If you know how much I fear / loathe presenting in public, you’ll understand why I procrastinated 8 months to give a presentation. But I kinda decided that 8 months is a ridiculously long time and I should just throw caution to the wind and do it.

So I presented on what testimonials and success stories can do for our organization’s public relations efforts.. and thought I’d share it on my blog to document it. I’ve embedded my slides right here:

Most Internet-based businesses have TONS of testimonials sitting in their databases… and these testimonials have no other purpose but to be featured in their sales letters. But how many people actually read sales letters? And the more sales-y a page is, the odds are against a person actually reading it.

So here’s a simple, but pretty wild idea about how a person, an organization or a brand can utilize testimonials and success stories to create a storm in their targeted markets, drastically increase their credibility, attract mass attention and develop an offline presence at the sane time.

What are you waiting for? What’s all the procrastination about?

My dear fellow Malaysian,

4.39 million Malaysians over the age of 21 have yet to register as voters.

That’s roughly 28% of our population.

If you’re complaining about…

• the government,
• the roads,
• the slow service,
• corruption,
• petrol,
• the Perak fiasco,
• the current political drama going on in both sides of the fence…

…. what are you waiting for?

VOTE.

If you’ve already registered, good on you. But for those of you who haven’t, and don’t know how, I’ve got the perfect solution for you.

Have you heard of Project Epic?

They’re a bunch of young people, like you and me, dedicated to studying how they can apply leadership and value-based principles in their lives and the lives of our youth.

One of their principles is to be externally-focused — to always give back to society / the community.

They originally started Project Epic with a predominant focus on the plight of the Malaysian Orang Asli (natives) and how we, as young Malaysians, can help to raise their standard of living in the long term.

Their first step?

Building the Orang Asli toilets.

You may ridicule it, laugh, or scoff at it, but there are countless people out there who do not have access to basic facilities that you and I take for granted. Like toilets.

But Project EPIC doesn’t stop there. Toilet-building is only step ONE. In light of that crazy, scary statistic out there, they’ve recently taken their “giving back” one step further.

They’ve realized that, you know what, people that surround us daily need to start having faith and hope in this nation. Yes, while it’s been a challenging journey and developing positive feelings for a nation that displays blatant disregard for ethics is tough, there is still hope.

While Malaysia is disillusioned, and is caught in this sordid, sad wave of helplessness, Malaysians have stopped striving for its YOUTH.

• We want to believe that the power of ‘one’ is not simply overrated, just rarely challenged
• We want Positive Action not Negative ReactionsWe want to integrate not tolerate
• We want to stop complaining, and start acting
• We want our friends to stop migrating overseas and our parents to stop telling us to do so
• We want to be colour blind to our neighbours
• We want to stand up to be responsible for our collective future and believe that others want to as well

And with that, they launched….

EPIC for UNITY

Come this April 3rd & 4th, Project EPIC is launching a year-long campaign at all major, high-traffic shopping malls in the Klang Valley.

No, they’re not politically affiliated.
No, they do not gain an ounce of monetary benefit from this.

All they gain is knowing that, they have taken the FIRST STEP in helping you create a better place to live.

If you don’t know where to register, or how to register, or what to do even.

Just be there.

There aren’t that many high-traffic malls in the Klang Valley, so you know what to do.

Take the next step today.

EXERCISE YOUR BASIC RIGHT AS A CITIZEN IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY.
VOTE YOUR CHOICE.

If you’d like to contribute, don’t hesitate.

WEBSITE: http://dosomethingepictoday.blogspot.com/
EMAIL: dosomethingepic@gmail.com
CALL: 016 3177788 (Jasmine)

She just sent me the video of “We Are The World 25″ for Haiti

It’s a really good song, mind you, and I love that Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie placed all the strong vocalists in the beginning, where I feel more emotion and power is needed to convey the message of the song – Jennifer Hudson, Josh Groban, Pink, Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion.. you know what I mean.

But Bee Sim has beef with the fact that Miley Cyrus has a few lines among the greats.

