Incomplete List of Decision Traps

“The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory; and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition” - Herbert Simon

Intuition is not always wrong or right. Intuition could be based on experience and practice. A chief firefighter directed his team to get out of a house after a fire was put down in a kitchen, just before the floor collapsed. His sense and intuition detected the original source of the fire at the basement.

Decision makings are prone to biases and other traps. In this post we will review some of them and identify possible strategies to avoid the traps.

Law of Small Numbers

• Making generalization or decision based on insufficient evidence
• Big Data may help – use of large data from multiple sources may provide stronger evidence

Anchoring

• Using an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments
• It could be part of an adjustment process from a baseline condition one is familiar with or priming/suggestion
• Baseline example: Investment decision to avoid a certain type of accident may be influenced by the most recent, high-cost accident (error in baseline definition)
• Priming example: Decision makers will be willing to spend close to the value suggested in the first question to answer the second question below:
• Would you spend $1 million (replace with $1 billion in another occasion) per year to avoid human factor accidents?
• How much would spend annually to avoid human factor accidents?
• “Thinking the opposite” e.g. different perspectives, opportunity cost, comprehensive cost-benefit analysis may reduce anchoring effect
• In team discussion, requesting a short memo (1 paragraph or so) from each member before the discussion could avoid group anchoring on the more vocal, opinionated or influential members 

 

Availability Effect

• The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of events with greater "availability" in memory, which can be influenced by how recent the memories are or how unusual or emotionally charged they may be.
• Other than frequency, factors causing availability bias include high-profile or dramatic events and personal experiences
• Eg. A commuter train ridership may drop after a major train accident, resulting in more highway traffics and car accidents 
• Availability cascade: a self-sustaining chain of event that leads to irrational fear and reaction to a  minor issue
• Similar strategies to reduce anchoring effect might be relevant to reduce availability effect

Statistics Over Causality

• Emphasizing abstract statistics e.g. percentage distribution of different accident causes without explaining the causal relationships
• Presenting statistics with causal interpretations has a stronger effect on decision makers’ thinking
• Data from unreliable sources could be treated irrelevant
• Bayesian inference that combines a base rate with a new evidence and the reliability of the new source will improve decision makings

Hindsight or Outcome Bias

• Assess the quality of a decision not by whether the process was sound, but by whether the outcome is good or bad
• Use the best information available to determine and act for the best expected outcome

 
Narrative Fallacy

• Flawed stories of the past shape our views of the world and expectations for the future
• Identify real causality, use data to debunk fallacies

Planning Fallacy

• Plans and forecasts that are unrealistically close to best-case scenarios
• Relevant during the initial phase of planning for a risk management process and during implementations of specific risk reduction strategies
• Could be improved by consulting the statistics of similar cases
• Premortem: a brief mock post-mortem to discuss the causes of the failure after a decision is made (hypothetically after a year of implementation) to consider all the threats 

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

• Decision to invest additional resources in a failing endeavor due to irrational consideration of the costs  previously invested
• Similar strategies to reduce anchoring and availability effects might be relevant to avoid sunk-cost fallacy

Acknowledgements

• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow.
• Dilbert by Scott Adams

"You'll know only if you try"

Sometimes, a death could be inspiring. Reading Augusto Odone's obituary would certainly do that. He was an economist, persistent father and self-taught biologist to save his son's life. He invented the Lorenzo's Oil. He spent nights reading research journal papers and reports to find the cure for his son's rare genetic disease. Initially treated with cynicism, his invention was later embraced by the scientific community, and saved lives. The above-mentioned title was his motto.

Long live the virtues of persistence and hardworking! "Verily, after harshness there will be ease, after harshness there will be ease".

GST: What's Not to Like?

It's been a while since I last wrote. I'm still playing catch-up with things, but the GST issue beg me to write something. I'm not an economist, but one of my expertise is in decision analysis - the basic goal is to strive for the clarity in action in any decision to make.

With regard to GST, we need to look at a larger perspective related to the long-term quality of life while also taking into consideration the government's current unhealthy fiscal conditions. Moving forward, Malaysia needs to increase its revenues. Taxing is one approach, and GST is the fairest option as it is a consumption tax - you got tax on what you consume (basic food products, public transportation, government services, etc. will not be taxed anyway).

Otherwise, this is the part most people on the street don't realize,  the government need to further cut its spending, subsidies, level of services, investments etc. that may impact general public's quality of life in the long run. You can't have cake and eat it too - you can't have both low tax and high government support at the same time.

GST, what's not to like? I might have been missing something, or it's the typical sensationalization by one faction against progressive efforts by another faction to make Malaysia a better country. For those who are truly confused, here are the keys - think long-term and get the big picture.

Why there is no GST in the U.S.? For those who are curious, IMHO, the U.S. is like 50 different countries - all states are different. 45 of them actually have sales tax, in essence similar to GST. Most states also collect income tax on top of the federal income-tax. No state income tax in some states like Texas, but there is limited state funding for education and social net to help low-income people there. Interestingly, one state, Alaska, actually give money or dividend to their residents - I could live with 24-hour daylight there in the Summer, but 24-hour darkness in winter? No, thanks.

The "I Have a Dream" Speech and Tun Mahathir's "Perjuangan Yang Belum Selesai"

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character - MLK Jr.

I was on an in-and-out trip this morning to Washington DC, without realizing that today is the 50th anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech. At the airport, I saw a black leader talked about the reality of today where the journey to the top of the ladder is getting higher and higher. I cannot help but to think about the same reality faced by my own race in Malaysia - the Malays.

The "I Have a Dream" speech somehow reminded me of Tun Mahathir's "Perjuangan Yang Belum Selesai" poem. Perhaps in 50 years or so, after Tun was long gone, his poem will be remembered by the Malays as the greatest speech of hope for the race. It's still vivid in my mind when I recited this on the eve of Hari Merdeka in 1996 at MRSM Perlis.

PERJUANGAN YANG BELUM SELESAI

Sesungguhnya tidak ada yang lebih menyayatkan
dari melihat bangsaku dijajah.

Tidak ada yang lebih menyedihkan
dari membiarkan bangsaku dihina.

Air mata tiada ertinya
sejarah silam tiada maknanya
sekiranya bangsa tercinta terpinggir
dipersenda dan dilupakan.

