At Stampede, employees and apprentices enjoy our monthly mental health benefits. There’s always room to do better and be proactive with our wellness approach. Early this November, we organised an on-site mental health and resiliency workshop for everyone in Kuala Lumpur, as part of a 6-months long care program conducted by Humankind.my.

In planning this, Stephanie, our UX designer, worked closely with psychologists from HumanKind to tailor the program to our team’s unique background, career journey and challenges. Thank you for your labour of love, Steph!

Developing psychological flexibility

Throughout the two days, we learned to be still and observant towards our feelings when facing stress and to develop awareness of our fight/flight/freeze/fawn response to stressors.

Self-awareness is a recurring theme; developing it is a journey that takes individual willingness and accountability.

To lead others, you need to lead yourself first.”

Another hallmark session was how resiliency as a leader starts by tuning to your core values as you prepare yourself to lead others – something many future leaders in Stampede could relate to.

We also discussed psychological flexibility techniques that help us to work with others who don’t share the same values, a grossly underrated part of any professional relationship.

The sessions were laced with art activities, which is when the enthusiastic children in us emerged. From turning our worries into picturesque drawings to scrapbooking to communicate our values, it’s the most fun we’ve had with scissors, crayons and coloured pencils.

Many thanks to HumanKind for their excellent curation of content and the space they created in the two days for our team to connect at a psychological level.

What started as a workshop felt now like a team-building exercise, with plenty of safe moments to have honest and mind-nourishing conversations. To us, this is how we look out for each other and set a strong foundation for where we want to go next. 🚀

The post Building Team Resilience at Work appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Stampede has been fully remote since day one, thanks to our early beginnings with clients primarily from Europe, United States and Australia. We take great care of our people and promote a healthy remote culture, enabling people to do great work together despite the distance.

Going against the grain

While working remotely is the norm in many jobs today, the same cannot be said when we began in 2006. Despite internet penetration already being high in most countries, the shift towards remote work was slow.

One of the more vocal proponents for remote work, Jason Fried of 37 Signals even argued that working from an office was counterproductive on his TED Talk: Why work doesn’t happen at work | Jason Fried

Iwan, a longtime member of the Stampede team since 2010, recently reminisced about the early days of remote work. Back then, programming was done without Git and calls and meetings were handled through Skype. An internet speed of 8Mbps was considered sufficient at the time as most work was done offline, with occasional online uploads and calls. According to Iwan, working from home did not feel deficient compared to working in the office, but it did require a higher level of self-discipline due to the absence of physical supervision.

As technology improved, new tools such as Git, Figma, and Slack emerged, which Stampede adopted after allowing them to mature first. Iwan also recalled that remote work was less common back then, and some people had a hard time grasping the concept of working from home. All that changed overnight though, as know it, with COVID-19.

Our remote culture

Being remote has allowed us to tap into the pool of talent and capabilities unlimited by location. It is astounding how many talents and wonderful people have joined our rank thanks to this conscious decision to treat location as a strategic tool (we still do plenty of on-site at client locations) but not a necessity.

But having a fully remote team is just the beginning. In the next edition, we will look into what makes Stampede’s remote culture, the true workhorse of our success.

The post Stampede Remote Work Origins appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

However much time I spend away from Budapest, the moment I come home it always feels complete. It’s a comfortably sized city with nearly two million people. Everything that matters happens in the center, and once you’re in there, nothing is too far away.

Just walk around the century old buildings to soak in the rich history and take part in the vibrant life. Most of the historic center and its monuments were built in the late 1800’s, and the architecture is an eclectic mix of many period styles.

Some of the most run-down buildings waiting for redevelopment are taken over by temporary drinking spots known as ruin bars, and decorated with street art giving the town’s nightlife its quirky charm. And don’t forget the thermal spas, where you can soak in pools of hot, healing thermal water, and play chess with the elderly.

Working remotely from Budapest

Image from Madal Cafe

With an average broadband speed of 25Mbps, working remotely is a breeze. Cafes in the city offer fast WiFi internet and are not very crowded during the day. But when office hours finish and the evening buzz starts, it’s time to schlep somewhere quiet with the laptop. If you’re after a more focused work environment, you’re in luck because co-working spaces are popping up like mushrooms. Budapest is a popular destination for digital nomads (people who work remotely from abroad,) so you’re likely to meet quite an international crowd. The cost of a monthly membership is usually between 1-200 euros. This is about the same as what you would spend all month drinking and snacking at a cafe.

