Working Days, Potatoes, and Water

We are officially into full speed working days (February 26, 2013). Even though we were "working from home" today as our client is out of the office, we put in a good long day and into the night preparing material for the Marketing Workshops we will give for our client on Thursday. There will be many MPK representatives and a couple from the State of Pahang, and Federal Tourism Ministry.

My counterpart found an amazing resource for introducing key marketing concepts that she adapted to suit our needs. After some review of past teams presentations from Brazil and Malaysia I was able to gather a couple great usable slides, and find some references that led me to updated data I needed on mobile statistics for the "Digital Presence" portion of the workshop. The resources will also make great Secondary Data for our final marketing plan.

Our Survey, we published roughly 36 hours ago, reached the max of 100 responses for the free account we setup. A BIG thanks to all of our CSC team members passing it back to our teams at home, and to everyone who filled it out for us. Although our sample size is a bit small, and will have a slight "Internet" bias (as it's an internet survey), I think the client will be very surprised and happy to see the results! Here's a sample:

Loooong day (February 27, 2013) Went over CSC Team survey results with Huda only, as Zartil texted she was ill at about 5am. While Jayme pushed through combining our presentation into one. She is an like a library of past presentations and relevant materials for our assignment, and a real pro when it comes to PowerPoint! We've got a great mix of marketing material, primary and secondary data even, for the all day long workshops tomorrow. The MPK staff brought us in some of the Malaysian very spicy chicken, KFC lol. Mine was not so spicy, came with potato wedges, and I was hungry. . . so yes I'm still allergic to potatoes in Malaysia. It was actually tasty and nice to have a meal without rice. I could have picked a better day to test the potato theory out again though.

Our activity for the day was that MPK allowed us to use their Olympic size swimming facility tonight to get some exercise and relax a bit (wish I wouldn't have been wheezing so I could have done more laps). It is an amazing facility, not quite open to the public yet, that I feel privileged they let us use. Really fun, and hilarious watching some of the team calculate and finally jump off the diving platforms. If I can find time I'll try to upload some video a team mate took.

After that it was a, close by the hotel, team dinner then back to work finalizing who's doing what and our videos, transition, and hands on material placement for the workshop. Really amazing quantity of work cranked out over the last two days, and I'm pleased with the quality as well. I hope that our participants are engaged and that English isn't a barrier. Did I mention it rains a lot in Malaysia, off and on and extremely heavy at times for the last two days straight!

#ibmcsc Malaysia

Malay Wedding!

An all day traditional Malay wedding yesterday (February 24, 2013). It was actually the second part, or grooms party as I understand it. Definitely an event to remember. We did a little bit of helping out in setup and cooking, not much really; and were then treated as honored guests during the production, sitting under the tent with the bride, groom, and his family (which we were glad about because it was outright down pouring).

After the ceremony, where we participated in the hand ceremony any ceremonious rice throwing, as is their tradition we were to wash the dishes. Since it was raining so much we instead helped with cleaning the giant kettles that had been used for cooking. Hope you like seeing me in my Indian style Batik shirt. One of the locals came up and told me I look very nice, "like a Punjabi" to which I replied, "is that ok dress for the wedding?", which they re-assured me was fine.


Today (February 25, 2013) was another great day of work. We started out with  refining our schedule and workshop plans, then of course "breakfast" which is at 9AM (they still eat at home before coming to work as well). As our contact says, "Malaysians die young because we like to eat so much!" Somehow we had yet another new type of Nasi (rice) to try today, only maybe 700 or so more to sample!


After that we were able to crank out a survey for international consumption, completion; which will help us form inputs for the marketing strategy. My colleague Jayme is a master planner when it comes to outlines and PowerPoint. She's already created starting frameworks for our final presentation and was digging into our plans for our Marketing workshop we will be leading for about 18 people.

Then tonight was an amazing Fish place that our local IBM contact and a member of the Rotary club shuttled us too. All fresh you pick your fish and how you want it cooked. Then they bring it to your table a bit later and the feast is of epic proportions. When it was all over we each only owed ~$13 USD. . .



#ibmcsc Malaysia

The Beach and CSC Team Visits Sungai Lembing

Yesterday (February 22, 2013) after work we finally made it down to see the Telok Chempedak beach area. It has been go, go, go from day one till yesterday afternoon. It was a much needed couple hours of slow down. Man is jet lag terrible when you don't have any time to get adjusted before trying to begin work!

The beach is about 15-20 minute ride via their new bus system, Rapid Kuantan.



The Waves were quite rough but these local boys were jumping into them directly having a great time; Juan and Ademar couldn't resist joining them, Zuhe even got in on the action.

Today (February 23, 2013) the team was able to travel to tour the Sungai Lembing Historic Area. It was a great time, and I think everyone enjoyed seeing what MPK has created to preserve the tin mine area and it's history.


#ibmcsc Malaysia

Getting Down to Business, Then We Eat!

