Time for WCOA2010 to Tweet

The World Congress of Accountants 2010 (WCOA2010) will be held in Kuala Lumpur from 8 untill 11 November 2010 (http://www.wcoa2010kualalumpur.com/). With less than 2 months to go, promoting this event worldwide is getting more critical.

The use of social networks as a mode of communication should not be discounted. Facebook and Twitter are fast becoming a way of life, even among senior accountants who are perceived to have square faces and boring personalities. Somehow, WCOA2010 seems not have embarked on these platform.





Let me make few suggestions:

•  WCOA2010 could open a Twitter account perhaps with the obvious name of wcoa2010
• Promote the tag of #wcoa2010 among Twitter users
• Use existing content from the WCOA2010 website to start twitting using the tag #wcoa2010
• Encourage sponsors of WCOA2010 to tweet about the event (All Gold sponsors - ACCA, CPA Australia, CIMA - are using Twitter) using the tag #wcoa2010
• Encourage speakers to start tweeting regarding their topics and use the tag #wcoa2010
• Encourage all accountants to discuss about WCOA2010 using the tag #wcoa2010
• Obtain IFAC assistance in encouraging its members to tweet regarding WCOA2010 using the tag #wcoa2010

The use of Twitter will not cost the organiser much (cost is always an issue among accountants) as the value created will be significantly higher! Just imagine if Twitter results in 10 new registration, it is an additional USD 10,000 to the organiser!

Looking forward to engaging WCOA2010 on Twitter. In fact I have started twitting #wcoa2010

Many Many Malaysians

A mayor of an Australian city (not a Caucasian) was asked what is the meaning of Australia Day to him. He answered "Its another holiday".

Some of us may have similar feeling while enjoying another public holiday in Malaysia, the Malaysia Day. This holiday was only introduced last year, around 46 years after the formulation of Malaysia, a federation of Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, plus and then minus Singapore. As the saying goes, better late than never.

It is quite funny though that when we are asked about who we are when we are overseas, most without hesitation will proudly proclaim that we are Malaysians. Try the same question where we are in Malaysia, the answer starts to differ, Malays, Chinese, Indians and Others. Others?

At least for myself, I feel more Malaysian in Sabah and Sarawak, the land of "others" to those who originate from Malaya. So far I never feel any racial or religious concern when I visited Kota Kinabalu or Kuching. Perhaps my visits were too short to enable me to feel the real dynamics on the ground. Nevertheless, the simple people of Sabah and Sarawak reflects more Malaysian characters the what we do in Malaya. Yes, there is one exception, we need to bring our passport to enter Sabah and Sarawak although Mycard is also accepted now.

To me, Malaysia is at the crossroad in many dimensions.

Economically, we are transiting into a more developed, knowledge-based economy. Slowly, what you know and what you are capable of are becoming more important that who you know. I cannot deny that who knows what you and and capable of is also important. Interestingly, many argued that they have been involved in knowledge-based economy for many decades already. "I know this person and that person, that's how I got my contracts!".

Socially, we are struggling to define who we are. Isn't it ironic that after more than 50 years of independence, we are struggling to answer the simple question of "Who are you?" Some feel that the colour of the skin matters while others care more about the quality of the brain and how much the brain could create value to the society and mankind. 

So today is a great day to reflect the future of this country and consider what we could do as Malaysians to turn it into a greater country. We need to walk the talk and actions matter more than anything else.

One fact that I am sure that you will agree with me, there is only one Malaysia but there are many many Malaysians.

Connected without computer

The Hari Raya season this year is the first time where I did have my laptop with me when going back to Kota Bharu. Nevertheless I was still able to be connected to the Net, thanks to my iPhone and Blackberry.

Staying connected while on the move is very important, especially if one wishes to be updated with what is happenning worldwide. Those who are addicted to social networks, having no access to sites such as Facebook would make them fell restless. Furhermore, social networks is transforming from a platform to socialise into communication platform. Some breaking news are reported first on these sites.

As communication tools are becoming more advance, access to the Net is possible from other gadgets other than the traditional PC and laptops. Smartphones are becoming convenient access points. My iPhone is definitely useful as it provides interface which is not that much different from larger computers. My Blackberry ensures I receive my office mails and able to respond on timely manner. Have two tools enable me differentiate between what is work and what is personal.

So far so good, I was connected most of the time and sometimes were able to share breaking news with other family members before they were reported on tv. Looking forward to try other tools such as iPad next time.

We are not alone

Lost the whole of my contact details last week when I wanted to synchronise my iphone with the laptop at my workplace. Somebody told me about mobileme services from Apple in the past but I never bothered to check it out until the tragedy occurred last week. I signed up for a 2 months free trial service period and so far everything works well. My contacts are now synchronised through the cloud.

Hang on, if information that I keep could be transferred without my intervention, does this mean that it could be breached easily as well? If we consider the episode where some Middle East countries requiring Blackberry to allow their enforcement agencies to access information of users for "security" reasons, does it mean that our private data are not really private at all. The silence of the more sophisticated agencies such as the CIA and MI5 could mean that they have access to these data all the while!

I suppose living in the present world requires us to make trade-offs in many ways. Privacy against security and convenience could be some of the choices. Many people now have accounts on social network platforms such as Facebook. They share a number of stuff including their private data. Some may share their thoughts, views or give comments which may expose themselves to all sort of risk, immediately or very much later.

The more scary scenario is if technology which enables data security to be breached falls into the wrong hands. When intimate information could be transmitted around the globe between servers, some crooks somewhere could also be tapping information which they could use later. This is a possibility which we should not discount. Therefore, we must be mindful of what and where our data is kept and how we share them with people who we are dealing with.

As technology becomes more advance and more services such as mobileme are rolled out, we have to be more alert about the risk of the breach of our private data and need to decide how much risk we are ready to assume.