Attend a course and get a pair of Prada shoes

I want to share my experience of attending a course last week. Many of you probably by now have heard of the ESQ course. I am not here to advertise the course, but just wanted to share with you my experience of attending the ESQ course over the weekend. I was told about the uniqueness, boldness and quirkiness of the course by my colleagues who have attended the course before. I was skeptical and a bit apprehensive. After all I have attended numerous HR courses and most of them are more of the same.
But the ESQ is definitely different. Content wise it was just like any other motivational or HR course. The difference is, the ESQ people give it the Islamic slant to the hilt and the audio visual effect is awesome. Awesome it is indeed. It was like attending a concert with the speakers from both sides of the stage blasting in full throttle. ESQ managed to slant all common leadership values and qualities in proper Islamic perspectives. I have seen many companies tried to do the same thing but not quite as successful of as the ESQ. More than 70,000 people worldwide have become alumni of the ESQ is a testament to its success. many of them are well known people. Even the Mufti of Perak is one of the alumni. The training is laced with some dramatic and emotional spurts as well as some interesting games, video shows and performances. The course is so popular that many big companies and dignitaries also attended the course.
In one of the events, we had to polish the shoes of the person sitting next to us. It was so happen that a friend of mine was sitting next to a deputy minister (DM). So he had the chance to polish the DM’s Prada. This friend of mine was just a wearing a plain pair of cheapo sandals. So this poor DM had to polish the sandals! Afterwards, the facilitator came around and asked this friend of mine how did he feel having his shoes polished by a DM. The poor sod was thoroughly embarrassed. The DM later graciously exchanged his Prada for the cheap sandals! What a way to earn a pair of Prada.
So if you want to get a pair of expensive shoes and get the chance to “salam semut” with some big shots, try to attend this ESQ course. Mind you it is not cheap.

SuSAH and SuDAH

I took the opportunity to append this piece by TV Smith Dua Sen.

SUGAR DAUGHTERS DECLARE WAR AGAINST SUGAR DADDIES
by TV Smith
03/10/09

The government’s latest austerity drive to replace the cars of senior government servants with a Mercedes or BMW has resulted in an unexpected backlash.

Sugar daughters, mistresses and trophy wives are now revolting against the idea of driving a local or Japanese car. They reasoned that if any high-ranking public servant including under-performing ones are entitled to a new German marque courtesy of taxpayers, they surely deserve better.

As expected, their previously-so-sweet sugar daddies reacted sourly. A statement from their association, Sugardaddy Society And Help (SuSAH), encourage members to date less-demanding artificial models instead.

I spoke to two such models (pictured above) seen shopping at the Masjid India area. They confirmed they are happy to window shop at budget bazaars instead of splurging on branded stuff at upmarket malls. Besides, they appear more aware of health issues.

In response, affected sugar daughters formed a protest group named Sugar Daughters Against Humiliation (SuDAH). The acronym was earlier wrongly quoted by the media as Sugar Daughters Against Honda or Hyundai. As a show of support for SuDAH, a group of ex-models and starlets staged a noisy protest in front of an artificial modeling agency yesterday.

Whatever happened to the spirit of musyawarah?

