This afternoon, I will be talking at the Asian Bloggers and Social Media Conference in Berjaya Times Square. Below is my Prezi.com presentation that I will be using to assist me in my talk. The conference was held on July 28 and 29, and included such speakers at former Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohammad, AirAsia CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes, bloggers from The Phillipines and India as well as my friends Joyce the Kinkybluefairy, Kenny Sia and Beautifulnara.

I posted the presentation below a couple of hours before my talk was due to take place so that anyone at the conference who had access to the Internet could view my presentation as I went along. I am posting this here first so that participants of the conference can view my Prezi during my session, or immediately after. I will elaborate more on my points later tonight or tomorrow.

Unlike my usual talks, I decided not to focus too much on the social media aspect for two reasons. First of all, this was already a social media conference meaning that even if any of the delegates were not yet familiar with the tools etc, they should, in theory, already be keen to learn more about it (and therefore, no evangelising necessary). Secondly, there were going to be three other Malaysian bloggers speaking – all of whom are much more successful than I am – so I wanted to explore something different.

Thanks for the picture above, Khairul.

I chose instead to talk about journalism, and what the journey is like for a journalist in the age of social media. To lead into my discussion, I asked the question: Am I a journalist first, or a blogger?

That question, in a way, was a trick question in that I don’t even identify solely as a blogger. Yes, I do blog but I see my “dabbling” in social media as much more than that.

On that note, I present to you my presentation. Like my other Prezi’s, you might not know what is going on right away but when looking at it (if you’re interested lah), note how I have split the two into separate circles – but allowed them to overlap a little.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section, I will be happy to discuss further.

5.25pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

I won’t spoil it for you but basically, Jimmy Kimmel introduced the Handsome Men’s Club during Oscar week in Los Angeles. Watch the video to see who are the “members” of the club!

Finished watching? If not, don’t read on unless you want spoilers!

What an amazing cast of cameos, huh? There were a few of my favourite bits:

1. The reference to People magazine’s Sexist Men Alive issues.
2. The veto-ing of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner application as “Not handsome enough … just cute”.
3. Lenny Kravitz!
4. Reference to “foreigners” when referring to Sting.
5. Matt Damon’s revenge (if you’ve been following Jimmy Kimmel, you’d know that he had a tag line that he ends the show with, “Sorry Matt Damon, but we’re out of time”). Though his laughter made him look like he was on crack.

I was planning to only list five favourites but had to add this one as well. Ben Affleck’s appearance in the club (and later on in bed) was a reference to the “I’m f***ing Ben Affleck” video Kimmel made, in retaliation of his ex-girlfriend Sarah Silverman’s video called, “I’m f***ing Matt Damon”. Loved it – especially when Ben’s wife Jennifer Gardner shows up too!

A few weeks later, Jimmy Kimmel showed some bloopers from the show as well, which is equally funny. Watch for yourself.

Hope this helps you through your Monday! Have a good week ahead!

10.20am Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

He replied: Oh, we sent a fax (or something like that, I don’t remember his exact words).

I told him to resend it because I didn’t receive it. When I put the phone down, I started thinking about how long it’s been since I checked the fax folder at work. And the answer: A long time. So I posed a question – totally random – on Twitter:

Why are fax machines not yet obsolete? Discuss.

In my head, of course I was thinking in terms of press invites, considering the context in which I started thinking about it. But I got a few interesting responses that I thought I’d share it on my blog. I learned something new with that Tweet that I decided that I will introduce Random Sundays, where I will talk about a question either I posed, or came across, on Twitter which is totally, well, random. Here is the first edition!

Picture from Flickr (under Creative Commons license) by Abishek Sarda.

Among the replies were:

• Because fax documents can be treated as legal documents. – csetyono | I have to admit I didn’t know this. And actually, it is this revelation that led me to wanting to write this blog post. I didn’t do too much research (just a few Google searches) and couldn’t find anything with regards to Malaysian laws, but it would appear that they are technically not legal documents (as in you can’t sign a contract and send it by fax and consider it “legal”. It is legal in the sense that fax documents are able to be used in court as evidence). Any lawyers reading this, please correct me if I’m wrong, thanks!

• Because fax machines are cool and there is no way you can modify paperwork. – azrinarizz | Er, cool? I suppose lah. It’ll soon have the vintage feel like old typewriters soon enough I suppose?

• in US, Canada &Puerto Rico a service called Celery allows non-computer users 2 send email, tweet, FB etc using fax machine – norlinwanmusa | This was most interesting! I Googled Celery and this was how they described their service: “Celery service lets people send and receive email without a computer or Internet connection. It works with any fax machine and can gracefully share a single home phone line.”

• Coz old and non-digital savvy ppl still find it easier to use fax machines. They cannot conform to scanned copies / email. – kimongsk | I guess convenience is a very good reason. LOL

• Cos when #streamyxsuck n #P1 merajuk u will still b able to send/receive PO – myhorng | My favourite reply! Hehe! Horng sounds like he’s speaking from experience!

There you have it. Some education, some interesting and just plain funny. This is quite fun, compiling all this. Until the next one!

3.35pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

Though I’ve been back for about few days, I spent most of my weekend just catching up with sleep, getting over the jet lag and running around doing errands. Sunday was the first day that I actually sat down and read the newspapers. And what news to come back to.

Out of everything that I read, this one really stood out for me:

PKR group says Sivarasa’s inability to speak Tamil a liability

The article, published in The Star, reads:

There are rumblings on the ground about PKR vice-president R. Sivarasa’s inability to speak Tamil – and this may be a liability for the leader in the party elections at the end of the year.

Some grassroots leaders have openly expressed their wish for Sivarasa to be voted out because they are unhappy he cannot communicate effectively with Indians who did not have a good grasp of English.

