//beconfused

SanDisk rolls out pretty purple flash drives. Very nice. I actually like to have one of those. May I also highlight that this is in support for the Take Action Against Alzheimer’s campaign. The ironical thing is that memory products are supporting Alzheimer cause.

(The SanDisk Cruzer Micro flash drive and the SanDisk Ultra II SD Card are both purple now.)

While it’s great that SanDisk is doing her part for charity, donate just US$1 for each flash drive or SD card sold is just too little! Consider donating US$5 or something. I mean, this is for a good cause after all right?

I have a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer Titanium flash drive, I don’t think mine looks as good as the purple one. I kinda like mine is just something different. I was helping a client buy her red flash drive the other day and that was when I realize that there is only 1 company with red flash drive in Singapore. That really disappointed me.

I’m hoping to see more colorful flash drives in Singapore. The white, the grey, the black, they’re boring already. They’re not even technically considered a color…

[via Engadget]

Meanwhile, though this is old news - Bill Gates plans to make Microsoft his part time job to focus more in Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Good for him. He plans to make the move on July 2008. I wonder how would Microsoft be like without Gates as the Chief Software Architect. Replacing Gates would be Ray Ozzie. You can read Bill Gates email to his employer below.

*Email from Bill Gates to employees*

I’ve decided that two years from now, in July 2008, I want to devote more time to the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Right now and for the next two years, my full-time job is here at Microsoft, and my part-time job remains the Foundation. Beginning in July 2008, I will switch that, to be full-time at the Foundation, while remaining involved with Microsoft as Chairman and an advisor on key development projects on a part-time basis.

On a personal note, I know that my work on global health and education issues at the Foundation would never have been possible without the enormous success of Microsoft, so I want to thank you and all of the employees past and present who have contributed so much to this company.

For these last 31 years, I’ve had the best job in the world. I’ve worked with some of the brightest and most passionate people in the world. Together, we’ve built a great company whose products have empowered people around the world.

Read more at source: Seattle PI

Well, I can’t understand why’s this a good time to announce leaving the company. Many exciting products are going to be released in a year’s time. That would include the Windows Live platform of web applications, Windows Vista, Exchange, 2007 Office System and .NET Framework 3.0. So many products and he’s leaving after these stuff are being released.

After telling people my displeasure on charity on the streets, milky commented.

milky says:

*cough those are from singapore polytechnic (your school) and my sister was one of those in orchard stalking people like you cough *

I pity you. *solemn nod *

Oops.

Never mind. You know, actually I did that before too. Well… I am one of those “volunteers”. You know, these people should stay clear of Orchard, it’s just not the best place to ask for donations. Some people are all lovey-dovey and it would be embarrassing to walk to them and ask them for a donation but - trust me - because if you do walk to them, chances are high that one of them would donate. The guy wants to show his generosity, the girl wants to show her compassion to whatever charity you are helping for.

I never stick at Orchard to gather donations to fill my tin can so that it would be heavy. During my freshman year, we -volunteered- are forced into helping out in a charity. That was even before the semester starts. My polytechnic - Singapore Polytechnic - wants some money to fill up the endowment funds.

Orchard is a bad place. I was at Somerset.

Hey, I was posted there, okay? I was posted there! Well, anyway, I was at Somerset (right beside Orchard) which is a rather nice place that can’t gather much donations.

The problem is not with Somerset people being less generous. In fact, Somerset is one of the most visited places in -Earth- Singapore, and I am standing right in the middle of it (no, I’m not at SingTel Comcenter side). I did not receive as much donations as I expect due to competition. Competition with our own people who are holding the same bloody tin can.

Later we discovered so many of our people at Somerset that, at one point, the population ratio of the public to our people is 3:1. In the end, Jinyao and I thought the whole situation was lame and left Somerset. Too many people. I don’t believe in competition in who has more donations.

We return to the polytechnic, tired and wanted to go home. I remember the lecturers still want us to count the bloody coins!

Okay, I brought all my one cent, five cents, ten cents, twenty cents coin and dumped it all into the can. And then I have to count it.

“Hey, wouldn’t it be dangerous if we steal the money while counting?” I questioned the lecturer hoping he would suspect me to be a thief and tell me to leave the tin can alone and go home.

“I trust you,” the lecturer answered. And yes, I stayed…

We often regard charities as good things to do. I have no objection in the people following the light side (idea stolen from Star Wars). Many time, I feel encouraged that Singaporeans cared much for their neighbors when I read articles in The New Paper which - by the way - I only read when I am really really bored; I don’t like The New Paper.

