On The Train, May 31, 2007

The Seremban line is getting worse in the evening. One or two missing from the schedule is common occurrence everyday now. Of course the school holidays is making it worse for everyone. The usual commuters will complaint, very loudly sometimes, and of course some like me would be cursing. Just like today I arrived at the station arounf 1904 and the signboard after a Port Klang train passed indicated that a Seremban train is scheduled at 1916. !916 came and gone and yet the next train was for Port Klang line. When we were at KL Sentral it was packed and as expected it gotten worse at MidValley. Screaming, yelling and excited people could be heard on top of the crowded coach. I could here inexperience riders actually ooing and ooing when the train swayed as there were not used to standing on a fast moving train with nothing to hold on to. At times it was fun hearing them like that. Come to think of it, it is an art to be able to ride any train properly. All of us regulars already master it, I would say at least you have to do it for two years before it became the part of you, and could actually adapt to different types of train. Believe it or not each train had it own peculiarity and specialty. The sound of the engines and air-conditioners are different. The sway is also different where the experts can adjust his or her sitting/sleeping positions accordingly. Seriously as mundane as riding this train it is a discovery of life.

On The Train, May 30, 2007

I got on at KL Sentral to go home as I came from my PJ’s office. I was lucky to get a seat and sat down immediately with my laptop opened. I was immediately engrossed in my typing and oblivious of the surrounding until sometimes a bunch of kids were sitting on the floor at the door. Immediately remember the time when I did the same on buses and trains. I am not talking about this commuter train but the normal intercity trains. All of us just sat on the floor enjoying ourselves. You could imagine how dirty our clothes were when we got down at our respective stations. One time I used to wear my dad’s old 50’s white shirt and it was really black when I got down at Pasir Mas. I mum immediately soaked it the day after and the water was really murky because of it.

On The Train, May 29, 2007

I wanted to go home early today but in the end being early was actually almost 1830. As it was school holidays already the train was bit packed with the majority of commuters were school children or young adults going somewhere. A group of them was sitting in front of me and they were pitting the features of their handphones against each other’s.

On The Train (honesty and knowledge sharing), May 28, 2007

One of the objectives in writing narrative is to share story that hopefully would include lesson to the listeners. It is so obvious this happen because the nature of narrative most of the time is context based. I found out recently that the other main component is honesty. Without it your story would be meaningless and obviously fake that would stand the test of time as the context would be not natural. However, although being honest in writing narrative is paramount in setting the right context; two potential problems could surface in the process. The limitation of the perception of the storyteller and being honest to the extend that the story might hurt someone’s feeling. I found this out the hard way recently. Just like when someone is writing his own autobiography, save for a few writers that like to sensationalize, one write biography with honesty because only with being honest one could convey the right story with the right meaning. But we also know that being honest in writing biography would hurt somebody’s feeling even what’s written is true. So how do you minimize or mitigate this? Disclaimer?

On The Train, May 23, 2007

I happened to be at Kinokuniya last Monday and was browsing, I had no intention to buy any more books that day, and chanced upon a Malaysia’s travelogue written my Mohammad Hussin. The travelogue was not that impressive and was poorly published. But the fact remain that somebody, a Malaysian, had actually already attempted to write his Malaysian travels. I was shocked at first as I was hoping to be the first but glad that someone actually did it. Proving that there are still a lot of things to write about as afar as Malaysia in concern. Scanning through the book I felt I could do it in different style and better. The thing is I need to do it sooner rather then later. There and then I resolved to start seriously plan for my ‘Malaysia in two weeks.

On The Train, May 21, 2007 - Electronic Archive

I came on board to sit across Lawport on the way to work. As soon as he saw me he leaned forward to confirm with me whether the New Crown Plaza is the old KL Hilton and he was going there. I told him I was going to KLCC.

