Don't complain unless you have a solution!

So yes, i was saying that I don't usually like to just complain. I'm writing this not as a personal attack against academics. (Only academics attack their own kind, hahahah.) I can be neutral about this because I have the freedom that comes with not having any advanced degrees. And here's my point :

Academics are not Marketers. They may study marketing and business and be a little better at Marketing than their other intellectual peers, but they're not marketing people at heart. They are not sales-people. That's the reason why they kept going back to get more and more advanced degrees - because they want to avoid having to come out into the real-world and make money. People who know how to make money and market will drop out of the race for degrees, pretty much like what Bill Gates and a whole new generation of Harvard Business students are doing by the hundreds.I read somewhere Harvard is setting up an environment on campus for students to start their own business and make money as a way to prevent them from dropping out of school! I think universities, especially American ones, depend on tuition and contributions from their alumni to keep the schools going....

Apart from Academia, everything else in the real-world is about Economic-sense. Despite that, you'd find that even economic lecturers prefer lecturing only about theory, not the real-world. And because Paul Krugman and Mohd. Yunus are and their likes are exceptions, I absolutely want to kiss the ground they walk on. They are academics who are bringing their insight straight to the general public.

Academics don't understand the point that money is made in exchange for value that you sell to people. As long as academics think profitability, money, business and selling corrupts their idealism then that is how long the public will suffer the Divide. Knowledge, my dear Academics, is not Exclusive. If that knowledge and research cannot be converted into value and economic value, then it is money wasted. If I owned a college and all my staff (academics) think about is how to get funding to spend but criticise initiatives to raise those funds they wish to spend, I'd be in deep trouble. There is a reason why, if you want to start a school, the Director/Board and the Principal must be two different people.

Marketing and selling is 'below' academics, and I get that. They may even say it is BECAUSE of the Board of Director's insistance on making money that has caused the decline in the quality of students being admitted and passed. They may believe that running "Free" workshops and seminars for the public is noble. I almost want to slap myself in the face each time I find out there's no follow-up after a certain "Week of .....", "Month of ....." or workshop/seminar. No one tracks data and follows the trail of the impact of those events!

I can imagine some academics getting really pissed-off at Joe Public saying all this. I mean, how can I argue against an army armed with the latest PhDs? These PhDs can easily be used against me as a WMD!

99% of people out there would not even think about presenting their case against academics because of their own inferiority about their lack of formal education. Even if one has tonnes of money (which, ironically, I share the same problems as academics because I am poor)there is always that insecurity that their own knowing is invalid because it's not backed by a prestigious degree. Due to some alignment of stars or something, I lack that sense of insecurity and inferiority. I serve Joe Public using this lack of fear. I want to cross that Divide and bring back ACTIONABLE INFORMATION!!!!

It would be a good day when Academics start thinking like entrepreneurs and salespeople. We're not profit-mongerers. Just as there are academics who manufactured their own degrees, there are entrepreneurs and salespeople who cheat and lie too. It's a problem of morality, not Money. This Divide between academics and the people must close.

I itch like crazy each time I see opportunities that are not tracked, followed and developed and that is how I feel about most events, workshops, seminars etc EXCEPT those organized by entrepreneurs themselves! I look at Gurus like T.Harv Ecker, Anthony Robbins, etc etc. They have an idea, an insight, a theory of things. They see the market needs the information and they deliver it straight to them. For sure many people think thousand dollar seminars are rip-offs but only people who have no money say things like that and we've already established the fact that academics are poor people. We cannot possibly take money-ideas and directions about making money from people who have an issue with money! It's the same reason why we don't take career advice from bums or buy skincare products from a salesperson with severe acne vulgaris!

Granted, the public should also be less anti-intellectual. But if change is going to happen, it must always start small. We win because we outnumber academics. Academics can go on doing what they do well but they must bear in mind that KNOWING something to yourself and your inner-circle isn't good enough. Academics must feel more responsibility in HOW they can channel this information quickly to benefit society and create added-value to the Economy. Academics must feel real responsibility and accountability in achieving win-win situations in turning theory into ACTIONABLE, PROFITABLE practise.

I'm not advocating that academics get another advanced degree in marketing or become money-grubbers (too late to prevent the second one in some cases)but to simply change the way they think about information, value and especially, money. Simply by changing their beliefs about Money, they will change the entire chain of choices they eventually make and this will open up entirely new chains of opportunities that were always there but never seen before.

By doing this the Halo Effect academics now live under will disappear and be replaced with genuine, measurable impact upon society. By doing this, the Divide between Academia and lay-people, will be narrowed.