Sometimes while embracing the light side, the non-profitable organization (Jedi Council) in Singapore may go overboard by recruiting too much volunteers (Jedis) from secondary schools - whatever the hell the reason is.

*Seduction to the light side*
A portion of the light side is seemingly more beautiful than the rest. I recalled my secondary school friends looking for the prettiest girl to give the donation to. They want to donate money, but they also want to donate to a cute girl.

I have no idea if any of them successfully gotten a girl through this methods but the key here is that the prettiest girl gets the most donations. And of course, while my friends are donating, they chat up with the girl. It’s usually teasings and stuff. Nothing dirty, nothing hurtful.

*Temptation to the light side*
I have discussed this before about an overly-commercialized (at least in my opinion) charity called National Kidney Foundation (Singapore). The light side can be rather tempting. They offer great prizes that you stand a chance of winning if you donate - a condominium, a car, cash prizes, the list is never-ending. My girlfriend got a dollar off at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaves which is great - I love their Ice Blended(R).

Many people would unknowingly succumb to the light side and just pick up the phone and call a donation line and then hope to win some prizes. Charity should not be made to seem rewarding in material sense.

*Obligation to the light side*
This is the bloody reason I blogged this entry so it’s going to be slightly longer than the above 2 sections (disobeying what my English teacher taught me).

All the shops are closed and I was around Singapore Visitors Centre at Orchard in the morning. There are a couple of girls wearing yellow shirts holding a trademark tin cans for donations. I knew it’s a donation box but I don’t have any loose change to give. It’s a 10 dollar note and I wish to keep it. The same situation is at Novena, those people are guarding the exit of the train stations.

Then I left Orchard and went to Bukit Gombak area. Some other girls were there holding metal cans for God-knows-what charity organization. I looked up the skys, pretending not to notice their extra bright yellow T-shirts as they come towards me. I glanced and noticed their bored looks and I know they are persuaded into doing charities. These secondary students aren’t volunteers exactly, of course some would be, but I would say few are. Most are just there because there school forced them to.

Here’s how to game works. You just plant these volunteers everywhere. Everywhere! I returned home and when at Bukit Batok area, they are more of these people around. They’re at the train station, they’re in the park and in the void decks. It becomes somewhat an annoyance when the students, one after another, ask for donations. And at one time, you’ll most probably just surrender and think, “Okay, fine, I’ll donate to get a sticker flag with the charity logo so they won’t pester me again.” If you did that before, you have fallen into the light side.

But then again, looking at the bright side, at least this ain’t the dark side. Today, I successful strengthen myself to counter the seducations, temptations and obligations to the tin-can-people. And I still don’t know what charity is that.

I happen to think that Singaporeans are generous. Remember the time when the tsunami occurred on Boxing Day? Tsunami donations are all around Singapore. Singapore, with a population of around 4 million, has donated so much that it is likely to reach SG$150 million [Source: Red Cross]. That would be something like SG$37.50 per person! Frankly speaking, the figure is rather strange. I personally donated around 15 I think. [I don't really know because I throw in my coins into the collection box.]

People probably had enough with charities you know. After donating to the tsunami funds, people may be less willing to donate to other charities. I won’t be surprised, in fact, I am probably one of those too that unknowingly [I am innocent!] have such a mentality.

So what to do, what to do? If you’re a charity that does this telephone hot-line donation thingy every year, what would you do? If you’re a charity that called yourself National Kidney Foundation, what do you do?

**An over-commercialized charity foundation**
Well, if the odds seem to be against you, there is one more thing to try. Make donations attractive. If you donate, you stand a chance to win a car, win a condominium, win cash and more! So much prizes, one of which ought to attract you! The National Kidney Foundation builds their charity formula on this method year after year. It’s a winning formula. Both sides wins _(kinda)_.

Just stop here? Hell, no! The National Kidney Foundation went further to attract customers, I mean, donors. What about this? If you donate last year, you stand a chance to win double the cash prize you would gain if you donate this year too!

You won SG$2,000 as a reward of donating to the National Kidney Foundation (NKF). [Why the hell am I typing NKF again and NKF, I forgot to use abbreviations.] You donated last year too. You get double, you won SG$4,000 instead. Isn’t this like loyalty rewards? Oh, I see that it is indeed referred to as “Loyalty Rewards” in the Mediacorp TV Channel 8 web page.

Have a charity to be telecast-ed on television and get the celebrities to do strange stunts on the stages. Jack Neo [director of I Not Stupid and I Not Stupid Too which I reviewed] did the stupidest thing I have seen so far. He took this fan and set the spinning fast, then he attempt to stop the spinning fan with his, er, tongue? And when he did, you see shocked faces and hear cheers and a host proclaiming Jack Neo did it for the charity and blah blah. I, too, was shocked. I was shocked that just an act can be marvelled by the audience.