So with the welcomes, opening ceremony, and first research trip complete; it was time to get down to business. On Wednesday, my sub-team partner Jaymie and I compiled all of our notes on Sungai Lembing Mine from our first meeting and our observation trip. If I had to sum up what our project is in one statement from our stake holder it would be, "How do we market to the world?" With that in mind we are planning our project with a primary goal to help market to foreigners, increase tourism, and drive return visits. Unfortunately the real work isn't quite as glamorous, so not as photographic as my most recent posts.

We have had several extremely productive meetings; blowing the Malaysian stereo type of missing and/or unproductive meetings right out of the water. We were able to prepare a survey to give to our CSC team, made of many international members, to immediately collect some data the client is looking for to help prepare a Marketing Plan. We also worked through questions for a a future survey to come. We plan to give the first survey to our team after they visit the Historic Area tomorrow (February 23, 2013).

The client representatives we are working with are extremely focused and productive when it's time, and ready to eat when it's time for a break :-) That said, I do have a few food pictures to make this a bit more interesting for you . . ."now we eat, yes?" Indeed, we do eat. . .

Fish puff (with coconut), "green cake", and donut

Chicken Curry

Nasi Ayam (chicken and rice, literally)

Papaya, Watermelon, Pizza and milk tart
 
#ibmcsc Malaysia

Food, Tour of the Mine, Food, Chief of the County, Food

If it wasn't already clear, today I happily came to understand just how important food really is to Malaysians. They REALLY love to eat. Their food culture really reminds me of South Pacific islanders a lot, but with a broader variety of spices and origins.

Today was the first full work day for our project. So we took a field trip, that was really quite an adventure. We traveled first thing in the morning to Sungai Lembing to tour the existing Museum which is run by the Federal government, and then the newly opened "Living Museum" or Tunnel museum that is the conversion of one of the old horizontal mine shafts into an impressive tour, which is run by the Kuantan Municipal Council (MPK).

But first we needed to stop for "second breakfast", our guides from the MPK decided, to sample some cuisine. Nasi Lemak and Mee Jawa from the locals in the newly built outdoor style eatery.

Then we were off to the Sungai Lembing Museum, which had the main floor refurbished just last year.


After that we headed to the Living Museum (Tin Mine) Tour.

Next, the hanging bridges, I should also mention that this is Sungai Canal "it's not a river any more since a flood changed the route" they tell us. Also, the area received it's name from a Legend about a Speer, Deer, and then finding the river.

and then it was time to eat again! This is a Kari Pap (Deer Puff). It tastes similar to a ground beef empinada.


While we were there eating we were informally introduced to the Mayor or "Chief of the County", as he referred to himself. He told us that previously he had worked in a different place where he had brought in a British company to help the children learn better English. He said he has been waiting for the opportunity to find volunteers to come in and help his children learn better English in the school at Sungai Lembing. We told him we would pass along his information and suggestion as a possibility for a future team to our coordinators.

On the way back to the office our guides decided we needed to sample some local fruit. They made a u-turn back to this stand to have us try Nangka (Jack) Fruit. It was not bad. It's texture is like stringy mango, but flavor more like banana. The scent really lingers for quite some time. I can only imagine how pungent the Durian fruit they always talk about must be for someone like me.

All in all, an excellent day with a ton of great information gathered about the target of our project. Our guides were extremely generous and really all around enjoyable to spend the day with.

#ibmcsc Malaysia

No "I" in Team

Short post for today. We had bright and early meetings after the nights informal festivities for formal introductions of all the people who will be collaborating from the Kuantan Municipal Council (MPK),  University Malaysia Pahang, all the IBM CSC volunteers, as well as IBM Malaysia.

I have to comment about my CSC team, and all I have to say is WOW these are amazing people. The introductions were really great. They have all done so many interesting things and are incredibly accomplished in their careers. I'm humbled that I was somehow shuffled into the mix with them! The MPK staff and officers were all very interesting and diverse, and seem very eager to work with us. We had a right down to business information gathering session after the formal meeting with our Sungai Lembing stake holders and were able to clarify what they hope to gain from our collaboration.


#ibmcsc Malaysia

Meeting the Kuantan Municipal Council

On Sunday we traveled as a team by bus to Kuantan, the city we'll be working in for the next month.
We are very lucky to have projects involving the Kuantan Municipal Council, who governs the city, which is the capital of the state of Pahang. I think they were equally excited as we are to have us working with them on these projects! First they took us on a complementary river tour of the Kuantan River, I have to share a selection of the photos:

Later that evening they hosted a dinner for our team as well as some representatives from the University Malaysia Pahang, where six of the team will work projects. During dinner they put on an amazing show for us. Which even include the leader of the council, YH. DATO' HAJI ZULKIFLI BIN HAJI YAACOB, DSAP., DIMP., AAP., AMP, singing!

I really felt like the event was an honor to be a part of, let alone that they threw it for us. The Kuantan Municipal Council Dancers performed a number of traditional dances representing all the various intermingled Malaysian cultures. Here is the finale dance for your viewing pleasure:
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