"Academics, academics, let down your hair...so we may climb the Ivory Stair...

The world is ripe for a life of abundance,

Old Capitalism has become irrelevant.

The End of the Old where Knowledge is Gold,

Is being replaced by a system not unlike Alchemy

where instead of metal we use information

The faster we get it, the richer we grow.

For Now is the Time to remove millenium of strife

Caused by a lack of resources and drive

The Freedom wrought from decades of violence

Must now be utilised as a powerful weapon

To eradicate forever the sense of poverty,

of scarcity caused by ignorance about

The powerful force Man can leverage

That force, if you must know is Wealth-Creation (TM)

The Halo Effect academics have

I think the biggest mistake academics and 'professional' people make is they over-estimate the power of traditional media and 'spreading the word'. The other talk I had attended attracted more people than the room could fit - PAYING PARTICIPANTS. They didn't even bother with traditional media. They didn't even INVITE THE PRESS. (Well, not only did I take no-pay-self-approved-leave, I paid for my bus-ride to KL and my taxi-fare to the place in Kota Kemuning, I paid RM30 for some refreshments and 2 hours of attending a lecture I would otherwise not be able to afford.)In exchange for transport to the bus-stop, I asked if they would allow me to do a write-up to share with other people who could not attend that day. My article is on their website. And no, they did not pay me a single cent.

Spreading the word alone doesn't work if the word gets to just 'anyone'....the message has to reach a specific demographic, a specific 'micro-demographic', actually. It is this 1% who will MOVE the idea into ACTION and produce RESULTS. For instance, my friend's mom asked me to 'spread the word' about her husband's book. I'm not the correct person to target because the people in my life, almost exclusively, are Chinese-educated, working class folk or housewives without advanced degrees. That was 60sen worth of adex gone the wrong way.

The issue of why events and information in the hands of academics never arrive in our hands had been on my mind for years. During the time when I entered the first Chinese-ed team for the Young Scientist competition organized annually by Seameo-RECSAM, I had already noticed something like this happening. It was also then that I realized that funding is allocated to academics based on who they know where; after that's been decided, talks are organized by sending out invitations to people they know. If you're not an academic, you'd be hard pressed to get invited.

I can imagine that academics may worry about obtaining sponsorship or funding or getting enough paid participants to attend the workshops/talk they want to give. Air-tickets/bus-rides/hotel stays and paid-leave don't pay themselves. I understand that when I attend training and workshops where I have to absorb all that cost myself. If I were not self-employed, I would have to depend on the generosity and understanding of my employer to approve my paid-leave and also to reimburse my expenditure. But I also have a feeling that, costs being covered aside, academics do wish they can share more of what they know to the people who have the will, capacity and resources to mobilize theory into actionable plans.

But that's just me and how I feel. I feel information between researches/leaders should be disseminated much more efficiently and effectively than is happening at the moment. I cannot get over the feeling that I get queried each time I invite myself to a public event in an academic setting and I'm not referring specifically to the one I attended recently. I've always had the impression that these events were meant as a gateway for the public to have awareness and be in tandem with the goings-on in research and development funded by, one way or another, public dollars either in the form of tuition fees or government funding. The public has a right to access these events and ask questions without being queried about our motives. It is for us these talks are being held, or am I wrong? So far I have believed that talks are meant for information dissemination, not a public display of vanity and intellectualism.

I don't have to represent 'the press' or any body, organization, group...to ask questions about the objectives, reach and tracking of impact of each event. In fact, I don't even think anyone except the Public is capable of asking the most pressing questions and wanting answers which can be measured and accounted for. I am Joe ...err Jane Public and I have a right to keep myself informed if the announcement says "FREE" or "PAID". If they want to doubt the people who are not in their inner-circle who attend and want to be an engaged and involved citizen, they should then have closed talks. If they discourage Average Joe from being curious and are unaware of how their questioning causes intimidation, I don't see how the public is going to continue depending on academia for answers.

It's a good thing I don't get intimidated at all in virtually any situation in life, but then I put myself in the shoes of other ordinary people like me and can imagine how they WOULD get intimidated. The only thing that makes me 'extra'ordinary is the fact that I engage myself in issues every other ordinary folk needs answers to. For instance, people complain about the increasing population of stray animals......I visit the local SPCA, listen to them, see what I can do; visit the Director General of Vet Services, listen to him and suggest projects which require community-involvement. I have no specific agenda in anything I do - I'm just involved and engaged because I'm the average citizen. I just gather information and I have a right to be a Gatherer even if we've evolved past the Hunter-Gatherer phase of human evolution.

