NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2010

Do we dare to dream (or fail) like them?

Cover STorY08 DARE TO DREAM, DARE TO FAIL Are we more daring, and less fearful of failure in the pursuit of innovation?

FeATUreS05 LOOKING FOR ANSWERS? TRY LOOKING ELSEWHERE! We find some ideas worth spreading from TEDxBiopolis

14 THE AUDACITY TO DREAM Jamie Lerner, one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, tells us how he gets his ideas to work

28 GOING BANANAS CPF officers dazzle on the getai to spread their message

33 RIGHT CLICKS What makes a good government website? Experts share tips

HIGHLIGHTS04 NEWS FROM THE SERVICE

vIeWPoINTS02 INBOx Your views on the Sep/Oct issue of Challenge

03 Your SaY WILL YOU RESpOND TO YOUR BOSS’S SMS OR pHONE CALLS AFTER OFFICE HOURS? Readers tell us Yay or Nay

16 a Cuppa With… “LIKE A MIDWIFE DELIVERING A BABY” Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports Niam Chiang Meng on the inaugural Youth Olympic Games

18 thinking aloud THE HONEYMOON IS ENDING A different, unforgiving Singapore is emerging, warns veteran journalist P N Balji

27 letterS to a Young publiC offiCer DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK Ambassador Chan Heng Chee shares her insights on what makes a good public officer

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36 Word on the Street pOWER TO THE pEOpLE Parenting, not censorship, is the main factor in protecting children from harmful content

38 perSpeCtiVeS LIFE UNDERGROUND Find out what lies beneath the seabed at the Jurong Rock Caverns

oN THe JoB32 leVel up LISTENING FOR FEELINGS Want fruitful discussions with your colleagues or family? Be mindful of their feelings

reST & reLAX19 the Challenge pull out pASSpORT 8 pages of tips and trivia to make that trip fun and hassle-free

40 life.StYle RAISE THE BAR We ask bartenders to concoct six special Public Service drinks!

44 the irreVerent laSt page THE WORLD’S FIRST FISHBONE DIAGRAM We trace its genesis back to the Stone Age

EditorTay Li Shing

Who says public officers need to

be boring?

ARE yOu INSPIRED?Most people think of public officers as bureaucratic, rigid and unable to think much out of the box – a bit like working with a paper bag over our heads. I have a shocking revelation – I have actually become more creative since I joined the PS21 Office. Believe me?

W hen I f i r s t jo ined, I had no idea what I was in for. I foggily understood PS21 as “three r ings” and “no wrong door”. Al l I was armed with were hazy memories of WITS projects from my days at PSA Corp, hunched over fishbone diagrams with my department, d r e a m i n g u p improvements.

Now, 2¾ years on, I’m sold. The idea of creativity and innovation has exploded in my mind, my being, like never before. How? I got inspired. By inventive public officers whose ideas and stories make the Public Service what it is today – such as my favourite story of Staff Sergeant Dexter Chitra, who drew inspiration from his son’s eye checkup, to design a UV flashlight to detect oil leaks in Chinook aircraft that would save MINDEF $4m a year. By countless stories we encounter of innovative companies whose employees transform one idea after another to reality, supported by leadership fashioning the right culture for creative buzz – the likes of Google, Apple and IDEO. By the team in our office whose appetite for cool ideas is insatiable, even in the face of opposition. Sometimes we get so carried away, we forget we are public officers. But who says public officers need to be boring? All this inspires me to transform every piece of work into a canvas where our imagination is the limit.

Our cover story on failure highlights an ingredient to risk-taking that most would rather avoid. We speak to Jamie Lerner, named among the world’s top 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine, whose audacity to dream has punctuated urban landscapes with his wild imaginings. Our travel pullout is your handy guide as we approach my favourite part of the year – December! And oh, in a tribute to the fishbone, we immortalise the world’s first-ever on The Irreverent Last Page.

So, the next time you find yourself covering your head in a bag and doing things the same way, stop. Here’s to dreaming and creating – never stop! Happy holidays from all of us at Challenge!

PublisherPS21 office, Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s office100 High Street, #07-01 The TreasurySingapore 179434 Email : psd_challenge@psd.gov.sgWeb : www.challenge.gov.sg

For enquiries or feedback on Challenge, please write to the Challenge Editorial Team at psd_challenge@psd.gov.sg.

Editorial Advisor Agnes Kwek Editor Tay Li Shing Assistant Editors Edmund Soo & Shaun KhiuEditorial Assistant Eric Loy

Tuber Productions Pte Ltd298 River Valley Road Level 2Singapore 238339Tel : 6836-4030Fax : 6836-4029Email : info@tuberproductions.com Web : www.tuberproductions.com

ManagementDirector Lee Han ShihManaging Director Weiling WongProject Director Liew Wei Ping

EditorialContributing Editor Bridgette See Editorial Consultant Koh Buck SongEditorial Assistant/Writer Chen JingtingContributors Alexis Ong, Edwin Beh, Wong Sher Maine & Yong Shu ChiangInternShaistah Munawar

CreativeCreative Director AshikAssociate Art Director Jasmine TanGraphic Designers Vanessa Lim, Cindy Anggono, Eva Sunarya & Marilyn Ang Production Manager Nurul MalikInternTrista SorInhouse PhotographerChris Ong

Photog raphers John Heng (www.daphotographer.com)Ryan Kwok (www.evolvefoto.com) Jean Qingwen Loo (www.logue.sg)Norman Ng (www.normanng.com)

Challenge is published bimonthly by Tuber Productions Pte Ltd (Registration No: 200703697K) for PS21 Office, Public Service Division, Prime Minister’s Office. Copyright of the materials contained in this magazine belongs to PS21 Office. Nothing in here shall be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written consent of PS21 Office. Views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of PS21 Office or Tuber Productions Pte Ltd and no liabilities shall be attached thereto. All rights reserved. All information correct at time of printing.

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INBOx

EDITOR:We love to hear from you so do keep your comments coming and help us make this magazine, your magazine, a great read! Remember you can also leave comments at www.challenge.gov.sg

CHALLENGE ONLINE My congratulations to the team that has revamped Challenge and taken it online in a refreshing new

way.You’ve succeeded in putting a human face to the public Service and that in itself must have been a huge challenge!

I really like how we’re not above laughing at ourselves now, as in the priceless photo of the 1970’s “approved” hairstyles. My daughter and her friends didn’t believe me when I told them we used to do this in the

‘70s and I was very happy that with your new interactive tools, I could email the link to her. I do like the LOL feature as well. In short, great job, guys! You have re-invented yourselves successfully

Enjoyable & Informative.

I’m a fan.

Kuek Yu Chuang MinLaw

I was thrilled to read the feature on work-life integration, with the many positive flexi-work stories. However, the photograph of a mother trying to work on her laptop with one kid hanging off her neck and the other crying for attention did not do telecommuting much justice, and may reinforce some supervisors’ negative mindsets on mothers who telecommute. Having said that, flexible work arrangements are designed to help officers meet their personal and work responsibilities. The paradigm has shifted, from face-to-face to an outcome-based approach to management. Thus, I hope that supervisors will empower their officers with more control over how, where and when they work, as long as they deliver on their pre-agreed work targets.

