PDF - Challenge Online

Transcription

e
S e p te m b
re n t
vice Diffe
r
e
S
c
i
l
b
ing the Pu
Approach
r / O c to b e
ly
Continuous
Candid
Camera
With a camera in every pocket,
will everyone have to be on their
best behaviour 24/7?
r 2016
September
October 2016
C O N T E N T S
10
Cover Story
CONTINUOUS
CANDID
CAMERA
With everyone toting
a camera in their
pocket, how does this
change the way public
officers operate?
7
16
SAVE OUR
STOCK
When plankton blooms,
Agri-Food & Veterinary
Authority officers spring
into action to help
farmers save their fish
A JOURNEY
OF DIGITAL
INNOVATION
25
Insights from DBS on
embracing a digital
culture for innovation
“WHY PUT THE FATE
OF DIGITAL GOVERNMENT IN SOMEONE
ELSE’S HAND?”
DREAMING
IN BROAD
DAYLIGHT
Chief Medical Officer Dr Ng
Yih Yng tells how he gets
and refines his ideas before
pitching them to his bosses
30
THE KAMPUNG SPIRIT
BEHIND KAMPUNG
ADMIRALTY
New ways of
procurement for this massive
multi-agency project that will
foster community bonding
t
the challe nge pullou
18
FOR THE
S
DESSERT DUMMIE
There’s something
for everyone.
I ORDERED
POKE, NOT
N.
POKE... MO
20
FOR THE
TECH NOOB
apps
The must-have 2016.
try in
and tech to
22
TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY IDEAS
smart
Feel and sound books.
by reading these
24
UP AND COMING
TALENTS
SINGAPO RE
be the next
They might
household names.
Alvan Yap
writing by
Research &
Masramli
Siti Maziah
by Ryan Ong
Edited by
illustration
Design &
8 pages to help you
stay current & cool
017-024 Pullout
FA.indd 1
PUL
36
Hear from the Government
Chief Information Officer on
doing things differently
PUTTING THE
“YOU” IN
UNIQUE
Put a personal touch
on your furniture, art
or wearable belongings
with these local creators
02 Inbox Your views on the past issues of Challenge 03 Your Say Lessons from your favourite TV show or film –
for work 04 All Things Digital The latest happenings online 05 #hearmeout Thoughts of a young public officer
in 140 words 05 Get Wired Tips to be more tech-savvy at work 06 The Briefing News from the Public Service
17 The Challenge Pullout: The Catch-up Issue 8 pages of tips to keep you cool and current 29 Customising
Service to Customer Needs The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority identifies customers’ abilities and attitudes
to provide targeted service 30 Creating Our Future Together A look behind the scenes of PSfuture, the first
large-scale dialogue to engage public officers in the future of the Public Service 40 The Irreverent Last Page:
The Amazing Technocrat’s Dreamcoat Challenge imagines the go-to garment of the future for public officers
SEP/OC T 2016
Issue
The Catch- up
26
LOU
T
up with
be hard to keep
trends? It can
– and that’s
with the latest
media feeds
stuff
Catch no ball
g on our social
the serious
content streamin
And what about
the pace of
Pokémo n Go
the hard news.
From the game
the
not even counting
on in a snap?
have read and
to catch up
you should
to
that you need
to the books
cheat sheets
raw fish salad),
gives you the
to poke (the
issue’s Pullout
watch, this
all.
TV shows to
(up on) ’em
so you can catch
what’s hot
pm
25/8/16 4:18
publisher
PS21 Office, Public Service Division,
Prime Minister’s Office
100 High Street, #03-02 The Treasury
Singapore 179434
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.challenge.gov.sg
For enquiries or feedback on Challenge,
please write to the Challenge Editorial Team
at [email protected].
Editorial Advisors
Adeline Kwok, Charlene Han & Tan Hui Min
Editor
Kaira Peh
All eyes on you
Assistant Editor
Shaun Khiu
In an attempt to keep up with the
“younger” generation, I started using
Snapchat to post photos and videos, and
recently tried the new Instagram photo
story feature, which works in a similar
way. In both apps, the posts will be
removed after 24 hours. Facebook Live has also allowed me to experience
first-hand what goes on elsewhere without me having to be there.
While I use these apps mainly to entertain my circle of friends, we can’t ignore the
phenomenon that increasingly, everyone has the power to be a broadcaster, amplifying
acts of kindness as well as misdeeds. A recent video that shocked me was one of a woman
scolding a food centre cleaner publicly. The video made its rounds in cyberspace, with
netizens slamming the woman.
Instantaneous video sharing poses both opportunities and challenges for the Public
Service. In cover story “Continuous Candid Camera” (page 10), we look at how public
officers can navigate this new landscape and continue to deliver quality services.
In A Cuppa With…, Government Chief Information Officer Chan Cheow Hoe shares
candidly his reservations about joining the Public Service, and his vision and plans to
build up internal capabilities for government digital services. And an increasingly digital
world means we have to constantly adapt. We hear from DBS in Insider’s Take how the
organisation embraced a digital culture, though it was at first uncomfortable, to create
innovative solutions.
The Challenge team also wants to pay tribute to former President S R Nathan who passed
away on August 22. A veteran civil servant before he became President, Mr Nathan had
to navigate the murky waters of new portfolios during his years of service. The Public
Service can learn much from Mr Nathan’s adaptive spirit. Read “From Civil Servant to
President” at bit.ly/cstopres
Lastly, as the Public Service charts new grounds in a new season of unknowns, some of
my colleagues designed and organised the PSfuture dialogues to gather public officers’
thoughts about what the future of the Service could look like. Read “Creating our Future
Together” on page 30 for the back stories.
Happy reading!
Editor
Kaira Peh
Please sh aarzeine :)
this mag
Editorial Assistants
Charlotte Lim & Kenneth Chin
publishing consultant
Tuber Productions Pte Ltd
284 River Valley Road #01-01
Singapore 238325
Tel: 6836-4031
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.tuber.sg
management
Director
Lee Han Shih
Project Director
Liew Wei Ping
editorial
Editor-in-Chief
Bridgette See
Contributing Editor
Siti Maziah Masramli
Sub-editor
Bernice Tang
Staff Writer
Tay Qiao Wei
Contributors
Eve Yap, Fiona Liaw, Lynda Hong &
Radhika Dhawan Puri
creative
Creative Director
Quek Oon Hong
Art Director
Yip Siew Fei
Graphic Designers
Brenda Lim & Ryan Ong
Contributing Photographers
Allan Tan, Ramp Pictures
Norman Ng (normanng.com)
Challenge is published bimonthly by Tuber Productions
Pte Ltd (Registration No: 200703697K) for PS21
Office, Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s
Office. Copyright of the materials contained in this
magazine belongs to PS21 Office. Nothing in here shall
be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written
consent of PS21 Office. Views expressed in this magazine
are not necessarily those of PS21 Office or Tuber
Productions Pte Ltd and no liabilities shall be attached
thereto. All rights reserved.
All information correct at time of printing.
Printed by KHL Printing Co Pte Ltd
(Registration No: 197801823M)
57 Loyang Drive Singapore 508968
INBOX
July/Au gust
App roa chin
2016
I can see the intent of going cashless for
the economy and for safety. I would like
Dif fere ntly
lic Ser vice
g the Pub
to highlight some other areas for
policymakers to consider. Boosting the
DBS
H!
PAY LA
ple!
so sim
THE NEW CURRENCY
From coins and notes to bits and bytes
OFC Cover v6.indd 1
1/7/16 5:48 pm
The Challenge team has
done a remarkably good
job. May you continue to
produce awesome and
refreshing topics to
pique our senses.
– Mohamed Naguib bin Ngadnan, MOE
economy also means encouraging people to
spend money. For the lowest-earning 15% of
the society, a good number of them do have not
have good money sense. Hence they need to see
money coming out of their wallet as a prompt
to be careful with their spending. This is not the
group we want boosting the economy. And
when reviewing policies to help this group of
people, do see how policies can help prevent
them from falling as easy prey to marketing
tricks such as “0% instalment” and “spend
now, pay later”. In policymaking, do
always remember to think from
the perspective of the poor –
many of us who are more blessed
do not understand their plight.
– Chang Teck Hui, MOE
Editor’s note:
Thank you Teck Hui for your thoughtful suggestion.
Indeed, with convenient cashless payments,
people may easily buy more than they need. It is
also a good reminder for us to remember the less
fortunate and do our part to help them.
Jargon Watch
Public Service Jargon
Tech Jargon
NRFF = New Rail Financing Framework, in which
the Land Transport Authority acquires the ownership
of rail assets (e.g., trains) so that rail operators (e.g.,
SMRT) can focus on the operation and maintenance
of the rail network. bit.ly/NRFFacts
Pivot = When a start-up company shifts
its focus from one aspect of its business to
another. Coined by Eric Ries in his book The
Lean Startup about business development.
Co-source = A model where a public agency
looks for specific skills from the industry, rather
than outsourcing a project or task entirely. This was
how the government’s Business Grant Portal (www.
businessgrants.gov.sg) was built. bit.ly/co-source
TIL = “Today I learned…” Used mainly on
Twitter and Reddit to precede an interesting
nugget of information that’s not new, but is
novel to the person posting. Learn something
new every day at these Reddit forum threads:
bit.ly/Rsubs
If you know of any new jargon or acronym, email us at [email protected]
www.challenge.gov.sg September/October 2016
Your Say
Lessons from your favourite
TV show or film – for work
Here are some lessons I learnt from The Avengers movie series:
G
NINY
N
I
W NTR
E
1. Invest in your interns. You never know if they’ll mess up everything. Case in point: The Scarlet Witch probably didn’t do Steve
Roger’s career any favours when she blew the operation to high
heaven in Captain America: Civil War. There’s a reason he’s still
a Captain after all these years.
2. Even if you look like Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), firing arrows around the workplace – also known as “arrowing” people – won’t make you many friends. 3. Sometimes technology can seem like it’s out to get you. If you’re Iron Man, it probably really is out to get you. But take heart: all is well if you keep your eyes on your
Vision. If you don’t have a nifty cyborg to save you from the morass of Excel spreadsheets and blue screens of death, then a little re-Vision is probably your best bet. – Ian Leong, MOE
Congratulations, Ian! You win a $100 iTunes or Google Play gift card to
watch your favourite films or TV shows!
In an episode of The Flash, the Flash
goes back in time to change events, but
realises that everything goes wrong after he changes a simple event, due to the
butterfly effect. Similarly, we sometimes
push policies that don’t go well and wish
to relaunch them, but we have to live
with what we proposed, make the best
out of it and rectify any mistakes made.
You don’t need superpowers to solve a
problem, you just need the will to make
things right!
weak are used and abused by the rich and
powerful. This show has highlighted that
though the Lords may seem to perpetuate
an all-mighty legacy, it is the small acts of
kindness by ordinary people that can topple the powerful’s vainglory, and create
hope for a better world for everyone, not
just for a few Lords. In the same way, I understand that my work is not about climbing the “promotion ladder”, but working
with others to build a more compassionate
and gracious Singapore.
– Loh Cher-E, URA
– Matthew Chua, SCDF
of a high-fashion publication. There are
countless career lessons but this is one of
my favourite: Don’t expect to be praised
all the time. In one scene, fashion assistant Nigel tells a crying Andy, who hasn’t
received any recognition from Miranda:
“So quit. I can get another girl to take your
job in five minutes.” This scene taught me
that complaining gets us nowhere. We just
have to grit our teeth and figure out ways
to overcome difficulties. If others can do
it, so can we. Most importantly, we need
to take pride in our work and be confident.
– Gladys Tan, CNB
My favourite TV show is Game of Thrones,
which is about a few powerful families in a
medieval world battling to claim the highest authority in the land. The poor and
The Devil Wears Prada stars Anne Hathaway as naïve but hardworking Andy
Sachs, who assists Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, the powerful editor-in-chief
Editor’s note:
Thank you for participating – Challenge
received 95 entries for this question!
Read more entries at challenge.gov.sg
Next issue
With people having cameras on their smartphones and in vehicles, there are “eyes”
everywhere. Is this better or worse for public officers, and why do you think so?
Send your entry to [email protected]
The best entry will receive a prize worth up to $100. All other published entries will win vouchers worth $30 each. Please
include your name, agency email address, agency and contact number. All entries should reach us by October 3, 2016.
03
04
All Things Digital
GODIGITAL
thumbs Up
Exclusively on Challenge Online at www.challenge.gov.sg
Stress Busters
For The
Office Warrior
Ten quick ways to
de-stress in and
around the office.
A Huge “S”
Difference Jonson learns the
importance of a single
letter the hard way.
bit.ly/hugeSdiff
bit.ly/buststressfast
What’s The
Lewis Model
Of Culture?
Analyse and
understand cultural
differences with this
simple model.
bit.ly/lewismod
A Public Officer’s
Guide To Writing
Well Part 2: The
Construction
Break up walls of
text into paragraphs,
and other tips for
concise writing.
bit.ly/writeguide2
SPOTTED ON
Walk beside a horse to guide disabled children, help
teenagers with unplanned pregnancies or volunteer
with a meal delivery programme. Here are nine
