Over the course of the weekend, the always insightful Isabelle Ayel shared across, over in Google Plus, an amazingly inspiring thread by Ron Jeffries about one of those TED Talks that can surely change the way we all see things in life. TED Talks are usually just like that. A good bunch of them can surely aim at transforming the way we see and experience things in our lives and manage to make it through. The one that both Isabelle and Ron shared across a couple of days back surely is one of those and on one of my favourite topics, too!: The Hidden Power of Smiling by Ron Gutman. Indeed! If you can spare a little bit over 7 minutes, you are off to an amazing trip by Ron Gutman where he talks about some of the recent research that’s been done around the topic of smiling and the kinds of benefits it can have in all of us, going from increasing our life timespan the more we keep smiling, to improving our overall well-being and that one of those around us. Never before were we probably going to consider how such a simple gesture as smiling, both at people and things, something we can all *do* at any given point in time, would have such a comforting set of rewards. "The Hidden Power of Smiling" surely deserves this week’s spot for "Inspiring Video of the Week", not only for the many insights shared across about how beneficial smiling can well be for all of us, but, mostly, because this is certainly one of those TED Talks to save for later, specially for those moments where we may need it the most! Ron does a beautiful job at reminding us all how, way before we are all born, we were already smiling big time, so why put a stop to it, as we grow older? Where have we gone wrong? Most importantly, what can we do to bring it back into our daily lives? I am not sure what you would all think, but after watching it, there is only one single thing that I just can’t get out of my head at the moment: to keep smiling! That’s just how powerful this TED Talk is, and, like I said, if you have got 7 minutes to spare and would want to cheer yourself up or just simply be reminded about why you need to keep on smiling, no matter what, and the more, the better, then this would be the Talk to check out: I can strongly recommend it to everyone out there who would want to find out plenty more about some of the traits and amazing qualities that have certainly differentiated us from all other species. It’s just one of those rather touching and inspiring Talks difficult to forget. Oh, and if you would want to find out plenty more what passion and creativity are all about and how technology can impact something so relatively traditional like dancing, allow me to suggest as well you watch this other TED Talk (A bit over 17 minutes long) on "The LXD: In the Internet Age, Dance Evolves…", which I am sure is going to put a couple of lovely smiles on your face, as well experiencing plenty of WOW moments! Not too bad for inspiring videos of the week, don’t you think? Well, keep on smiling, you know, you will live longer!, and in the meanwhile get on with some of those moves, too! They look like some pretty good fun, too! Although for me, I think I’ll just stick around with the smiling part …

Life's great when there are natural tensions. As a tourist, I always want good weather and clear skies. OTOH, every local dying of heat in a tropical country wants rain. If there's agriculture, people need rain. It's a healthy tension. Life's also great when you discover the truth behind modern day myths. When you have concrete evidence to bust an old-wives-tale you've heard for years, you feel good. I've felt all of this ever since I got into Malaysia on a cloudy rainy day. Sunday afternoon was depressing - I felt like a fool to have arrived into a tropical country during the onset of the monsoons, and for sure I wanted to go beat some of my friends who said I could come here any time of the year. So all I could do was whisper a silent prayer, hoping things would clear up. As it turned out, things did indeed clear up and we've had 3 days of almost clear, unblemished weather.My greater discovery has been Malaysia. Malaysia is primarily an Islamic country and a model Islamic country at that. For ages since the emergence of modern day terrorism, the faith of Islam has gotten a bad name. Malaysia is an example of how an Islamic nation can be prosperous, peaceful and compassionate. For someone like me whose best friends have been Muslims, this is evidence to bust a modern  myth. Not that the jihadis do justice to their faith, but well every religion has it's villains and there's no reason to tarnish Islam for the work of some lunatics.Anyways, l've had a great first couple of days in Malaysia, so let me tell you more about that. Flying in - Our Hotel and Local OrientationWe booked ourselves into the Chinatown Inn hotel on Petaling street, a bustling street shopping extravaganza that doesn't let up till midnight. Getting here from the airport was no big deal. We were flying Air Asia, so we flew into the humble LCCT (Low Cost Carrier Terminal). Getting transport from there was easy - we took a bus from the airport to KL Sentral (yes, that's how they spell it) and then we took the train to Pesar Seni (The Central Market) and then we just walked to the hotel.I usually judge a city by the cost of what it takes to be a local. Transportation from the airport was cheap; just 8 RM ($2.50) as compared to Bangalore where a similar trip costs about $3.75. As soon as we got on the streets we were looking for food - our meal on the flight was measly, so we had to eat! So, we walked into a local joint serving Indian Malay food and we were done with a full meal for about 10 RM ($3.13). Cool, huh! Yeah, Malaysia seems to be easy on the pocket.Location wise, we were in tourist haven. Chinatown boasts of great food options, cheap shopping at both Petaling street, the local wholesale emporium and the neighbouring Central Market and is a stone's throw from a lot of the tourist destinations. I strongly recommend that if you come to KL, you pick an accomodation in Chinatown to enjoy the real city. Our accomodation set us back by 300 RM (about $30/night) for three nights, which isn't bad at all. We spent the first evening walking down Chinatown, trying to soak in the shopping atmosphere. I succeeded in making my wife avoid the temptation to splurge on the huge variety of garments, shoes, bags and jewellery on show. Chinatown's a truly Asian shopping experience, rivalled perhaps only by Bangkok's Lumpini Market/ Chatuchak Market and Delhi's Sarojini Bazaar. So if you're coming over, keep a few kilos of baggage allowance aside to take back some shopping. I'd been craving to have some frog on my trip here, so we settled for an expensive-ish meal at one of the streetside eateries at Petaling street. When I say expensive, I mean expensive by Malaysian standards. Our meal at the restaurant, with two servings of steamed rice, two curried frogs and some stir fried shrimp, cost us about 40 RM ($12). Not to be deterred, I happily tucked into my meal and threw in some local mango ice cream as dessert. That was the evening for us; our next day was going to be long and exciting - Melaka!Day 1 - MelakaMelaka is one of Malaysia's most important, historic cities. A bustling medieval port, the center of European colonization for a few hundred years and subsequently the place of Malaysia's declaration of independence, Melaka has a prominent spot on most tourist journals as it does on mine. The little town is less than about 150 km from KL and buses leave every hour. If you travel to Melaka in the near future, you're likely to have to take the bus from Bukit Jalil, a make shift bus stand in the absence of the main Puduraya station which is currently under renovation. Anyways, it wasn't a stretch to get to Bukit Jalil. We got a bus from Puduraya, which incidentally is just a stone's throw from Chinatown. A 30 minute ride got us to the bus stand and we were on our way to Melaka. At about 9 AM the bus (24 RM two-way ticket) trudged into Melaka Sentral, the city's main interstate bus station which isn't really close to the tourist hotspots. So, we took a connecting town bus, to get us to the Portugese Square hosting the historic Dutch Christ Church. From that point on, it was us hopping from one sight to another in Melaka including the Porta De Santiago, the Sultanate Palace, ruins of St. Paul's Church, the Maritime Museum, the Independence Memorial, St Francis' Church and of course the Menara Taming Sari (a.k.a the Melaka Tower). The tower surely was the icing on the cake as you'll see from this 360 degree panoramic photo I took from the top of the ride. The Menara ride is quite expensive by Malaysian standards though 40 RM ($12), is still cheaper than similar experiences in the west. The food in Melaka was something to write about as well and not just when it came to the price. At 11 RM ($3.4) we ate all that you see on that tray above. Quite a lot for that price, huh? But as I said, the price wasn't all - the food was so tasty that it blew our minds. I