Between being an artsy and a geek

Marketing and technology. Somehow those two does not make sense but sometimes they do get along well. Opposite attracts. Life is too boring if you see everyone wearing the same color. Or everybody carrying the same handbags.

As for me, I can be a nerd at times and I can go crazy and jumping jelly beans at the same time. Those who know me, there are times I can be extremely quiet because when I indulge in something I concentrate too much and there are times when I do not know how to talk less.

I am married to an engineer and I am a marketing person at heart. We definitely are mars and venus met online. Thank you Internet for that. Of course you can imagine the life that we have, its like having Liverpool and MU in one house, so the chaos, the arguments about ideas and what is right and wrong on TV, what car to buy and such. But it makes us get exicted, over heated debates on what we think what is right and wrong. I like to argue a lot and not a total follower. But there are times when I know whats my limit because you gotta respect your husband according to Quran. And when Im trying to be a follower, my other half will totally be confuse and I will get a remark such as "Are you just going to agree with me?" and he will just find it weird if I will follow his every ideas. Well, at least for now.

But luckily there is still a nerdish side of me who can still accept how engineers think and thats the reason we have this understanding "i know what you are going to say before you even say it" kind of thing.

We are definitely 2 different types of people.

To imagine, look at those engineering/ IT geeks that go beserk over pieces of code, and more laid-back artsy peeps in my corporate communications department that go philosophical over every sentence of rhetorics and start spewing poetry there and then. in their mind, every sentence is a song played in the mind and life is like a box of chocolate.

Even their physical appearances set these ppl apart. i realize most my engineering/IT geeks in the office dress pretty much in an earthy fashion where frills and glitters are probably stored at the back of their closets, while my marketing or communications friends make their own jeans, have thick rimmed stylish glasses and furry scarfs in bright neon colors around their necks.

i pretty much play the role as the chameleon and try as much as i can to disguise myself while i run from my discussion with those engineers over serious issues to my PR and creative writing works and my corporate comm colleagues.

but when i do sit down amongst those bright psychadelic shirts and home-made retro skirts, my camoflage pretty much fails me. however, it's when discussions open my true colors give me away.

it surprises me still how different marketing/communications majors think from technical majors do. they are much more passionate about things and seem to have a knack for intellectual discourse which somehow seems to make much more sense to the world than programming and system development do. though i don't deny the fact programming and system development have their importance in the world (yes, and i do mean "in the world". it's important ok). but in all honesty, marketing and communication, which henceforth i shall refer to as language and basic communication, shapes the world in a much more larger way. for i think it has the ability to impact minds, form ideas and inspire movements.

during one discussion i had several time ago doing discourse analysis, it appeared to me that discourse indeed does shape the world in how we see it. of course there may be times when in my corporate communications/ marcomm colleagues tend to think much more deeper into a context than they should have (they love doing that) but in fact it just makes the mind wander off in tangents that creates more opinions and ideas.

they also seem to question things historically and spend more time pondering over methodologies as to why people react the way they do and how certain word or phrase can trigger revolutionary changes, which it has by the way.

more than anything these communications ppl delve deeper into language than anyone i've ever met and bring about a whole new set of practices, from philosophy to psychology. and believe me, these people, in some way or another, have the power to change the way we perceive things through language and discourse.

a technical person however, sees things differently. they are capable of contributing to deep discussions, though the way of thinking might slightly differ. they come up with just as interesting things as the corporate comm people does, but from a different perspective. more often than not it always relates back to philosophies of economics or maybe organizational behavior. interesting nonetheless. but also much more constricted. where communications peeps sees things in a more open and metaphysical point of view, the techie sees things which is almost always based on substantial evidence, carefully disguised in examples of current affairs and political matters. in short, the techie are as much businessmen as communications peeps are philosophers.

of course many philosophers came from very technical, or rather scientific backgrounds. but proficiency in language is also important and the understanding of how the audience relate and react to language is equally essential. mastering the language is just as significant as the idea one is about to funnel across. politicians make great case studies, though i do recommend philosophers and of course the much more prettier verses of the Qur'an. the success of influencing people comes from the way the language is conveyed to you.