Nina ZafarPSD

I am inspired by the Letters to a Young public Officer series, and especially by the recent letter from former HCS, Mr Lim Siong Guan. I still look at it once in a while.

ong Kian AnnMOF

I like your Challenge Sep/Oct issue. The contents are exciting, with lots

of things to wow wow!I like the feel of the cover too.

Kevin LooSPRING

(Ed: Thanks! We like how the granulated matte varnish on our cover feels too.)

Mrs varalackshmi DuraiMOE

Will you respond to your boss’s SMS or phone calls after office hours?readers share their thoughts!

Not anymore! Before I was the ‘nice guy’ saying ‘Yes’ to my boss; this meant responding to his calls and SMSes after working hours. He would pile me with additional workload and I found myself preparing reports throughout the evening! My time with my family was affected. I made a brave decision to turn off my phone. After several failed attempts to reach me, my boss met me to find out why. I trashed out my problems with him and he finally understood! These days, he doesn’t call or SMS me anymore after work. I’m glad I made this decision. It’s a tough one but I never regretted it. In life, we just have to be frank about everything, no point saying Yes to everything but end up hurting ourselves!

Bravo to Mdm Jeannie Chan who wins a holiday hamper, worth up to $100, which she can savour with her family!

tell us at:

psd_challenge@psd.gov.sg

The best entry will win an attractive prize worth up

to $100! All other

published entries will

win shopping vouchers

worth $30 each. Please include your

name, email address,agency and

contact number.

All entries should reach us by

November 27, 2010.

If you could be anybody for a day on New Year’s Day 2011,

who would you be and what would you do

I’ ll respond af-ter I’ve let my boss know that I’m hav-ing quality time with my family and that I’ ll act on the queries at a conve-nient time.

Chow Meng Yoon MOE

I’ ll respond as my Operation Manager has a lot of things to do. Some schools have two OMs but our school only has one. He is a very busy man, he needs help that ’s why I an-swer his calls.

Shariffa MohamedMOE

bring that Inception totem too).

Liew Wen HweeCentre for Liveable Cities

A resounding YES as my boss’s work requires him to work 24/7 and hence be contactable 24/7 too.Some time ago, he was accidentallylocked out and he called me to return to the office to open the door for him.

Patricia Ng Poh ToyeAttorney-General ’s Chambers

Yes, because he is the one who pays me monthly and punctually. :D

erika HewHCIBS

Definitely, becausemy boss may just

be testing if I am upholding our ser-vice standards! As a Quality Sevice Man-ager of SPRING, that ’s my role and re-sponsibility. I know that my boss wouldn’t SMS or call if it is not important.

Chew Mok Lee SPRING

Yes as I can then have a good reason to call my boss again after office hours to seek clarifications and report to him on further developments. If this occurs once in a while, it ’s quite acceptable. But if this happens regularly, I might dis-cuss with my boss on the hours he can call, say from 6-10pm, so that my next day ’s productiv-ity is not affected.

Liang Hein Fock ICA

NO WAY....If I’m on MC or holiday while every-body is working (he-hehe...) I DO NOT reply my SMSes be-cause it ’s my private time and nobody should disturb me.

Loo Lee engAttorney-General ’s Chambers

Of cOurse!If there is an up-coming major event, it is fine as we need to settle matters urgently. But after 11pm, my boss would need to engage the services of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Incep-tion team to find me. But do get the architect to cre-ate a nice world of liveable cities (and

03Your Say

COMINg uP...NEWSfrom theSERVICE

SINGApOUR FESTIVARTS The inaugural event takes place in Paris, France from October 8 to November 28. It will showcase some of Singapore’s best performing artists and arts groups, including T.H.E. Dance Company and The Finger Players that will perform at the Musee du Quai Branly on November 18-28. www.nac.gov.sg

THE pEOpLE’S ExHIBITIONDo you have memorabilia of the old Drama Centre or the former National Theatre? You can donate or loan them to The People’s Exhibition which aims to reconnect people with memories of old performing spaces. It will tour libraries from December 2010 to June 2011. Email: nac_artsfestcommune@nac.gov.sg

RESpONSIBLE pET OWNERSHIp ROADSHOW 2010 Come to the Singapore Expo Hall 4B on November 13 and 14 for a fun, educational road show. Organised by the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority, the event will hold talks and demonstrations on pet care, training and health. Visit www.petsforlife.com.sg.

WorK LIFe eXCeLLeNCe AWArDS (WLe) 2010Seven government agencies snagged the WLE Award this year. The biennial award, conferred by the Tripartite Committee on Work-Life Strategy, recognises organisations committed to helping employees balance their work and personal needs. Congratulations to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (above), Land Transport Authority, the Ministry of Manpower, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, the Public Service Division, Republic Polytechnic and the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

TeN YeArS oF THe Pro-eNTerPrISe PANeL (PeP) An array of PEP publicity events targeted at the local business community was held to celebrate PEP’s 10th anniversary. A customised PEP Van even visited the major industrial estates

island-wide to encourage businesses to submit sugges-tions on ways to cut down red tape in the government. The publicity campaign cul-minated in a Gala event on November 1 with Minister Lim Hng Kiang as the Guest of Honour.

Watch pEp’s new publicity videos on their YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/user/ProEnterprisePanel

Applying for leave will be a breeze from July 2011 w h e n t h e n e w H u m a n R e s o u r c e M a n a g e m e n t System (HRMS) replaces PM2S. I ts Employee Self Service (ESS) function will

let you update personal information easily. Amending your leave application? HRMS lets you select specific days to delete instead of having to re-apply for leave. View the Team Calendar for co-workers’ leave periods and calculate your earned leave. Other ESS functions include updating your skills, qualifications and resume whenever you want. To find out more, log onto PM2S and click the HRMS logo.

Credit: Mr Hilarion Goh from Tanjong Pagar Photographic Club.

One of the performing groups, Andrew Lum and New Asia

Highlights04

LOOkINg fOR ANSWERS? TRy LOOkINg ELSEWhERE!TED Talks is a conference devoted to ideas worth spreading. On September 11, 2010, the A*STAR Postdoctoral Society hosted the f irst TEDxBiopolis talk in Singapore. The topics ranged from science to social issues. We extract a few gems from the session.

by Shaistah Munawar

Why chromosomes are like shoelaces

When we tie shoelaces, we nor-mally pay no attention to the protective plastic caps at the ends of them.

But , according to Dr Ol iver Dreesen, just like our shoelaces, the ends of our chromosomes are also capped by protective repetitive DNA sequences called telomeres which are very significant.

Telomeres are involved in many cellular processes and play a critical role in human disease and ageing. Humans are made up of many cells and when our cells divide, the telomeres get shorter.

In Trypanosoma brucei, a deadly parasite that causes African sleep-ing sickness, telomeres play a fasci-nating role in enabling the parasite to persist in its host. This parasite outwits the host immune system by frequently changing its surface coat in a process called antigenic variation. Intriguingly, the genes that encode the surface coat are located at the telomeres.