places where you can make use of your volunteer
leave, categorised by location!
FATIN DIANA
SUMANAN
Executive, IDA
MyInfo (bit.ly/
myinfosg): MyInfo
makes filling forms so
much easier. All I had
to do was register
and my personal
information would
then be auto-filled for
selected government
e-Services.
Memrise (iOS/
Android): I’m an avid
learner of languages.
Memrise is a cool
learning app that
helps me memorise
words on the go.
It gamifies learning
by allowing me to
collect points, which
is fun. The best thing
is, the app is free and
can be used offline!
Know of any other places that accept volunteers?
Go on Cube and contribute your ideas at bit.ly/PSvol
digital
chatter
What people are
saying online.
“I used Pokémon Go
to teach people about
OneService and spotted
so many cockroaches.”
“An email informing me that
my passport and NRIC were
ready for collection came two
days later… Immediately [upon]
reaching level 2, my number
was called up! The whole
process took less than two
minutes, and if I had stepped
into the restroom, would have
missed my numbers!”
“Pokémon Go has
only been released
for about 12 hours
in Singapore and it’s
already proving to be
more effective than:
a) the Health
Promotion Board in
getting people to
leave their homes
and exercise,
b) the Ministry of
Social and Family
Development in
encouraging parents
to bond with their kids,
c) the Ministry of
Transport in enticing
more people to use
public transport…”
– Ong Chun Teck on Facebook (August 3, 2016):
bit.ly/kudosICA
– Lhu Wen Kai on Facebook
(August 7, 2016): bit.ly/pogolwk
– Tan Eng Teck on Facebook (August 8, 2016):
bit.ly/onesvcpogo
BARTHOLOMEW
YEO
Tax Officer, IRAS
Instagram (iOS/
Android): IG has
allowed me to share
and explore a lot
more than I would
have before, and also
lets me connect with
hobbyists from other
countries. I prefer IG
over others; it just
feels more organised
and clutter-free.
Shake (Android):
One of my favourite
apps. It allows you
to open any app
with just a light
(or vigorous, if you
prefer) shake of
your device. It’s very
customisable: you
can choose which
shake direction
opens which app.
#hearmeout
Get Wired
KEYBOARD
TRICKS TO QUICKEN
YOUR TYPING
Thoughts of
a young
public officer
in 140 words.
These lesser known keyboard
strokes work in most text editors.
Photo courtesy of the National Parks Board
In general, using the Shift key selects
text, and the Ctrl key makes selecting
words and moving your cursor go
faster by selecting a word at a time.
As someone who enjoys nature and the outdoors, I’ve been
enthralled to work at the National Orchid Garden in the Singapore Botanic Gardens – a UNESCO World Heritage Site! What I like most is the breadth of my
responsibilities: every day I ensure that the orchid exhibits are attractive, and help
in conserving native orchids by cultivating rare species. The orchid family is a fascinating one, and I enjoy sharing about them with visitors to the Garden, which has
the world’s largest permanent display of tropical orchids. I also coordinate orchid
naming ceremonies for celebrities and foreign dignitaries. At the recent Singapore
Garden Festival 2016, a premier international garden and flower show, I was involved in setting up orchid displays. Despite the long and challenging set-up, it was
rewarding, especially when I saw visitors enjoying themselves. The camaraderie
among my colleagues also never fails to put a smile on my face every day.
Delete a whole word
Delete previous word: Ctrl+Backspace
Delete next word: Ctrl+Delete
Delete a whole chunk of text
Before deleting, use Ctrl+Shift+left
or right arrow to select the text
Paste plain text (after copying)
In Microsoft Word, hitting Ctrl+Alt +V
brings up the Paste Special dialog box.
You can then paste the copied text as
unformatted text.
In Gmail, use Ctrl+Shift+V to erase
any text formatting.
Remove text formatting
(after pasting)
Highlight the pasted text, then use
Ctrl+Spacebar
Make text ALL CAPS
Highlight the text, then use
Ctrl+Shift+A
For small caps, use Ctrl+Shift+K
Make subscript and
superscript text
Subscript: Ctrl+=
Superscript: Ctrl+SHIFT+=
– Sheryl Koh, Manager, National Orchid Garden, National Parks Board
Say it like this:
Reuters: The news wire agency is pronounced “ROY-ters”, not “routers”, and
does not rhyme with the word ‘neuter’.
Get more text editing shortcuts:
bit.ly/txtedkeys
For keyboard shortcuts for email:
bit.ly/keyshortem
06
The Briefing
The BRIEFING
Coming Up
Got To Move it, move it
It’s the second edition of Got to Move, the annual
initiative by the National Arts Council to celebrate
the local dance scene, with free dance-related
activities all across Singapore. This edition will
feature a rewards card for participants, who can
receive dance tickets, shopping vouchers and
other attractive prizes after attending Got To
Move programmes (on a first-come, first-served
basis). October 7-23, various locations.
www.fb.com/gottomovesg
MEET THE MASCOTS OF SUSTAINABILITY
The five mascots of the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint (SSB) are on a mission to
get everyone to join the Sustainable Singapore Movement, and spread the message to
cherish our resources, consume less and practise sustainable habits. Each mascot represents the different pillars of the SSB: Caring Cora (Active and Gracious Community),
Smart Eddie (“Eco-Smart” Endearing Towns), Zippy Maree (“Car-Lite Singapore”),
Smiley Ray (a Leading Green Economy) and Eco Eva (Towards a Zero Waste Nation).
They made their debut at the launch at the SSB’s launch on July 16. Visit the Orange
Kampong, home to the five mascots, to learn how you can be a part of the Sustainable
Singapore Movement. The mascots will be making a special appearance at Clean &
Green Singapore from November 5 to 7, so be sure to catch them!
More info: www.mewr.gov.sg/ssb & www.fb.com/myorangekampong
EVIDENCE-BASED
POLICYMAKING
TOOLKIT BOOKLET
A robust and evidence-based
approach to public policy is
essential to good governance.
The Civil Service College has
published a booklet that covers
a collection of tools commonly
used in evidence-based policymaking and explains how these
can strengthen policy design and
decision-making – from broad,
cross-cutting policy measures
to operational interventions that
contribute to larger policy objectives. Examples from Singapore
and other countries are featured
to illustrate key learning points.
Download the publication at
bit.ly/evbapm
Silver IT Fest 2016
At the Silver IT Fest 10th Anniversary Bash,
there will be free seminars, workshops and an
exhibition featuring exciting new infocomm
technology. Seniors can sign up for senior-friendly
IT classes, available in four different languages.
Each class lasts 3.5 hours and costs $10 to
join. September 10-11, at the Lifelong Learning
Institute. Admission is free and open to all ages.
To register: bit.ly/SITF10 & bit.ly/SITFclass
Early Chinese newspapers
in Singapore
Learn more about the history and development
of Chinese newspapers in Singapore at a special
exhibition showcasing more than 100 images
and artefacts associated with early Chinese
newspapers (1881-1942), prominent individuals
who shaped the newspaper industry, and the
early printing industry in Singapore. Till October
9, 10am-5pm from Tuesdays to Sundays. Sun Yat
Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall. Admission is free.
http://sysnmh.org.sg
Feature
Text by
BRIDGETTE SEE
Photos by
ALLAN TAN, RAMP PICTURES
Every year, AVA officers
Vincent Ong (left) and
Choong Foong Choong visit
all 117 coastal fish farms
in the course of their work.
Save Our Stock
As the global climate changes, plankton blooms threaten to wipe out thousands of
farmed fish each year when the temperature rises. Challenge looks into Singapore’s
efforts to stem the devastating effects of the deadly tide.
March 1, 2015, was a Sunday but Mr Choong Foong
Choong was not resting. Instead, the executive manager
from the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) was
on a small vessel racing towards a fish farm off Singapore’s
eastern coast.
As he drew nearer, the wind brought a stench of rotting
fish – a preview of the thousands of dead sea bass he would
be helping to dispose of minutes later.
In the week before, high levels of algae, or plankton, had
sucked the region’s seawater of oxygen, killing fishes from
numerous coastal farms.
Mr Choong, and his team, who normally carries out fish
farm inspections and surveillance had been called back to
work to help overwhelmed farmers clear dead fish.
Lending a hand
The AVA had sounded its first plankton bloom alert on January 30, and again on February 16 and 17, before plankton levels became deadly on the 19th. This was the second straight
year that plankton had caused mass fish deaths in the region.
(See sidebox: “Coloured Warnings”)
Some farmers, who had learnt from the last plankton
bloom in 2014, activated their contingency plans at the first
warning. They herded their most important breeding stock
into makeshift canvas enclosures that were infused with extra oxygen and water treatment systems. This isolated the
fish from the plankton, saving most of them.
As the plankton levels climbed, another team of AVA officers, led by Senior Scientist Vincent Ong, was dispatched
to help more farmers with their temporary water containment system set-ups.
Farmers who did not have such contingency plans lost a
total of $1 million in earnings. Those farmers also had hundreds of tonnes of dead fishes to remove before they could
resume normal operations.
To help farmers, the AVA hired additional cleaning contractors on top of vessel waste cleaners. AVA officers also
chipped in to bag dead fishes for disposal on the mainland.
07
1
4
2
3
The stench was so overpowering that
some of the cleaners vomited, recounted
Mr Choong who, after numerous disposals, had developed a stronger stomach.
For 10 days, his team spent nine hours
at sea daily, helping in the clean-up. When
it ended, “a few of us threw away our
shoes as the smell couldn’t be washed
away,” he said.
Searching for toxins
While Mr Ong, Mr Choong and their
teams were at the coastal fish farms, a
third team was working round the clock at
the AVA’s Toxins Lab in Lim Chu Kang.
They were running tests to screen the
400 fish and mussel samples gathered by
Mr Choong’s team for biotoxins. The lab
scientists had to work fast to get quick
results. At the same time, they had to
continue their routine testing of other
food products.
This year’s plankton bloom, which
lasted from late January to mid-April, did
not reach the same deadly levels as previous years. There was no reported mortality from the fish farms. However, this
made the lab’s testing of the fish and mussel samples even more critical because the
surviving fishes would be sold and needed
to be fit for consumption, explained Principal Scientist Joachim Chua, who heads
the lab. A total of 265 fish and mussel sam-
ples were tested during this period and no
harmful biotoxin was detected.
Despite that, Mr Choong’s team went
on to step up its biotoxin surveillance by
collecting samples from different farming
zones for the lab. They did this intensively
for a month to ensure that the fish from
farms were safe for consumption.
Once again, the lab clocked long hours
to test samples swiftly. Mr Chua also
had to rope in three lab scientists from
another department to bolster his team
of five.
Preparing for future shocks
As oceans grow warmer globally, plankton
blooms are set to become a yearly occurrence. The only defence for coastal farmers is to practise resilient farming.
That’s where Mr Ong’s team comes
in. When there is no plankton emergency, their day-to-day work is to help
farmers become more productive, which
includes finding ways and applying technology to protect fish stock from adverse
water conditions.
So when the team makes their frequent visits to fish farms, they “sell”
the need to develop Farm Contingency
Plans (FCPs) urgently and to invest
in shock-resistant, closed containment
aquaculture systems.
In 2015, the AVA introduced a one-
time assistance package to help affected
farmers pay for 70% of the cost to restock
fish fry. The condition was that farms had
to have viable FCPs for the future.
They also teamed up with Temasek
Polytechnic to train farmers on developing
FCPs. Additional workshops reinforced
knowledge on containment strategies, and
highlighted the funds that could help them
defray costs.
“I talk to the farmers in Hokkien:
COLOURED WARNINGS
The AVA’s colour-coded SMS
alert system warns farmers
of elevated plankton levels.
Yellow indicates elevated
plankton levels with no
mortality of farmed fish;
orange means there’s been
some mortality while red
signals widespread fish
mortality. This year, the AVA
issued three yellow alerts
in January and March that
triggered farmers to roll out
measures to safeguard
their fish stocks.
Feature
5
7
1. Mr Choong assists a farmer in packing a sample of mussels for food safety testing. 2. The sample
is sent to the AVA's Toxins Lab for testing. As mussels are filter feeders, they pick up contaminants in
the water and are good bio-indicators of environmental pollution. 3. The farmers herd their fish stock
into a canvas containment system. 4. Mr Ong pitches in to help a farmer set up the oxygen system for
their contingency plan. 5. Principal scientist Joachim Chua heads the Toxins Lab, which conducts food
safety tests whenever a plankton bloom occurs. 6. Samples of clams, mussels and fish will be processed
before lab scientists can test them for biotoxins. 7. A fish farmer and Mr Ong look out for any abnormal
behaviour in the fish as the workers herd them into a canvas containment system that is infused with
oxygen and has a water filtration system.
6
‘Boss, can you tahan the fish deaths or
not? Boss, would you rather spend $2,000
[on FCPs] or lose $5,000 worth of fish
stock?’” shared Mr Ong.