Going to KLCC means I had to take the PUTRA line down and that is something that I love to do. Although I am used to the train going up to Universiti whenever I have a meeting at our PJ office going the opposite way is always interesting. New interesting faces where reading them was always a pleasure. In between my ‘scientific’ reading and purely expert guessing I could see sleepy, agony and brave souls on the morning train. To tell you the truth I really admire their resolve and commitment to use our public transport even if they had to squeeze. Forget about whether they had to or forced to take this public transport but I believe with improved services more would love to do it. Especially the younger generation. The reason I went to KLCC was to attend a seminar.

Seminar e-SPARK Project, Microsoft, Tower 2, Level 29, KLCC (Presentation slides at www.arkib.gov.my and www.microsoft.com)

Tn Hj Mohamed Zawawi Abdullah

Refer to ARKIB before implementing any e systems and services to ensure compliance to ARKIB requirements for easy transfer and storage.

Introduction and Update on e SPARK, Pn Azimah Mohd Ali, ANM

Despite her effort she had not been ending the right message to the audience. The presentation could have been better with not too many words on the slides.

• EMDS + ERMS
• ERMS – Standards OAIS, Records lifecycle
  Issues – Cost? Marrying EDMS and ERMS effectively? Process? Governance
  

RM Challenges in Paperless Environment, Pn Norehan Jafar, ANM

New Act 2003 includes Records, ISO15489
What is Record = Recorded information
RM Program

• System management
• Processes

Challenges

• Shared responsibilities
• Mgt issues
  Policy
  Vast quantity of data
  Legality
  Legacy records – migration, old systems, processes, infrastructure
  Multiple originals
  When and what to capture? Upon creation
  K Sharing - Metadata
  New skill and K
  Awareness and understanding – All Govt ERMS by next year
  Change Mgt
  Cooperation and collaboration
  Fund
• Technology Issues
  Lost of records – emails, deleting, attachments, storage. Etc
  Records are dynamic, temporary and fragile – eg Websites, version control
  Complexity and number of data format
  Multiple systems
  Obsolescence
  Conversion and migration
  Electronic and paper integration (hybrid)
  Security
  Access
  Preservation
• Recordness issues
  Authenticity
  Evidentiary
  Integrity
  Reliability
  Completeness
  Usability

Benchmarks
USA – Indiana U – electronic record project
Australia – VERS
Canada –
Involves total value-chain – CIOs, Record Managers, IT managers, KM and library managers, Action Item: ERMS compliance by 2008

Opportunities and challenges – opperationlise Content Mgt Policy, iSec, streamlining systems (ACS, EDMS, SKA, ILMU)

Compliance document - ANM

Information lifecycle

Records – structured and unstructured Interoperability and Connected Government Framework (CGF), Dr Dzaharuddin Mansor, MS

Inoperability – ISO/IEC 2382-01
By design, IP licensing and cross-licensing, Industry collaboration, Standards
XML documents are the future – Sustainability, Context, Efficiency, Independence
SOA
Use XML to enforce metadata, compliance to standards

TRIM Context (RM200K), Bill Cheng

Manages records with all the rules of RM
Physical as well as electronic
Metadata creation
Retention and disposition
Classification/thesaurus
Security/audit trail

Still no discussion on surfacing and KM

Transparency and Good Governance (TGG), Hjh Mahfuzah Yusuf

What must we do now?
Determine what record should be created
What information to be included in the records
Determine requirement for retrieving
Determine retention schedule
Preserving record and making then accessible over time
Policy compliance
Reforms

THE ISSUE IS STILL WE CANNOT TREAT HUMAN PROBLEM WITH A STRICT STRUCTURED INTERVENTION

Not on the train, May 15, 2007

I have been neglecting this and not been posting for quite a while. Last few weeks my old friend from SDAR resurfaced after 20 years and he successfully managed to take down a very nostalgic memory lane. The end result for me is that now everyday on the train diligently I am writing my Years in SDAR and posting it weekly to them. I’ll try to find time to update, especially if I have something important to write about, this but not as frequent as before, not until I finish my masterpiece.