Dr Dreesen’s research demon-strated that telomeres play an important role in regulating the frequency of antigenic variation: parasites with short telomeres switch more rapidly than parasites with long telomeres.

Thus, in this parasite, telomeres play a rather unexpected role in sustaining the infection and ulti-mately killing their host. Under-standing how antigenic switching is regulated and initiated is important: if the frequency of switching is reduced, the immune system could catch up and clear the infection. These findings might have impor-tant implications for other parasites that evade the host immune system by antigenic variation.

Dr Oliver Dreesen received his PhD from Rockefeller University, USA, where he studied telomerase and telomeres in Trypanosoma brucei, a type of parasite that causes African sleeping sickness.

If the switching of the surface coat is done

slowly, your immune system will be able

to catch up and clearthe infection.

– oliver DreesenA*STAR postdoctoral fellow, Institute of Medical Biology

05Feature

A large amount of failure is

required for just a few drops of

success.– Isabelle Desjeux

Artist, Founder and director of Isadora’s Workshop

What we see is a world quite different

from the real one, because of the way human sight has

evolved over time.– Dale Purves

Director, Neuroscience and Behavioural Disorders programme, Duke-NUS

Graduate Medical School; Executive Director, A*STAR-Duke NUS

Neuroscience Partnership

Using failures to predict the future

Why is it that when we fail, we tend to give up even without wanting to try again? The simple reason: no one likes to be associated with the word FAIL.

But for Dr Isabelle Desjeux, fail-ures could help predict how science would look like in the future. With this in mind, the former scientist has taken artistic means (such as the use of ‘Pataphysics’- the sci-ence of imaginary solutions) to study and try to make sense of failure patterns.

Scientists go through different types of failures. Through that process, they either reject or throw away data they do not need. She wonders how all the rejected data can be turned into success.

One such success story is of Sir Paul Lauterbur who came up with Magnetic Resonance Imag-ing (MRI) in the ‘70s. Believe it or not, his first paper was rejected and it took him a while to be accepted and to win the Nobel Prize.

The message behind this: what has failed before might succeed later, and failure is an inevitable part of the scientific process and progress. Science aside, just imagine if we all studied our rejected ideas, we would better understand how and why we failed.

Dr Isabelle Desjeux received her PhD in Mo-lecular Biology from Edinburgh University, UK. She is also the founder and director of Isadora’s Workshop, an art workshop for children and adults. She is currently studying in Lasalle College of the Arts and this presentation is the result of her research towards attaining her Masters in Arts (Fine Arts).

Find out more: www.isabelledesjeux.com

Seeing is not believing

What you see is not what you get with physical measuring instru-ments, says Professor Dale Purves of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medi-cal School.

For example, a coloured patch (that reflects the same amount of light measured by a photometer like the one in a digital camera) would look very different to the eye in different contexts, such as backgrounds with different lumi-nance values.

This strange relationship between what we see and the physical world has come about because sense organs such as the retina in the human eye do not act like a photometer; they do not (and indeed cannot) give us access to physical reality. As a result, what we see is a world quite different from the real one, because of the way human sight has evolved over time.

These sorts of observations im-ply that vision is not based on analysing the features of images, but on connections of cells (neu-rons) that link patterns of light on the retina to behaviours that have worked in the past.

Thus, what we see always provides “more than meets the eye”.

Professor Dale Purves received his B.A. from Yale University in 1960 and an M.D. from the Harvard Medical School. He is also professor in the Department of Neu-robiology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University.

Find out more: www.purveslab.net

I’m not saying that we should go back to the early

examples of village life, I’m saying

that we should go forward to the new

high-tech village so that your living environment is for

working, living, learning, playing

and farming.– Tay Kheng Soon

Principal partner, Akitek Tenggara / Adjunct Professor of Architecture, National

University of Singapore

Every $1 you invest on

sanitation, you get $9 back because the person would be healthy enough to work and earn

more money. – Jack Sim

Founder, World Toilet Organisation

Try starting at the bottom

Most people think you need a lot of capital to start a business but actually, sometimes all it takes is a big idea. This is what got Jack Sim started.

His big idea: to ensure there were proper toilets worldwide. Mr Sim has since worked on sanitation projects in India, Indonesia, China and other countries.

Companies starting a new business usually target potential customers in the middle or upper class. Mr Sim begs to differ.

Studies done on the “bottom of the pyramid” by the late Michigan University Professor C. K. Prahalad in 1998 suggested that businesses should stop thinking of the poor as victims and instead see them as creative entrepreneurs and value-demanding consumers.

Similarly, Mr Sim believes the poor can offer good business op-portunities. “If companies are able to design low-cost toilets, then they have 2.6 billion customers waiting to buy these toilets.”

So, instead of always focusing one way, try to change your perception and look in a different direction.

Mr Jack Sim was named by Time Magazine as Hero of the Environment 2008.

Find out more: www.worldtoilet.org

MEET TEDTED is a small non-profit foundation devoted to ideas worth spreading. It started out in 1984 in America as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technol-ogy, Entertainment, and Design. Speakers have a maximum of 18 minutes to share their ideas in the most innovative and attractive way through TED Talks. TED’s cur-rent curator is the former British computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson.

TEDx is a new programme that enables schools, businesses, librar-ies, neighbourhoods or groups of friends to organise, design and host their own independent TED-like events. www.ted.com

City life in the countryside

Our grandparents tell stories about village life and how different cities have become. Well, such nostalgia could soon become history – with Mr Tay Kheng Soon’s good idea of Rubanisation.

Rubanisation is a re-conceptualisa-tion of human settlements in which the city and the countryside are considered as one space, not two separate realms. This integration allows for a traditional yet modern lifestyle, using plus points from both rural and urban lifestyles.

An example is a school Mr Tay built in Lam Plai Mat, a district in northeastern Thailand, that was made of preserved bamboo but had Internet access for the students.

Rubanisation might solve a lot of the problems in the world today. Slums in city outskirts would de-crease as fewer people flock to cities looking for employment; villages would receive more attention and be developed. Villagers would be more educated and get the same opportunities as city dwellers. This idea will benefit future gen-erations, as they can live in a city and a village at the same time. Sri Lanka, where Mr Tay is working on a Rubanisation project, may be the next beneficiary.

Mr Tay Kheng Soon is Principal Partner of Akitek Tenggara. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the National University of Singapore.

Find out more: www.rubanisation.org

07Feature

Is risk-taking, and risk of failure, less of a taboo in today’s

Public Service? Are public off icers daring to risk more to

embrace innovation?

by Yong Shu Chiang

TAKE A CHANCE

DOUBLE SCORE FOR

GOOD IDEAS

5 POINTS FOR NOT

GIVING UP

BONUS POINTS

FOR TRYING

If I may say, failure is at times somewhat of a seed

of inspiration.

IN APOllO 13, A HOLLYWOOD film about a moon mission that turned into a mission to save three astronauts trapped in a crippled space vessel, one famous line stands out: “Failure is not an option.”