The academics are at fault.

A few weeks ago, I got an SMS to attend this WORLD POETRY DAY organized by WOU in conjunction with Penang's award as a WHD. I went during my lunchbreak and found out there was a program I had missed out half already. I had seen the announcement in a small column in the newspaper, but no mention of a programme. Calculating the cost of organizing such an event, I felt the 'reach' was really not something to shout about. It appears that all the events organized by academic institutions only reach the "inner circle", their own friends and the academic staff themselves making up the audience.

It made me wonder whether I would even have known at all about the event if not for the fact that my friend's father was launching his book and doing a recitation that day. And it was my friend's mom who had sent me the SMS.

As a marketing person at heart, I find the idea of a lack of publicity and layering to create awareness in events like these mind-boggling. But maybe I'm on the wrong page. Maybe all these programmes are not for lay-people like me. They are only for intellectuals, academics and their inner-circle. They are only for people who have, one way or another, a direct involvement in it, be it selling a product or presenting a paper to add to their resume.

On the other hand, I realize this situation is specific to White-thinking people. What I mean by White-thinking are people who have been educated in the Western way of thinking. I realized this when I saw a book tour organized by the DJZ for Malaysian Chinese poets. These young poets were willing to sacrifice time and effort and their pride and approach all kinds of bodies to help them promote their work to the people they want to reach. They ask alumnis, associations, etc to market their books. This is also true for literature published about schooling and learning problems. I offered parents my friend's book on Learning, "Learning Beyond Schooling" and one told me her sister-in-law had given her a similar book in Chinese.

I notice this also in the arts scene. I've seen Chinese-ed students organizing small performances, sometimes doing it for free. They come together, create props, find avenues, use their own money if necessary, if they want to stage competitions or shows. If they want to make films, they write their script, convince their friends to act or put the word out to get financing, help or talents to collaborate on. If they want to write books and publish poetry, they work two jobs and write on their free time. They dedicate themselves to building online network communities they can use for free. They galvanise resources through networking. They are never too proud to doubt themselves.

We can argue that the Chinese-ed community has done little to mitigate the problems in Chinese schools. But that wasn't the point I was making. The reason why the DJZ cannot resolve the problem is because their agenda is not always 'education' and the future of Chinese students. There is also no money to create a research and dissemination department who can distill the tons of information published in English and creatively customizing the information to meet the needs of the Chinese-school population. Yes, one has to be an insider to realize all these things. I do not expect non-Chinese ed people to understand the implications of the Chinese-school education system. The Western approach of research, design and implementation is not necessarily the benchmark that MUST also be adopted by the Chinese-ed people. To them, problems should be solved arbitrarily.....it's about giving face to people not telling their supporters, Teachers and School Heads how to better do their job with 'the better way of doing things according to Western research.'

A few days ago, I attended a talk at Georgetown College given by Nick Wreden, a Branding Guru who is now consultant for Tourism Malaysia and a host of other projects. Judging from his portfolio of Malaysian projects, I'd say he walks his talks because those are the only projects that has visibility and integrity in the eyes of Malaysians. And because of these two factors, Malaysians are more likely to lend support because they know how to demand accountability on those projects.

In a separate blog written before I attended the talk, I had said that apart from the obvious downloading of info from the brains of a Guru, I wanted to know what type of people would attend and what their responses say about where Penang folk are at in the entire scheme of things. I had expected my acquaintances, the organizers of the I LOVE PENANG brand concept and owners from several 'branding' agencies I know of in Penang, to attend. I don't know them well enough to spring them an SMS about it. As a neutral party, I just needed to know the reach talks like the one I had attended as part of Georgetown College's lecture series, had on the people of Penang.

As has been the case, it is the same faces in town-hall meetings and Sunday events, people who know people who know people. This is in contrast to the talks given by academics but organized by non-academics. Earlier this year, I wrote an article on Autonomous Learning after attending a talk given by Emeritus Prof. G.Confessor of the School of Education, George Washington University. There were about 50 walk-ins, and the other 10 were people who were part of the organizer's inner-circle. This was the FIRST TIME the organizers were inviting a guest speaker, the other 2 times, the organizers themselves were the speakers. They had no funding so they had to rent a premises and charge RM30 per person for refreshments.

Maybe it's just me but it always seems like laypeople, who are willing to sacrifice time and money, are not informed about information that can change their lives unless they are 'paid members' of a club or some faculty. No one wants to be a paid-member of anything unless they already have friends in there who form the "inner-circle". It is intimidating to invite ourselves into other people's inner circle, not that it's even my desire. Whose fault is it that the mine academics sit on hardly benefits the target audience that will CREATE MOMENTUM, TAKE ACTION and UTILISE it?