i find myself going back and forth between these two personalities of my husband- a techie and muself, a communications personnel, more so when the concreteness of ICT begins to reflect the reality i am about to face the next 20 years of my life. the geek side of me knows that this very well might be the thing that will provide bread and butter on my table, the ability to be specific, straight to the point and logical in every way and to understand every ICT issues and ideas that surrround us. but the other part of me also wants to keep writing in hopes to be able to convey ideologies and share experiences which might be worth telling. of course nobody is actually stopping me from doing both, but it just goes to show that technical skills and social sciences go hand in hand.

despite these superficial differences though, i like to think that we both, the techie guy and the communications gurl, can overcome the challenges of raising two bubbly kids by combining our best behaviors and knowledge to raise them to be the best individual that they want to be :)

p/s: i still have a long way to finish those 2 MIS assignments but I am seriously still in my Raya mood.

Obamamania- Taking the Tech to gain competitive advantage

Interesting enough, during the first MIS class, we touch a little bit about how our own politican embark on technology with the hope of winning trust (and votes) of the rakyat. True enough, that's what many politicians in many other countries wanted to do as well..digital marketing and whatever you can find on the Internet, they do what it takes to win their campaigns.

The propellation of the Internet as a main weapon to win voters is not something new, but during Obamamania, we see how he puts it to his advantage and put himself in the class of his own.

It was, the web wot won it. Barack Obama's election was one in which the world felt involved and it wasn't just because of the historic nature of the election or the power of the job.

Obama's campaign team is everywhere online: YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, and his team worked for the campaign as early as the year before the actual election begun.

They mobilised supporters and organised communities, registering 1.5 million volunteers through myBarackObama.com and raising $600m from 3 million people.

Obama's campaign also built a consensual database of 3m mobile numbers by promising that in return, supporters would get campaign news before the media.

And so they did almost immediately with the announcement of Joe Biden as vice-presidential candidate. It was a masterclass in political campaigning - a high water mark.

Why I said its masterclass? Obama managed to pull off intimate discussions with major donors over dinner, posted to the campaign's YouTube account. He's just a fantastic political communicator. There's no sense of artifice - just a melding of the candidate and the human being.

The web is built on technology that is primarily for communication, and not publishing. That dynamic is the source of its power and, crucially, its intimacy. What social media represents - and what fed Obama's victory - is a direct engagement and communication between friends, contacts and families.

When ideas, opinions and information are shared, they become part of that intimate, trusted network in the small corner of the internet. The people's subconscious is hard-wired to assume that faces that they see regularly are their own friends (explaining their preoccupation with celebrity), and so they feel that they know Obama because they've spent so much time with him.

The web has helped to inspire and empower a generation that has rejected political apathy. Obama's team used technology to make issues personal and relevant by giving people ownership of the campaign. It wasn't a complicated strategy.

So what makes his campaign work?

The use of technology like blogs, mass texting and online phone banks has been key to Obama's surprise sweep.

His campaign has been making use of a range of technologies -- from ringtones to SMS -- to inspire Obamamania. And it's working. They've been using [texting] to get out the vote, which is incredibly smart because it gives people a way to take immediate political action. It's just what mobile technology is suited for.

Obama was not the only candidate whose campaign is using online technology and mobile phones, but his has been one of the most effective in its embrace of new tech strategies.

Obama supporters who signed up with the candidate received a text message reminding them to vote. The text message included a phone number to help them find their polling station, a key feature that helped get out the vote.

Other campaigns have experimented with texting, but haven't been as effective, Germany says. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' campaign used text messaging to notify supporters of a televised speech. Germany, co-author of a study on the use of mobile phone technology in politics, says Edwards' campaign might as well as have used e-mail.

The Obama campaign organized volunteers to make thousands of phone calls to get out the vote using an online phone-banking tool.

The online success of the Barack Obama campaign involves proven methods of the new Internet political process as well as high-power thinkers from multiple fields. Featured individuals of an article in today’s Wired blog describe the success of the Obama campaign’s Web strategy and its volunteer training structure.

My.BarackObama.com, the Democratic presidential nominee’s social networking site, houses the Neighbor-to-Neighbor tool. It empowers individuals by enabling them to find out where to canvass and encourage voters.

W1 MIS: Raya time, between highways congestion and network congestion

For the last few years, wireless carriers and manufacturers have been pushing smartphones as the way to go. But now that a growing number of Malaysians are using them, the system seems like it's starting to choke.