Getting around

As with any other major city, finding parking in the city can be a pain. In Budapest however, you can easily get around with public transport, and buy a monthly pass for 35 euros. If you’re not in a rush, you might as well walk because the streets are very pedestrian friendly. Your other option is to go around on a bike, and you can even pick up one from a public rental station  and drop it off at the next one. It’s no Amsterdam, but riding a bike here is not just for the daredevil.

The people of Budapest

Image courtesy of Craig Hull Photography

Hungarian people are often criticised for being rude. This is a little bit true, but on the upside, when they are nice to you, you can be sure that they genuinely like you. Budapest is home to lots of hipsters, and everything they go hand in hand with. For instance, artisan coffee, healthy street food, independent designers’ shops, and barber-shops, so this is the right place to buy that beard oil.

The dogs of Budapest

Image courtesy of Craig Hull Photography

Many Hungarians can’t imagine their lives without a dog to care for. But having a dog is not just about the relationship with the dog, but also with other people. Walking a Staffordshire terrier shows people you are a tough guy, a whippet says you are chic, and walking a Labrador retriever says you live in a detached house with a perfect lawn and two beautiful children, and just walked off of a detergent commercial. But whatever dog somebody walks, it’s always a perfect excuse to strike up a conversation with them.

Summer and festivals

Image courtesy of Craig Hull Photography

Hungary has a continental weather complete with 4 seasons, a freezing cold winter, and a hot hot hot summer. During summer city’s the streets of the city come to life, and lots of music festivals pop up around the country. The most famous one being the Sziget Festival in August. Sziget means island, because the festival takes place on  an island on the river Danube, that is huge enough to accommodate the festival’s some 200.000 visitors. The festival runs about a dozen of big stages catering for all sorts of tastes in music, from mainstream music with superstar headliners, to alternative genres. The festival attracts a very mixed international audience, camping and partying on the island for a whole week.

These are some of many things that you can experience and enjoy in my home, Budapest. If you’re flying over to Europe, why not drop by in one of the world’s most colorful cities.

The post A City of Our Own IX : Budapest appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

#rayasquadgoals

At Stampede we have our daily scrum meeting at 2 pm, of which we called The Blitz, where we update what had we been working on and our plans for the day as well as some harmless banters after that. It got us talking to how excited we are about Hari Raya, so I decided to throw a quick question,

What does Hari Raya mean to you?

Shaiful is looking forward to have Kuala Lumpur to himself

“Being born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, I am pretty much a city boy – also because my grandparents are no longer around, so I don’t really get the chance to celebrate Hari Raya in kampung. When most people go back kampung (going back to their hometowns), I look forward to empty roads and a more chill KL. Generally, my friends and families would visit each other in each other’s houses, catching up and stuff.

Another thing I really look forward to is our tradition of having open houses for the whole month of Syawal!”

Iwan is elated to spend Hari Raya in two kampungs

“This is my first year of marriage, so I get to experience the unspoken concern of deciding which kampung to spend in like other married couples do. Luckily, my wife’s family and mine live very close to each other, so we get to visit each other’s family as often as we could during the Hari Raya break.

Also, it’s good to meet friends and catch up, and get some break from work. Looking forward to come back to the office all recuperated.”

Dahlia plans to eat all day long

(I asked if she wants to change her answer, she replied with a firm, “no”.)

Shaza is grateful to have enough – and KFC!

“Me and Dov are not very particular in celebrating Hari Raya, mostly because every Hari Raya we would go back to my mother’s kampung in Negeri Sembilan. We are a big family, and have to meet every family members from all ages, so we have to socialise a lot. It is also the time of the year to meet my siblings face to face. Although we talk to each other a lot, my siblings and I live all over Malaysia – so it was fun to meet them again and bully each other, sometimes joined by my parents who are just as comical as we are.

Also, another thing you must know – my family and I have this unspoken tradition. On the night of second Raya, after all the food is finished no matter how much they were cooked, we would all huddle up together in a car, bantering over who squashed whom and went ahead to queue with the whole town to buy KFC bucket meals to share with the whole family.

Hari Raya also taught me to be grateful for what I have – and if I have more than that, then it’s a bonus. I think that’s how the world should work for everyone.

Being an introvert, usually I need a few days to recuperate after coming back to Langkawi after Hari Raya break.