He quips that he connects well with
the farmers as he was once a Hokkien peng
(“soldier”) who signed on with the Navy
after failing his O-Levels twice. He was in
his late-20s when he went to Tasmania,
Australia, to study aquaculture.
He continued: “We have a 24/7 hotline. The farmers can call us like [fish
farm] Ah Hua Kelong did. They said, ‘Eh,
Vincent, I don’t really understand how
to draft this farm contingency plan. Can
I visit you someday?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,
why not?’”
Mr Ong’s affability led a farmer to remark on Facebook that he was “one of the
handful that sincerely [spends] his time to
help farmers and offer constructive feedback and solutions… Best of all, he can
[speak] Hokkien which the older farmers
can understand better.”
While Mr Ong is the “good cop” who
persuades farmers about their FCPs, his
colleague Mr Choong plays the “bad cop”
Some farmers think,
‘AVA officers only
want to penalise me.’
I really want to change
that perception.
who inspects the fish farms for structural
safety and brings back samples for food
safety tests. Understandably, he gets a
cooler reception from farmers.
Nevertheless, Mr Choong – who was
once a shrimp farmer himself, in Malaysia – listens to the farmers who care to
share their woes with him. He also gives
them advice on how they could improve
their farms to deliver safer seafood while
helping Mr Ong’s team to “sell” the idea
of FCPs.
“I met an elderly farmer who shared,
with tears, that his fish stock had been
wiped out … currently we’re working with
him to develop a contingency plan for
his farm,” he said. “Some farmers think,
‘AVA officers only want to penalise me,
better you don’t come down.’ I really want
to change that perception. We’re not here
to find fault, but to help.”
For the AVA officers, it’s no question
that they’ll be ready to help when the next
plankton bloom hits. They only hope that
their ongoing efforts can prepare farmers
for the next onslaught. With just 33 out
of 117 coastal fish farms currently armed
with FCPs, the AVA officers certainly have
their work cut out for them.
REHEARSING
FOR CRISIS
The AVA conducted its first
plankton bloom “table-top
exercise” to test its crisis
management framework
and operational readiness in
November 2015. Some farms
participated in the exercise
and were assessed on their
readiness to re-deploy their
FCPs according to the AVA’s
colour-coded alert system.
09
Text by
LYNDA HONG
Illustration by
MUSHROOMHEAD
Cover Story
Continuous
Candid
Camera
With a camera in every pocket,
will everyone have to be on their
best behaviour 24/7?
It was an anomaly then in 1963, when millions
watched on live television a man lunging forward to shoot,
and fatally wound, Lee Harvey Oswald.
The cameras were only present because Oswald, who
was being transferred from the Dallas police headquarters to
a county jail, was the man believed to have assassinated US
President John F Kennedy two days before.
But today, not only is live television taken for granted,
with cameras in just about every mobile phone, TV stations
are no longer the only entities that can broadcast to the world.
Everyone is a broadcaster
With YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram all offering
short video sharing, the man on the street now has his own
media platform – and services like Facebook Live and Periscope empower him further, allowing his videos to be beamed
live to the world.
There are countless examples of this, and some are grotesque. In November 2008, some 1,500 people logged on to
watch a 19-year-old in Florida commit suicide in front of his
webcam. Earlier this year in June, Antonio Perkins in Chicago was shot dead while broadcasting live on Facebook, as
he took his friends around his neighbourhood. Screams rang
out in the background as the phone fell to the ground.
But it is not all doom and gloom. A giggling Candace
Payne brought smiles to faces as she tried on her newly purchased Chewbacca mask, which then flew off the shelves at
Kohl’s department store.
Here in Singapore, a group’s public spiritedness was captured on camera and went viral on social media: In July 2015,
South Korean Kim Sung Mo was pinned under a trailer truck
following an accident, but escaped with only a leg fracture,
thanks to a group of 30 lending their hands to lift the truck
and pull him out. They later even received awards for their
good deed.
11
The ability to broadcast videos has
cast a spotlight on the spectrum of human
behaviour, as the virtual world becomes a
treasure trove of videos highlighting the
good in people, as well as the bad, the
silly, and even the ugly. It has also become
a powerful tool for monitoring the actions of both ordinary citizens and people
with power.
Eyes work both ways
With CCTV cameras that can now have
tracking and facial recognition capabilities, video technology has empowered
authorities and is helping governments to
keep their countries secure, both in preventing local crime as well as in the fight
against terror.
While surveillance appears to be par
for the course in the 21st century, live
streaming capabilities have also empowered the common man, who can now turn
the eye back onto the watchers.
Sousveillance, or surveillance from below (the word “sous” means “below” in
French), is a term coined by Steve Mann
to describe the counter to government
surveillance. The man on the street is now
watching the authorities – policing from
the ground up – and telling the world his
side of the story.
Sousveillance happened in Egypt in
2011 when protestors took to the streets
and demanded the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, who they felt had
amassed too much power. They broadcast demonstrations live to the world, and
got their story out before their phones
were confiscated.
More recently, smartphone footage of
police violence against African-Americans
has spread online, leading to the Black
Lives Matter movement in the US.
In Singapore, sousveillance happens
on a much smaller scale. A recent example
involved a contracted Land Transport Authority (LTA) enforcement officer, whose
brawl with an Uber driver was caught
on camera, after the latter taunted him
with vulgarities.
Why shame publicly?
A quick glance around any
train station or bus stop will affirm it:
Singaporeans are living more of their
lives online.
Mobile devices and social media
have eased connectivity. And media
experts observe that with more time
spent online, more are seeking affirmation from the virtual public
domain, a key reason for the rise of
public shaming.
“For young people who have grown
up with smartphones and constant connectivity, it’s an ‘always on’ generation,” says Assistant Professor Natalie
Pang of the Wee Kim Wee School of
Communication and Information at the
Nanyang Technological University.
“It’s become a norm to have conversations with the ‘public’. So both
the ubiquity of media devices, and the
normalisation of messages being ‘mass
personal’, contribute to the rise of public shaming.”
Dr Brian Lee, head of UniSIM’s
communication programme, published
his research on Facebook in 2013 about
the impact of social media on youths in
Singapore. He believes social media is
changing the psyche of the average Joe.
Recording videos of anything of interest has become an instinct, he says.
Cover Story
Explains Asst Prof Pang: “The motivations are not always self-centred or
malicious. I think some people do it
because they would like to change what
they perceive are undesirable behaviour, [not] with the intention to harm
the other party.”
The public shaming of Chew has already made some impact – and not just
for Chew, who was jailed and fined for
cheating $16,599 from 26 victims.
After Chew’s unethical business
practices came to light, Minister of
State for Trade and Industry Koh Poh
Koon said in Parliament in April that
the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act is being reviewed. The Act,
introduced in 2004, aims to help consumers to seek redress against unfair
trade practices.
Despite the perceived efficacy of
public shaming (or of its milder cousin,
feedback posted on social media), Asst
Prof Pang believes there is still room for
It is also extremely
tempting to use
social media for
vindication and
emotional support.
“It seems posting online has increasingly become a second nature to some.”
Psychology adds fuel to the flame.
Says Asst Prof Pang: “It is also extremely tempting to use social media for vindication and emotional support… What
may be intended as a relatively private
post, sharing an opinion with friends,
can turn into a very public one, which
has more serious consequences.”
And the consequences can be severe.
For Jover Chew, who ran a mobile
phone shop at Sim Lim Square, getting caught for bullying customers had
caused the tables to turn on him. Chew
drew ire after a video of a Vietnamese
tourist kneeling and begging him for a
refund went viral. Online vigilantes circulated topless pictures of Chew. His
personal details were revealed online.
feedback to be given privately through
conventional channels.
She says: “Did they [consumers]
not trust the channels? Did they have a
bad experience before? Perhaps it’s just
easier to click and use the smartphone?
Perhaps it is faster to get responses and
instant gratification?”
Organisations could therefore consider improving individual engagement. And rather than rely on general
messaging, messages could be framed
for target audiences, by recognising the
evolving trends across different platforms and their features, as well as the
profiles of users.
“The key is to set up communication channels that are highly responsive, easy to use and trusted,” says Asst
Prof Pang.
PROTECTING
PUBLIC
OFFICERS
The Protection from Harassment
Act came into effect in November
2014, providing for stiffer penalties
against those who abuse public
officers. But the Act will not be
the government’s first option in
cases involving public officers and
members of the public.
During the Committee of Supply
debate in April, Deputy Prime
Minister Teo Chee Hean said: “We
will do so only when the facts of
the case justify this, and we will
continue ... to promote a culture
of mutual courtesy and respect.”
DPM Teo said steps are being taken
to help officers face the challenges
in this new environment of
online vigilantism.
“For example, officers with
frontline responsibilities are
trained to manage difficult
situations,” he added.
“Our agencies have also
established safe work
environments that encourage
positive interactions with the
public, for example, by installing
CCTVs at service counters,
assist buttons for service staff,
and for those on the move,
body-worn cameras.”
Police officers have gone on duty
with such cameras since February
2015. The National Environment
Agency is also progressively
equipping field officers with
body-worn cameras to deter
possible abusive behaviour.
13
The LTA apologised for the incident
on Facebook (bit.ly/LTAposts) and announced the officer’s suspension. Both
the LTA officer and the driver were
charged with affray, but the driver faced
greater penalties as he had verbally abused
a public officer carrying out his duties (see
sidebar: “Protecting public officers”).
The LTA’s Chief of the Quality Service Office Chandrasekar Palanisamy says
public officers must always remind themselves that they joined the Public Service
to make a difference for fellow citizens, including their family and friends. “Such an
approach will help them to remain calm,
even when being intimidated,” he says.
“Service delivery, carried out within
established guidelines, will be able to
withstand public scrutiny even when challenged in the public domain or social media,” he adds.
Another type of watching and policing
of actions is also happening in Singapore,
with online vigilantes not leaving punishment to the authorities, but publicly shaming those deemed to have crossed the line.
The case of Anton Casey was one such
example. Not only did the online community flame the Briton for posting derogatory comments about the poor and public
transport users on his Facebook page in
2014, it even revealed his personal details
What to do if a customer records you
1............. 2............. 3................ 4....................
Be professional
Be consistent
Be wise
Be calm
If you are faced
with a disgruntled
customer and an
activated camera, Mr
Chandrasekar’s advice
is to “carry on [your]
duty professionally
and avoid any
confrontation and
adverse reaction”.
“Your actions and
response should not
deviate from how
you would have
engaged with the
member of public
under normal
circumstances,” says
the LTA’s Chief of
Quality Service Office.
Mr Andrew Low, Quality
Service Manager and
Director of the Service
Quality Division at the
National Environment
Agency, agrees – and adds
that public officers should
not retaliate by filming the
interaction with their own
recording devices.
If frontline officers find that they
are being recorded, Mr Low
recommends that they pause the
engagement and ask about the
customer’s intention in making the
recording and what he or she will do
with the footage. Note the response
and make a record of it. Then resume
the engagement and be mindful
about their professional conduct.
Cover Story
We should not be
intimidated. We should
continue to press on
and deliver public
services as we have
always done, guided by
a clear sense of purpose
to serve the public and
do what is right.
online, eventually causing Casey to lose
his job and leave the country.
Citizens have also taken road issues
into their own hands, setting up a web portal (Roads.sg) for members of the public to
post videos from their dashboard cameras,
so they can finger and flame errant drivers.
In the spotlight
Singapore’s smartphone penetration is the
highest globally, according to Deloitte’s
Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications survey in 2015. Nine out of
ten respondents in Singapore have at least
one smartphone. This raises the likelihood of events, including interactions
with public officers, being recorded and
posted online.
“Public officers face new challenges
in an age of heightened digital scrutiny.
On social media, minor incidents can
be easily amplified,” said Ms Ow Foong
Pheng, who chairs the Quality Service
Committee under the PS21 movement.
“Actions might be taken out of context. This new environment may be daunting, especially for officers providing frontline services and those in the field.”
There have already been several examples of this, with the October 2015 incident involving Facebook user P J Wong,
and Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officer Eugene Ng perhaps best
illustrating how context could be lost in
online postings.
Titled “Know your rights”, Wong’s
viral Facebook post complained about his
treatment by Ng at the Changi Airport –
Wong had not wanted to go through addi-
PROGRAMMES TO SUPPORT
FRONTLINE OFFICERS
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) provides service delivery training
and disengagement procedures, appoints service managers as well as
employee surveys.
LTA staff can go for a customised course called the “Service Excellence
Flagship Programme”, which engages participants in deeper conversations
using real case studies on difficult customers or situations. Staff who require
assistance on service-related issues, including managing difficult issues or
customers, have appointed Deputy Quality Service Managers and Service
Champions whom they can go to for guidance.
The LTA has a disengagement procedure that guides staff on disengaging
from issues that are non-productive and seen to be consuming too many
resources. It also conducts annual surveys to sense the areas in which staff
need greater assistance and measures for improvement.
Meanwhile, the National Environment Agency provides foundational training
to their field officers to ensure that they have the necessary technical,
legal and engagement knowledge and skills. Field officers also go through
Enforcement Field Tactical training to be sensitised to various challenging
enforcement scenarios and pick up skills to handle such scenarios.
tional checks and he was stopped from doing a video recording. However, Wong later took down the post and apologised; the
ICA also backed Ng to have acted within
legal boundaries.
Ms Ow calls for public officers to continue to deliver services without fear.
“We should not be intimidated,” she
points out. “We should continue to press
on and deliver public services as we have
always done, guided by a clear sense of
purpose to serve the public and do what
is right.”
Exploring opportunities
There is another side to that coin of
greater scrutiny, with interesting options
for the Public Service to consider. “The
pervasiveness of digital technology also
presents new opportunities for us to partner citizens to improve service delivery,”
says Ms Ow.
The Singapore Police Force, she
notes, is partnering drivers with in-vehicle
cameras to serve as extra “eyes” to deter
and solve vehicle-related crimes under its
Vehicles on Watch initiative.
She adds: “I encourage other agencies to explore ways to partner citizens to
achieve better societal outcomes.”
Dashboard camera recordings have already proven to be an added tool in solving crime. The police arrested a 63-yearold driver of a white Toyota Camry after
multiple videos of his dangerous driving
surfaced on Facebook and online forums.
The videos identified the driver’s pattern
of rash acts as well as the car’s license
plate number.
Recordings of officer-citizen interactions could be useful too – to verify what
happened in the case of any misunderstanding or even altercation, and also provide lessons that can help improve service.
Mr Phua Boon Leng, Director of the
Customer Responsiveness Department
and Quality Service Manager at the Ministry of Manpower, is optimistic that the
combination of social media and videos
can create good outcomes.
Besides social media enabling a more
participative citizenry, posts on social media also alert public officers to service gaps
that can be addressed in a timely manner,
he says. Important information can also be
conveyed directly and quickly.
And he adds: “Good service and
deeds rendered to the public can quickly
go viral [and] become inspiring and heartwarming stories.”
15
16
Insider’s Take
a framework and tools to innovate. The
teams have gone on to launch digital offerings such as DBS PayLah! and DBS Home
Connect that you see in the market now.
In my first human-centred design session, I had to discuss with a colleague the
journey of buying a gift for our wives.
We had to consider the pain points we
would experience and what would make
our wives happy. As you can imagine, the
conversation between two men started out
rather awkwardly because as colleagues,
we usually do not talk about such personal
matters. Often, we hide behind spreadsheets. Talking about emotions, however,
helps us develop empathy and uncover unmet needs. At the end, I had a lot of fun
and learned to see problems in a new way.
A journey of
digital innovation
Tackling disruptive innovation calls for embracing a digital culture.
DBS’s Group Head of Technology & Operations DAVID GLEDHILL
shares his strategies.
Illustration by MUSHROOMHEAD
Many industries are challenged
by digital platforms – GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple), and the likes
of Alibaba. The Chinese juggernaut’s Alipay has emerged as a giant online payment
platform, a force to be reckoned with. DBS
CEO Piyush Gupta has said that digital is
the new battleground for banks.
For the last few years, DBS has been
on a digital innovation journey. When we
started, I felt like a kid in a fancy store with
new toys to play with. But I think we all
recognise that innovation is not about acquiring the latest gadgets. It is about having a digital mindset. I am deeply passionate about empowering people to embrace
the culture and habits of digital native organisations like Google.
Celebrate failure
My teams are encouraged to be multidisciplinary, to experiment and accept that
some projects will fail, especially if we set
challenging “moonshot” goals. Celebrating failures may be hard in certain cultures, including in the UK, where I come
from, despite our rich history of innovation. However, I believe it is the stretch
goals that will help transform businesses.
At DBS, for instance, we set an ambitious
goal to launch a mobile-only bank, digibank, in India within 18 months. We successfully delivered on this in April 2016.
Getting our hands dirty is part of the
process. A few years ago, I learned to build
mobile apps. It was uncomfortable because the last time I coded was more than
20 years ago. The interface I designed was
not great, but this experiment has made
me better able to guide our digital bank
initiative as a developer and user.
Embed yourself in the
customer’s journey
To manage experiments, we adopt agile
and human-centred design methodologies.
We speak to customers before developing
any products to understand what they really need or want to do. Then we prototype, test and iterate quickly. That way, we
fail early and inexpensively to learn faster.
Employees learn what it means to be
agile in an immersive way. You cannot
lecture on digital innovation and expect
people to change. So we started doing
hackathons in 2014. Employees are given
Create a platform to bring
people together
Digital native organisations like Facebook
are masters of creating globally scalable
platforms that bring people together and
integrate into their lives. DBS has begun
thinking in similar terms. The job to be
done is to deliver joyful experiences.
At digibank India, we built an ecosystem of partners comprising artificial intelligence (AI) experts, data scientists and
developers. It is the country’s first mobileonly bank that is branchless, paperless and
signatureless, and incorporates technologies like AI. Our success means we could
replicate this platform in other markets.
Engage with
communities-in-need
Being the former Development Bank of
Singapore, and with POSB an integral part
of our franchise, serving communities is
part of our DNA. For example, we offer
banking packages and grants to social enterprises. One of my teams assisted SOSD,
an animal welfare group, to revamp their
online pet store petguru.com.sg as well as
their database system.
History has shown that extraordinary
leaders are those who look beyond shortterm interests. Business leaders should
likewise think about the impact they can
make as well as their contribution to humanity. I believe it is when we become
more purpose-driven that we start to create breakthroughs.
Mr Gledhill will speak more about DBS’s innovation
at the PS21 ExCEL Convention, November 10-11.
For more information: bit.ly/excelconvention2016
SEP/OCT 2016
the challenge pullout
The Catch-up Issue
18
FOR THE
DESSERT DUMMIES
There’s something
for everyone.
I ORDERED
POKE, NOT
POKÉ... MON.
20
FOR THE
TECH NOOB
The must-have apps
and tech to try in 2016.
22
TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURY IDEAS
Feel and sound smart
by reading these books.
24
UP AND COMING
SINGAPORE TALENTS
They might be the next
household names.
Research & writing by Alvan Yap
Edited by Siti Maziah Masramli
Design & illustration by Ryan Ong
8 pages to help you
stay current & cool
Catch no ball with the latest trends? It can be hard to keep up with
the pace of content streaming on our social media feeds – and that’s
not even counting the hard news. And what about the serious stuff
that you need to catch up on in a snap? From the game Pokémon Go
to poke (the raw fish salad), to the books you should have read and the
TV shows to watch, this issue’s Pullout gives you the cheat sheets to
what’s hot so you can catch (up on) ’em all.
COLD BREW
COFFEE
Cold brew’s not new, but with
coffee chain Starbucks jumping
on the bandwagon, it has
officially gone mainstream.
FOR THE
DESSERT
DESSERT DUMMIES
DUMMIES
WHAT IS COLD BREW COFFEE?
Can I have a
cheese tart
salted egg yolk
matcha bingsu
please?
Not just regular coffee on ice, cold brew
coffee is made by steeping coffee grounds
in cool water (not hot or warm) for a long
time, up to 24 hours. This creates a more
intense flavour and a potent kick.
WHY THE HIGH PRICES?
What’s
your
flavour?
SALTED EGG YOLK
Fans of salted egg yolks, rejoice! No
longer limited to crabs and congee, they
can be found in or on croissants, thick
toast, fries, pizza, chocolate cake and ice
cream, among other unlikely combos –
including McDonald’s burgers.
SWEET
Time is money. Since a cold brew
requires at least 12 to 24 hours
to make, the longer the steeping,
usually, the higher the price.
BINGSU
The Korean version of our ice
kacang, albeit with many more
different toppings (sweet potato on
ice shavings, anyone?) and equally
towering price tags, at least when
compared to the local version.
SALTY
Because the flavour of the
product is stronger, baristas like
to use single-origin or direct-trade
beans that are often pricier than
the usual house blend.
Drinks served cold also require
glass bottles or plastic cups, which
apparently cost a bit more than the
paper cups holding hot drinks.
Read more: bit.ly/whysoex
MATCHA
Go the slightly
healthier route
with matcha drinks,
ice cream, cakes
and desserts. This
green-tea themed
food from Japan
is becoming,
pardon the pun,
an evergreen.
BITTERSWEET
CHEESE TARTS
SWEET
&
SALTY
SAY
CHEEEESE
Move over, egg tarts. The
craze for this gooey treat,
originally from Japan,
began with BAKE Cheese
Tart landing on our
shores. They can now be
found at assorted cafes
and pastry shops.
NEED TO
EAT “CLEAN”?
OH-KAY, POKE!
Pronounced “poh-kay” (not “poke” or
“po-kee”), this is raw fish salad on rice
or greens. Originating from Hawaii with
possible roots from Japan’s chirashi don, the
dish packs more protein than a typical leafy
salad. It’s catching on very quickly in the US
East Coast, and in Singapore for its mix of
umami (savoury) flavours as well as being a
relatively healthful lunch option.
FIND IT AT
...
Aloha Poke
The first dedicated poke concept
store to open in Singapore,
now at two locations.
92 Amoy Street and 8A Marina Boulevard.
...
A Poke Theory
Newly opened in July, this cafe also
serves frozen banana smoothie bowls.
27 Boon Tat Street.
WHAT'S THE FUSS ABOUT OTTERS?
After all, we have monkeys at Bukit Timah and wild boars at Lorong Halus. Well, for one,
both the adults and pups are playful and otter-ly adorable. Cue the spate of news reports
about these critters, including the rescue of a six-week-old otter pup from drowning, and
another pup’s encounter with a fish-hook lodged near its eye. After some near misses with
road-crossing otters along East Coast Park Service Road, signs warning motorists and
cyclists to “Watch Out For Otters Crossing” were installed. But you know the otters have
truly arrived when the Singapore Zoo hosted the International Otter Congress for the first
time in July.
Smitten and want more?
Get all news otterly at:
fb.com/OtterWatch
Watch a documentary
about Singapore’s wild
otters: wildcity.tv/videos
Follow @ponchan918 on
Instagram to watch the
antics of a pet otter in Japan
WATCH OUT FOR
THE ANIMALS!
Under the current Road Traffic Act, it is
an offence for a motorist to knock down
an animal and not stop to help. But the
definition of “animal” is currently limited
to "dog, horse, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat
or cattle". Animal welfare groups are
calling for other animals such as wild boars,
cats and rabbits to be included too.
MUST-WATCH TV SHOWS
These days, binge-watching sessions are only a click away.
BLACK MIRROR
A critically acclaimed
series imagining
