Free WIFI

I went to Kelana Mall, SS6 for my tea last Monday. I noticed that many cafe there offering the service of free WIFI. Undoubtedly, this is an emerging trend of commercial establishments providing free Internet service to their patrons. We saw shopping malls, coffee shops, food courts, government offices, hotels and even the health centres are doing the same. Some have even started providing the mobile phone battery charging facility for their customers. I believe this trend will further expand to other type of businesses and wider coverage of services, perhaps one day we can see all premises are equipped with free children play area. By doing so, branding is established and customers loyalty is assured. Nowadays, we over heard youngster said going to a XXX Town XXX Coffee for online chit chat.

In selecting my outlets for Internet service at Kelana Mall, I looked for premises offering the best service, ambiance, setting, variety of food and beverage. Only then, I noticed that while some establishments have considered providing free WIFI service an essential facility, some have done so simply because others are doing so without proper planning.

While there are outlets providing power point at every tables, there are outlets without any power point or only have few in a corner. Some outlets only have WIFI access in the open area or seating without cool air whilst few are offering choice at open and enclosed area. There are outlets requesting password for securing the line while some have unsecured service. Perhaps it is a controlling measure to allow access for own customers only. While there are reasons or justification for doing so, I believe under the digital age, customers prefer unlimited access or with limited controlling factors. Any move to restrict access or make accessibility difficult is certainly unwelcome, I presume.

Perhaps for businesses or even government agencies to look into providing Free Digital Services for public in winning their market share and competitive edge, these considerations should not be over looked or else the services will have no value added and remain as a PR jargon.

Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to graveyard is how people describe the roles of local government in dealing with the daily affairs of residents. It is said that from the date of birth, local government will look after one's affair until his last day in this World. It is true in the sense that we spend most of our time to live, study, play, work and leisure in a locality that is managed by the local government. While local government takes care of our living, it does not guarantee sustainable living, I mean personal livelihood in this era of green. Sustainable living is very much a personal life objective. An individual is the one to determine whether you are embracing sustainability or not. Of course, the commitment of other stakeholders will help in making sustainability works. We should aim for cradle to cradle.

The Cradle to Cradle : Remaking The Way We Make Things as promoted by William McDounogh talking about Zero Waste from the beginning until a product's end of pipe. It is no more reduction, but towards waste less from the time resource is used until the product is disposed of. That's mean to minimise the carbon footprint for all actions we have. The many concepts of design for environment, products life cycle analysis, environmental accounting and etc are tools to help us to realise this objective. So, next time when people talk about "Cradle", we should be happy to take note, I presume.

Gated Community

I bought a GPS navigator recently so that going around to new places is made easier. With navigator and latest map, I was able to find new places even for the area that I have not been there before. However, I was lost last week for going to a neighbourhood. I travelled using the direction as shown on the GPS screen and it was clear and precise. Nonetheless, approaching the neighbourhood, I was denied entry because of the closure of the exit by man made barricade. The exit was blocked and locked. I have to turn around to look for entrance that managed by the security personnel and it took me another half an hour to reach to my destination. Perhaps this is one of the disadvantages of advance technology due to the action of mankind. The blockage makes accuracy of GPS in doubt. Perhaps this is the good of gated community, to dis convenient the strangers to a neighbourhood. Perhaps this is also a self help initiative by the residents to combat crime from happening onto themselves or their living environment.

Under the current security and safety concern, gated community is useful at least to minimise the crime perception of people. The community guarded by security personnel is a form of administrative harassment to prevent or slow down crime from happening. It is a solution at least for the communities who can afford it. However, it does not mean that crime will be diminished, but to be shifted elsewhere. The crime busters will shift their attention to the unguarded area. At the end of the day, crime will still happen to the people who cannot afford to hire the security personnel.

By putting the gate for a particular area, we are actually practicing segregation of community, divert from the best practices of planning. For a sustainable community, we plan to integrate people from diverse background, the rich and poor, the young and old. But, the segregation has actually lessen the opportunities for people to interact and mingle around. It is definitely not helping for a 1Malaysia Society.

Perhaps we should look into bigger picture of preventing crime instead of focusing at the neighbourhood area. Crime might also link to social problem, poverty, economic opportunities, trans boundary migration, fairness, justice and etc. Perhaps we should not burning the forest for a tree.

Place Branding

When I read the article entitled "Strong Brands Make A Strong Nation" appeared on The Sun last Wednesday, it reminded me on what I have discussed with my fellow planner friend last Monday over his plan to move back to Malaysia. He has been working in oversea for a planning consultancy firm for the last 15 years. He mentioned about focusing on strategic and master planning as well as place making in Malaysia. We spoke about place making also known as city branding. We agreed that due to globalisation and competitiveness amongst cities for investment and human capital, for a city to go above from others, it needs to be recognised for its' special feature and identity. A city with good image and branding can attract more attention and thus, capital investment and in flow of talents. For instance, Paris as a fashion design city has attracted a lot of talented people. Image is not a jargon and can be created over night through political will. It is a character building by leveraging on existing advantages and values it has either naturally or built.