strongly recommend the Jonkers 888 restaurant on Jalan Hang Jebat as the place to have lunch at Melaka. They are quick, and yet very crowded by locals which is always a sign of good, affordable food in a foreign land.So, that pretty much ends the story of our first day in Malaysia, a visit to a heritage town, dotted by some amazing local food and lot of great photo ops.Day 2 - Kuala LumpurAnyone who says there's nothing to see in KL is either out of their mind or has never bothered to step outside the tourist hot-spots. Kuala Lumpur is truly Asia's meeting ground in terms of culture. There's so much to see and do that a day just doesn't suffice. Let's just say we skimmed on the surface of this magnificent city. Now don't get me wrong - KL isn't huge. It's about a third of Bangalore's area and twice the size of San Francisco, so that should give you a notion of size. It packs a lot into that little area though -- food, entertainment, shopping and sightseeing put together. The fact that we were based out of Chinatown made a lot of the sights quite easily accessible on foot, so again that's a reason for you to stay there if you're in KL.We had a packed day planned and I can't tell you what all we crammed in to get the most out of the day. The photos have got to tell the tale (when I manage to get them on Flickr). I will say though that I was disappointed by the Menara KL. 38 RM ($11) seemed to be a bit much for the very limited views from the observation deck atop the tower. Again, it isn't much when you compare it to the John Hancock Tower or a similar sight across the world, but by Asian standards it was too little to do for too much of a cost. Some of the places we saw/ visited in the day:KL Railway StationCentral MarketMeredeka SquareAbdul Samad BuildingMasjid JamekMasjid NegaraKTM BuildingMuseum of Islamic ArtsKL Bird ParkMenara KLKL Convention CenterPetronas TowersThat's quite a bit to see in a day and by the end of it, we were craving some serious nutrition. So we made our way to Restoran Yousuf's opposite Central Market. Yousuf's is a popular nasi kandar establishment in the parts. The phrase nasi kandar, came about from a time when nasi (rice) hawkers would kandar (balance) a pole on the shoulder with two huge containers of rice meals. The natural evolution of that practice is the nasi kandar cuisine in Malaysia which gives root to delicacies such as Nasi Goreng, Nasi Ayam, Nasi Lemak, 'fish-head' curries, the breads and the various spicy sauces in Malaysian Indian cooking. A regular favourite happens to be the Nasi Roti - a light pancake tossed around and folded by hand before being shallow fried in a pan. Nasi rotis come in different varieties and I strongly recommend the Roti Pisang - a banana pancake. If you feel like something savoury, try the Roti Canai with some of the nasi curries. At Yousuf's a big meal for two can't set you back by more than 12 RM. Remember the name and if you need recommendations of what to eat, talk to me!I've thoroughly enjoyed my first two days in Malaysia, despite the rain. If the start is anything to go by, I can tell that Malaysia's a fairly complete Asian experience with all the influences it brings from Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Thai cultures. I wish I'd planned more time in this country, though I do think I'm going to return here for my rejunevation leave next year. I still have a few days to go before I leave this country. Next stop - Penang and Georgetown!© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Over the last couple of weeks there have been a number of rather interesting and insightful blog posts that have been covering IBM’s journey to become a social business. A journey that started back in 2001, but that it had its main roots well substantiated within the company for much longer. Interestingly enough, when everyone was starting to think about going social within the enterprise, IBM had already well established, and recognised, since May 2005, the well known Social Computing Guidelines that soon became an industry standard in setting up a reliable and trustworthy governance model and guidelines for knowledge workers to engage with both internal and external social networking tools. However, fast forward to 2011 and I still get asked, every so often, how is IBM doing in the social business space, not just from a vendor perspective, but also from its own internal social transformation. Are we there yet? Have we already made that transition successfully? What has been the experience like so far? Well, I could probably summarise it all with a single sentence at this point in time: It’s been a long journey, indeed! We have learned a lot, we have become much more efficient and effective at what we do, but we still have got lots more to be done! Like for almost everyone out there, becoming a social business is a tough job, for sure, we are not discovering anything new in there, there needs to be a significant cultural shift, a change of mindset, a change on how we do and conduct business, but the good thing is that the trip to provoke such social transformation has been worth while all the way coming from a Globally Integrated Enterprise into a Socially Integrated Enterprise (a.k.a. SIE) Take a look, for instance, into this rather insightful blog post over at Social Media Today by Rick Liebling under the heading "An SMT Interview with Ethan McCarty, Senior Manager, Digital and Social Strategy, IBM" where he reproduces a recent interview he did with fellow IBM colleague, and good friend, Ethan McCarty where Ethan tried to describe what that transformation has been like so far. Here are a couple of my favourite quotes from the interview: "At IBM we are trying to create a new way of working that connects our people with our customers, prospective employees, communities in which we want to do business and other constituencies in a more direct manner and meaningful way. This sort of engagement leads to increased surface area between the brand and these various constituents. These touch points produce digital evidence of behaviors, and that can lead to improvements in business" Or this other one: "The real power to transform is on the business side. This is where a social framework can create new ways to enable sales forces, new ways to discover expertise, new ways to understand your organization’s culture, new ways to establish brand trust with your customers, and much more" Those two nice quotes make eventually for a nice segway into another rather enlightening article published, just recently, by Mark Fidelman under the title "Why IBM Represents The Future Of Social Business" where he does another extensive interview with Jeff Schick, VP Social Software at IBM. Perhaps one of the most thorough and comprehensive interviews on describing IBM’s experiences on becoming a social business, the interview itself covers a whole bunch of stories, use cases, experiences, solutions and plenty of know-how describing what’s been like living social at IBM, with a couple of golden nuggets I thought would be worth while sharing across over here: "Social analytics is playing a huge role in not just making recommendations of content, people and communities, but in recommending what an organization need do to better its financial results" Or this other one on the key importance of improving business performance: "From my perspective, we’re back to making better informed decisions to derive greater value, better results and better customer satisfaction. That’s an important aspect of the role predictive analytics will play as social analytics evolve" I strongly encourage you all to have a look and read the rest of both interview articles, as they would provide you with some additional information on some of the initiatives IBM is running as part of becoming that successful social business, like the Social Business @ IBM effort (Part of Smarter Planet and IBM’s Centennial Celebrations) or the Expertise Locator (By the way, go ahead and read as well Ethan’s brilliant blog post around the topic of "experts"; worth while the read!). I can imagine how there may be some folks out there though who may be questioning IBM’s own social transformation efforts themselves, specially when much of the focus hasn’t been really on figuring out the ROI of Social Media, which most folks who know me already know where I stand with anyway (Pretty much along the same lines of "How do you measure successfully KM after 17 years being out there in the corporate world?"), but the way we see things over at BlueIQ, IBM’s own internal social software adoption program I have been working at for nearly 4 years now, has always been prone towards thinking what would have happened if we didn’t embark on living social back in the day? Could we afford ignoring it for much longer? Probably not! Definitely not! Let’s just look, for a minute, into some of the social analytics that have been shared in both articles referenced above… If you take a look into them closely you will notice how a good number of them are rather staggering, to