From an award winning ad campaign in India… the ad copy is quite relevant to Malaysia’s political scene too.

I never thought I would fall in love on the plane.

But yeah I’m on the plane right now, on the way to Sarawak, and guess what.

No, it’s not the dude in the magazine.

I know you like looking at pictures, but let me give you the full picture. I think I found love. And it’s in the advertisement pictured above.

1. The ad copy

This is Seiko Criteria. Selected by Daniel Wu. A chronograph that measures in increments of 1/20 seconds for up to 12 hours with rotary slide rule. 10 bar (100m) water resistant. The watch for the man on the move. Is it you?

Babygirl, you read my mind! You must be psychic! Gosh it’s like we’ve known each other for ages!

“A chronograph that measures in increments of 1/20 seconds for up to 12 hours” is EXACTLY what’s missing in my life!

I’ve been dreaming of it ever since I started time traveling.

Or when I leap through trains doors on the way to work, the last thing I want is to miscalculate an increment of 1/20 seconds, right? Heck I remember being late for business meetings for up to 3/20 of a seconds WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE sweet mother praise the earth!

What was that? It comes with a rotary slide rule? Okay. Might come in handy when I bored on the throne, and decide to measure a body part.

But yeah. Just look at you. You’re a work of art. Just look at your face.

2. Your face…

What a round, smooth face you have…

I remember all those lonely nights, when I’m in my room, 100m underwater, I would dream of a face like yours. Mysterious. Look at all the junk on your face. You’re an enigma.

Will you tell me more?

Nautical miles? Fuel? Oil? Stat? LBS? Calculator? Is the temperature in the cockpit okay? Is it tiger mating season yet?

Your face tells a thousand stories, and my brain will hurt if I knew them all.

3. Plain looking man

Who is this guy? Why is he undressing you with his eyes? This ticks me off a little. I’ll let him off this time. But you ask him to watch out okay.

4. My tie

My tie has nothing to do with my rant about this stupid watch advertisement. I’m just killing time before this aircraft lands.

And the pilot just mumbled some stuff about it (the landing, not my tie).

I guess this is where I stop bashing the advertisement. I mean, I’m sure some men will rush out and buy this watch, and I haven’t worn a watch since kindergarten so perhaps I’m out of their target market.

Conclusion

If you want to be seriously confused every time you want to know the time, or if you truly desire a chronograph that measures in increments of 1/20 seconds for up to 12 hours with rotary slide rule you can ask Daniel Wu for shopping advice.

Meanwhile, I’m off to the rainforest music festival in Sarawak, and forget time even exists.

Talk later.

Three weeks ago my mobile phone decided not to send SMSes on my  behalf. If you sent me an SMS, I would read it and compose 160 characters of wit just for you… but you would never receive it.

What a pity.

Then the unexpected happened…

I would call you instead!

You send me an SMS right? And I’m like KAZZAAAAM!!! HELLO!!! And you’re like WHOA SLOW DOWN BOYO, but I’m like YOWZAAA!!! MY SMS IS BROKEN SO TALK TO ME HONEYBUNS

This would happen with every SMS that demanded a reply.

I started talking to more people.

And people talked back.

Profound?

I wish I could tell you how I now have deeper relationships with the universe. But no. It has made no noteworthy difference in my life.

I guess I’m still noting it down, because I never imagined a lifestyle experiment involving not sending any SMSes for 3 weeks.

I mean, what if you couldn’t send SMSes for 3 weeks?

Try it.

You’ll see what a pointless exercise in frustration it is. I’m getting my phone fixed this week.

Side observation:

Mobile phones and me = Women and me

They look good at first, but after a couple of months they start to act strangely. Guess I pressed the wrong buttons.

The sketch you see is “hdd”, from my gallery of digital doodles

You heard the man.

And if you haven’t, here’s the skinny:

Read on »

I wish I could write more about what actually happened, and share all the great lessons I learnt in marketing, managing people, personal development, and life… but some random photos will have to do for now.

Wires on the floor.

I was in Cameron Highlands with a handful of programmers. We brought our weapons along so we could all enjoy the weather and the scenery while glued to our laptop screens.

My babies

I bought myself a bunch of small cactus plant thingabobs. I have to like, water them once in a while. What a commitment! I’m a father!