Also, only on Hari Raya we get to see Dov in baju melayu, even only for a few hours in between Hari Raya prayer. It’s actually a rare sight!”

Zana is just happy to catch up with family

“I am an only child, but ever since I was small I had been very close to my cousins. Now that we are all grown up, where most of my cousins are all scattered around Malaysia due to family and career obligation, it is about the time of the year we get to meet each other again and catch up.

I think Hari Raya is the day when my mother is the happiest because she gets to spend so much time with family. So seeing her happy makes me happy – although that would probably mean sometimes I have to roll on the carpet in my baju kurung throwing a tantrum, “When do we get to go home?!” after she had uttered goodbyes but still been chatting with the relatives for yet another hour at least.

Also, I love it that I get to dress up 😉 And yes, echoing Dahlia, FOOD!”

What about you?

What does Raya mean to you? The comment section is all open for you – and if you want to echo my and Dahlia’s sentiment about food, oh yes feel free to!

With that in note, we at Stampede would like to wish everyone a blessed Eid and Selamat Hari Raya Maaf Zahir Batin. Enjoy your holidays, go easy on the food binge, and come back from the holidays all refreshed!

The post What Hari Raya Means To Us appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Victor Hugo made a world-changing mistake and it’s up for us amend it.

I had the chance to interview Jérôme Bouchaud about the society while delving more into the subject of poetry and literature – and was concluded with a beautiful French poem on humility, recited by Jérôme himself.

• 

  Hi Jérôme! Thank you for making your time for this interview. Could you tell us about yourself and your role at Association Francaise du Pantouns?

• 

  Hey Zana, good to see you! I am good, how are you doing yourself?

  To start, I am a travel writer by trade. My job involves a lot of travelling and observing, which I really love. Before this I used to travel around Southeast Asia a lot – such a beautiful region – to work on travel guides and books. These are mostly in French.

  Only recently about two and a half years ago, I had the chance to launch a Malaysian literature website. In this website we compile all the literature regarding to Malaysia by a number of foreign writers, mostly French writers in this case.

  This was where the turning point was – I was introduced to the folks in the publishing industry in Malaysia. We talked among each other a lot and I met Georges Voisset, who is a French pantoun specialist and currently the president for the Society of French Pantoun. He was the one who introduced me to pantoun, which is how I got interested in the traditional Malay poetry form and its amalgamation with French language.

  After meeting him, I started to write these pantouns myself. It gets better and more interesting as you discover more about pantoun. So this is where Revue Pantoun was born where we decided to enlighten French poets on the beauty of pantoun and invite them to publish their pantouns in the website.

• 

  You speak so fondly of pantoun! I could practically see your eyes sparkling as you spoke of it. Could you tell us more about this form of poetry?

• 

  Certainly!

  Pantoun in its traditional form was explored more deeply by Western poets in the 19th century, when exoticism was the trend, and one of the first poets to learn about it in France was Victor Hugo – I am sure you have heard of him – through his friend the writer and explorer Ernest Fouinet.

  The problem is though, Hugo only retained the berkait (chained) form of pantoun, which is less common and longer than the usual four-verse pantoun. What’s more, he called it pantouM instead of pantoun! From that typo onwards, there was no turning back and pantouM began spreading like wildfire among eager poetry circles around the Western world. Some poets even went further, imposing a set of rules to the pantouM which the original pantoun never had.

  Today, pantouM is still way more famous than pantoun among poets outside of the Malay world. And that’s what our French Association of Pantoun is trying to change, or at least rectify in some way, by informing poets on the actual origins of pantoun and its original structures. In French mostly, but as much as we can, in other languages as well.

  Victor Hugo, such a world-changing mistake you have made! And now it’s up for the society to amend it.

• 

  We can do this.

  So Jérôme, coming from a self-proclaimed spoken word poet, I am especially drawn to idea of having a diverse community in of both Malay and non-Malay speaking folks – French, German, Spanish and the others – together out of love for pantoun, the traditional Malay poetry genre.

  How far has the society grown now? How many writers do you have so far?

• 

  It is a small team. (Zana chimes: doesn’t look like it from the amount of work!)
  

  

  There is currently four of us at the moment. I am the secretary and the treasurer for the society while Georges, the French pantoun specialist and the man who was responsible for my love of pantoun is currently the President.

  We have Jean-Claude as the Vice President, who is an engineer by trade, but has always been very passionate about literature in general. He is a big fan of Hans Overbeck, a traveller and writer from Germany who was the first translator of The Epic of Hang Tuah in a European language, in the 1920s. Then we have Marie as the Assistant Secretary, who has published many haikus and tankas over the years.