different future
dystopias enabled by
technology – think
robot reincarnations of
the dead, or wearables
that can replay your
memories on loop.
The new season hits
October 21 on Netflix.
DESCENDANTS
OF THE SUN
You know the tropes
– a hunky soldier, a
beautiful doctor, an
exotic location, and a
budding relationship
amidst a crisis (in this
case, an earthquake).
No surprise it's a hit in
its native South Korea
and throughout Asia.
MARCO POLO
Catch Singaporean
actors Oon Shu An,
Tan Kheng Hua and
Chin Han, as well as
Vanessa Vanderstraaten
and Nicholas
Bloodworth, in this
Netflix drama about
the adventures of
Marco Polo in China
under Mongol rule.
WELCOME OUR
CHAT BOT OVERLORDS
Chat bots as your personal
concierge – fad or future?
WHAT
ARE
THEY?
Snapchat
Computer programs that mimic
human conversations using artificial
intelligence to answer questions, push
news and provide various services.
WHO’S USING THEM?
China’s WeChat has long
allowed users to make payments,
transfer money to friends, hail
a cab and more. The service uses
a mix of bots and real customer
service agents.
Facebook is developing a
platform to let users book trips,
order lunch and buy goods all via
its Messenger service. Select users
in the US can already book an
Uber ride through FB Messenger.
Read more: bit.ly/wechatsvcs
Read more: bit.ly/UberMess
Microsoft’s Twitter chat bot, Tay,
swiftly had to be shut down after
being influenced by input from
Twitter trolls. It’s become a case
study of how A.I. can backfire
if taught the wrong things
(e.g. offensive speech).
The Wall Street Journal has a
FB Messenger bot to send news
updates. For now, though, the
options are limited to “Top
news” and “Live market news”.
WHY YOU
SHOULD CARE
Several gov.sg sites are using “Ask Jamie”,
a virtual assistant chat bot that answers
visitor queries, to reduce the number of
calls made to public agencies. So far, nine
government websites have it. Jamie might
soon be able to pull information from
the FAQs of different public agencies, no
matter on which gov.sg site a question is
asked. Truly no wrong door.
Pokémon Go
Taking the game from its original 2-D,
black-and-white pixels to the real world,
this app lets players capture virtual
Pokémon in an augmented reality. To the
frustration of many wannabe Pokémon
trainers, the game’s official release was
delayed here, but players are making up
for lost time: crowdsourcing local maps
of PokéStops and Gyms (places where you
can catch Pokémon and battle with other
players), haunting the hot spots and
going on Pokéwalks to catch ‘em all.
With a deliberately
unintuitive user interface,
this is the messaging app
for savvy millennials.
“Snaps” (videos or photos)
last only 24 hours, and
direct messages disappear
after the receiver views
them. Soon to be “uncool”
once the oldies catch on,
as how-to guides appear
even in the likes of The
Wall Street Journal. Will
Instagram’s latest copycat
offerings pose a threat
too? Time will tell.
bit.ly/howtoscWSJ &
bit.ly/howtoscGQ
FOR
TECH N
The must-have
to try in
Try it: www.messenger.com/t/wsj
Periscope
This app allows you to
livestream a video feed, so
you can produce your own
live shows. One of the first
livestreaming apps to take
off, it now has competition
from other live video services
offered by Facebook,
Instagram and Snapchat.
Brunch now
THE RETURN OF
PORTABLE FANS
Facebook 360
A new way to
humble-brag about the
exotic locations you’ve
been to. This converts
the panoramic shots you
take into a more
immersive experience,
allowing your viewers to
feel as though they’re
right there with you.
THE
NOOB
apps and tech
n 2016.
Prisma
Photo filters are not new, but this
app stands out for its filters that
realistically turn your images into art
through the styles of cubism (think
Picasso), impressionism (visible brush
strokes), pointillism (distinct dots),
and even anime or comic book
illustration. Available on both iOS
and Android.
These handheld battery-operated devices are
making a comeback with the rise in temperatures
and humidity. Available in every form from miniversions of desk fans and fans that hang from
your neck, to tiny blades that you stick into your
smartphone or a portable charger.
Wield this to
ward away
the heat
Handheld mini fan
Available at gift stores,
Qoo10 and Lazada
Wear this like a
medal to keep
your neck and
head cool
O2-COOL Personal
Necklace Fan
Available at Isetan in
various colours
Turn your phone
into a tiny fan
for glam and
sweat-free selfies
Apple Pay, Samsung
Pay, Android Pay
Micro USB fan for
smartphones
(iPhone versions
available)
Available at Challenger,
Qoo10 and mobile
phone stalls
Lighten your purse or pockets with
these mobile e-payment systems,
which let you use your smartphone
to pay for your groceries or Starbucks
cuppa with contactless technology.
TIP
So kiasu
Even before Pokémon Go was released here,
the Singapore government announced that
it would monitor the game. The Singapore
Police Force also made a spoof of the game
on their Twitter account to remind followers
to keep their personal belongings safe.
bit.ly/SPFcatchem
“The weather is like the
Government – always
in the wrong.”
– Jerome K. Jerome, English comic writer,
in Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Read it: bit.ly/idlefellow
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY IDEAS
The books you must read – or at least glean the
ideas of – to feel and sound smart.
01
02
03
Connectography: Mapping the
Future of Global Civilization
Capital in the
Twenty-First Century
Nudge: Improving Decisions about
Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Parag Khanna (2016)
by Thomas Piketty (2013)
by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein (2008)
A book of bold claims, such as “cities will
matter more than states and supply chains
will be a more important source of power
than militaries”. Intriguing, no? Dubbed a
“geopolitical travelogue” by Foreign Affairs
magazine, the book argues that the lines
that link cities, such as undersea cables and
high-speed railways, will matter more than
the boundary lines that separate them.
About economic growth, wealth creation and
how capitalism creates income inequality, this
massive bestseller (700 pages, and 1.5 million
copies sold) has been both widely praised and
criticised. Relying on decades of data, Piketty
argues that when the rate of return on capital
outpaces the rate of economic growth, inherited
wealth will always grow faster than earned
wealth – unless governments intervene.
A good primer on behavioural insights, which
Head of Civil Service Peter Ong has spoken
about at length. This book introduces
concepts such as “soft paternalism” and
“choice architecture” in accessible ways. It
covers the ways people think (fast and slow,
or automatic and reflective), as well as the
mental shortcuts, fallacies and biases
people make.
PRINT-TO-SCREEN FLICKS
The reads and reels to catch – or catch up on.
ME BEFORE YOU (2016)
THE CIRCLE (LATE 2016)
THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016)
Both the book by Jojo Moyes and the film
adaptation have left readers and viewers’ faces
soaked in tears of heartbreak. Game of Thrones’
Emilia Clarke plays caretaker Louisa to world
traveller Will Traynor (Hunger Games hottie Sam
Claflin), who loves extreme sports and becomes
a quadriplegic after an accident.
Tech worker Mae Holland (played by Emma
Watson) joins a powerful Internet company
– likely a parody of tech giant Google. The
experience starts out exhilarating for Mae, but
things start to fall apart. Based on Dave Egger’s
novel of the same name, the sci-fi drama will also
star Tom Hanks and Star Wars actor John Boyega.
A live-action/CGI Disney movie starring the
voices of A-list stars such as Ben Kingsley, Bill
Murray, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o and Scarlett
Johansson. Newcomer Neel Sethi plays the
orphan boy Mowgli, who is raised in the jungle
by wolves, a bear and a black panther. Based on
the book by Rudyard Kipling.
REVIEWS
4.3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads
7.6 out of 10 on IMDB
REVIEWS
Reviews to come on IMDB
REVIEWS
7.8 out of 10 on IMDB
“BUT I’VE
NO TIME TO
READ…!”
THREE
by Krishna Udayasankar
2015
A rich imagining of Sang
Nila Utama’s adventures
during the Srivijaya Empire
in the early 13th century,
based on the legends
about the founding
of Singapura.
Thick tomes take time.
Bookmark these shortcuts
to boost your intellect in a
fraction of the time you'll
need to read the whole thing.
MALAY
SKETCHES
by Alfian Sa’at
2013
Get a creative boost via Brain
Pickings, which curates and reviews
books on new ideas and ways
of thinking.
A collection of short
stories on the Malay
community in Singapore,
with illustrations.
www.brainpickings.org
THE LATEST IN
LOCAL LIT
Don’t forgo the fiction – these
books are slim volumes and
definitely worth a read.
Interested in a non-fiction book? Get
a preview of the ideas by watching
TEDx videos by the authors, or read
the video transcripts. For the books
above, just search for the authors’
names or book titles.
www.ted.com
THE BICYCLE
by Cheah Sinann
2014
WRITTEN
COUNTRY
This graphic novel
weaves the tale of a
Singaporean boy and a
Japanese soldier, whose
lives are linked by a
bicycle, a lifesaver for
one and a dream
for another.
edited by Gwee Li Sui
2016
Get a new perspective of significant
events in Singapore’s modern history,
as told through prose and poetry,
from the Japanese Occupation to
the passing of LKY.
Get the Blinkist app (free to download,
but some content is chargeable) for
professionally done book summaries
you can digest in 15 minutes.
www.blinkist.com
TIP
Beat infomania… with email?
Got information overload on your social
media feeds? Save time and brainpower
by reading only the best articles and
thought pieces. Find a list of e-newsletters
that compile good reads for all genres at
bit.ly/CMnewsletters
UP AND COMING
HOUSEHOLD NAMES
We all know who Kit Chan, Taufik Batisah, Adrian Pang and
Fandi Ahmad are. But there are many other talented Singaporeans
out there who might just be the next hit.
02
Smell the sea with
01
Be delighted by
RAMESH
MEYYAPPAN
A deaf theatre artiste who
has notched up awards and
acclaim in Singapore and
Europe for his visually
sumptuous productions.
DR NEO MEI LIN
The marine biologist at St. John’s
Island Marine Laboratory and
Tropical Marine Science Institute
received the 2015 L’Oreal
Singapore Award for Women In
Science, and is passionate about
conserving marine life.
bit.ly/drneoml
03
Go for gold with
SAIYIDAH AISYAH
The first Singaporean rower to
qualify for the Olympics, after she
won the 2,000m women's single sculls
B final at the FISA Asian and Oceania
Continental Olympic Qualification
Regatta in April 2016. She is now the
third-ranked Asian sculler.
04
Chew on food
for thought with
AMANDA LEE KOE
Won the 2014 Singapore
Literature Prize for her
collection of stories in Ministry
of Moral Panic, which the award
panel praised as “a unanimous
choice and a highly original
voice in Singapore writing”.
05
06
Feel at home with
DARIUS CHEUNG
Entrepreneur and CEO of
property search portal 99.co,
he made waves recently when
he publicly fired an errant
employee and spoke up about
racism and discrimination in
the rental market.
Read more: bit.ly/racisminrent
Sing in the
shower to
CHARLIE LIM
A full-time
singer-songwriter
known for his
melancholy tunes.
He plays most of the
instruments in
his recordings and
has performed in
regional festivals.
A letter from
COL (DR) NG YIH YNG
Chief Medical Officer, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), 2015 – present
Chief Medical Officer, Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), 2012 – present
Visiting Consultant, Ministry of Health (MOH), 2011 – present
Emergency Medicine Specialist at various hospitals, 2008 – present
Letters to a Young Public Officer
Dreaming in
broad daylight
DEAR YOUNG OFFICER,
As the SCDF’s Chief Medical Officer,
I’ve developed an app to crowdsource
volunteers to perform CPR and use public
automated external defibrillators (AEDs),
and started a national AED registry (www.
raedi.sg). I’ve also developed a means for
995 call-takers to coach untrained people
to perform chest compressions before the
ambulance arrives.
With these, the bystander CPR rates
have increased from 22% in 2012 to 49%,
saving more lives than ever before. For the
CPR phone coaching, we won a Ministry
of Home Affairs innovation award as well
as the PS21 ExCEL award.
I’m no different from most of you:
when I was a junior officer, I had the same
struggles to have my ideas heard. There
were so many rules, invisible OB (Out-ofBound) markers and always the naysayers,
telling you something cannot be done because “it is not covered by directive”.
It may help if you reframe your thinking about innovation in the Public Service.
Ours manages the largest workforce in
Singapore; it’s not surprising that such
detailed administrative procedures are
needed. But there are still many opportunities to simplify and improve the way we
run our business.
The principles of innovation are not a
secret. Firstly, it involves gaining a deep
understanding of your work. As a young
officer, I was often frustrated by the lack
of success when I pitched my ideas to my
staff and my bosses. It took time for me to
understand that being the master of my
own domain was not enough.
Like in the tale of the blind men and
the elephant, we often fail to consider
a problem in its entirety, and so have no
true insight. I remember once, presenting
what I felt was a clinically sound medical
The raison d’être for an idea becomes much clearer
when you get questioned, laughed at and rejected
enough times.
directive and then getting “killed” at the
first forum because the paper, while clinically correct, did not consider the human
resource and operational angles more
clearly. This was a breakthrough to me in