say the least. The amount of knowledge, expertise, know-how, skills, experiences, project / team / community related work that has come out as a result of using these social tools can be quite overwhelming, given the sheer numbers. Now, imagine for a moment that all of those social tools would not have been there! A large chunk of that precious knowledge would have been retained in locked up systems like Instant Messaging, private Teamrooms, or shared drives, in obsolete Intellectual Capital / traditional KM systems, inside people’s computers, or, my good old time favourite: email! Or, even worse, in people’s heads (Not even shared, nor documented just yet!). Instead, we have now got that richness of information, knowledge and top-notch, best of breed relevant content, available to people’s fingertips to then be able to make better sense, and better decisions, that would impact not only their individual / team productivity, but also their own personal business relationships with both customers and business partners, which is, probably, what really matters the most at the end of the day. That, to me, is the real ROI of Social Computing. That sensemaking activity around the knowledge shared in making the right decisions to help improve your overall business performance. That’s when the journey to become a successful social business will go into the next level, moving away from that technology focus into one where it is fully integrated into how we do and conduct business, how we all become a lot more engaged, transparent and nimble at what we already do. Yes, we are still getting there! Like I said, it continues to take time and lots of good effort and energy to provoke that cultural shift and that mindset change. But the trip, so far, has truly been fascinating and quite an amazing learning experience for everyone, of finding out not only great content you didn’t know it was there available to all of us from all along, but, most importantly, the experts behind it as well and within reach of a single post, tweet, or whatever else. Because, as we all know, content is no longer king, people are! Always have been… (Oh, by the way, if you would be interested in finding out some more about IBM’s internal use of social software tools, with a special focus on IBM Connections, and rather recent - from July 2011-, check out the one slide shared across by fellow IBM colleague Steve Cogan who keeps updating it every so often as well… Then imagine what things would look like if all of that knowledge, if all of those business connections, would not have been made in the first place … Get Social. Do Business!)

I've been on tour in South East Asia for the last few days and it's been great fun, I must confess. For those who may have waited for an article and didn't see it on time, I apologise - and I'll try to put in a little extra when writing this article. When I go tripping, I usually try to study as much as I can about the place where I'm heading. Unfortunately my memory never serves me well, so when I reach my destination, it's all about planning for each day and relying on little, contextualised information sources such as the Lonely Planet website, Trip Advisor, a local map, street signs and my own senses. The fascinating thing is that regardless of how little I know about the place on day one, I feel like I know enough to get around by the time I leave the place. I've been thinking about this lately and it makes me think that the way we tour perhaps has some inspiration on how we can effectively train new hires at our workplace. To think of it, a new workplace is similar to a new city. Knowing how to survive in a new city, getting familiar with the roads, lanes, alleys, eating spots, food, sights, shops is very similar to learning about a new job. Yet, learning a new job seems to be significantly tougher than touring a new city. I accept that we approach tourism and new hire training with different mindsets, but the fact is that both activities are eventually about learning. There have to some parallels - what do you think? In today's blogpost I want to share my thoughts of what we as instructional designers/ learning consultants can about new hire training from the age old act of tourism. A lot of my thoughts find resonance in our design of ThoughtWorks University and I'll try to relate my thoughts back to real world examples as much as I can.Approach learning 'Breadth First'When I was planning my trip, I did as much reading as I could about the the places I wanted to visit. After a while though, every new name of a place confused me. Was Ubud, in Penang or Bali? Is there a Little India in Singapore or in Penang? Or both? Which is the larger free-flight aviary? KL or Singapore? And do I shop for Batik in Singapore, Penang, KL or Bali? As the places, sights, shopping and food options kept piling up, my memory started to fail me. The illustrated Lonely Planets and Outlook Travellers weren't helping; nor was Wiktravel. So I decided to do just enough to get a high level plan in place. I used the travel guides to put together a rough itinerary, but that was it - I couldn't handle anymore. When I think of traditional new hire training, I see a similar phenomenon of information overload. The idea seems to be to tell people everything they need to know in the shortest time possible. I look at this as being the equivalent of reading and remembering the Lonely Planet guides for all the three countries I'm visiting. That just doesn't work. What we need is a breadth first approach where learners can know what they don't know. I think of it as the equivalent of building boxes in our heads which we need to fill out with in-depth knowledge and skills as we go on. At ThoughtWorks University, we adopt a breadth first approach as well - our aim is to give people the bare minimum skills and knowledge to start ineffectively, yet safely at their jobs. The key is to know that they'll be ineffective - and that's where the importance of failing fast in safety comes in. I'll tell you about that in a bit.People need a map to get around (even better, a GPS)When I get to a new city, I first like to pick up a map. In Asian cities it's very common to find a detailed map at the airport or jetty. The map is then my guide to the destination and I carry it around everywhere I go. When I see a sight, I cross it off my map. When I want to reach a local attraction, I look at my map to guide me from my origin to the destination. If I'm unsure about what the fuss about a certain place is, I look at the back of the map for a description of the place. The information I get in context is badly authored, often grammatically incorrect, but useful - often invaluable. In terms of quality, it pales in comparision to the Lonely planet book, but the fact that it's lightweight and always with me, makes it far more valuable. If I had a smartphone with GPS, I would have perhaps found that even more useful! I learn about the new place by being in the thick of the action and the context for learning is no different from the context of real work. The map is a tool for me to deal with the new context and be successful.New hire training requires learning designers and trainers to create the right context for learning. We need to be able to put people in a safe work context as soon as possible, while giving people the ability to make mistakes in safety. We need to be able to create a map of lightweight, useful information that can help people when they're stuck. Communities of practice, organisational knowledge sharing, search enabled learning and the ability to learn when you need to, is crucial to a new hire's success. At ThoughtWorks University, we put new hires on a real world project for five weeks of their course. They already have the breadth to know what they don't know. This is the time for them to perfect their skills. The project itself is structured with rules that create the context for learning. In addition our online learning packages, our organisational wiki, communities and the students own social learning activities provide the map for students to learn step by step on the project. Learning here is contextualised to real-world tasks as against traditional learning which doesn't culminate in a tangible goal.Quick feedback aids effective learningWhen I get lost in a new city - I ask myself a couple of questions: Where am I? Which direction am I heading in?I've found that the best way to stop going around in circles when I'm a new place. Street signs and unfamiliar places are a great way to get feedback when you're in a new town. If you see a street sign you aren't expecting, all you need to do is find your current location on the map and then correlate it to where you're actually heading. The course correction takes just a few minutes. Often, if you're traveling with someone, they'll tell you if they feel you're heading in the wrong direction. That is feedback too - it allows you to course correct.Think of the parallels in new hire training. Does your course provide the right kind of feedback to learners