Know when to Fold

The moment I spilled milk on my presentation day, I knew that it will be a rough sea ahead of my sail, and my worst fears materialized. This is related to one of the contest I participated recently, about designing a product made primarily from Tetra Pak materials. 

So I got my creative juice flowed since I knew that I had to come up with something that is creative/original as it was one of the main judging criteria (as plucked from the contest overview here). Aside from that, it has to be commercially viable (translate : something that people would actually buy). Next was quality and functionality, which means the design should be at the peak of its quality and be functional and feasible.

My entry made it to the Top 20 out of 69 submitted entries, where the final 20 contestants would have to come up with a live presentation of their design and submit their sales pitch to the judges. On the presentation day, the Final 10 are selected and as I predicted for myself earlier that morning, I flunked and effectively out of the running. Knowing when to fold is one thing, knowing why I folded probably would help me move on. Below are 5 breakdowns that I observed from my self evaluation.

5. Sales Pitching

I must admit that I am not salesman material, nor am I a professional public speaker. The confidence I had was due to the fact that I understood my product perfectly. The feedback I got after the presentation was 

• "What do you work as?" - Well, I answered honestly that I am working in IT line, and I gotten a good feedback that my sales pitch was good, OK, a good start.
• "Your design and idea is good, but not for this contest maybe." - Fuck! Whenever people praise you followed by a conjunction, you know that you're screwed, royally or otherwise, but definitely screwed.

I compared my presentation to the other 18 finalists, I did not listen to all of them because quite frankly I couldn't hear most of them despite the usage of the microphone. Most of them merely described what they made rather that hitting all the points of the judging criteria. Probably that's where I faltered, by explaining who are my target clients, possible sales points when I should just focus on what the fuck I made and why I made it. My bad - wrong presentation style at the wrong place :D

4. It's one thing to have a winning design, but...

The complexity of the designs who made it to the top 10, from my perspective of the public (and not as a bitter loser or else I would've hated them all), 3 of them had intricate designs and longer manufacturing time (this was apparently one of the judging criteria by 2 of the judges). The rest of them are something that you can craft yourself at the convenience of your home. What I overlooked was that the winning design would commercially be put into the market, but by who? I was grilled when I said that my design took about a day to make versus other simplistic designs which took hours. Should've unrealistically say my design would take less than an hour to make, with elves assisting.

3. Design something that doesn't suck

Self explanatory, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this.

2. Know your odds when you're a minority.

Q:    I am a student, can I participate?

A:    Yes, you may. This competition is open to everyone, regardless of age and nationality. However, those below age of 18 will require consent of their parent/legal guardian. Refer to Clause 2.2 under T&C.

This was extracted from the FAQ of the contest, but, by talking to other finalists on the presentation day, I've learned that 15 out of 20 of them are from Taylor's College student. Essentially, that is already 21.7% of the confirmed Taylor's participant out of the total 69 of participants, and winning odds further shortens to 75% at the final 20. My analysis stopped there since I was booted out halfway through. And to further drift my odds, one of the judges, is a part time lecturer at Taylor's University. Think of it this way, assuming that I love listening to the Beatles, and I was given an iPod by a Belieber, who filled the song list with 9 Justin Bieber songs out of 10, what are the odds that I would actually hit the Beatles song if I had the iPod on shuffle. 

1. For those who didn't make it, don't give up. You're still in the running for the people's vote category.

Any seasoned comper would know, 'voting' contests are divided to two distinctive camps - Those who join and Those who don't. 'Camp Join' would have their distinctive division as well - Those who goes for the jugular for the votes by any means possible, ethical or otherwise and those who genuinely garner their votes by futilely begging/bugging/annoying their Facebook friends. 