Bukan kecil langkah wira bangsa
para pejuang kemerdekaan
bagi menegakkan kemuliaan
dan darjat bangsa
selangkah beerti mara
mengharung sejuta dugaan.

Biarkan bertatih
asalkan langkah itu yakin dan cermat
bagi memastikan negara
merdeka dan bangsa terpelihara
air mata sengsara
mengiringi setiap langkah bapa-bapa kita.

Tugas kita bukan kecil
kerana mengisi kemerdekaan
rupanya lebih sukar dari bermandi
keringat dan darah menuntutnya.

Lagi pula apalah ertinya kemerdekaan
kalau bangsaku asyik mengia dan menidakkan,
mengangguk dan membenarkan,
kerana sekalipun bangganya negara
kerana makmur dan mewahnya,
bangsaku masih melata
dan meminta-minta di negaranya sendiri.

Bukan kecil tugas kita
meneruskan perjuangan kemerdekaan kita
kerana rupanya selain memerdekakan,
mengisi kemerdekaan itu jauh lebih sengsara.

Bangsaku bukan kecil hati dan jiwanya
bukankah sejak zaman berzaman
mereka menjadi pelaut, pengembara
malah penakluk terkemuka?

Bukankah mereka sudah mengembangkan
sayap, menjadi pedagang dan peniaga
selain menjadi ulama dan ilmuan terbilang?

Bukankah bangsaku pernah mengharung
samudera menjajah dunia yang tak dikenal?

Bukankah mereka pernah menjadi
wira serantau yang tidak mengenal erti takut
dan kematian?

Di manakah silapnya hingga bangsaku
berasa begitu kecil dan rendah diri?

Apakah angkara penjajah?

Lalu bangsaku mulai melupakan kegemilangan
silam dan sejarah gemilang membina empayar…

Tugas kita belum selesai rupanya
bagi memartabat dan memuliakan bangsa
kerana hanya bangsa yang berjaya
akan sentiasa dihormati.

Rupanya masih jauh dan berliku jalan kita
bukan sekadar memerdeka dan mengisinya
tetapi mengangkat darjat dan kemuliaan
buat selama-lamanya.

Hari ini, jalan ini pasti semakin berliku
kerana masa depan belum tentu
menjanjikan syurga
bagi mereka yang lemah dan mudah kecewa.

Perjuangan kita belum selesai
kerana hanya yang cekal dan tabah
dapat membina mercu tanda
bangsanya yang berjaya.

Tun. Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Mei 1996

With regards to racial dynamics in Malaysia I do have a similar dream as MLK Jr's that one day every Malaysian will look at each other beyond race. This is nothing new to the haves - the educated middle and upper class. For the have-nots, sadly the majority of the Malays in rural areas, the concept of 1Malaysia or anything along that line is still a far fetched. Without individual paradigm shift from being dependent to independent as I discussed here, the dream will remain a dream.

Selamat Menyambut Hari Kemerdekaan ke 56!

Using Reddit and Smartphones to Reduce Crime in Malaysia?

It's pretty rare for news in Malaysia to get into global newspapers, but there is one short article in the Economist this week that talks about the rise in gun and gang violence in Malaysia. Recently, PEMANDU reported that the crime index is down for Jan-June 2013 compared with the first half of 2012, but the number of murders and robberies with firearms has risen.

I wonder if we can use basic technologies to prevent crimes in Malaysia? The use of smartphones is on the rise - more and more people can take pictures and record short videos if they happen to see on-going crimes such as snatch thefts or road rages. What if there is a specific Reddit Malaysia's subpage where redditors can submit a link to those pictures or videos? Other redditors can then vote them up or down with respect to the seriousness of the crimes or bad behaviors and the likelihood to capture the culprits. Ideally, the authority should also be part of this campaign.

There is definitely some privacy concern that needs to be addressed. Submit your comments or vote this idea up or down at http://redd.it/1km451

Disclaimer: I'm not a police or an expert in criminology. I'm an engineer by training - we always strive to use off-the-shelved tools and technologies to solve new problems.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

It's still Syawal, so I'd like to wish Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all. The raya season seems to skip me this year. By the time my wife, my child and I recovered from jet lag after returning from Malaysia, we didn't have time to make a 3-hour road trip to replenish our meat supply. I then had to leave to a conference in Louisville in Kentucky (where KFC was originated). As such, no open house this year.

My first raya in the States was 14 years ago during a winter break in January 2000. Fasting was easy then as Maghrib was around 4:30pm. I remember my buddy and I made a point to make sure that we were not going to be sad during our first raya away from our families - we made a big travel plan to Florida. To cover our expenses, we both worked from 9am to 5pm during the first two weeks of the break at an animal lab to feed and clean the areas where the university kept guinea pigs, rats, frogs etc. for medical experiments. With the money we saved, we bought air tickets to Orlando, DisneyWorld tickets and rent a car there. We stayed at a cheap hotel every 3 days or so and slept in the car at a rest area for the rest of the nights. We brought some serunding (dried beef) I cooked for the trip. After two weeks of travel and eating the same thing except 2-3 fish meals at McDonald's, I started to hate serunding, and until today I've not eaten it anymore.

I was able to celebrate raya in Malaysia again last year. This year, my summer schedule didn't permit me to stay longer in Malaysia, so I had a simple raya celebration in the States. My wife cooked rendang ayam and I cooked kuah kacang and nasi impit from scratch using ziploc (I forgot to buy the instant one). We went to the mosque for solat raya, and my child had some games with other kids and received some gifts there. That was it.

The night before raya, I happened to catch a rerun of a documentary Eat, Fast and Live Longer. It talks about the scientific benefits of fasting and introduced the FastDiet concept where ones fast for two nonconsecutive days every week and eat whatever they want for the rest of the week. Its fasting concept is not necessarily the same as what Muslims do in Ramadan. In FastDiet, ones limit their calorie intake to 500cal for women and 600cal for men - about 1/3 of daily calorie intake. The main benefit is to maintain a healthy and longer life with low risk of diseases caused by over or unhealthy eating. I was so amazed that I bought a book about the diet in Amazon, finished it in a day, and plan to start practicing the FastDiet.

