This post, however, is an exception. Today I am going to praise two organisation. The first being the State Secretariat Office of Penang. A few days ago, I saw another quotation which interest me. It seeks out company providing the software subscription for Lotus Note, a proprietary software. I am a self-proclaimed Open Source supporter and enthusiast, and when I saw that, I wrote an email to the State Secretariat Office:

To whom it may concern,

Hi. Firstly I applaud the Penang State Secretariat Office for the well-designed website. I have been looking at websites of different departments and agencies of Penang state and it appears to me that Penang State Secretariat Office website is one of the, if not, the best designed and user friendly website.

I also express my sincere gratitude towards the Office for your role in keeping the various departments and agencies under the responsibility of the Office functioning at its best.

I have been monitoring the tenders and quotations listed on the Penang State Portal (website) and I have recently come across the quotation aforementioned (PTMKN/2008/SH2). Specifically, it’s about the supply of Software Subscription of Lotus Notes to this Office.

I plead with you to reverse this decision. If anything, the state should move away from proprietary software and embrace open source culture. The obvious benefit would be cost, since one would not be tied to licensing cost. Next, surely the state doesn’t want to be “lock-in” to a specific software of a specific vendor.

The Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) has approve and  encourage the use of Open Source Software in public sector through the Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC). Sadly, while other states like Malacca seems to be proceeding and embracing the usage of open source software in public software very well, Penang state seems to be lagging behind.

Thus, I hope you would reconsider the quotation, and modernise the public service in Penang by the use of open source software. I am sure the licensing cost and software subscription could be better spend in other development of Penang state.

Lastly, I hope that this email will be read and I humbly await your reply. Your earliest response is very much appreciated. Thank you very much.

For more information, please see the OSCC website:
http://www.oscc.org.my/

Within 24 hours, Abdul Hamid Md Noor, the Information Technology Officer from the State Information Technology and Communication Office replied my email:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us and we appreciate your comments on the open source software.

For your information, the State offices are currently using Lotus Notes as our collaboration tools and maximizing the usage on the same platform for our workflow and knowledge base or document base applications. Thus it’s quite abrupt at this point of time for us to reverse this decision.

However, I would like to inform you that we also adhere to MAMPU guidelines on the usage of open source software as our premier choice for any new ICT projects. FYI, most of our applications run on open source software, for example you can see that our State Portal & SUK Office portal are on open source.

That is the kind of speed in replying email I am seeking. You do not need two weeks to reply an email. Another person I would like to praise is Syed Yusof Ibrahim who is in charge of the Corporate Services of RapidPenang. I have been emailing him back and forth a lot. Typically, his reply would come in less than 24 hours, more often in the range of 5 hours.

That is the kind of efficiency I am looking for. In this modern world, you don’t actually need official, material form that comes in snail mail. Using email save cost and time. And yet, our assemblymen doesn’t seem to understand this.

I still haven’t received any reply from any of the assemblyperson other than the ones mentioned in other post. It’s been a month. That’s their efficiency. Maybe they should learn a thing or two from the public sector itself.

Related posts:

1. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part II
2. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part III
3. The new Penang State Government

Honorary Mr. Ong Khan Lee (PKR) from N24 Kebun Bunga replied to my email on May 24. I present to you the verbatim (that means word-for-word) reply from him:

Personally I m not aware of the price and tender but what I know so far that each of us will be given a laptop and printer and this was approved by the previous government!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device via Vodafone-Celcom Mobile.

Yea, Mr. Ong Khan Lee. Personally I am not aware of the price too. If I did, I wouldn’t have asked you. And if I asked that means I hope you could find out for me, you know, since you’re an assemblyman and all and you supposedly have more power than I do.

I don’t know if the last line was automatically generated from his BlackBerry® or what. I presume it is.

What surprised me more was the use of the punctuation – the exclamation mark (!) at the end of his email. When I first received it, I do not know how to interpret it. I asked my brother and he said it was of excitement. I see it as anger.

Maybe my emails has come as an annoyance to him and he decided to say “Piss off” with the exclamation mark. I still do not know. As if that’s not enough, two days later on 27 May he sent me another email, saying this:

!

That’s all. If you don’t believe me, have a look:

Yea, he seems pretty pissed to me. A screenshot from my Gmail.

Well, I have no idea whatsoever what he was trying to present to me. Maybe it was a typing mistake or something. Or maybe even the BlackBerry® is angry with my email and decided to say piss off to me one more time.

Well, the real reason for it? We will never know. That’s another mystery of the universe.