The line from the acclaimed 1995 movie may be artistic licence, but the spirit of the message from mission control is relevant to any discourse on risk-taking and innovation.

Is failure an option – or acceptable outcome – in pursuit of innovation in the Public Service, where responsibil-ity comes with the added weight of public funds?

The famous inventor Thomas Edison, who perfected the electric light bulb, said: “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not dis-couraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

This is a variation on the axiom that one must always learn from one’s mistakes. But would Edison’s success rate (or wastefulness, depending on your perspective) fly with the Public Service? Would his level of risk-taking be accepted or encouraged?

If perception is reality, then perhaps not. The pervasive ingrained public service culture seems to suggest that “failure” is a dirty word.

To tolerate, or seem to be soft on, failure would suggest a blasé attitude in an achievement-centred economy. Better, then, to be safe, than sorry?

Are the preceding two paragraphs a fair assessment or a persistent stereotype? How do public officers today approach innovation; where do they draw the line between daring and foolhardiness, responsible and irresponsible?

Mr Lim Siong Guan, Head of Civil Service from 1999 to 2005, wrote in a 2002 commentary: “The fear of failure is the single most important reason people hold themselves back from thinking and trying. But we cannot expect to be an innovative, forward-looking, enterprising, energetic Public Service full of people who are alive,

brains ticking, hearts beating, if we cannot forgive mistakes.”

ForGIvING (GooD) FAILUre

Mr Chan Yeng Kit, Permanent Secre-tary of Ministry of Information, Com-munications and the Arts, and chairman of the PS21 ExCEL Committee, thinks that risk-taking, and inherent risk of failure, are more encouraged today.

“I believe the message is getting through that... senior management accepts the risk of failure as long as due diligence has been done and we have done whatever is reasonable to mitigate the risks. Indeed, the greater failing would be not to try at all.”

To stand pat and do nothing, for fear of failing, is to ensure “zero chance of success”, he pointed out. This tack also invariably leads to negative conse-quences such as failing to keep up with the times and society’s needs.

At the passing of former Deputy Prime Minister Dr Goh Keng Swee in May 2010, Mr Lim Siong Guan recalled Dr Goh’s inspir-ing pronouncement on failure, that “the only way to avoid mistakes is not to do anything. And that... will be the ultimate mistake.”

Former Head of Civil Service Mr Peter Ho, who stepped down this September, has also talked about the need to “act boldly” in the face of opportunities.

“We must be prepared to experiment, even if we cannot be entirely certain of the outcome. In the complex, even chaotic, space that I believe we are op-erating in now, the approach is to probe, sense patterns, and to act, even in the absence of complete information.

“The biggest failure will be the failure to act, because we fear to fail. We must learn not to operate in a “fail-safe” mode, but instead to operate in a “safe-fail” mode.”

The senior management in the public sector know that “no one plans to fail deliberately” and that any new initia-

tive must have a worthwhile payoff and reasonable chance of success, said Mr Chan.

In other words, there may be the “good failures” that result from good inten-tions, sound strategies, appreciation for resources and opportunity cost, as well as the application of experience and knowledge.

He cited the e-government projects a few years ago on the then-popular virtual-world platform, Second Life. Later, as the Second Life fad waned, so did these projects.

“We just have to learn from these efforts and move on,” he said, pointing out that there are currently e-government projects on popular social network-ing platforms. “No one will know (if cutting-edge projects can work) until we have tried it.”

So long as risks are understood, and due diligence exercised, “officers will not be blamed if things don’t work out as anticipated due to extraneous reasons,” he added.

INSpIREDDespite setbacks, Dr Lee Mun Wai has gone on to create eco-friendly biocomposites (above) to replace conventional plastics.

09Cover Story

to identify work areas that need im-provement, before brainstorming to come up with relevant solutions.

The Happy Brush team stated that “failure is no longer a dirty word” but is considered “a stepping stone to new discoveries and greater achievements.” Team members noted the poor oral hygiene of school-age patients; they also wanted a solution accessible to less-privileged children. They struggled at times with the project, yet persisted, receiving timely aid at several key turns. The Innovation Activist Group within HPB, tasked with promoting innovation, earmarked the project for

additional funding supported by the Ministry of Health.

The team also sought expert help from a computer-aided design firm GIM Solu-tions and another designer to verify and illustrate the toothbrush’s viability.

Then, one of the team members had a chance meeting with a friend from A*STAR that led the team to approach the research development agency for assistance. This ultimately led to the product going to market.

For the Happy Brush project, the in-tricate system that nurtures innovation within the Public Service worked well,

even involving inter-agency co-opera-tion in an organic manner, with quality contributions from external parties.

Dr Eu believes that the current public service culture also helped. “There may have been some red tape in the past, and a common perception was that getting things done differently was difficult and tedious... it is more conducive now to embark on such initiatives.”

MITIGATe, NoT eLIMINATe

The “no risk, no gain” philosophy has long resonated with Mr Yap Chin Beng, Deputy CEO (Estates & Corporate) and Chief Innovation Officer at the

A BrUSH WITH SUCCeSS

An innovation success story is the Happy Brush project of the Health Promotion Board (HPB), where a team from the HPB’s School Dental Service spent three years to invent a specially-shaped toothbrush that made it easier for children to clean their teeth.

The affordable and effective Happy Brush, launched in 2008 at $2.50 each, was the result of a Work Im-provement Team (WITS) project for the eight-strong team of dentists and dental therapists, led by Dr Eu Oy Chu, Senior Deputy Director, School Dental Service.

WITS, a public service innovation platform since the early 1980s, brings public sector officers together in groups

FLOATING A GREAT IDEA

Lifejackets help save lives, but are not foolproof.

This was the observation of a group of concerned Singapore Armed Forces personnel at the Special Operations Tactical Centre, who dubbed themselves Team Ironman.

For their WITS project, they noted that personnel in emergency situations – unconscious or injured – could fail to activate manual lifejackets.

Their solution? They created a sensor-equipped device plugged into existing lifejackets that would automatically inflate at a pre-determined depth under water – a feature not found in commercially available auto-inflatable lifejackets.

HAppY INVENTORSThe Happy Brush team from HPB’s School Dental Service (from left): Jeevamony Antonette, Mabel Goh, Eu Oy Chu, Chan Yeng Peng, Satya Bhama Devi, and Ong Bee Lian.

Housing Development Board (HDB).

“Between acceptable risk-taking versus chasing a lost cause, my advice to staff is to take ‘calculated risks’ which require the guts to try, as well as knowledge and experience.”

Mr Yap acknowledged that stigma used to come with failure, but this was no longer so. “I would say people are cur-rently more willing to accept failure as a part of the learning process.”

Asked about the apparent conundrum of encouraging risk-taking without appearing to encourage failure, he reiterated the need to do the neces-sary research and analysis to better understand the risks involved and how

THe SeeD oF INSPIrATIoN

If there is anyone familiar with failure, it has got to be a scientist who often conducts a large number of experiments while seeking breakthrough discover-ies. Dr Lee Mun Wai from A*STAR’s Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology is no exception.