Last Aidilfitri, a huge number of mobile users, eager to make raya calls and send sms to send in their wishes couldn't get phone service because most areas around the nation's capital was so congested with cell traffic (Im not sure what happened outside Klang Valley).

Some say such congestion could be more common this year because of nearly 30.379 million subscribers in total, or a 106.2% penetration rate (as of Q4 2009, Source MCMC), increasing reliance on cell phones, continuing consumer demand for data-intensive mobile programs like video and audio, fourth-generation cell networks that are not in place for most of the country and inadequate wireless spectrum to meet customer needs.

In my humble opinion, if anything, these companies should have been planning for the anticipated smartphone uptake in heavy traffic markets that started happening in the last quarter of 2008 and first quarter of 2009.What’s driving usage on the network and driving these high usage situations are things like video, or audio that keeps playing around the clock, and those contents are normally comes from foreign countries (not hosted in Malaysia), which increase the congestion.

Currently, most of the operators are concentration on improving all of their systems so that they can begin to give customers real-time information about their data usage and begin to get customers educated. Longer-term, there’s got to be some sort of a pricing scheme that addresses the usage.

Some celcos are also working furiously to upgrade its 3G, or third-generation, service by going to what is called a higher version of "High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). These companies say HSPA should result in doubling peak data transmission speeds.

Two local celcos are working "quickly and aggressively" on network enhancements through networks and facilities collaboration.

They are giving particular attention to big markets like big cities where usage is high. They are adding cell towers, building and upgrading antenna systems to boost performance in high-traffic areas, like convention centers and public transportation routes.They are also adding radio network carriers to make sure that we have maximum capacity on the spectrum that’s available.

Anyway, we are discussing in our MIS class what happened to C last raya when its cellular network was down for 10 hours (some said 3 days) during last raya. To our Guru, it’s totally unacceptable. In fact, the big boss should fire a few people due to the incident.

The only good thing about this is that C normally manage to restore it’s network within 4 hours, but 10 hours is too much. Customers did not expect the entire network to go down for 10 hours. I am user of M, but I still understand what had happened as M was also having data network failure for one week which was bad to me as I was not able to browse and use my facebook from my phone for 1 week.

The main reason that I believe people use C network is because of it’s network coverage and reliability. They are currently no 1 in the country.

Any mobile users, dislike operators that leave their customers in dark when their network goes down. After the network has been restored, C should immediately send out an SMS making an apology to their precious customers. Who can live without mobile services now days?

If you were in one of the 'Ini adalah Wilayah C', you might have trouble in making and receiving calls using C line last Aidilfitri. C’s network went down on 24 September, 09, started about 9.30am leaving more than a million C users in the dark for more than 10 hours.

Although C claims the problem has been resolved, yet a number of users has been complaining on the 25 September 09 that they were some difficulties in making and receiving call, plus delayed SMS & slow mobile broadband.

Back then C was the leading telco in the country, because it had the right branding and network quality was great.

The new C that we see today is different. They are at least 5 operators sharing the traffic on Ce’s GSM network(U, X, TT, New M, R) making it the largest GSM network in the country with one of the highest traffic. The question here is, can C handle this traffic? Apparently, C customers have seen the results. Are they planning for more MVNOs?

Their 3G network currently has the highest traffic in the country with over 400,000 (or more) mobile broadband users and these numbers does not include normal data usage on the phone and other sources (such as the TNB Meter readers, ATMs..et)

When a user has problems with their mobile service, the 1st thing they would do is to contact the customer service. When C’s network went down during that period, the second thing went down was their Helpline(1111), and at the same time they were no immediate updates on C’s website or their accounts on social networking until a couple hours later but it was too late.

It is important to use all sort of communications to let their own customers know about the network breakdown before even the customers find out, but C choose to leave them in the dark. Even yesterday, no sms or apologies where sent out to customers.

What C should have done:

Update their social networking status- They should have communicated with a number of their mobile users using their existing accounts in social network such as Facebook.

Update their website- Their web team was extremely slow in putting up a notice on their website when the network went down. Supposedly, the notice should be up within an hour but I guess not many users even bothered to visit the C website thanks to its superb design and outdated contents.

Domestic Roaming- When C network was having problem, M and D network did not had any issues. If only there was a domestic agreement signed between these telcos, this post won’t even exist because they wouldn’t be any users complaining.

