and if the updates are so long, the time spent on Yammer will be longer than what it should be hence, shorter time to perform the actual task.  I think that this is the hardest to implement - some people just cannot write simple updates and Yammer does not have the 140-character limitation.  It can also be discouraging when users post long updates and they get feedback that their updates are too lengthy - then, they may just stop sending updates in Yammer.  Personally, I am still thinking of how to address this one, so anyone who has an idea on how to help me here, please do send your comments.

Yeah! In short, 'pushing' Yammer to users is not that simple.  Our implementation is still in progress - as of today, we have 58.4% of our users online.  Just need to learn on how to 'hammer' this tool to see whether we can achieve the target of reducing our internal emails traffic.  It's normal that internal adoption/promotion is the hardest to do.

Till my next Yammer posting, let's hammer the Yammer!