Shy boys given rooms to grow as they are lagging girls

 

Schoolboys do relaxation exercises in an all boys class at the government-run Shanghai Number Eight High School. Shanghai, whose school system produces the world's top test-scorers, has launched China's first all-boys high school program with an eye on elite overseas institutions like Eton. Source: AFP

SHANGHAI: Teenage boys in a Shanghai school are on the front line of teaching reform after the world's top-scoring education system introduced male-only classes over worries they are lagging girls.

Rows of white-shirted boys are put through their paces as they are called up individually to complete a chemical formula by teacher Shen Huimin, who hopes that a switch to male-only classes will help them overcome their reticence.

"We give boys a chance to change," she said.

The Shanghai school system topped the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) worldwide assessment tests of 15-year-olds in 2009, the most recent available, ahead of Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

But even so officials are concerned that some male students may be slower than their female counterparts in development and certain academic areas, such as language, and the shift towards single sex classes aims to boost boys' confidence.

Girls do better than boys in secondary school across the developed world, an OECD report found.

A prominent Chinese educator, Sun Yunxiao, found the proportion of boys classed among the top scholars in the country's "gaokao" university entrance exams plunged from 66.2 percent to 39.7 percent between 1999 and 2008.

Across the developed world, girls do better than boys in secondary school, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) found in a 2009 report on the educational performances of 15-year-olds.

"There are significant gender differences in educational outcomes," it said, adding that high school graduation rates across the OECD were 87 percent for girls but only 79 percent for boys.

In response, Shanghai's elite Number Eight High School is halfway through the initial year of an experiment, putting 60 boys into two classes of their own - a quarter of its first-year students - and teaching them with a special curriculum.

Schoolboys solve a math problem in an all boys class at the government-run Shanghai Number Eight High School in Shanghai.

 "This is a big breakthrough," said principal Lu Qisheng. "There's lots of hope - hope that boys will grow up better.

"Boys when they are young do not spend enough time studying," he explained. "Boys' maturity, especially for language and showing self-control, lags behind girls."

-- "We lack confidence" -

China shut most same-sex schools after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, and the only all-boys junior high schools in the country are privately run.

The number of male students scoring top marks in China's university entrance exams has plunged from 66 per cent to 49 per cent

Shanghai does have an all-girls state-run high school, the former McTyeire School for Girls, which marked its 120th anniversary last year and counts the three Soong sisters - Qing-ling, Ai-ling and Mei-ling - among its former pupils.

Between them they married two leaders and an industrialist. Qing-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China, while Mei-ling wed Chiang Kai-shek, who would also later become president.

Student Li Zhongyang, 15, said he felt less shy about answering questions in his all-boys class, but drew hoots of laughter from his fellows by suggesting an absence of girls let them concentrate more on study.

"We lack confidence," he said. "The teachers like girls, who answer more questions in class. This programme lets us realise we are not worse than girls."

It is something of a contrast to males' traditionally dominant roles in Chinese culture, but principal Lu said the programme "doesn't have much relationship to equality in society".

The scheme was launched after China's government called for more "diversification" in educational choices within the state system.

A Peking University professor has called for an even bolder reform, suggesting in September that boys should start school one or two years later than girls.

"The Chinese education system needs to improve and allow various education methods," Wu Bihu said on his microblog. Now Lu hopes to create China's first all-boys school one day.

"Ten or twenty years ago, there was no need for an all-boys class - just put everyone together," he said.

In an increasingly aspirational society, he added, some families saw the new programme as having connotations of top overseas private schools, and so promising an advantage in the highly competitive gaokao.

"The parents know: England has Eton," he said. - AFP

Are we competent with competencies?

Are you thinking of having or reviewing a competency model? Here are some tips on it

UNFORTUNATELY, the answer to this question, for many organisations, is a resounding NO!

Ever since psychologist David McClelland suggested that we should move away from the traditional measures of predicting job performance in Testing for Competence Rather than for Intelligence, in the early 1970s, many businesses and organisations have used some form of competency model as a key business tool.

