My 2009 in Review

Here is my personal list of happenings:

• Did sizable management consulting engagements with a multinational company and a local conglomerate. Finally made full use of what I learnt in MBA and PhD. Learned a lot too, especially the human side of a consulting project.
• Did a business intelligence project with a large local company. Learned quite a bit of T-SQL and ASP.NET.
• Completed a statistical library product and sold a couple of copies online.
• Continue to build community in UPSR-TODAY.com
• Started a bookshop, both online and physical
• Developed a courseware on studying skills
• Started developing a workshop for business partnering with software consortium of Penang
• Learned to play chess (so that my son can’t beat me that easily)
• Has a big gathering (20 year anniversary) for a group of Buddhist friends who went to Air Jernih for community service.
• Read quite a few books. Lost count of it.
• Many other small things which didn’t succeed, too trivial, too confidential, or too embarrass to list.

Also, this year, I bade fare well to my late father.

Bye 2009.

May year 2010 be a fulfilling year for me and everyone.

My Favorite Restaurant Coming to Changi Airport

I have tried Ananda Bhavan in Penang Little India, Sungai Petani, and Tanjung Bungah. They have never failed to impress me. Especially the one in LIttle India – where there are two shops, one serving pure vegetarian food – really delights me.

As I walk around Changi Airport Terminal 2 two days ago, there is this sign:

Seems like the shop is expanding fast – outside Malaysia now. I think they deserve to be so successful. If you have tried their food, don’t wait, go try it asap.

Singapore National Museum Goes High Tech

Every time Malaysians visit Singapore, they can’t help returning home with many “ideas for improvement” for their home land. This trip is no exception for me.

I had an exceptionally good experience this time at Singapore National Museum. This time, it introduced a personal digital companion (as they call it). As you move around sections in the museum, you just punch in the number indicated on the floor. You will get detailed explanation on what you are seeing. Here is how the “companion” looks like:

It is multilingual, with a version for children.

I’ve never enjoyed a museum that much. Thanks for making this works.

Take Two

A common scene of a public toilet

(1) Malaysia:

    A desk collecting money from you for using the toilet.

(2) Singapore:

    No desk in front of the toilet. Inside the toilet:

Logical and Illogical Logics

There are always two sides of a coin. Take logic. It helps us to understand many things. On the other hand, people can twist and turn it to serve their purpose.

The following is a case of "logical thinking", which shows over-generalization of "pattern" without validation:

Fact 1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer  fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Fact 2. The Mexicans eat a lot of  fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Fact 3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.

Fact 4. The  Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

Fact 5. The Germans  drink a lot of beers and eat lots of  sausages and fats  and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

I know you don’t buy the conclusion here, simply because the conclusion is quite far off. But how about the false logical assertions that is more subtle and believable?

Like: “All good students go for tuition. If you don’t take tuition, you will lose out.” or, “We need a lot of protein for growth, therefore we must eat meat.” Recently I heard there was a so-called health expert going around to promote Vitamin-C as solution to all sorts of illnesses. This guy can put up a lot of “evidence” to support this points.

Our world is full of all kinds of assertions. It is not so easy to differentiate fads from facts. With the advances in marketing and selling, anything can be packaged so that you buy their stories. Packaging essentially show you something and hide from you something – to get you to buy their ideas or products.

Without critical minds, we will just get sucked into the zeitgeist, or the prevailing belief of the time.

The solution is: think twice, think through, get second opinion and don’t get emotional.

There is Tomorrow, Isn’t It?

One day King Yama (阎罗王), the ruler of Hell, walked the torture chambers to see what is happening in his kingdom, after learning the principle of “management by walking about” from a management guru.

It was rather quiet compared to the last time he walked the place a few months ago. He asked his immediate officer, Bull-head, “We need more people here to justify our capacity. Do you have any idea?”.

Bull Head thought for a while and said, “perhaps we can send someone to the human realm and tell them that there is no hell. Then their will commit more sins and come here.”

King Yama said, “we tried that but it didn’t seem to work. The legal system has become so good and their enforcement has become so efficient. Most people observe the law. Look at Singaporeans, they don’t even chew bubble gums!”

“What do you think?” King Yama turned to Horse Face, the other top-ranked officer.

Horse Face thought of the opposite, “Why don’t we tell them there is no heaven? They won’t bother to be good then.”

King Yama said, “Again, that won’t work either. Most of the people have learned that doing good itself makes them happy. There is quite a lot of spiritual movements up there. So they will do good anyway, regardless of whether there is heaven.”

Then King Yama observed that the operators in the torture chambers often have little chats with the people they torture. So he thought the operator would understand better from their first hand information. So he posted the same question to the operator, who is busy frying a couple of snatch thieves.

Without thinking much, the operator replied King Yama, “It’s easy, just tell the people up there that there is tomorrow.”

“That simple?” King Yama doubted.

“Yes. The people who end up here know they should stop doing bad and start doing good. They end up here because they think there is tomorrow. So they kept postponing and postponing. By the time they realize they are here, it was too late.”

“Bingo! Good idea.” King Yama was delighted. He now convinced that management by walking about works. And he gave the operator a banana, emulating how the Hewlett-Packard manager reward an engineer who solved a major problem.

“Guys, let’s send the message up there and start telling everyone there is tomorrow.” King Yama ordered.

King Yama pondered for a while and ask the communication department head, “Transmit the message using the subconscious wavelength, so that the human won’t resist the message consciously.”

-- The End of the Story

p.s: Wonder why you have the urge to postpone good things you wanted to do and bad things wanted to quit? Obvious, right?

p.p.s: The operator then peel the banana given by King Yama. But he accidentally dropped it into the boiling oil. When he finally managed to take up the banana, he found that it was extraordinarily delicious. His innovation of pisang goreng in Hell earned him even more awards later.

Instant Abundance, Easy as ABC

First of all this is not to promote a get-rich-quick scheme, but to promote a different way of looking at life.

If you have studied accounting, you would have come across Activity-based Costing (ABC) – a widely accepted way to record how money is used in organizations. ABC is based on the premise that activities (which are carried out to accomplish goals) consume resources, which cost money. So it goes like this: Activity uses resources that cost money. This premise is very insightful thus brought about the widespread usage of activity-based costing method.

Now, lets look at our lives. We wanted something in our lives. That something could be college degree, job, girl friend, family, car, house, fame, etc. We do lots of activities, which consume resources, to get what we wanted. Most of the time we focus on the activities and the money, and forgot about the middle part: resources. No so? Think about when was the last time you really pay attention to resources – meaning recognize their abundance as well as limitations and act accordingly?

I would like to put forth these two assertions:

1. We have more resources than we think
2. Resources don’t always cost money

Just to name a few - have you thought about these resources you might have: your knowledgeable parents (or in-laws), smart subordinates, helpful friends, your talent in language (or any other fields), your good look, your underutilized computers, your already-subscribing internet connection, and your vacant-and-waiting-to-be-rented shop-houses. Furthermore, you have a lot of hungry investors, eager donors, and you have ability to reach them.

If you just spend 30 minutes making a complete list of resources you have, you will be amazed the abundance your have. You will immediately recognize that most of them don’t cost extra Ringgits.

Now you are rich. Aren’t you?

And if you are not starting to think big, you have got problem.