Tete-A-Tech

A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Bernice Low, Malaysia

Dear Prime Minister...Is Your Email Working?

Jul 4, 2009 01:35

Those of you who have followed my blog in the past will know that I have a habit of writing to Prime Ministers. In March 2008, I wrote to then Prime Minister (now Tun Abdullah Badawi) via his specially set up website, Warkah Untuk PM and documented the timeline of my experience writing to the Prime Minister via his website.

Of course, I could not resist taking a polite and completely well-intentioned nudge at the then Deputy Prime Minister (now Prime Minister Najib Razak) when he set up his website, 1malaysia.com.my

Recently, I was browsing around the Prime Minister's Department website trying to find the contact details of someone there (note to webmaster - I couldn't find it after 15 minutes of clicking. Bad usability!), I stumbled upon a link to a website that lets you write to the Prime Minister called E-maklumbalas, Translation: E-correspondence.

Seeing as I was having a hard time finding the specific person I was planning to correspond with on a matter of considerable vexation, this seemed like a good idea. After all, why bother going up the chain of command when you can send a missive straight off to the commander in chief right? So, I duly filled in the form to register with the system (and I'd loooove to know how they're going to handle all my data but that's the topic of another post.).

After logging into the system, I proceeded to pen my email to the Prime Minister. Naturally, I could not resist reminding him at the end of my email that his clarion call has been 'People First, Performance Now'. It don't get any more 'NOW' than e mail right?

So, that e mail was sent off on June 25th. Since then, I have not heard a peep from the Prime Minister's peeps. Obviously, I don't expect the man himself to read my email (although that might obviously be a good idea, especially with the whole going down to grassroots, 'turun padang' and walkabouts his PR folks have been harping on of late).

But I must say, compared to my experience with Warkah untuk PM, this has been quite a disappointment. First, no acknowledgment e-mail received. With Warkah Untuk PM, I got a little emailed GIF letter two days later. Secondly, no email reproducing the contents of what I wrote to the PM. So it rather begs the question, does it even actually go somewhere, to someone's email box or does it just go off into the great cyberspace unknown? Obviously the virtual civil service suffers from the same Twilight Zone tendencies the real civil service seems to manifest. I mean, if you don't get a copy of what you wrote, how do you prove you actually wrote it? (yes, this is like that tree in the forest conundrum).

So anyway, it's been a week and a bit since my email to the PM and it's turned out to be quite the predictable let-down. And then in what has to be a hilarious turn of events (there really isn't another word to describe this), the Prime Minister has invited Malaysians to send him their questions "in person" via video clip. Wait for it: after you record your video clip, you need to upload your video to a media hosting website, and then e mail the link to the Prime Minister. You can also email the video directly to him at his email address! Oh yes, and don't forget to tell him who you are (so he can drop in for tea and a good photo op) make your questions under one minute in duration (my suggestions: what are you doing to fix our crappy education system, or why is it that your tweets on twitter are so boring, or is it true that you photograph best on your left side?), and be respectful - read: address your question with the appropriate reverence, awe, respect and groupie adoration that invokes images of Michael Jackson fans because that's how we politicians in Malaysia like to be treated. Like rock stars.

Whomever is advising the Prime Minister on his digital strategy is clearly living in some kind of place with pink fluffy cotton candy clouds, fizzy lemonade lakes, and cuckoos that tweet adorably.

If a simple online email form doesn't actually seem to land in anyone's email account or go to some kind of central repository where it is at some point read, what is the point of asking people to video their questions? Why have cars, when there are no roads?

And one can imagine what will happen to the videos. Although I certainly would love to get my grubby digital paws on the videos that end up in the 'reject' heap. Now THOSE would be worth watching! Kind of like a political version of Candid Camera.