  In the meantime, we currently have 14 writers who are always active in sending on contributions and writings. Before this, they had never heard on the original Malay form of pantoun before – they know pantouM due to Hugo. Pantoum, since it is berkait, is normally consisting of a few verses and can be written up till 28 lines in western version. This is not the form of pantoun that we want to preserve.

  So the idea of the society is to enlighten the poets and the public on the true potential of pantoun. Pantoun is a form on its own with lots of nuances packed in and so much to discover. Out of these only four lines, something powerful and interconnected can come out of it.

• 

  To quote Orhan Pamuk in The New Life, “One day I had read a book and all my life has changed“. I understand this might be the hardest question for someone who has been involved in literature for a long time, but could you tell me about your favourite writers whose work might have changed your life?

• 

  There is this book by André Malraux. In French it is called La condition humaine, or in English, “Man’s Fate”.

  It is an old book, probably published in the 1930’s. It is about the failed communist resurrection in Shanghai and along the way there were the stories of four people of diverse background and their individual plights intertwined throughout the book. It is such an eye opener – it got me interested in China and Southeast Asia in general, probably also responsible for my career as a travel writer now. Please read it, you would love it.

  I would also recommend Soul of Malaya by Henri Fauconnier. It was set in Malaysia in the early 1920’s about a friendship that develops between a French plantation owner and two Malay brothers. The book gives an idea of how Malayan life is like in the early 1920’s, in a very open-minded way. There was also a mention of pantoun in the book, which I really love.

  In general, my favourite authors would be John Irving, John Steinbeck and Paul Auster. Growing up, I read Stephen King a lot as well.

• 

  Goodness, I love The World According to Garp, even more so when Robin Williams epitomised Garp in the movie adaptation.

  Aside from French Pantoun and Literary Journal, are you working on other similar, equally interesting literature-oriented projects at the moment?

• 

  Yes, there is!

  Aside from focusing on the pantoun review project, I am also in the midst of doing some travel writing at the moment. Together with a photographer friend, I am writing a book about Langkawi. It is more of a travel coffee-table book, with stories of Langkawi, the legends, tips and some beautiful photos accommodating the stories. It is in the works now, and hopefully it will be published next year.

• 

  So exciting! What will the title be?

• 

  It is going to be called Langkawi Style.

  The books are going to be in series – some of other writers are working on other Malaysian cities, for example, Melaka Style. So I will be the one in charge of writing Langkawi Style.

• 

  Looking forward to see it published! We shall buy ourselves a copy once it’s out, please let us know.

  So Jérôme, how did you find out about Stampede and what brings you to the decision of engaging us for your work?

• 

  Well it has been a while!

  Years ago I stumbled upon Langkawi Yoga website and I liked the design. Me and my partner Dorothy also run Langkawi LASSIE, a shelter and foundation for needy animals, so we contacted Stampede to redesign the website. We were very happy with the results and and we also love working with the team. We found Stampede to be a great fit in knowing our needs and the team is also very well-versed in translating it into a website.

• 

  The team shall be very happy to hear this! I’ll let them know.

  How has the experience working with us on The Society of French Pantoun website?

• 

  Tell them I said hi!

  Well, it has been smooth sailing. Since Pantun Sayang is entirely in French which I understood is not any of the team members’ native language, I thought there might be slight disconnection and I am entirely OK with going slow and helping with the language issue if there is going to be any. But everything had worked so perfectly – the Stampede team understands how to work with various applications according to our requirements, there is no disconnection at all and I am so happy with the results.

  Generally, great job!

• 

  Yay! One final question: how about reciting one of your favourite French pantouns and let us know the story behind it?

• 

  OK here we go.

  One of the pantouns I wrote is the following one:

  Plus grand est le bambou
  plus bas il s’incline.
  Plus lointain mon pays
  plus profondes mes racines.

  which, in Malay, translates roughly as:

  semakin tinggi pokok buluh
  semakin rendah ia merunduk
  semakin jauh tanah airku
  semakin terasa akar dan rindu

  In English, it would go something along the lines of:

  The taller the bamboo tree,
  the closer to the earth it leans.
  The further my native land,
  the stronger my longing.