so they can learn from their mistakes? How much of the feedback is intrinsic - driven by situations and real work? How much is extrinsic - a.k.a a teaching moment? The ThoughtWorks University project is structured into four iterations with plenty of feedback opportunities thrown in. Here are a few examples:A broken build on the project is feedback that someone on the team needs to fix it.Iteration retrospectives at the end of each week help the group figure out what they're doing well and what needs improvement.Big visible charts monitoring the progress of the team, their technical debt and their learnings, provide feedback on how they're delivering.Automated code analysis tools such as those for test coverage, help the team determine the quality of their solution.Regular customer interactions create the real world business feedback for our learners.Pair programming and group work ensure that people benefit from peer feedback and can learn from each other.I could keep going on with how we've workscaped ThoughtWorks University to include real-world feedback, but I guess you get the idea of how you can effectively use feedback to create learning.Expert advice at the right time is invaluableHave you ever employed a tour guide for specific trips? Or found smeone to ask directions when you're woefully lost? This is where experience comes in handy. Sometimes, it's just not meaningful to keep making the same mistakes. You don't learn anything and you just end up getting very frustrated! And expert who can help in such situations is just wat the doctor will order.Think of how you can provide expert advice on your new hire training programs. In reality, your new hires will rarely work all by themselves. OTOH, they'll rarely have experts guiding them at each step. What you need is a balance between letting learners be self-driven and offering them advice when they need it. At ThoughtWorks University we manage this by bringing on Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) as trainers - they are the best at their jobs, so why not leverage them to create the best learning experience for our new hires? We use our SMEs to create leveraged teams that mix youth and experience. From time to time, our SMEs pair with the new hires so they can coach each of them individually on their specific strengths and weaknesses. The key here is individualisation, as against a one-size-fits-all experience that fits no one. The SMEs being part of the team can help the group course correct when they reach a dead end. This helps students learn what to do when work is not the happy path you learn about in training. As you can see learning about a new job is not so different from learning about a new city. So put on your design hat and see what you can do with your new hire program to include some of the elements I've mentioned in this blogpost. I'd like to encourage you to think of the tools as a means to an end. The goal is to have new hires feel confident in their job, just as you'd want to feel comfortable in a new city. On ThoughtWorks University, we're managing this by giving new hires just enough instruction to get started on a project, with enough resources (elearning included) for them to pull learning from when at work. We're supporting them with experienced consultants on their training project and we're creating lots of feedback opportunities for them to learn from their mistakes. I will speak more about our experiences at DevLearn 2010 and sometime soon on the Learning and Skills Group. In the meantime, let me know what you think about this article - your comments are always welcome!© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Indeed, while everyone tries to go and aim for that Work / Life Balance or, as of late, Work / Life Integration, I am starting to be more and move convinced by the day that there isn’t such a balance nor such integration after all. It’s all about a state of mind, whatever that may well be, whether you are at work, enjoying some great quality time with your loved ones or just simply away on vacation. Eventually, it’s your state of mind, something that no-one can take away from you; not your family and loved ones, not your work, not even your boss. And it’s just too funny that I have finally come to realise about that while I have been on vacation myself for the last few days, which is why you haven’t seen any updates on this blog for nearly two weeks. But I am now back and my state of mind is "back to work, back the social grid!" Fully re-energised, batteries charged all the way up!, really excited to face, and embrace, the remaining of what’s left for 2011, for sure! In short, ready for plenty more! I must confess that I truly enjoyed though the time that I have been disconnected, unwinding from everything, going back home to visit my family and spending plenty of quality time with them catching up with real life, you know, the one I guess most of us keep neglecting time and time again, because it’s always going to be there. You know, they are always going to be there! Well, really? Who knows… Do you? Do you have that certainty? I surely don’t! The thing is that this time around I thought about bringing with me my MacBook Air, so that, in between here and there, you know, those idle moments where nothing seems to be happening, I would have an opportunity to play catch up with work as well as do lots of the blogging I have meant to write over here for a long while. Oh dear, life has done it again. Life is wise. Life knows what’s best for you and for those around you. No doubt. Never question it, because by the time you do it, it would be too late! In the whole time that I spent on vacation, this time around going back home to León, mainland Spain, I hardly managed to be connected to the Social Web. Yes, we all know it already, we are all interconnected, we have always been interconnected. Yet, our physical world, at least, in some parts of the globe that being connected to the Web reliably has got a lot to be desired for! And that’s just what I experienced while being away. After a couple of tries of playing catch up with the Social Web and gaining further frustration for not managing to stay connected, like I am used to, I eventually gave up and stopped trying to get connected. Instead, decided to switch off and enjoy plenty of physical, face to face, social networking with the kind of folks who are already interconnected amongst themselves, and for whom social technologies don’t seem to be playing a key role. At least, the one I thought it would. And I had a total blast throughout all of that time! Goodness! Did that experience change a whole bunch of things for the better?!? It surely did and I am very happy it did! It was also about time it managed to break through and go through that awakening phase that I guess most of us would need to go through every now and then to show us all what really matters. Yes, as usual, the little things! To describe it all in a single blog post would probably take me ages to do, and perhaps you folks may be able to see it coming along in upcoming blog posts anyway, while I try to cover various different subjects and other interesting readings, as I will try to make a connection between this offline time, what I learned during such time, as well as how it relates to the Social Web, and my overall experiences, because, as usual, it does and big time! However, in order to share with you some of the beauty and privilege of what I have enjoyed in the last few days, I thought I would go ahead and resume my regular blogging activities with the Inspiring Video of the Week, which, once again, is a rather short, but amazingly inspirational, thought-provoking and mind-boggling TED Talk by Ric Elias. I will embed the YouTube video clip over here that I bumped into before I started my holidays, while I will point you to the original Talk itself, but you will have to watch through the little bit over three minutes to get a glimpse of what this holiday has meant for yours truly. And, most importantly, how I am beginning to understand how that state of mind is playing with us all to really help us focus on the things that really matter: our personal / business relationships with others, whether at work… Or not. (You would have to agree with me that just the Ted Talk / Video clip on its own would make us all reflect about a thing or two on how we currently view things, and where we should be placing, and focusing on, our *real* priorities, don’t you think? … Yes, it’s good to be back into the usual things of life and work, but with a redefined purpose altogether. Living Social FTW! Ohhh, and talking about re-difining purposes altogether, take a look into this essential, must-read article put together by my good friend Dave Pollard on "Living Disconnected". Perhaps one of the best, most fascinating, blog entries you will read this year. Without a single doubt. It will be worth while your time, for sure, with plenty of food for thought for all of us on what’s coming… if we don’t change our inadequate state of mind!)

