Corporate Open Houses

Our ex-Prime Minister, has suggested that maybe this is the most original invention by Malaysian which is not done by any other country. Having 'Open Houses' during religious celebration. Read Chedet.co.cc blog post about it entitled the same here . In other coutries, open house, especially in Western culture, is associated with real estate agency showing off a house for sale to buyers. You can then walked through the house, ask questions and even test out all fittings which will come with the house when you buy it.

One of the corporate open house held at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur

In Malaysia, open house is quite different. We literally open our house for people to come at a particular day and time. They will be served with food which is associated with that particular cultural or religious celebration then. A case in point is when we are celebrating Eid Mubarak like right now. Every day, I will be invited to a few of these corporate open house and I have to choose carefully those I wanted to go to gain as much mileage as I can from it.

Unlike a best friend open house where you will try to attend to meet and chat with them (although in certain cases, the host will be too busy to even say hi) in corporate open houses in Malaysia the idea is to get to know most of their staff whom you may deal only through the phone or by letters. Furthermore, in most of these open houses, even the chairman and CEO will be around. In these last 2 weeks after the Eid day itself, I have shook hands with nearly 3 to 5 of the CEOs of banks.

Of course, after meeting them at these open houses, following it up with an appointment later at their office will be the real clincher...

I Uploaded this for the '2012' contest

The picture above is of me looking at the Monalisa painting which is done by Leonardo da Vinci. That painting is what I would love to be preserved in a time capsule if there is such a thing as an Armageddon within my lifetime, especially if the prediction that the world would end in 2012 will come true.

Why did I choose a work of art which is considered to be one of the most intriguing work ever done by anyone in the world, ever? One is because it is so famous that people consider it a mystery as to why someone more known for being a scientist made it into one of his legacy. Another is the uniqueness of it. Yet another is because there is no other work of art as well-known as it. And I believe there is some unslove mystery about it which may solve the mystery of Da Vinci himself. He is a scientist and although being a painter is just another one of his many skills, I think he was trying to preserve something. There may be a scientific formula behind the painting which have not been solved.

You can see this same picture as my contribution to the Time Capsule they have set up at the official site  for the movie 2012. Check out the contest at 2012 official website. If you don't agree with me, what would be YOUR contribution in a time capsule at the end the world? Upload your own picture there. You never know if you put in something worthwhile, you might win that grand prize of an all expenses paid trip to Colombo.

Offline and meeting Twitter friends

I was offline from the internet world for 2 whole days except for Twitter and some light blog posts reading. I was not putting up any new blogpost or doing all the normal thing that I do which would have require effort and time. And guess what, the world did not stop. I am still here and I enjoyed a few events which is not related to the blogging world or the online world (except for one part of it). I did wrote a post entitled 'Turning Yourself Off Outside of Office' on Friday as a bit of a prelude.

On Saturday, starting my day at 11am, I went to 3 open houses and 1 wedding. Open house is a unique concept of Malaysia where friends go to your house while you serve food and entertain them. Started up by the Muslims during Eid Mubarak years ago, nowadays even Ministers are doing it during all type of festivities either for Chinese New Year, Deepavali or Christmas (Read about my take on corporate open house in a few days time). I arranged my Saturday by starting with 2 open houses in the same town before proceeding to another one further south of Kuala Lumpur. The wedding was my staff's and it took me nearly 2 hours drive from the last open house but as one of the boss she answered to and with my business partner tied up with her assignment, it became my duty to go and send her wedding present.

I slept at my parents' house on Saturday night and on Sunday had another fulfilling day of conversation. Again, in real life. My online presence was felt in Twitter (which can be considered my current obsession nowadays) and one of the Eid Mubarak gathering that I attended was related to Twitter. It was the #rayatweetup (Raya being the word we call our Eid) and it happened at 2pm until 6pm yesterday. Before the gathering, I went to my uncle's house, updating my self on the happenings of his family.

And that #rayatweetup deserve a blog post in itself but I met a few friends whom I have been communicating online through Twitter offline and met some new friends during it. As I never shy away from these types of gathering though age-wise I am always the oldest or very much near the oldest, except if it involves business people. It was a great gathering and here's hoping it can be extended to other celebration as well...

Turning yourself off outside of office

Granted, in the current 'connected' type of environment in which you can be 'in touch' with just about anybody anywhere in the world, there is no such thing as 'private time' anymore. With the advent of technology, with the existence of all types of communication devices and even with so many eyes in the sky, all the science fictions movie might just come true sooner than we expected.

That is why, you must know how to turn yourself off from the office whenever you have had enough. You can do it by not answering calls, being totally out of touch from the internet and even by just drowning yourself in the hustle and bustle of city life.

I was once pride myself being able to be available to most of my clients at any time. I would answer any calls at anytime and in some cases would allow myself to be dragged to the office to finish a certain job. That was before internet is fully utilised like it is today.  There was still no Twitter, free teleconference or such things. In this current working environment, only fools would do that as you still can keep in touch with Skype or Google Talk or such other web-based teleconferencing tools.

Nowadays, I usually consider my time outside my office hour is off-limit except if I let it in. Although I love to brainstorm with my partner at anytime of the day, when we say our goodbye for the day, I rarely intrude her space. Unless we have set it beforehand. Usually (if it is over the weekend) there are still a lot of time on Monday.

Maybe our business is not that globalise for us to be able to afford this luxury of private time but should we wait until it is considered as one?

Still awaiting questions

I have launched my new blog 'Ask the Lawyer' for nearly a week now but I still have not receive any questions for me to answer. I may resort to writing articles of my choice which will defeat having a blog with the word 'ask the....' in its title.

If push come to shove, I may just used the template for my legal property book as the basis for my blog postings. And all those questions I received through e-mail or twitters or other social medias.

Ask away please...