In fact today was my first day doing the FastDiet. I had some unsweetened green tea and water during the day, and had a 600cal dinner - griiled cod, stir-fried broccoli and carrot, some sliced tomatoes and one cup of rice.

I plan to test this concept on me for the next three months. I also hope to fully fast like in Ramadan every once a while, especially since it's still Syawal.

In theory, Muslims should get all the fasting benefits in Ramadan. However, especially in Malaysia, Ramadan has turned to be pesta makan or food festival. Pasar Ramadan and hotel buffet epitomize the phenomena. It's not unusual to actually gain weight when fasting in Malaysia. It is what it is, and I still wish I had longer Ramadan in Malaysia.

Drucker's Lite - Summary Notes Based on Management: Task, Responsibilities and Practices

Management Tasks

1.     Performing the specific purpose and mission of an organization by achieving its objectives

2.     Making work productive and the worker achieving

3.     Managing social impacts and social responsibilities

Note: Management has to consider time dimension in performing tasks - both present and future, short and long run demand, performance, factors of production (human, financial, physical resources), existence and relevance in society

Management by Objectives (MBO)

·         Process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand how their activities relate to the achievement of the organization

·         Important features and advantages of MBO includes

o    Motivation – involving employees in the whole process of objective setting and
increasing employee empowerment

o    Clarity of objectives – can be translated into specific target and assignments

o    Better communication and coordination – frequent reviews and interactions
between superiors and subordinates helps to maintain harmonious relationships and also to solve many problems

MBO Strategies

·         Every organization needs to think through the question “What is our business and what should it be?” to define the purpose of an organization

·         From the definition of its mission and vision an organization must derive objectives in a number of key areas

·         It must balance these objectives against each other and against the competing demand of today and tomorrow

·         It needs to convert objectives into concrete strategies and to concentrate resources on them

·         It also needs to think through its strategic planning i.e., the decisions of today that will make the business of tomorrow

Purpose of Organization

·         Prerequisite to derive mission, vision and thus objectives

·         First identify who are the customers

·         Deciding “What is our business?” is a genuine decision that must consider divergent views to have a chance to be a right and effective decision. It is a choice between alternatives, each based on different assumptions on the reality of the field (e.g., rail transportation) and its environment. It’s a high-risk decision that could lead to changes in objectives, strategies, organization and behavior.

·         Discussion of alternative views enable management group to be cognizant of fundamental differences in the group to understand what motivate each manager and his/her behavior

·         A sole method to define an organization is to answer the question from customers’ point of view

·         Note on economic performance (profit requirement): in business enterprise economic performance is the rationale and purpose, but for non-business/service organization it’s a constraint to perform its activities and achieving its objectives

Vision & Mission (from Wikipedia)

·         Vision statement defines the desired or intended future state of an organization in terms of its fundamental purpose

o    a long term view, sometimes describing how the organization would like the field in which it operates to be

·         Mission statement defines the fundamental purpose of an organization, succinctly describing why it exists and what it does to achieve its Vision

Objectives

·         Objectives are strategies

·         Objectives with only lofty, good intentions are worthless

·         Objectives must be able to be translated to work activities, measurable performance targets and specific assignments of accountability

·         Objectives determine the structure of an organization, the key activities which must be discharged, and allocation of people to tasks

·         However, objectives are not fate; they are direction, not commands, but commitments

o    Objectives are based on expectations and informed guesses associated with factors beyond an organization’s control

·         Objectives must be correlated with specific activities with commitment of key people to work on each activity

o    This implies not only that somebody is supposed to do the job, but also accountability, a dateline, and finally the measurement of results

MBO Trap

·         Critics say that MBO is difficult to implement, and that organizations often wind up overemphasizing control, as opposed to fostering creativity, to meet their objectives

·         Drucker’s advice:

o    objectives are not fate; they are direction, not commands, but commitments

You know you're not in KL when...

You know you're not in KL when you're driving to enter a busy street at peak hours and a car on the busy street stop 50 meters away to yield and give way for you to get in. Lame joke aside, I've now returned to the States, with a heavy heart, always.

On Quality of Life in Malaysia
I was away for about a month, but only spent about 10 days in KL - way too short to do much and to meet people and relatives. On a short notice though, I was able to have a chit-chat meeting with a few high-ups from an agency responsible for transportation planning in Malaysia. It was mainly to introduce myself, discuss their ongoing activities, and identify potential ways for me to get involved in the future.

What's the most encouraging is to realize that Malaysia, especially KL, is in the middle of a public transportation renaissance. Nobody is a big fan of the road congestion caused by the MRT constructions. However, when the project is completed, people can easily commute to KL from and between all the satellite cities and towns including Kajang, Sungai Buloh, Subang Jaya, Puchong, Serdang, etc. Moreover, when everything is set and done, all these areas will simply be the suburbs of KL. This will bring KL on the same level as New York, Chicago, London, Paris, etc.

It has becoming a trend among youngsters in late 20s to 30s in metropolitan cities in the world to totally depend on public transportation. In the past, the youngsters like to boast about their cars. Now, it's more hip to boast about how long ago have been since they drove a car. Combined with transit-oriented urban developments, cars have become things of the past in some major cities. This is still a far-fetched in Malaysia, but the MRT will make not owning a car a possibility in the future in KL. At a minimum, MRT is expected to reduce congestion - that will reduce gas money and save time for non-users.

Another emerging public transportation project is high-speed rail (HSR). Once the KL-Singapore HSR line is completed, places as far away as Muar will also be the suburbs of KL (a HSR with an average 300km/h speed can cover the distance between KL and Muar in about 60 minutes non-stop). Time-wise, Seremban will probably be the new Bangsar, and Melaka will probably be a new PJ. Imagine a young graduate could afford a detached 3-bedroom house for under RM200,000 in these new suburbs, and commute everyday to downtown KL in less than an hour.

I'm not buying into the idea that high income will simply give higher quality of life. The reason can be summarized in one word - inflation. I'm not buying into the opposition's socialist ideas to improve the quality of life either. However, with new economic competitive areas, combined with better infrastructure planning, the vision will one day become a reality. Meanwhile, the non-sexy and under-appreciated field and people in transportation are slowly and quietly playing their crucial roles - eliminating or reducing the cost of owning cars and houses in the future.

