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.

On The Plane, April 17, 2007

MH 0072 KLIA – Hong Kong – 0915-1300

Fatah was good enough to send me to KLIA very early in the morning. As usual I checked straight away and the time was 0710.

We touched down safely at Hong Kong International Airport at 1245. Hong Kong was gloomy and cloudy as if trying to say that I am about to receive a not so good news.

I was on the Hong Kong Airport Express Train when I received the sad news about my dear friend. I was sad and down for a while thinking about him and certainly was not enjoying or aware of my ride into Kowloon.

With a free afternoon at 1500 we went out to check Hong Kong Island. We took the ferry, with the fare at HKD 1.70, there and in no time we were walking into the heart of the island. Initially Kevin wanted to take me to the Hollywood Road to check out some antique shops. However, along the way while trying to find our way around Kevin told me about, possibly, the longest escalator in the world. I was intrigued and became very interested instantly. But of course the first challenge is to find the start which we after navigating the maze within the bowel of Hong Kong.

It was really unbelievable until you see it for yourself so much so we went all the way to the very top. It you have very weak knee don’t ever climb it without having enough hours on it. One thing for sure people in Hong Kong do not need to go to the gym or taking any serious sport to stay healthy as walking up and down gave me a very good cardio vascular exercise. Along the way I discovered the real Hong Kong and a bonus of finding 84 year-old Jamia Mosque.

Back at Kowloon and after a dinner of a not so good Paskitani dinner at Chungking House we decided to watch the nightly light show from the promenade. Sadly the not so spectacular light show was made worse by the cloudy weather.

Sleep was easy because I was tired but I my friend’s condition kept coming back to me.

On The Train, April 6, 2007

I have not been updating my blog lately due to the following reasons:

I have three very interesting books to finish
I have nothing good to write, and
I am very lazy to do so

Of course it is more of the #3 :))))))

The usual Friday evening commuters are on board now and we had just left KL Sentral. Now I am hearing three different languages were spoken into handphones – Malay next to me, Chinese about a meter at 2 o’clock and Indian at 3 o’clock. Hei, I thought I am hearing a fourth foreign language. All three were talking as if they were the only one on this train. With so many different languages spoken on this train I wonder why I could just only able to speak English and Malay (more if you consider Kelantan’s, Nogori’s, Perak’s, Utara’s way of speaking different languages). The Commuters are getting interesting and louder now as I could hear Chinese conversation all the way from the other end of the coach.

The Mid Valley crowds are making the train even livelier now. As expected they are happy lots enjoying the Friday evening anticipating the eventual weekend. Talking about weekend it would be another hectic one for me.