  It’s a very simple pantoun, but I hope it conveys its message well. That pantoun, and 299 other ones, will appear in a French pantoun anthology to be released in October this year and published by Editions Jentayu.

• 

  How beautiful.

  Thank you Jérôme, it has been such a pleasure being able to chat with you!

• 

  Thank you, Zana! See you around.

  Pantun Sayang was built on WordPress and was launched about a month ago. The website comprises of features such as forums and newsletter integration. It aims to create a virtual meeting place for all lovers of pantoun around the world and to promote knowledge on this poetic form and its creativity in various non-native languages.

  You may find out more about Pantun Sayang by following the society’s Twitter account and Facebook.

The post For the Love of Pantoun: An Interview with Jérôme Bouchaud appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

For the second part of the series, I interviewed Shaiful Borhan, Web Analyst & Developer for Stampede Design. During the interview — which now feels more like a “bro chat” really — I learned a thing or two, especially that it is OK to take a break once in a while.

• 

  Hello Shaiful! Could you tell us about yourself and how did you first get into the Web, particularly programming?

• 

  Hello! As you know, I am Shaiful the web analyst & developer for Stampede.

  I had been into programming since after I finished my Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) eventually till much higher education which is all throughout Masters. It was during SPM break somewhere in 2000 or 2001 that I kept tinkering with programming stuff over at our family computer, so my dad bought me a book on an introduction to Visual Basic programming language.

  I was so happy, although I gave up learning the language soon after.

  But one thing leads to another. I decided to pick up BASIC soon after that, which used to come shipped with home computers. This was where I coincidentally played around with MS-DOS together with Windows booting processes along with its programming elements.

  Figuring out things by yourself is a majestic feeling.

  Moving on to more formal education, I took up diploma in University Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) around 2002-2005. The university taught us the proper way to learn programming — from introduction to programming to learning major languages such as C++ and eventually finishing the whole syllabus for web programming. Later on I took up Degree in Software Engineering. At this phase I learned more of Java & JSP. For my final project, I thought it was a good idea to feature a project employing PHP. That was how I first learned PHP.

  For my Masters in IT — we learned advanced programming & database systems, network systems, et cetera, mostly theoretical stuff. I took up my Masters while working for Stampede at the same time, so I had the good experience of learning and being able to share my industrial experience with my fellow classmates and professors. Programming is having to know a lot of things, strategising, structuring and at the same time being experimental. That works out great for me.

• 

  You are one of the programmers who have gone through a lot of formal education in order to become a programmer. There are opinions going around that formal education is no longer necessary to become a programmer these days as online resources are abundant to help you become one.

  What are your thoughts on that?

• 

  Heavy stuff there, man.

  I have something to add here — while formal education is important, they would only teach you a bit of this and that in small doses. It will not prepare you completely for the real world. If you are into programming, it would help greatly if you spend some time learning by yourself as well, to complement the syllabus they’re teaching you at school.

  However, if you do have the tenacity and the right attitude to learn programming by scratch, by all means go ahead. There is no right or wrong way, as long as it will all work out in the end.

• 

  That’s a good one. Because this is A Day In The Life series, tell us about your typical working day — from waking up to going to bed?

• 

  Where do we start?

  (Zana: At this point he whispers, “Try not to make my life sounds boring, Zana” of which I reaffirms I won’t)

  Because we all work EST while living in GMT+8 timezone, I sign in to work every day at about 11 am EST, which is about 11 pm Malaysian time. I go to sleep at 6 pm EST, which is about 6 am in the morning in Malaysia. The latest I would wake up is around noon. I will check work emails in case if there are urgent tasks for me — and if there are any, I’d tackle them first thing after waking up.

  Out of work, I don’t read books much, but I have to say my online reading list is pretty extensive. I read everything from music, automotive, historical stuff, music reviews, technology, news and general science. The channels I frequent often on my Pulse app are: Best of Technology, Best of Science, Car and Driver, Smashing Magazine, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, Readwrite, Film School Rejects and Lifehacker.

  I also play games, but non too heavy. These are games like Grand Theft Auto, the good ol’ Transport Tycoon Deluxe or Tropico. My kind of favourite games are slow paced, strategy games. I like to chill and take things slow.

  In the evening I’d go for a jog or a futsal game with friends. I also used to play squash. I love a lot of outdoor sports and activities. Otherwise, I’d just hang out with my friends, go play snooker (I am a big fan of Ronnie O’Sullivan, and will stay glued to the screens when it’s the snooker tournament season), go see movies or eat out – nothing fancy just anything I’m in the mood for at that moment in time. Ayam penyet is my favourite.