I am quite aghast by the current spat between Dr Maza and JAIS and the Syariah Lawyers Association (PGSM) (even JIM is in it as well), not unlike the public spat between Ong Tee Keat and his CC members. I am quite surprised by the reaction from Dr.Maza. If he did not reveal the memo to the H M Agong in his blog and commented on it in the local media, most of us would not have known about it. This, followed by his “terrorist like” arrest in the Dataran Ukay’s home gave the impression that there is more to this than meets the eye. The normally level headed Dr Maza seemed to be a bit over the top these days in his comments about his detractors. With all the media conferences, claims of legal actions, seeking public apologies, etc are really unlike him. Even with the intervention of the good old Retired Brig Gen Minister and JAKIM’s boss did not quite bring down the temperature. I think he got really riled up when people accused him of faking his double major degree for a Jordanian University. He came out with the certificate. It looked quite real to me. A lot of universities especially in the Western countries designed their scroll in a very simple manner. Probably our primary school leaving certs are more elaborate. After all, to them there is no need for the security seal or even serial number as nobody in the right frame of mind would fake a degree scroll. In this sense they are very honest. To fake a degree scroll is an unthinkable feat. So there is no need for the extra security features. Surely one can run a check with the Jordanian University to verify. If the group that is bent on stopping Dr. Maza really honest in their endeavour, they should have done just that. I suspect there is something simmering underneath the surface that us public do not quite see and know. OR is it I am too blind and deaf to see and hear? Whatever it is, it is very disconcerting to see Islamic scholars slinging mud at each other in broad daylights. Whatever happen to the spirit of musyawarah, dialogue and engagement that they usually espoused? Please leave that to the politicians. I found it very shameful and I do not think it is due to so much because of Dr Maza preaches without a licence in Selangor or him being offered to lead YADIM. Back in 2007, there was this ustaz from the alternative party slamming the BN government for being very sticky about the rule governing the tauliah to preach. But it is very ironic now that they are in power in Selangor and they are using the same archaic law to arrest Dr.Maza. That really goes to show how politicians would do anything to cling to power, even to the point of exploiting religion. Sigh…I thought they care about the image of Islam.

Some info on 1Malaysia

Today I had the chance to upload the gist of the speech by PM on 1Malaysia:

SATU MALAYSIA.

1. Setiap rakyat yang berkelayakan dan memerlukan bantuan sarta pertolongan akan kita bantu. Tidakada mana-mana pihak yang akan dicicirkan. Sesungguhnya lagi janganlah mana-mana pihak menganggap mereka adalah warganegara kelas kedua di Negara tercinta ini, kerana setiap anak Malaysia adalah potensi modal insane yang penting kepada negara, setiap mereka perlu dimanfaatkan sebaiknya.

2. Setiap warganegara mempunyai hak dantanggungjawab masing-masing sepertimana yang telah digariskan oleh Perlembagaan Persekutuan. Kewarganegaraan bukan sahaja menggariskan hak tetapi juga menuntut tanggungjawab. Janganlah mana-mana pihak terlalu taksub terhadap tuntutan hak dan melupakan tanggungjawab mereka sebagai warganegara.

3. Di bawah konsep Satu Malaysia kita perlu memastikan tiada rakyat Malaysia yang terpinggir daripada mendapat perhatian kerajaan. Bagikerajaan, meritokrasi bukan bermakna kesaksamaa yang membuta. Malah kesaksamaan bermaksud meletakkan sesuatu pada tempatnya yang hak. Dari itu, seorang anak yang datang dari keluarga miskin tidakl kira dari bandar atau luar bandar walaudari etnik manapun, tetapi ternyata mempunyai potensi sememangnya berhak mendapat bantuan kerajaan berbanding anak-anak golongan berada yang sudah tentu mempunyai peluang pendidikan yang terbaik.

4. Maknanya, kita boleh menawarkan akses pemula dengan menyediakan datar permainan yang adil tetapi kita sebagai kerajaan tidak berkemampuan memastikan ”outcome” yang sama. Dalam kata lain, kerajaan tidak boleh memainkan peranan ibubapa, keluarga dan masyarakat setempat, kerajaan juga bukanlah galang yang boleh menggantikan kehendak, kemahuan, usaha serta iltizam seorang pelajar atau peniaga juga usahawan untuk berjaya. Apa yang kerajaanboleh buat seperti yang saya katakan tadi, adalah menyediakan garis permulaan yang adil. Pendek kata, antara prinsip-prinsip utama yang mendasari Satu Malaysia adalah kebersamaan (togetherness) dan kekitaan (sense of belonging) dlam satu keluarga besar.

