The day that I leave this office finally came.

To be completely honest, there’s a sinking feeling in my chest. I don’t like it. Maybe I’ve just got too comfortable here.

You guys are more than just mere colleagues. Hell, you crackers are more than friends to me. I see you guys as family, as siblings.
Which makes it a whole lotta hard to let go.

It’s time to close this book, and open a new one. And I know I have all of your blessings to go out and do what I wanna do.

Forgive me for any of my wrongdoings. I’m sorry if I offended you with the way I speak. I’m sorry if I accidentally raised my voice at you. I’m sorry if I got snappy. I’m sorry for isolating myself for way too long. I’m sorry.

But at the same time thank you.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn so much.
Thank you for taking a risk with me.
Thank you for believing in me and my limited abilities.
Thank you for the random hugs, the jokes and the laughs.
Thank you for turning me into a much, much happier person than I was before.
Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

But it’s not like I’m gonna die or anything right? So if you just feel like hanging out, I’m just a phone call/text/tweet away. Drop me an email. I’ll drop by the office lor to visit. And I’ll bring cookies :D

“Weekend warriors and our best friends
The writers weren’t kidding about how all good things must end
Then again some things, then again some things are far too good
Some things are far too good to go ahead and let go

Always up or down, never down and out
Dream of demons when you speak, that make you stutter when you sleep
Always up or down, never down and out
Dream of demons when you speak, that make you stutter when you sleep
Sleep now or forever hold your peace

We won’t forget Tony or Johnny
No matter how they miss us they still wish us the best on the road
Garrett took a plane to Paris, France
Now he’s cooking up entrees for the pretty pretty French girls
Bookends, Blue and Clarity to The Wall and Grace
Darkside, Wish and a toast to the Late Figure 8
Weekend warriors and our best friends
The writers weren’t kidding but the good things will live in our hearts”
- ‘Down and Out’ by The Academy Is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQQNSMJ6me8)

This is a blog post I made yesterday, but it’s in Bahasa Malaysia. If you wanna read it, this is the link. :)

You guys are amazing. Don’t let other people tell you otherwise.

Forever grateful – your ex-colleague, your friend
Lina Halizah binti Abdul Halim

Our co-founders, Joel Neoh and Khailee Ng  were selected to represent Malaysia in the One Young World, a global leadership summit for young leaders. The inaugural summit took place on Feb. 8-10, 2010, in London.

During the One Young World Summit, together with 1000 young pioneers from 192 countries, Joel and Khailee were guided, counselled, considered and voted on the One Young World resolutions. As decision makers of the future, they had plenary discussions about issues that are affecting and would eventually affect our world, such as global health, political leadership, interfaith dialogue, media, business and environment, were guided by the One Young World Counsellors.

These Counsellors include: Kofi Annan; Bob Geldof; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Oscar Morales – the Founder of One Million Voices against FARC; Nick Haysom – the Director of Politics at the United Nations; Tony Fernandes – Founder and CEO of Air Asia; Elio Leoni-Sceti – Global CEO of EMI; Richard Sambrook – CEO of BBC Global News; Carole Stone – Managing Director of YouGovStone; Muhammad Yunus – Nobel Peace Laureate; Alejandro Toledo – Former President of Peru; Dr. Santanu Das – Founder of TranSwitch Corporation; Martin Davidson – Chief Executive of the British Council; and Harald Ludwig – co-chairman of Lions Gate Entertainment. These Counsellors are leaders of global stature who are committed to giving One Young World delegates a platform of real and global importance.

In line with what Joel and Khailee are doing in Youth Asia and the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 in Malaysia, where they organized the participation of 500 youths from South East Asia, they were selected to participate for this One Young World for their leadership potentials and engagement in social works.

Watch this space for more stuff related to Youth Asia’s involvement in ONE Young World, coming up soon.

A few meetings. Then a letter.

Our co-founder Joel Neoh was amongst one of 20 appointed to join the Majlis Perundingan Belia Negara, or the National Youth Consultative Council for 2009-2010.

“Youths from various racial and career background have been appointed to the National Youth Consultative Council,” Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek said.

The minister further said that the appointments were based on the 200 nominations made by youths. Forty candidates shortlisted were interviewed and 20 agreed to become his appointed members.

This was not a new body.

The council which had existed since 1971 was a forum for youth leaders to meet government leaders face-to-face to discuss policies, strategies, issues and approach to youth development programmes.