Here’s an excerpt of our conversation:

If you guys don’t already know (or follow my Twitter-feed), I spent Nov 16 & 17 at the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 all the way at PICC which is situated in a God forsaken place Putrajaya.

And let me tell you… it was an awesome event.

Actually, my involvement with YES2009 started out way before that. Not because I was part of the organizing team, nor was I a volunteer, nor am I a Youth Asia employee. In fact, it started out on Saturday night, November 14th (actually, it started out way before that. But it’s a story for another time .

I followed Khailee and Nguyen to PICC to meet up with Joel, Esther, Joanne, Audra and Lina… and spent the next few hours packing 500 goodie bags with the latter 4. Poor Esther’s hands were covered in paper cuts while I had an ache in my left butt cheek from weird sitting positions.

But I digress. Back to YES2009 — the actual one.

I was originally supposed to go as a youth delegate with the Youth Asia team but at 1.30AM on Sunday night, Khailee’s designated photographer bailed for a family emergency and I ended up being his sub-par, amateur replacement. So instead of sitting put from 8.00am-6.00pm each day listening to talks, I ended up shadowing Khailee for two entire days taking photos of him like his personal papparazzi -__-

I was rather reluctant but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I can never stay awake for talks no matter how much sleep I get or how interesting / funny the speaker is (all HELP Psychology students know that this includes lectures, and even some tutorials). So I was wondering how the hell will I be able to stay awake with only 2.5 hours sleep on Sunday night, and 3 on Monday night?

But thankfully, with the adrenaline rush and the running around, I pretty much was on my toes and heard (almost) everything I wanted to listen to. Plus, being Khailee’s shadow for the day I managed to slip myself into all the press conferences and eat at all the VIP areas

Day #1

String of opening speeches by Datuk Johan Jaafar (CEO of Media Prima), Haminder Singh (organizing chairman of YES2009) and Khailee.

I don’t know where the rest of the opening speeches are… but here’s Khailee’s, courtesy of Global Vision and Jia Ling (Khailee’s camerawoman of the day).

Click here to view the embedded video.

There was mayhem, chaos and mania right after the opening speeches. Khailee and Nando Parrado (the closing speaker for Day #2) were completely MOBBED by the SEA delegates. I got my toes stepped on, bag trodden upon and elbowed just to take these pictures.

One of the perks I got from shadowing Khailee — networking and speaking with people from various industries (and some top business leaders) in the VIP section, and scrumptious food.

Speaker #1: Biz Stone

“Happy mistakes are the best kind…”
~ Biz Stone

If you don’t know who Biz Stone is, shame on you. He’s the co-founder of the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.

I took away one main thing from his talk — the true, real reason to why he created Twitter in the first place.

He mumbles. Big time. And he can be relatively incoherent. Yes, I understood what he said, but for most of his talk I had to strain my ears.

But he was surprisingly clearer and more coherent during the press conference? Perhaps he was more relaxed, he didn’t have to speak out of a microphone.. and there were far fewer people. Nonetheless, I’m an active twitterer and it was amazing meeting him in person, hearing him speak and actually asking him a question

Speaker #2: Dr. Mamphela Ramphela

“You are the leaders you have been waiting for.”
“Consciousness that transcends the NOW is SO important.”
~ Dr. Mamphela Ramphele at YES2009

I don’t blame you if you don’t know who she is. Yes, she looks like a Star Wars character from the planet of Naboo (credits to Adrian Lai for that . But this feisty and very, very wise old lady is actually the former director of the World Bank.

I didn’t stay for her full talk (I was at Biz Stone’s press conference) but from what I heard at her talk and press conference has definitely hit home, not just for me but for tons of young people there.

Speaker #3: Sir Bob Geldof

I have to admit. This dude has to be my favourite speaker of the lot. He said many things that rang true to everyone in the room and had such a commanding presence that you just wanted to follow his every word. For those of us who work actively with NGOs and have heavy interest in social activism, Bob Geldof’s words were very useful.