learning how to frame problems.
The second step is ideation. For me,
ideas appear at the oddest times: while
I’m working in the emergency room, surfing the Web, or even just when I wake
up. I try to capture them immediately and
organise them. I find my best ideas come
from reading eclectically and bouncing
ideas off people in seemingly unrelated
fields of expertise.
Don’t be too quick to pass judgement
on ideas. Great ideas often take time to
percolate and develop; people are also
more willing to share their ideas with you
if you listen more, comment sometimes
and rarely criticise.
Thirdly, the key to innovation is iteration. The “eureka moment” is largely a
myth. A great way to develop ideas is to create an elevator pitch – my wife, kids, friends
and colleagues are all at the receiving end
of my one-minute idea presentations. The
raison d’être for an idea becomes much
clearer when you get questioned, laughed
at and rejected enough times.
The idea for our SCDF Save-A-Life
initiative, a project to install AEDs in HDB
estates, is one such story. I had been thinking about how most public AEDs were installed at airports, train stations and malls;
yet 70% of cardiac arrest cases happen in
residential areas with no AEDs. I formed
my pitch and “sold” this idea to my friends
and colleagues repeatedly to understand
their objections – “What if it gets stolen?”,
“The town council won’t want to maintain
it” or “Why don’t we just increase the
ambulance fleet?” I was stumped by some
of these questions and had to research for
answers. Soon I improved my pitch and developed a credible plan.
When Deputy Prime Minister Teo
Chee Hean (then the Minister of Home
Affairs) asked what we could do to improve
cardiac arrest survival, I pitched this idea.
The same questions came up, and we had
the answers (see bit.ly/dreambroad). Now
it has been piloted in six constituencies
and plans are underway for island-wide
implementation by 2019.
Thomas Edison took more than 10,000
attempts to invent the light bulb. He famously said that he just found 10,000 ways
that did not work. Failed attempts are not
the same as failure by a long shot. Be brave
enough and keep trying. Success is only a
matter of time.
25
Text by
RADHIKA DHAWAN PURI
Photos by
NORMAN NG
“Why put the fate of
digital government in
someone else’s hand?”
Mr Chan Cheow Hoe, Government Chief Information Officer, talks
about shaking up the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and
creating a government technology powerhouse.
A Cuppa With...
As Mr Chan Cheow Hoe settles
down for a chat with Challenge at Chong
Wen Ge Cafe, you know this isn’t going to
be a restrained conversation, with carefully crafted public service speak. “I’m not a
government native. I often just speak my
mind,” he says.
So you ask the obvious question:
“What’s a guy like you doing in a place
like this?”
Mr Chan was a private sector man
before becoming the Government Chief
Information Officer with the IDA, and
now the Government Technology Agency
(GovTech). An accountant by training, he
spent two decades of his career working
on IT systems and strategies in organisations such as CT Corporation (Indonesia),
Ernst & Young, Barclays and Citibank.
Would he fit into a public service culture? “I spoke to many people before finally taking the [IDA] job,” he recalls. “The
public sector is a whole new animal altogether. Some asked me, ‘Are you crazy?’”
Ultimately, it was neither money
nor rank that sealed his decision, but his
hunger for a challenge. “I told them [the
IDA’s senior management] I didn’t want
to join them for enterprise IT [large-scale
IT for the Public Service]. But I need the
leverage to change things a little bit.”
After getting assurance that he would
have the autonomy he desired, Mr Chan
came on board in April 2014. His aim was
to bring the government closer to citizens
through innovative digital services, by first
bringing tech expertise back in-house.
Attracting the best talent into the government to build the services it needs is
also “the best way for local firms to wake
up” and create value again, says Mr Chan.
By the late ’90s, rising costs in Singapore
had led to most of the technology work being outsourced. Hoping to get Singapore’s
IT firms to recover some lost glory, Mr
Chan is leading by example.
Bringing expertise back
Right away, Mr Chan stumbled on an
opportunity to stir the pot. In a coffee catch-up with Mr Mark Lim, a colleague, he sussed out that Mr Lim and a
small band of like-minded public officers
were creating digital applications for government services – in their private time
and without their supervisors’ knowledge. The group was excited about the potential of their experiments, but hesitant
to seek official approvals.
“Mark thought I was going to shut him
down,” Mr Chan says with a grin. Instead,
Mr Chan said he would grow the team to
300 people in a few years.
“We needed a digital and data analytics team in-house. Why put the fate of digital government in someone else’s hand?”
he says.
Mr Chan had to sell his vision of turning the government into a powerhouse of
internal capabilities to key decision-makers, such as Head of Civil Service Peter
Ong and heads of departments. He also
had to convince the Ministry of Finance to
fund that vision.
When I went out there
to hire good people
from the industry,
they said, ‘You’ve got
to be joking.’ It was like
getting vegetarians
to eat meat.
With their support, Mr Lim’s secret
club blossomed into the Government
Digital Services (GDS). Today, it is home
to 120 staff creating not just government
apps, but also a whole new way of working
within the IDA.
Creating change from within
Hiring people was Mr Chan’s next challenge: to convince people used to the ubercreative, open environment of start-ups
and tech powerhouses like Google to join
the Public Service, which is often associated with stifling bureaucracy.
“It was painful,” he recalls. “When I
went out there and tried to hire good people from the industry, they said, ‘You’ve
got to be joking.’ It was like getting vegetarians to eat meat.”
But he persisted. Hiring high-calibre
people was critical to his vision of building a world-class tech team at the IDA and
now, GovTech.
“People join because of other people,”
he says. So in order to attract the first talents, he convinced human resources to relook how coders, developers and those with
the technical skills are assessed, and to explore a new career track for such talent. Before that, “we were a technical organisation
with no technical track,” Mr Chan says.
27
Mr Chan also physically isolated the
GDS (housed in a 13,000-square-foot
space at the Sandcrawler in Fusionopolis)
in a deliberate effort to uncouple its working culture from the rest of the IDA’s.
There, he implemented cross-functional
squads that came together and disbanded,
so that staff with different skills – coders,
designers or psychologists – got a chance
to shine at different phases in a project.
Breaking boundaries
He also brought in a particular ethos from
his private sector experience.
For one, he prepares his own presentations. And “I don’t want anyone calling me by my title,” he says, “I’m here to
work with you.”
In bureaucracy-ridden work environments, the safest thing to do, Mr Chan explains, is to say no and “not do anything”.
When told that it was “the rule” that government data cannot be stored on public
data clouds, he read every word in the
rulebook on the subject, and discovered
that the rule only applied to certain classifications of data.
“So, we went forward and started establishing first that unclassified data can
indeed reside on the public cloud. We are
now working on restricted data. Let’s see
how that works out.”
What’s in your daily cuppa?
Green tea
How often do you have it?
Three to four times daily
Where do you take it?
At home
More importantly, Mr Chan has
started pushing out this new way of doing
government IT to the rest of the Service.
He is encouraging the GDS staff to work
for different government agencies, and
bringing other IDA officers into the GDS.
“We have reached a critical mass and can
start pushing people out to help each agency create their own teams.”
As for the issue of separating Internet
access for public officers, he says: “The
problem of security is not going to get better. You will have to keep investing in security measures and at a certain point, it is
impossible to catch up.”
He explains that the government did
what it thought was in the best interest of
cyber security, instead of kicking the can
down the road.
In fact, he was one of the first “guinea
pigs” to work without Internet access on
his office computer, Mr Chan reveals, adding that far from being an overnight decision, the measure was implemented after
six years of debate.
I don’t want
anyone calling me
by my title. I’m here
to work with you.
Leadership is about having the courage to do the right things and making
tough decisions, he asserts. He adds that
while everyone at the senior level understood, others may still be “between the
anger and bargaining stage”, drawing similarities between this change management
journey and the five stages of acceptance.
And embracing change, whether in
his switch to the public sector or making
waves within his organisation, is all part of
Mr Chan’s adventurous spirit.
“My wife has given up on me a long
time ago,” he jokes about his family’s reaction to his career move. “I’m not a person
who likes total stability. Thinking outside
the box and creating keeps me coming to
work each day with a smile.”
Level Up
Customising service
to customer needs
MS KELLY LIM, Deputy Director at the Immigration &
Checkpoints Authority (ICA), relates the ICA’s experiences in
leveraging technology and innovation to overcome its security
and service delivery challenges.
As the guardian of Singapore’s
gateways and national information database, the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) faces the challenge of delivering both security and service excellence.
With the flow of people across national boundaries increasing, the ICA
has to manage unprecedented numbers
of travellers at the checkpoints. Over at
its services centres, it has to meet an increasing demand for its immigration and
registration functions: issuing travel documents and identity cards to Singapore citizens, and immigration passes and permits
to foreigners.
The ICA has looked to technology to
calibrate systems and streamline processes, to delight customers while ensuring
security. We are guided by our “3M” principles of “Multiple Channels, Minimum
Visits and Many Benefits”. Technology, however, is not a solution
in itself. Understanding the customers is
the first step towards identifying and rolling out the right initiatives to “nudge”
them towards a desired behaviour, in
this case, towards self-service as the
preferred choice. We use a service offering matrix to
identify customer segments, so that we
can customise products and services to the
target audience’s abilities and attitudes.
Using the range of services available at
our services centres as examples, the following illustrates customer segments according to ability and attitudes:
tors, the e-XTEND service
allows them to apply online
for a one-time extension of
their Short Term Visit Pass without having to make a trip to the
ICA Building.
For those who can, and will:
Automate services
For customers who are capable and receptive to change, we will strive to capture
their loyalty. Those collecting passports
can choose self-service using the iCollect machine located at the ICA Building
lobby (the “eLobby”). For foreign visi-
For those who can’t, and won’t:
Provide counter services (while
encouraging them towards nonmanned counter alternatives)
We recognise that there are customers
who might not have the ability or aptitude
to make use of the alternative services. For
this small group of customers, we provide
For those who can,
but won’t:
Incentivise
For customers who are capable but unwilling to transact
over the Internet, we encourage them with incentives.
For instance, a rebate of $10 is offered to
customers who apply for a passport using
e-application (i.e., APPLES) and via noncounter modes, such as deposit drop-off
and application by post. We have also set
up self-service terminals at our eLobby
and provide assistance to encourage customers to use them.
For those who can’t, but will:
Provide alternatives, offer
assisted/premium services
For customers who are receptive but not
IT-savvy, we collaborate with other government agencies, stakeholders and the
community to educate the public on how
to use the e-services. For example, we
have partnered with SingPost to provide
Singaporeans a one-stop service to apply
for, renew and collect their passports and
identity cards at locations other than the
ICA Building.
the traditional manned counter services,
while encouraging them to move towards
non-manned counter alternatives.
The service offering matrix allows us
to understand and segment the profile
of our customers so that appropriate options could be tailored accordingly. While
we provide options to cater to the different profiles of customers, the desired
outcome is to encourage our customers
towards non-manned counter service alternatives without affecting security and
service delivery.
Based on the latest External Customer
Perception Survey 2014 results (a biennial
survey), 76.7% of the respondents were satisfied with the ICA’s Electronic Services.
These respondents gave “very satisfied/
satisfied” ratings of between 8 and 10 on
a 10-point scale. As part of its overall transformation
plans, the ICA seeks to create mutual
partnerships with its customers through
its Services Centre Next Gen that will operate mainly through digitisation, automation and self-service, to offer a seamless
and delightful experience for everyone.