The associate research scientist has always wanted to help save the Earth. Trained in polymer science and tech-nology, she has recently succeeded in creating eco-friendly biocomposites to replace the use of conventional plastics. The biocomposites are made by com-pounding wheat bran (by-products of

a flour milling process) with recycled plastics, and made into biodegradable cutlery and packaging.

In the research sector, she has found, failure is not taboo, as only through failures can researchers understand their subject better.

“Failed experiments are informative as well, and serve to direct us to look at issues from other perspectives. They can give a lead to solving some other related issues. If I may say, failure is at times somewhat of a seed of inspiration.”

Indeed, her career crowning achieve-ment thus far, winning the Outstanding

Paper Award for Young Engineers/Researchers (International Category), was based on a painstaking scientific process and several stinging setbacks.

Once, she spent 28 hours in a lab on an experiment that yielded no reliable results, because it had fallen victim to contamination. “At that moment, I was really in great despair. Looking back now, despite the painful process, I am happy that this piece of research was recognised by international judges.”

to mitigate those risks, as part of the due diligence expected at all levels. “It is not about avoiding mistakes and failures altogether, which, we know, is not realistic at all.”

Mr Yap cited two pilot projects that HDB had carried out to meet the needs of extended family living: the multi-generation flats introduced in 1987 and the two-room “granny” flats in Pasir Ris in 1991.

Both projects did not achieve the intended results. Despite this set-back, HDB enhanced the scheme and introduced the Multi-Generation Liv-ing Scheme in Dawson in Dec 2009. Under this scheme, HDB paired studio apartments with four- and five-room

flats so that extended families can live together in separate but adjacent units. The scheme was very well-received with almost all the flats sold at the end of the selection exercise.

Thomas Edison, best known for his work on the light bulb, only learned to talk w h e n h e w a s f o u r ; h i s teacher was convinced his brains were “addled”.

Thomas Edison

The team ran several experiments over a period of one year to find the most suitable pump, processor chip, battery and waterproof casing before creating their first successful prototype, recounted team leader 1WO Francis Toh.

Thereafter, they decided to enhance the first prototype, making it slimmer and more compact by December 2009. Their determination paid off, winning the team the Gold award at the 2010 ExCEL Convention, with the help of funding from the Innovate@MINDEF Fund and partnership with Nanyang Polytechnic, to tap their engineering expertise.

011Cover Story

Dr Jason Liow, a senior research en-gineer at A*STAR’s Institute of Mi-croelectronics who works in the area of silicon photonics – using silicon as an optical medium in various systems, including microchips – thinks that failure is unavoidable in research.

When he first started working on a silicon optical modulator, he and his team were stumped as to why it did not work. After many tries, they even-tually conquered what initially seemed an insurmountable task.

Dr Liow made a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic factors for failure. Unexpected, perhaps unpredictable, outcomes intrinsic to the research materials or conditions are acceptable. But extrinsic factors outside of the experiments, such as poor planning of research methods and other human errors, should be avoided.

Without risk-taking, research results would be ‘incremental’ and not ‘break-through’ in nature, he reckoned, and finding the balance between risk-taking and efficiency comes with experience. “Personally, I prefer to execute experi-ments with two or more parallel paths with different amounts of associated risks. If the higher-risk path lead to failure, the lower-risk path can still yield good results.”

No BYSTANDer eFFeCT

Organisational culture and leader-ship, according to experts, have a big part to play in embracing innovative strategies and encouraging calculated risk-taking.

“I would say the biggest stumbling block is the nature of the senior leadership in a company, and where and how they view the relative roles – theirs and their employees – in creating change and innovation,” said American innovation guru Dr Alan Robinson.

He advocates ‘ ideas systems’ where management sets the direction for a company and frontline employees

contribute the bulk of innovative ideas, as much as 80%, and help move the company forward, as opposed to tradi-tional ‘command and control’ top-down hierarchies, where management does all the thinking and issues orders.

Having worked with organisations in Singapore’s public and private sectors, Dr Robinson noted the strong top-down culture here and the ‘loss of face’ issue when problems are raised.

“With Singapore companies, when I mention a problem, everybody freezes. It ’s like they’re thinking ‘Oh dear, a problem. Somebody’s in trouble,’” he said. “For me, a problem is the first step towards an idea; they’re opportunities. But if people bury problems and don’t want to talk about them, they can’t come up with ideas.”

He noted that Brazil’s most innovative company last year, a steel-can manu-facturer called Brasilata, received an average of 185 ideas each year from frontline employees, of which 92% were implemented. One employee submitted an astonishing 16,000 ideas – and he was a forklift driver!

Walt Disney

In Walt Disney’s early days as an animation producer, he was cheated by a film distributor and filed for bankruptcy in 1923. Four years later, his small studio created Mickey Mouse.

TRY AND TRY AGAIN After numerous trials and errors, Dr Jason Liow has found a balance between risk-taking and efficiency.

Editor:Do you have a fail-

ure story to share?

Were you ever told

by anyone that

you “can’t do it”?

Email us at

psd_challenge@psd.

gov.sg

Any company in the world could en-courage ideas like this, he believes. But tolerating a degree of failure is required. “When you create a culture of wanting ideas, you create a culture of tolerating small failures because the only way you can test an idea is to try it. You have to simply do it to find out what unintended consequences are.

“(Famed management consultant) Peter Drucker said that you should never design an experiment so that if it fails it will ‘kill’ you. Always design a lot of small experiments, so that you can get the learning without the failures ‘killing’ you.”

Mr Christian Chao, deputy director of the Centre for Organisational Devel-opment at the Civil Service College, noted the inherent difficulties in com-

municating to a large group of people; for instance, an organisation’s leaders to the rank-and-file.

Hence, to create a culture that embraces experimentation, it is important to be explicitly clear about what behaviours organisations wish to promote, and expect from employees. “Once we are clear what desired behaviour(s) we want to establish as a behavioural norm, it makes it easier to establish what might be hindering or helping people exhibit this behaviour, say being experimental or risk-taking,” he said.

If it were made known that experimental mindsets and actions were desired, and these were then found lacking due to a dearth of skill and knowledge, training could be introduced; if, say, the existing behavioural norms within an organisa-tion inadvertently penalised even mea-sured risk-taking, then something has to be done about those norms.

Then there is the ‘bystander effect ’, a social phenomenon in groups of a certain size where responsibility is not explicitly assigned and gets ‘diffused’. The larger the group, the greater a shared presumption that someone else is going to respond to a situation requir-ing intervention.

In an organisational setting, the less responsibility is communicated and assigned in an individualised way, the greater likelihood of inaction, Mr Chao said.

“Instead of adopting generic or blanket-approach communications, it is better to ‘individuate’ communication. That is to communicate on an individual basis with direct instructions as to what you want him or her to do.”

So if we want a culture of experimenta-tion and risk-taking (one that supports innovation), employees had better know, without any doubt, what their individual

roles are, and what actions they will be held account-able for.

THe FeAr FACTor

A key message public officers need to keep in mind is that while failure is less desired

than success, fear of failure and inac-tion is worse.