“We should demand leadership. If there is none, we should lead ourselves.”
“Young people should always question.”
“Everyone has the exact same potential if they were given the exact same opportunity.”
“To die of want in a world of surplus is an intellectual and moral disgrace”
“Cooperation, rather than competition, must be the paradigm of the 21st century.”
“If you’re not participating in the knowledge economy, you’re out of the loop.”
“Unless we cooperate as a species, there is no future.”
“You don’t want to be like us! In fact, you threw us out. WELL DONE.” — On South East Asian countries gaining independence from the West.
~ Sir Bob Geldof at YES2009

There were very many more. Unfortunately, I could not write quickly enough.

In summary
It was good. If not, great. Considering how I can barely keep awake during talks of any kind, the fact that I managed to keep awake, take notes, listen intently and learn from these great change icons must say something.

Following this, I attended the officiating dinner with a sprightly Audra and two zombies in the form of Khailee and Joel. The sleepless night before had taken its toll on them and they sat there expressionless for most of the 10 course dinner, only breaking out of their daze to rush at the food. Even having Asha Gill at our table could not rouse them from their daze.

The highlight of the night had to be us taking a photo (my only photo with any of the speakers) with Sir Bob Geldof right before he left the dinner. It made Audra and I so, so happy that it kept me awake until 3am (doing work) in spite of having only a measly 2.5 hours of sleep the night before.

More to follow with Day #2. Meanwhile, pictures!

]]> http://xinch.com.my/day-1-youth-engagement-summit-2009/feed/ 5 http://xinch.com.my/halloween-2009/ http://xinch.com.my/halloween-2009/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:56:15 +0000 xinch http://xinch.com.my/?p=786 Hey guys

It’s been eons since I’ve written anything (yes, I know). But when you blog and write for a living (and those blogs isn’t your own), seeing another WordPress interface when you get home becomes one of your lowest priorities. Not to mention the fact that since I’ve started Tweeting, my blogging frequency has suffered a major blow.

Nonetheless, I’m breaking my silence (finally) now with…. Halloween pictures!

After much consideration, I decided to go as Medusa. After all, I only needed snakes on my head.. and that’s really about it! I didn’t even going to go the whole nine yards and get colored contacts (I suffer from both myopia and astigmatism. It wasn’t possible) or even powder my face white.

On the left is Nguyen, the visiting developer from Vietnam currently putting up at the YouthAsia office & Khailee‘s place. This year’s Halloween was his first and we (or I) dressed him up as a Jedi! Yes, my friends. You can’t see his light saber here but he’s a full-blown Jedi. I think going as a Jedi is actually pretty easy. We just got 3meters of brown cloth from Kamdar and cut + sewed it into his robe.

The tough part was that weird orange guy next to me.

Yes. That one. Here’s a close-up of him with the Cowboy Sheriff (and photographer of the night) Yew Jin.

Are you wondering what he is?

His mum asked him, “Are you a parrot?” (which really cracked me up so much I almost chucked my dinner).

He’s actually… Simba. Yes. Simba the Lion. From The Lion King.

I know right? The secret to his “head dress”? 5 orange bathroom rugs from Jusco worth RM7.90, yellow socks worth RM5.00, a curtain tie-tassel thing worth RMgodknowswhat, an old disposable cap, a really shitty seamstress and her make up.

Guess who was the shitty seamstress?

Anyway, there were a bunch of weird characters that night. Take ghost / corpse bride for example:

I can’t tell if her costume is scarier or her freaking long eyelashes are. Oh. And if you’re wondering what Joel is… he’s a fallen-arch-angel… or something like that. I really couldn’t decide (and I suspect, neither could he). I don’t think he knows this scary female as well.. Hmm…

Of course, you have the few non-dress-uppers for any costume party. This time it came in the form of Jeff (after his mummy experience last year, I actually understand why ;P), Jean and Winnie (Jean’s highschool mate).

Over all, it was an OK night — nothing to shout about because of the fact that Zouk was just so congested that we could barely move. But as usual, who doesn’t love just taking LOTS of photos?

