Ian On The Red Dot

It has been one week since nexus 2007 which was organised by The Digital Movement and I am finally able to sit down and organise the notes I took at the awesome event. Lot of people have already blogged about the event, so I’ll start this point by linking to them.

Nexus 2007: Live from NTUC Conference Center by Sg Entrepreneurs

Aftermath of Nexus 2007: Future of the Web by Sg Entrepreneurs

Podcasts for the event by Brandcast.biz

Posts by Justin and Bjorn. Go down to ping.sg and search for Nexus 2007 to get more.

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The event was a great one and definitely worth the $15 dollars I paid for it. One problem (actually more of an inconvenience) with the event though was the lack of power points in the main auditorium. Although, one could tell that a fair number of people were seasoned attendees of such events because they came with their own extension cords and multi-plugs.

Finally had an excuse to use campfirenow by 37signals. It was really fun to be able to chat online while the main action was happening on stage. Some people really asked good questions on it and hopefully in the future, those questions would be able to be directed to the panelists. Some really great insights were obtained from the chat too.

Food. Food. Glorious Food. Definitely ate more than $15 worth of it. The chillout session at the end was awesome with the amount of beer and alcohol present although I couldn’t partake in them. And it was a great experience listening to all the people sharing in the small groups that formed at the chillout session. A lot of smart people there. Harish of poundbang shared something he had been working on and it was really awesome. It was some way of taking a 360 degrees picture and then presenting different POVs with what was captured. Imagine if they use it for live soccer matches! Awesome.

One thing I noticed is that it can probably be assumed that the geeky gals in Singapore are quite good looking and not your stereotypical girl with brains ugly betty kind while the guys..hahha..well..think we are split down the middle. The female host of the event got qute abit of attention on the online chat. Hmmm… Think someone even logged off from it to go find out her name. Oh, and has anyone given her a thumbdrive yet?

The first two panels (”The New Asia Pacific” and “Mobile and Online Media Panels”) I attended were a bit hit and miss while the final two (”The Future Of The Web” and ” “Riding On Change”) was a buffet of ideas,insights and information. There was this sense that the two gentleman from Velvet Puffin and Microsoft in the second panel were more interested in pitching their product and company to the audience. On the other hand, I felt that the two gentleman from Salesforce and Yahoo (in the third panel) while mentioning their companies and what they were doing, were actually trying to answer the questions asked and using their companies as an example to enhance what they were sharing with the audience and not trying to pitch.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish up going through the notes I made for the event and post somemore about what I’ve learned from it over the course of next week.

On a final note, I would really like to thank the organisers of the event. They did a really awesome job and I think everyone benefited from it.

Yawningbread did a superb analysis of the benchmark used by the government for salaries of ministers and top civil servants.

Everyone should read his blog regularly.  You can only get smarter by doing so.

Read the Life section today and say Jonathan Pflug was UWC’s debating coach.

Ok. I’m not sure if he was the coach of any of the other schools or if any of them had someone of his calibre but I think having Jonathan as a coach must have given UWC an edge. I have seen him debate and he is good. As in he is freaking scary good. He could convince your own mother to kill you in your sleep good (although he is a nice guy lah and probably wouldn’t want to do that to you). The force is strong in this one.

And he is a ‘product’ of our own local school system. Woot!

Ok. The chest thumping, flag waving and horn blowing ends now.

Updated:

http://singaporeelection.blogspot.com/2007/03/arena-eye-opener-about.html

You know..You can’t be sure that the older teacher played a more significant role than the debating coach who is a product of the Singaporean school system and also only 25 if I remember correctly. In any case, if one would like to take note of the existence of the above mentioned debating coach, then maybe one wouldn’t be in such despair over our education system. Think about it. An international school which is supposedly having a better education system than ours chose a product of the local system to train their team. And the team won! So maybe, the people of our system do indeed have something to offer to the world.

Guys… and girls… the sky isn’t falling.

Didn’t manage to catch the actual debate but saw the results show. UWC (an international school) beat the crap out of HCI. UWC had like 3 times the score of HCI.

Now, I didn’t watch the debate so I can’t be sure if UWC was actually much better. But I felt a bit of pride lost when I saw an international school beating all our local schools to be the champion.