“The world around us keeps changing. If we refuse to learn anything new, we will be left behind. The smart way is to be open to new ideas,” Mr Lim Siong Guan wrote eight years ago.

“Even better, each of us should feel free to come up with new ideas and try them out. If we do this, there is a fair chance we will make mistakes. But this is the smartest approach to take, provided we (and our bosses and colleagues) are prepared to always treat mistakes as learning opportunities.”

American filmmaker James Cameron has twice made the most expensive film, first with Titanic (1997) and then Avatar (2009). Both featured ground-breaking visual effects – hence the enormous budgets – and were ex-traordinary spectacles.

Despite naysayers and their ominous predictions ahead of release, both Cameron’s works trumped expectations, 12 years apart, to become the most successful box-office hits of all time. (Avatar still holds the honour.)

Perhaps he put it best during his speech at a TED conference this February: “Failure is an option, but fear is not.”

Words worth remembering, as the Public Service continues to embrace po-tentially great ideas, and the calculated failures that are their foundation.

When I mention a problem, everybody freezes. It’s like they’re thinking ‘Oh dear, a problem. Somebody’s in trouble’.

He was a Harvard dropout whose first company, analysing traffic flow, flopped. But that did not stop Bill Gates from setting up Microsoft Corporation and creating a global software industry.

Bill Gates

013Cover Story

TO JAMIE LERNER, THE SECRET TO INNOVATION is in starting. He says you can’t always have all the answers before you begin something. “Of course, I [have] had failures because all my life was a commitment with imperfection… I like to say, better the grace of imperfection than perfection with no grace,” shares the 72-year-old architect.

After one has begun, he says, the next step must be to reshape and correct mistakes. “But if you don’t start, you have nothing.”

It is not that Mr Lerner rushes into projects impulsively. In fact, a lot of thought goes into his plans. “Planning takes time and it has to take time,” he concedes. “But sometimes through focal ideas, you can provoke new energy in the city [very quickly] that will help the process of planning.”

Mr Lerner calls this “urban acupuncture” – pinpointed interventions done quickly to benefit people and set off positive ripple effects. This could apply to physical infra-structure or even policies. The best urban acupuncture in New York, he says, is the city’s smallest park at East 53rd Street, a mere 13m by 32m.

There is the now famous story of how Mr Lerner, as a young mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, in the 1970s, transformed a bustling central street into a pedestrian mall in 72 hours. Unable to persuade store owners to his plan, he decided to put it into action. After careful planning, his staff moved in on a Friday night – digging up the road, putting down cobblestones, setting up streetlights, kiosks and potted plants – and by Monday morning, had made the street a pedestrian mall. The risk paid off: store-owners were so happy they even asked the mayor to extend it.

Guerrilla-type city planning may seem bizarre and unac-ceptable elsewhere, yet his derring-do convinced the people of Curitiba and Paraná (where he was governor) that his audacious ideas would work. (See Pg 15) He went on to transform a disused quarry into an opera house in two months; built the botanical gardens in three months and a museum in five.

SUSTAINABLe LIvINGThe advocate of urban sustainability spends much time sharing ideas on improving public transport systems. In the 70s, faced with limited funds, he pioneered an aboveground bus system that worked like the subway. Dedicated bus lanes, tubular bus shelters where passengers prepaid their tickets and high frequency cycles helped move millions quickly and affordably. The Bus Rapid Transit idea has since been replicated in more than 80 cities.

Mr Lerner likes to joke that cars are like mothers-in-law: “We have to have good relationship with her but we shouldn’t let her command our life.” It is food for thought for car-loving cities like Singapore.

He praises the French Vélib system that rents out bicycles as public transportation and envisions a similar one for cars. “I’m not against the car,” he explains. “[But] owning a car

ThE AuDACITy TO DREAMHe’s been named one of the world ’s top 100 most influential people by TIME Magazine. Jamie lerner – architect and city planner – has been hailed for his efforts in urban sustainability spanning 40 years. The former mayor and governor of Brazil shares how he gets his ideas and makes them work.

by Bridgette See

One of TIME’s 100 Most Influential people

is not important [because] you can have a car without owning it.” The ideas man has designed a mini electric car, the Dock-Dock (picture on left), that city slickers could use to run errands. “You pay only for your consumption.”

MAKING IDeAS WorKHe knows very well that his eccentric ideas could not have worked without the people ’s support. “The city is a collective dream. To make a collec-t ive dream h a p p e n , there has to be a shared vision.”

This was howhe got cash-strapped Paraná to clean up its polluted bays. “We didn’t have the money so we had an agree-ment with the fishermen: If they caught fish, it belonged to them, if they caught garbage, we bought the garbage... The more garbage, the cleaner the bay. The cleaner the bay, the more fish. So they knew they could make a difference.”

He says his wild ideas stem from asking a simple question: “How can I make your life easier?” This kicks off a logical process culminating in practical, innovative solutions.

“Creativity is not by sudden inspiration. When you’re stuck and don’t know how to, it ’s because your brain is asking ‘Feed me, feed me’. When you’re stuck

it ’s because you need more data, you need to know the problem better,” he says, emphasising the need to be on the ground to understand issues better.

And that ability to “know better” came from growing up in a neighbourhood in Curitiba that had a bustling rail-way station, teeming industries and a phantasmagoria circus. “On that street, I had my course of reality and my course of fantasy. I think that helped me to understand about needs and about dreams.”

buying rubbishWhen garbage trucks couldn’t get into

the narrow alleys of Curitiba’s slums, the

mayor introduced a plan that paid slum

dwellers for the garbage they collected.

Vita the turtle Mr Lerner believes urban design should

emulate Vita the turtle, a character in

a children’s book he has written, as it

is the ultimate example of integrated

living and working. When people work,

live and play in the same areas, they

create vibrant neighbourhoods. Living

close to your workplace also means less

commuting and pollution. Imagine how

sad the turtle would be if we cut it up

into different enclaves, he says. “And

that’s what we’re doing to our cities.”

animal lawn mowersLacking funds to buy tractors and fuel

to mow parks, Mr Lerner introduced

“municipal sheep” that kept the parks’

vegetation under control and whose

wool funded children’s programmes.

Mr Lerner was a speaker at the 2010 World Cit ies Summit co- organised by the Centre for Liveable Cities and the Urban Redevelopment Authority. He was a finalist of the inaugural Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize.

Better the grace of imperfection than perfection with no grace.

015Feature

KNOWN TO BE PUBLICITY-SHY and reticent, Mr Niam Chiang Meng takes several months to finally agree to speak to Challenge.

And then, all preconceptions are blown away. The 52-year-old is disarmingly frank about this interview – “I have no choice, right?” – meets head-on all questions about the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) and even cracks a few sporting jokes.

“We are in the Civil Service. We work 24 hours a day,” quips the Permanent Secre-tary, Ministry of Community Develop-ment, Youth and Sports (MCYS).

