Digital Presence and Paper Signs

So they have a lot of interesting signs here in Malaysia. Like this one:

Literal translation is "not allowed to spit in the elevator, your attitudes observed". Haha, I guess it was a real problem at some point to have required generating a sign. Last week I posted the toilette instructions sign, if you missed it.

Today (March 7, 2013) was another shoulder to the wheel working day. I believe we have all of our data and findings in our plan. Just a lot of word smithing left to undergo too ensure it flows logically, consistently, and is customer ready for tomorrow's afternoon checkpoint meeting. Luckily I was able to borrow the use of a MPK computer today so we could divide and conquer the work. I hope we don't end up with to many food related interruptions tomorrow so we can complete. I have learned a lot of interesting things about how the Internet affects travel considerations and social medias influence on marketing these last two weeks. Facebook, Twitter, and TripAdvisor all had great content on how to brand your Digital Presence on their sites. YouTubes instructions were detailed and good just quite complicated to absorb.

We did have one impromptu break during the day when Kamri decided he wanted to show us the "Long Ball" arena where we will have our friendly match with them on Tuesday night. So, the game is on! It looks fun and Jayme says it is similar to Bocce, so hopefully someone on the team is familiar. Oh and "mat saleh" means white skins, it's what they call all foreigners. Heard it a handful of times today which usually ended up in us looking up at them and some laughter from us both realizing we knew something related to us was being discussed.

#ibmcsc Malaysia

Laptops vs. Snakes, Who Wins?

So there I was finally getting down to real business on our final deliverable, the marketing plan, working on implementation steps specifically, when Power Point suddenly disappears on me completely, literally mid sentence. Then systematically other programs began crashing, explorer, notes; so I left my desk for a break. I had been trying to get the workstation security tool to read correctly that my disk was encrypted, as is required, off and on for 3-4 days. I knew this morning I shouldn't have clicked that un-encrypt button. But it was the only thing left, un then re-encrypt, to try to get the error to go away. I felt the impending doom as soon as I clicked it hours earlier, but had since forgotten it was running in the background. Well it failed, after waiting twenty minutes for it to shutdown I had no choice but to power off. After reboot I was greeted with a "Missing operating system" message! Ahhhh!

I had luckily felt I should backup my CsC photos and videos to my usb drive two days ago so I think I only lost two videos, and 5 or six graphic captures.

That said, through help from local manager contact; I may see a loaner machine, but probably just after we complete the bulk of our work. Really hoping I can borrow a computer from our client tomorrow to be able to help complete our plan. We are presenting first draft on Friday. Kind of difficult to work on Digital Presence data without a working computer. Good thing my teammate is amazing to pick up the slack for us. I am seriously still amazed by all the team members as well.

So with that drama out of the way, on to the snakes. We were invited to a Chinese New Year closing dinner tonight (March 6, 2013) hosted by MPK. It was another big event with dragon dances, drum music, and for the year of the snake; live snakes of course! Somehow I was the IBM sacrifice to the snakes, to start off the evening. Pictures below, can't make it to organized when posting from my iPhone. The staff toyed with and even kissed, yes that right kissed, a king cobra twice during their demonstration. Seems a staff member in a coma recently for month did not phase them at all! Did I mention the team was invited to sing the crowd karaoke, we chose Eye of the Tiger, lol.

So. . . Snakes win hands down, so still an awesome day!

#ibmcsc Malaysia

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