On Food
You know you're not in KL when you're hungry late at night, the only options you have to eat out are for some "glorified dog foods" - deep-fried, grilled, baked or steamed. My two cents for my fellow Malaysians, stop political and racial bickering, and smell (and eat, of course) the nasi lemak, teh tarik, yong tau foo, roti canai, capati and other endless list of food treasures and heritage we share. Until my next visit in the not-too-distant future, I hope, I'll miss all of them.

p/s: My best food this time around, excluding my mom's, are rojak sotong and cendol Bangsar near the Petronas gas station

Home sweet home, and on Hong Kong, Snowden, education and meritocracy in high education

I was welcomed by the thick haze at KLIA yesterday, and my small daughter, being a winter baby, has started to show some complaints with the heat. Otherwise, it's home sweet home baby! For a while at least, before going back to Hong Kong this Friday and another trip to Shanghai and Beijing next week. They want to learn about how to plan and develop a new high-speed rail (HSR) system. I've involved in a HSR feasibility study before, but it's interesting that they want to learn about how to do the planning better even though they have already have a HSR system, and from a Malaysian who works in the U.S. where HSR is non-existence in both Malaysia and USA. I'm being mentored by a world-renowned expert in the field though, so I'm happy to share what I've learned. After all, the best way to learn is to teach. I'm just a student of the field.

My first visit to Hong Kong (HK) was great. Besides teaching all day Saturday and Sunday, we explored the city in the evening and went to the Disneyland. The transit system is efficient and super clean. People might not know that it's also financially sustainable. Like Singapore and Japan, HK used a lot of revenue capture and joint property development strategies to cover the cost to run the system, and some to cover the construction cost too. Anyway, I had a few thoughts running around my head since the last time I wrote so I want to share these now before I forget.

The biggest news in HK was the Snowden guy, a security analysts who ran to HK to disclose some U.S. confidential information. Having read the New Digital Age early this year, this saga is quite interesting to me. China is having a field day criticizing U.S. based on the disclosure. China and other countries need to worry though as there is nothing to stop someone in their countries to do the same thing, especially if they read a related article showing Ecuador's sunny beaches with some scantily clad girls in the background. Rules are there for reasons. When it comes to confidential and security-sensitive information nobody should bend them. The bad guys are having a field day too figuring out what they think they know what the the good guys know and don't know.

Yesterday, I got my hands on some Malaysian newspapers on board of the new A380 upper-deck (this flying machine is impressive by the way). I saw quite a number of articles on education systems especially related to multi-racial relations in Malaysia, specifically about the vernacular system, reminiscent of the old English schools and about the status of Malay language. I think the vernacular system especially Chinese schools are here to stay without better alternatives. The government needs to address the supply side before meddling the demand side. Meanwhile, I do think sharing a language is indeed something special so it's a good thing if all of us can converse in Malay. Having said that, there are a lot more sources of knowledge, books etc in English than in Malay. There are also a lot more people in the world speak English than Malay. Young educated parents, Malay or non-Malay, know this and have already taken proactive role to emphasize English to their kids from small. The current education system doesn't do justice to young kids from low and middle-income students from rural areas. They will miss out without a stronger emphasis on English. I want to give a tip of the hat to respect Malaysian Airport Holding Berhad (MAHB) for their Beyond Borders initiative to help underprivileged children to learn and use English at a handful of schools. I saw and article in the Star yesterday about their success just in the last 3-5 years or so to improve the passing rate at these schools from about 50% to high 70s - if only we could have a national implementation.

Do you know that elite schools in the West have also emphasizing Chinese Mandarin language? A private kindergarten in NY allocate one day per week for their students to learn and communicate in Chinese. There is a sheer number of people in China and more and more of them are started to have something we call money! It makes economic sense. Malays without full mastery of English will have a double-whammy as compared to Chinese Malaysians in the very new future to survive in the global economy.

Last but not least, a friend of mine shared an online article about some groups who claimed that Malays are losing out with the meritocracy policy to enter universities in Malaysia. Affirmative action at higher education institutions has always been quite contentious. It's somewhat coincidence that the U.S. Supreme Court recently has just "punt" the issue back to a lower court, in essence refusing to make a final judgement. Anyway, the article said Malay only account for 35% of the total university students in Malaysia. There was a 55% allocation to all Bumis before the meritocracy policy was implemented in 2002.  I wonder if meritocracy has actually screened out the unqualified Malays from getting in OR rejected the qualified, but not as good as other Malays and non-Malays. It's acceptable if it's the former as for example, you don't want to accept Pangkat 2 SPM students to a medic program - they will struggle and fail (similar cases when Harvard lowered their entry requirements to their law school for underprivileged groups). There are more suitable places like politeknik for the mediocre students to be technicians, mechanics or entrepreneurs. If it's the latter, it's actually a failure to provide enough infrastructure or opportunities to accommodate qualified students, no matter what race, to higher education institutions. This is where a color-blind affirmative action is needed to help the not so rich no matter from any race to get good education.

In any case, I believe affirmative action is like a medicine - you take it in a small amount to get well from a sickness, but you may get addicted if you take too much. I truly understand the need for affirmative action in education as I was highly benefited from it. I have 5 siblings and my dad was a driver with the old Sri Jaya bus company in KL. I wouldn't be half of myself today without some of the help from the government. But, as I said give preference to the needy, not based on the skin of the color.

Education system: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

I came across a re-posting of Alina Amir's FB status recently. A former Illini, Alina is among the most charismatic, elegant and hardworking person I've met at Illinois (the university). With her education background, personality and leadership she could have earned a lot working in the financial industry. However, like other Teach for Malaysia teachers, she selflessly follows her passion and teach instead. I respect and envy you all, and I wish you all the best.

I definitely agree wholeheartedly that Teaching for Malaysia is a really good thing to be involved with. I do have somewhat different philosophy on how best to tackle the lack of quality education among kids, summarized in two words "Early Education". 

It's unfair to give all the burden to teachers or the education system itself. There is a 5-7 years gap before  kids in Malaysia go to school. Different kids will arrive the first day at school with different level of skills, education and manners. We as parents or future parents should play a bigger role. I've talked about read-aloud and some potential implementations before.

