Cassiterite, Stannum Dioxide, or SnO2

Today (March 5, 2013) may be the last day we venture to the mine, so I've titled my post in honor of Tin mine Tunnel tour. It was a real treat to be able to have our two workshops with the staff. Today's workshop was as good as yesterday or maybe even a bit better since we had some repeat staff who wanted to come back to practice more English and ask more questions.

There was a large group of 80 students from a local tech college that came through for a tour. So we were able to accompany two of the staff through while doing their tour and offer suggestions to them on ideas to improve the "experience" of the visitors.

After, we had a farewell bowl of Mee Jawa, Kari Paps, and (they even managed to give us something new) Goreng Pisang (battered and fried bananas, local junk food).

After that I picked up a souvenir and we headed to check out Sleeping Buddha. They have talked a lot about marketing with it as a package to the tunnel tour.

Those bananas were so good and rich I needed to run tonight just to burn them off alone! I've been glad there are others who have wanted to exercise it really helps with keeping a sense of normality. I wish our accommodations had something but we've worked it out ok to get at least a couple days of exercise each week.

So that's a wrap on workshops as today finished off the last of the three, now on to the official marketing plan. #ibmcsc Malaysia

Second Breakfast, Nasi No More

Four days have passed with no "second breakfast", a new record! Of course that many days without nasi (rice) would not be possible. Really, it should probably be veggies no more since we learned last week that Malaysians consciously "don't really like vegetables". So that explains why they are so sparsely found in restaurants I suppose.

But, back to today's work (March 4, 2013). . . We had our first workshop with the mine staff and it was a big success in my mind. We had 15-20 staff talking with us give or take a those who came and went during the 3 hours. It took some time to get the round table like discussion moving along, but we eventually had the staff asking us how they should respond to some of the common questions they receive; trying out saying things in English, and we even took a demonstration tour through the mine with them. We, as a group, practiced phrases like "watch your head", "any questions before we continue", and "watch your step". As we traveled through the mine they did relax more and asked additional questions and thought about other scenarios. Here's another mine picture I took on the second visit with the team:


Then on our exit we had a photo shoot, lol. They even had us do some "freestyle" which consisted of us looking off in other directions. Hilarious stuff, but they were mostly with their cameras; perhaps my team mate will post some soon I can include. Tomorrow we will return to meet with the other half of the mine staff. Hope it goes just as well. Here is a picture from her twitter feed.


Another new experience at dinner tonight. Malaysian style buffet, a sort of cross between a grill your own Tepanyaki and Chinese Hot Pot, they call it a "Steamboat". Each table comes equipped with it's own propane bottle underneath and one of these on top.

#ibmcsc Malaysia

Weekend, Pass the Prawns Please

So we had a weekend away (March 1-3, 2013) about 40 minutes north of Kuantan. The place we stayed is a "local" 4 stars. Had an excellent view of the ocean and a nice pool. Really enjoyed a fun game of volleyball with part of the team on the first night.

Picked up some bananas at the fruit stand across the street, and met this guy:


At about two in the afternoon on Saturday I could feel it was time for me to retreat from the sun. Some of the team applied sun screen generously to stay out even longer; but alas, many are quite a shade of red. I didn't use any block as is my usual mo, so I'm a little pink myself. The sun's rays close to the equator really seem to pack a lot of heat!


That evening we went north to Cherating and browsed some shops, met this little guy in one of them, made me think of my own kiddos and wife sacrificing so I can be here; very grateful to them for that!

















I really like these local trees that have these permanent flowers on them:


The sand in this area was really interesting, it is mostly a normal shade, but there are sections where it is red on top, or down underneath if you dig. I managed to capture the color here, then the next shot notice the thousands upon thousands of snail shells.
Then dinner at a fish place on the beach. It was a local dive so quite an experience. The food was also good. The shrimp here is gigantic! Bigger than river trout big I mean.


A few of the team made two dives, and enjoyed it even though conditions were not perfect. Here they are practicing for the two people that had not done a dive before:


The team is relaxed, sore, and ready to return to the Rocana for work tomorrow. They picked fresh coconuts from the trees around us, prepared and gave to some of the team members the day before, then asked them for 5$ lol. I tried on before we left, here's a parting image, now back to work!


#ibmcsc Malaysia

Tandas anyone?

Today was a good day for us to get our schedule updated, make some more plans for our Tin Mine staff Workshop, and get caught up (March 1, 2013). I still can't believe that they literally eat 5 -6 meals a day here. Nearly everything is cooked in coconut milk it seems too. I guess that makes sense since they are the biggest exporter of coconut oil as well. Something else I experienced for the first time this trip:  Asian toilets, "tandas" in Malay. More commonly known to us westerners as "squat toilets".

A lot of places we have been working have both styles now (as thankfully our hotel does), but since in the past the squats were more common, the bathroom at our office has these instructions. For your viewing pleasure. . .

Assignment is also already half complete, it is really going so quickly. Not much down time to absorb the amount of experiences on a daily basis. Tonight we are headed on our ABV Weekend away, a resort of some type North of Kuantan. The whole team is excited and looking forward to it, hope I can take a minute and digest it all. . . 

#ibmcsc Malaysia

. . . to be Better

How's this for setting your position in your consumers mind. . ."to be better". That is the slogan of the local Malaysian car company. It's exactly what they think about the brand too, "it's not so good" they always say when I ask them about it. Thinking about international corporations and their marketing it's amazing how much there is already here and how much it's going to expand.

Had a really good day (February 28, 2013). Started out a bit shaky though, as the driver scheduled to pick us up for our 8:30am start meeting never showed up. So we started texting and asking our team who goes to the other office, who's driver did show up, to talk to the staff and see if they could get a driver to us. It's crazy because usually they have to wait for us like 15 minutes, but the day we were out there early and had our first big presentation. . . Saw this while waiting, it's pretty common.


It was no big deal to the customer though, and we were only maybe ten minutes late in the end.

 The Marketing Workshop material all flowed together well and they were focused and involved in the meeting so I'd say a success. So, I guess I can add marketing basics to the resume! Now just our big deliverable, the marketing plan, to complete; and an informal round table with the mine tour staff left to plan for and create.

I am so tired from the meeting though, everything compounds when working with a different culture, language considerations, etc. They provided breakfast, lunch, and hi-tea snack at the meeting. I had the first food I've had since I arrived that I would say I did not like during breakfast (the 10-10:30 am break). This dried out rolled up rice thing recooked with a bitter watery sauce poured over it. Blah.

Miss my wife tonight, I'd usually tell her all about the meeting the night of a big one.

#ibmcsc Malaysia

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