The Academic Divide

When reading literature in the ESL field, I am often amazed at the tonnes and tonnes of well-researched papers, publications and presentations which address the different issues of language and learning, across the different ages. And then I look at what's happening in schools and language centres and am equally amazed that information doesn't trickle down to the people who need it the most - the decision makers and the end-users. In this case, parents and students...sometimes even teachers themselves.

It's bad enough that practitioners are not aware of or have internalised knowledge published anywhere between 50 to 150 years ago (about learning and about ESL acquisition.) But what's even worse is that billions of dollars is being spent on systems that fail 90% of the time. You might want to check out a comment a reader posted on my other blog which introduced the message of a UN interpreter on the issue of English as the international lingua franca.

I thought this issue was specific to the field of English language learning in Malaysia, because, we are, afterall famous for our lack of initiative and innovativeness in approaching and dealing with problems before they literally landslide and kill us all. But after 2-3 more years of observations, I realized it's not a Malaysian problem; it's a systematic failure that requires a degree in anthropology to begin to understand. (metaphorically speaking.) Barking at the government and lack of direction in Science/Math in English is literally barking up the wrong tree. By the time Malaysians figure out what is what, they will finally accumulate enough second-hand information, case-studies from other systems, to solve a problem which has become irrelevant by then!

This blog isn't about the problems of English language learning in Malaysia. I've written extensively about that in the last five years and the issue has become something of a dead horse to me. I've begun to see that this failure to get the freshest research to the people who need it NOW to do something about it FOR THE FUTURE transcends all disciplines! Back when I was a college student, I thought it was insane that people were studying IT when by the third year of their study, whatever they had studied in their first year had become obsolete. I was particularly aware of this phenomenon because the founder of the college I was attending made it his selling-proposition that he was preparing students who were industry-ready....meaning, the curriculum and teaching were designed to prepare a mindset suited for 10 years ahead. At a time when my other friends still did not know how to use email and the PC to present coloured charts, graphs, images in their projects, we were learning about DTP, computer networking - and using Apple Mac!

Whether I was already someone who could always see the future based on today's information and could extrapolate from my surroundings the message by leaders in their respective industry or it was a by-product of attending that particular college, I can't be certain. But it's starting to get very scary that 15 years after college, the idea of planning ahead based on information from NOW, not the PAST still hadn't caught on!

So, for a while, I blamed academics for not taking it upon themselves to reach the mass audience. This is absolutely critical at a point when information is doubling at an exponential rate; they may no longer have the luxury of publishing a paper once every 5 years because, unless they're incredibly visionary, whatever they had wanted to say in passive sentences would've become ineffective by the time the paper is published and reaches the mass. A book or paper that's published, say, in 2000 would probably only achieve momentum by 2004-2005, taking into consideration, distribution and time to create awareness of the theory being presented.

Caveat Emptor

This particular place which I have been renting for the last 2 years is a complete rip-off. My instincts had told me something was off. I bumped into her when I came to view the property. She had come by to pick up a few more things and I asked why she wanted to move out only after 4 months of renting the place. She exchanged glances with the real-estate agent and owner and then kept mum. They had spent a significant amount renovating the place and yet decided to leave it.

Since it was my first time doing business, I was a little naive. Being a schoolteacher, I am certain real-estate agents prey on such naivete. I came from a background that believed in the virtues of honour, truth and transparancy. I had no idea that people can outright lie to your face and agents do not have your interest at heart, no matter how friendly and amicable they appear.

In my two years here, I've had endless problems with the place. The heat from the afternoon sun made the whole place unbearable, even with air-conds on full blast. To keep this place even tolerable, your electricity bill would have to be over RM500 per month. The water pressure is low. Water seeps in through the walls during heavy dowpour causing mold to form behind the walls and ceiling plaster. This causes allergic reactions like itchy eyes and sneezing.

Either side of the unit faces the afternoon sun until dusk. Best of all, there is the view of the Mt.Erskine cemetery. A perfect view of broken tombs and overgrown grass. Directly below the unit is an old, dirty market with an even older, dirtier dilapidated house on the grounds. The market is a breeding ground for rats and the rat population outnumber the cat population!

I keep two cats to keep at bay the roaches and lizards that seem to crawl in for shelter during rainstorms. My cats are not only excellent hunters but they never make a mess themselves! People should consider the fact that when renting near any market or food outlets, there is a very high chance of rodent or other infestations unless they maintain world-class hygiene and waste disposal operation standards.

