Saya sedikit kecewa dan kesian kerana KRU, Norman khasnya terpaksa tunduk tersungkur pada kerahan BN supaya beliau bersuara lantang di media sosial. Namun ianya bukanlah suatu yang memeranjatkan.

Perbincangan ringkas di MIG pada tahun 2011 bersama peneraju seni (bukan penggiat, bukan pelakon) membuka informasi tentang bagaimana duit ini 50 juta yang dipumpkan kerajaan pada KRU disalahguna. Ianya juga menunjukkan bagaiman KRU secara rasminya terikat dengan kerajaan.

Ada dua hipotesis yang boleh diutarakan. 1) Norman memang ultra BN, 2) Norman terikat kaki dan tangan. Situasi ini tidak memeranjatkan kerana ianya telah berlaku di US. Pengaruh KRU tidak cukup kuat untuk bergerak di atas kaki sendiri dan penerimaan 50 juta funding dari kerajaan meletakkan mereka pada situasi kritikal.

Hipotesis yang ingin saya cadangkan ialah, kita jangan membenci Norman dahulu kerana terdapat komponen kedua yang lebih kritikal yang perlu kita pertimbangkan. Tetapi jika hipotesis pertama valid, Norman, you are out!

Industri Tidak Akan Collapse

Orang awam yang tidak ultra pada mana mana pihak yang meneliti isu ini mampu membuat hipotesis ringkas; penguasaan suatu parti tidak akan menjatuhkan suatu industri tetapi dominasi golongan berintelektual rendah di dalam industri akan menyebabkan kejatuhan.

Semasa penglibatan ringkas saya di dalam industri pada 2011, saya memasuki dengan objektif mengenali industri dengan pandangan kritikal. Pengamatan saya menunjukkan industri ini didominasi golongan yang berintelektual amat rendah. 60% segmen dikuasai golongan veteran berumur 35+ dan selebihnya golongan muda yang tidak inovatif.

Bila dilihat pada pada lensa intelektual di FINAS, anda akan terkejut akan nipisnya segmentasi golongan yang berpotensi di sana. Bercakap melalui bahasa organizational behavior - FINAS bukan sahaja tidak mampu menarik golongan berpotensi, tetap menolak golongan berpotensi.

Sama seperti zaman sebelum kemunculan hasil kerja Steven Spielberg di hollywood.

David Teo

David Teo secara solo merancakkan industri tanah air tetapi dia juga diikat kaki tangan secara berperingkat bermula tahun 2010 dengan penglibatan beliau di BSN. Usaha David Teo dilihat mampu menjatuhkan dominasi golongan Melayu di dalam industri dan mekanisma ini dilaksanakan. David Teo tidak mampu bergerak sendiri kerana pengaruh beliau belum cukup besar dan beliau juga tiada geng Cina yang berkuasa yang memberikan beliau platform kukuh. Saya secara peribadi amat kecewa dengan situasi ini kerana David Teo mempunyai resources dan intelektual bagi membantu menaikkan industri. (intipati meeting koordinasi 2010 di MIG)

Economically speaking, this is why you need to be thankful to be Malaysian. I would agree that we could do so much better, and that does mean, we need to focus our magnifying lens to make the country better, not focusing on how to throw out the government (we know some of you are communists, we even had your profile well-documented). We certainly don't want to be Iraq or Iran. I would support government-shift (changing who to lead Malaysia, anyone?) but i wouldn't agree taking it with riot or any harsh mean. Do you want to be live in country with political unrest like Thailand? Now i had chance meeting 2 group of brilliant people from World Bank and IMF talking statistically about economic ecosystem in Malaysia. Know what they say? "We cant say this in press but we all agree here, Malaysia is the best in the world" (my head has a visual of Zety Akhtar), then they had their Red Wine, i had my Tomato Mountain Juice (Le Meridian Hotel, Club Lounge, 2012).

All posts deserve a good art, right?

"Look at Wong's kid. They know how to run the tire business at young age. Befriend them. They are smart people", those were words uttered from my father when i was kid. Advises we received usually contradict the (local) social norm. A distinguishing one would be "befriend other races".

I never took this seriously until i reached 17, after SPM (SAT in the West). I started to give it a serious thought. I started to question the behavior and social norm of my people, the Kelantanese. Most Kelantanese, they would only befriend Kelantanese, the would avoid others (and this is disturbing). They would then claim that 'we have a strong ukhwah'... what a joke.

When i went to college, i took one step further... majority of my friends (roughly) were non-Malays. Most of them from China and Kazakhstan.

Ai and Avi from China, they are very nice people. Lee Thong was very close to me, but we'd lost contact after he went back to China. Adila is the most beautiful girl I've ever met, a mix of Chinese and Turkish and she is a Muslim too, and we'd lost contact too. Kazbek from Kazakhstan. He met me (with her beautiful girlfriend) a week before he went back to Kazakhstan (last month). When we were in college, we used to have dinner together almost every night, for the whole semester. Then there were people like Yumi, Kiki, Angel, Basam and few others who brought colors to my life. Those were all the good times.