Ms Lim will be speaking at the PS21 ExCEL Convention Conference on November 11. For more
details: bit.ly/excelconvention2016
29
Text by
SITI MAZIAH MASRAMLI
Illustration by
MUSHROOMHEAD
Creating
our future
together
It’s the biggest-ever engagement exercise for public officers – to get their vision of the
future Public Service. Go behind the scenes and get the insights with Challenge.
What if you could “freelance” in
projects across the Public Service, broadening your horizons at other agencies
besides your own? Or have a dedicated
channel to pitch your ideas directly to
decision-makers?
These were some of the ideas tossed
up for debate during the PSfuture dialogues, the largest internal engagement
exercise ever conducted by the Public Service. Over 12,000 public officers have articulated their views so far, in inter-agency
and agency-led dialogues as well as online.
Taking a leaf from recent national
dialogues Our Singapore Conversation
and SGfuture, PSfuture is about engaging
public officers in imagining the future of
the Service, and having them share their
ideas and aspirations in various ways. “It’s
about time that we had our own ‘Public
Service conversation’,” says Ms Charlene
Han, the overall lead for PSfuture and
Deputy Director (Employee Communications and Engagement) at the Public Service Division (PSD).
“A lot of focus for engagement has
been externally driven: how to improve
service delivery and put citizens at the
centre… [but] we also need to look internally and see what will strengthen the Service for the next lap.”
PSfuture is deliberately “officer-centric” and ground-up, compared with other
forms of engagement such as townhalls,
which are usually led by directors.
At the June 1 session, on the topic of
What we’re really
gunning for is a cultural
change: we want officers
to feel comfortable talking
to each other, disagreeing
with each other, and also
engaging with leaders,
and vice versa.
“A Great Workplace with Great People”,
over 50 participants did not just talk about
their vision of an ideal future workplace –
they “built” it, using dolls, magazine cutouts and other props.
“What we’re really gunning for is a
cultural change: we want officers to feel
comfortable talking to each other, disagreeing with each other, and also engaging with leaders, and vice versa,” adds
Ms Han.
Indeed, as Head of Civil Service Peter
Ong said in his note on the PSfuture microsite: “Our Public Sector Transformation experience has shown [that] the best
solutions and ideas do not always reside
within just one community – be it policy
owners or leaders.
“I would like PSfuture to be an opportunity for us to collectively reflect
and chart the next phase of keeping our
Public Service fit for the times and for
the future.”
Read on to see what went into PSfuture, and where to find the ideas shared.
Feature
The PSfuture
OVERALL
LEAD
Charlene
Han
Process
1
2
Engagement
strategies
Strategy involves understanding
the audience, what they believe
in or are sceptical about, and
how those can be addressed.
For example, after noticing that
support staff, especially the long
service officers, were underrepresented, the team organised
a luncheon for them to hear
this group’s views and ideas
for the future.
Looking at past data
To gather the topics that matter to
public officers, the team extracted
data from Employee Engagement
Surveys, Values and Attitudes
Surveys and the interactive feedback
apps and platforms used at past
large conferences. The inter-agency
dialogues were organised into five
broad themes:
Jeffrey
Ong
•A bold and innovative
Public Service
•Working as one Public Service
•A trusted Public Service that
connects and works with citizens
•A healthy and effective workplace
•A technology-enabled and
productive Public Service
3
“A real challenge for PSfuture is
strategy: Which areas are useful
for public officers to talk about
and how to frame these areas
for conversation? What will drive
people to want to come and share?
How can there be some buy-in from
leaders to commit to honouring
the views?” – Jeffrey Ong
Communication
The team kept up a constant stream of communication:
Faizal
Ali
Jessica
Vincent
•To encourage sign-ups, they sent targeted emails,
highlighting the relevant topics to the receiving public agency
•After each session, they sent a summary email featuring public
officers’ photos and quotes, as well as interviews
of the PSfuture hosts and participants’ reflections
•They added humorous memes, which improved the
receptivity of the communications
“We wanted to mirror the spontaneous groundup nature of PSfuture engagement. A key aspect
of our PSfuture communications was the faces of
the PSfuture conversation – our public officers,
whom we interviewed at each PSfuture dialogue,
to capture their insights and reflections.”
– Faizal Ali and Jessica Vincent
31
4
Technology
For public officers who
could not attend PSfuture
sessions, or preferred to
interact online, there was
an inaugural Public Service
Facebook group chat hosted
by two senior leaders.
This was the team’s first
time experimenting with
a mobile way of servicewide engagement.
Hosts:
Mr Kok Ping Soon
Deputy Secretary,
Ministry of
Manpower
Ms Jacqueline Poh
Chief Executive
Officer-designate,
GovTech
Emily
Chuang
“We had no idea how
public officers would
react on a public,
social space such as
Facebook. Thankfully,
the management and
our two gung-ho hosts
decided that this was
a worthy experiment
and the risks were
manageable. The 1.5hour session generated
hundreds of comments
and ideas … with plenty
of friendly banter. At the
end, it was heartening
to hear that the officers
enjoyed the chat and
hoped for more such
opportunities in
the future.”
– Emily Chuang
5
Support
Handling the logistics, finance
and catering, this team also made
props such as a giant Straits Timesof-the-Future board for crafting
headlines, and physical artefacts
that could be pieced together to
symbolise the future.
Session design
Melisa
Wong
Charlotte
Lim
“Logistics is
something that
is keenly felt
once something
is amiss, but
when it’s properly
done, you don’t
notice… and
you can simply
focus on sharing
your views and
hearing others.”
– Melisa Wong
and Charlotte Lim
6
Yan
Jiejun
Customising the design of each session
was a great opportunity for Organisational
Development (OD) practitioners to help
participants go beyond talking about each
theme but to experience it as well.
Ms Yan worked with 10 other OD
practitioners to tailor each session to its
topic and objectives. The practitioners,
from a range of ministries and statutory
boards, each brought their unique
personality and perspectives.
“Each session was run by a different
pair of OD practitioners. You could see
their creativity play out in how they used
different activities, videos and materials to
sync with the theme,” said Ms Yan.
Judging from participants’ feedback,
the OD practitioners succeeded in
creating a safe space for open sharing.
Many participants also appreciated that
senior leaders were present to hear the
participants’ views and also share their
personal reflections during the session.
In fact, several officers enjoyed the
dialogues so much that they became
“serial” participants at two or
three sessions!
Feature
PSfuture in
7
NUMBERS
PARTICIPANTS FOR THE
INTER-AGENCY DIALOGUES
Collecting data
Note-takers per session:
• 10 or more note-takers, one
for each small-group discussion,
recording verbatim what was
said while preserving
participants’ anonymity
• An officer-in-charge to record
large group sharing and oversee
the note-takers
• Graphic note-takers to record
points on visually appealing boards in real time
NUMBER OF
OFFICERS
MANAGEMENT
LEVEL
PERCENTAGE
(%)
Executives10719
Middle managers
301
55
Senior management
102
19
Support staff407
Grand total550100
Mohd.
Jalees
MOM
Mindef
PSD
PA
BCA
54 29 23 21 20
“We really wanted to
honour the time and ideas
of every participant. Our
aim was to quickly close
the loop with participants
after every session
with a summary of key
aspirations, challenges
and ideas shared. This was
also shared with the rest
of the Public Service via
the microsite.”
– Mohammed Jalees
participants
participants
participants
Crunching the data to plan
what’s next
For the inter-agency dialogues, the aim
was to have participants leaving feeling
more hopeful about the future; and that
the engagement was sincere and their
views were heard in a meaningful use of
their time, says Ms Han.
As for the ideas shared, it took several
weeks for the data team led by Mr Jalees
to make sense of all the viewpoints. There
was a lot of “manual sieving” of the data
to extract the right messages, as the viewpoints could be nuanced in different ways.
“I remember a particular intense
three-hour ‘sense-making session’ where
we literally read out the verbatim notes
to each other, so that different listeners could take down points they interpreted, and collate them to arrive at a
common understanding.”
In deciding what to include in the final analysis, they used other data such as
engagement survey results. It also helped
participants
participants
that several members of the data team
were present at the dialogues.
“Content synthesis became more intuitive and we could challenge one another
on points raised, to add more rigour to the
process,” says Mr Jalees.
There is now a massive central repository document with more than 6,000
rows of data, classified into the five broad
themes and categories of aspirations, challenges and other ideas.
The team then combined information within and across categories to
distil the findings, with as much detail as possible, for the final report that
will inform the next phase of Public
Sector Transformation.
Look out for the PSfuture report at its microsite:
www.psfuture.gov.sg
Read Mr Ong’s speech during the Public Service
Conference at: bit.ly/PSfutureAug
33
Text by
EVE YAP
Illustration by
BRENDA LIM
The kampung spirit behind
Improving the quality of life for senior citizens, while optimising land use and building
community bonds, is the driving force behind this massive multi-agency project.
Six project teams from eight
public agencies, 20 contracts, and a longerthan-usual project timeline of five years –
that’s a complex task that many may shy
away from. But the belief that Kampung
Admiralty, Singapore’s first retirement
village, will enhance the quality of life for
many seniors propels the eight agencies.
Leading the project is the Housing &
Development Board (HDB). It takes care
of all the primary issues, such as appointing consultants and contractors through
tenders, overseeing 20 contracts and liaising with the main building contractor,
on top of supervising four works and services sub-projects.
Other agencies involved include the
Alexandra Health System (AHS), the National Environment Agency (NEA) and the
National Parks Board.
“The HDB brought the different parties and agencies together and orchestrated
the different aspects and timings of the
sub-projects,” says its Principal Contracts
Manager, Development & Procurement
Group, Stephen Tang.
As the project’s pivotal force, Mr Tang
sits on the Procurement and Construction
team, one of the six project teams. He is
also on the working committee (which
irons out issues) and attends meetings with
the steering committee (which sets the
broad direction for the project and makes
the final decisions).
Because of multiple agency needs, the
design works took a year instead of the
Feature
usual six to nine months. So two separate
tenders were called instead of one, with the
tenders for piling and construction works
split to avoid delays (see timeline).
Due for completion in mid-2017, the
$150 million Kampung Admiralty retirement village will occupy 9,000 square
metres (about the size of two football fields) next to the Admiralty MRT
station, and house three blocks of integrated living spaces.
There will be about 100 studio apartments in two blocks. The third, a six-storey
block, will house a medical, hawker, childcare and seniors activity centres, a supermarket, shops, a basement carpark and a
pilot automated bicycle parking system.
Designing for various needs
Given the complexity of the project,
the challenges have been neither few
nor minor.
Mr Tang recalls: “The biggest challenge is that each agency has its own
policies, interests and requirements. Each
agency is answerable to its respective ministry and some areas are non-negotiable.”
Hygiene is one. Director of Hospital
Planning at the AHS Donald Wai says:
“Ensuring cleanliness is not so straightforward when the space is shared by
other stakeholders. But infection control must be well planned and hygiene
greatly emphasised.”
The shared spaces include a lift shaft
and fire escape stairwells that “eat” into
medical centre’s space, and an open-air
plaza for the public. Hence, a clear demarcation of workflow is needed.
Mr Wai explains: “For example, we
have to ensure that the path the cleaners
use does not overlap with the path the patients take. We don’t want a cleaner who’s
removing biohazards to bump into a patient going to see a doctor.”
The placement of pipes in the hawker
centre also had to be rethought. Mr Sim
Mong Guan, Senior Assistant Director
(Development), Hawker Centres Division
at the NEA, says: “As the hawker centre is
located on the second level and the HDB’s
commercial shops are one level below, the
sanitation layout at the hawker centre has
to be re-routed. This is to minimise having
pipes running into the shops below.”
As for less critical matters, negotiation
is key. For example, Level 6 was initially
a “no-go zone for the childcare centre because it wanted ground-floor access so the
kids could quickly exit during an emergency”, says Mr Tang.
But the childcare centre remains on the
sixth floor, with a community park and eldercare facilities added. In an emergency,
e.g. a fire, the children can exit to the park.
