Timothy Tiah & fourfeetnine’s Wedding

I remember when I first spoke to Timothy. Nuffnang just started and he asked me to be part of Nuffnang to help out on legal matters. I immediately took up his offer without hesitation. At that time, I had the same idea of having a blog advertising network but since Timothy has started it, I abandoned my idea and took up his offer. Now Nuffnang has grown into a multinational company with presence all around Asia.

I also remember when I asked Timothy on when is he getting married to fourfeetnine. He said, “Not so fast la!”. But shortly after that the famous meme proposal video came out.


wtf

Their wedding was held in Penang. After having a bad experience in New York city (bed bugs, permanent scar from bunk bed), I decided to spurge a little on hotel. We stayed in Lone Pine Hotel, Batu Ferringhi. Lovely place, good service and great food. Ah.


Awesome tub outside our room


Place to chill out and feed mosquitoes


We swam here!

Timothy and fourfeetnine’s wedding was a Disney themed event. Up! was the flavour of the night.

Loads of balloons and lanterns.

There were plenty of people from the advertising industry and also bloggers. My wife and I were seated with the famous Sultan Muzaffar and Vivy Yusof and her husband. Muzaffar is now an editor at Gua.com.my whereas Vivy and her husband runs an online shopping mall, FashionValet. Internet entrepreneurship FTW!

Unlike my wedding, I managed to speak to Timothy a few times. Most of the time, it’s quite hard to get to speak to the groom and bride as they are too busy. For this reason, I usually disappear in the background and enjoy the food and company.


The hall was large and spacious

You can read more about Timothy and fourfeetnine’s wedding at Timothy‘s website and fourfeetnine‘s website.

Bolder Ventures Climbing Gym @ Subang Jaya

I just found out about this place through the Rock Climbing in Malaysia Facebook group.

Ping and I went check out this new climbing gym. It’s deep inside an industrial area. It has boulder and small top rope walls.


Roof for top rope! But no handholds yet


Ping

Two guys were taking care of the place when we were there. One of them was busy with a gaming console while the other was on his laptop. The toilet sink had unwashed dishes. The urinal had a spider. It looked like a bachelors pad to me than a climbing gym!


Uncle Fai showing it how it is done


Panoramic picture of the gym by Carness

Nevertheless, the boulder walls are not bad. The handholds are unique and rough. Boulder roof, however, is a little cramp. Routes are still challenging though.

The only thing I liked about here is that it’s near my place. Entry is only RM15 and there are no strict rules like Camp 5. Place is smaller than Mad Monkeyz.

Map

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Address
11, Jalan Industri USJ 1/2
Taman Perindustrian USJ 1, 47600 Subang Jaya, Selangor
Tel: 03-8023-4948

Singapore – May & June 2012

I was at Singapore on two occasions for business.

Eddie Law of eLawyer had an extra ticket to the Marcus Evans Intellectual Property Conference at Marina Sands Bay. Since the conference is related to my field of practice, I accepted the offer so that I can meet other fellow IP lawyers. Further, it’s been a while since I dropped by Singapore.

Never did I know that this conference was an expensive conference. It was attended by many in-house lawyers of well known multinationals and large companies. I was told that practising lawyers who wants to attend must be a sponsoring firm. Such firm pays around US$10,000 to US$40,000!

I must first explain the differences between an in-house lawyer and practising lawyer. The former works in an entity to advise the company of legal matters whereas the latter is a lawyer who works or owns a legal firm. I’ve heard of companies who set up law firms to service their own company and also other companies. But let’s not complicate matters here.

In-house lawyers are important to a practising lawyer because they are one of the sources for business. On the other hand, in-house lawyers sometimes need practising lawyers’ help if they are unable to cope, requires expert advice on a certain piece of work or to confirm or support an in-house lawyer’s point of view. However, there’s a trend now for in-house lawyers to do everything themselves.

Going back to this conference, the event had some speed dating elements. It had seminars throughout the day but there will be a session everyday where the event organisers pair up the sponsoring firms with the in-house lawyers of their choice. It was a one-on-one meeting. In this 20 minutes meeting, the sponsoring firm is given the opportunity to introduce and pitch their firm.

Of course, you are not guaranteed any businesses from in-house lawyer. Whether you will get any depends on a lot of factors such as your area of expertise, your personality and also luck. I learn that not all in-house counsels can give you work. Some in-house lawyers take care of certain areas and regions. For example, I met an in-house lawyer from Hong Kong who only takes care of Australia and Philippines for debt recovery litigation. He doesn’t need a Malaysian Intellectual Property lawyer.

One of the most interesting seminars of the event is by eBay on how they engage Governments to lobby their positions. Constant engagement with the relevant officials help a lot. Something I need to learn to oppose the new s. 114A Evidence (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2012.

After 2 days, it was time for me to go. I went home with a handful of name cards.


Interesting name..

I usually send an email to the people I met thanking them for their time and also to ask them whether they would like to be part of my mailing list. The response varies. Some don’t reply, some reply. Sometimes those you expect them to reply don’t reply but those you don’t expect them to reply, replies. Life is funny in that way.

The purpose of me asking them to be in the email list is for constant engagement. Constant engagement is important in marketing. You need to be in people’s minds all the time. Also, when sending such emails, it is useful to have your name and email as the sender instead of having your firm’s name/department and general/marketing email. Sending using your name and email encourages response. Your audience is not interested in replying to your firm’s general email.

Anyway, it’s been more than 3 months since the conference. I didn’t get any business from the contacts I met. It takes time and luck to get business from conferences. I’m glad to make the trip down.

Washington D.C 2012


Train station at Washington DC

As mentioned in my previous post”New York City & Washington D.C“, I took my INTA conference easy. My wife and I spent most of our time sightseeing and eating.

We also joined a bicycle tour which was organised through one of the INTA LinkedIn groups. Strangely, the group I joined had only 1 lady from the LinkedIn group. Anyway, the three hours tour was great. We got to see many national monuments.

I’m not very good on a bike. I was a bit worried that I will get knocked down by some car. But the roads are pretty wide and clear and not many cars around. There are many bike lanes too. It’s quite safe.


There was even a half an hour boat ride on Potomac river. Once the boat ride was done, we rode back to our meeting point.

There was one night where my wife and I had dinner with my associate from China, Gloria and Indian associate, Nitin.

Nitin then brought me to this place called Bier Baron, a pub with 500 over beers to choose!

I also got to meet Ee Young, a former colleague of mine, for breakfast. He works in the legal department of a Taiwanese IT company and he gets to travel around the world. How awesome.

I allocated one whole day to visit some of the museums. Perhaps the most interesting museum is the Abraham Lincoln museum. It is located in the Ford Theatre, where he was shot. Some lady gave us free tickets because she had extras. We didn’t need to line up to enter!


The gun that shot Abe

You can also visit the hotel which he died after being shot.


Reconstruction of the hotel where Abe died.


The bed where Abe died


Pile of books about Abe! But it’s fake.

In this museum, you, I got to learn about American history in particular the time era where Abe was still around.

We also did visit the Smithsonian museum but no pictures here as my camera ran out of battery. -_-

We rode a bike from Capital Bikeshare back to our place. Capital Bikeshare is a service where people can rent a bike from one of the many bike stations around Washington DC. The station is unmanned hence you need a credit card to unlock the bike.

Once you’re done, find the nearest Capital Bikeshare bike station to return the bike.

Overall, the trip to Washington DC is rather uneventful. It’s a quiet and safe city. We didn’t worry when we were walking around the city in the middle of the night.