Think about your own business or organisation, I am sure that you “have had, have, are thinking of having or are reviewing...” a competency model at this time.

Where are you on that continuum? The key questions are, “Why hasn't competency modeling delivered on its promise for many organisations?” and “Do competencies really add value to businesses and organisations?”

Have competencies been “a HR toy” and not a business tool? Let's look at some of the research behind competency modeling and see if we can answer these questions.

The use of competency models started with McClelland's work in the early 1970s.

A decade later, in 1982, Richard E Boyatzis illustrated a logical, integrated model of managerial competence in his seminal book called The Competent Manager.

His model provided a context for understanding the demands of management, and helped managers understand the competencies required to be more effective.

So, given that we had a reasonable start to the use of competencies in business why haven't competency models delivered greater impact into organisations?

In The Leadership Machine, Lombardo and Eichinger showcase research indicating that most organisations and their leaders identify the wrong competencies for success they don't know how to get at the essence of competency requirements.

They also show that many competency models are too compound trying to cram too many competencies into just five to 10 statements and hoping that will do the job!

In addition, a set of “Core Competencies” can't do the whole job for an organisation either jobs and roles are unique and generally require 20-25 competencies to describe the “Success Profile”.

The truth is all organisations need multiple competency models to fit their many different needs.

Yet, many organisations seem to think that a “one size fits all” approach will work. It's not that easy, I'm afraid.

A great starting point for an organisation, however, is a “Strategic Leadership Model”.

At least, that will let your leaders and aspiring leaders know what the organisation (normally the CEO and the board) thinks is going to be required to be a successful leader over the next five years or so.

A global Conference Board study from 2012 asked senior executives what were the most important items on their talent agenda. The top four (in order) were:

• Grow talent internally;
• Improve leadership development;
• Provide training and development; and
• Hire talent in the open market.

These are all great things to do high on your agenda, too, no doubt!

My question is the same for each point grow to “what”, improve against “what”, develop to “what”, hire against “what”?

I'm sure that you get my point.

Unless you can clearly define what you need in each area usually through a good Competency Model then you really don't know how to direct, focus or orient your growth, leadership development or hiring. Competency models are very powerful tools in this regard.

There are many good researches that show how the effective use of competency models can make a powerful business impact for an organisation.

Here are just a few. A longitudinal study by Russell in 2001 showed that top-level corporate executive performance can be reliably predicted by a leadership competency model. In addition, he showed that a competency-based executive assessment and selection process lead to an increase of US$3mil (RM9.29mil) in annual profit per candidate selected into the organisation.

Pluzdrak conducted a study in 2007 on the effectiveness of a Leadership Development programme and showed that positive changes on the key leadership competencies of individual leaders were positively correlated with both increase in net revenues and profitability!

A 2008 study by Clark and Weitzman used regression analysis to show that the demonstration of 13 core management competencies accounted for 54% of the difference in first-year sales commission and 30% of the difference in levels of retention.

They also found that developing people to be one standard deviation better on the key competencies driving performance generated an additional US$467,000 (RM1.45mil) per person every year!

The original question for this article was “Are we competent with competencies...?” Take a good, hard look at your own organisation and ask the same question.

If your answer is “No, not really... Not as good as we should be...” then remember that you can be and that there is every reason “Why you should be” and “Why you need to be”.

Talking HR with Graeme Field

Graeme Field believes that doing the basics' right getting the fundamentals in order is key to driving organisational success in the future. What we do operationally' today really does impact what happens strategically' tomorrow!

Performance culture lacking, Malaysian workers!

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian workers lack performance culture and generally spend half their working hours on matters unrelated to their job, said experts.

Leaderonomics chief executive officer Roshan Thiran said the laid-back working culture was partly to blame for the country’s low labour productivity.

“We tend to mix our working hours with bonding with colleagues and relationships whereas in other countries, working hours are made full use of,” he said.

He advised employees to perform self-audits to identify unproductive activities in the office that drained their working hours.

A check by The Star with several human resource practitioners revealed that Malaysian workers in general only spend four hours in a regular nine-to-five work period being productive.