MODENISASI SEKTOR AWAM

ANJAKAN PARADIGMA

1. Anjakan daripada ketegaran kepada keanjalan
2. Beralih daripada budaya output kepada budaya outcome
3. Daripada birokrasi yang menyukarkan kepada birokrasi yang memudahcara dan menyenangkan rakyat
4. Daripada produktiviti semata-mata kepada gabungan produktiviti, kreativiti dan inovasi

YAB DATO’ SRI MOHD NAJIB B. TUN HAJI ABDUL RAZAK
PERDANA MENTERI MALAYSIA
28/4/2009; MAJLIS PERDANA PERKHIDMATAN AWAM KESEPULUH (MAPPA X),
PICC PUTRAJAYA

Raya 1Wangsa Melawati

I am rightfully feeling very blessed indeed living in a housing estate that has long embraced the 1Malaysia spirit. We first moved into this neighbourhood back in 1993. My neighbour on the right was an Indian family and on my left was a Chinese family. Being the first few to move into the area we got acquainted to each other automatically. We quickly set up our neighbourhood watch team after a spate of car and house break-ins. We had a few positive push factors, One we have an army major (now a Lt colonel) who is so keen and so energetic in galvanising the neighbourhood team spirit. He is the prime mover, organiser, orchestrator, and the driving force behind all our activities. So every year we had our hari raya and chinese new year gatherings as well as gotong royongs. Sometimes we invited prominent politicians in the Federal Territory to officiate the ceremonies. Secondly, we are also lucky to have one of the DBKL directors living in the neighbourhood which facilitates our dealings with the local authority. Thirdly we had some bankers, printers,bakers and others living in the area who are more than willing to lend their money, time, products, and expertise for our cause. So the 1Malaysia spirit have been with us for quite sometime. This year’s raya gathering was held a few weeks ago and yours truly was again asked to be the MC for the event. It was quite amazing that we managed to collect more than RM2,000 in the blitz of collection during the registration. In the true spirit of proactiveness, we already nominated the chairman for next year’s Chinese New Year do.

Gotong royong held in August this year

Former Wangsa Maju's MP was the guest at this year's raya gathering

Food, glorious food

MC tetap ?

Judging general feeling thru’ blogs

Recently I came across a very interesting article in the Discovery magazine. A research done on blog postings since 2005 provided some indications on the general feelings of the world today. Let me explain, the researchers used general terms that are usually associated with happiness such as “smile”, “happy”, “glad” etc found in the blog to indicate the feelings of happiness. Conversely, words that are associated with sadness such as “gloom”, “funeral”, “suicide” etc indicate the feeling of sadness.
A survey was done on 2.5 million blog postings since 2005 and it was found that the youth of world are a sad lot. Bloggers 14 – 25 years old seemed to use a lot of sad words in their blogs. Bloggers after 25 years old seems to be happier and the trend goes up until it seemed to stabilise for bloggers at 60 years old where the trend towards sadness creeps back.
Can we believe such findings as an indicator of today’s society?

Mandarin and commodities

Syed Akbar Ali, the banker, businesman, writer as well as the jeweller, wrote recently in his blog http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2009_10_01_archive.html that Jim Rogers, one the founder of Quantum Fund (the co-founder is George Soros) predicted that the 21st century would be China’s century. He even sent his children to learn to speak Mandarin to equip them to face the Chinese conquerors. Well, I reckon by now most of us knew that China is THE future. But what he said further should of interest to us, commodities such as palm oils, rice, rubber, corn, etc would of great value in future. He expects the price of commodities to sky rocket in the near future. Countries with vast stock of commodities would do very well. He even joked that, either you become a farmer or sell Lamborghinis to the rich farmers. Come to think of it, despite many people lambasting him as an inept leader, our former PM, AAB, was right in putting the extra effort in increasing our food production and upscaling our agricultural sector. UPM should revert the P back to PERTANIAN. The recent scare about the hike of price of rice, the natural disaster that hit the Philippines and Indonesia was a clear indication that the country really need to pursue technological excellence in agriculture especially in food production to ensure self sufficiency. We can built cars, plane or even send people to the moon, but it would all be useless if we have to rely on others for our food. We would be held at ransom by the producing parties. Well, to be a farmer not a bad proposition after all!. My late dad was a farmer so to speak, but he was poor. He never got the chance to join the FELDA scheme. He toiled on the small plot he inherited from my grandpa. But the plot was shared with his sisters. He tapped rubber in the morning and tended the paddy field in the afternoon. It was a real toil, but we never go hungry. None of us aspire to be a farmer because farming was hard work with scant rewards. We never realised that, that plot provided us with rice, fish, and vegetables day in and day out. Now I realised that our notion of success was tainted. We never knew that we can be successful even as a farmer. Now, it is all too late. I really wish all the restless souls in my kampung would take up the idle lands that has gown into little jungle enclosing the village. After all we have a big LPP’s office in Tasek. It has to be big scale. We must impart the knowledge to these youngsters that working in those factories (kilang simen, kilang bata, kilang ubi, kilang plastic etc) that dotted the Kanthan Industrial estate is scant reward to their efforts. Be good to the mother earth. She will reward you. Learn a bit of Mandarin, you are well equip to meet the challenge of the millennium.