The lift is broken and the staircase is littered with cigarette butts and bird droppings. The banister is covered with rust and bird droppings as well.

The worst part is, there are break-ins within this building every year. I'm pretty worried it's just a matter of time before I'm hit. Just this Chinese New Year, the unit upstairs was broken into and their safe carted down halfway before the weight of the thing made them abandon the loot!

No, actually, that isnt' the worst part. The worst part is there are beggars or 'thief-agents' who knock violently on your door until you open it. They pretend to ask what business you're doing but actually scouting to see whether your business carries cash and how many people work there. This makes it extremely difficult for other businesses which depend frequently on walk-ins unless they have a team of 6-8 people who are always indoors. For sales and marketing companies where their executives frequently are in the field, leaving only one or two office girls behind, this can be dangerous.

If I had insisted on talking to the previous tenant privately, I would have found all this out. Unfortunately, I gave the landlady and the agents the benefit of the doubt. Managament of the building is almost non-existent. Parking spaces are frequently taken up by non-tenants who go to the market or are clients who refuse to pay for an hour's parking on the municipal lot.

When visiting tenants ask me about the place, I just share my experience. Caveat Emptor. Obviously, the agents are not happy! They told the landlady to tell me to not reveal anything otherwise the place would not be rented out.

I suppose they don't care, that in these hard economic times, any investment in a new company set-up is a real cost to tenants who will only be able to recuperate over 12 months down the road. They don't care about people like the previous tenant who plunked in $16,000 for renovations and a total of RM5,000 in rent and not to mention, another how many more thousands in salaries and taxes.......before deciding not to hold on to a sinking boat 4 months later. The landlady said, "You'd better not tell them anything about your experience here otherwise I wouldn't be able to rent it out". I asked if she had ever considered the complaints I had told her about and whether it would also affect the next tenant. In verbatim (Hokkien) she replied, "Lu-eh su lah. Lu sign contract liao si lu-eh su." She then said,"Then it becomes their problem after they sign the contract. I just want to rent it out." See, after you sign the contract, even if it was not in good faith.......you would have to forfeit the 2 months' deposit and wait a couple of months more before she may or may not refund you the utility deposit. She would only pay you back the deposit on the account that she finds a tenant before you move out.

Of course, I am very angry at myself because I had very much wanted to move out in the first 10 months. Fortunately for me, I could rely on personal charm and very strong networking (ah-hem) to remain profitable.

I think it is imperative that property owners are responsible towards the well-being of their tenants and to provide transparent, honest and quality information and service to help businesses grow. Since no one believes in that philosophy, I have decided that I will venture into real-estate to give everyone else a run for the money. Instead of complaining, I'm going to to create a new niche which will wipe predatory real-estate practices off the map of Penang.

The days of dishonest property owners and real-estate agents are numbered. The only way to solve the problem is not to complain to authorities to take action but to provide a business model they cannot possibly compete with.

Is there a road-sign to Freedom

When I was younger, I too wondered what were the things I was supposed to question since Buddha said we have to question everything. To question for the sake of questioning often leads to more suffering. To question from a conclusion is not to question much at all. If I have concluded that my life is miserable and I am so unwanted, to question why has life dealt me such cards and why I have been so unfairly rejected brings upon itself a new chapter of self-perpetuated suffering. That is not the questioning in mind.

If I were suffering and if my life was the epitome of a reject, my question should've been "How does society come up with their meaning of what constitutes rejection?". I think the only way one can do that is to remain impersonal to the external things that happens to one. So often we form our thoughts and conclusions from things that happened to us, things we experienced. In other words, we form our thoughts and conclusions - new layers - upon our reaction to external thoughts and behaviours that crossed our paths. Those external thoughts and behaviours are the collective conclusions of third parties.

If it seems unrealistic to not be affected by and to create experiences, thoughts, which lead to actions and consequences which react to those external things, it is nothing more than a reluctance to claim stewardship and autonomy of our journey towards transcendence. This reluctance to accept the possibility of personal autonomy towards Truth is again a manifestation of layers.

Sometimes there are so many layers that you don't even know which is the layer and which is not. Everything requires justifications and kicking oneself into overdrive through overthinking. If acceptance of an autonomy towards one's reactions to life is a false thinking, why then do we have an incessant yearning for 'freedom'? This freedom you call out is autonomy. You cannot have any form of freedom if you're still willing to be shackled to the web that was spun by your automatic reactions to external systems, thoughts, concepts, actions.