So what does that mean? Is our education system not as good as the international schools? I remember recently there was a discussion going on about this.

Hmmm… as a product of the local education system, I believe that this system which I have been part of is probably like any system, it has its flaws but also its good points. The standard perception would be that we are well trained as workers, people who are exam smart and good at following orders but not good at being creative and eloquent.

I won’t go into that except say that I don’t believe that there is any national school system that can produce homogenous results with the heterogenous input of the youth of a whole nation. I also won’t defend our schools by saying that maybe we didn’t send our best debaters.

What I would like to offer is a suggestion about why it seems that the international schools produce better students (of course, by what measure I’m also not sure).

I know I’m treading on very thin ice here, but I would say family background. Not saying that ang moh got better genes. Not saying that the students in international sch got better genes. I’m just saying that on average, the student in an international school probably comes from a financially better background than the average Singaporean student. Of course, the whole of this paragraph is based on the assumption that to be an expat living in Singapore with your family, you probably have a well paid job and quite a decent education as does your spouse.

I have always believed that equal opportunity does not mean equal start. Starting well is very important and family background plays a big part in that. I believe that most expat families have the financial means to provide the head-start as well because of their own intellectual background can provide a better environment at home to cultivate the growth of their child.

So the reason why it seems that the international school might be better than a local school can be said to be the homogeneity of the students in terms of better family backgrounds (compared to the average Singaporean) which already puts them at an advantage compounded with the ability to afford to create what might be a better school system (hey..money really can buy good stuff) although I maintain the system plays less a part than the family background in this situation.

I’m not sure but it would be interesting to put an expat child into the local system and an average Singaporean into the international school system. I would say at the end, the expat child probably won’t differ much in the supposedly better qualities of the other expat children in the international schools but gain a bit of our positive local qualities and likewise for the Singaporean kid, he would probably be the most mugger toad and exam kiasu kid in the international school while gaining the purported creativity and eloquence that international schools are supposed to cultivate.

I know this is probably not ethical but how about a real case of “The Prince and the Pauper”.

Came to work and my colleague told me my fly was undone.  Sigh…  I wonder when did it happened along the way to work.  I really hope no one noticed or took a photo.  My hair is very long…messy…got gel but still won’t look good in photo…also if someone did take a photo, can photoshop and add a bigger bulge please..please…please…ok..thanks…

First, I believe that people should be reward fairly for what they do. So if the people doing the jobs in the civil service are being underpaid compared to market rate, then I feel that their pay should be increased so they don’t fall behind the rest of Singapore.

Having said that, there is a reason why its called civil service. I think there comes a point in the career of a civil servant when the individual should focus more on the service part then the job part. I think the time comes around the point where you are nearing the top echelons of civil service.

I understand the argument that since the jobs in the top positions of the civil service are crucial, it is important to get the best talents into those positions. I also understand that there is an opportunity cost incurred by not being part of the private sector and to be part of the civil service especially if you’re a real talent. I understand the need to compensate for that cost.

But once you use money to compete for these talents instead of appealing to the desire to serve the nation and what I consider a higher calling, then we forget the ’service’ part in civil service. And that is important. Once the job aspect takes more precedence then the service aspect, then your master becomes different - your master is now your employer (the government) and more immediately, your superiors who appraise you for your promotions ( and salary revisions ) instead of being the people of Singapore.

And I believe once that subtle shift in perception of what it means to be a civil servant changes from a higher calling to just another job (which does some good for the nation but one which you wouldn’t have taken if the pay hadn’t been competitive to the private sector) then your goals as a civil servant changes. Instead of doing what is best for Singapore, the aim becomes to please your employers and further your own career. And Singapore as a whole loses out.

Finally, I think the people in civil service and government should be people whose morality cannot be affected by money. We shouldn’t give more money to ensure people don’t be corrupt. We should give more money because it is fair to give them that amount of money for the work they do and their contributions to Singapore. To say X amount of money is enough to prevent corruption is to me naive because someone else could always offer X + 1. But if the argument is that there is indeed a threshold where a person would be less susceptible to be corrupt (if not totally not corrupt), then shouldn’t there also be a threshold where enough pay is enough to want to keep the person from jumping ship to the private sector.