A short flight from KL landed us in Penang - the pearl of the orient. There are good reasons for Penang to be called that. It's definitely Malaysia and Asia's food capital and perhaps also the cultural capital, given Georgetown's status as a UNESCO world heritage site. As in KL, we wish we had more time here - good reasons to ask for a bigger holiday allowance. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon, though! Anyways, let me give you a quick run down of a few things that may serve you well if you come to Penang.AccomodationWe booked our accomodation at Penang through Hostelbookers. Hostelbookers often has links with several homestay providers and we ran into Annie's homestay close to the famous Batu Ferringhi beach at Penang. The accomodation was expensive by Penang standards, but we didn't want to run around looking for places to stay given our tight itinerary. The room we got at Annie's home in Batu Ferringhi's posh residential area by the hills was nice and cosy, but I've got to warn you about a few things. Firstly, it's a homestay - so don't expect someone to clean your room everyday and take out your garbage. You've got to do that yourself. Second, she has just one bedroom with an attached bath and that didnt' do us much good since our water heater wasn't working too well. My wife's really particular about a hot shower, and she had to go to the shared bathroom to get one. So we paid for an ensuite, but really did with a shared bathroom. All that said, it's a stone's throw from the beach and in a really picturesque locale and if you can deal with Annie's talkative nature then you should be fine. Getting aroundAs we do at most Asian island and beach destinations, we rented a scooter to get around Penang. A scooter in these parts is absolutely invaluable because of the flexibility it gives you. At 35 RM ($11) a day, it's a cheap alternative to rental cars and taxis. Traffic in Penang is relatively easy to negotiate, since most people follow traffic rules and are generaly disciplined drivers. Given my Indian upbringing and experience handling peak traffic in Bangalore, I had it quite easy. If you're squeamish with the idea of riding a two wheeler, then consider renting a car or better still use public transport. Unlike many other island towns, Penang has a really good bus service called RapidPenang that is fast, cheap and reliable. For example a 90 minute ride from the airport to the beach cost us just 12 RM ($3.77) apiece.SightseeingPenang's definitely a sight for sore eyes with it's rich mix of natural beauty, beaches and culture. Amrita was really tired and sore on day one, while I was being my usual energetic self. So I decided to head off to Taman Negara - the Penang National Park. The park itself is a well maintained trekking site perched atop a hillock, surrounded by the sea. Some of the beaches are absolutely breathtaking. You can take yourself along the 3km hike to Monkey beach. My shoes gave way half way through, so I couldn't make it to the end of the hike and returned from the Maritime University itself. Along the same route, you'll find the Tropical Spice Gardens and the Butterfly Park. I gave those a miss too, since I've seen quite a lot of similar sights in my lifetime.Day two, was perhaps the most enjoyable and the saddest day of our entire trip. We were at Georgetown. Georgetown is an important site of the British colonial era in Malaysia. Home to several temples, mosques, Chinese temples and colonial buildings, every corner of Georgetown is seeped in history. Amrita and I did quite well to see all of Georgetown's 36 interesting sights, but not before my trusty Olympus camera gave way and stopped functioning altogether. Task for me when I get back home - get the camera fixed! I'm not going to list all the sights down, but here are some you shouldn't miss at all:The Clock TowerFort CornwallisPenang MuseumThe Kapitan Keling MosqueThis is by no means an exhaustive list, especially if you're a photography buff. Georgetown has several great photography opportunities and if you don't want to miss any of them then charge your batteries, get yourself one of the detailed area maps and go absolutely bonkers!Day three was a light day -- there was heaps to see, but we decided we didn't want to stress ourselves too much. The Penang hill railway was on our list of things to do, but unfortunately it was undergoing renovation. If you're there in November, you're likely to see the famous train back in action. Anyways, we headed off to the 'infamous' Kek Lok Si temple, which the temple managment keeps expanding every year. While the temple's quite nice, it paled in comparision to some of the other sights we've been witness to especially with the number of shops that dotted every corner of the establishment. It seemed more like a shopping destination than a real temple. So if you had to give this a miss, don't worry - you aren't missing much.FoodLast and certainly not the least - food! Penang is truly the best food destination you can get to. Penang eats its food at hawker centers - a place for street food vendors to get together and sell their stuff. Consider this as the street equivalent of western food courts, only cheaper, tastier and less posh. Hawker centers serve a huge variety of food, ranging from the very popular Nasi Kandar cuisine, to Chinese, Malay, Baba-Nyonya, Indonesian and Western delicacies. While these places generally serve good food, I strongly recommend you eat at Georgetown for a wider range of food and rock bottom prices. Some of my favourite foods at Penang have been the delicious grilled fish that they serve on banana leaves, the satays, the Char Kwoay Teow (fried flat noodles), the Laksa and seafood soups, the Nasi Biryanis and Rotis, the seafood steamboat barbecues, and the different varieties of Mee (noodles). If you feel upto it though, you should try the Bak-Kut-Teh - a very tasty and spicy, soupy concoction made with (take a deep breath) the insides of a pig. No matter how repulsive that sounds, it tastes sinfully good and is well worth the experience. In fact, if you're really particular you can choose which parts of the pig make their way into your soup!Anyways, food is Penang's crowning jewel and you just can't go wrong with it. Regardless of where you go and what you order, you're likely to get good food. All you need is a spirit of adventure to keep trying new things and you're likely to experience strokes of serendipity! Penang was my last stop at Malaysia. I wish I had more time to enjoy this country and travel to some of its other beautiful destinations. Perhaps I'll do that during my rejunevation leave coming up next year. Let's see -- for now, my next stop is Singapore. Keep following this space for more stories from Asia's most organised city.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