This seems plausible, based on his work record. In nearly 30 years as a public officer, he has been Permanent Secretary of the Ministries of Law and of Infor-mation, Communications and the Arts, the Singapore Broadcasting Authority’s Chairman, the Housing and Develop-ment Board’s CEO, Deputy Secretary with the Ministry of Health and Vice President of News with the Television Corporation of Singapore.

It is a long way for someone who never wanted to be a public officer. “I wanted to be a lecturer in the uni-versity,” said Mr Niam, the recipient of a merit bursary. “I told that to the Public Service Commission and they said, the Public Service needs people too, you know?”

What he speaks about most passionately is a project he spent over two years on: the world’s first YOG.

From the time he and his team helped put in Singapore ’s successful bid,

“LIkE A mIDWIfE DELIVERINg ABABy”

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports Niam Chiang Meng talks to Wong Sher Maine about organising the Youth Olympic Games in A Cuppa With…

We are inthe CivilService.

We work 24hours a day.

through the recent conclusion of the 13-day games, he is clearly still fired up with adrenaline from watching the Games come to fruition.

“It’s been wonderful and a huge relief, like a midwife delivering a baby. What we have done is quite historic. We will forever be mentioned in the same vein as Greece’s Athens and Chamonix in France,” said Mr Niam. Athens and Chamonix were the inaugural venues for the Summer and Winter Olympic Games respectively. And the Singapore 2010 imprint will be on the Olympic flag which is handed over to all future host countries of YOGs.

What some Singaporeans will remem-ber, however, are YOG organisational lapses such as when volunteers fell ill from food poisoning or when people could not get tickets into sold-out venues with many empty seats.

“I suppose in a massive operation like this, I’m genuinely surprised that more things that could go wrong did not quite go wrong,” said Mr Niam. “The staff did a tremendous job. They managed to tackle most of the issues. I would say the important thing is how fast do you recover? We tried to recover very quickly.”

But what about the YOG budget? The $387 million spent, above the original bid of $104 million, cannot be recovered.

Mr Niam, who first announced the expenditure on July 6 during a YOG briefing, to some anger from Singa-poreans, said: “Yes, there was a gross underestimate, but that ’s because we had very little information… we had nothing to rely on.”

He explained that as a world first, some Games requirements were firmed

up only after the bid, when the Inter-national Olympic Committee (IOC) consulted with international sporting federations. The competition formats for archery, basketball and rowing, for instance, were all changed. One thing he never expected: “We had to buy 38 horses for the Equestrian event. This was not the case for the summer Olympics and certainly not something on our radar screen!”

The YOG team also had to spend on costly equipment unexpectedly. One example: “Results had to be transmit-ted to the media centre within two minutes of event completion to meet World Junior Championship standards, which meant we had to buy or lease expensive equipment.”

The committee also had its hands tied on sponsorship. “When you deal with a huge animal like the IOC, which has years of history behind it, they have a whole lot of do’s and don’ts.”

Companies keen to sponsor could not use words like “Singapore 2010”, “YOG” or even “Blazing the Trail” in their branding. Old Chang Kee, sponsor of all the curry puffs for YOG committee meetings, found out that they could not put up their brand anywhere.

Said Mr Niam: “The IOC wanted to avoid ambush marketing. All the venues must be ‘clean’, we had to strip venues. We wanted to use The Esplanade but we could not as there were existing sponsors everywhere.”

He hopes Singaporeans will focus in-stead on the spirit of the games. “There are many wonderful experiences. Seeing our athletes compete and trying their best with a never-say-die attitude. The sense of pride in our people when Sin-gapore does well. ” Being a torchbearer himself for the Thomson Road stretch

outside the MCYS building – “that was quite something, imagine, we got to be Olympic torchbearers. How many others can say that?” – remains a fond memory.

Outside of work, he plays strategy video game World of Warcraft and DOTA (Defence of the Ancients) with his sons aged 18, 16 and 13. “I tried to teach my wife that but I failed miserably.”

As for sports, he plays any racquet game – “anything that involves a ball”, from tennis to badminton to squash and occasionally, golf.

He also rollerblades, and leaves you with a nugget about a senior politician he occasionally bumps into at East Coast Park, who took up rollerblading at the behest of his wife and children. “When he started, his bodyguard would walk behind him. When I next saw him, his bodyguard was behind him, on a bicycle! So, take up rollerblading! It’s good for strength and balance!”

What’s usually in your cuppa? Coffeeshop coffee with their roast beans, the stronger the better

Your favourite flavour or brand?Kopi si, kopi-O, kopi-kau

Where do you normally have your cuppa? At any heartland kopitiam. And please don’t convert them all to Starbucks!

The official “A Cuppa With…” Cup

017A Cuppa With...

publications of recent events like the floods, long-haul bus routes, the town council report card and the security breach at an MRT depot shows that the mainstream media is taking its gloves off in reporting such events. How should public officers prepare for this new world?

First, those who run public organisations must rethink priorities. Mas Selamat ’s audacious escape, the floods, the MRT security breach and the sudden supply-demand imbalance in public housing are all Third World problems – due to Public Service leaders taking their eye off the ball on basic issues.

Second, the honeymoon with a com-pliant population and media is end-ing. Used to a culture of dealing with an obedient citizenry and media, the Public Service must take a big leap and square with these stakeholders in a transparent way.

The Youth Olympics tickets issue has at its root a system of cut-and-paste textbook solutions. The YOG committee sold 80,000 tickets to the Education Ministry, which then gave the tickets to schools. But nobody asked: Will stadiums be filled? The YOG budget tripled in just a few months. How could that be, if not for wrong calculations by somebody? No corporate board would accept this.

Appeals can be made to look at the big picture of how hosting the Games is historic for Singapore. Previously, a public with a shared pride would have accepted that. But a different, unforgiv-ing Singapore is emerging, drilling down to nitty-gritty like never before.

The public is not going to accept wishy-washy answers. They are demanding in-depth responses to issues of crowded trains, overflowing drains and canals, if online discussions and letters to forum pages are any indication.

They are in no mood to see sandbags stacked outside Liat Towers as a solution to the floods and keep quiet about it. The faster the Public Service comes to grips with this new Singapore, the better.

P N Balji has 40 years’ experience in Singapore journalism. He is the director of the Asia Journalism Fellowship, a joint initiative of Temasek Foundation and Nanyang Technological University.

SINGAPORE’S PUBLIC SERVICE is entering a very trying stage as it marks half a century. In the new book, Pioneers Once More, words such as audacity, derring-do, smart regulation, mindset change, what-if, gumption, gall and managing risks are sprinkled liberally to show the game-changer needed.

These will remain motherhood state-ments if public officers lack an in-timate understanding of the current transformation in nearly every aspect of Singapore.

One eyebrow-raising ideological shift has been announced – moving away from a high-growth strategy. “Over the next decade, I think 5 per cent will be a stretch,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in January. What does this mean for Singaporeans who grew up tasting only success?

The other big change: immigration being allowed to go unchecked. From 750,000 in 2000, the foreigner popula-tion rose to 1.25 million last year, nearly double in just nine years.

