On The Train (A Tribute to A Friend), Nov 15, 2007

I got the usual Friday night commuters today. Although the aircon is working because of too much body heat being produced by everyone the coach became a cause for global warming concern.

I was replying to an email today when suddenly I became sad and nostalgic. It all started when I wanted to share my feeling when I was at our alma mater watching the Old Boys vs The School basketball game. I describing the players that I used to have fun watching played that I was brought to the reality of the lost fo Allahyarham Roslen Yusof. Roslen was the point guard for our great basketball team of the late 70’s. During those periods we beat everybody in NS and went to capture the Hamdan Cup three years in a row. Roslen was not only known to me as the member of that great basketball team but he was also my room mate in 1974-75 and in 1979 we were in the same school U20 Rugby Team. We met again in UiTM when were there. Ironically we met for the last time when we gathered in PD to entertain our old basketball coach, Jims Khulman, who came down from the US for a visit. He unexpectedly also passed away in PD a few months after that. May Allah SWT place you together with the blessed ones my friend.

The train is still a sardine can and we have just left Bandar Tasek Selatan.

Tomorrow I am going to Damai Laut again and this time the office Treasure Hunt. I was there two weeks ago for another Hunt but this time would be better. I also did not write about that hunt and this one I’ll probably will.

Looking around the coach I guess it only will be better when we are at Kajang. Right now still a lot of commuters. In fact few more got onboard at Serdang.

On The Train, Nov 15, 2007

Does it matter if your children got 5As or 5Cs? If you asked any parents the obvious answer would of course be ‘yes of course’. I used to think that way. In this competitive world, it could be worse in the future to some, that we are in now it is no brainer for our children to be top A students. The arguments have been they should be a straight A students to get a better chance to go to tops colleges and universities to be doctors, engineers or architects. Well, nothing wrong with that. But to me not at the expense of my children not knowing how to survive the supposedly competitive world. I want them to be thinkers rather then memorisers, be entrepreneurs creating job and wealth rather than searching for jobs and hoping wealth will come. I also would want them to enjoy their growing up without having to deal with peer pressure very early in their life. Parents sometimes would make the situation worse for their children as unknowingly will add to the stress level when hey started to compare their children with others. Statistically, there are several incidences of death at the early age of 30’s and 40’s. Apart from eating habit and other things one contributing factor is stress being introduced early in their life. I do not know whether there has been a scientific study on this but I believe so.

On The Train, Nov 14, 2007

I was not expecting anything out of the ordinary when I stepped into the train on the way home. With the earphone stuck in my ears channeling songs that I have selected to be the ones I would like to hear I sat down in between two ladies and tried to discreetly type this. I was a bit uneasy doing it as I did not wish for both of them to get offended. I may be writing about them but they did not know that but for sure. However they could see the title ‘On The Train’ and could guess. In the end I wrote nothing until I got to Kajang. A lady sitting in front of me kept stealing opportunity to see what I was doing. Lucky for me she got down at Bangi. But by then I did not have enough time to write more. What I did then for most of the journey home? Day dreaming.

On The Train (Lingam on the train), Nov 13, 2007

I finished reading Complication on the way home yesterday and I thought to continue with Black Swan on the way home today. Instead I was typing yesterday’s entry. I finished that entry when I reached Kajang. I was to engross with it to my surprise at UKM my old school mate Lingam (nickname of course) walked back towards me and we surprised each other. He was on the way back to Seremban and got on board at KL Sentral. What a pleasant surprise and to make it even more interesting both of us had our laptop on and busy typing. So are we nerds now? Both of us were oblivious of our presence. Because my station was the next one after UKM we did not get much time to catch up.

On The Train (Was at CoP get-together), Nov 12, 2007

I was in Shah Alam this morning attending the CoP, Klang Valley 2007, Get Together at Seminar Room, PTAR, UITM Shah Alam, organized by UiTM/Paradigm Systems. It was meant more for ILMU users. I have several reasons to be there.

To network with fellow practitioners to share our experience and to market ourselves
Since the topic was actually and introduction of CoP and I knew would be a new thing to most. I wanted to help to make sure we are doing and introducing it properly so that the community would be effective
Also, since the subject of competency was another topic of discussion our experience would be very useful to share
Lastly, to at least help to give the true picture of what KM is suppose to be.

Unfortunately, due to my early morning meeting I was late getting there. I actually left the office at 1046 and reached the Seminar room around 1130 when the second session was already coming to an end. Thus I could not contribute much. Reading the handouts I had my worries.

Firstly, the slides on the introduction to CoP was too academic and not properly contextualize to the audience. Secondly, I found out the KM framework that was used to contextualize the concept was too limiting. I doubt it brought clarity to explain what CoP means to librarians. Thirdly, the second paper on competency also was a bit academic and did not incorporate the real world needs. With all due respect to all I am not trying to belittle the efforts but more trying to help as for so many times already we missed opportunities just because we did not understand enough of the new things and apply them appropriately within the profession. Fourth, I was told the workshop on Competency for Librarians after lunch was a repeat of what they have done in PD. This is the fallacy of Best Practices that we have to be aware. What works before do not necessarily will work again and this time certainly failed to me. I would have preferred for the session to be an open discussion. It was so unfortunate as well that I had to leave the session early after lunch for my teleconference session at the office.

The other observation that I could make was that the seminar room arrangement was not suitable for session like we had. It would have been better if it was horse shoe of half moon to give opportunity for everyone to face each other. The arrangement was not audience friendly. The way the session was conducted could also be improved by doing it in a discussion and conversation mode rather than just presentations. This is something I believe we need to improve urgently.

