What Do I Missed The Most?

My favorite Esri Malaysia team

During my final week at Esri Malaysia, a few of my friends asked what will I missed the most after resigning.

My reply at that moment was “I will missed my team”.

Fast forward, I am glad I accepted the request to extend my last day until after completion of 2016 Esri Malaysia User Conference. After witnessing the team’s spectacular performance on/off stage, I would like to add-on to what I will missed…

“I will missed my super-charged, fantastic team that always push the envelope and delivered”

Thanks for the all fun, Esri Malaysia team.

This writer reckons he had the easiest job in the company. All he needs to do is put the right people at the right place and make sure they are happy.

Necessary Abandonment to Free Up Valuable Times and Resources

Recently a dear friend visited me and his first impression about my house was “neat”. I politely thanked him and explained because I don’t have much “stuff” in my house. I was not kidding. Due to my previous project-based job nature, I was always on the move – average once every 2 – 3 years for the last 15 years! Hence I don’t have much chance to keep “stuff” and I am quite okay with that.

I practice the same housekeeping habit at my workplace. Within my authority level, I regularly probe and challenge my team to improve existing processes and procedures. I will ask those that prepared, send, received, and hopefully used these reports – what’s the purpose of these processes or procedures, is it effective in achieving its intended objectives, and is it still relevant at this juncture. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, there are many that can’t provide satisfactory answers for these simple questions. Have you done similar probing exercise before? If not, I suggest you give it a try today.

From my experience, a lot of these “stuff” are still in place because no one initiated housekeeping exercise to clean them up. Our staff were told to follow these practices when they first started their job and continued to do so because “that’s how we do things here”. Does this sound familiar?

One thing I know very well – we shall practice abandonment to free up valuable times and resources. As a responsible leader, it is unfair to expect our staff to take on additional tasks without helping them to “make time” through abandoning obsolete processes and practices.

Regular housekeeping will force us to abandon items that we seldom use and make rooms for more important “stuff”. Office housekeeping will help us to free up our valuable time as well as limited resources for continuous improvements, thus allowing us to do more with less.

This writer hopes we will help our staff to achieve work-life balance by asking regular housekeeping questions i.e what is this for, for who, why is it needed, any positive outcome achieved, how can we make these better?

Happy GIS Day 2016

We celebrate GIS Day today and every 2^nd Wednesday of November annually.

I am a strong believer that spreading GIS thinking is an everyday effort, however having a GIS Day is a fantastic idea to promote more public awareness about applying geography in everything we do.

Along with Esri Malaysia’s efforts, nowadays GIS Day is celebrated by many prominent agencies in Malaysia i.e. NSDI agency (MaCGDI), National Hydrographic Center (PHN), various state GIS agencies, etc.

For me GIS Day is a day to recognize tireless effort by many unsung geo-mentor heroes and motivate many more GIS practitioners to hang on and thrive.

Great job to all that work tirelessly in using GIS solutions to make a difference.

Happy GIS Day 2016. Let’s continue to spread the idea of applying geography to all.

This writer hopes more enterprises, agencies, universities, non-profit organizations, etc in Malaysia and this region are joining the bandwagon in celebrating GIS Day.

Clear the air – about my resignation

Over the last few weeks, there were many concerns and speculations about my “sudden resignation” as CEO of Esri Malaysia. Some quick to link the resignation with my recent medical crisis.

Apologized for keeping many of you in the dark. Anyway, thanks for all the best wishes and encouraging Whatapps and emails from customers, partners and friends. My Standard reply is explanatory and factual:-

“Health wise I am perfectly fine. Thanks for the concerns. Just want to take a career break, long overdue since my surgery 1.5 years ago. Delayed few times due to company commitments. Now all commitments are fulfilled, best time for me to take a break with minimal disruption to company operation”

There are few highlights worth mentioning:-

1. The decision to resign was not due to unfavorable health condition (this writer survived Pheochromocytoma tumor and at the moment, there is no sign of recurrence)
2.  The decision to resign is also not due to troubling or challenging time in Esri Malaysia. In fact it is a well-known fact that Esri Malaysia is in best shape ever and well positioned to meet another year of solid growth after achieving two consecutive years of exceptional growth.
3.  As responsible employee, I reckon the best time for the Captain to change shifts is when the ship is docking at safe harbor or the ship is cruising on autopilot in calm water.
4.  I am is still very passionate about GIS industry and will continue contributing to GIS development in Malaysia and around this region after a deserved break.

With more free time ahead, I will spend more time reading, traveling, spending time with family, reconnecting with old friends, and definitely sharing more thoughts in this blog.

Stay in touch and stay tuned.

This writer would like to thank all his customers, partners and friends for their supports and friendships throughout his 6 years in Esri Malaysia. It has been a great privilege to work with them to have world-class GIS solutions inspire everyone to use geographic insight to make a difference.

My Wake Up Call. My Random Thoughts

I am extremely lucky to went through a few medical crisis and yet still have the chance to talk about it. Some of the hard earned awards and decorations include more than FOUR (4) weeks of intensive care unit (ICU) experience in THREE (3) different hospitals, TWO (2) ambulance rides and ONE (1) pheochromocytomas surgery to remove my a tumour sized 10cm x 9cm x 8cm. These near death incidents taught me to have a new perspective about life, work, family and friends.

In term of my career, I am also extremely lucky to have great opportunities working with prestigious companies as GIS User (first 4 years of my career), GIS System Integrator (next 10 years of my career) & GIS Software Distributor (current, since 5 years ago). I have the privilege to work with excellent talented people from all over the world in planning, designing, implementing, and managing enterprise GIS projects in Europe, US & Asia.

This is not a technical blog for sharing tips and tricks. My random thoughts is meant for everyone that would like to gain more understanding about the advantage and potential of applying geographic insight or location analytic in help making the right decision. Hence all postings are written in plain and simple language using layman terminology and analogies.

I am hopeful the sharing will form part of my journey to promote more geographic thinking in everything we do. I look forward to hear your feedback. Do write in to share your thoughts and opinions with me.

Geo-Mentor Lai Chee Siew has a lot of affection with education and non-profit organizations (NPO) in Malaysia. He would like to volunteer his time to promote applying geography in their organizations.