Freedom is not anarchy. If it crossed your mind that the idea of total, complete freedom is a fantasy and if it crossed your mind that if everyone were allowed to do as they pleased, we would be plunged into chaos - then you are still shackled. You cannot argue that the sort of freedom complete personal autonomy brings is a destructive one if you are still defininng it within the walls of your own spiritual imprisonment. Prisoners have come to accept that escape is not possible because it would mean a destruction of the prison guards, the prison walls and possibly the sacrifice of the life as they know it. Some prisoners have even resigned themselves to this fate. Now, this is merely an analogy. I am not asking anyone to do a Wenworth Miller.

You cannot know and you cannot make any informed opinion what freedom is until you are free. You cannot make conclusions and talk about what's good or bad about it until you've experienced it. You cannot ride the idea so far without first experiencing it.

There are layers upon layers upon layers. We want all the answers all at once but the answers are not at the back of the book. Truth is something you've got to work at one bit at a time. The less layers we collect, the easier it is to let Truth reacquaint itself with us, help us identify one layer a time, stay still enough to not accumulate more layers but to let a little by little shed.

My misadventures into Advertising

My relationship with advertising and branding has some parallels with my relationship to learning and schooling. In my blogs on schooling and learning, I have made it very clear that I was a person who struggled and suffered considerably under a compulsory 11 years of schooling. That happened because I had an idea of what learning and education should be and schooling not only frustrated my personal development but damaged my goodwill towards the idea of helping people learn.

My relationship to branding and advertising, thankfully, did not last 11 years and I did not suffer the same emasculation of enthusiasm from it. I withdrew from the path early enough before the delusions of 'career advancement' and the dependence on a 'salary' and 'a particular lifestyle' weakened my reserve. But in both instances, schooling and advertising, I entered full of hopes and ideas and philosophies, thirsting to learn and grow so I can add more value to people's lives. But in both, I found that the players were more interested in what they want to hear, say and do than to create value for others. In both, their own idea of their own importance, 'abillity', seniority or ability to suck-up to whoever to get the next bonus/promotion seemed to trump the importance of putting their ears to the ground, understanding and delivering the goods.

But my experience in both schooling for a diploma and schooling to learn about advertising wasn't for nought. My favourite part of school was learning languages and my favourite part of LICT was the psychological aspects of branding and consumer behaviour. Both were about how people perceive the world and then express themselves based on the messages and symbolisms they received. Like language expression, consumer behaviour isn't android behaviour. The belief of both advertisers and researchers that consumers will react and behave in highly predictable ways year in and year out is highly flawed, just as the Skinner-Pavlovian school of thought about language learning is. It might take decades for the people vested in these industries to take notice but it's harder to change a person than it is to replace them with someone else. In other words, by the time 'archaic' teachers and advertising people turn around, they would be rendered null and void. Not only is information doubling at a faster rate than any other time in human history, it is my opinion that teachers and advertising people are too into themselves to want to accept learning and change.

Advertising people and teachers want to position and re-brand everyone else, but themselves. Schoolchildren resist the indoctrination happening in school and consumers' resistance to (sometimes, distaste for) traditional advertising messages is getting to the same level. Many people experienced schooling as a dumbing down process; many consumers feel the same way when coming across most ads these days. It's no longer just 'dissonance' consumers feel, it's outright disassociation with a brand.

When I was a freshman in college, I chose one of my assignments on the topic of "How Effective is Advertising." I remember I was the only one in class who did not advocate the merits of advertising. Everyone else was going the way of what the textbook says - you know, 4Ps, creating awareness, image, etc. My classmates were horrified at the stand I was taking and the way I chose to respond to the question of whether advertising is necessary to creating astronomical sales. They were horrified at me because, here we are paying top dollar to take a course in advertising and, I was saying Advertising is not necessary. I had chosen the brand CLAIROL to illustrate my points and tell my 'story' as 'the target audience they missed by a mile and a day.'

That assignment was to be marked by one of the leading women execs in the industry then. To the rest of my classmates, I was marking my own advertising-wannabe grave; I'd never get a job in an industry that requires its workers to BELIEVE that advertising WORKS because our salaries and advancement in the trappings of life DEPEND on that to happen!

I got an A+ and my lecturer, this really awesome lady (married to a Mat Salleh, hint hint)asked the class to applaud the essay that no one else would write. I wouldn't want to speculate, but I think her approving of my stand against advertising being the 'King' of branding efforts might have something to do with her withdrawal from the industry just a few years later. I had prepared myself to get an 'F' for my paper if my lecturer had thought I was being so stupid for coming to advertising college just to say advertising isn't King.

