The Great Reform Forum

 Happy Monday na ka!

From Friday-Sunday, I registered to attend a 3-day forum on 'The Great Reform', organized byt The Standard ka. Learned so much and wish to go back to watch some sessions both I've attended and those I missed ka....see how impressed I was na ka nia!

It's hard to digest all to share but let me give you 3 repeated keywords and several key points for us to know what all sectors have discussed and raised na ka.

The first term that came up in all sessions I listened to is 'mindsets'. Basically, panelists talked about mindsets of leaders in all sectors, especially politics, government agencies, especially those at the national level and businesses who are trillionaires. 

Global mindsets of all must start from day 1 so we move forward not just thinking of our country or even region, but go beyond regional borders to the international community.

Leaders dare to listen and learn, accept what's been key issues in the country and see regulations that don't impede development. 

The second term is 'opportunity' that must be given to help with equality in education and initiatives in businesses.Young gens feel strongly about it and they find they need to be heard and provided with some safe space.

The third is 'collaboration' from within and international, from within and across different sectors. Talent pools should be sought from within and outside the countries.

On some key points, here they are ka:

- Government agencies lost touch with the real world and must be reformed soonest.

- Nepotism, cronyism, patronage systems, and political power are key factors that are hard to eradicate....but can be lessened. Yet, individuals and the haves must be more conscious to have some heightened roles for shared prosperity.

- Seems all have been frustrated about our own administration and progress that don't seem to keep pace with the world's changes and challenges. The term 'Metaverse' is now more common and both Khun Surakiat and Santitarn Sathienthai were using 'Retroverse' to signify quite a few national (political/government agencies) only thinking about the glorious past instead of being future-oriented. 

- Hard to integrate work from different government agencies to serve better as units work in silo, strictly follow outdated regulations and hierarchical steps while some senior leaders of government agencies don't dare to make decisions.How I wish some mentioned corrupt politicians and those who only want to have their 'new policies' announced and publicized.

- Hope seems to come from leading private companies (with some concerns about monopoly) as we have quite a number of companies that have adjusted and we do have our talented gens.

Many to learn ka. Would it be possible to have some national quality virtual forums similar to this that go beyond strict traditional protocols, ridding unnecessary processes of less productive time of opening, taking care of VIPs with fixed seatings, closing, and others?

Storytelling session with a Master

 Good morning ka, everyone.

These days, I've never been on any fixed day to write as I'm getting to be more and more choosy mung ka? Will start writing only when I feel the substance is quite ok to share ka. 

Last night, I attended a one-hour session on Storytelling by Khun Piriya Kulganchanacheewin (He's one key curator for TedTalk for 8 years laew ka!....passionate and skilled...young ka...about 30 years old.)  It was fun, rich with tips and stories, and inspiring ka. 

It all started from Taejai, which is a platform for people to carry out their projects through crowdfunding ka. Nong Ada Chirapaisarnkul who's the Managing Director and her team are systematic in making sure that all projects are well justified with enough support till evaluation at the end.

I spotted one project on 'Class Buddy'.....allowing us to pick one session/workshop to learn from  8 Masters in different areas after our donation of over 500 baht and the money will be used to buy online learning equipment for kids ka. It was hard to decide but I guess my life has been involved in storytelling most so I went for it ka.

Here's what I wish to share na ka.

- Storytelling is an effective tool to communicate as humans were born to seek meanings in life. It allows us to communicate emotions, not theories.

- Khun Piriya stresses the key role of leaders and he uses 'HUMAN' as the acronym to introduce storytelling ka.  
H -- Honest-- the storyteller has to be an honest guide who's trustworthy to engage the teams. I think it requires authentic leaders to accept they have failed and they don't know a lot of things too ka.

U -- Understand your audiences to know their pain points-- sounds simple but when he asked us  3 questions about some groups of people like vendors (I got this one), gen Z, pre-retirees...who could be their idols, what vocabulary they often use, what stuff they want to possess. I got stuck and couldn't really empathize ka. Felt lost nidnueng how distant I've been from them ka.

