It’s dumb. But part of me feels like I’m the first man on the moon. I even did a “BOOYA” with hand gestures and all to the confused person beside me.

And then I stopped.

My ICQ number is 335339. That’s like 6 digits. I’ve never met anyone with 6 digits. Bet some of you don’t even know what ICQ is, do you? Not as 1337 as meeee…?

The same dumb part of me feels like I’m the first man on two freaking moons.

Then I stopped.

Acting like I’m part of history is good fun, but creating actual history should be pretty neat, too. Back to work…

The Hub: http://the-hub.net/

It’s kinda like a gym membership but you work on your business, project, but not your body. And, you meet all kinds of people. Unlike a gym, they don’t distract you with their curves, grunts, or stares.

So cozy. Library. Kitchenette.

IOh, check out the wood on this guy.

It’s actually rolled up card board with a flat board on it. This hub is packed with this thing. Doesn’t look too expensive to make eh. But very nice.

And, you can rent meeting rooms with plenty of sunlight! Helps you grow.

Me chilling out with the heater. It’s like 2 degrees right now in London.

For a small space (2000 sq ft) it’s incredibly well used.

And… This is how the hub makes money.

This business model allows it to span all over the place!

Isreal, Berkeley, etc.. when is it Kuala Lumpur’s turn?

Watch this space… ;)

Think about it.

Maybe major events to change your life, were orchestrated in days. Major changes in your life, perhaps happened in moments of decision. Or waves of massive action.

This is true, at least for me.

So, naturally, I got curious… how many power moves I could make by the end of 2009?

I mean, I had a great year. Easily my best. But I really wanted to nail it good. But. So there I was with 5 days left, and Christmas Eve party hangover. What could I do?

I started with the only thing I knew. Penning my thoughts down on a list. Then, I got to work:

1. Learned the ukulele (I can play most chords and a few songs now, wrote one of my own songs too)
2. “Acquired” 7GB of new music to lay the soundtrack for 2010
3. Spent a full day’s worth of quality time with mom and dad (hard to come by)
4. Renovation! Turned my room into a creativity and rest zone (formerly known as war zone). Turned the outside of my room into a hardcore work zone (proven productivity, I tested it!)
5. Done a whole bunch of nagging office work
6. Printed out, designed, and put up my vision board to remind myself of the aspirations which guide me.
7. Got back on my usual (but improved) fitness addictions with a bang!
8. Designed a flyer for a legendary party (totally got in flow… loved it. Pointless creative expression… ah…)
9. Threw a legendary party to celebrate life as we know it

Man. The party was SO last minute. But it really came together way beyond my expectations!

Thanks to Jenn, Gabby, and a whole bunch of friends I don’t see very often but still trust me enough to ditch their plans for a quirky mixed bag of crazy…. we had a good one.

Highlight: Turns out Gabby’s friends from Canada and I grew up with the same anthems and when they took over the playlist, it was heaven all night long. And Jenn turned plain eggs and mayo and vegetables into some designer food OMG give me more! And the people, the jokes, the dancing, the conversation… ah… I’ll let the vivid pictures and videos crop up on Facebook. Let me get back to my point.

Admittedly, I failed to record an EP and publish a compilation of short stories on absurdity. But can’t hate a man for trying right? I’m still pretty proud of what I achieved to top off 2009 as the best year of my life.

So much cool stuff in 5 days…

And I know I’m not the only one.

Many of us are truly fortunate enough, to live in an age where were so connected, so full of ideas, energy, opportunities, and control. Our potential is limitless. And to think, all it takes is action. A few days of consistent, addictive action. Only a few days… and we can have so much immediate positive changes in our lives…

Wonder what will we be able to do with the whole of 2010? ;)

How fast did the past 100 days slip by?

Say your age is 25

If you think you’ll live till 75, this means you have 18,000+ days left to live.

Having fun in your youth? You’ve got 5,000+ days till you hit 40.

Not sure when you might die? Who knows how many days you have left…

So. Out of all the days ahead of you… how many are you dedicating to being unhappy or uninspired?

Count your life in days… and maybe you’ll make today count :)

Untitled pixel sketch by Khailee

By Chris Carlson/Associated Press

Barack Obama speaking in Portland, Oregon. “The most spectacular setting for the most spectacular crowd” of the campaign.