Word got around soon after that I was the first person who had gotten an A+ from that particular lecturer and for a good 7 minutes, I had a reputation of being the slacker from Penang who outdid the kids from the big city. I had two minutes of glory of being 'intellectually respectable.'

We know the cliche that those who do well on school papers and exams don't always do as well in real life. That was very true for me. A few years after that A+ paper, I spent a total of 6 months in various advertising agencies as a copywriter before realizing how contrived the whole thing was. I know people are bound to say I'm stupid for writing for free (blogging) now but what's dumber is writing something that totally isn't you for a client that has no vision of what they want. Granted, it's the agency's 'job' to 'create' a 'vision' and paint consumers a rosy picture of the values the company's brand represents. In the advertising world, that's called being a gifted spin-doctor; if the Halo Effect follows, you get a promotion or bonus or both. If the dominos don't fall on cue, you're fired. - But if you try pulling that same spin in all other industries of 'real life' you could get sued for false representation or arrested by the Securities Commission for misleading information. The Consumers Association of Penang has a container(trailer) load of articles on this, so you know.

I could lie to myself and work harder than 20 hours a day to be in line for a ticket to the 'Emerald City', but I had one currency that couldn't be traded for Ringgit. I could not live with myself for being part of a team of spindoctors lying to the average Joe for "mindshare". The tough part about believing in a definite unravelling is that everyone thinks we're insane to give up something promising. I've written a blog recently about how people frame their future based on their past experiences and then base all their other observations and choices on that illussion. I still believe to this day that those people who thought 'advertising was a promising avenue' for me framed their expectations from the big bonuses and maverick appeal of larger-than-life copywriters of the 80s and early 90s - a bygone era where the kopi-writer was a romanticized icon of "the new creative workforce". Since 1999 and the years that followed, I had found it difficult to lie about what I studied for and did for a living; I dare not say I'm a copywriter because I know the image it conjures in people's minds and it was not an image I believed to be valid nor has significance. It's not that I'm completely ashamed of my naivete for choosing to study advertising instead of, say, journalism at Brown University or Law at Harvard....hahah, as if! But it appeared to me as if the market is so desperate for someone who can proofread, write copy and edit 'releases' that any one who 'has some kind of writing experience' gets offered a job.

Advertising has one big flaw : the belief that assembling a motley crew (someone to give creative direction, a designer, a copywriter, a sales face with a short skirt, a fallguy and an errand boy) could somehow outdo the best research in sociology, anthropology,psychiatry,logotherapy, economics, etc to come up with the answer of how to elicit a desired set of behaviour/response from the general populace. I can hear the argument that beauty advertisements 'succeeded' in making women feel insecure about themselves but who's to say whether the chicken or egg came first? I could easily say that advertising did the bidding of astute entrepreneurs who understood the hidden insecurities of women in certain societies. The entrepreneur wrote the score and arranged the symphony, the ad-agencies just played the tune for the audience.

I respect humanity too much (in general) to see them that way, as if they are like anemone that sway to the "Creative Wave" The Team created. The truth is, sooner or later, young 'advertising wannabes' grow up and realize they need meaning in order to have a fulfilling life. Being part of a team of spin-doctors, living in a world that cares about nothing else but the client's and their own bottom lines and awards, young people grow out of the neediness for approval and become weary of the glitter that isn't gold. I feel guilty in a way for not writing this 10 years earlier because I recently heard that a distant cousin of mine isn't doing so well in life after going to the same college I did and working herself to a frenzy in an industry known for not having night or day. I don't know her well enough to tell her anything about the choices and philosophies she builds her life from. I can just hope that it wasn't my aunt who opened her big mouth years ago about how fantastic my college was going for me, prompting other people to buy into the illussion those full page black-and-white ads conjure. Because I know of at least 3 other people my aunt could've talked to whose children ended up in that particular college. The Hair might've been pretty pleased with himself for 'realizing' his dream of setting up a world-class institution but I really don't think it was the advertising that was working. Whether he realized it or not, whether it was a factor he had manufactured or a coincidence, it was his ability to enter the market at the right time, when Gen-X-ers were looking for other choices other than Law, Medicine, Engineering and Business. He had the good fortune of attracting the most radical, creative, affluent children to accept the old bungalow and 'metal' containers as 'classrooms'. Looking at the new campus now, no one could've ever believed that classes were once conducted in rectangular, industry-standard trailers and in a building which creaks with every step you take.

Am I cheap?

