RPK or Raja Petra Kamarudin is not a household name in his country of residence (UK) but yet he filled a lecture theatre in London of more than 500 people.

Who is RPK?

RPK writes an influential blog which has been active since the last century – Malaysia Today. This blog calls the politicians in Malaysia to account for their actions. As a result, he has been detained twice and now, resides overseas for the sake of peace. However, he is credible with his facts, particularly with the killing of the Mongolian translator with restricted military explosives (very suspicious indeed) or else he would have been convicted through the judicial system. He is no radical. All he wants is politicians to be accountable for their actions. He is really passionate about all citizens exercising their voting rights to elect the true leaders of the country.

Heather Brooke the journalist, much in the mould of RPK, asked questions about the expenses of the MPs (Members of Parliament) in the UK. Even in a more open system in the UK, it has been documented how the authorities tried to block the answering of her questions. This blocking and its subsequent revelation, led to the downfall of the ex-speaker Michael Martin and the discrediting of a number of MPs.

There are 2 points:
We all appreciate that power corrupts. Also, the longer you have the power, the greater the temptation. In Malaysia, the ruling parties have been in power for 51 years and it could be imaged, what the status quo is. Hence, the revelations in the work RPK in his blog – Malaysia Today

But more importantly, it is the power of a single person being able to take on the might of the government with all its facilities and money. We are all so fortunate to be living in this age where, through the internet, we can communicate so powerfully. However, this power can only be used when there is authority, credibility and used with responsibility. Without these ingredients, the power and credibility is lost. Also, the message can get through to the rest of the world matter the number of obstacles (in this case – establishment) is placed in its path.

Dr Michael Oon

I have been going to “off-line” networking meeting for the past 2 years and would like to share some observations.

Each network group is more or less self regulating; people are going there to do business but not expecting to do it directly, There is generally no direct sales but it is a process of getting to know the various network members. By establishing your reputation, you can impress other members to refer you to their own personal network. As a result of attending the meetings, you get to know them, but also, know their personality, their business, credibility and the relevance of their personal network.

Each network group has a group of core members and there is a peripheral group who are newer but have not established within. People of the newer group still have got to know the others but it is because of the desire to do business, they learn to adapt to the rules of the network group. In general, these rules have been described in Penny Power’s book, “Know me, Like me, Follow me” where their mindset is Open, Random and Supportive (ORS). One of the best analogies of networking is “farming”. You are sowing your seeds by establishing yourself in the network and you harvest it when you have established yourself in the network. Direct sales is described as “hunting”.

I have always wondered what happens when a “newbie” to networking, who has a different mindset – “Closed, Selective and Controlling” (based on Penny Power’s book), comes to a networking group. How do members respond?

In ORS, we try to collaborate as it is a win-win situation but suppose, a comment like “I do not collaborate with my competitors” is made.

In ORS, we concentrate on raising the strengths of our network members are they are own partners but suppose, a comment like “I find “AN Other” very aggressive and unreliable”. As a group, we know this is totally contrary to our knowledge of this person’s personality.

In ORS, we find out the skills of others so we know how we could fit in, but suppose a comment like “I am an expert of “XXX”” and talks about the “expertise”. It so happens, in that meeting, there is a world renown expert who says to himself, “that does not work”.

Just like in a village, back chatter happens. Conversation between members about the statements are made. Not surprising, comments go out to support the aggrieved and questions are raised about the newcomer. It is all about having ORS mindset.

There is order in the unregulated network meetings.

Dr Michael Oon

Tom Evans, The Bookwright

Tom Evans, The Bookwright led a workshop about getting your killer blog on the web at the Blackstar Ecademy meeting at Ripley on 12 March 2010. He went through the WordPress basics together with the various essential functionalities to get it as a killer blog. The essential focus was to have a reader centric mindset. More importantly, he stressed the importance of blogging being the core of your Social Networking toolset. Care with the use of keywords as Google matters.

Tom demonstrated the principles and use of catchy “headlines” in newspapers to attract attention as this is the only criteria to attract readers in the multiple formats of PC or smartphones. They should be either vague or interesting; making the reader curious to have a look. An ingenious system to over come writer’s block was shown with great effect. This was really impressive and will be a boon to any blogger who gets stuck on topics to write.

Other basics that Tom covered were the use of Categories (like Topics), Tags (keywords) which are needed when the blog gets large or you plan to write a book from the blog. Additionally, each posting should have a “call to action” at the end of the page.

As to the presentation of images, there is the use of the golden ratio of the images and text so that the it just looks right.

It was a hour well spent with Tom and endeavour to use was presented at the workshop.

Tom Evans, The Bookwright (thebookwright.com)

Dr Michael Oon