I was told by the compère that 50% would be public vote (those who visit the exhibition area in Publika) and 50% would be online vote. Either way, with the most obvious way to rig the voting system ( Read my previous out takes on Bane of Voting Contest and Do Your Votes Really Matter ) , it is easy money of RM1000 - people choice. Heck I would sell my vital organs for RM1000 as well. The moment the compère started naming the shortlisted finalists 'in no particular', I knew that I am royally screwed as those designs are distinctively different to what I presented. I don't think my product sucked that bad per se, but if I am serving a appetizer when everyone are serving entree, you know how it goes. I would rather hear "You lost, go suck a lemon, get on with your life and move on" than "You didn't make it, don't give up, go further fuck yourself by trying to chase the votes (said with a smiley face)".

The contest is still on going as I am typing this, they will award the top 4 designs (which means another 6 will fall), and one of them is potentially going to automatically win RM1000, feel free to join the bandwagon here). If there is any justice, from the final 10, I would actually put my money on Recycle(d) Calender Clock, after talking to the designer, I understood his passion and design and his presentation was spot on as well. Do check their entries currently displayed in Publika as well.

C'est la vie, :End Rant:

My Lecka-Lecka Gelato Invention

I love watching The Apprentice, the regular ones before they changed the format and made it to celebrity version. The tasks are inspiring and they helped me to get different insights on working creatively on any given tasks. One of which, was to design new ice cream flavours, and have the most sales from it. Read about the tasks here.

Lecka-Lecka organized a rather similar contest not too long ago, with the sales aspect absent of course. 3 flavours was chosen by them and I was lucky enough to get my flavour chosen among the top 3. :D You can get the taste sample from eCurve or Wangsa Walk Lecka-Lecka branch, on the 29th and 30th of December 2012.

The winning flavours are - Ribena Lychee, Bubble Tea Craze, and Snowball Fudge in descending orders.

Came in 2nd. Bubble Tea Craze

My take on the task was simple, I wanted to choose a flavour that is susceptible to most Malaysians, thus ultimately choosing the Bubble Tea flavour. Had it been the Year of the Donuts, I would've gone with Donut flavour (The winning flavour of the said Apprentice episode, lol) but this year has been very much influenced by bubble tea, thus that direction.

Of course, none of the winners are involved in the actual food tasting process until the results are out, and each of us received 0.5 kg of the winning flavours.

1st Prize - Ribena Lychee

The verdict? I am a sucker for the brownies in the Snowball Fudge flavour but the vanilla based gelato is kinda odd for my liking. The bubble tea gelato works, however as predicted by some the tapioca pearl has been rendered kind of inedible due to its harden/frozen state. The Ribena Lychee should've been a slam dunk, but it resulted to be a bit too sweet.

2nd Runner Up - Snowball Fudge

That's just my humble (food taster/focus group/picky eater) opinion. The public may think differently, hopefully towards our favours. But none the less, it has been a delightful experience to be a gelato designer for once, this could be very well a stepping stone for any of us to hit into the food industry (dreaming it over/dare to dream).

My humble creation - Could've been better :)

And of course, that doesn't hinder me from feeling like....

... I am an Ice Cream man now.

Les Misérables - The Murphy Law Day

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong - Murphy's Law

That was exactly what happened last Friday, where everything I expected to go wrong actually went wrong.
Woke up late to shower up for an event. With great stink, I attended a finale where I stood a 1/175 chance to win a Hyundai Elantra. Sounds good, no? Murphy's Law struck again, I was eliminated in the 1st preliminary round.

Later that evening I was supposed to attend a preview screening of Les Misérables, courtesy of Nuffnang. I managed to secure another pair that day, just in case one fell short of the other. I gave the other pair away, and was expecting that the contact person would redeemed the pair for me, even if he/she watches the movie. I personally don't care if that person watches the movie or not, I do care however that the ticket is collected because I gave my word/RSVP for it.

The night before, fearing that contact person might forget about the screening, I decided to send a private message. True enough, contact person totally forgotten about it. And Murphy's Law struck once again, on the day it self, contact person forgot about the magazine cutting, thus making it hard to redeem the tickets and it gets better, contact person decided to let me know that he/she actually got a pair from Nuffnang.

