Old Boys Network, SDARA78 TT Klang Valley, June 12, 2007

It has been awhile since we had our last TT and up until then several had already sounded me that we need to have one immediately. We planned to have the TT with Tam as he was back from Jeddah for his holidays but Allah decided otherwise. In the end only Arzman Aziz, Amy, Hatta, Shahrin, Mede Ribut, Balong, Cintu and myself turned up at Siraj Restaurant near Cintu’s place. Everything was organized within 24 hours. Abd Rahman Song was in Stockholm when he received my text message, Bodger texted back stating his absence, Mahali reported at last minute ‘bini tak bagi’ (actually mentua dia datang rumah), Nuri’s son not feeling well and the rest no notification of existence :)). In any case we understand fully why some could not make it. Even Tam himself had to go back home to Jelebu at the last minute and in the end could not come. Of course as usual the TT did not go to waste and as usual the stories flow like Nigeria Falls. What did we talk about you ask me? Well for these midlife approaching ‘youngsters’ the same stories that been told before but we enjoyed and laughed all the same, even louder. Mede Ribut as usual very Ribut with his entertaining stories about his time in the army and Timor Leste. Actually this was how the flow of the stories went, firstly catching up on each other especially Arzman that some of us have had not met for years, stories about others that were not there (ngumpat la ni lol), Timor Leste, gathering, Timor Leste, old stories, Mede Ribut’s sad story of his wife passing away due to cancer, old stories, Timor Leste and the cycle continued until the mamak chased us out at around 1230 hours.

Hey! You still do not get my point huh? Let me tell you.

The five or six years that we had growing up together tie us up in a special bond. The bond is so strong that I am very sure would remain forever. We understand and trust each other and at some points in our life would even willing to die for each other. Our network is so strong and it would take a lot of energy to break the bond or change us within our community and it is also would be easy to penetrate us if one managed to get in the good book of any of us. Apart from real life family relationship what we have is the most powerful relationship known to mankind. In this kind of relationship any form of Knowledge Sharing would be natural.

Some photos below. Sorry to Amy and Balong as I failed to remember to get both of you in among the shots.

Mede Ribut. Shahrin, Hatta

Mede Ribut, Cintu, Shahrin, Hatta

Arzman Aziz

This is a bonus photo. There is a free gift ff you can guess the third person

On The Train, (Too much to write) June 15, 2007

Suddenly I am in a position that I have so much to write about. Normally if I am in that state I ended up not writing anything at all but this time I started on every one of them at the same time. So, on the train I jump from one writing to another as I remember or have something pertinent to write about on the subject. Another thing I realized today is that I somewhat loosing the observer in me while on the train. In the morning I would be either concentrating on my reading or sleeping and on the way home doing office work or writing my memoir.

A lady boarded at KL station and sat in front of me and immediately she was on her handphone busy sending and receiving messages. Her face is so tense and worried now that I suspect something is worrying her. A Chinese guy boarded at KL Sentral and sat next to her and amazingly started to do the same thing as she was. The only difference he is just casual.

The usual Friday evening commuters picked up at Bandar Tasek Selatan and the number was constant even when we were arrived at Kajang. The only thing now is that both the lady and the Chinese guy sitting in front of me are sleeping. The lady with her hand on her face and the guy head up facing the roof. The Chinese lady next to him completes the picture as she is sleeping with her left hand propping her head. Looking around I can see several heads are down as well. I guess most are tired after a long week and really looking forward for the weekend.

On The Train, (Oblivious and Not Environmental Aware) June 12, 2007

I got one Chinese gentleman on one end and a Chinese lady sitting quite close to me talking into their handphone as if they were the only one on the train. I know most of us could not understand what they were talking about but that is not a good reason to talk loudly as well. The episode reminded me of my recent brief trip to Hong Kong and Shenzen. The differences between the mainland Chinese and people from Hong Kong conduct themselves were really obvious. The most obvious one was the former talk very loudly among each other. This was really apparent when I was on the train back from Shenzen. Of course this is not a good or bad thing as it is just cultural. To them it is natural to do that and not to us. No matter how best we try to avoid it the question of culture would always persist especially when we want to create change. Our mistake could be assuming we could break the culture easily and, worse if we do not understand it enough, would put in place something that is totally opposite of the acceptable norm. Cultural awareness and awareness of our surrounding are important if we were to be successful in dealing with complex human system. I more or less argued the same thing in our BCP workshop today. No matter how best we do in coming out with a proper process and procedure to manage our crisis. The mix of these with understanding of human system will increase the odd for us. In their natural environment human will react instinctively and no process and procedure would be successful enough to help them.

On The Train, June 6, 2007

One of the disadvantages of taking the train is being unlucky to sit close to a person or group of person that has a strong body odor. A group of young men came on board at KL Sentral and they smelled faulty so much it pierced my nostril. From my perspective it was bad and I was tempted to chage seat. But somehow it got me thinking. No, I am not condemning or making fun of them as what ever the reason is it is probably not their fault to smell like that. My point here is that nobody can be sure that the person close to you would like the smell that you emitted. The same thing with the smell of your perfume. You assumed that it smells nice but it definitely could be a turn off or down right nauseating to somebody. A lot of problems we faced in this world are because we assume too much. We assumed that people would like what we presented, offered or developed for them. We assumed what best for someone would also good for another. We also assumed what is successful for a group of people would receive the same success rate with another. The list could go on and on. To make matters worse when our assumption became too strong we always believe that we are right all the time. With that came a whole set of human problems. I learnt a valuable lesson today.

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.