We individually can play our roles to develop a brighter and more talented future generation of Malaysia. Small things will add up. Like all problems or issues, its always wise to identify the things within or beyond our control, and focus on the former. Borrowing the famous quote from John F. Kennedy, "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

What can we learn from Pakistan, seriously, for better governance?

Arguably, better government in the future with more transparency and higher efficiency will revolve around one thing - technology. Let's look at what the Pakistanis are doing (more here):

• They equipped 1,500 city workers with $100 smartphones and asked them to take “before and after” photographs of their anti-dengue tasks and to upload images, tagged by location, so that they could be plotted on an online map, made available to the public. Besides enabling some analyses to determine the effectiveness of the tasks, knowing they were being monitored and tracked in public, municipal workers also applied themselves more assiduously to their tasks. Anyone looking at the online map could see if the work being done in a particular area was adequate—and complain if it was not.
• Other officials, such as veterinarians who are paid to travel to farms to deworm cows, have to take smartphones to record themselves at work and upload geotagged self-portraits to an official website. This makes it possible to check that they are actually turning up for work. They are also required to record the phone numbers of farmers they visit, some of whom are randomly called afterwards to be asked if the service was up to scratch.
• Making random calls to users of public services—including the police, health services and administrative services such as registering property—to inquire about the quality of service and whether they were asked to pay a bribe. [No-fault provision to bribery reporters with petty crimes or wrongdoings should be established so that they won't be prosecuted to report police wrongdoings]

Here is something simple everyone in the government should do - spend the last 15 minutes everyday to summarize daily work on a personal blog. The blogs don't have to be public, but peers should be able to read each others' to create healthy competition. What seems to be a 15-min non-productive work will actually increase the overall productivity. This approach has been working pretty well in my case managing a handful of 19-20 year old kids (undergraduate researchers, formally).

Reducing Crime

I was in Taiwan for a month or so last year for on-site HSR construction visits in preparation for a new class I was developing. I found out that all cars I rode were equipped with this mounted video camera (I got mine for about RM100):

Their motivation was to protect them from insurance claims during accidents. I thought, hey this could also be used to deter crimes and bad behaviors in Malaysia. Here is my pitch (feel free to run with it to start your next business - selling car video cams):

Smart technologies, specifically, cars with dashboard-mounted video cameras, smartphone app and a website can be used to record and report street crimes, traffic violations, littering and other public nuisances. Captured and submitted video proofs can be evaluated for cash rewards to motivate public involvement in ensuring a safe environment in major cities in Malaysia. 

This initiative is a drastic measure to reduce crimes and problems like snatch theft, robbery, hit-and-run, driving under the influence (alcohols or drugs), etc. in major cities in Malaysia. Everyone will think twice before doing anything wrong in public for the fear of getting caught red-handed by any passing-by car or people with smartphones. This is the key advantage over the common approach to install CCTV cameras at strategic locations in some major cities worldwide to deter crimes. 

A one-year trial phase in Klang Valley areas could involve developments of the app and website, a distribution of a few thousand cameras, and a multimedia public campaign, for an initial cost of between RM2.5 to 3 million. The success of this initiative could support the “packaging” of the whole initiative in the future to be sold as a made-in-Malaysia intellectual business product to other countries or major cities around the world. 

Malaysians Against Uncivilized Online Citizens

There have been a lot of venting lately in social media among Malaysians - in Facebook, Twitter, online newspapers, blogs, etc. Two major unhappy campers are one side who feels cheated while another who  feels betrayed (I'll leave this to your own interpretations). A lot of name callings and intolerant responses between strangers too (yours truly was recently conferred with the title Dr. Kankong for having a negative opinion against street revolution). It made me wonder- Malaysians are infamous with uncivilized drivers. Are we becoming uncivilized online citizens too?

Recently, a friend of mine uncharacteristically made an inappropriate comment with a reference to a certain part of male's body to a religious celebrity who practices polygamy. My friend was then chastised by hundreds of the loyal online followers of the ustaz. My friend later apologized and made a revealing statement something along this line - "if you've seen your mom crying every night because your dad has someone else, you'd understand." Bersangka baik or to give the benefit of the doubt is stressed in Islam, and I'm sure in other religions too. But why is it so hard for us to have empathy - understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives?

My friend's story reminded me of another story from Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The author was in a commuter train on a peaceful Sunday morning when another man and his children entered the train. The children were yelling, throwing things, even grabbing people's newspapers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the father did nothing. The author then turned to the father and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?" The father lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, "Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either."

I'm not going to expand on the importance of paradigm shift or character ethics. Stephen Covey has done that in his book. My point is we need to realize that people see things differently, each looking through unique lens of background and experience. The next time before you lashing out to a stranger online, stop and think hard why he or she thinks or acts differently than you do.

Trending This Week: Adam Adli

According to Google, Malaysians have been very curious about Adam Adli in the past 7 days (see trends). If you haven't had a chance to google his name, he's a student activist detained briefly this week for security reasons.

I personally think street revolutions is not the way to go. I talked a little bit about realpolitik before - the importance to emphasize economic stability and high quality of life instead of on ideologies. Street revolutions would not only impact the short-term economic activities (e.g. due to closed streets, shops, offices, etc.), but would also affect long-term confidence to invest or do business in Malaysia. All these would eventually impact all Malaysians.

I do understand the phenomenon called "darah muda" among youths. I was 18 when we had Reformasi in 1998. I was with a group of about 20 students at Uniten doing our preparation before going to the States. With unlimited access to information from the internet,  we all felt a huge burden to the society to do something about the injustices. We were fortunate to have a dean, Prof. Ajmal, for whom I have great respect, to calm us down. He invited all of us to his house. He talked about his personal hardships in life, the fact that the world is not always a fair place, etc. Most of all, he reminded us about the risk for us to lose our scholarship.

To student activists, back then in 1998 or now, street revolution is still not worth it. Focus on what you can control in life and disregard what are beyond your control. Complete your education, build your career and get into politics if you really care. Follow the footsteps of Zairil Khir Johari instead of Adam Adli. Reformasi 1998 was the former's initial motivation to get into politics.