Frustrated, but decided not to argue, I went to collect both pairs and decided to burn a pair. Murphy Law struck once again, the screening for Les Misérables in the Nuffnang hall was halted due to technical difficulties.

But no matter how much Murphy's Law decided to bring me down, the day do have its silver linings.
I didn't win the car, but I won some consolation prizes, so I was not empty handed.

And it was due to contact person FFK-ing, that I actually switched hall to watch the premiere anyway (I found out after that the screening did not happen at Nuffnang's hall afterall and was replaced with another day). It was one of those rare occasion that I am glad that people FFK me. LOL.

Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper (who directed the Academy Award winning movie, The King's Speech) and starred by Wolverine, Gladiator Maximus, Princess Diaries, that Mamma Mia girl, Mrs.Tim Burton and AliG-Borat-Bruno.

It's a full 160 minutes of musical cum film, telling the story of Jean Valjean, being chased by an obsessed police inspector Javert, met a prostitute Fantine, and kept her daughter Cosette after she died. I know, the summary is complete trash, but seriously, the movie brought broadway to the silver screen, in a good way. Never knew Hugh Jackman was such a performer, Anne Hathaway gave me goosebumps from her solo number, Amanda Seyfried is amazing to watch as usual.

While we can't exactly avoid Murphy's Law from happening, everything that happened/bound to happen is for a reason, it might be just for the better. Just hold on to that if you feel like you're having a crappy day!

Marina Mahathir's Book Launch - Telling it Straight

A respected and passionate activist of her caliber,

Speaks her mind, upholding what she believes beyond borders,

She paves the road for citizens to voice out, a true inspiration, 

A powerful woman, daughter and truly Malaysian!

Courtesy of Starbucks Malaysia, a bunch of us were given the fast lane opportunity to meet this remarkable lady in Starbucks Borders, The Gardens. A social and political activist, she is among the many Malaysian who dares to Tell It Straight, you want it, you got it!

I must admit I did not follow all her articles (23 years since her first posting in the Star), but non the less, the issues she takes on, and how she represent Malaysians via her other articles I've read is commendable.

Her new book, Telling It Straight is 264-pages, covering topics like Youth & Education, Democracy & Politics, Faith & Religion, HIV, Speech Freedom, Gender Issues & Social Values.

The book retails at $12.95 (the actual price printed above its ISBN number), you can get yours from Borders *winks*

On top of that, I managed to greet the wife of former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and mother of Marina Mahathir, Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah binti Haji Mohamad Ali, another remarkable lady who advocates cause and welfare of rural women, aiding youths who are victim of drug abuse, among her many contributions to the country. She is down to earth and poise, and pleasant to talk to. Regardless of my political beliefs, I was hoping that Tun Dr. M would be there as well, but he wasn't there due to other commitments. 

It was a great Saturday evening to sum it all. I'll continue reading the book once I've published this blog post :)

The Celcom Cupcake Challenge - Do your votes really matter?

Democracy is a funny thing. On one end it is supposed to reflect the people's voice and the power should belong to the people themselves. On the other end, it does not fully reflect the majority of the people's choice. One's sensible choice would be illogical to the other. 

Same goes to voting contests. How do we dictate who has the best entry for a particular contest? It is easy to use the 'people's vote' as it guarantees transparency and lifts the heat a little of the juries' shoulder, as it is very easy to blast them if they make a decision that will not please the majority. But do think again, does highest likes actually reflect one's entry as the best among the others for something this subjective?

Take this scenario, assuming there is no right or wrong answer. The contest question goes like this... "What do you think would be the best way to promote tourism in Malaysia?" The most voted and most creative wins RM10,000!

Participant A : Restore heritage buildings to utilize it to its fullest potential & attract tourists at the same time.
Participant B : Cupcake

Remember, there is NO right or wrong answer. Sensibly, which one do you think is the winning entry and that would keep the integrity of the contest itself? Now, let us look deeper into the scenarios. Assuming that Participant A is a 30 years old cashier who works shifts and comes online periodically, that is when she is not attending her to her family's need. Participant B is a 30 years old stay at home unemployed man who goes online at least 12 hours a day. Participant A relies on sensible voters who does vote for the integrity of her entry. Participant B can pull off 100++ votes by exchanging votes around the world, creating proxy accounts to vote for himself and pulls strings to support his entry.