Post-its and office love

Testing out a new way to get work done at the office, inspired by agile software development. I love experiments in the workplace!

The morning birds

I woke up at 7am to start work on my balcony. Life is good.

What have you done for me lately?

Joel and I were up at 4am talking about how young people dream much more than they actually deliver, and how successful people and organizations tend to deliver on what they dream… then we saw a “sign”. How are we going to build a culture that delivers? Hmm…

Putrajaya

I’ve been there too many times this month. But for good reasons. My fingers are crossed. By the way that’s Joanne in the picture. She is one of the characters in this new bunch of misfits I’m working with. Will tell you about her, and the other wierdos someday.

Tired

This weekend I’m going to catch up on sleep.

Next week, my new workplace experiment begins…

To be continued..

I watched Fight Club for the second time. It was my birthday gift to myself.

Given the trajectory of my life right now, I thought it was apt to invite The Pixies to lullaby me to the sound of collapsing buildings…

Let me give you the lowdown.

Over the past month, my life has taken a huge-ass detour. I stopped for directions, but disobeyed it. I only got a rough idea as to where I’m headed, but I really don’t care. All I know is I’ve shifted gears, and the wind in my face makes me feel alive.

And I’ve been clinging on to dear life ever since.

In the past 12 days itself I have been on an exotic all expenses paid 5-star getaway with beautiful strangers, experienced death and resurrection by dancing, felt a few mini paradigm shifts brewing, and captured some really good sleep.

As usual, new business ventures are in the works. But this time, I’m doing things differently, to make sure the magic happens.

I guess I should also mention that I am no longer working with the beautiful people at MindValley. We’re still great friends and we’ll be there for one another. Let me blog about this later.

Where am I headed next?

Let’s see… I’ll be on a plane to Singapore till Sunday to mix business with pleasure. When I get back I have a list of people to meet, a RM150,000 grant to apply for, a parking lot of dreams to vacate, and new life to live.

A roadmap would be handy. You know, lend a pattern to the chaos. But I don’t have one. Nor do I feel the need for one right now.

All I have are different pieces, slowly taking shape. When they come together to make a picture, I’ll tell you more.

For now, I trust everything will fall in its right place.

And I’m going to let it.

If your life was a movie, what’s the story?

Would it be interesting to watch?

How are the characters, episodes, twists, sub-plots? What’s the next scene in your story? Who’s the hero? And who cast that jerk as your ex-boyfriend in the first place?

Most of all, who’s writing the story?

I love storytelling…

Good marketing campaigns, the survival of ancient cultures, iconic brands, the transfer of ideas, religion, moral values, and every form of entertainment you can consume involves heavy storytelling elements. Even sex ;p

Every one of us is a story, and our stories connect us all.

What’s your story?

How do you describe yourself in your blog’s “About Me”, and your Facebook profile? How do you view the story that was, and how would you write the story that will be…

Or would you rather tune in to another channel?

Day in. Day out. As an extra in other people’s lives. Releasing control over the script, production, lighting, casting, and direction to someone else…

Great questions.

Having recently watched “Protagonist: The Movie”, I watched how a real life bank robber, terrorist, ex-gay evangelist, and martial arts obsessed person told the stories of their lives.

Recent soul-searching and reading John Carlton (a copywriter and marketer) write about “You: The Movie” inspired me to blog about this topic.

What’s the story of my life?

Well, I’ll be writing a new about me page, re-designing my blog, and re-writing my Facebook profile description real soon. A lot of it is outdated, and I’ll be making some big moves in the month of May.

Coming soon.

To a theater near you ;p

As an aside, here’s a movie poster I made 3 years ago, based on a picture of my student exchange buddies and I walking down the wrong side of Hollywood hill. We were on what I called “The Great Unamerican Road Trip”… 10 days. 10 international students. 10 cameras.

Sometimes I blog about work lifestyle, the meaning of work, the future of work, designing the ideal workplace, designing your ideal work experience…

But most of the time I keep quiet about it.

However, silently, I daresay I’m working very hard as part of this movement, to promote making your work your bliss.

The Guinea pig for my attempt?

MindValley, of course! The folks at MindValley believe in the dream, and are not afraid to put money and sweat down to achieve it.

About a thousand emails, conversations, and experiments later, MindValley as a workplace utopia is taking shape…

So much so some people are taking note.

