TimothyTiah.com

I just got back from Manila after spending a whole week there. Most of my time was spent with Ming and the 4 other Nuffies we brought along for the management training program.

We spent our days in the training program and we spent our nights recapping everything we learned and strategizing how to apply it to our company.

Thursday night though was a night we all decided to take off and go find the Nuffies at Nuffnang Philippines. The hotel we were staying was just 5 minutes walk away from our Nuffnang Philippines office at the Fort Bonifacio. So we walked over there.

When we got there it was 7PM and all the Nuffies were all still hard at work.

Someone asked me just a few days before how many Nuffies we had in Nuffnang Philippines. At first I thought it was just 8 but that day I realized there were actually 17 Nuffies already at work there. One thing we all love in our offices all over are snacks. So Nuffnang Philippines had their own home-made vending machine that “dispensed” chips.

It was a joke of course. The chips below can be taken out for free. I don’t even know what happens when you put the money at the top or who collects it. All I could see was that it was written on the “machine” that “Honesty is golden, so honesty system please”.

After hanging out in the office for a while we hauled for dinner. The Filipino Nuffies took us for dinner at a rooftop bar called Skye. It seems almost every city in the world now has a rooftop bar called “Sky” or some variation of that.

Here are some pictures we took that night.

This is Anne. I’ve known Anne for 3 years. She was one of the early account execs that we hired at the company.

and… here’s Elise, Mimi, Jel and me

Me and Trixie.

Trixie is one of the people I know who seem to love alcohol more than she does water.  Last year when we had our Nuffies Christmas Dinner she got so drunk we had to carry her home and she ended up missing her flight back to Manila the next day.

The Nuffies in Philippines are all a fun bunch and that’s what I kinda love about our company. Everywhere I go I see Nuffies from different backgrounds and different countries that share the same culture.

Everyone in the Philippines seems really optimistic now about their economy and how their country is growing. There is development everywhere and a growing middle class of very well educated people. My favourite part about the Philippines though is the Nuffies we have there

HELLO MANILA!

Yes I’m back in the Philippines again. This time for a management training course.

Ming and I have been facing new challenges this year. In the past year, our company has grown significantly to some 120 or so staff from our 7 offices in 7 countries. Growing is fun and something we never take for granted. That being said, it comes with its own set of “growing pains”. As a company grows, the entrepreneurs need to put in a strong command & control and reporting structure so we can better maneuver the company to new heights.

It was fun when we were a 20 man startup. But when you have over 100 employees, middle managers and lots of departments in between it’s a challenge to make sure that everyone shares the same culture, vision and is able to work efficiently past the necessary structure we have to put in.

That’s what Ming and I, and 4 other Nuffies are here in the Philippines to do. To learn.

We’re attending a 4 day training session by speakers from the USA on a course that was based from MIT. The other participants here are entrepreneurs from all sorts of different companies in various industries all over the world. One of the guys we met here was the boss of an air-con contractor in Australia that brings in revenues of some RM500 million a year.

That’s huge!

The course was expensive though. Costing us almost RM30K but it’s only the first of many investment Ming and I know we have to make to improve ourselves to better run the company. We’re all working really hard. Our sessions in the morning start at 8AM and last the whole day. After that we have dinner and then our team meets up every night to see how we can apply whatever we learned into our company. So that we don’t forget everything we learn too quick.

So I’ve been really busy. So busy that I just realized I don’t even have any pictures of myself with anyone at the conference. I did manage to grab a few of the event though…. conscious that I was going to blog sooner or later.

In between all these meetings and courses I have to find time to clear all my emails and manage whatever other daily business we have to do so forgive me if my updates have been a bit lacking. I’m with you at heart

Now I need to finish clearing my emails and then go for our discussion tonight. Have a great 2nd half of the week everyone!

PS: Guess who I met on the plane to Manila. Our Bank Negara governor Zeti. I saw her sitting at the front row when I walked into the plane. I leaned in and said “Hello Governor!” with a shy smile Kinda felt a little starstruck. She nodded and smiled back at me

Today was Bersih 3.0, the 3rd installment by a coalition campaigning for free and fair elections in Malaysia. Bersih is NOT about political party. It’s not a gathering to promote PR or BN, (In fact MCA Kelana division committee member Lee Hwa Beng was spotted at Bersih 3.0 according to Malaysiakini and it was made clear that no MCA members were barred from attending the protest.)

It’s a protest in an effort to fight for clean and fair elections.

When Bersih 2.0 happened, I was on my Hong Kong business trip.

I remember being glued to Twitter, reading the constant tweets about the event. I felt lousy about myself for not attending it. So this year Shorty and I decided to attend it. When I told my Dad that I was going to go, he called me every day persuading me not to. Not that he didn’t believe in Bersih’s cause, but that he feared for my safety as any father would. He was even going to be down in KL that weekend and I suspected that he was going to stop me from going if I tried walking out of the house. I was torn about going. Fighting between my desire to go and my respect for my father

Last night while attending a dinner meet in Bangkok with my Thai business partners, I decided to go. I called Shorty and told her that I was scheduled to fly back Saturday morning and we can go straight from LCCT after she picked me up. I told her to bring salt and 2 bottles of water for us. I told her though, not to tell anyone else because I didn’t want my father to know and worry.

Then this morning I woke up and went to Bangkok’s airport to take a flight back only. I was excited. All pumped from reading the tweets.

When I reached my departure gate though I realized that the Air Asia plane that was supposed to take me back wasn’t even there. They said the flight was going to be delayed for 2 hours and that drove me crazy. I wouldn’t be able to make it then. I read tweets that said the sit-down protest was supposed to be 2-4PM. So instead of reaching KLIA at 1PM, I would reach at 3PM. If my previous timing was cutting it close, with the 2 hour delay I wasn’t going to make it for sure.

When I touched down at LCCT, I called my friends who were at Bersih and asked if it was too late. They told me that the riot police had just shot tear gas into the crowd and the crowd was dispersing.

I rushed over from LCCT but by the time I had reached the city, I could see the crowd, dressed in yellow walking home. To me, they looked like war heroes who had just fought a fight.

Today I once again let my other fellow Malaysians risk their safety to fight for my rights as a voter. To these Malaysians I say Thank you.

Thank you for fighting for me… and my children. One day, I will fight for you and your children.