For example, New York City is known as Big Apple simply not because it has a lot of apple trees. City State of Singapore known for its cleanliness and greenery is a collective effort with years of nurturing. Melbourne as a liveable city is the efforts of getting all stakeholders to work together. Boston known as an educational hub is the gathering of many top universities and colleges. The list can go on and every city manager is searching for their best branding. At the end of the day, it is about economy.

In fact PJ has a lot of uniqueness and features to promote. I am happy to see the opening of Old Town White Coffee Cafe in the Section 1 of PJ, also known as Old Town as this might further promote the place, but sad to say that the so called Old Town is actually referring to the Old Town of Ipoh. We missed an opportunity to promote PJ. Perhaps it is time seriously for soul searching rather than a gimmick talk only. For doing so, greater engagement with stakeholders is important, I mean the original and long enough residents of PJ and not only confine ourselves to the newcomers.

House

The hottest discussion via wireless medium now is the showing of 15Malaysia films in conjunction with the 2009 National Day. It is not entirely because of the late Yasmin Ahmad who showed her true self above the racial line, but rather many new emerging young Malaysian telling the truth about Malaysia with true picture via their perspective and value. They are showing Malaysia through their understanding on human kind, universal value and the many good facet about our community. No such scenes about hate, disharmony, racial remarks, discrimination, injustice and etc. I thought the films are refreshing and should becoming our shared foundation and direction to move on, if we are so hoping to have 1Malaysia.

The movie on "House" is a reflection of how the marginalised have been displaced and sadly, some how did not get enough attention and sympathy from other members of the community. Even, our supposedly intellects do not understand why a kid does not envision of having a big house, but rather a small shelter. Under the name of development, economy and physical aspects have over shadow the need for social and spiritual development. We value the progress and development via GDP and visible material subjects. We might have forgotten that the ultimate aim of development is to make people's quality of life better and people are happy than before. Looking around, people are rushing to work place, small kids are rushing to catch school bus and attendting tuition classes, businesses are chassing the deals and many more. The question is along the chassing process, are we happy than before? If not, then why should we chase after the so call development but lost our happieness?

I think we only need a simple life, and a basic one if all of us can and willing to change our perception on life style. And I believe it is a trend now. For example, health concerned people is talking about organic food might be a good starting point for this to realise. To me, this is sustainable lifestyle.

I hope I can be part of the team.

Happy Merdeka Celebration

Today marks the 52 years of Malaysia freed from colonization. On 31st August 1957, Malaysia (then called Malaya) was declared independence from the British. My generation of post Merdeka (Malay word of Independent) has not seen the struggle by our great grandparents and leaders on claiming independence via peaceful mean. So, sometime we might have not appreciated what our seniors talked about in fighting for independence. We tend to use our own assessment in evaluating what we, Malaysian should be gone through in years to come. I think our generation share universal value of good governance, transparency, justice, accountability, respectful, mutual understanding, hardworking, honest and etc. I believe these are values, if promoted and executed fairly will unite all of us.

1Malaysia as envisioned by our Prime Minister is timely reminder of us that despite with a multiculturalism and ethnic society, we can nurture a society with shared vision and direction. And I believe we can. When we go oversea, we always introduce ourselves to foreigners that we are Malaysian rather than Malay, Chinese or Indian as what we have been calling ourselves in Malaysia. All of us like nasi lemak, choy koay tiew and roti canai, the authentic Asian food we have enjoyed for the past century in Malaysia. We should further enhance the similarities we have.

We must be able to agree to disagree. Happy Merdeka...

Informal Sector's Social Responsibility

I found some food stalls at the Ueno pedestrian shopping area, Tokyo. This is a common scene even in Malaysia, but what interested me is customers either have the food taken away or having there with simple seating. Wondering why, I decided to have a drink at the opposite stall with this grill chicken stall. After a while, I realised customers prefer to have their meal there as finishing the food required rubbish bin for disposal. Since 1962, prior to the Tokyo Olympic Game, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government decided to do away with the rubbish bins on the street and public area. The change of strategy in accordance to the principle of producer responsibility has changed the behaviour of people throwing rubbish in any where. Public has to bring back the rubbish or deposit the rubbish with the businesses. That's explain why customers prefer to have their meal in front of the small stalls, under public scrutiny and sunlight. Since Malaysian is fond with street hawker foods, perhaps we should adopt the same strategy in order to apply the principle of producer responsibility. I believe the hawkers do have social responsibility as the property owners are the one who funded the construction of food courts, part subsidise the maintenance and management of these food courts as well as bearing with pollution generated, if any. Thus, perhaps take back system for hawkers can be tried out.