When we do YOUTH’10, we’re going to get some of these goose bump giving photos.

Photo adapted from Thinkpanama

Imagine this: RM30 million is yours. All yours.

How will you invest it? Think big playa. Big playas usually think for a moment before they invest RM30 million. So I’ll give you a moment to think.

Yes. Invest RM30 million in a smart way. What will you do…

What was that?

Buy 2 giant pandas?

Pandas you say. Hmm. 2 giant pandas. You’re thinking ‘out of the box’. I like that. Sounds like a plan. Let’s buy 2 giant pandas then.

JEEZ LOUSIE I GIVE YOU RM30 MILLION AND YOU BUY 2 GIANT PANDAS guess what sis that’s what Zoo Negara plans to do with RM30 million See the article on theStar.

Wait wow wow wait wait… let’s not jump to conclusions here! There’s more to the story.

First, let’s get our facts right.

In Zoo Negara’s defence, they’re not going to spend RM30 million just 2 giant pandas. They know exactly what they’re doing.

From the article in the Star:

… Malaysia was eyeing the giant pandas, ringtail lemurs, white tigers, and golden monkeys from Chinese zoos. “On our end, we might be sending them our milky storks and painted storks, and other animals which we have in surplus.

Golden monkeys! This how big time playas do deal-making. It’s not just “Oh I’ll take 2 of those what are they giant pandas yeah OK two of them for 30 quid” It’s more than that. Big deals involve golden monkeys. As in like, gold. And milky storks, just like in the stock market.

Think big playa investments stops there? The deal gets sweeter.

“If we do get the giant pandas, one male and one female, they will come with their own curator, veterinarian and Chinese bamboo.”

Don’t settle for the just the friggin Pandas, big playas get the works, like a McPanda Happy Meal, supersized to RM30 million.

Does it make sense now?

Maybe not. But this is where the lesson begins.

Introducing: Productive Absurdity

Some things don’t make sense at first, but they can be very useful to us if swung the right way.

I call this ‘Productive Absurdity’.

 
Photo adapted from XianMing

To grasp the bull of ‘Productive Absurdity’ by its horns, or rather, the panda by its ears, do the following

1. ACCEPT that some things don’t make sense to you, and might not make sense to anyone! Does absurd stuff really frustrate you? I understand. But then again, maybe I don’t understand. It’s absurd! None of us will never understand it. Our brains aren’t equipped with that kind of superpowers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be in PEACE with things which don’t make sense at all, right?
2. FIND a way to make it useful. Either by laughing at it, learning from it, tweaking the idea, letting it spike your creativity, use it to inspire others to take action, or use it make them laugh, cry etc. Think about it. The very same energy you use fighting with the absurd (knowing you will lose)… converted energy making the absurd very useful. Suddenly, you’re a Productive Absurdity ninja!

For the seriously introverted, this may remind you of existentialism and absurdism if you’re thinking about “In a world without meaning, you’re free to creating meaning for anything”.

You nailed it. Create meaning.

This is exactly what we’re going to do with the 2 giant pandas, since the big playas and golden monkeys involved in the deal seem unstoppable.

You too can apply Productive Absurdity to this example, as we return to alternative panda investment strategies used by big playas:

The big picture of Return on investment

OK, let’s say, on some alien planet somewhere, we have a zoo which aims to spend RM30 million of taxpayer money on 2 giant pandas. That may be absurd right? And perhaps, not so productive if left at that. But sprinkle a bit of Productive Absurdity and you will get…

Alternative Investment Strategy #1:

RM30mil for a giant robotic panda instead! If it’s going to be absurd anyway, might as well make it useful! Build a giant robotic panda! ROI? A giant robotic panda will attract more tourists than two normal everyday bamboo eating slow moving real pandas. Same price. More tourists.

And consider the positive externalities: It may even attract Ultraman to fight it. Now you will have a fight Don King might promote to get EVEN MORE TOURISTS just like how the Thrilla in Manila worked for the Philippines, we will have the Paannnnda in Malaysia. Boom. There’s another genius idea.