Send an apology message- Did C notice that a large number of people was cursing them on twitter? If I were C, I would have sent a direct apology message to all these C customers including those cursing for not being able to call a Celcom number.

Rebates/Discount on billing/airtime- Should C customers get free calls/usage for one day? Let’s see how C value their customers.

In the end, C did gave the customers discounts and such (free calls on certain period) to win back the customers. This was done only after a letter was sent by the regulator to them asking them to look on this issue.

But I believe that many of their loyal customers are affected that day and switch to others in the market. Whether C manage to win them back, only time will tell. But other providers should learn from C's mistakes in handling communications during crisis.

Whether its technology or network issue, one should know that customers is the key to their business to ensure long term survival in the market.

W1 MIS: Growing concerns over blackberry issue

Should we, Malaysia stop the Blackberry services?

Saudi Arabia government ordered mobile operators to stop the BlackBerry (BB) services across their territories. This adds to the tension between Saudi Arabia's and smartphone maker, Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM).

Arab Saudi government demanded greater access to BB data sent to their server in Canada. The Saudi government news agency, SPA, reported that the country's telecommunications regulator has informed the cellular service providers that they must stop the Blackberry services starting on 6 August.

It is said in the statement of the SPA, the suspension of the BlackBerry service be carried out because the service does not meet the requirements of current regulations. RIM parties also could not be immediately reached for comment. BlackBerry service ban in Saudi Arabia following several days after neighboring Emirates Arab announced plans to close an electronic mail services, messaging, and web browsing on the BlackBerry started in October.

India is also in talks with RIM about how BlackBerry user's information is managed. Like the UAE, which emphasizes security issues in encouraging greater access to information transmitted by mobile phones that are stored in a computer company in Canada. Saudi Arabia does not describe the concerns about the difficulty of controlling access to government information, although the government is also wary of security threats.

Like in the UAE, in Arab Saudi, the Blackberry smartphone is very popular mobile phone that is used by employers and young people using smartphones technologies as a way to avoid attention from the government. Earlier on 3 August, RIM argued that they and India government agree to enhance supervision of the client company. But talks to access e-mail and other data sent through mobile phones is still rolling.

"We will not compromise on corporate property security of electronic mail" RIM India said, Satchit Gayakwad. India RIM states comply with the requirements of the regulatory body in terms of security, but also look at the needs of customers for privacy. Analysts say, RIM expansion into new markets are growing rapidly and a new dispute with the UAE public companies threatened a wave of regulatory challenges. RIM has forced commitment to the security of information against the wishes of local law enforcement. RIM said, has held talks with more than 175 countries where they operate.

Gayakwad did say that the Government of India has another way to solve the security problem if something happens. India and UAE is not alone in wanting more control over the BlackBerry's message. Bahrain also has threatened to take strong action on the spread of news using the device.

So, should Malaysia also take the same approach out of security fear?

At this moment, Malaysia has yet to decide if actions are necessary to tackle the Blackberry security concerns while India has jumped onto the Middle East bandwagon in fear of militant threats.

The old Minister who earlier ruled out any plan to ban the smartphone in Malaysia, has said his ministry is currently reevaluating Blackberry services. He said that my employer ("the one that will not be name") is currently gathering detailed information which will be evaluated to further decide if a ban on Blackberry services is necessary.

President of Malaysian Mobile Content Providers Association, was quoted as saying in The Star: "Malaysia has about 1.5 million Blackberry users. There would be heavy opposition if it was banned."

In order to decide whether Malaysia should be doing the same thing, let see the scenario in India, which is quite similar to Malaysia in terms of trying to grow its ICT market and to increase mobile and broadband penetration:

India Home Ministry will meet with their local mobile operators Thursday to discuss permission of access to security agencies to encrypted Blackberry messages, the AFP reported. The country has been battling insurgencies from the Muslim-majority Kashmir and the northeastern Maoists and, therefore, is highly concerned with the new technology offered by Blackberry services.

It was claimed that it could be used by militants to communicate without getting detected. India law stipulates that phone companies have the responsibility to ensure intelligence agencies can lawfully monitor data handled by them. India’s threat to block BlackBerry e-mail and messaging services could widen to affect other telecom and Internet providers including Google.