Frankly speaking, I rather these artists just sing some nice tunes and act in a skit on something. Performing all these dangerous tasks is:

# Dangerous (needless to say).
# Uncreative after years and years because the same thing just pops up again. I mean, how many stunts do you want that poor stunt coordinator to invent or reinvent.
# Ridiculous. I don’t share the same enthusiasm of the others. I find these stunts a bore nowadays. In fact, I am more impressed with 5566’s item which probably doesn’t involve an extra effort to practice since it’s their song and they have to practice it anyway.

Perhaps a simple charity show would be enough, one that can earnestly show the artist’s concern for these people by their words and not by walking through broken glass like a traditional Indian festival ceremony. Sing a song or something, act in a skit.

Show a documentary on how the god damn money is being used to increase the transparency of the whole donation system. We already know the fact that kidney dialysis is expensive. Showing how care is provided in other ways using the money would be good. Instead of advertising all the artist that would be in the charity show, time could be spent in advertisements to declare the donations last year and give a simple chart of their spendings too. You know what - make a pie charts, I love pie charts as much as apple pies. Pie charts are good.

They should remove the whole loyalty rewards thingy. It makes the whole charity thing too commercialized. It’s different from SingTel (my mobile subscription telco) offering me Red Rewards here. Firstly, SingTel is commercial anyway, they can do this. Secondly, SingTel’s reward doesn’t make many call more to earn the reward points, it’s really a reward here. But the whole double-your-price offer that NKF made is less like an incentive, more like an attraction.

Hopefully, one day I’ll watch the NKF charity show again and feel it really is a charity show and not a commericial entity to lighten the burdens of our government providing medical care to its citizens. And for goodness sake, do away with the loyalty rewards thing - the idea is a horrid. (more…)

There is this thing about charities in Singapore, that is the fact that it’s ridiculous. Students will be holding on tin cans and donation cards. Then there is the community chest. There is the call-to-donate scheme of the National Kidney Foundation (Singapore).

What Defines Charity?

It’s the act of giving a portion of what you have to the less fortunate. Singapore has lots of charitable foundations. If you’re part of such an organization, you may consider opening a branch in Singapore because you’re likely to succeed and may even encounter annual ‘profits’ or ’surplus’ as they probably call. One example of a profitable one would be - National Kidney Foundation.

It’s a Conspiracy.

Charity organizations have to contact secondary schools and make arrangements for their kids to hold the tin cans or bug the pedestrians to buy their donation tickets. That’s one major step complete. Get as many schools’ students to participate as possible. The more the merrier, like they say. Of course, organizations can also tell the school to make it compulsory to hold the donation card. Let me think of an example for you, er.. oh - National Kidney Foundation (NKF).

Then organizations can include a section in the donation card that requires the volunteer’s [okay, these people who asks for donations are so-called volunteers] particulars. What’s it for? Oh, they say you can win some price if you collect the most donation! Cool, isn’t it? What if you did? Good for you, because you won a nice prize plus more an exclusive inclusion into their database of volunteers so that they’ll contact you the next year or something. I think the National Kidney Foundation did such a thing.

Contacting People

Good communication skills always scores. As a charity foundation, you need have the relevant contacts to help you out with the donations. Xinni is one of those volunteers in their address books. Every year, they would call Xinni and request her to hold one of these donation cards. Xinni doesn’t want to. “Holy cow,” National Kidney Foundation exclaimed, “we would have one less person!” So they called again. And again. Till Xinni got mad at them and slammed the phone.

Let me defend the National Kidney Foundation a little. Maybe, just maybe, their SQL database doesn’t have the ‘rejected’ column and they can’t track who doesn’t want this donation card! I suggest they modify their database to include that column because they wouldn’t want to offend more people.

Ultimate Formula

Then comes the ultimate formula to get donations - just call a 1900 number to donate! It’s brilliant! And then don’t stop there, you can even send an SMS to donate and your mobile phone bill will reflect the amount you donated! Why is this the ultimate formula then? Well, you need to put on a show. Literally! You get MediaCorp artists to step on glass bits, hold snakes and stuff. Basically the more dangerous stuff. And you have to get a show host to tell the public emotionally how dangerous these stunts are and how the poor artists actually trained so hard to contribute to the charity. One such organization is National Kidney Foundation.

Just follow these ways. That’s how you run a successful charity organization; be like the National Kidney Foundation. It’s a winning formula.

[The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) of Singapore is a model charity organization. Several similar organizations from around the world have evaluated its donation methods.]