I feel sorry for my daughter sometimes - from the point of view of a child, I'm sending mixed messages. See, we were out 'furniture browsing' (for me) to get some ideas about my new office which I'm hoping to be able to move to by July. I didn't see any sofas I liked until I saw this particular one at arredo, the right height, design, fabric design, material ......and best of all, price. I have a particular design in mind and this was pretty close. The other choices available seemed to either make it look like someone's living room, lawyer's SOHO or cosmetic surgeon's waiting room. (Of which, you should know by now, I'm neither.)

So there I was sofa-scouting when I saw this couple who was giving the salesgirl a really hard time, kicking one particular sofa in a gesture of how little it's worth, saying it's an old display model from 4 years ago (Wow, they've been eyeing and tracking the movement of one particular sofa for 4 years?). The particular piece was already on sale price, from a high of $5,000 to the $2,000+ range. A part of me giggled, because I remember my brief experience with selling; customers like giving you a hard time. I think customers do that not because they're mean people, they just want YOU to solve for them all the doubts they have. They're just waiting for YOU to give them the excuse to buy, not personalising an attack against your job as a salesperson. Well, suffice to say, this is Penang, and Penang people are known to be shrewd in their financial transactions.

Anywho, I felt it was funny to (1) eye furniture for years, which proves you want it and then (2) acting like you really don't want it. I understand the psychology that you're supposed to act like you're not so into something, to tarik harga...but......

Then it occured to me that I do the same thing, with different products. Does that make me cheap too? There are certain things I never ask for a discount, things which add beauty and value in my life. I would never want to insult a designer or artist by asking for a discount on a piece of tailoring or art/photo or a discount on a haircut! I wouldn't go for a haircut at the cheapest place I could find. And if I'm quite happy and my neck isn't cramping by the time the hair-person is done, I think it's fair to leave a tip amounting to 20%, or at least, 10% of the price.

I don't think that means I'm 'trying to act like I'm rich'. There was this incident about 5 years ago at a birthday party for a friend's child. I had had a really great haircut which came with added-extras that provided that look and was complimented on it. Naturally, people ask me where I had my hair done and how much it was, so I said I had it done when I was on holiday in KL a few days before and it was about RM400 overall. I felt it was great value for money because I've never felt like a million bucks until that day. To spend RM400 and feel like a million bucks is a bargain, don't you think? (Especially if that's the day you were going to meet up with an ex-boyfriend and he goes,"WOW! Can I touch your hair!!" I thought that was pretty awesome.)

I didn't see it coming but I was attacked by the 3-4 Mdm.s sitting around me. The one who led the attack made sure everyone agreed with her how stupid I was to pay for getting my hair done of all places in Megamall. Her list of question included, "Were you aware of the price before you asked for a cut?"

"Yes, they have their list on the glass window"

"And did you ask for the extras?"

"Well,the guy convinced me with what he could do for my head shape, face shape, hair texture, the length I wanted, ..........and I agreed to the price."

"So, you allowed him to add one when you just wanted a haircut?"

"Yes, because that's why I pay for haircuts...coz these people are trained to know better than me what would look better on me. I don't even look at fashion magazines and I have completely no sense of style."

"So, what if you didn't have that amount of money in your wallet?"

"Errr....I think big salons in KL malls take card."

"But what if you were already overdrawn on your card?"

.....errr, in general I don't make it a habit to go to malls if my cards are overdrawn....in which case, I would have to tell the dude before he starts the extras that he's going to have to trust me to go down to the cash machine while the chemicals set in. Or...I could call my friend to come by and pay first, coz I was going to meet him for lunch,...errr"

I had no idea where the conversation was supposed to go. It's just a really nice haircut but I was getting a sort of lesson on frugality and multiple-choice questions about how I would pay for it. It didn't make sense because no one would ever go for something they don't think they can afford, or at least that's how I think when I was in my late 20s.

It wasn't until a good 4 years later that I understood where that all was coming from. After the incident, I never got invited by any of the Mdm.s anywhere, and these were people who had known me since I was a schoolgirl living on the same street. I found out from another friend who herself had chosen to disassociate from that group - apparently, these people were so deep in credit card debt they were borrowing six-figures from her or face declaring bankruptcy and running out of the country to escape loan-sharks. They weren't really talking to me, they were talking to what they thought was a version of themself who dug their own debt-ridden grave.

It took a few years to come out of my 'financial naivete' but I realized something now; people who hate other people for having money are people who have none. They want to punish other people who have cashflow because they don't and insulting is one way of doing that. They want to give salespeople and hairstylists a hard time because they are unwilling to part with their cash. They are unwilling to part with their cash because they have been smarter at spending than earning and completely incapable of leveraging their debt, allowing bad debt to snowball and control them instead.