 
ABSURD AND AWESOME ARTWORK: Love at first Fight, by Malaysian Artist, Munkao

Alternative Investment Strategy #2:

Extend the same logic to the Malaysian Economic Stimulus Package. Cancel entrepreneurship grants, and spend the cash not 2, but 200 pandas instead! Think big! That will attract tourists more than 2 pandas can. Do the math. 100 times more tourists, minimum. We can even put the 200 pandas on the F1 tracks and have this massive panda race. And shoot a Malaysian film based on these F1 pandas, called “The Fast and Furriest”. Kung Fu Panda grossed $631,910,531 so let’s say we gross the same, we would have made back our money, AND we get to keep 200 pandas for MORE box office hits. Eg. We get the 200 pandas to hit the gym, then shoot the film “200”.

(Yes. Believe it. The view of this animated panda’s crotch. Stare into it. This grossed USD600M. Absurd. But productive. Imported oriental culture and sold it back to China. Very productive.)

See how far Productive Absurdity can take you?

Smart people don’t restrict their ideas to pandas. See how it can be applied to tigers in Penang: You won’t believe it. See article on theStar

In summary, Productive Absurdity makes life a ride in an amusement park. Just accept things in general may not make sense, and find a productive use for it anyway :)

Trust me, I do this for a living. I rally a generation of bored youths on YouthSays.com and carefully take time to unlock their potential to save the universe from doom.

Absurd? You bet.

//

Further reading thinking:

• What do Malaysian Youths at YouthSays have to say about Panda Investment strategy?
• Wikipedia’s entry for "Absurd Humor"
• All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. ~ Albert Camus

I never asked to be “called on” to serve my country. I somehow always did stuff for sheer enjoyment, curiosity, or giving in to the little voice in my head.

(Man. That crazy little voice, guiding my every action. Wait. Which voice is it now. Maybe it is my heart? My greater calling? Or is it my conscience. Or the devil. Oh little voice, you’re probably the net result of choice and conditioning.)

Whatever it is, the little voice told me that the 1Malaysia National Youth Consultative Council had decent copywriting and some promise. The government is looking for 20 young individuals to represent the voice of young Malaysians and advise them. Hmm… why not I bring with me the voice of 170,000 young Malaysians from YouthSays?

Anyhow I applied, was shortlisted and have done Round 2 of sending in a CV with a photo of me grinning innocently. Let’s see where this takes us…

Yeap, we have opened up a local YouthSays for a few countries in Southeast Asia. No big launch, PR etc yet… just gonna get some Southeast Asian friends to populate each site with some content before I go all out and rock out.

I also had a great work week with the team. We were faced with a lot of sudden deadlines and required quick thinking, and I discovered that the business innovation team (who builds the social technology behind YouthSays.com’s web experience) have a specific way of sitting when they put their brains on over-drive.

It’s kinda squatting tiger hidden dragon I know, but we’re talking about the modern workforce here. They are different from our dads.

So yeah! Great YouthSays is now open in 10 countries, but we have like zero members in some of them. I emailed some friends:

“Heya.. over the past year My team at http://youthsasia.com have used http://malaysia.youthsays.com to unite over 170,000 malaysian youths to advise brands, business leaders and the government through 200 research projects and 3 million survey questions answered. the youths are also helping each other out and learning about each other via our public discussions, generating more than 300,000 repsonses. we also brought these youths together for a massive festival with 100 activites , 36,720 visitors, across 3 days.

What about other countries apart from malaysia?

Well, moments ago we opened up the platform to all Southeast Asian countries. See http://youthsays.com

If youre in {country} you’ll notice its all kinda stark naked. Haha. It might be a bit buggy too.

Im writing to see if you’re interested in signing up for YouthSays in your country, just testing it, and giving me your feedback and ideas. Especially if you see a potential to improve it etc… if you’re busy that is ok. But who knows, your few minutes on YouthSays could be the first step to really unleashing untold awesomeness down the line…

Hope to hear from you.

If you have regional friends feel free to steal my words and tell em like it is. And if it helps, you can try the patented “Business Innovation Power Stance” to boost your effectiveness! Let me know how goes!

This is a rough script I spent all night preparing. Will be delivering it in 3 hours. Will take it down and edit later. Just posting it online in case of emergency. (The leaked unedited script has been removed. Go for the final polished one on the Youth Asia website!

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