(I was hoping to be able to share this blog post while I was on vacation with my family in León, mainland Spain, but apparently lack of reliable (NOT!!) Internet connectivity, provided by Movistar, le sigh, prevented me not posting it sooner… More on that in an upcoming blog entry though, but for now regular blogging will resume, once again from today onwards… Welcome back!) As most of you folks know already, over the next few days, I will be on holidays visiting my family in mainland Spain and while it’s supposed to be a time where I will be doing plenty of disconnecting and unwinding from the Social Web, as I get to do some serious catch up with real life, and with the little things that matter, I just can’t help dropping by on this blog every now and then, and over the next few days, and share with folks some further thoughts and insights that have been in my mind for a little while now. And lately, my mind has been buzzing with how my overall experience with the external Social Web has changed rather dramatically thanks to Google Plus. Over two months on it and I am still having a blast. This time around though for business, too! Yes, that’s right! A few days back a couple of folks asked me to comment on where I would see Google Plus in the near future with regards to other Enterprise Social Networking tools and my initial thoughts have been, almost from the beginning, that the potential to become rather significant is already there. It will be a matter of whether Google manages to let it grow in the right direction with some further innovations taking place, but at the same time while respecting the overall user experience we are treasuring quite a bit, and which distinguishes itself from other social networking tools right from the start. My good friend Andy McAfee put together a rather insightful blog post a couple of weeks back under the heading "Google Plus and The Social Media Moonshot", where he reflected somewhat on that potential Plus has got already embedded into it as a "great boon for enterprises and small groups of collaborators". And I couldn’t have agreed more with him on that statement. In a way, it reminded me, quite a bit, on the huge potential of Google Wave for that same audience, although it’s probably just too bad it didn’t deliver that time around. He also comes to share his experiences with it and how he finds out he spends more time sharing Public posts rather than through Circles, which is quite an interesting observation, even more when everyone is talking about how transformative the whole concept of Circles has been so far. I am not going to spoil it much more for you folks on Andy’s additional thoughts on how it is working out for him, but I would encourage you all to go and have a look through it. It would be worth while the read, for sure! What I found interesting though is how we are both sharing a very similar behaviour on how we are working around Circles themselves. I, too, publish most of my posts to Public and just restrict some of them to specific Circles in a very defined context. That one of business related updates. Indeed, one of my favourite circles that I put together a little while ago is one for Customers, as more and more of them are starting to come along and join G+ and so far I have been enjoying the interactions quite a bit. In the past you would remember the series of blog posts I have been putting together so far, where I have been hinting how Google Plus is surely shaping up the way I interact with the Social Web out there. Some of those insights were highlighting how G+ could be used in a business environment with both public, private updates, hangouts, huddles, instant messaging, etc. etc. and one of the things I am finding out in the last few days is how those interactions are starting to be rather focused on business interactions. It’s been a bit over two months since it was launched and I am already seeing on my Stream how a large chunk of the updates do no longer have anything to do with how this new kid in the block works here and there. The conversation has moved on and once we have past the initial learning curve the really good stuff is starting to happen. For me, that’s interacting with customers, business partners, and fellow IBM colleagues, but at the same time keeping up with industry thought leaders in an open, trustworthy environment where more in-depth dialogue is not only encouraged, but facilitated nicely altogether. A good number of those conversations are happening out there in the open, indeed, but at the same time a whole bunch of other interactions are happening privately, in circles, or through direct messaging, which is when it really gets interesting. With other social networking tools it was rather cumbersome to be able to successfully engage with people in meaningful dialogue for whatever the restriction. Some times it was the 140 characters limitations, or the private nature of the SNS (For family and friends, like Facebook), or the aggressive terms of service from a variety of social tools where you no longer retain the copyright of what you share. Well, Google Plus fixes all of that and so much more! I have been having business related conversations with a few customers, where we have been capable of exchanging long-ish conversations in a natural way, without being forced to be concise, just letting it develop and see how far it could take us or worry about who owns the content shared. And those exchanges have been absolutely wonderful! What social tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Posterous, and a few others, haven’t figured out for years Google Plus delivers from day one! And all of that without taking into account Hangouts, Huddles, Instant Messaging and the like that add further up another key aspect missing from the Social Web: real-time interactions! Not sure what you would think about it, but I am enjoying it so far big time! It’s that specific scenario as well that’s helping me shape up how I interact with Circles. Like I have mentioned above, most of my posts are Public, i.e. published to the world, but the way I consume content in G+ is rather specific on its own. I spend most of the time in Circles. To me, they are all starting to become channels of insightful information and relevant content that I can reuse / reshare again, or that I can learn some more from, or that I can help others with. But with a different twist. While most folks are interested in the content itself, my Circles are all based on a people centric approach, where what matters to me are the people themselves and not so much the updates. That’s why I am enjoying both business and personal updates, even those of a rather trivial nature. Plenty of people keep saying that social networking is all about personalising your experience, to make it your own, to find a purpose for it (Whether business or personally related), to connect with those social tools in a meaningful way and keep the dialogue going and somehow I feel how Google Plus is helping me achieve that. It’s helping me, and those I interact with, become a whole lot more personal with some of our updates. And that’s what I am enjoying the most at the moment, that I am interacting with people, people who bring forward their personalities, their affinities, their passions, their selves, without pretending to be someone else they aren’t. It’s that going personal that’s helping me become more personal myself in trying to keep cultivating and nurturing those personal business relationships, because, at the end of the day, I guess that’s what really matters, right? That’s why, to me, Google Plus, has got that huge potential from an enterprise perspective. That’s why, as soon as Plus starts integrating the massive Google ecosystem behind it, we will be having quite an interesting effect on how we conduct business, specially, externally. Can you imagine when G+ is tightly integrated with Google Search? Mind-blowing is one of the many words that comes to mind! Now, I am sure at this point in time you may be wondering whether that means I will be leaving behind business related social networking environments like our external instances IBM Connections, which are still my preferred method for doing business, right? Well, not really. I still see both of them walking together, hand in hand, getting the job done. What I am seeing though is how most of my business interactions have now moved on from social tools like Twitter or LinkedIn into Google Plus and somehow that’s something that I’m starting to like quite a bit, since, once again, I no longer have to worry about having to figure out technology. I just have got to focus on the conversations and get the job done, which is, in my opinion, what the Social Web should be about. Forget the social technologies at play and focus on living social. Do Business.