India’s home ministry warned that it would cut BlackBerry business e-mail and messaging services if its manufacturer, Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), did not make them accessible to security agencies by Aug. 31. The government fears that the BlackBerry encryption could provide cover for terrorist activity.

A government source said India would pursue any other companies, including Google, to keep mobile and Internet markets safe from militants. The 10 armed gunmen who attacked Mumbai in November 2008, killing 166 people, used cell and satellite phones to communicate with their handlers. India is also battling insurgencies in Kashmir, the northeast, and a Maoist rebellion in many others parts of the country.

It is not yet clear whether the home ministry’s threat will lead to a BlackBerry ban in India. For the time being, India and RIM are locked in a standoff.

The company has responded to the government’s request with a decisive “no.” It would not compromise the security of its service; nor would it give any countries special treatment.

But the threat presents a dilemma to RIM. India has the fastest growing telecoms market in the world, and it has become an increasingly important market to the Canadian company as it has lost market share in the United States to rival Google Inc.'s Android and Apple Inc.'s iPhone.

Indeed, some 1 million of BlackBerry’s 41 million total customers live in India, with more buying into the technology every day.

For India, this is a government-mandated death threat. it is somewhere between very difficult and impossible for RIM to comply. The government’s threat applies to a system used by corporate BlackBerry users, which requires special software to connect to the company’s e-mail system. The vast majority of BlackBerry users in India are on this system.

India, for its part, does not want to dampen its appeal as a destination for high-tech companies or business people for whom secure communications is essential. So far, no country that has threatened to cut BlackBerry services has done so. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia and RIM reached a last minute decision that allowed BlackBerry to continue operations.

The UAE still called for a ban on BlackBerry e-mail, messaging, and Internet services, saying the devices "allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns." It has threatened to shut off the services in October unless it works out a compromise with RIM.

For Malaysia, I personally feel that more study study and study should be done before deciding whether to ban or not. Public consultation should be open to public, academicians and experts to get their views and opinions. In addition, we do need to collaborate with other countries which have the technology experts to find ways to encrypted the blackberry thing if we want to have a different technology standard and approach for our country and for national security.

Governments probably would face too much resistance if they tried to ban the devices in Malaysia, Rest easy, it doesn't look likely that many – or even any -- governments in Asia, including Malaysia that will follow the lead of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to ban BlackBerry smartphone services, according to a survey across the region. Given the ubiquity and popularity of the devices on the part of businessmen and government leaders as well, it would probably be impossible.

Unlike the iPhone and other smartphones, which typically send data through open networks, the BlackBerry uses sophisticated encryption devices run through their Canadian servers that not only raise security concerns over potential terrorists but also keep governments from listening in both to circumscribe freedom of speech and to thwart corruption.

The customer creates his own security key and there appears no way for eavesdroppers to break into the system. The Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion, which manufacturers the devices, said it can't even read user transmissions. BlackBerry's security model is very different from others. It is end-to-end and the encryption is so strong nobody knows how to monitor it. In addition to its popularity as a technology marvel, the BlackBerry's encryption system keeps prying eyes away from sensitive company machinations. One company executive for an unnamed conglomerate told that after authorities had arrested one of their top officials on bribery charges, the conglomerate switched all of its communications devices to BlackBerry smartphones to hide their traffic from government investigators.

It is unknown how many companies across the region have followed that path. I personally believe they will have trouble pulling the trigger to shut down BlackBerry. Most governments in the world rely on BlackBerry, including in this country.

In the end, Thank God I used Apple :)

bba or mba, anyone?

We used to have many interns coming in and out of our department. And true enough, I get the opportunity to train and coach most of them. Most of the time, I will give them a chunk of my task and let them handle it their way. True enough, some will totally ignore me, some will actually do it but with minor disappointments but none manage to impress me.

As someone who is a lot older (Ive just reached my three O, not that old) and being someone who is the only girl in the family, i love to be their sister and make endless jokes with them but at the same time when it comes to work and career, i wanted to give as much tips or advise that I could. Of course, I don't want any of them to go through what Ive gone through in my search for a great career.