In 2007, the council was gazetted under the Youth Organisation and Development Act, making it a consultative body responsible for youth development.

For more information, head over to the official site.

Joel Neoh talks about his experiences in entrepreneurship

MyLDS was another activity of AIESEC in Malaysia which aims to provide an international platform for young people to explore and develop their leadership potential for them to have a positive impact in society.

This six-day workshop brought together about 500 AIESECers and young people from universities and colleges from Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and India. The delegates aspired to be leaders and change agents for their societies. Some of the featured topics which stirred their emotions and interest were about HIV/AIDS, Entrepreneurship, and Environmental Sustainability.

Responsibilities:
We are looking for a managerial level person who has strong market research technical knowledge (both quantitative and qualitative experience required), yet versatile enough to quickly learn and eventually represent Youth Asia well for our other range of products (Campus event activation, social media marketing and youth festival).

· KPIs for this person are (1) sales (2) profit (3) excellent project delivery

· The personality traits of this person are (1) passionate about work (2) driven & result-oriented (3) strong ability to conceptualize a campaign based on clients expressed and derived needs (4) strong determination towards completion of task started (5) unwavering desire to deliver the best all the time (6) objective and fact-base (7) efficient (8) well-organized

· Other skills that are must-have are (1) proposal writing (2) selling and servicing (3) analytics, report writing & turning insights into solution (4) people management skills at all level, within function & cross function (5) presentation (6) project management (7) PnL understanding (8) command of English

· This person must be comfortable working in a start-up environment and perfectly aligned with the company’s vision to grow aggressively within and outside of Malaysia

Requirements:

* Candidate must possess at least a Bachelor’s Degree, Post Graduate Diploma, Professional Degree, or equivalent.
* Required language(s): English
* At least 5 year(s) of working experience in the related field is required for this position.
* Preferably Managers specializing in Market Research or equivalent.
* Full-Time positions available.

Our Executive Director Joel Neoh has been selected as a Supervisory Group Member of AIESEC!

On top of his (huge pile of) duties in Youth Asia, Joel now has something new on his plate: he will now oversee the overall organization and management of all AIESEC projects.

Watch this space for more exciting collaborations with AIESEC! :)

AIESEC is a global, non-political, independent and not-for-profit organization run by students and recent graduates of institutions of higher learning. Its members are interested in world issues, leadership and management. AIESEC does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, creed, religion, national, ethnic or social origin. It is the world’s largest student organization, an international platform for young people to discover and develop their potential so as to have a positive impact in society.

Why is Youth Asia (extra) excited about this?

Our Executive Directors, Joel Neoh and Khailee Ng were selected as judges.

We’ll be posting more stuff on their adventures as guest judges, so stick around & stay tuned for more updates =)

For more information on the Awards, click here.

YEA is a business plan competition for full-time post-secondary students (i.e. diploma and undergraduate students).This programme aims to encourage entrepreneurship and business creativity among students. It is also a competition that provides teams with the practical knowledge on how to start their own business, and a chance for personal and skills development.

Since its Malaysian debut in 2001, more than 3,300 students in Malaysia have participated in the competition. Participants will have a chance to learn how to write business plans and sharpen their presentation skills.

But this is a different sort of issue. The kind of issue you would care about if your business relies on marketing to young Malaysians each and every day. Recently, we’ve expanded our operations in a big way, hiring people in the process. The thought arises: How do I hire and train young Malaysians to be top performers at work? How do I turn youths into youth marketing experts?

We’re looking at the next-generation of marketers here. Is it just me, or is there something they need now more than ever?

THE SEARCH FOR TOP MARKETING TALENT

It’s 7pm, and I am in the ‘boom-room’ sofa with my eyes closed, soaking in the sounds of the rain I love so much. I am waiting for shortlisted candidate number 57 to come in. All this is happening after 2 weeks of interviewing and countless CVs.

I hear a knock on the door.

Silently, I pull together strands of optimism from the strings of disappointing interviews I had today. Then, she walked in…

Maybe you’ve been here before. You visualize this top-notch candidate to groom and let bloom. But you’re tired, because you’ve been looking hard. Real hard. And you haven’t found ‘the one’.

Or maybe you’re here with me now. In a time where (I hear) people get retrenched and companies freeze hiring. A time where we would assume there are plenty of young Malaysian talents wading in the talent pool, right?

YOU GOT A BRIGHT FUTURE, KIDDO.