M -- Map the journey, using 'KFC' — Key message, Find your story, Call to action to lead the participants to get to the planned objectives ka.

A -- Adapt and Improve..for this one, he talked about 'rehearsal' a lot to lessen our stage fright and deliver concisely.

N -- Normal conversation — talked, not recited ka..several tips are:  rule of 3, show not tell, Hall of FAIL. He was referring to Khun Rawit (Srichand)'s daughter who said to him, ' พ่อจับมือถือมากกว่าจับมือหนูอีก'. This statement was real and really powerful ka.

He also added a little about TedTalk, saying that it's meant for anybody who wishes to have a platform to share his/her story. 

Any comments mai ka?

Empathy

 Happy Tuesday to all ka.

I've just read an article about 'The Empathy Trap' by Anne Helen Petersen, August 2/9, 2021 issue (you can tell how slow I've been catching up with my reading lately ka...obsessed with YouTube for several years now.).So, let me highlight some of the things I like about this article with a story shared by my niece ka. 

In fact, I've been touching on this topic for some years now and it seems the more AI is rising to be more influential in our lives, the better we have to get a good hold of our own lives to stress empathy too.

- We have yet to have mutual understanding about 'empathy' and even some US companies have thought of seminars and personal conversations especially during this COVID19 challenge, the big trap is how to lead people to 'bring their whole self to work' ka.

- Empathy goes beyond, 'Hey, care about other people', and 'making space for other people to make mistakes.', said Chelsea MacDonald at Ada. 

- A few keywords drawn for us to think further are.... Empathy could be regarded as 'friction', 'expectations', 'communication', 'wellness' (to include mental health), DE&I (Diversity Equality, and Inclusion), and 'fairness'. This is based on American company cultures, dominated by white males still in many situations na ka.

Then comes a story shared by my niece who works for one of the Big 4 companies ka. 

Basically, they work from home for over a year now. Each team looks at what happens with other teams in the office. Once, they noticed that one team leader gave a tumbler to each of his/her team, out of the personal pocket. This stirred discussions from other teams to the point that some team leaders started giving it too. My niece said, 'We complained not because we wanted the stuff but because we need to get some warm thoughts.' 

This story made me think much harder loei ka. Each leader has his/her own ways of showing how caring and it also depends on how much they know about their team members' needs and styles na ka.

Empathy means, 'genuine caring and small gestures of it, understanding about others' needs, and timeliness' too mai ka?

Any comments mai ka?

Perspective of life and work in Singapore

 I happened to zoom with a highly capable young lady who's working on her post-doctoral research in Singapore and have found quite a few things to share ka.

1. Singapore has loosened up to stay with COVID19. Earlier on, they were strict with everything like closing the lab once there was a visitor who later was notified to be infected. Right now, even when one in the lab got the virus, it's business as usual. 

I feel because the people are more disciplined and responsible for themselves and others too na ka.

Why do we tend to doubt our own people and what could we do to inculcate discipline? We've been on the wrong track for long mai ka?

2. Singapore is good to have opportunities to get monetary benefits for younger ones to save up....enough to come back to Thailand to spend the rest of her life. 

How could we use our unique 'sabai box' to create sabai space for work and life in constructive and productive ways?

3. She found that many countries care too much for publications when the real value of the research findings could be far more than just that. She's changed her mind from originally wishing to be a scientist to become a science communicator. Can't agree more with her and it's needed in our social media era to get/send short messages that could cause misunderstanding and confusion, especially in times of natural disaster and pandemic....and when metaverse is part of our daily living world tool.

We discussed quite a bit about rankings and 'what to get from the race besides numbers of publications and academic titles'. 

Being in the ranking race could be useful if we can answer our 'why' more deeply!

Science communication can become one big area for a few new jobs na ka. Thinking of a Fulbright alum who's now studying to be a medical communicator who says there's a high demand for this career track ka.

Any comment mai ka?