They want either Kapar MP S. Manickavasagam or Padang Serai MP N. Gobalakrishan to contest for the post.

I guess this bit of news jumped out at me because of the article I had written for my fortnightly The Bangsar Boy column, which was only published on Saturday. In the article, I wrote about languages and how my recent trip to Poland for the Imagine Cup 2010, and meeting many of the 400 students from around the world, changed my perception on language.

I wrote:

Despite my love for the English language, I have always been grateful for BM. For me, it also helps transcend many intangible boundaries in Malaysia (and I guess, with our Indonesian neighbours).

My experience last week reaffirms this but it has also taught me that it isn’t how well you speak a language, it’s how you choose to communicate with other people that matters most.

With that thought in mind, I got offended at the requests by those members of PKR. Aren’t they supposed to be a party that’s multi-cultural and multi-racial? Why then is there the need to focus on languages people speak? Surely an alternative to the current Government which has a reputation – whether perceived or not – for politicking along racial lines has to provide just that – an alternative approach to the status quo, especially if the status quo is damaging our country.

The fact is that in Malaysia, education is compulsory by law. And besides the small (but maybe ever growing) percentage of people who are getting educated in English at private and international schools (yes, also vernacular schools), the medium of instruction in our education system is Bahasa Malaysia. Don’t most Malaysians then share a common language?

And even if you’re talking about those students I excluded earlier, or some people who are uneducated, how do you live in a country like Malaysia without being able to communicate a little in Bahasa Malaysia? My mother, who is a Singaporean and never formally studied BM, is able to hold her own in a conversation with people who can only speak BM (albeit a bit off).

If you’re going to vote someone out just because he or she can’t speak a dialect then you’re prioritising the wrong thing. Shouldn’t you prioritise his capabilities as a leader, his vision for the party and the country and his dedication to serve the people? I’m not saying that Sivarasa is all – I’ve only met him a couple of times, and I’m not living in his constituency – this but my argument is that shouldn’t these be the factors he is judged on, rather than his ability to speak a certain dialect?

What’s more – he’s not even Tamil! He’s Ceylonese!

I find it sad that members of a party running on the multicultural platform is making these sorts of calls. If Sivarasa doesn’t get reelected on these grounds, then PKR has no more right in using the multicultural card and have no more right to slam UMNO, MCA, MIC and others for only serving the respective race their members are from.

And they have lied to all the people who have voted for them.

10.03pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

p/s The picture above was taken at the Imagine Cup 2010 using my Cyber-shot TX5. We were heading out drinking after the party in the hotel and saw this bunch of people – all from different parts of the world – singing songs together. They weren’t all familiar with the English language or the songs, so they had a laptop in front with the lyrics so that everyone could sing along. I joined in (and ruined the night I’m sure) because it was such a buzz watching these people come together like this (not even within their own groups or countrymen).

However, there was one video that was shown early on that really got my attention. It was a video posted by YouTube star Dan Brown (no, not the guy who wrote Da Vinci Code) and it was an open “letter” to educators around the world. The photo below (taken using a Cyber-shot TX5) was from where I was sleeping, er, hiding sitting at the back of the forum, while the video was showing.

I tweeted about it then, and meant to share the video with you guys, but never got to blog about it before. I was going to post it yesterday – I usually upload interesting videos (to me) on here on Mondays) – but got caught up with work. However, I woke up today to the article headlined below in the New Straits Times and knew I just had to blog about it today.

The headline read:

Exam talks begin

Basically, the Ministry of Education is holding round-table sessions to gather feedback on whether or not to do away with the UPSR and PMR examinations in schools. I have to admit that when I first heard about it a month ago, I was wondering what the Government was thinking. Then I realised that this might be a good thing – we are too exam focused, which leads us to becoming too results-oriented (I blogged about this last year as well).

I guess the biggest argument for the abolishing of the two exams is that they basically serve little purpose. Granted, PMR helps decide if a student is fit for a particular stream but I think there are other ways to address this. I remember when I was younger wondering what the point of me working so hard for my UPSR (okay lah, I didn’t try so hard but I still had to put in a little bit of effort) because when I went into Form 1, I had a literally illiterate classmate (no way he passed ANY of his UPSR subjects).

I think assessment examinations – without the whole “prestige” of getting a certificate – are a good way to find out the aptitude of a particular student. I rather there be certain “tests” (as opposed to “exams”) which will help decide if a student will be able to survive a particular stream. This way, maybe the mindset that students need to be in the Science Stream (this mindset is as much in parents as it is in students) to be considered a good student.

I was in the Science Stream in Form 4 (don’t ask me how I made it there, I didn’t do too well in PMR but I guess I did well enough) for a total of two weeks before I decided that it wasn’t for me. Good thing I had understanding parents (well, my parents were the one cajoling me to quit Science, and I was hesitant at first because I was finally a “good” student) who allowed me to switch when I decided that I wasn’t cut out for Add Maths and Chemistry.

I do wish that I didn’t put myself through that. And to think that I was in school at a time when students weren’t going crazy taking 12 to 20 subjects for SPM!

Anyway, this post isn’t about me. I’ve always been an advocate of holistic education and one that doesn’t require memorising, but more to do with understanding of concepts, encouraging critical thinking and exploring creativity.

Which is why I want to share this video by Dan Brown with you guys. Some of the things he say is in the context of the country he lives in but I think it’s worth watching anyway. There will be more roundtable sessions about the UPSR and PMR (although I personally wish they would abolish the system, and then have round-table sessions to decide what is the next step. At the moment, it just seems like they will have sessions and nothing will happen and then it will be a waste of time, money and well, hope).

But that is the way things are at the moment. My wish is that whoever is going into the sessions would watch this before heading there.

11.18pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)