A lot has been said about my recent post on how I intended to treat yet another 'misalignment of expectations' with the local press with regard to their coverage of INFOSOC, an event which a lot of us enjoyed being a part of.
There were those who took sides, some choosing to speak up on behalf of my 'disappointment'. There are those who chose to attack my personal credibility, questioning the value of the points that I raised or rather the manner in which I raised it, whether it was newsworthy in the first place, and attributing the disappointment to an injured ego.
There were those who chose to enlighten us on the mechanics of the production of an article. Indeed, we all began to appreciate the amount of effort that goes into such an endeavour.
And of course, the 'prophet' was good enough to impart some pearls of wisdom, from his vast experiences [point to note: What diminished role? What disappointment? :P ]
But as enticing as the controversial turns any argument such as this can take (hey, at last count, I had 20 comments!), the crux of the matter: I am OK about it - thank you very much!
Yes, I was a bit cheesed off for a while, mainly because some of us put in a lot of effort into the event, but perhaps we were a tad 'ungrateful' in that at the very least, we got some 'recognition'.
Just to put a different perspective to the whole fray, and hopefully, things are allowed rest in peace (no more emails flying around).
There were several (5 if I'm not mistaken) tracks that PROMUDA - a wholly voluntary organisation, provided 'services' for. The group, a small group, spent many late nights at Petronas Twin Towers planning and brainstorming. They took time off their work - using their annual leave, to bunk in with people they hardly knew, manning booths, nervously waiting for speakers to show up, running around lobbying people to come to sessions, photocopying, doing late night post-mortems, and essentially not getting any sleep (yes, that's you Johan).
One guy had his car break down on the way to Melaka, and never complained. The team worked together in the spirit of national service. Not that this group wanted anything in return - we had great fun, and did something that we think means something. We got to make new friends from the secretariat proper. And some of us got some money out of it! :D
Yes, disappointment was an apt word. But then again, we are all adults here, and yes, after the paper becomes sawi wrapping, we still have the PROMUDA ECM committee (and a lot more work to do from the looong list I saw someone scribble last night), we still have our new friends and we still have the various articles and reactions that was spawned by two wittle eeety beety posts etched for eternity on this playground we call the internet.
[By the way, I DID order those yummy tarts for tomorrow night's ECM meeting and I believe Johan is bringing some delicacies from Melaka... ]
p.s. Not opening this for comments. Dah la tu...
Posted by Najah Nasseri at 2003年07月09日 22:40 | TrackBack