Attending the 142nd Meeting of the Association of Professional Trainers (APTS)

The 142nd Association of Professional Trainers (APTS) meeting 2 days ago was quite a blast.

We had, for the 1st time, two emcees - Eugene Seah and Jude Lim - who decided to adopt a cross-talk style, to a... rather interesting effect.

Our President, Mr. David Lee, shared his experiences and thoughts with us during his opening address - something I always look forward to.

Then, we had our first speaker - Alvin Lim, who taught us about Risk Management.

He took us through the types of risks that we, as trainers, often come across:

Strategic Risks, Compliance Risks, Operational Risks, Financial Risks, and Reputation Risks

After that, he reminded us that we could do 5 things when it comes to risks:

1) Accept them
2) Reduce them
3) Share them
4) Transfer them
5) Avoid them

(5) is a common response, but never a long-term solution.

After a short break, we had Mike Li sharing what he suggested is The World's Biggest Problem.

Through an audience poll, and some research he had done, many people think that global warming is The World's Biggest Problem.

Well, it certainly keeps me up at night, especially during the past few sweltering days.

Without spoiling what I thought was an excellent TED-style talk, I will share just one key takeaway from it:

The Mediocre Are Always At Their Best.

Now, that's a statement for the ages.

Thank you, Alvin and Mike, for sharing some truly thought-provoking points.

I look forward to your next events!

Meeting Charlie Ang - Business Futurist

Last night, I learned something:

There are no facts about the future because it hasn't happened yet.

What that means is that everything you hear about the future is opinion.

We can, of course, make educated guesses and predictions. We can base them on past experiences and present observations, but they will still be nothing more than guesses.

That said, it doesn't mean that we don't need to prepare for it.

That's why I attended Charlie's event.

Charlie shared a great deal of information, backed up by statistics and articles, about what he sees the future will be.

Of note are the following points:

1) The Information Economy will make way for the Intelligence Economy, which will be slow at first but will improve exponentially.

When this happens, we can expect a greater disruption than when the Industrial Economy transitioned into the Information Economy. This is partly due to the fact that information itself is inherently passive. It cannot act on its own but only in tandem with other factors.

As with all fledgling technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in its stage of infancy. It can do simple tasks now, but will pick up speed in the coming years until it 'suddenly' makes a breakthrough, one that will allow its ascension into the foremost technology of its time.

2) Preparing for the future requires us to IMAGINE the future

If there is one thing we can do that machines cannot, it is the ability to dream, imagine and envision.

If we don't first imagine a future that we want to live in, someone (or something) else will. And when they create it, we no longer get it a say in it.

3) For businesses, disruption can come in two forms: Supply Disruption and Demand Disruption

Supply disruption is the easier one to look out for. For example, instead of hiring an insurance agent, peer-to-peer insurance may develop and take over the market. Personal AI Assistants may also become so proficient at weighing between policies that they can recommend the most cost-effective solution.

Demand disruption, on the other hand, tends to be harder to spot, unless you are adept at joining all the dots. In the same example of insurance, self-driven cars of the future may make the roads so safe and, because they are not owned by any one individual at a time, may need little to no car owner's insurance at all. In the same vein, if disease prevention becomes so powerful that people almost never get any diseases, health insurance policies are going to see a dip as well.

There are so many factors and forces that are at work that it is very difficult to predict what will happen and even more difficult to see what will happen because of what happens.

For now, it is becoming ever more important for businesses to explore new avenues even as they are exploiting the markets of today.

Thank you, Charlie, for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on the subject. It has sparked a lot of thoughts and, I imagine, many future conversations.

Book Launch - The Introvert Teacher is Here!

Mark your calendars!

The Introvert Teacher will be launched on

07 Dec 2017

Here are the details:

MOX, Level 3
451 Joo Chiat Road
Singapore 427664

Please Mark Your Attendance on:

http://tinyurl.com/theintrovertteacherbooklaunch

I'll see you there!

Photographing the SG100 Carnival

A week or so ago, I was asked by a fellow trainer to help photograph an event at Our Tampines Hub. 

The event was put together by the SG100 Foundation, a society with the aim of engaging both the youth and the pioneer generation of Singapore to create a bright future for our beloved country.

Not being too sure about what to focus on, I asked the event organiser, who asked me to focus on the participants and the guest of honour, Mr Baey Yam Keng, as he visited the different stalls manned by organisations and companies which have involved themselves in social contributions and other worthy pursuits.

Once the performances began, people started getting into the swing of things and I was free to photograph on-the-ground activities, which I much prefer over stage activities.

I've posted the better photographs in an album on my Facebook page after spending some time correcting the colours (the lighting was orange). 

Apart from once again exercising my over-long-dormant photography skills, I got to speak with some entrepreneurs there. We may be working on some projects together in the near future.

A couple of things I learned while photographing the event

1) Unexpected things almost always happen at events

An individual with (I presume) her family was shouting and demanding to see the organiser when she and her family were asked to give up their seats to a large group of senior residents who were attending the event. In essence, she was saying that the organisers did not put in enough thought into the number of seats provided. 

While I find her behaviour ridiculous and self-entitled, I shall bear this in mind in the planning of my next event.

2) All you have to do is ask

Although I prefer to take shots silently, some of my photos were posed and they turned out very well - a result of my asking my subjects for a shot.

Perhaps it is the introvert side of me that overthinks the asking part, I usually assume that asking for a picture is bothersome to the other party (since I don't like to be in photos myself).

Well, it turns out time and again that many people are quite happy to pose for a photograph if asked. Perhaps they, too, think that it would be presumptuous to ask a photographer to take a picture of them and prefer to wait to be asked instead - a little flattery to be asked to be a model, maybe. I'm not too sure but, from this experience, I figure that it's all up to me to make the request.

The worst that could happen is that they say 'No'.

That said, the majority of my pictures were not posed. I still enjoy the 'captured moment' style of photography and I'll continue to improve my pursuit of this style.

Before I end off this post, Happy 2017! To more learning experiences and more sharing!