Right. There are plenty of people looking for jobs. But 99.9% of them are missing the vital ingredient. Most of them lack the ONE THING needed for them to evolve and outperform – especially in the ever-changing face of youth marketing.

The girl who is about to be interviewed – does she have it?

Don’t get me wrong. You can get good people. The smarts? They have it. The experience? They can get it. The skills. They can learn it. They got plenty going on for them – IF – and only if they have this ONE THING – the ONE THING which makes the world go around.

And that, my friends, is care.

Care – Do these kids care? What do they care about? Do they care about what they are doing in their job, and how it contributes to the world? Do they care if the campaign gets carried out proper?

Care – It’s another kinky little four letter word, like, um, ‘Love’. But it is potent. The rest of this article will clarify how CARE affects everything we know about marketing, especially how we get ‘jaded’ youth audience to care about your product…

Do we care enough to know?

I’M DOING IT FOR YOU, HONEY, HONEST!

It starts with one person.

If the one person on the team doesn’t care about much, it will bleed into the workflow, the client communications, the campaign, the delivery of the product, all the way into the hands of the potential customers. I mean, if you don’t care, who will?

As shortlisted candidate #57 closes the door behind her, I wonder if she is generally a caring person. This girl needs to care, if she hopes to work here. Caring has to start inside the individual, the people who do ‘the work’. Here’s why:

• People who care about themselves will challenge themselves to grow. The care about advancing in their careers.
• People who care about their work, will make sure its done well. They’ll pay attention to the details which matter.
• People who care about other people’s situations, will respect deadlines, revert fast, and go the extra mile to deliver.
• People who care make excellent team players, because they are more likely to help, and less likely to offend.

People underestimate this, but caring is infectious. All of a sudden, a project is fun, because the team cares about the journey and the outcome.

Sure, it’s easy to see how hiring someone who cares is a good idea for client service, meticulous coordination, and dependable execution. But get this: People who care about the right things, make excellent marketers, too.

WHEN MARKETERS BEGIN TO CARE

Beware! Where marketers place their care may just give you crazy results… or crappy results.

A marketer who cares for the ‘truth’, will dig for the ‘truth’.

They want to know why. The ‘why’ makes them tick. They won’t let an idea fly without genuine insight, belief, or evidence. Do they care for the gratification of their ideas or awards? Maybe they care more about ‘the truth’ of what works.

On the other hand. Some marketers who care just enough to get the job done. They’ll propose what ‘seems’ to be working for other people. They might care more for avoiding work and avoiding blame than anything else.

However, both marketers will be equally dangerous, if they don’t care about the consumer.

Caring for the consumer on the big-idea level can mean Hyundai America allowing con­sumers to return any new Hyundai leased or financed in 2009 if the owner unexpectedly loses his/her income within the first year. But no, that’s not the full picture.

Marketers stuck on the big-idea level forget about the little things which matter most to the consumer. For example:

Remy the Marketer pays an agency to pay an interactive agency who pays an IT grad to ‘make a website’ to end up with a 20MB Flash game which requires the consumer to have alien broadband and a degree in aeronautics to meander. “WHOA USER ENGAGEMENT HOLLA!” Remy the marketer might holler. Do the users of the website holla back? No. They’re likely to close the site, and go to more ‘usable’ sites which get to the point.

And the big idea never got through.

This is just one example of how caring affects the last mile of a customer experience, especially when all your customers are online. It’s a ‘little detail’, true, but these are the things the customers you serve care about.

And this is a goldmine. When you care to understand, or research your customer, to get into their psyche, and let that translate to the actual person at the receiving end of the ‘communication plan’, good chance many of them may care enough to listen…

Speaking from experience, it’s the difference between a seeing a youth event with 300 youths versus attracting 30,000 youths to care enough to make it great.

AFTERTHOUGHT: THE AGE OF MEANING

Have you ever wondered why we leap out of a comfortable bed every morning? Why do we care so much about the jobs we’ve chosen? I’ve always believed that work gives people meaning, or, people can find meaning in the work they do. Or at least, happy people.

I wondered if the girl I’m about to grill feels this way about her previous job. Or maybe she didn’t, which is why she applied to Youth Asia. Maybe she can see a career opportunity with us as a doorway to her calling.

I sure hope so, because along the way, I’ve been blessed with working with passionate people who care. In and outside work, they care about their families, their hobbies, their curiosities, their causes. And it’s no surprise, the game changes when you work with people who care.

//

So after this episode, what do I think about the new generation of marketers? Do many of them care about their work?