If there's one place I just didn't couldn't do any justice to during my trip, it was Bali. The island of the gods may seem like a speck of dust on the huge ocean, but frankly its arduous terrain makes it difficult for you to get a full coverage in the space of three days. In fact, you could be in Bali for a month and still have plenty of things to do. Home to some amazing coral reefs, dive spots, snorkeling waters and surf beaches, Bali provides an equal measure of entertainment on the cultural front. In a largely Islamic country, Bali is a Hindu majority island and it's amazing to see the parallels between my own culture and that of the Balinese. In the end, we could hardly sample the island in our three days, also because of the fact that we didn't want to stress ourselves too much during the last few days of our vacation.OrientationBali is a glorious, large island and the way you need to enjoy it is in layers. There's something for everyone to do. So if you're planning a trip, here's some information that may come in handy.Kuta, the first layer: Bali has an enviable coastline and the Kuta, Legian and Seminyak beach trio provide 40 km of almost uninterrupted coastline for you to enjoy the waters around this island. While Kuta, the premier surf destination is home to maddening crowds and is a typical Asian beach location; Sanur, the country cousin beach is your opportunity to enjoy the waters in quiet. Kuta is also a stone's throw from Denpasar, the city-ish area of Bali, where you can do a bit of museum hopping.Ubud, the second layer: If Kuta is home to Bali's best beach, then Ubud's got to be the cultural capital of the island. Home to quite a few museums, Ubud is also a great shopping destination for Bali's traditional handicrafts - batik, wood carving, stone sculptures, paintings and ornaments. Most of Bali's people are employed in these cottage industries, so you won't really find a particular market for specific things. You just need to pick a village and then go from home to home trying to buy what you fancy. Also, Ubud is home to several other attractions such as the Goa Gajah (Elephant Caves), the Wanara Wan (Monkey Forest) and places to see the famous Barong and Legong dances.Lovina, the third layer: We didn't even touch this part of Bali, though we did border on the fringes of the beautiful Lake Batur and the equally awe inspiring volcano, Gunung Batur. Kintamani, the village around the rim of the volcano, is famous for it's morning market that opens every three days. This apart, Lovina houses Bali's highest and most sacred place - Mount Agung. At the peak of this mountain is Pura Besakih, Bali's most revered temple - from where the gods descend when they come to Bali. Add to this the beautiful black sand beach of Lovina (which I've seen only in pictures), the Candidasa and Padangbai beaches, the Goa Lawah temple and the proximity to Lake Bratan and the temple there, you've got some really interesting things to see and do.All this is just a cursory introduction to Bali. Fringed by other beautiful islets and dive spots, Bali is a great destination for watersports and marine exploration. If there's one place I'm coming back to for my rejunevation leave, it's got to be Bali. Bali also has nine beautiful, highly important directional temples set either at the shores of the sea or in the hills. If you can visit all nine, then you've got to give yourself a pat on your back.What we managed to doI have to admit, we didn't plan our stay in Bali too well. Too much to do, too little time. We had to charter cars because we wanted to just rely on a driver to do the navigation for us - in hindsight, a scooter would have been a better idea. In the end, we just ended up doing a drive through Ubud, with a bit of shopping thrown in. A customary visit to the legendary Tanah Lot temple, dinner on the beautiful Jimbaran beach were just about the things we could make time for. We also witnessed the amazing Barong, Legong and Kecak dances - and if you have just a few hours in Bali, you should definitely watch these. Don't even think of missing them. And we went around the Bukit Peninsula a bit - to the Uluwatu temple and GWK cultural park. My wife got herself a Balinese massage and we spent a few hours at the Kuta beach - but that was it. I feel like I've left so much unseen and untouched back in Bali that I've got to go back. Heck, I haven't even tasted some good Balinese cuisine yet - except my amazing seafood dinner at Jimbaran beach which I highly recommend to anyone who visits Bali. We're now on our way back to Bangalore. Despite the fact that I missed heaps in Bali, I've been missing my dog Sparky a lot. I'm looking forward to seeing him, getting back to work and planning my next holiday with renewed energy. For those who follow this blog for the L&D stuff I usually post - sorry if these posts annoyed you. I just can't start a new blog for personal stuff and keep it alive as well. Hopefully you got some handy hints about the places I visited and if you're heading to any of these destinations, feel free to talk to me and I'll share some tips with you.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009

Over the course of the years Hugh MacLeod has always been posting some of the most amazing content available out there on the Internet Blogosphere on various different topics, specially, related to Social Networking. One of the articles that I have enjoyed the most though was one he shared just recently, a couple of weeks back, under the title ""Reclaim Blogging": Why I’m giving up Twitter and Facebook", where he is stating, out loud, and very clearly, the main single use case of why blogging still has got a place within today’s Social Web: Your voice… Your blog *still* is your main personal branding tool! Interestingly enough, plenty of people have been questioning whether, now that we have got Google Plus as well, it makes sense to dump your own blog in favour of your social activities in the various social networking sites. And Plus being the latest one joining the already existing crowded club. A few prominent bloggers have jumped the shark and eventually dumped their blogs and moved the conversations, and further insights, into G+. And a few people have been asking me for a little while now, on whether I’m ready to do that myself and move over to Plus as well … or not. Well, the answer, right now, as we stand, is No. Yes, it’s true that I have dumped a good number of social software tools out there on the Social Web in favour of G+ itself, or, at least, thanks to it I have reduced my involvement with those social tools quite a bit. But there are two of them that I am not ready, just yet, to kiss good-bye and move them into SNS. One of them is my Flickr account and the other one, of course, is my blog. This blog. And Hugh explains it very very well how I, too, feel about it overall on why I still think there is a place and a time for blogging out there on the Internet, as well as the Intranet, by the way. Here are a couple of noteworthy quotes from his blog entry I thought were worth while sharing across: "The content on your blog, however, belongs to you, and you alone. People come to your online home, to hear what you have to say, not to hear what everybody else has to say. This sense of personal sovereignty is important." [Emphasis mine] Which he then develops beautifully with this other noteworthy quote: "And as I’ve said many times over the years, Web 2.0 IS ALL ABOUT personal sovereignty. About using media to do something meaningful, WITHOUT someone else giving you permission first, without having to rely on anyone else’s resources, authority and money. Self-sufficiency. Exactly" [Emphasis mine, once again] And I couldn’t have agreed more with that couple of rather inspiring and thought-provoking quotes. Blogging, indeed, does require a lot of hard work, lot of energy and effort about being constant, authentic (i.e. The real you!), honest, insightful, willing to learn and share plenty more, etc. etc. However, the returns have always been tremendously powerful. Blogging is your own personal voice (Whether internal or external), your own opinions on those subject matters that you are truly passionate about, your own real self. The individual that the world would need to figure out whether you are worth while reading or not depending on the nature and the insights of the stuff you share across. Blogging, in short, is your own personal branding tool. Your digital footprint out there. Your digital eminence in a place where your voice is heard loud and clear and where you call the shots on owning the conversation initially, inspiring others to improve your own thoughts and ideas over time, making it a tremendously empowering learning experience. Call it your own essential personal Knowledge Management / Sharing System, if you wish… Very soon, in just a couple of months time, my blogging experience will make 8 years and, as you may have noticed, it’s still going rather strong, with the exception, of course, of those hiatus that I seem to embark on every now and then, specially, when I am travelling. Yet, I still feel as if it were my first few weeks of blogging. The excitement is there, the energy, the effort and the willingness to start a conversation and invite others to chime in, as they may see fit, are all still there, just like back in the day, because, a long time ago I realised that my blog, more than anything else, became my online business card, my dynamic and ever-growing curriculum vitae, my own virtual community of folks who care and are truly passionate about the same stuff as me. And that’s just priceless! But if there would be a single reason as to why I still think blogging is worth while doing big time, picking further up from Hugh’s rather enlightening blog entry, is the fact of how of those last 8 years of blogging, my blog has managed to provide me with some pretty unique opportunities, both in a personal and work levels, including the last three of my own jobs, while at IBM, one of them being my dream job where next month will mark my 4th anniversary there! That’s just one of the many many reasons out there why I, too, wanted to take this opportunity to remind people, like Hugh himself did on that article, "on why we all got into blogging in the first place, all of those years ago…" Perhaps it’s a good time now to remind folks about it and, just in case you may be new to blogging and would wonder how you could get things going to help you start finding your own blogging voice and blogging style, allow me to recommend the one single resource that has taught me over the years a whole bunch of hints and tips, tricks, good practices, and blogging techniques: Darren Rowse, the one and only, ProBlogger. It’s probably as good as it gets to help you get off to a really good start in building further up your own personal brand and digital presence out there on the Social Web. Oh, and if you are in Google Plus, allow me to point you as well to this thread by Darren himself under the heading "Traits of Successful Bloggers" where he has shared plenty of insights and various different links to 12 different characteristics of (successful) bloggers: Playfulness and Creativity Innovation Connectors Community Builders Information Mavens Communicators Interest Entrepreneurial Spirit Originality Perseverance Focus Curiosity Now, on to the final reflection that I am sure most of you folks out there are thinking about already… With this blog post on reclaiming blogging am I implying that I’m about to leave the various social networking sites where I used to hang out at? Well, I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m ready, just yet, to dump it all, just like Hugh himself. What I can tell you though, and share across happily, is how both this blog and Google Plus itself have allowed me to become thicker, instead of spreading thinner over and over, at my social interactions to the point where it looks like I may have reduced my online social activities out there on the Social Web to these magic three: my blog (with my Flickr pictures I keep embedding here and there…), my one single Twitter account over at @elsua (I’m in the process of deleting all other alter egos, so feel free to connect with that account or add it to a Twitter List near you) and Google Plus itself. And so far it looks like I’m enjoying it quite a bit. How about you? Does blogging still play a key part in your social interactions? If so, please do let me know! Would love to add you into my daily blogroll … Yes, I do still have one and maintain it as well on a regular basis!