Remember, there is NO right answer, and by the end of the contest, Participant A manages to pull 200 votes whilst Participant B pulls 1230 votes. Now is Participant B wrong? Not unless he is being caught!

Celcom Cupcake Challenge, despite numerous oppositions to the method of choosing its finalists (Most Voted 55 will be deliberated by the judges), they went along with it as it is an 'inconvenience' to change the contest mechanism. After all, who likes admitting to flaws that they have?

The thing being stressed out here is, with so many strong opinions against it, how would Celcom ever escape from this sticky situation?

"Why use the most ‘Liked’ cupcakes as the 55 finalists? Well, because we want your say! Only at the finals will the top 3 winners will be selected based on creativity, uniqueness, design and 100% match to the submitted picture. So continue to vote for your favourites and let’s have fun in the togetherness this contest has brought us!"

If Celcom INSISTS of public votes, fine, they can have public votes for all they care, just don't make it a heavy determinant factor. The public has very strong opinions for Celcom, but I doubt that they are being heard at all. 

As the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them! Same goes to this situation. Celcom don't give hoots on what you people got to say, if you want to join, join, if you don't want to join, complain all you want, it does not make a difference.

At the end of the day, I predict that the finalists who makes it all the way to the top would be the sensible winners, e.g. that has the ability to produce a stunning impact through their entry. However, imagine the travesty of many good entries being sidelined just because mediocre entries excels better in voting rigging obtaining. Such a shame it is not a battle among the best, but c'est la vie, as long the people knows how to play the game, it's an all fair battlefield. Now, like I stress on earlier, the votes are subjective, but not necessarily sensible.

I actually enjoyed reading a comment from Najee Razak, one of the commentators on the Celcom Cupcake Page.

By the end of the day, what can be done has not been done, what has been said might not be taken into account at all. Social awareness goes a long way, and this is just my two cents on how has the contest reflected itself to me. I am not a participant by the way, just an observer in this case. It is very interesting to see the actual winners when this contest ends. 

One more thing before you shut your browser tab/window, let's play a game. The following images are taken from the Celcom Cupcake Challenge page, I won't reveal the pages and participants name, they are public information for you to find out. I will however, reveal the votes obtained by those entries as per September 24, 2012 - (249, 555, 681, 715), try matching the votes with the images below, the higher the votes, the better the entry supposed to be. The next time you see me and if you guessed the votes correctly, cupcake is on me :) Have fun! 

The Bane of Voting Contests - Cadbury Commendables Story

In line with the spirit of Raya, where we ask for forgiveness for all the wrong doings we might have done, I... ah what the heck, actually I was spring cleaning my email today when I bumped across this old email from Cadbury Malaysia.

You see, Cadbury Malaysia organized a contest via Facebook, which required contestants to include creative captions to the weekly picture given in the Facebook application. Each captions will be judged by its creativity and votes. 

The problem with "votes" are, phantom voters are abundant in the contest world. Phantom voters contributes to fraudulent vote that affects the outcome of the contest dearly, most votes = winner. Unfortunately, many contest organizers are still using this mechanism to judge contests, which is the most convenient method to them and to them, the most transparent way to dictate the winner.

Like many other voting required events, it doesn't matter how the votes come in (dead, ineligible, bribed elactorates among the many examples), as long the organizers are ignorant of the vote source, for all they care, they have a winner. Voila.

I appreciate that certain organizers took the effort to monitor and diminish the fraudulent votes, but my question is, to what extend that they do that? What is the clear definition of fraudulent vote. And in line with the STOP 114A Act hype, if the votes that came from suspicious source goes to my way, am I the one who is fraudulent?

Back to my initial story, I was searching back for the Cadbury Commendables contest, and the 1st thing that popped out was my Facebook comments back in 2011.