Obviously, the fact that writing an email is miles easier than recording yourself asking a question to the Prime Minister, which includes an introduction of yourself, all under one minute, seems to have escaped the Great PR Brain that hatched this incredible rotten egg of an idea. I mean, does the Prime Minister really have to RUB IT INTO US that our Internet service is so slow trying to upload a video is probably going to be reserved for those of us who have broadband (last count, one plus million people out of a population of 22 million) and who are willing to get up at 2am in the morning to ensure we can upload a video or send off a gigantic video file? Or perhaps this is a genius way of convincing the sceptical taxpayers that the High Speed Broadband project is really a good idea?

I can see it now:

High Speed Broadband - now you TOO can send videos to the Prime Minister.

Or...

Price of sending a letter: 30 cents. Opportunity to send a video of yourself asking the Prime Minister a question: Priceless. For everything else, there's High Speed Broadband. (with apologies to Visa).

And why not YouTube?? I mean, who knows about sendspace, yousendit and mediafire?? Video = YouTube!

Lest somebody tries to point out that Barack Obama did this to great effect, let's be reminded that he took questions from YouTube (meaning, everyone's rant, complaint, bitch, whine, praise, rotten apples and half eaten karipaps could be seen and heard thus enabling the public to determine what was filtered out), AND he took questions live as well from a variety of online mediums including Twitter. And he is doing so in a climate wherein all the askers are protected by a little thing called the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech. And where the press is considered reasonably aggressive in its questioning of the President.

And it's so NOT Ori (Original), people. If the Prime Minister had done this BEFORE the President of the USA had attempted it, then that's worthy of kudos. Anybody can copy.

If the Prime Minister wants to win the war in Cyberspace, I suggest he start by checking to see if his email account is working, before he graduates on to video mail. After all, People First, PERFORMANCE NOW. Right?

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The Star and Malaysiakini--PUNKED!

Jul 1, 2009 12:19

Yesterday, a friend forwarded me an SMS from Malaysiakini's SMS service announcing that Rick Astley (he of Never gonna give you up and Together forever) had died in a Berlin hotel room. It was also sent out on The Star's SMS news service (which means it was probably also forwarded to dozens of people by the recipients, who pay RM5 per month to receive such "updates").

Of course, it turned out that Mr Astley (the King of Cheesey Pop?) had not gone the way of the King of Pop, and it was all a hoax from a CNN iReport. And The Star and Malaysiakini had something in common for a change: Egg on their faces. They'd both been PUNKED!
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Transformers takes out gsc.com.my

Jun 25, 2009 00:52

For the last two days, anyone attempting to buy movie tickets online to watch a movie at Golden Screen Cinemas would have been confronted with a stripped-down Web site, that is if they were lucky at all to connect to the site.
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If you can't beat them...

Jun 15, 2009 00:58

...join em. And that's what the MCA (Malaysian Chinese Association) is going to do, it would seem.

According to a news report on the Malaysianinsider.com, the MCA is going into the online news game. A friend in the media line confirmed that hiring is ongoing for the Malaysian Mirror, the name that has been chosen for the new newsportal. A search on MYNIC shows that the domain name Malaysianmirror.com.my is available. A search on WHOIS, however, shows the top-level domain (TLD) name Malaysianmirror.com to be unavailable. It was recently purchased on March 3, 2009, and is registered to a Web domain hosting firm in (ironically) Penang.
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JAHANAM KAU, GOOGLE (Curses, Google)

May 20, 2009 15:41

Why is it that I keep getting info on my Google Groups page displayed in Bahasa Malaysia despite my preferences clearly stating otherwise?!!!

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About Bernice Low

Bernice Low is a screenwriter and pen-for-hire. At age 11 (in the era of BB--Before Blog) Bernice started her own newspaper, the Daily Jelly. It lasted two days before she was stopped from using school newsprint supplies for frivolous activities. She loves Cartoon Network's Bill and Mandy, has a thing for TV doctors House and MacDreamy, and is the proud owner of a 32-inch flat-screen TV. She believes diamonds and iPods are a girl's best friend. Her blog is her latest guilty pleasure.