Related posts:

1. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part II
2. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part I
3. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Prelude

As you can see, only a few replied. Specifically, only 7 replied. The quality and content of their reply is, however, another story. Surprisingly, even one from BN responded to me.

Here’s a list of all the Penang State assemblyperson that have replied me (arranged by date of reply):

1. N14 Machang Bubuk – Honorary Mr. Tan Hock Leong (PKR) – May 18
2. N10 Seberang Jaya – Honorary Datuk Arif Shah Bin Haji Omar Shah (BN) – May 20
3. N24 Kebun Bunga – Honorary Mr. Ong Khan Lee (PKR) – May 24
4. N28 Komtar – Honorary Mr. Ng Wei Aik (DAP) – May 25
5. N33 Air Itam – Honorary Mr. Wong Hon Wai (DAP) – May 26
6. N29 Datok Keramat – Honorary Mr. Jagdeep Singh Deo (DAP) – May 28
7. N26 Padang Kota – Honorary Mr. Chow Kon Yeow (DAP) – June 2

I have to mention that Mr. Chow Kon Yeow replied after the arbitrary one-week limit I set for the assemblyperson to reply. The first two person replied only to the first email that I mentioned, and I never heard from them since. The next 5 assemblyperson all replied to the second email, which served as a friendly reminder that they haven’t replied my first mail.

It is appalling that only 30.4% of assemblymen who presumably got my mail bothered to give some form of reply. That’s only 17.5% of all the assemblymen we have in Penang. If they can’t reply to a simple email, how can they claim to represent us?

I also have to say that the issue has now become a non-issue, as Honorary Mr. Lim Guan Eng, the Chief Minister of Penang has decided to suspend the buying of laptop for the assemblymen temporarily.

Next up, we shall see the content of the emails. =)

Related posts:

1. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part II
2. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part III
3. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Prelude

How different is the new Penang State Government? Not much in certain aspects, in my humble opinion. Come tomorrow (9th May), it will be the 61st day they are in the government. While they have made some changes with respect to the old Barisan Nasional state government (indeed, some vastly different ones), nothing has changed in the aspect of replying a concerned citizen’s email.

When RapidPenang first started operating in Penang, I wrote an email (of my suggestions and recommendations) to the then acting-CEO of RapidPenang, which was the CEO of RapidKL. In addition, I forwarded the same letter to Dr. Teng Hock Nan, then Chairman Local Government, Traffic Management, Information and Community Relationship of Penang State, as well as Chairman of Public Works, Utilities (Energy, Water, Telecommunication) and Transportation (Air, Sea & Railway) Committee Koay Kar Huah. No one bothered to reply – I guess my opinion is not important enough to warrant a reply.

Come March 8, come new government. What has changed – Nothing. As soon as YB. Chow Kon Yeow was appointed EXCO for Local Government, Traffic Management and Environment of the new Penang State Government, I sent him the same letter on April 6. I did send copies to both his official Penang State Government issued email address as well as the one obtained from DAP website. One month has gone by without any reply whatsoever.

Talking about replying people’s email, I should mention about the new Chief Minister YAB Lim Guan Eng. As soon as he was elected, I sent him a congratulatory note coupled with recommendations and opinions about Penang on March 11. Knowing he was busy, I even wrote a point form summary of the email for him. Again, I sent the email to his state government email address as well as the one obtained from DAP website. Come May 11 it will be exactly two months without any reply.

I acknowledge that they are busy. I know that they have a lot of stuff to attend to. However, all I am seeking is a simple “Thank you for your view” reply, nothing more. In this era, emails should be replied, even with a short automated replies. It makes the sender feel more acknowledged and empowered. Since they are all so busy, I shall write a automated reply for them:

Dear (Sender’s Name),

Thank you for your input/ your views/ your opinion/ your questions/ your (whatever). I truly appreciate it and would look forward to further emails by you. However, due to the massive amount of emails I have, I apologise in advance for my inability to reply your email personally. Rest assured, I do read your email in full and I sincerely thank you again for your email.

Thank you,
(Replier’s Name)

What’s so hard? Jeff Ooi has replied my email (with 2 words), Lim Kit Siang has replied my email (with 13 words) too. Although short, the emails make me feel important and appreciated. Why should Lim Guan Eng and Chow Kon Yeow be any different?

The new Penang State Government is TOOT in some aspect, which disappoints me.

Related posts:

1. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part I
2. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part III
3. Penang State Assemblymen Emailing Experiment – Part II