"I walk faster... "

a new world in the making

"I find myself walking faster upon my return from Hong Kong," so says a friend who has just return home from holidays.

I thought that was an interesting description. While I have been to Hong Kong for both work and pleasure on many occassions, I would often just give the boring line "Hong Kong's pace of life is faster... you can feel the energy there... people there are always on a lookout for opportunity to make money... "

In a two-hour conversation I had with an ex-Mainland Chinese who has taken up Singapore citizenship, I notice a significant level of energy and positivism in her. Despite the fact that she is holding a more than credible job now, she does not hesitate to talk about opportunities as a stockbroker, property agent etc etc. She illustrated to me that she is very meticulous and focus in moving up. Her feeling of being discriminated as a Mainland Chinese made her work harder and smarter.

When I tried to lighten her enthusiasm for property agency with news on recent lull in transactions just 6-9 months ago, she said she is very confident she would have some deals to work on and one must stay positive.

My 3rd story along this theme was about my colleague, a girl in mid twenties. We were on assignment in KL. She said this to me, "I don't know how to cross the road without the traffic light."

Final words - The above stories reinforce my belief that young people in their early career path should seek job opportunities that would allow them to travel or work in a foreign environment. The world outside Singapore is very different. For better or for worse.

Get out of our shell and experience that to get the best out of you!

KPIs for Town Councils

a lift for 2-storey building?

Tentatively, Town Councils will be assessed on five indicators in total on cleanliness, maintenance and financial management.

It is about time that some sort of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are put in place. The KPIs suggested are from both financial and non-financial oriented.

In any performance measurement exercise, the subjects being measured and users of the final information would be very interested to know how are they measured.

If cleanliness is measured by the number of litters seen in 3 sample blocks, examples of things we would want to know would be:-

• how are the blocks selected,
• who is conducting the inspection and;
• how regular will the inspection be done.

Other courses there are many possible performance measures. My view would be response time to lift emergencies and maintenance schedule of lifts would have an immediate life threatening feature as compared to 3 pieces of litters not collected for 3 days.

As I am a number person, I would be very interested in the use of public fund in managing the estate. May I refer you to the picture above. We are looking at the construction of a lift to a 2-storey building by the Town Council serving about 10-15 families. I am very interested in how they arrive at the decision to do just that.

Make all kind of prejudices disappear

In today's Today, Ooi Kee Beng wrote a piece entitled "Can Najib (the Malaysian PM) drop 'Malays' from UMNO. The Malaysian PM is trying to get his government to drop the need to specify one's race in official documents.

Singapore has actually gone through the similar exercise of reviewing the need for job applicants to fill up information about sex, marital status, religion, race, weight and height in the application forms or even advertisers specifying the criteria of their potential hires.

For advertising matters, there are editors to ensure compliance but how about employers? Are they still using forms from the third world?

What is your experience on the above? Just wondering whether the above is actually being practiced in the real world. Share your view at AnythingWithEdgar.

Two killed on rail track!

another type of accident

Two Republic Polytechnic students (a boy, age 19 and a girl, age 20) were knocked down and killed by a train bound for Johor Bahru at about 5am on 8 Aug 2009.

It is very rare and difficult for a fatal accident to occur with a railway train in Singapore.

On that fateful morning, two young persons died on the railway track.

There are so many whys:-
a) Was the train moving too fast?
b) Did the young people even tried to move?
c) Were they sleeping on the track?
d) Were they too drunk to move?
e) Why were they still out at such unholy hours?
f) Were they drinking nearby?
g) Did anyone notice the couple?

Chai Chee and Bedok Town Secondary Schools

It was announced recently that the two secondary schools will merge at the start of academic year 2011.

Subsequently it was reported that an online "war of words" broke out.. of course with students (past and present) from the respective schools coming forth with their pros and cons...

If that online war is true,then the management of both schools should be commended for having done their job of building their respective identity well among their students over the "short" years of existence.

If there were no passion, there will be just plain acceptance of the merger. It is so sad that that sense of belonging to an alma mater would disappear with the merger.

Perhaps the Authority should place a wee bit more importance before deciding to wipe a school out of existence or merge two schools in a new entity. Perhaps the Authority has no choice but to merge... Why no choice?

Consequence of not enough babies!!!

Are there many Jennie Chuas in Singapore?

Who is Jennie Chua? I had a brief encounter with her a few years ago. She came across as a very friendly and no-air person. Her biodata and achievements to date as follows.

Chairman, Singapore International Chamber of Commerce
Chief corporate officer, CapitaLand
Chairman, Raffles Hotel
# 1945 Born in Singapore
# 1971 BA, Cornell University, School of Hotel Management

Partial list of other positions:-
# Chairman, Community Chest
# Deputy chairman, Workforce Development Agency
# Board member, Sentosa Development Corporation
# Chairman, Singapore Film Commission
# Chairman, International Advisory Council for Tourism, Singapore Tourism Board
# Member, Pro-Enterprise Panel
# Holds 21 company directorships

Why am I showing you all of the above? To show you that she is a very successful and capable lady. But...

I have attached a quote from an interview published in this Saturday's BT Raffles Conversation.

When the interviewer asked how she manages her time, Jennie said,
'And I do have time. I'm divorced, so don't have a husband and don't need to spend time mollycoddling him; I have a companion, but he mollycoddles me! I don't play golf, which can take up two afternoons a week. My children are grown, and as for grandchildren, well, you play with them, and when you're tired you say, now please go home.'

'On the whole, I have to say I've had a wonderful life.'

My interpretation of that quote is that she sees having a husband as a chore, having a companion as good, children as no longer an issue and grandchildren as fun as long as she is not tired.

Perhaps the quote has been taken out of context by me. Not doing justice to her.

But the issue here is not on Jennie per se. I just wish to ask whether this is the price of having a successful career to a man or a woman. There is always a price!