Another two hours are spent on social networking sites or browsing through the Internet, whilst long lunches, cigarette breaks, tea breaks and office chatter make up for the other two hours.

Malaysian Employment Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan said our low productivity levels could drive away investors to neighbouring countries.

Shamsuddin said the unprofessional attitude among workers was in stark contrast to high-performance nations which encouraged a professional working culture with a focus on developing human capital.

“Some here have the ‘so long as I show up to work, it’s enough’ attitude, which shouldn’t be happening,” said Shamsuddin.

Human resource consultant Dr Asma Abdullah said Malaysian culture generally regarded the workplace as a social unit where work and social interaction mixed.

Meca Employers Consulting Agency executive director Dharmen Sivalingam said some employers had difficulties addressing their under-performing staff.

“Malaysian employers generally find it hard to converse with their employees on the matter of their productivity. It may be because they don’t want to be put in positions where they have to confront their subordinates,” he said.

Sivalingam also said workers in foreign countries were constantly under probation which keeps them performing at their best.

He said managers need to develop a proper key performance index system and see to it that employees understand how they are being assessed.

By NICHOLAS CHENG The Star/Asia News Network

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Malaysians lag in productivity

Malaysia world's No.1 highest civil servants-to-population ratio! Its tenure of service legally vulnerable but notoriously difficult to dismiss! 

Malaysians lag in productivity

PETALING JAYA: Malaysians work longer hours than their counterparts in many benchmark countries, but produce less than them.

According to the Malaysian Productivity Corporation, our employee productivity levels are a lot lower than those of countries like the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, South Korea and Singapore.

MPC director-general Datuk Mohd Razali Hussain, citing the 2011 Productivity Report, said Malaysian workers had a productivity value of RM43,952 a year.

“But compared with Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the United States, we are still far behind,” Razali said.

He added that the country was still recording an average productivity growth of 4.5% annually, which was lower than that of Indonesia and India.

Labour productivity levels are measured by the real gross domestic product over the number of workers in the country.

“In other words, it is how many workers it takes to produce a profit,” said Razali.

According to the report, which analyses information from the Department of Statistics, workers in the top benchmark countries outperformed Malaysian workers almost six times over.

American workers topped the list with a productivity level of RM285,558 a year, followed by employees in Japan (RM229,568) and Hong Kong ( RM201,485) (see graphic).

In 2011, Malaysia had a productivity growth rate of 4.55%, which MPC said was on track for the country in becoming a high-income nation by 2020 with a productivity level of RM87,500.

However, Malaysians lost out to several benchmark Asian countries like China, which had a growth rate of 8.7%, Indonesia (5%) and India (4.8%).

“Even though we can see there is growth based on the data we have, Malaysian workers have not been creating enough with the resources that we have,” said Razali.

He clarified that an employee's productivity was not measured by the number of hours clocked in but rather by his or her overall output during working hours.

“Actually, most hours are not spent being productive. We have had foreign agencies complain that their Malaysian staff were taking very long tea breaks,” he said.

Razali said that working long hours could even be counter-productive.

“There is a lot of waste in productivity when you drag the hours ... The company would have to pay more for electricity and overtime,” he added.

Razali said management practices should be reviewed to boost productivity.

He stressed the need to reward employees for better productivity with gain sharing, and suggested project-based incentives, improving workplace conditions and providing more flexible time for employees to rest while on the job.

According to the report, productivity levels grew by 2.82% with improvements in labour efficiency recorded in five key economic sectors.

Productivity levels in the services sector expanded by 4.9% to RM53,938 in 2011.

The agriculture sector grew by 6.23% to RM29,466, while manufacturing increased by 1.97% to RM54,509.

Construction productivity levels went up by 3.09% to RM24,635 in 2011, while the mining sector recorded a negative productivity growth of -6.14% to RM866,246 from RM922,914.

Asked why the mining sector had a negative productivity rate when its turnover was higher than other sectors, Razali said this was because the turnover did not correlate with the large workforce.