I've also saved an email conversation between myself and Cadbury Commendable via Gmail.

At least there was a reply from the organizer's end. In the email, basically they claimed that I have cheated in the game and thus resulted in my disqualification. Nobody likes to be accused of committing something that they have not done. 

Cadbury Commendables had claimed that I have breached the contest rules and regulation, which I rebutted and demanded for an explanation (and proofs if I have indeed cheated). They replied with a generic response,

"Dear Ivan,

The judges of the contest used stringent criteria at every stage to evaluate the entries. Not only were the comments evaluated, the participants and those who voted had to undergo identification verification. Unfortunately, many of those who voted for your comment did not pass the verification test from research made on the personal information submitted.  The list of winners has now been announced and is deemed final.

Thank you."

It gets better. I found out that a number of other participants were disqualified as well and demanded an explanation via FB, mainly those who were experiencing the same accusation. What is this "verification test from research made" you may ask? I never did find out.

To be fair, Cadbury Malaysia did offer a chance to go to their headquarters to review the evidence. For me, that was the last straw for me. It could be so much more convenient to publish the evidence online, thus could potentially deters cheaters in future contests, or email me the evidence if they have the integrity to do that. It's a waste of time, since they have already decided on the winner. Not worth the trip there as well I must say.

Unfortunately, it never did materialized. And I found the following Facebook status update from Cadbury Malaysia page not too long after.

Well, after fulling ranting with sarcasm, I was replied with another generic kind of response. But maybe I was expecting too much, but really, Sheldon Cooper detects sarcasm better than them.

Ivan: We're glad to hear your side of the story as a participant. We'll always be open for feedback from everyone to continue improving our brand, products and activities. After all, we aim to share happiness to everyone. ;)

Feedback given, action taken,  but what to who's expense? *puts smiley face at the end to make this less tension :)*

Voting contests are very transparent, I must agree with that. But there is only so much time where genuine winners are rewarded. Take this scenario.

What is the most romantic thing in the world? The most "like"/"vote" wins.

Mr. Playfair - The wind that blows my broken heart away and brings my love's breeze through.

107 votes

Ms. Apakukisah - Shit

18961 votes

Is the integrity of the contest justified? From the contest organizer's perspective, WHO CARES? She gotten 18961 votes, that's like a HUGE feat!

I never claimed that my entries are always the winning material, but it pains me to find out that the less admirable materials won over mine, all the time. As much as I can avoid, I will avoid voting contests. 

Screw me once, shame on them. Screw me twice, shame on me.

Does organizers like this hampers my spirit? Heck YES, but only temporary.
We forgive, never forget, then write blog entries like this.

PS: Cadbury Malaysia sure do know how to rub on people. Check the screen capture below from another email after that

Cadbury never did reply to my email after that. LOL

Nando's We Grill Champions | The Results

Bom dia!

Thanks to ALL participants who joined the contest held over Discovering Ivanium for the past 4 weeks! 

Without further ado... drum roll... and here's the results for all four weeks!

Week 1 - Pole Dancing

Week 2 - Guitar Hero

Week 3 - Gymnastics

Week 4 - Ring of Fire

Congrats to nur.radiant! No judge for week 4 as this is an uncontested entry.

Special thanks to the judges - Christa (Indonesia), Ivan (Philippines) and Felipe (Brazil).

Of course, this would not be made possible without the ardent support of Nando's Malaysia!

To all winners, congratulations once again and do lookout for the email (which I'll send out soon once I've confirmed collection details from Nando's).

#48 : Kronenbourg L'Aperitif

Thanks to JunFook.com , myself and my date Crystal got ourselves to Kronenbourg 1664's L'Aperitif Fashion Launch, at The View, G Tower. Among the notable guests that showed up that day were big names in Malaysia's fashion industry were the renowned Malaysian for his sought after shoes, Dato' Professor Jimmy Choo, Amber Chia, Gilian Hung and Keith Kee.