Bersama KPM Week 2

With last week’s experience, we decided to spruce up the set, making it less intrusive and the contrast with the panel members more prominent. I must thank my set and props who worked till late last night to get the set done. They were still putting the final touches even this morning.

a new set with a simpler and soft coloured background

This week’s guest is our very own Director General of Education who speaks on efforts to prepare our schools to do away with the problematic PPSMI as well as explaining what is meant by the ’soft landing’ in the switch from PPSMI to MBMMBI.

KPM's Director Genral, Tan Sri Alimuddin preparing for the session

1.57 billion Muslims in the world

A post on the Utusan today http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2009&dt=1009&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Luar_Negara&pg=lu_01.htm indicated that Muslim population in the world now is estimated to be 1.57 billion people, second to Christians (2.1 billion). The report has some interesting facts such as, in terms population, the Arab world has only 30% of the muslim population while 60% reside in Asia. Muslims in Germany is higher than the number of Muslims in Lebanon. Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report certainly threw up some surprises that exploded the long held belief that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims. Certainly this would strengthen the course of a certain Syed Akhbar Ali who in his his book I Digress a Little said that we must not fall into the trap the equating Arabs with Islam. He said we are guilty of not being able to differentiate between what are Islamic and what are Arabic. He further lamented that most of Islamic movements in this country are confused between Arabisation and Islamisation. As a former banker, he was shocked to read an Islamic banking product put forth by a certain bank was exactly similar to the conventional bank product except for the use of Arabic terms in place of the conventional ones. In short he was saying the bank did not really understand the spirit of Islamic banking system. He was highly critical of people who dress like an Arab and think that it is very Islamic to do so and those who do not dress as such are not pious or Islamic enough. I believe we must be able to tell the difference between the basic and the branches, the form and the substance, the skin and the core. There is no point exaggerating the forms if the substance is rotten. There is no point is vehemently arguing about the branches if the basic is weak. Having said that, if your core is strong, the skin would naturally be strong. If the substance is strong, the forms will take care of itself.
It is heart wrenching to see Muslims suffer from malnourishment, being downtrodden, slaughtered and hounded out of their homes, and a large portion of the 1.57b just oblivious to it.

The jitters before a live transmission

I am new to this line of work. We were supposed to transmit live via TV1 a half an hour programme called Bersama KPM. It is a talk show that provides a platform for the Ministry to disseminate information to the public on the various projects and programmes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry.
I was nervous because anything could happen during live programme and we have not done this for quite a while now. The set was OK and the control gallery was abuzz with activities. I must say the experienced producer was a picture of calmness and he assured me that everything is OK. There is nothing to worry about.

the set - all ready for action

At 11.08am, three minutes later than scheduled, due to live transmission from Bagan Pinang, we went live. The transition was smooth. I suppose to normal audience, they would not have noticed the switch between Angakasapuri and Bukit Kiara. It was a big relief when the suave face of the compere appeared on the TV screen without any glitches. Even with the cross over to Bagan Pinang, the half hour programme went smoothly. We even had to turn away a few callers due to shortage of time. At 11.30am we handed back the rein to RTM.

The control gallery - the nerve centre for the tranmission

The set with the camera in the foreground

Kudos to the professionals in the control gallery, Studio 2, transmission, power man and those in RTM. Mind you, more than 20 people were working in the background to ensure the half hour live programme run without a hitch. I raise my hat to all you people. We have to do this again another 12 times for the rest of the year. Of course we can further improve certain aspects but the fundamentals were already in place.