By NICHOLAS CHENG The Star/Asia News Network

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Design application: 'Watch over me' created by a abduction survivor

Helping others: Chin showing a mobile app “Watch Over Me” which she developed after she was nearly abducted.

PETALING JAYA: Although former Internet marketeer Chin Xin-Ci has recovered physically from her near abduction, the emotional scars are taking longer to heal.

Chin suffered cuts after a cleaver was pressed against her neck by a couple of would-be rapists who pounced on her at the car park of The Curve at around 5.20pm on May 27, 2012.

Two men forced her into the car but she escaped by running out of the vehicle as it was exiting the car park.

Chin has used the experience gained from the terrifying ordeal to good use by developing a smartphone application for personal safety.

Produced in partnership with an app developer, “Watch Over Me” allows users to register for an event.

If they don't “check-in” within a certain time period, a message will be sent out to emergency contact numbers while the camera and voice recorder will be activated automatically and stored in servers.

“With a lot of the other personal safety mobile apps, you'd have to reach for the phone, unlock it and hit the panic button.

“Watch Over Me' also has a GPS tracking system that allows others to determine your location.

“If I had been abducted on that day, no one would know that I had gone missing until the next day,” said Chin, adding that she had been working on the app since October to make it more user-friendly.

After the attack, Chin slipped into depression and went through therapy for four months.

She only started driving alone this year and still does not go to shopping malls alone.

“At first I felt like a zombie.

“There was a lot of fear and anger from having suddenly lost my sense of security,” said Chin.

She added that the attack had made her even more paranoid.

Chin uses the app all the time, together with the 40,000 other users who have downloaded “Watch Over Me”.

“I hope more Malaysian women will use these types of applications.

“If something bad happens to you, at least people will know where you are and some evidence would be captured through the voice recorder and camera,” she said.

There are also other similar safety apps in the market.

By REGINA LEE  regina@thestar.com.my

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Malaysia’s vanguards: Design thinking of grooming innovators

Malaysia’s vanguards: Design thinking of grooming innovators

Malaysia’s vanguards

SIMPLY put, Design Thinking produces creative solutions to solve complex problems. In other words, you have to be creative to be innovative. But can one learn creativity or for that matter, innovative skills?

Yes, if you believe David Kelley, the design thinking guru and founder of global design firm Ideo and the School of Design Thinking at Stanford University.

“So many people think that it’s kind of in your gene – you’re a creative person or you’re not. I don’t buy it,” says Kelley in Design & Thinking, a documentary on design thinking by San Francisco-based One Time Studio. Kelley argued that human beings are naturally creative (just observe kids!) and you just need to rediscover your creative confidence to crack open the door to innovation. The process of design thinking is a “scaffolding for creativity” as design thinking advocate, Tim Brown of Ideo, calls it.

Hence when Genovasi was initiated by the Government to produce “innovation ambassadors,” the organisation settled on design thinking methodology to cultivate these innovators.

“We wanted an approach that would instil a sense of curiosity for technology and entrepreneurship among youths. And any innovation that derives from the approach should include empathy towards the needs of people,” says Datuk Seri Dr Kamal Jit Singh, chief executive officer of Unit Inovasi Khas (UNIK) which manages Genovasi.

“Design thinking fits these criteria perfectly as it offers a human-centred approach to innovation.”

Under the Innovation Ambassadors Development Programme, participants go through a 10-week programme to grasp the nuts and bolts of design thinking and apply their know-how to solve real-life problems posed by project partners. To date, project partners include The Millennium Project, an independent, non-profit think thank, and RSA (The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), a London-based charity committed to finding innovative solutions to today’s social challenges. Upon completion of the programme, these “ambassadors” may go on to create startups or find placements in Genovasi’s partner organisations like government agencies, GLCs or corporations.

“These Ambassadors are expected to bring positive changes to three core areas: improve public service delivery within government departments, ministries and agencies; improve the quality of life in rural and local communities and create new economic wealth through entrepreneurship or industry game-changing efforts,” says Dr Kamal. Genovasi’s plan is to produce a minimum of 5,000 Innovation Ambassadors over the next five years.