In fact, most of them worry about jobs but lack of determination to search for jobs . When I asked them about what they would like to learn, none of them actually have set any target on what they keen to learn given the short internship period that they have. And if I wanted to give them more responsibilities and especially works that involved thinking, I get a No-No saying that "Im just an intern". I clearly remember those days when I started working, I was entrusted to do most of the things, in fact I was more than happy even just to make photocopies of documents for others. And I feel that from basic thing such as photocopy, I can read all those documents and ask questions later on those things that I do not understand. What happened to graduates nowadays?

Being a post graduate student myself, Ive begun to wonder if college actually equips us , especially the fresh grads with enough skills to face the world beyond. problem solving is a valuable asset that will be required over and over in the working world. however, how sufficient will this skill be when new problems are spawning fast and need to be identified almost immediately? is problem setting taught enough then?

education has been very careful to indoctrinate us with analytical skills that help us identify arising questions and solutions to problems. scientific epistemology taught to us in college stress on formulas and strategies to solve possible problems we might encounter in our profession, and managerial practices provide us with just about every case study to analyze in hopes that we should be able to apply our course experience to real management dillemmas. no doubt these skills will be helpful.

with the intention of becoming a professional; be it an engineer, doctor, lawyer, etc., we hope that our degree can help establish a great understanding of what our profession really is. unless we decide to become an academic and continue to delve in research, the jobs that await us out there may be an entirely new world in which formulas and methodologies don't necessarily apply. instead we'll be dealing with a lot more than just straighforward problems and complex algorithms. work politics, lurking obstacles and ethical issues are some variables in which we will deal with a lot more, and definitely more than just a couple of times.

in which case, problem solving skills can't be enough to land us a competitive job. more and more graduates now are brighter and sharper that simply saying "Give me any problem, I will be able to solve it for your company!" to your interviewer may not be enough.

problems in the professions are now becoming more complex and unpredictable. it is all very well that one is equipped with knowledge to be able to handle problems and solve it. however there is no fixed equation of how a problem comes into being. they are unpredictable and develop along with the growth of the profession. problems that occured 20 years ago in the field of engineering may reoccur but along with the development of engineering, new problems arise. and in order to be a productive employee or problem solver, problem setting is just as important.

problem setting is simply a matter of reverse engineering - where we take all variables or background information at our disposal, create problems which are likely to occur and then create a solution. at work, we are not always presented up front with problems, but instead we need to view a situation and mine for possible constraints.

it may seem that we've been provided with similar scenarios in college, however problem setting is a skill that needs more emphasis. lawyers are trained to evaluate given situations in the most critical ways and detect every possible loophole that might occur. journalists are critical writers who mine for information and leave no stone unturned in order to be able to provide solid (and hopefully) credible articles. definitely, this ability also comes with experience. but it also is a subject matter that needs familiarizing with.

foresight is an asset to any company, and the skill to foresee problems is just as important as the ability to solve it. Companies today may still be looking out for that problem solver, but there is still a high chance that they are also looking for innovative candidates that are able to save their companies from future, unforeseen problems and act as soothsayers with the ability to identify obscure obstacles.

the alien theory

here's a silly thought...

i woke up at 8.30 am on saturday (I slept at 6.30 am after sahur), and remembered i had my first MIS class at UiTM this week.
there wasnt time to even feel distraught so i hopped out of bed, walked in circles for a bit to comprehend why it was i woke up so late, brushed my teeth, quick bath, and dressed up grabbed my cardigan and headed out to class.

there are times when technology fails you and you simply cant rely on that $20 alarm clock the salesman said could wake up the dead. and then you suddenly realize your dependence on technology is so intense that you cant even have breakfast without knowing how to operate the microwave. however, no matter how many times the system proves faulty, we continue to trust these gizmos and let them run our lives. it's not so much that we are so forgiving or that humans are creatures of habit; we just happen to enjoy convenience and soak ourselves in the luxury of being assisted with every little task.

it's pretty hard to imagine what the world will be like 20 years from now. will humans become so reliant on technological aid that we become more physically challenged? will the future man become fragile and weak for not utilizing his muscles as much? if all our efforts are channeled towards intelligence in order to make life easier, will our physiological appearance then evolve and become a complex mass of simply organs and brain cells?