I'm afraid they will be a lot more Adam Adli, ABU, etc in the future. Let me share some interesting excerpts from The New Digital Age:

Future revolutions will produce many celebrities, but this aspect of movement-making will retard the leadership development necessary to finish the job. Technology can help find the people with leadership skills - thinkers, intellectuals and others - but it cannot create them. Popular uprisings can overthrow dictators, but they're successful afterward only if opposition forces have a good plan and can execute it. Otherwise the result is either a reconstitution  of the old regime or a transition from a functioning regime to a failed state.

Enough about what I think. What do Malaysians think? According to TweetFeel, based on a small sample of  121 tweets, 53% of the tweets have negative sentiment towards Adam Adli. Another source gives 67% negative sentiment on Adam Adli. Here are some of the tweets:

I dont see Adam Adli as a leader, reformist. I would say he's not being smart at all. Thats not the way to rebel.

What's wrong with showing support for Adam Adli? Stop sending hate if you don't know what's going on.

“9 pagi ini siapa nak jmpa adam adli sila dtg ke mahkamah jln duta. Sebar. Sokong adam,masuk syurga!”wtf ?

Org bangga masok dewan konvo. Kau bangga masok lokap dan mahkamah. Stupid Adam Adli.

Wake me up when Adam Adli is not relevant

One last special mention from Monyet King:

Adam Adli berkata "kita akan turun ke jalanraya dan kita akan rampas kuasa". Kenapa? kuasa tu kat jalanraya ke ? The last time I checked, kat jalanraya tu cuma ada traffic jam, traffic light dan tikus sahaja. 

On Open Data & Private-Run Public Services

I'm a civil engineer by training, but don't ask me to build your house or a road in front of your house. I'm a systems guy. I sleep, eat and drink data to make optimal decisions and to prevent bad things from happening especially in transportation/railway areas. The Economist this week has an article about open data in the U.S. On May 9th Barack Obama ordered that all data created or collected by America’s federal government must be made available free to the public, unless this would violate privacy, confidentiality or security.  This is huge. This will open up crowd-sourcing opportunities to solve some real problems like traffic congestion, pollution, crime prevention etc. How is this relevant to Malaysia? Open data, open book is a good approach to improve transparency  (BTW, it seems that corruption has been identified as the root cause for the so-called Chinese or urban tsunamis?). It could also help to make and support fact-based policy and decision making like investment in MRT and GST implementation.

Another interesting article in the Economist this week is on private-run public services. This is not privatization. In essence, at the same or lower cost a government appoint a private entity to provide the same public services at higher efficiency and quality. The aim is to give taxpayers value for money. I hope PEMANDU pays attention to this concept for their Government Transformation Programme (GTP).

Irrational Exuberance

It has been a trend among intellects, ones with higher-education degree among them, to reject the incumbent government. I mentioned in my previous post that to them the government is at best inefficient, and at worst corrupted. It's perplexing when these so-called intellects irrationally accept grandiose promises and visions of the future that are too good to be true. Most have been discussed in detail pre-GE13, but one example is the capability to eradicate poverty at once to ensure that after the first term every Malaysian family will have a monthly take-home household income of at least RM4,000. Can we realistically double the average per capita income in 5 years? There is a popular believe that all corruptions, lack of transparency, and dirty politics will disappear once the alternative government is in power. I've read that sometimes big companies prefer a new outsider CEO because of the mystic of the unknown - irrational expectation that a relatively unknown person could deliver surprising better results than an insider with well-known track records. Similar behavior may also explain the irrational exuberance towards replacing the incumbents. Realpolitik,  based on practicality in terms of economic stability and high quality of living instead of based on ideologies, will always prevailed.  I personally believe the effectiveness of the transformation programs by the government versus the maturing experience and track records in governance in states like Penang and Selangor will determine the story line to GE14.  Until then, remember that when it's too good to be true, it's usually too good to be true. The game is on!

Additional Comments by Ilmu Ialah Kuasa:
Right after I posted this I saw a post on OutSyed The Box blog that offers  methodical arguments and proofs that PR is not as clean as what people think: 

• CH Hwe's original What the Chinese People Want
• Syed Akbar Ali answering CH Hwe's What the Chinese People Want

p/s: BN should have focused on emphasizing economic stability, experience in governance and attacking the clean-sheet perception of PR. 

Agenda Martabatkan Bangsa Bukan Rasis

Oleh: Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, Sinar Harian 15 Mei 2013


Hari ini apabila ada yang bercakap mengenai agenda memartabatkan bangsa Melayu maka sering kali mereka akan terus dituduh rasis atau perkauman. Sedangkan bangsa lain yang berjuang menegakkan hak dan kepentingan bangsa mereka tidak pula dianggap rasis.

Tuduhan sebeginilah menyebabkan segelintir orang Melayu kadangkala malu, bahkan rasa bersalah atau apologetik apabila nak bercakap mengenai hak dan kepentingan mereka.

Sebelum menelusuri lebih lanjut isu ini, adalah lebih baik untuk difahami terlebih dahulu makna rasis yang sebenar. Jika dirujuk Kamus Oxford antarabangsa, rasis ialah satu kefahaman bahawa sesuatu bangsa itu lebih mulia berbanding bangsa lain hingga menebal nilai prejudis yang membawa kepada perlakuan diskriminasi, menafikan hak bangsa lain kerana dianggap lebih rendah martabatnya berbanding mereka.

Persoalannya benarkah pejuang Melayu bersikap rasis sebagaimana definisi ini? Apakah agenda memartabatkan bangsa Melayu ini bertentangan dengan prinsip Islam?

Hakikatnya mereka yang sering memperjuang agenda Melayu dan Bumiputera tidak pernah mendakwa Melayu itu lebih mulia berbanding bangsa lain. Mereka juga tidak sesekali mendesak agar kerajaan melakukan dasar diskriminasi hingga menafikan hak dan kepentingan bangsa lain sebagaimana dijamin Perlembagaan Persekutuan.

Jika difahami konteks perjuangan memartabatkan agenda Melayu ia hanyalah menegaskan agar dasar afirmatif yang menzahirkan semangat dan aspirasi Perlembagaan Persekutuan dipertahankan. Desakan sedemikian lahir atas rasa khuatir dengan sikap segelintir ekstremis kaum yang mulai berani mencabar Perlembagaan.