As collaborators, the Hasso-Plattner-Institut (HPI) School of Design Thinking in Potsdam, Germany, not only helped develop the programme for Genovasi but also conducted strategy and trainers’ workshops and assessments.

“It was really great to see there are a lot of Malaysians who are keen to do something under the innovation programme,” says Dr Claudia Nicolai, the general programme manager of HPI D-School. Nicolai was in Malaysia to help set up the programme. “People are extremely open-minded and willing to work together.”

“Malaysia’s advantage, compared to Germany, is that you are so diverse. You have influences from different ethnic cultures, customs and religions – that’s an advantage to generate truly creative ideas.”

The D-School in Germany did not copy and paste Stanford University’s D-School model but instead adapt it to the European environment.

“Genovasi’s programme is basically an Asian version of what we are doing. It puts a new flavour in design thinking,” says Professor Ulrich Weinberg, HPI D-School’s director.

“You have the chance to build on the experiences of Stanford and HPI,” he adds. “You can build something which is the next version or reinvent what we’re doing.”

The Innovation Ambassadors Development Programme (IADP) is open to university students or entrepreneurs up to the age of 35. Students and experts from all disciplines are welcome to apply. The programme is free for Malaysians. IADP’s second intake starts from May 27. Closing date for application: March 31, 2013. For more info, go to genovasi.my

Grooming innovators

To produce innovative Malaysians, innovation agency Genovasi teamed up with a Germany-based institute to teach ‘design thinking’. We travel to Potsdam, Germany, to find out more about this creative approach. 

NEON-coloured sticky notes, Lego blocks, rainbow-hued foam peanuts, knitting threads, cardboard boxes and colouring pens – these are “tools” for brainstorming and constructing prototypes. Whiteboards on wheels replace walls that separate the “classrooms.” Chatter and guffaw waft across the space.

You can’t help but feel the creative vibes and peppy energy that emanate from the Hasso-Plattner-Institut School of Design Thinking (aka D-School). Located in the historical city of Potsdam, southwest of Berlin, D-School is part of the Hasso-Plattner-Institut, an IT-Systems Engineering university founded by Hasso Plattner, the man behind software giant SAP.

We are on a media familiarisation trip organised by Unit Inovasi Khas (UNIK), an innovation agency under the Prime Minister’s Department, to get an insight into D-School, which partners Unik to train Malaysian youths to become innovators.

Founded in 2007, the D-School curriculum is based on the “design thinking” process – an approach that looks at users’ needs and desires, leading to sustainable innovations that can make people’s lives better. It is not about design per se.

And unlike the mythical lone genius inventor, design thinking involves teamwork. It draws on the expertise of individuals from varying backgrounds and disciplines, from engineers and anthropologists to accountants and fashion designers.

Hardly a newfangled idea making its runway debut, the concept has been bandied about for decades and used as a mantra by some of the biggest creative companies in the world, including San Francisco-based global design firm Ideo.

But the methodology was pioneered from Stanford University in California, and taught and explored at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford since 2005. As part of the coursework, students get to work on real-life “design challenges” developed together with project partners from the industry, public sector or non-profit organisations.

Design thinkers

In the corporate realm, award-winning companies like Ideo employ design thinkers who are marketers, engineers, psychologists, industrial designers and architects. Ideo has 12 offices in eight countries and high-profile clients like Visa, Toyota, Samsung, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola.

Take their design project with Shimano, the leading supplier of bicycle components in the world. In 2004, Shimano was grappling with stagnated growth in its high-end road-racing and mountain-bike sectors in the United States. Driven by technology innovations for years, the company’s initial instinct was to introduce high-end casual bicycles that might appeal to baby boomers.

But with the help of Ideo, adopting the design thinking method, the company realised they should reach out to the 161 million US adults who aren’t riding bicycles. Using a human-centred approach, Ideo and Shimano hit the streets to survey why 90% of American adults do not ride bicycles. Findings reveal that the complexities (like shifting gears) and costs of modern bikes, the high maintenance, and the danger of cycling on roads are factors that put off casual cyclists.