And there is indeed such a threshold. It is the benchmark to private sector salaries. But the benchmark will change won’t it. And if such a benchmark changes which means the threshold changes, then by working backwards, doesn’t that mean the people we have are just being bought off now at current market rates so they won’t be corrupt.

And if so, doesn’t that mean they have a price. Which comes back to the first point. If there is a price, there is always an X + 1.

Aaron started a really interesting discussion when he wrote a post on scholars and bond breaking.

Firstly, I appreciate Aaron’s analogy. But he is just too polite and so the analogy isn’t complete.

Taking a scholarship and then breaking the bond is like a guy getting a girl that another guy really really likes. The other guy really wants to love her and cherish her forever. The first guy who gets the girl has chased her because A) he thinks he likes her a LOT (but hasn’t considered the long term future only the short term satisfaction) B) he wants to notch her as a conquest since if other guys like her she must be worth having.

So the first guy gets her and then screws her literally and figuratively. Leaves her when something better comes along. But don’t call him a bastard k. I mean, he did break up with her formally, even bothered to do it in person and not over sms. He would only be a bastard ( and I’m making a moral judgment here ) if he had gone with the other girl before formally breaking off with the first one. So while he did consider going with the second one while with the first one, he isn’t a cheat. He was just confused, unsure about the future when they first got together, and he has every right to pursue his own happiness when something better comes along. I mean, he was what, only 18 when he got together with the girl… much too young to have considered what life would have been like with the girl a few years down the road. And don’t be sad for what could have been between guy two and the girl - don’t despair about the possible wonderful relationship that might have blossomed. I mean, the girl did profit from the relationship…oh..the flowers..the rings…she did get something out of it.

I have friends who have broken bonds and have friends who were given opportunities to break their bonds. People in both groups were damn smart ( if not the opportunity to break the bond wouldn’t have materialized …. right? ). One of the person who posted a comment on Aaron’s blog says that those who come back cannot make it ( to paraphrase ). Nonsense. Obviously he doesn’t know that many scholars. I know a good number of them who are up there in terms of results, drive, intelligence…everything that makes them a REAL TOP TALENT ( since people like to emphasize the different between talents and scholars ) who came back to finish their bond. Why? Because to them, in their opinion, it was the right thing to do. And also, because our A Level Econs teacher drilled into us the notion of taking a scholarship to serve our nation. We may have forgotten the econs, but not those lessons…

The people who break bonds fulfill two criteria. They believe in their own self interest beyond anything else, and second they can afford to break the bond. I don’t consider my friends who break their bonds immoral. They have every right to pursue their self interest. But I call BULLSHIT when the reason they give is about all the negative things about Singapore. “Oh Singapore, doesn’t appreciate their talents (i.e. me)..” BULLSHIT ALERT! If Singapore didn’t appreciate you, how the hell did you get the scholarship? They must have seen something in you (though I would question what it was when they awarded the scholarship). “Oh, the environment in Singapore is not challenging.” Ok… maybe a stat board doesn’t sound like the most exciting place, but hey… shouldn’t you have known that when you signed for the scholarship. I mean, what sort of talent were you when you couldn’t even envision the future. A talent with no foresight? Or maybe near sightedness only?

Basically, there are a lot of things a person could say to justify bond breaking, but like my teacher once said, those things are just excuses. The real reason and the only reason is because you believe in “Me.Me. And Me.” Don’t come and point and say what is wrong with Singapore and use that to break the bond. Be a Man. Say why you broke it. Because I’m getting a better deal there and who the F*ck cares about the consequences of me breaking the bond with the scholarship giver. I mean, I paid the money didn’t I. I’m absolved. I fulfilled my end by paying up!

Wrong. You didn’t fulfill your end of the bargain when you took the scholarship because you broke it. The bond breaking fee is the result of the lack of fulfilling it. While the bond is a legal contract, the scholarship isn’t ( in my not humble opinion ). Let’s separate the two. The bond was the contract to protect the scholarship giver in the case you didn’t fulfill the first agreement which is to take the scholarship and come back and somehow contribute to Singapore.