I've been to Singapore on a transit visa before. My visit however was so rushed that I left with half-baked impressions of the city and had really strong misgivings about the place. None of those misgivings remain today - I rate Singapore really highly now and I'll recommend it as a must visit destination to anyone who visits Asia. Singapore's a big island city-state, perhaps just a little larger than Bangalore. With a diverse population of Indians, Chinese, Malay, other Asian and several western expats, Singapore's got to be Asia's most global city. With English as a first language, it's perhaps Asia's most tourist friendly city and from what I've seen and heard, it seems to be a buzzing business destination too.My tryst with Singapore has been short, yet fulfilling. Let me tell you a little more about it.Orientation and AccomodationMy flight from Penang to Singapore was on Tiger Airways - a leading low-cost airline based in Singapore. We landed at the budget terminal in Singapore and after immigration we took the shuttle bus to Terminal 2 of of the main airport. Finding information and places in Singapore is never a problem and before we knew it, we had 2 tourist passes for unlimited travel by public transport for three full days! Sweet start. We'd deliberately chosen inexpensive accomodation away from the city center. Our hotel - Aqueen Balestier, is a cosy business hotel located near the Novena Medical center. A couple of train changes, a hop on the bus and we were right there at our hotel. I must say that we quite liked our hotel, it's away from the madness of the business district, yet conveniently located near some really good eating places and a train station. To top it the rooms are well appointed and unlike other hotels, the staff don't keep bothering you every now and then. So that was that.Getting AroundClick here for a larger imageAs I mentioned, we had a 3-day unlimited tourist pass that gave us access to all city buses and trains. So transportation wasn't a problem at all. The tourist passes are great value for money. They cost 26 SGD (19 USD) plus a 10 SGD (7 USD) refundable deposit. With the amount of hopping around that we did, it was well worth the price. Singapore's also a remarkably easy place to get around. Every bus stand has route maps for all the buses that stop there. There's an index of nearby streets along with a list of buses that'll take you there. Buses are really frequent too. As far as trains are concerned, Singapore's MRT is one of the most advanced and organised train systems I've seen. Every station has a locality map at each exit, so you'll never be in doubt for how to reach your destination. If nothing works, there's a fairly useful public transport journey planner that you can use. Of course, we never got to the point where we needed that app.This apart, streets in Singapore are very clearly signposted and that makes it a great walking city. In the city center, it's great fun to walk across various streets and take quick snaps of interesting sights without getting too lost. In terms of getting around, Singapore scores a perfect 10.SightseeingThere are several sightseeing opportunities at Singapore. We've been very ambitious on this vacation of ours so my wife and I decided to do the first two days of this itinerary on our first day itself! So the Victoria Theatre, the Merlion, The Arts Museum, Cavenagh Bridge, Little India, the Supreme court, the Parliament square and many other sights came our way on day one. It was hectic, but it was a lot of fun jumping from one bus to another, changing trains and walking around the city. Day one was also my birthday so a top of the world feeling was in order. The Singapore Flyer was just what we needed - the view of the city from atop the observation wheel is quite something. Unfortunately we didn't have a really great camera, so snagging pictures in the dark was quite tough. We did what we could and I'll try to put up the pictures on Flickr as soon as I can.Day two in Singapore was visiting one of it's must see attractions - the Singapore Zoo. Until recently I'd thought of the Taronga Zoo as the best I've seen. That hasn't changed, but I'll say that the Singapore Zoo is definitely an equal to Taronga. Not only are the zoo, the animals and their abodes in top condition, the zoo's keepers and commentators are very knowledgeable and extremely engaging presenters. Each of the shows that we went to, left us enlightened and wiser about the great wildlife that walks our planet. If you're in a mood to visit the zoo, I suggest you skip the tram and boat tickets. While it may seem convenient to hop on and off the tram and boat, you're more likely to keep walking the same stretch that you've already covered by these modes. In the whole day we did just one trip each on the tram and the boat, so I don't think it was worth the extra money. Another word of advice, particularly if you're in Singapore for a few extra days - 45 SGD (33 USD) gives you entry to all the three wildlife attractions in Singapore; the zoo, the bird park and the night safari. If the zoo was anything to go by, the other two attractions should be well worth the additional cost. I recommend them as must sees.We decided consciously to give Sentosa a miss - since most locals refer to it as 'So Expensive but Nothing TO See Actually'. However, we've found Singapore to be completely devoid of tourist traps. There's not a single place where we spent a dollar in vain. So I can imagine Sentosa will be interesting for those who like that kind of fun.FoodSingapore's truly a gastronomic adventure and matched Penang bite for bite. There's all kinds of food on offer, but if there's one particular meal I want to write about, it's got to be the dinner on my birthday. My wife treated me to a sumptuous meal with the legendary Singapore chili crab and a finely grilled stingray. When the menu says chilli crab, take it seriously - there's a lot of chilli in that delicious spread. But the mighty Sumeet is not one to be deterred by the spice. The spice from the crab and the stingray gave me strong battle, but like any other food gladiator I waged war. Claw after claw met bite after bite from me. It was a fight to the finish - I was sweating  profusely, but I wasn't going to five up. No sissy rice morsels to cut out the spice; in fact to be a man I added some extra chillies to the dish. Surely perseverance and bravery had to pay off - to the victor go the spoils of war. The crab lay vanquished, I slept satisfied. It was a massacre as you can see for yourself. A delicious massacre that I have no regrets about though. I'll gladly do it again.I enjoyed every meal in Singapore. It's definitely one of the costlier places in Asia, but well worth the price for the quality of food you get. The hawker centers, like in Penang, make it incredibly easy for you to find good food. Just walk into any place that looks cheap and crowded and you'll find great, scrumptuous food.I can keep saying this and never tire - Singapore's the most tourist friendly destination I've ever been to. You have everything you can associate with a vacation in Asia - great sights, friendly people, good food and none of the ills - touts, tourist traps, pushy salesmen or health scares. It's easy to navigate, a stone's throw from KL by train or by air and just so entertaining for a short holiday. I want to repeatedly recommend it as an absolute must visit.© Sumeet Moghe, 2009