Shimano then partnered with bicycle manufacturers like Giant, Trek and Raleigh to produce a biking experience that stirred up childhood memories of simple, joyful riding. These “coasting” bicycles have coaster brakes (back pedalling to brake), automatic shifting and puncture-resistant tires to make cycling easier and low maintenance.

To ensure a holistic experience, a comprehensive website helps people to locate safe places to ride. Shimano also launched a trade campaign and training curriculum to educate retailers to better serve recreational customers. In six months, the three manufacturers sold out the 30,000 Coasting bikes produced.
“Design thinking is a mindset and a set of methods you can use to solve problems that can impact society and businesses,” explains Dr Claudia Nicolai, the general programme manager and lecturer of D-School, on our visit.

“It’s not like it has never been done before,” admits Nicolai who has been studying strategic innovations, the precursor to design thinking, for a decade.

“What it does is to combine different methods and developments and put it under the design thinking label.”

Nicolai develops and designs teaching content, coaches students and teachers, hosts workshops and develop design-thinking strategies for companies.

At D-School, there are three core elements in design thinking: focus on multi-disciplinary team, team-supported space that is highly flexible and dynamic, and the process itself, Director of D-School Professor Ulrich Weinberg added.

Dubbed the “grandfather of computer graphics in Germany,” Weinberg is instrumental in getting D-school going from the beginning.

He has 25 years of experience in 3d animation, simulation and computer games. At D-School, the course runs over one term (Basic track) or two terms (Advanced track) spanning 12 weeks, and students are assessed based on their teams.

“What I learned in the last five years is that you will not get the full, dynamic energy of the people, whether in companies or schools, if you have incentive models that focus on individual performance.”

In recent years, huge corporations in Germany are also jumping in on what D-School is doing.

“Companies are calling us to partner on projects or to book workshops on design thinking,” says Weinberg. Some of D-School’s partners include industry giants like Siemens, Johnson & Johnson, DHL, Panasonic and Lufthansa Airlines.

The enthusiasm of D-School students is as infectious as their teachers’.
“I think the key benefit is learning how to design for people, focusing on their needs or wishes. You are not trying to sell things but to fulfil needs,” says Juliana Paolucci, 24. A product and graphic designer from Brazil, Paolucci and her teammates Andrezej Karel, Sabrina Meyfeld and Laura Kroth are working on a design challenge for Genovasi. Their subject: how to engage young people in the development of the community.

They had to set out to find solutions that can convert Malaysian youths from armchair critics to empathetic doers.

“The youths are the future of the country, they need to engage the community and change reality,” explains Paolucci. “But first we need to find out their needs, wants and desires, and ways to fulfil them.”

“Also we need to take into account activities they like to do, for example, how do they use social networking to take community action?”

Using design thinking methodology brings together different actions in a structured way, Karel added.

“The first idea might not be the best solution, so we go through an iterative process multiple times: understand, observe, define point of view, ideate, prototype and test,” says the 25-year-old Polish who is working on his thesis for his marketing/management degree.

Room for failure is the DNA of design thinking.

“In a conventional design process, you just sit in your room, and keep going at it until you think it’s perfect,” explains Meyfeld, 27, a communication scientist.

“But with design thinking, we’re out testing prototypes on the second or third day and if it doesn’t work, we start at it again.”

“I am keen on social innovation and want to learn more about how to apply the methodology in my social enterprise,” adds Kroth, 29, who studied communications and public relations. She hopes to start a small business to bring people of different generations together to develop dialogues on German history and keep history alive for future generations.

 D-School experience

As for D-School alumni like Jeremias Schmitt, his experience prepared him for how he wants to work with people and how to develop projects further.

“After the D-School experience, students actually find real meaning in what they do, why they do it and how they want to do things,” quips the 27-year-old Berliner.

“Some even applied for jobs that they never thought of applying, for example, a student who studied information science seeking for a business development job.”

In Europe, more and more start-ups are using design thinking as a tool to innovate, Schmitt added.