we perceive aliens as big headed creatures with slender limbs. even in movies aliens are portrayed as being a complex form of brains and tentacles, bearing armoured and highly advanced suits to protect their fragility (think The Predator or Independence Day aka ID4). almost always these creatures have these really awesome armours on that are bulletproof and can do a million things at once. however when they're captured and put in a lab and the scientists start peeling away these suits, we always find that the alien is just a clump of flesh that would most likely be wobbling around had they not put on the suit to support their bodies. (and then they'll wake up suddenly on the operating table and eat all the people in the room but let's skip that).

apparently these aliens have become so technologically advanced that they evolve to become complex creatures with organs hanging around everywhere. the early man was bulky, broad shouldered and i imagine, strong. back then man depended on physical strength to get by. however, we now depend highly on intellect and use our brains to invent gadgets that help make life easier. we have cars that bring us places so we dont have to use our legs as much, we have bouldozers that wipe off huge rocks without us having to hammer them to death. soon we'll have things that help us do everything so we wont have to use energy to do anything at all. and then our limbs will cease from existence because there's not much we need to do that our inventions cant do for us.

that said, do we really want technology to run our lives? do we really want to turn into large-headed jellyfishes that have to operate spaceships with tentacles? because if we do, then a couple of hundred years from now we'll probably find ourselves exactly where those poor aliens are.

think about it..

welcome, ahlan wa sahlan, bienvenue, mabuhay, irashaimasu!

Hello, and welcome to my blog!

I'm not sure exactly what I'll be writing about, but with the MIS subject that kicked off last week, this is part of our requirement by the superfabulous professor dr norzaidi (i called u superfabulous, i should get 20 marks, right? hehe kidding) to start one.

Of course, it has taken me only a second to register and to get my blog up and running...but I seriously not sure how to make my blog look pretty and nice..Ive already have my own blog called sambalpetaikuahpecal but was very much abandoned due to endless assignments, office workloads, spending quality time with my kids, bla, bla bla..you name it (im so good in giving excuses, i know).

By the way, prof zaidi also have several blogs which you can check it out: http://classzaidi.blogspot.com/ and http://norzaidi.blogspot.com/.

He looks very much different in his blogs than in real life. You got to meet this guy in person to know what Im talking about. But thanks to him, I got my tummy ache for laughing too much on our first day of class but at least I know I dont have to go through hours of memorizing theories and formulas. I am happy at least I can sit back and relax and have more positive discussions.

To me, the first reason why I wanted to do MBA so much is the knowledge sharing which I believe I will gain from my peers and the professors. Of course, we don't get it in most of the subjects that we have taken so far. There are times when we try to ask more questions or to share more ideas, we get remarks such as "I think you are too excited"..or "This is not the right class for you to ask that question"..those are very frustrating remarks that you get.

I mean, as parents I encourage my kids to ask questions and I am more than happy to answer them. And If I don't know, I will tell them I don't know. As parents, I learn a lot from my kids too. Its not just them growing up, I grow up with them too.

If we are really moving towards new knowledge economy, we should encourage every citizen in this planet to ask questions..so they will be able to think more, get their brain working, rather than accepting information without knowing whether its right or wrong.

Interesting enough, yesterday while rushing to my parents house for iftar, I managed to watch a few minutes a documentary on Astro. An american journalist went to this one city (either in Pakistan or Afghanistan) and as he walked through the streets and the market, there is no sight of any woman or girls walking around the street. It happens to be if any woman is found on the street they will be kill. In fact he interviewed one man and he just killed his daughter, shot her on the chest, because she left the house without his permission. This community of people said this is what Islamic teaching is all about. But the truth is, because they dont know how to read, they dont understand the Quran, they have been passing wrong knowledge and they totally believe what their ancestors have been telling them. So they became very jahilliyah, not being able to differentiate between what's right or wrong. And they dont dare to ask question for not understanding and this is going on for many generations. You get my point?

OK, we're suppose to write about managing information system or ICT related subjects, so I think I better stop before I rant too much about other things.

But first lets talk about me.

I joined my current organisation (lets not name it) last 3 years. My prime motivation for joining this place was that I believe many incredible things can be done to help the community to embrace technology and ICT. Ive been doing corporate communications, particularly PR for the last 3 years. Before this Ive been doing a lot of marcomm, product and marketing and such

Apart from work, I live in Shah Alam with my husband (who happened to be an engineer) and our two kids, Nadyne and Alkaff as well as our two rabbits.