Apa yang pasti agenda Melayu bukanlah seperti faham nasionalisme sekular Barat yang terpisah daripada prinsip dan aturan agama hingga menggejala budaya rasis atau perkauman sempit yang membinasakan.

Sebaliknya agenda Melayu mencangkup makna kebangsaan yang luas dan subur dengan nilai-nilai keislaman sejati yang hakikatnya begitu kental. Dalam upaya menyuburkan semangat kebangsaan dan patriotisme, bekas pimpinan tertinggi Pas yang juga tokoh agamawan nasionalis terkenal, Dr Burhanuddin al-Hilmy dalam makalahnya - Perjuangan Kita, secara jelas merungkaikan makna perjuangan nasionalisme Melayu yang harus berpaksikan nilai-nilai keislaman sejati yang bersifat akomodatif, menjunjung prinsip keadilan, rasa kemanusiaan dan persaudaraan sejagat.

Menurut beliau, dengan menjunjung prinsip keadilan dan kebenaran sahajalah mampu menjelmakan semangat kebangsaan luhur dan tidak mudah terjerat dalam kerangka asabiyyah jahiliyah atau fanatik kesukuan melulu.

Pemikiran beliau ini seiring dengan firasat ahli falsafah Islam tersohor Ibn Khaldun yang lahir pada zaman kegemilangan kerajaan Islam Andalusia. Melalui kitabnya yang masyhur Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun menyingkap faham kebangsaan berteraskan dua dimensi asabiyyah yang menurutnya boleh jadi positif atau negatif.

Beliau mentakrifkan asabiyyah positif ialah semangat permuafakatan dan persefahaman yang terbentuk dalam struktur sosial masyarakat hingga membudaya sikap tolong-menolong dan bekerjasama antara satu sama lain.

Sebaliknya sesebuah tamadun akan terdedah kepada kebinasaan sekiranya asabiyyah jahiliyah berlandaskan sentimen perkauman sempit lebih mendominasi sesuatu bangsa.
Pandangan Ibn Khaldun ini berasaskan hadis berkenaan seorang sahabat yang bertanya kepada Nabi SAW: “Apakah yang dimaksudkan asabiyah itu?

Apakah kecintaan seseorang terhadap bangsanya dikatakan asabiyah? Rasulullah SAW menjawab, “Tidak! Yang dimaksudkan asabiyah ialah apabila seseorang menolong bangsanya dalam melakukan kezaliman.” (Riwayat Ibn Majah).

Sememangnya pandangan Ibn Khaldun mengenai kedua-dua dimensi asabiyyah ini amat penting untuk dihayati bagi meletakkan asas kefahaman kebangsaan di tempatnya. Justeru, tidak timbul isu rasis bagi sebuah perjuangan memartabatkan agenda bangsa kiranya yang diperjuangkan itu selaras prinsip keadilan Islam.


Komen Ilmu Ialah Kuasa:

Setiap individu Melayu bertanggungjawab untuk memartabatkan bangsa Melayu. "Sesungguhnya Allah tidak akan mengubah keadaan suatu kaum sebelum mereka mengubah keadaan diri mereka sendiri." (Surah ar-Ra'd 13:11)

Jangan terlalu taksub dengan Ketuanan Melayu (simbolik). Kita perlu lebih praktikal - tekankan ilmu pengetahuan dan kebolehpasaran dalam ekonomi global. http://wacanamalaysia.blogspot.com/2010/04/meb-peluang-ubah-melayu.html

Agenda memartabatkan Melayu melalui ilmu pendidikan adalah sebab utama Ilmu Ialah Kuasa masih seorang UMNO at heart, and proud to be part of a liberal, moderate, rare species in the party.

Transformasi: You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All

Dear BN Leaders,

You say it best when you say nothing at all...and act instead! Let's focus on transformation agenda instead of antagonizing rakyat (Zahid Hamidi called for Malaysians unhappy with the political system to leave the country).

Unless you missed it, more than half of the country do not like you. It should not be business as usual in the next 5 years. Yes, looking at demographic trends the percentage of Malays and other Bumiputeras will continue to increase while the Chinese population will be declining as the result of the decrease in fertility rate. However, the percentage of people living in urban areas will also increase over time. See data from Statistics Department or analysis by Monyet King.

You cannot stop modernization or urbanization. You cannot stop rakyat's progression from being dependent to independent. A million dollar question is how to keep your party, your ideologies and you relevant? A true politician knows that campaigning for GE14 started the moment GE13 ended. Meanwhile, the only thing PR needs to do for now is to find a Malaysian Obama to succeed Anwar!

Transformation Continues: Open Letter to PEMANDU

Dear Dato' Sri Idris Jala,

Now that the election season has concluded, I presume you and your team at PEMANDU can continue to focus on the transformation efforts, among other things, to raise incomes and the quality of life for all Malaysians. I’ve been reading your articles in the Star. I’d like to share some comments, concerns and some suggestions to support your mission.

First of all, regarding the goal to reach the high per capita income, it seems that the general public is expecting the government to keep increasing minimum wages. You and I know that this is not the case. The big “I” for inflation would nullify this approach and could probably make the quality of life worse. Your point that everyone needs to work hard to reach the goal needs to be made more prominent. There is no shortcut. I strongly believe good education is the main pillar to support new, advanced economic endeavors and reach the developed status.

Below are some specific ideas for your team’s consideration:

1. Implement Integrated Planning to Improve Mobility and Quality of Life
Car and house are two key elements affecting the quality of life of all Malaysians. Continuing economic protection of local car manufactures deprive Malaysians from the opportunity to buy affordable cars at the cost of around RM10,000 from China and India. Yes, we need to consider quality to get the best value, but an efficient market will decide what’s best. We need to set aside our pride and move away from activities that we clearly don’t have competitive advantage. We should also develop affordable housings outside congested city areas and integrate housing development planning with MRT development to ensure less-than-one-hour commute one-way to work from the new areas with public transportation. Consider high-speed rail connections to Kuantan and Penang, besides the already planned to Singapore, from KL to transform peninsular Malaysia into a single metropolis. This is an expensive, but worthwhile infrastructure investment to encourage new economic activities among different regions in peninsular Malaysia.