So is design thinking the be-all and end-all of innovation? And how does one measure its efficacy or success rate?

“For me, it’s not about how many products are successful in the market. I care more about how design thinking deeply impacts the students, how they got the chance to experience the process, and how it changed the way they do things,” says Weinberg.

To date, D-School has done about 70 projects. One-third of the ideas were implemented at some point, the other third came up with solutions that led to different things, and one-third led to nothing.

Clients who worked on the project either left their companies or there was no follow-up from the clients’ side. The role of design thinking at D-School is to create innovators, not so much innovations.

In the case of Shimano’s Coasting programme, three years after its initial success, the company pulled the plug on the programme and manufacturers stopped rolling out coasting bikes because sales fell below expectations.

Some industry observers blamed it on the bike brands that weren’t doing their jobs to communicate the benefits of Coasting to retailers and customers, among other factors.

It wouldn’t be fair to say this design thinking experiment has flopped.

Suffice to say, design thinking isn’t the magic pill for success.

But “use it to its advantage: to give new insights, outline new ways of thinking, introduce new techniques or develop new entries to the market,” as innovation and design writer/editor Helen Walters (formerly with BusinessWeek and Bloomberg) attested in her talk “Design Thinking Won’t Save You.”

By LEONG SIOK HUI star2@thestar.com.my

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Filipinos’ Sulu militant group in Sabah must leave Malaysia today

Muslims at the Golden Mosque in Quiapo district of Manila on Saturday express their support to Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III and followers who are Sabah in press for their claim. DANNY PATA

LAHAD DATU: Malaysia has extended the deadline for the Sulu armed group to move out of Tanduo village and return home to today, following a request from the Philippines.

The Philippine Government had earlier asked for the deadline to be set for Tuesday to allow them to persuade Sultan Jamalul Kiram III to order his brother Azzimudie Kiram and the armed group of more than 100 to get out of Tanduo village in Felda Sahabat 17 where they have been holed up since Feb 9.

The request was made to Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman by his Philippine counterpart Albert del Rosario after the expiry of the Friday deadline.

Anifah, however, told The Star that he had conveyed the decision on the new Sunday deadline to Rosario.

“We are hoping the stand-off will end peacefully with the latest deadline,” he said, echoing Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein's statement that he wanted the two-week stand-off to “end sooner than later” without bloodshed.

Hishammuddin told reporters in Kluang that the extended period would not be too long as his ministry would leave it to the security forces to conduct an operation to end the stand-off.

He said the Tanduo incident was different from the country's past experience with armed groups such as Al-Maunah, Abu Sayyaf and Jemayah Islamiah as this group claimed to be descendents of the Sulu sultanate.

However, he said the country's sovereignty and the pride of the Sabah people must not be taken for granted.

The priority of the armed forces was to defuse the situation without bloodshed as it could affect Malaysia's good relationship with the Philippines, he said, adding that the preparation for the deportation of the Sulu group “is in the final stage”.

As the Philippine Government tries to persuade the Sulu Sultan to take their Sabah claim demand to a diplomatic level, the Kiram family has been adamant and had asked Azzimudie's group to stay put in Tanduo.

Although emissaries have been negotiating with Azzimudie, the political pressure in Manila has been mounting on President Benigno Aquino and his Cabinet to resurrect the long dormant Sabah claim following talk that the Oct 15 peace deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front had left out the Sulu sultanate as well as Nur Misuari's Moro National Liberation Front.

To help defuse and bring the stand-off to a peaceful conclusion, Philippine Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said he and his Malaysian counterpart, including the armed forces of both countries, were closely coordinating their actions and exchanging information.

Gazmin said the Philippine military had enforced a naval blockade in the Sulu Sea to prevent undocumented Filipinos from entering Sabah as reports emerged that other groups from southern Philippines were poised to help Azzimudie's gunmen.

Stating that the Sulu group was pursuing its Sabah claim the wrong way, Gazmin revealed that six navy ships and a transport vessel were on standby in Tawi Tawi, about a 15-minute fast boat ride to Tanduo village.