  

• 

  Actually, you have a pretty packed and interesting day! How about work? How does your routine at work looks like?

• 

  I mentioned before that I often sign in at 11 in the evening Malaysian time, so I would make sure that I would get some dinner and if possible, at least an hour nap before work. Just to recharge, you know.

  I don’t have a specific routine per say, however I’d like to start my working hours with a cup of tea. My favourites are green tea or honey lemon tea. Just to help build the mood.

  Signing in, I would usually divide my work hours into four phases:

  Light: In the first half of the working hours, I would check the emails again and proceed to do some light tasks. These tasks include making a to-do list of the day, replying to the emails about requirements, or solutions to some issues and also some software updates. These things normally do not take much brainpower, so I would tackle them first while building my momentum towards the second phase.

  Extra heavy: Time to dive into projects! I usually dedicate three to four hours working on big projects every day. During this phase, I am very focused and will only attend to non-urgent requests in the next phase of the day. The team knows this and they would usually leave me alone until a few hours later, although sometimes I collaborate with Iwan on issues that would need his HTML/CSS and styling help.

  Medium light: After toiling on the most heavy duty part of the day, I return to work on lighter tasks, but not as light as the ones in the first phase of the day. These are usually maintenance tasks which would take less than an hour to finish.

  Heavy: After about an hour break, I would dive myself into projects again before signing off.

  

• 

  So much for not having a standard routine. That is actually pretty elaborate. Well done!

  You have a notorious reputation, in a good way, for your programming skills with panache. Was there a standard learning process or system you adopted in the past to master programming?

• 

  I started out the formal way. I began through learning about flowcharts, the algorithms, the logic before coding, which for me works very effectively. I was quite lost trying to learn Visual Basic by myself, so I guess I am the kind who needs to learn things through the proper channels. Different things work for different people.

  After I gave up Visual Basic during my SPM break, I later discovered Basic which then led me to learn MS-DOS, formatting PCs, fine-tuning Windows booting and et cetera. That was where I gained some basic understanding of programming concepts. It was like a serendipitous chance.

  Entering university, I learned further on how program runs and how to structure codes. My hands-on experience started after I learned C++ and I could never turn back. I was already hooked on programming.

  A couple of tips: if possible, try to sharpen your logic by learning pseudocodes and flowcharts before diving into programming right away. After gaining a good grasp of this understanding, only then you can try to write the code in human language before diving into syntax. However, for those with good logic, you may try to go straight into coding.

  

• 

  An article I read once described that programmers like to remain uninterrupted while coding until they reach a kind of trancelike ‘coder’ high. What do you do when you are stuck, after multiple tries to solve the problem?

• 

  Take a break.

  If the task is not urgent, take a break. Do absolutely nothing work-related. Try to get away from the computer, listen to some music, or do a solo jam on the ukulele. That’s what I would do, but the gist is — take a break.

  You could also take a look at smaller projects in the meantime. Sometimes solutions to your original problem are reflected by these smaller tasks, or in some ways, the solutions would somehow emerge on its own like an epiphany or a strike of luck.

  However, if the project is urgent, I would consult the team or the higher power (Zana: In this case, he means Dov).

  

• 

  Name a few tips or hacks you did to improve productivity that helps a lot while programming.

• 

  I am going to recite this in the way of Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen.

  Get enough rest.

  Dual monitors. It helps especially if you are busy with Skype, emailing, programming for more than one projects and having to open many tabs in your browsers at one time.

  Listen to music. Depending on my mood, I would listen to every kind of music – from trance to hiphop to rap to country. Have more than one playlist for this purpose.

  Tea and snacks. Right now on my table I have these delicious Danish butter cookies, and of course, my favourite honey lemon tea.

  Reward yourself with little things. I love food and personally, when I eat something and feel rewarded by what I ate, I felt good about it.

  

• 

  You are also pretty smooth with guitars. What are your favourite tunes to play to?

• 

  I have a lot!

  However, this also changes overtime. Generally, genre-wise I am into slow ballad and blues. My favourite all-time tunes to play are Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing and David Bowie’s Life on Mars.

  I am currently learning how to play country songs, mainly from Kris Kristofferson. You guys will be the first to hear once I have mastered them.

  

• 

  Yay! That sounds good.