Another benefit is that the young and old
can enjoy the park in the presence of each
other, strengthening the community.
Teamwork among agencies
From the start of the project, consensus
was key. Says Mr Tang: “The emphasis is
integration, how to give and take, and to gel
and resolve differences. We want to respect
each other’s views rather than just go with
the majority votes.”
For example, the working committee
adopted a point system for shortlisting the
external consultants’ designs. The criteria:
planning and urban design, architectural
layout and environmental friendliness.
In all, 23 teams of consultants submitted their design concepts and five teams
were shortlisted by the steering committee.
The five teams were then invited to tender
with detailed design proposals and fees.
The emphasis is
integration, how to give
and take, and to gel and
resolve differences.
“It is important that in shortlisting the
five teams of consultants, their preliminary design concepts are acceptable to all
the agencies. This is to ensure that for any
of the five shortlisted consultants picked
as the winning team, all the agencies are
happy,” says Mr Tang.
Cost was constantly discussed at meetings. When the cost of the building works
was known after the tender closed in August 2014, the teams had to recalibrate
budgets, seek additional funds and also
work on cost-saving measures.
Less pressing demands were sacrificed. For example, they opted for a
smaller standby generator at the podium,
saving $141,000, and revised the girth
and height of trees for the development to
save $300,000.
Something new was cost sharing. The
public agencies share the cost of common
facilities such as the landscaping, driveway
and roads, lift cores and escalators, as well
DESIGN
MAY TO AUGUST 2012
Expression of interest for
design and supervision consultancy
services. Out of 23 participating
teams, five are shortlisted.
OCTOBER 2012
The five teams are
invited to tender.
MARCH 2013
Consultancy services
contract awarded.
APRIL 2013
Design works start, and
consultancy services will continue
until the end of the project.
PILING
DECEMBER 2013
The tender process
for piling works starts.
APRIL 2014
Piling works starts.
The ground-breaking
ceremony takes place.
BUILDING
JUNE 2014
The tender process starts for the
building works, and is awarded
in October 2014.
OCTOBER 2014
Building works start
and is scheduled to be
completed in 2017.
SEPTEMBER 2016
Topping-out ceremony to
celebrate the completion
of the building’s structure.
as facilities like pumps and risers. This
means they had to work together to determine the costs allocated.
One high point was the groundbreaking
ceremony held in April 2014.
“We are at the halfway mark – this project cannot fail, we have informed the entire world,” Mr Tang recalls thinking then.
“It strengthened our resolve to move
on to the next lap.”
35
Text by
FIONA LIAW
Putting the 'you’ in
UNIQUE
Life at work may call for a certain uniformity, but at home and at play, why settle for IKEA or
clothes from high-street fashion chains? Challenge highlights local craftspeople and artists who
put the “personal” in personal belongings.
Noticing that people were
increasingly inspired by and
purchasing furniture they see
on the Internet, Sharifah
Maznah Syed Omar founded
Second Charm. By offering
bespoke pieces, she also helps
buyers avoid high shipping
costs. You can choose from the
type of wood used – solid teak,
ashwood, oak or mahogany – to
the finishing, and the fabrics for
the upholstery. Prices range from
$150 for a stool to $1,500 for a
dining table. Restoration works
for old pieces are also possible.
Chances are, you’ve seen her
work in hipster cafes here.
www.secondcharm.net
Clockwise
from top left:
A “midcentury
modern”
armchair
upholstered
with custom
’70s retro style
prints, shelving
and a TV
console − all in
solid teak.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE BUSINESSES
CHARM
AND CRAFT
Life.Style
Take note!
Craft your own luxury
notebooks at bookbinding
atelier Bynd Artisan. You
can choose your front and
back covers, binding, paper
type and from a range of
embellishments, such as rubber
band closures and leather
straps. The craftsmen will put
your notebook together in just
30 minutes. The customisation
costs $20 – and for $10 more,
you can even get your name
hot-stamped onto the cover.
www.byndartisan.com
Heavy Metal
Fancy the rugged industrialchic look? Get your space
customised by Peng
Handcrafted. Peng, the
founder, says he adds value
by integrating features, such
as lighting on a dining table
or built-in power points, to
give each piece a touch of
quirk while serving practical
needs. As a bonus, materials
such as Chengal timber from
scrapped lorries in Singapore
and industrial pipes are often
reused. Prices range from
$480 for a dining bench to
$1,100 for a bookshelf.
From top:
A table with skateboard
seat benches, an Edison
light in a “cage” lamp
housing and custom
shelving for newlyweds.
www.peng.com.sg
Jars of clay
SCISSORS,
PAPER,
ART
Decorate your walls
with some cut paper art!
Beatrice Ng, the artist
behind DA MI (大米),
specialises in paper
cut-out art of local
architecture. She has a
fondness for old local
buildings and heritage,
which is why her designs
feature traditional
shophouses and the
older high-rise HDB
flats. These delightfully
intricate art can come
in the form of prints,
postcards, stickers
and even bookmarks –
ranging from $45 for an
A5-sized piece to $450
for an A1-sized piece.
fb.com/dami.papercut
Inspired by their Christian faith and the beauty of nature, the husband-andwife team behind Studio Asobi takes pride in customising delicate ceramic
cups, plates, vases and other tableware to fit each client’s home. As an
added benefit, 20% of their profits are donated to Mercy Centre to help
the homeless in Singapore. Each commissioned project starts from about
$200, depending on the complexity and number of items in each set.
www.studioasobi.com
37
Imitation of Life
Mural artist Yip Yew Chong
believes that murals tell stories
of the places they are in, adding life
and character to each space. Armed
with water-resistant emulsion paints
and acrylics, he draws inspiration
from memories of the past to
create beautiful and realistic lifesize scenery on walls. So if you’re
wondering what to do with a blank
garden wall facing the road, you
know who to call. A wall of about
3 metres by 2 metres will cost
$2,000 to $3,000.
www.fb.com/yip.yewchong
Of mermaids
and men
Jazz up your walls with a family
portrait or a mural. Artist Ly Yeow
has a distinctly whimsical style,
inspired by the ocean and mermaids.
While some portraits can be
completed in just 20 minutes, more
detailed pieces can take longer as she
incorporates the personal stories of
the people pictured. Prices depend on
the complexity of the pieces.
Ly’s art often features
characters that
resemble the people
who commission her art
or elements that are
significant to them.
www.instagram.com/lyyeow
IN HER SHOES
If you have awkward-sized feet or
general difficulty finding a comfy pair of
shoes, Rosie Leong is the lady to meet.
Sympathetic to different foot shapes
and lifestyle needs, she customises
each pair to fit your requirements.
Each pair of shoes is made of sheep
or calf leather, and meticulously
sewn by experienced craftsmen.
Prices range from $130 to $200.
fb.com/interpaxshoes
Life.Style
HARD
ROCKS
Truly, madly, deeply
For a unique piece of jewellery like no other, visit private jewellers
Maddy Barber (the radio DJ) and Emily Tan. Working only with 19k gold
and the finest grade gemstones, they transform your ideas into dazzling pieces
of statement jewellery to suit your personal style and budget. The crafting
process takes four to eight weeks and the price varies with each piece,
so it can be as high, or perhaps as low, as you like.
www.madlygems.com
Beautiful
Imperfection
FIN Crafted Goods specialises in
the Boro technique, a Japanese
method of repairing clothing by
patching the worn out areas with
scraps of fabric. The final piece is
sometimes slightly rough and irregular
– which, according to founder Fahmy
Ishak, is a form of wabi-sabi, the
Japanese concept for beauty through
imperfection. The price of a boro tote
bag could start from around $250,
with the price varying based on the
items upcycled.
fb.com/finickyinnature
Scents and
sensibility
Purchasing perfume usually does not begin with a personality test,
but at Je t’aime Perfumery, that’s exactly what you’ll do. After
identifying your perfume category (citrus, fresh, floral, woody or
oriental), you can then choose from more than 300 ingredients to
create a scent that is uniquely yours. A private session goes at $125
per person for a 105ml bottle of personalised perfume.
www.jetaime-singapore.com
The ready-made wireart jewellery pieces by
Hadasity are already one
of a kind, but you can also
choose to create an extraspecial piece and let the
wire-artists tell your story
with eclectic colourful
rings, necklaces, brooches
and cuffs. Customising
charges are added on top of
the usual price of a readymade piece and range from
an additional $80 for a
necklace to an extra $50
for everything else.
hadasity.com
39
The Irreverent Last Page
The Amazing
TECHNOCRAT’S
DREAMCOAT
The public officer’s uniform of the future will be a multi-functional colour-changing jacket
you can wear anywhere, predicts the Challenge FashionTech Department.
In-ear decoder
Takes in the abbreviations and
gobbledygook others say, and
translates them on the spot. Future
upgrades will include translations into
different languages – useful for when
you meet delegates from overseas or
non-English speaking citizens.
Body-worn camera
and holo-projector
All public officers get back up with
body-worn cameras, which capture
interactions with citizens, any crime
incidents and more. The palm-sized
device also functions as a mini-projector.
Hologram updates will allow for virtual
meetings on the go. Fancy!
Enhanced access card
RFID chips embedded in the new smart
card for public officers lets you enter
any government building as long as you
have a reason to be there. This will be
detected from the content of your work
emails and calendar – eliminating the
need for laborious clearance beforehand.
Digital nametag
Shows your agency’s logo, your name
(surname underlined) and work title.
All information is updated live so that
any citizens you meet will know you’re
a super-legit public officer, no risk of
public officer impostors here.
Wireless charging
via solar energy
Leave your power banks
behind, as the solar panels
stitched into the jacket’s
epaulettes and the wireless
chargers in the pockets turn
you into a walking Pikachu
for all your mobile devices.
Temperatureregulating features
Go from hot and humid lunch breaks
outdoors to freezing cold meeting
rooms in a jiffy. Future editions will
detect the user’s moods, so it can cool
you down when you’re frustrated or
tickle you (with tiny electric shocks) if
you’re feeling bored.
Need We Say More?
Here’s where we let the humour loose, and learn to laugh at ourselves a little more. Have ideas or jokes about the Public Service?
Email us: [email protected]
ILLUSTRATION BY MUSHROOMHEAD
40
TRIVIA QUIZ
1
The ability to broadcast videos to the world is a powerful tool for…
a.
b.
c.
d.
2
What is unique about the Government Digital Services (GDS)?
a.
b.
c.
d.
3
Most of the GDS staff were hired primarily from Google
A new career track is being developed for those with
technical expertise
It was set up to help local firms build up expertise in IT
Everyone can work on their personal projects in their free time
What is true about the Kampung Admiralty multi-agency project?
a.
b.
c.
d.
4
citizens to check the abuse of authority by public officers
citizens to police the streets and monitor public officers
public officers to engage citizens quickly with customised messages
public officers to warn citizens against online vigilantism
The three six-storey blocks will occupy 9,000 square metres
The childcare centre was moved from the ground floor to the
sixth storey
The project’s complexity delayed the completion date to 2017
The cost constraint required many agencies to adjust their budgets
According to DBS’s Group Head of Technology & Operations
David Gledhill…
5
PAIRS OF
MOVIE VOUCHERS
TO BE WON
Submit your answers by
October 3, 2016 at:
Challenge Online
www.challenge.gov.sg
Please include your name,
email address, agency
and contact number.
All winners will be
notified by email.
CONGRATULATIONS!
to the winners of the
July/August 2016 Trivia Quiz
a.
b.
c.
d.
5
the success of digibank in India proves the power of having a
digital mindset
goals that are big, audacious and hard to achieve will help to
transform businesses
digital platforms like Amazon and Google are good at managing
diverse partners
hackathons can help employees get used to the idea of
rapid change
Yvette Tan (MND)
Puah Ping Hui (SCORE)
Wong Hui Yi (PSD)
John Cheng (CSCollege)
Keshona Pok (MDA)
How does the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) use technology
and innovation in its services?
a.
b.
c.
d.
By offering premium manned counter services and
personal assistants
By tailoring options according to users’ ability and receptiveness
to technology
By building a high-tech one-stop Services Centre with
self-service terminals
By encouraging people to use ICA e-services with
monetary incentives
Aiyo,
terrible leh.
How can he
do that!!

PDF - Challenge Online

Transcription

Similar documents

waiver guidelines jakarta incident

Sure-Win Dip

I`m helping to end MS by participating in the 2016 Jayman BUILT MS

The Board of Directors of Qatar Fuel (WOQOD) is pleased to invite

5 `S` Training Program at ABV-IIITM, Gwalior on 21.07.2016

A Great Family Vacation!

22-Nov-2012 - Singapore Gaelic Lions

Property Life Media Kit 2013

4 star ALOE HOTEL, PAPHOS

PDF - Aetius Capital