By P.K. KATHARASON, MUGUNTAN VANAR and MOHD FARHAAN SHAH The Star/Asia News Network

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China heaps scorn on Abe remarks to boost US alliance (against China)

Washington (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is in the United States to forge a new and closer alliance with the Unit States in opposition to China. Elected in December, the hawkish Abe arrived in Washington yesterday. Today he is scheduled to meet US President Barack Obama. The timing of the visit is not accidental, given rising tensions with China over a group of islands and North Korea's ever-dangerous threats

.In an interview with a US paper ahead of his trip, Abe voiced hope that the US alliance - and the presence of 47,000 American troops on Japanese soil under a security treaty - would send a message to China. "It is important for us to have them recognise that it is impossible to try to get their way by coercion or intimidation," Abe explained.



VIDEO: CHINA REJECTS ABE’S ACCUSATIONS CCTV News - CNTV English

 The Chinese foreign ministry on Friday continued to slam Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who pointed the finger at China on a slate of domestic issues during an interview prior to his visit to the US.

The ministry accused Japan of playing up the "China threat" with ulterior motives.

"China is strongly dissatisfied with the Japanese leader's comments that distort facts, attack and defame China and stir up confrontations between the two countries," Hong Lei, spokesman for the foreign ministry, told a press briefing.

Hong's comments followed others from Thursday and came in response to Abe's accusations, which claimed China had a "deeply ingrained" need to spar with Japan and neighboring countries to "maintain domestic support," according to the Washington Post.

Echoing the Chinese side's requirement for immediate clarifications, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga explained Friday that the newspaper misquoted Abe's remarks and had caused a misunderstanding.

Suga said the prime minister has repeatedly emphasized the Japan-China relationship and would push forward strategic and mutually beneficial relations.

Despite the explanation, the transcript of the exclusive interview published by the Washington Post on Thursday showed that the hawkish Japanese leader lambasted China's political and education systems among other issues.

During the interview, Abe said that under the one-party rule of the Communist Party and having introduced a market economy, China needs to maintain high economic growth by seeking resources through coercion or intimidation while teaching patriotism mirroring an "anti-Japanese sentiment."

"Obviously, Abe tries to tarnish China's image in the international community and hype up the 'China threat' before talks with Obama in order to win US sympathy and support," Lü Yaodong, a researcher of Japanese politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Friday.

Hong said that only Chinese people have the right to speak about whether China's political system and development strategy are suitable.

"Only those with political bias and ulterior motives would maliciously interpret and blame them," he noted.

Huang Dahui, director of the Center for East Asia Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that this reflected the "value-oriented" diplomacy Abe has been adopting to "flatter" the US, adding that the hawkish Japanese leader has also stressed propaganda throughout his political career.

Abe was scheduled to meet Obama on Friday. During a press conference on Thursday, White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said the meeting is a "further symbol of the President's commitment to the US-Japan alliance as a cornerstone of US economic and security policy, and as a cornerstone of the US-Asia policy."

Danny Russel, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, said the two leaders are expected to discuss maritime security issues and territorial claims both in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.

In his interview with the Washington Post, Abe also warned that without changing its current policy, China would lose the confidence of the international community, which will result in a loss of foreign investment.

"The logic is ridiculous. It is Japan that has stirred up provocation by 'nationalizing' the Diaoyu Islands. It should rethink its own policies," said Lü.

Regarding such remarks, Russel said Obama would listen to Abe's assessment and views on the current situation in the East China Sea and the consultations between Tokyo and Beijing. He added that the US opposition to coercive actions or unilateral steps threatening the stability of the region has been "clear."

A commentary carried by the Xinhua News Agency on Friday said the US should not be "hijacked" by Japan over the territorial dispute with China, as the US support for Japan on this issue "would not only damage Washington's credibility as a constructive superpower, but also as an important partner of China on many pressing global issues."

Huang said in terms of China-related issues, the US would show its support to Japan as an ally, but would not be led by Japan to sacrifice the China-US relationship.

Sources: AsiaNews.it/Global Times

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