On The Train, Nov 7, 2007

Expecting a lot of people waiting for the train, tomorrow is Deepavali, I waited for the ‘right’ time and my timing was perfect. As I was about to slot my ticket into the machine the train arrived. As expected the train was packed at KL Sentral.

There was a lady in red standing close to me and I did not realize that she was pregnant. He tummy was not that big that is why it was not obvious to me. I on realized it when we were at Tasik Selatan when an Indian lady sitting next to me offered her seat. I was really embarrassed. I was too engrossed with my laptop I missed it and I guess even if I notice I would not be sure if she was pregnant or not. I may offend her by offering my seat. Nevertheless, knowing it then I was ashamed of myself.

Lesson learned: I should be more oblivious of my surrounding if I want to be a better learner and person.

On The Train (with nothing else to do apparently), Nov 6, 2007

Phonetically below suppose to be Japanese. In fact it is a song by Kiroro. While listening to it on the way home I tried my darnest best. If you know Japanese please let me know which small part that I did correctly.

Mirai e

Koola hasimoto rhoomee tego rauu kolega
Hanatano hayumuu michii
Hoo olaa mohei bumi tegoo raauuuu
Hanega hanataa no mirai e

Hahaga kumita
Takusamu no yasasusa
Haaiwoo migaitei
Hayumeitoo kuriga heseeta
Hanoto kiwa mada
Hosana kitei huminaado sina nayei
Soo unda wata siedoo
Tewo nigi iirii
Hisoni haayunde kita

Yu meiwa hitsumo
So latakatu arukara
Toto kanakite kowa ine
Nakeito orie chucu keruno

Chibumnmu mo sinto ori
Takarakoso aakidamie taki nayei
Muwanun da tutoo
Tewo nigi iirii
Hisoni hayunde kita

Sonoyaa sasisawoo
Tokoniwa iyagarii
Hananetaa kamaeshu oo naru rinaoshu

Koola hasimoto rhoomee tego rauu kolega
Hanatano hayumuu michii
Hoo olaa mohei bumi tegoo raauuu
Hanega hanataa no mirai e

Sonoyaa sasisawoo
Tokoniwa iyagarii
Hananetaa kamaeshu oo naru rinaoshu

Koola hasimoto rhoomee tego rauu kolega
Hanatano hayumuu michii
Hoo olaa mohei bumi tegoo raauuu
Hanega hanataa no mirai e

Mirai e ne tuka
Yuruu

On The Train, Nov 1, 2007

Just like that November crept in into our life indicating there are only two months left in 2007. The journey was tough at times but I survived the trial of life. The children are growing up (very fast I found out) so much so the house seems small and of course the Ranger is like sardine can when all the seven of us got in. Oh yes I am getting older, as if I was surprise, and sadly thought still young. I found out my body could not take the hard pounding anymore. Lessons from this are perception and assumption could hurt you.

On The Train (Blogging), Oct 30, 2007

Yesterday my dear wife remarked that my I have not updated my blog for a while. Indeed I got caught up with a lot of thinking on writing something else that I neglected this blog. That is the challenge really; it is easy to start a blog but not that easy to keep on writing if you have no passion to do it. Blog is somewhat different to a diary although a lot of people treat and write is as a diary. Writing a blog you are writing on one particular subject of your interest, generally something that you good at and you are most of the time writing for an audience or readers. My blog is about Knowledge Management and I am using my daily commutes on the train to work or my travels as a metaphor and examples to share my thoughts on the subject. Blog is of course one of the tools that you could use for KM.

A small girl, I think slightly older than Mar, is sitting, rather standing on the seat now, in front of me. Just like any normal kids she is active and her eyes are wondering around the coach trying to find something interesting to explore. She is now leaning back watching a man ‘texting’ on his handphone. She is so engross at times watching and must be wondering what exactly the man is doing. What she is seeing, judging from how things moving now, would be a museum piece when she grow up. Just like when I was four or five all that I knew were paddy fields, rivers, fish, birds (the feathers kind) and a lot of toys that we made ourselves from whatever we can get hold off. So to us creativity and innovatively were never an issue as we practically invented the words. We learned to survive very early. The thought of using a tool like my laptop that I am using now was the farthest as the farthest star in the sky. Just imagine what this girl going to get in 20-30 years from now? No matter what she will survive and know how to deal with her world. As parents we sometimes worry too much about our children’s future. We forget what carry us through so far. That is the beauty about knowledge and the importance of instilling good knowledge behaviors into our children. Through out history it has been proven that way. The better, stronger and richer individual or nation have been the one at the forefront of knowledge. So the question then why do we need to manage knowledge now? We can’t. What we are doing is only trying to manage the process and discipline to ensure we learn continuously, quickly and learning the right things.

On The Train (Eating Month), Oct 25, 2007

Well we are in the month of Shawal that is a month that we suppose to be grateful after a full month of fasting. Instead a lot of us made a mistake of making Shawal a full month reason to eat that beat the purpose of fasting in Ramadan in the first place. The number of open houses is mind boggling at the moment and somehow you got caught in them. Although we have the knowledge of what is right or wrong the culture still pull us back down. Coming back from a week of leave was really a challenge for me and I once again managed to forget my password LOL. The first day was difficult but since then I have been going home late as usual. Now I am on a 2030 train home and it is packed with commuters.