  Final question: You could inspire a throng of young programmers who wish to be as good as with you. Do you have some advice for these padawans?

• 

  I’m a bit old school when you come to this, so might be a bit lengthy.

  To those who aspire to become programmers, keep practising so you don’t lose your touch. These days there are an abundance of resource like Codecademy, Gibbon and many more, so you can basically learn anything at your own pace. Take the time to understand before coding hands-on.

  Industry-wise, I would say that please do not give up and also not to be intimidated by the experts. They were at some point started out timid yet hungry like you do. Keep asking and be resilient in pursuit of learning. In the meantime, before asking, please also make an effort that you have learned or tried your best to understand things. Find the right group of people to ask and learn the skills to ask the right questions.

  A bit of an experience sharing – I have come across a group of new programmers who seem to exude the vibe of knowing-it-all. Don’t do this. However smart you are, never give out any sort of attitude. So coming back to the old school bit, just be nice. Help each other.

  We are in this industry to grow together. Eventually we will encounter the same group of people, so be generous with your knowledge.

  

We concluded the interview over Skype with a virtual fist bump, as how every end of the interview should be.

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The (real) good stuff is not money

Motivation and employee empowerment often takes a back seat when compared to sales, profit-margin, leads. You know, the money stuff. While monetary viability is the bloodline of any business, your people should be the pulse. Are they excited to be part of the team? Or are they just registering placid interest, day in and day out? After all, we’re talking of very smart people here. There are greatness in them that inspire you to hire them in the first place.

Case in point

Our designer Dahlia is now in Langkawi for the next one week to work side by side with me. The moment I picked her up from the airport, she hit me with an idea of how we could help Sani, our front-end developer grasp all the small nuances of design and translate these little details into his HTML/CSS work. We decided that Sani, who only ever opens Photoshop to slice up layers, should design his own website.

We get from ‘Hey what if…’ and ‘I was thinking…’ to ‘Let’s do it!’ and ‘Who wants in?’ within a matter of minutes.

We work from Starbucks at Cenang Mall because well, coffee, and they have these really huge tables with enough space for all our mousing needs. Within 2 hours of Dahlia telling me this idea, Sani was already sketching his first website. It’s really exciting to know that your team is nimble enough to maneuver ideas into execution at such a short amount of time. We get from “Hey what if…” or “I was thinking…” to “Let’s do it!” or “Who wants in?” within a matter of minutes.

Sani’s big love is with inline skating (read his blog here) so we asked him to design a webpage for his SKROLS club. On his own. When he’s done, he’s going to build this website in Bootstrap.

Along the way, he’s learning a crash course in web design from us. Between Dahlia and I, we have over 14 years of design experience. But this placed us in new territory — we needed to communicate design by going back to basic, but not get too technical lest we lose the audience. We showed him how subtle differences makes for good design, emotions associated with colors, how to apply masking, understanding visual weight and hierarchy, Gestalt principles, typography for web, grids and folds and many more. We also demonstrated different ways of working with Photoshop and the considerations when designing a responsive website, going beyond the tools you use.

There were a lot of haphazard sketches and awkward finger gestures. Thinking back, Sani was probably too polite to say no to two trouble-making girls 🙂 No, we haven’t gotten to the Pen tool yet but when we do, we’re pretty excited to see him cringe.

If you’re in Langkawi this week, do stop by Starbucks in Cenang Mall — we’re 2 mins from the beach — and say hello!

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Let me reiterate this: there is never a typical day in the life of a Project Manager. The following is intended as a guide of my day-to-day role in Stampede. There are days Stage B takes up most of the time, or even the whole day. There are days Stage C takes up as equal portion as Stage B – nevertheless, every day is an adventure by itself.

Stage A: Come As You Are

Approximation of the Percentage of Day Taken: 20%

This time of the day is often spent writing, replying emails and entertaining clients on Skype. Some never fail to give me endearing nicknames of all sorts. I have been called gangsta, superstar, Slide Deck and most recently, Diggy. In between our playful banter, we follow up and catch up on recent projects.

I spend this portion of the day as well going through everyone’s daily planner of which we have set up for each of us with Trello, an awesome discovery of Shen’s.

This first stage of the day may seem menial for some, but it is important to set the momentum going and to prepare for the next stage of the day.

Stage B: Rolling In The Deep

Approximation of the Percentage of Day Taken: 50%

Behold – the most important, substantial part of the day.