We’re officially on the list of the Most Democratic Workplaces in the world. We’ll be appearing in international press in coming weeks. We’re the only company from friggin’ Malaysia, and I’m very proud that I had an active hand in creating this.

What does this award mean?

You can take a peek at Organizational Democracy, the award, and details on the Agile Entrepreneurship blog. It’s in no way a huge deal in the big scheme of things, and we have a long journey ahead. But I admit it’s great to know something you work hard for and care about is valued.

On a related note, a professor for an MBA program at Denver University used Apple, 37Signals, and MindValley as case studies for organizational innovation.

I’d like to think that slowly, but surely, we’re doing something right, and more companies can do it too, and employees around the world will return home everyday smiling and celebrating their awesome day at work :)

Want some ideas on how to help your company give more meaning, happiness and impact to its work?

See what the other winners have done right (including crazy ideas such as “The Love Machine” at work) and sign up for this book I helped write, called Agile Entrepreneurship.

I just got back from the Police station.

It was a long night.

Nika’s friend had a friend visiting from Poland, it is her first night here in KL. She was walking in front of Bangsar Permai apartments on Jln Tanduk, Bangsar, when 3 men leapt out of the car, armed with a giant curved parang.

She got robbed, in front of the guard house of the apartments!

Being the courageous hero manly man I am, I was in Nika’s apartment hanging out, drinking some sour Polish soup they made.

As soon as Nika’s friend stumbled into the apartment in tears, my spider-like reflexes prompted the extension of my muscular arm into my pocket, initiating crucial contact with the police department.

Then my shirt…

I could go on.

But let’s not dwell in the past.

This blog post is about solutions!

If you think about it… everyone you know, knows someone who got robbed or snatched or whatever. Right? Don’t know someone? Well, you know me, and it’s happened to my mom, my ex-girlfriend’s sister, and even I got robbed! Twice! (Both times the robbers got caught / humiliated but that’s another story.)

Gah! Bah! We have to stop these crimes!

Since I want to avoid any real confrontation, here’s the plan.

1. Guys and girls walking around the city? Carry an ugly market-like plastic bag, and put vegetables in it.
2. Make sure a cucumber, or a cabbage is sticking out, so it is clear that you are carrying a bag of vegetables.
3. Place all your valuables next to the cabbage. Wallet, money, handphone, whatever. Wrap it up, place it in the cleverly disguised bag of vegetables.
4. Carry your usual bag, the way you normally would, except you could place a home made booby trap. No booby trap? Place a couple of extra vegetables in there. Maybe a rotten one, too.
5. In the event of danger, drop your plastic bag of vegetables (which contain your belongings) on the floor. Or throw it far away. And give the criminals your expensive looking bag (the one with the booby traps)

OK…ok… You may think this is a stupid idea.

After all, not too many people have real booby traps for robbers. Heck I was thinking time bombs but not everyone has time bombs.

You can also argue that a robber who goes home to find a bag of vegetables might anger him enough to go out and rob some more victims.

But perhaps, in the long run, if all of us implement my idea, robbers may get sick of vegetables, and try other stunts to get money, like becoming social entrepreneurs.

I guess, the idea has too many maybes.

Since this is a serious topic, allow me to suggest some alternatives.

1. Resolve economic disparity through changes in public policy and the education system
2. Increase employment opportunities and skills development for the urban poor
3. Form a special task force to crack down on snatch thieves and robbers

But if you analyze the above solutions, and compare it to my vegetable bag trick, they are just as likely to get implemented, and have any real effect on the recent crime spree.

Seriously.

But I won’t complain about stuff here… Solution focus! Yes, yes! And if for some reason, the solution is beyond my pea-sized brain, I need your help.

If you have any real ideas on what we can do to stop this sort of crime, do share.

I promise to give the best idea a bag of vegetables. (I did this for a friend’s birthday once, so I’m not kidding)

Tell me your great idea for solving snatch thieves and armed robberies, and I will give you a healthy reward.

Armed with a mouse and my laptop, I used to draw a lot of trees. I didn’t look at trees when I drew them. They exist in my imagination. A whole forest full of them.

Today, I give you one of my trees. This one was part of a collage of trees I called “The Impossible Forest”. This lone tree is called “The Breathing Tree”. Drawn in Sydney, on August 31, 2004.

My other pixel sketches are here.