I know some people said that signing the bond doesn’t mean there is some implicit promise of unconditional commitment to the scholarship giver and by extension to Singapore. And that saddens me because I have always had an idealistic view of what it means to be a scholar - that the very act of being (or calling yourself) a scholar means there is an implicit promise of unconditional commitment to Singapore. I guess, I’m just that naive.

Well, I can’t believe people are that naive to think that the money paid solves everything. And I can’t believe that the people who took scholarships didn’t know they were given the opportunity of a life time to be on ” the cover page of Vanity Fair ” and get tons of exposure (and offers and temptations..) and didn’t consider what they would do if the opportunity presented itself. Especially, those real talents who break the bond. But hey, I’m no mind reader.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong. It is perfectly alright to pursue your own self interest. I believe in that. But to deny the consequences of it and use sugar coated justifications or finger pointing blame laying..that’s wrong ( a moral judgment here ..). And its wrong to say that hey, only the Singapore government gets hurt here and who cares about them.

I mean, who paid for the scholarships? The people of Singapore. It is us who got hurt. It is the low income 40 yr old auntie who contributed to that scholarship. It is that uncle who drives the cab even though his bones ache. It is the same auntie and uncle who when 60 yrs old would have needed you oh so bright talent (with the great disdain of all things Singapore) to have come back and serve the nation and maybe made it better.

And please, I don’t buy the argument that if they break their bond to get better opportunities to grow that Singapore would benefit when they come back. First, do they even come back? Ok, maybe we weren’t so forgiving when they broke the bond so there is a bit of bitterness. Next… Did they actually want to come back? Thirdly, even if they did come back, what makes you so sure Singapore will be better of now cos of them having bettered themselves. If they were people who were really self interested,wouldn’t they come back and be the new exploiters. I mean, once a self interested person… always a self interested person? (A bit of fortune-telling with a little moral stone thrown in…).

And yes, there are some things you can never learn in a fast track civil service job. And there is some things you might not learn in a fast track corporate job (which you might have got after breaking a bond) such as honor and integrity.

In any case, I’m glad the people who broke the bond broke it. They should be happier and that’s always a plus. And also, at least now we have separated some of the overtly self-interested people out of the pack. Probably got quite a fair number of overtly self-interested people left among those who returned, but hey, at least we narrowed down the possibility of only self-interested people from reaching the top of our government. (Don’t snigger, I know what some of you are saying..that they are already there…)

Anyway, the real problem is not people who break bonds, but how the hell did we select people who ended up breaking bonds.

A suggestion. Send all potential people to some disaster area and ask them to help out for two weeks. Interview them when they come back and ask them about their experiences.

Those who say,”Oh..it was such a wonderful experience for ME. It opened MY eyes and really made ME grow as a person. I really realized how lucky I am to be in Singapore. I’M so blessed. ”

KICK THEM OUT. LITERALLY.

Those who say, “I hope we somehow managed to make the lives of those people there better.” Consider them.

But since I mentioned it, people are probably already mugging this model answer (in my not so humble opinion).

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As a final note, the reason why this topic is personal, is because I do have friends who broke their bonds. Friends who I trust and respect a lot. Friends who I’m loyal too. And when something like this happens which shakes your faith in them because what they do doesn’t tally with a personal view on morality and you wonder if they could ever honor their word and bond of friendship with you, this something that happens (scholarship bond breaking) triggers a host of mixed reactions. You want to defend your friend. You want to hold on to your view on what is right and wrong and yet consider the gray. You want reconciliation. You want resolution.  And you can’t find it.  The world isn’t that simple.  It doesn’t allow itself to be reduced to easy answers.

And you go to sleep.  

At work, I have to use Java.

At home, I choose to use RubyOnRails…

Why?

Because its a real pain to configure everything you need in Java.

Its hell…

Convention over configuration…  Sweet sweet convention….  I miss you at work…

As the idiom goes - “there really is nothing new under the sun”…

Implementing Unix commands on the web as a business model…

For those who aren’t familiar with Unix, here is a good starting point.

Kottke suggests another way of thinking - take what friends do in private and make it public.

I think it says a lot about human nature that as technology improves, we are just using it as a medium to meet the same basic needs…

Ben Stein answers why I didn’t want to be an investment banker.