Taking up most of my daily tasks, this is the portion mostly reserved for internal reviews and meetings of every minuscule and gargantuan proportion equally. It is the most crucial because it requires my and the team’s undivided focus and attention to go every tiny detail as well as filtering (the latter mostly applied to meetings) to avoid being overwhelmed.

Some may say it is the hair-tearing portion of the day, but I beg to differ. With an amazing team and a set of wonderful clients, oftentimes we survive throughout the whole ordeal adventure.

Oftentimes. I have always wanted to use this word.

Stage C: Feelin’ So Good

Approximation of the Percentage of Day Taken: 30%

This is my favourite part of my work day. After the bugs are fixed, the negotiation with client about sneaking in responsive design in the middle of development goes well without a bloodbath, the cross-browser functionality dragons (they are mostly IE) are slayed – I would retreat to a couple of my online resources for some research and reading on the topic about web development and project management. These are amongst my favourites, in no particular order:

1. Smashing Magazine
2. Web Designer Depot
3. A List Apart
4. Signals vs Noise
5. Cognition
6. PM Hut

Staying true with the culture at Stampede where everyone is encouraged to share, I also post a couple of them on company Twitter, whilst some of them get sent to the inbox of the team members for their weekend reading. The writing blog task often gets done in this portion of the day as well.

The Encapsulation of It All

Being a Project Manager, our output may not be translated as tangible as the ones for designers, developers and programmers. People may not notice the non-existent haggling skills we developed to discuss about a scope creep. We act as the sponge – insulating the team from all the pressure from above ourselves as much as we can so the team can focus on the work.

Needless to say, the presence of a role – take note that I said presence of a role instead of presence of an absolute being – of a Project Manager is necessary to keep the team together. We are the planners, the mediators, the interpreters, the cheerleaders, the company jesters (hang on, that is probably just me) – and so much more.

Questions?

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If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

The quote above, in my opinion, takes back to the psychology of being a human being – we like to feel a sense of belonging and appreciation, instead of being herded around.

Then there is this fascinating fact about project management: it is an adventure. You heard it right.

Project management is more than scheduling projects, facilitating project meetings, documenting project requirement documents and all those dull stuffs you think about. It is a routine at the beginning of every project that every team member is assigned with their respective tasks. At Stampede, instead of drumming them up with linear, silo-ed items that can be done to get this in time, we sit down with them and bounce ideas:

• How will the site launch benefit the client?
• What do we need to do to achieve this, aside from the assigned tasks?
• How can everyone else pitch in to help?
• How will this help you and the next team members in line for the task if you get this done on time?

The first question address the most important thing: the immensity of the sea. By addressing how much the site launch means to the client and how the team members can help contribute to this, it gives them a sense of belonging and responsibility.

Most of the times, we triumph.

There are times we don’t, but the sea is a tricky subject and takes time to master the tide. Either way, we all know we are heading towards one particular ocean.

Every day is an adventure. Every day is for me to scale the immensity of the sea and let others long for the same thing too.

(P/s: Interested to hear your interpretation of the quote above and how you would relate to yourself – as usual, delighted to hear your comments!)

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I have had Skype 1-on-1 Joomla training session which really helped to speed up the steep learning curve of the Joomla engine in just a matter of hours! The best is that I got to do hands on practise compared to if I were to learn from private courses. I even went to the company’s warm home-office in the Langkawi island for a bootcamp session! At Stampede we really embrace the culture of teaching.

Few weeks ago we added a new designer to the team. His name is Wan. He has no prior experience in HTML and CSS so I was assigned to teach him the basics of the markup language and the process of styling a site from design.

So Wan and I went to setup a meeting session to create a simple typography test site. It’s a simple three-columns layout. We started from scratch. By that I mean from writing the first <head> tag and explaining the markup language from there to introducing CSS elements like ‘background’, ‘padding’, font-family’, etc.

There were certainly a few little bumps along the way like looking for an editor, getting a FTP client and such. The anal part of me even have to overlook a couple of syntax and indentation inconsistencies, but it is all good at the end of the day because these are part of the learning process. I learned that the best way to teach is to let the mistakes happen. For example, letting Wan knows the consequences of a missing bracket in a style block is better than telling and reminding him whenever he misses it.

After two hours, we got it done and I had a really satisfying sensation considering that we got Wan from zero to building a three-columns layout site.

Here is a screenshot of our end result:

Sometimes you have to reach into someone else’s world to find out what’s missing in your own.
– Intouchables

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