Firstly, considering we’re always on a lookout for talent, this episode will probably be on repeat. Secondly, yes, some people do care. We’ve hired 2 people in the past week, and have multiple openings ranging from market research, client service, to programming and web design to be filled.

And the girl, did I hire her? Turns out the girl who walked in was not a shortlisted interview candidate, but Joanne, my colleague, who cared enough to tell me that I would not be having anymore interviews for the day, and should go home to get more rest! :P

I’m writing to you spontaneously on a personal, non-work related matter…..

Tonight (THUR) , two very talented local artists (like serious ones who actually make money) and myself, KHAILEE NG the youth-marketer-who-is-not-an-artist-but-cleverly-disguised-as-a-serious-artist will be given truckloads of second-hand makeup, paint, two semi-naked bodies, a bunch of canvasses, and a local arts curator as the DJ playing tunes “you have never heard before”.

This is part of a Creative United Movement event where people in the creative industries get wasted and hang out in a non-work setting.

Yes.

I know this is quite random. I don’t even know how I ended up in the line-up, seriously…. I am at the most busy point of my life, hiring, delivering on all the stuff I promised you (or going to propose to you :P) and LO AND BEHOLD I get artsy fartsy drrrrrtay with second hand makeup…??? WHY??  Of course I gave my commitment weeks ago and I am definitely following through.. but on the other hand…

Seriously… why go?

I guess I remembered why I SAID YES to this absurdity….. I guess it’s these little things to get our minds off work for a bit… you know… a shocker to the routine… to take some time out in a completely RANDOM and SURREAL setting. Add some spice to life… you know, just grab used makeup, and dance like an animal while I paint on someone elses…

You with me? Hehe

Some of you we haven’t hung out in a while / or never out of a meeting room. So if you’re game let’s paint the town red. Bring your fun-est friends ;)

There will be loads of drinks, free Shu Uemura goodies, and it’s done in one of the cutest places in KL. See http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114384087885&ref=mf

Venue timing, location etc all in the link   http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114384087885&ref=mf

See ya…

Khailee Ng
Executive Director
Youth Asia
A702, Kelana Square,17 Jalan SS7/26,
Kelana Jaya, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
t: 03-78053731 | f: 03-78051352
www.youthasia.com

Joel was recently invited to speak at the Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute Brand and Marketing seminar in 2009.

Amongst the many things he said at the seminar, we distinctively remember this one, which we would like to share with you:

“Much has been said about the potential of the lucrative youth market. Young adults however, do not limit themselves to certain types of media and are in fact digital natives who are totally in tune with technology in every aspect of their lifestyles. Marketing to the youth is no longer just about advertising or media strategies,” he said.

Joel Neoh talked about embracing the youth movement and engaging the next generation consumer in the ASLI’s Brand and Marketing 2009 in Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur Hotel last August 18-19, 2009.

His speaking session covered the following…

• What do the facts tell us about the youth’s spending power and how lucrative is this market?
• How do the lifestyle, goals and desires of today’s youth translate into marketing and branding opportunities? and,
• How do we effectively immerse marketing and branding strategies into the youth community?

ASLI’s Branding & Marketing 2009 brought together brand and marketing specialists as they share insights into the world of branding and marketing, the latest buzz-worthy trends, emerging opportunities and challenges. The seminar also featured discussions including the hype surrounding Internet & marketing 2.0, social networking & viral marketing, explored the Youth and Halal markets and the rise of the middle class worldwide and the potential this holds for Malaysian brands.

ASLI is Malaysia’s leading independent private Think Tank dedicated to creating a better society. It is an independent not-for-profit organization that promotes leadership, strategic thinking and bilateral business partnerships. ASLI’s mission is to help organizations enhance leadership and strategic capabilities through the interchange of ideas, information and knowledge. Towards that end, ASLI continuously engages in the research and implementation of strategic leadership programmes, publications, conferences, CEO Membership Forums, and international bilateral business missions.

ASLI’s events have been addressed by Heads of State, Prime Ministers, Senior Cabinet Ministers, Captain of Industry and prominent Strategic Thinkers to discuss issues of strategic importance to Governments and Businesses. ASLI has, over the years, organized high-level programmes focusing on bilateral business partnerships in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Japan, USA, Canada, Britain, Germany, China and South Africa. All net proceeds from ASLI’s programmes are donated to the non-profit ASLI Foundation. ASLI is also the Malaysian Secretariat of various bilateral Business Councils.