The view from The View

Kronenbourg Blanc

The theme of the night was fashionably chic, which I guess it's pretty synonymous with the branding image Kronenbourg was going for.


Aside from the free flow of Kronenbourg beer (my personal favorite would be Blanc, the blue bottle), we were exclusively treated with a fashion runway show for Gallo by Thian's Concept, Teresa Thian. Come to think of it, this is my first time attending a fashion event. LOL.

Gillian Hung and Amber Chia spotted.

The famous Jimmy Choo

Teresa Thien, Gallo by Thien

The Kronen girls? A little bit Rio ruffles, I must say

Enjoying the beer....

...and the food!

Teresa Thian and her models.

We managed to catch Amber Chia during her belated birthday celebration. It's nice that she still recognizes Crystal and I from the lunch appointment we had with her few months ago. Managed to ask about her baby as well, baby Ashton is apparently quite well and naughty (says his mother, lol).

And right before leaving, we so called 'checked in' in the event, with the assistance of some chicks. This is where suddenly, I am incapable of using the computer and needed help :D


Check out the cool displays of Kronenbourg bottles taken around G Tower. Pretty chic stuff I must say.


And this is what was found in the goodie bag! :)


All in all, great event by Kronenbourg, a night of exclusive French beer, the Kronenbourg 1664 and the L'Aperitif Fashion debut was an indulgent combination.

For more info of Kronenbourg and L'Aperitif, do log in their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/KronenbourgMY

Check out Isaac Tan's and Jun Fook's coverage as well on the event. :)

#52 : Penang Jazz Festival

Thanks to NTV7, Penang Jazz Festival was made possible on a weekend for me. My trusty R & R friends & I took the Aeroline tickets, and it took us approximately 5 hours to reach Sg.Nibong, Penang from 1 Utama. And it took us another RM50 from Nibong to Batu Feringgi, where the venue of the event, Bayview Hotel is.

Aeroline Me Gusta! From 1U to Sg.Nibong

Compliments from NTV7

Our accommodation (not Bayview Hotel as we were almost dead broke), was KK Budget Hotel, around 10 minutes walk to Bayview. After bunking in and rested for a while, we then headed to the Jazz Festival. On the way, we made a detour to Hard Rock Hotels Penang. Camwhore camwhore camwhore and yeah, continued the journey to Bayview.

Bayview's bay view is absolutely breathtaking, the green grass and breezy air with the sounds of waves, you might not wanna leave this place for a while :)

Mr.R, Me, and Ms.R

We arrived in the nick of time for the show opening, Fred Cheah & The JazzHats. Penang born Fred Cheah reminded me of some uncle singing in wedding dinners, but in a jazzy platform. The weren't much crowd yet at this time but it built up pretty decently along the night.


The next act, Espen Eriksen Trio did only instrumental, a trio of piano, cello and guitar. Their music was mood lifting and certainly brought the jazz in the house. In between each acts, there were toilet breaks and the audience are allowed to meet the performers. Also, the host tried to be entertaining, but all he came out with was jokes comparing men and women. On a jazz festival. Right.


Michaela Rabitsch & Robert Pawlik Trio is another three piece band, the Indian guy on the drum seems a little bit neglected in the naming convention but never the less, when they are put together, they bring harmony with their unique talents. Michaela on trumpets is really a sight to watch, empowering I must say.

Jiyoung Lee Quartet is led by Korean Jiyoung Lee put together the tunes that can send the crowd on their feet. Accompanied by a cello and a saxophone player, the act is also another jazz favorite of the night.

Though there were two more acts lined up, we took an early leave since we have not had dinner and we were dead hungry. As they say when you're in Penang, EAT! Which we did. Sinful dinner/supper.

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!

Guesses of what's in the 100 Plus bottle which we mixed with the Pepsi? :)

The Penang Jazz Festival may be held in a grand location, but in terms of music festival of epic proportion, one should never compare it with the Rainforest World Music Festival held in Sarawak every year. It was an enjoyable experience non the less. :)

Photo credits to Richard Teo.