Travel to London/Paris

My passion in travelling shall be shared with my wife. Yes, that's my goal. The first thing I did was to bring my wife to the place known for their history and romanticism. And there we were, travelling to London and Paris back in 2007, exactly 4 years back...

Buckingham Palace, London

My wife is MU supporter, but here I was trying to influence her to be Gunner like me :)

Du Louvre museum, Paris

The famous Eiffel Tower

Happy 4th Anniversary

On 25^th December this year, we celebrated our 4^th Anniversary as Husband and Wife at Atmosphere 360 KL Tower. How Time Flies….Our little family is growing. Insya-Allah, Aqeel will be a big brother and we will have new addition into our family middle of next year J. As my wife said, ‘tak semua manis itu madu dan tak semua pahit itu jelik’ or translated something like this ‘sweetness is not all good and bitterness is not all bad’. Well, we are all not perfect indeed, but we learn to understand and compromise with each other. The most important thing, man and woman always compliment each other, a perfect summary for us. May our marriage blessed and last forever…Happy 4th Anniversary to us!  

Sekolah2u Revisited

I haven’t been in touched with my entrepreneurial side for a long time. It seems I’ve been very comfortable with my position and the urge to be more adventurous gradually fading away. Couples with various commitments nowadays, it looks like my entrepreneurial goals will always be a secondary goal. But I’ve been awaken recently from The Edge article on Web 2.0 start-up who has made it to Sillicon Valley thru fund raised via venture capital in Malaysia. It seems the idea is pretty similar to what I had back in 2006, but these guys made it all the way to Sillicon Valley! Congrats to them. So what business venture is it?

Back in 2006, I was trying hard to push the Software-As-a-Service Solution for School Management System thru MDEC. I did all the software development and we called our solution as Sekolah2u (macam maybank2u laa konon).  We (me and a friend) even had the presentation with the MDEC’s General Manager to share our ideas on our solution. But they seem reluctant to proceed on our ideas, most probably because the concern on who will pay for the service. Our solution is based on subscription model rather than selling the software. Basically, it is the SAAS business model. From then on, the idea just fading away and we were getting busy with our work. Our mistake was not trying to push thru venture capital back then, but I remember it’s pretty tough to raise fund for start-up company like us. Without some capital, we were unable to sustain our business especially the needs for marketing, expenses, etc. Most importantly, our mistake was trying to focus on public schools (which of course has lots of bureaucracy) and not private schools. In addition, the market in Malaysia was definitely not ready at that time and even if we secured some private schools, it’ll be less than 10 schools. Lesson learnt!

But these guys, QuickSchools.com (see above – see some similarity) took a different path from us. They raised fund from venture capital in 2009, focus on ‘The Biggest Market’ in US and moved their operation to US. The rest as some would say is history. They managed to secure many schools around the world and surely, they will grow in time. While I’m sad I could not make it as what they have achieved, but I’m happy some Malaysians successfully deployed the idea to a reality especially in Sillicon Valley. Hats off to these guys….

SAP Consultant ..wondering what they are?

Besides Con + Insult people (that’s what we think about ourselves, just kidding J), it’s pretty grey area for people out there to really understand what we actually do. As I explained in my previous post, we are a hybrid between IT & Business. We try to enhance business processes in SAP context, the ultimate target is to eliminate unnecessary manual processes and improve efficiency and productivity. So you could have more time to be productive/decisive rather than wasting time doing manual and routine jobs. I hate to say this, at one point I feel guilty of trying to automate everything because eventually, people could be redundant and lost their job. Is technology guilty of reducing job opportunities? Is technology benefits highly skilled workers only? I read one article on this issue and the author said, we couldn’t blame technology because lets face it, it improves our life tremendously. We need to recognize that there is shift in paradigm in today’s economy, the knowledge economy. Everybody has the responsibility to upgrade their skills so that they won’t be left out. But it’s still frightening to see only 20% of Malaysian workforces can be considered skilled workers. I guess this need to be sorted out a.s.a.p!

Wassatiyah/Minimalist/Keserderhanaan

As a Muslim, the concept of Wassatiyah should be practiced in our life. It means simplicity and balance, it doesn’t mean you can’t posses material and wealth but it focuses on how you should consume and manage it according to your own needs and affordability. Can you afford it? Is it necessary? In western world, the word ‘Minimalist’ more or less shares the same meaning as Wassatiyah (in material possession perspective) or in Malay ‘Kesederhanaan’.

Hari Raya 2011

It has been 4 years for me celebrating Hari Raya as a family man and this Hari Raya was quite special for me. Essentially, the meaning of ‘Family’ truly sparks in this year celebration. We travelled from one place to another to visit our relatives from my side and wife’s as well. On the first two days, we were in Seremban (my side) and the next three days we were in Kota Bharu (wife’s side – well, her family lives in KL now but still got relatives in Kota Bharu). Travelling back from KB to KL was quite an experience, it took 14 hours + massive traffic jam to reach KL where it takes 7 hours in regular time. It shows lot of Kelantan’s origin migrating to KL perhaps for better opportunities.

Krugman's Economic Analysis

I love Paul Krugman’s analysis on economy and yes, I’m a regular reader of his column in NYT. Such a good insight on current economic issue and the latest article by him is another masterpiece on assessment of US’s wrong policy of debt deficit reduction. It’s not a debt deficit reduction that should be pursued, but job creation it’s the utmost priority to fix the ailing economy. In order to create the jobs, as the private sector hold back the spending due to uncertainty, government should take the role to spend to keep the engine running. Without any spending by either private or public sector, it could cause a catastrophic consequence and the most affected would be normal people on the street.

Travel to New York City 2003

I flew from LA to NY via American Airlines to visit one of the celebrated city in the world, New York baby! It's a five hours flight (no surprise there since it was from one end to another). Unfortunately due to budget constraint, I could not stay in Manhattan itself but further away from the city. To be specific, I stayed in rather notorious city called New Jersey. But I certainly have no complaint as I was enjoying New York so much!

Statue of Liberty 

View of Manhattan from Empire State Building 

Unfortunately, no one was helping me so I resorted to cam-whoring. At the top of Empire State Building. 

The famous Times Square

My workplace - IOI Resort

While IOI is known for their plantation business, they are also one of the main player in properties segment. One of their best development is a resort style city known as IOI resort city http://www.ioiresortcity.com. I'm blessed to work in this wonderful and peaceful place. It's 20 minutes away from my house in Bangi and yes it's traffic jam-less and toll-less every single day, the thing I value the most. Parking is abundant and another worry-less issue for me. The resort itself is green in concept with many facilities available. Two hotels (marriott & palm garden, golf club, residential area (condo and bungalow) and of course two towers for office where I'm based now.

Losing doesn't take away your elegance ....

You are still the greatest for me no matter what.. Age is catching up on you. Not losing tamely to new Ali, but you fought like a true champion. Salute! See you again in US open...