YouthAsia Halloween Peeps

The photo where Joel and I actually look related and Khailee looks like Prince -_-

]]> http://xinch.com.my/halloween-2009/feed/ 2 http://xinch.com.my/pimp-my-room/ http://xinch.com.my/pimp-my-room/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:07:30 +0000 xinch http://xinch.com.my/?p=761 If you don’t already know, I recently moved into a very pretty new condo in Kelana Jaya. Yes, after months of staying in my Dad’s place in the faraway Sunway, I’m back in action right in the heart of PJ. Many bouts of indecision have led me to so many color schemes for my room that I’ve lost count. I love red, but the stark whiteness and zenness of my condo doesn’t seem to SUIT red… so I thought of moving to white. But then, everything in white is just so boring.. and IKEA furniture is extremely generic! You get the drift.

So this long Raya weekend (Selamat Hari Raya to my Muslim friends =]!) I enlisted the artiest and most DIY person I know, Esther Lau, to pimp my room. I have to say, 3 days, loads of paint, turpentine and mosaic tiles later, my generic, boring IKEA furniture is MOST DEFINITELY — pimped.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves — checkidout!

BEFORE

Aneboda Wardrobe (RM199)

AFTER

ANEBODA wardrobe + paint + mosaic + knobs

Check out my chest-of-drawers-cum-dresser:

BEFORE

KULLEN Chest of Drawers (RM199)

DURING

KULLEN + paint + mosaic + knobs = halfway there!

AFTER

KULLEN fully pimped

So cute I love my room — owe Esther loads of hugs and thanks and dinners for all her help! And I also owe May for the 2 hours of mosaic-cleaning-and-pasting she loaned to me (a banker’s time is precious and counted by the dime).. and Anna for helping out a little towards the end!

Here are some pimping-process pictures: Checkitout!

The screws for the drawer knobs we bought were WAY too long for Kullen. With no saw, Esther attempted using the measly penknife.

Mosaic - our weapons for the weekend

Setting up my KULLEN, fresh from IKEA.

Our fuel for the last leg of our pimping race. Good ol' Ribena.

After one of the shittiest weeks of the year, today just kicked ass.

1. I awoke to an email from my uncle in Ohio saying that my Aunt Jen just went into labour and is being prepped to deliver my newest baby cousin.

Baby J!

Josephine Chung, you are probably one of the most loved babies in the world. Your birth has been much awaited and we here in Malaysia cannot wait to see you and get to know you.

2. We delivered a kick-ass presentation for this semester’s colloquium for our research on humour and relevance on brand and product recognition for our Cognitive Psychology module, despite being rather ill-prepared for the presentation and kena tembak-ing during mocks.

the winning team!

3. WE actually WON one of the two best presentation prizes yeehaw

and another one!

4. OMFG… xinch the lousiest presenter of the group actually won best presenter!

Jamie and I melansi-lansi with our prizes

It’s an amazing close to my degree. We’ve won best presentation twice, and xinch the lousiest speaker in the world actually got a best presenter prize today.

Fantastic close to the semester, amazing closure to the end of my Bachelor’s program.

3 weeks left and I’ll join legions of unemployed, jobless youths.

Don’t matter – today was fantastic!

hugs and kisses everyone! enjoy the pics =]

the awesome display on rosch's taxonomy that took us forever to complete

“]

The group with our counselling poster =

That aside, let me share with you some interesting things I did in March

1. Watched Jason Mraz in Stadium Negara with Edmund Kwok, Joanne and Khai Lee. Was late (as usual, considering who the person behind the wheel was ;P) but had amazing siew yoke meen afterwords. Too bad my batteries were confiscated at the entrance to the concert or you’d be attacked with pictures of Jason Mraz himself. He’s an amazing performer and very good at engaging the audience. I particularly liked the fact that instead of throwing sweaty (and disgusting clothes) to the audience as souvenirs, he pulled out a polaroid camera to camwhore on stage and immediately dished them out to the mosh pit!