2. Identify Our New Competitive Advantages
In general, Malaysia has been transforming from agricultural- to service/manufacturing-based economy. From the international perspective, Malaysia is considered as the leader in Islamic finance. We should capitalize this competitive advantage to the maximum if we haven’t done so. Meanwhile, we still have to answer the question, what are our other competitive advantages? In the past, we have been Johny-come-lately in the areas of information technology, biotechnology, call centers etc. Like some other governments around the world we were seduced by the hype of voguish high-tech sectors, and falsely embraced the notion that intervening in these sectors can drive growth and create jobs without evaluating our true strength and weaknesses.

You, indeed, need some visionaries to assist in identifying some potential new competitive advantages and blue ocean strategies for Malaysia. However, instead of picking the winners and committing resources prematurely, I’d heed the advice specifically for any government from an editorial published a few years ago in the Economist as follows:

• Implement straightforward steps to improve the environment for business, e.g. less red tape, more flexible labor markets, simpler tax and bankruptcy regimes, will be more effective than handouts to favored firms or sectors. 
• Invest in the infrastructure that supports innovation, from modernized transportation systems and electricity grids (a smarter way to help green energy) to basic research and university education.  
• Encourage winners to emerge by themselves, e.g.through the sort of incentive prizes that are growing increasingly popular, rather than the failed policy of picking winners.

3. Transform Government Subsidies
Government subsidy is a very sensitive matter, especially when it involves the majority Malays. I’ve penned my opinion in an unpublished article (http://wacanamalaysia.blogspot.com/2013/05/ge13-racial-dynamics-politics-in.html) about the need for all Malaysians to shift from dependent to independent and interdependent. I strongly believe education is the key for any underprivileged group. Government’s recent effort (e.g. BR1M, Klinik/Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia) to focus on low-income people is the right direction to pursue.  In addition, we should seriously consider implementing or down-right copying the Bolsa Família social welfare program in Brazil that ties in efforts to help low-income people with education and health through conditional cash transfer. In an article (http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2010&dt=0428&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Rencana&pg=re_02.htm) I wrote a few year ago in Utusan Malaysia, I proposed the idea to offer conditional ASB loan to low-income Bumiputras who send kids to schools. Innovative public-relation (PR) strategies are also needed when reductions in subsidies or new, rational and fair tax program e.g. GST are announced. Focus on what new benefits to be provided with new revenues to the government instead of what is being taking away/charged. Implement town-hall meetings to give the right information to the grassroot government supporters. Surprising the public with some new subsidy- and/or tax-related initiatives is always bad.

All the best!

GE13: Racial Dynamics & Politics in Malaysia

This article was originally written and published online on the verge of the last general election, GE13. It offers a voice of reason. If we belong to a political group or a set of ideologies it is important to really seek to understand other opposite perspectives in the process of national reconciliation for a better Malaysia.

The main hypothesis presented in this article has mainly been proven by the general election results after which Barisan Nasional (BN) stays in power mainly due to the support from rural areas while Pakatan Rakyat (PR) continues to gain popularity in major cities in Malaysia.

In specific, this article explores the relevance of major political parties in Malaysia with respect to Malaysian racial dynamics from the perspective of individual paradigm shift* from being dependent to independent and interdependent.

Dependent citizens always depend on government assistance for basic and other needs through subsidies, preferential treatment, etc. On the other hand, independent citizens does not need any government assistance to live a comfortable life. The final stage is when all independent citizens, regardless of skin colors, are working together to effectively compete in global economies for the betterment of the country.

In the context of Malaysian politics, race-based political parties are still perceived as relevant. Malays who embrace the Quranic verse, "God will not help a group of people unless the group help themselves", will always make a political party like UMNO, or PAS, relevant. In fact, as long as there is a majority of dependent constituents, especially in rural areas, Barisan Nasional and its component parties will arguably, always be relevant.

On the other hands, Pakatan Rakyat and its ideologies are more attractive to independent citizens, regardless of their races, especially in major metropolitan areas. This group typically has higher education, has completely satisfied their basic needs, and are longing for a much better governance and quality of life. BN, in general, is struggling to maintain its relevance with this group. At best, this group perceives BN-led government as inefficient, at worst, corrupted. The perception has been improving with the implementations of the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP) and 1Malaysia, but will remain stagnant without any serious effort to make the government more transparent (e.g. asset disclosures instead of symbolic pledges). PR, however, will continue to struggle to attract the dependent constituents. Even with brilliant ideas to address poverty and quality of life, PR’s lack of experience and inconsistency in governance pose a huge cloud of uncertainty for dependent citizens to abandon the status quo. Also, who’s there to guarantee that every facet of PR or any alternative party in power will be clean? Clean politics can be seen as an oxymoron, no matter what your political brand, and no matter if you are talking about politics in Timbuktu, Kuala Lumpur or Washington.

Going back to the paradigm shift spectrum, UMNO is actually quite adept to deal with its dependent and independent constituents. It is perfectly conceivable to have an UMNO leader brandishing a dagger and antagonizing other races at an event in the morning, and in the afternoon the same leader can put a straight face at another event to promote 1Malaysia. Datuk Seri Najib and UMNO leaders have to be maverick to play the tricky game. They understand that forcing Malays too quickly to be independent by taking away multitude of subsidies and preferential treatments would only make UMNO irrelevant. It would also be bad for everyone else because the gap UMNO would leave would quickly be filled by another entity like PERKASA. However, UMNO with its ideologies still needs to advance Malays from being dependent to independent, hence an UMNO dilemma - quite akin to the Malay dilemma, coined a long time ago by Tun Mahathir.

Eventually, when everyone is on the same level of playing field, when we all can look at each other beyond the skin colors, we will reach the final stage of the paradigm shift to be interdependent with each other. When this time arrives, we will abandon "horizontal" or racial-based politics for "vertical" politics where people forget their differences and work together to focus on what matters most to improve the quality of life for everybody. We will identify our true competitive advantages, and focus on expanding the size of the economic pie in the global economy instead of fussing over for ⅓ or ⅔ of the existing pie. It is not always a zero-sum game - a rising tide lifts all boats. Until we embrace that, we have to bear with a hint of some good politics with dollops of bickering and sensationalism.

*This concept was popularized by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

p/s: Transformation Continues:  http://wacanamalaysia.blogspot.com/2013/05/transformation-continues-open-letter-to.html