I learned a lot from them and I'm sure those who don't embrace diversity in friendship would miss a lot.

To quote Lynnelle Ye from Stanford University which inspired this post:-

So I'm not going to be polite about this. If you couldn't find a peer group whose intellectual engagement was commensurate with yours in an institution as large, diverse, and world-class as Stanford University, it was entirely and inescapably your own fault. It boggles my mind that you would blame Stanford for your own failure to seek out the incredible opportunities that it would have handed to you on a silver platter. You should be ashamed. That is all.

When intelligence meets fashion, its a personality every man should have

I was given a mandate this morning. A mandate that 90% got me excited and 10% got me nervous. I was excited because it is a personal accomplishment to me. My reading and my willingness to apply best practices, paid off. I was nervous because it is responsibility i have to carry for the next 18 to 24 months. My confident level is high, about 90%. I have to be realistic. I have to give a little space to doubt and uncertainty. 10% would be the right number. That little space would allow me to do some errors and learn from them.

I've got a good start. I've projected the best. And i am going ahead with full optimism.

People (especially from creative industry) reported that they experience spark of creativity during this break. Others (especially middle managers) also reported  that they came up with new way of tackling problem they are facing.

From my own personal experience; i got more delivered to my immediate.

Update: Kahfei Bak pointed me to this link to help support the idea.

I wish a friend of mine Asha could have joined us. Unfortunately, she cant.

Before i got back from work, i flipped my book, one that was left unattended for quite a long time, "Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman". It was a chapter that discussing about the subject, "flow". It is stated that - one can only achieve flow when the tasks is well-aligned with one domain skill and that would allow one to stretch his limit.

This could be the reason why i love my job now. Design (right brain), programming (left brain) and coordination (ever flowing of small small tasks).

There are milestones to hit this quarter. And major tasks to deliver by the end of the week. Go go!

Elegant branding work of Fred Nerby on Behance

Straight from the VC’s mouth: 5 things I look for in a CEO - The insights are useful and an entrepreneur could certainly learn something from this. But the post still sounds like 'buy-me-please'.

Clean UI work of Paco on Dribbble

A Simple Guide for Setting Up Your First Google AdWords Campaign - To those entering into SEM, this could be their most valuable source. No bluff and practical for every marketers or entrepreneurs across industries.

Yes, our startup is moving fast. After joining the team as CTO, we have seen an increase of 500% in online exposure and 50% increase in sales. We have came up with plan and strategy to double the result on November and execution is ready in place.

I well-aware that the first 5 members of the founding team will be the most important part of startup lifetime and i want to make it right. I interviewed the person and she seems to get in pace with what i'm talking about and i'm quite happy with it. Now, with the new talent coming in, am i able to develop her up to what she is expecting? A challenging question to answer.

However, with my experience growing Laina S0fia successfully in my previous venture gave me a huge boost of confidence.

Ive talked to my partner about her particular request to not to pay her. And we don't see it as a good idea. We decided, we will pay her anyway, on allowance basis - like internship.

I must remind her tho that this is pirate ship she is joining.

So, good luck!

In the past few months, we have been talking to a lot of entrepreneurs and we found one pattern that does not seem pretty. They talked a lot about their products and when i asked about who are the people in your team? 90% of the answers would be; im all alone or; i have my daughter but shes kinda busy with stuff.

What we have learned in the past analyzing more than 100,000 small businesses; success of a small company usually does not come from a product. Surprisingly, its all about the team. The dynamics of the team.

Understanding the importance of team dynamics, we at JomWeb formed based on this principle as well. When we first wanted to form JomWeb, I and my partner analyzed our strengths and weaknesses and how we could complement each other.

JomTrepreneurs, my questions to you are? Do you have a partner? If no, can you find one? If you do have one, have you sit down and analyze formally each others strengths and weaknesses? Did you see it clearly how you both could help each other?

PS: We at JomWeb is in the lookout for 3 more advisers to fit into our advisory board panel. We are also in the lookout for 3 more young talent (2 girls and 1 guy) to fit into our core team.

I finally settled down in KL, Sunway City specifically, after few weeks of searching room in good neighborhood. I was hoping to get a room at Pantai Hillpark, but no room was available. But hey, the room i got here is in good condition and housemates are awesome. 2 personalities to highlight; ougoing and entrepreneurial.

Today, i had a morning tea with a founder of nations up and coming mindset shift consulting firm. Lots of things shared such as vision, how do each of us execute and what we could do to help each other that would help entrepreneurs we are helping. We are also looking into speaking and conducting workshop at 2 universities; all at the east cost and this month alone, tons of improvements have been carried out internally in our effort to always be better at what we do.

Have a good day everyone