2. Worked like a horse. In March, I discovered quite a number of nice places to work around the area I live! Funny that I’ve been here for 3 years already and until March, I’ve relegated myself to just McDs, the very expensive, occasional Starbucks, Old Town and Thyme in Aman Suria.

A little enclave stashed somewhere in BU

3. Had a scrumptious Japanese buffet supper with Khai Lee, Nads, Sam, Wari and Omar in Tenji@Solaris Mont Kiara. Starved ourselves till 9.30 and after letting loose at the buffet line, we discovered that manic eating wasn’t such a good idea after all. Despite that, food at Tenji rocked for only RM53/person (that’s inclusive of taxes and what not)

food, food, food (or what was left of it)

The very fresh oysters according to Wari (I wouldn't know, raw food isn't my thing)

Wari, Sam and Khailee (or the back of his head) after an overly satisfying meal

Sam, Wari and Nads testing out the latest fad - coconut boobies

4.  The Edmund Loh Makeover Project. I won’t bore you with the long story that led up to this but come last Sunday in Sunway Pyramid, Khai Lee and I met up with Edmund and spent a good 5 hours in Sunway Pyramid with 80% of the five hours dedicated to the purpose of shopping. Gotta agree, it’s mega fun shopping for someone else with someone else’s money. Anyone wants a makeover too? =] For those of you who are not aware of who Edmund L. is, he’s the one who has been providing me with the occasional freelance transcription work for the past… what, 1.5 years? Anyway, read Edmund’s take on it here.

Edmund before

Edmund after

Edmund with his shopping bags and his "Queer-Eye-for-the-Straight-Guy" man, Khai Lee.

The amazingest cutest shoes spotted by Queer-Eye himself in Onitsuka Tiger retailing at RM289! :'( Early birthday/christmas present for me, anyone? I'm a size 6 XD

That’s bout it folks, so far, for the craziness that’s been March. This month has been a fantastic month… 1 more left till the end of my degree so I’m gonna have to amp it up!

]]> http://xinch.com.my/march-mayhem/feed/ 1 http://xinch.com.my/december-penang-pt-ii/ http://xinch.com.my/december-penang-pt-ii/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:11:46 +0000 xinch http://xinch.wordpress.com/?p=313 Long overdue photos of my December holidays in Penang.

WARNING: ANOTHER PHOTO-FILLED POST

I spent a large amount of time with Wei Zhi, Ghee, June, Jason and Chuan Wei during my December trip back so here are some pictures

Trek to Monkey Beach Participants: Wei Zhi, Li Jia, June, Ghee, Ghee’s friend Bill and Jason

Penang National Park entrance and office

When I look at this picture, I wonder if it was really taken in Penang

Going through the wilderness!

Pretty flowers were sprinkled along our trek

We had gray skies at first

thankfully it very quickly turned blue

we had sandy beaches

and quiet little lakes

until jason decided to test the waters

and in here, lives a hermit crab

I don't know bout this one, but it sure is pretty

and another pretty picture

June was obsessed with crabbies

Jason being super relaxed

Lydia cartwheeling

and Ghee failing

Zhi posed like nobody's business

and again

...and again.

he would like to think he's the Hulk

and she thought she was a mermaid

and a chio one at that...

engineering students constructing a dam to please king Jason

the completed dam.... until I stood up, of course

We took a boat back and guess how much it cost us?

RM50 for as many as 10 people! We had 7 so we split that by 7 instead. Imagine if we had 10!

Ghee enjoying the ride

my fav picture of Zhi and I -if only it weren't so dark

Docking at Teluk Bahang

The day was an absolute blast

That night, Pei Shan, Ade, Sim and I celebrated NYE.

pic courtesy of Pei Shan's FB

Sim, Shan and I - pic courtesy of Pei Shan's FB

Lots more but I’m too lazy to upload, so there

————————————————————————————————

This is one of the most important semesters I’ll ever have to get through and things are just not, NOT going right for me right now. No.