All would have been fine if last year’s recession had not blown up with a ferocity and suddenness not seen since World War II. Rumblings about foreigners crowding roads, trains and buses, taking away jobs and pushing up prices of resale HDB flats have suddenly become real, with the gov-ernment forced to announce a slew of measures to reduce the perks foreigners used to enjoy.

But the real test is the mood of the me-dia reflecting the people’s frustrations. More eyeballs are drifting to online news, with mainstream media circula-tion revenues dropping, especially for The Straits Times and Sunday Times.A study of coverage in these two

A different, unforgiving Singapore is emerging.

The hONEyMOON is ENDINg Public off icers

must face up to the challenges of a society in transformation, argues P N Balji.

Thinking Aloud18

DeAr YoUNG oFFICer,

I hesitate to give you advice as our careers are so different. Instead, I’ ll share some observations, and if you think they are valid, you may want to do something about it.

I have been Singapore’s chief diplomat in Washington, DC, for 14 years and Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) 1989-1991. Before that, I taught political science at the National University of Singapore. The university emphasises autonomy and inner-direction but within the rules of the organisation.

So when I entered laterally into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take up my post as Perm Rep to the UN, I was quite inclined to do just what I thought needed to be done. Only, I was very green in diplomacy and the civil service. I took a lot of advice and talked to many people. I was not afraid to ask questions and did not worry about whether I looked stupid.

My predecessor Kishore Mahbubani generously shared his trade secrets and I learned a great deal from my First Secretary Vanu Gopal Menon who had been at the UN before. It was all learning on the job. I remember I would talk at length to other diplomats, only to stop myself suddenly, wondering if

I had given away state secrets. But to be effective, diplomats must trade information. In time, I learned the right balance between talking too much and not at all.

To persuade other countries to accept ASEAN’s position on Cambodia, I spoke to many delegations and was very “active”, a good word in UN diplomacy. My reward was getting Saudi Arabia to sign on as a sponsor for our resolution, something it had withheld for 10 years. I was to repeat this work of persuasion in Washington, lobbying Congress for our Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

These two stories illustrate five points. First, you must not be afraid to ask questions and learn. I worry that this art of asking questions and exercising the mind is disappearing among young Singaporeans. There is too much con-cern with not appearing stupid.

Second, working hard always impresses. Being persistent towards a solution, bit by bit, explains 90% of success. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is admired for her hard work and per-sistence at working a problem.

Third, communication skills are vital. You must explain to others what is there

in it for them. Frequently, young officers write very well but cannot carry out a sustained verbal presentation. We need to overcome our fear of talking.

Fourth, people skills are absolutely important. In an organisation, it helps forge ties and promote better manage-ment. It begins with eye contact and a real desire to reach out to others.

Finally, what gives pleasure and satis-faction in work is a sense of mission. You can say I belong to the lucky generation; we had purpose and mission thrust upon us. On August 9, 1965, I left for the US for graduate studies on a scholarship at Cornell University. On campus I was often asked to explain Singapore’s independence. As I told my professors: “I must go home. My country needs me.” I wrote my master’s thesis on “The Politics of Survival: Singapore 1965-1967” so I could feel the tense developments in Singapore palpably even in the small collegetown of Ithaca.

All these come together in my work. I would like to believe I am a better public servant as a consequence.

by Chan Heng CheeAmbassador to the United States

27Letters to a Young Public Officer

Text by Chen Jingting

Photos by Jean Qingwen Loo

Public off icers ditching their strait-laced image for garish costumes and dialect humour on getai to publicise a policy. Sounds outlandish? Well, it might just get the message across.

AGAINST THE FLASHY NEON lights of getai live stage shows, two public officers sashay in yellow sequined dresses and feather boas to the tune of the Hokkien song Hua Hi Jiu Ho (“As long as you’re happy”).

Meet the new Banana Sisters, stars of a 10-minute skit by the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board. They are joined by a boisterous taxi-driver and haughty tai-tai (socialite) wannabe. A coffee shop assistant, looking like a female version of comic TV character Phua Chu Kang with a big mole and curly wig, completes the motley crew.

The Banana Sisters are CPF Board officers who educate the other charac-ters on the Board’s Workfare Income

BananasGoing

Supplement (WIS) scheme. Introduced in 2007, the scheme provides incentives for older and low-wage workers to stay employed by supplementing their income and CPF contributions.

Here is a taste of the action:

Banana Sisters (with megawatt smiles and saccharine sweet voices): “Welcome to CPF Board! We’re the Banana

Sisters *wave feather boas*! How can we

help you?”

Coffee shop assistant (in bored tone): “Hey Bananas. My hubby drives a taxi and I

serve coffee. He wants to know why I have

WIS but he doesn’t.”

Ah Jiao of the Banana Sisters:“Oh… (coquettishly). That is because you are

employed. Your boss gives you CPF every month,

that’s how we know that you are working. Hence

we will auto[matically] qualify you for WIS. But

Uncle, you drive taxi right? That means you are a

self-employed person. Unlike your wife, you need

to tell us that you have worked and you need to

contribute to your CPF.”

The cast are from the Self-Employed Scheme and Workfare Department. They have per formed four t imes to a public audience, including at Ang Mo Kio in September and Kovan in August.

Previously, the department tried public education through other media such as newspapers and radio. But some people are still confused, especially the illiterate, says Ms Janice Lai, 40, the department’s deputy director and one of the skit’s producers.

Now, the y want to target elderly and low-income workers, many of whom cannot read the papers, through this kind of getai-style shows.

“I don’t think they like the usual boring briefings [in a classroom setting]. Hence we need to get the message across in simple and subtle ways, usually through entertainment,” says senior manager Maple Chang, one of the Banana Sisters.

The

Banana Sisters

Ah xiang aka The Leader

(Maple Chang, 30,

senior manager)

She leads the interaction

with the audience and

constantly chides the

other Banana Sister for

being vain.

Ah Jiao aka The Vain pot

(Iris Sim, 27,

senior executive)

With good looks and a

sweet voice, she sweet-

talks the taxi-driver into

making Medisave pay-

ments for WIS.

29Feature

SUPPorT For INNovATIoN But first, the team had to overcome some mental blocks. They feared the Board ’s upper management might reject having the Banana Sisters as representatives for dressing flamboy-antly and singing in Hokkien.

“There’s still a stigma attached to getai, so we were also a little concerned about how the public would see the CPF Board after watching the skit,” explains Ms Chang, 30.

But this fear proved unfounded, and instead they were given courage to innovate. “My CEO (Mr Liew Heng San) even joked about changing the uniform of our Customer Service Of-ficers to that of the Banana Sisters!” shares Ms Lai.

Another issue: dialect. But their deputy CEO, Soh Chin Heng, surprised them by telling them to “speak and act like the public, so that we can echo the ground sentiments,” says Ms Chang. “He even told us that the taxi-driver is too compliant [to the government] and encouraged us to make the char-acter ‘fiercer’. If the taxi-driver is so pro-government, the audience would

‘switch off ’... we don’t have to be so political ly correct and give motherhood statements all the time.”

Mr Maverick Guo, 28, the depart-ment’s assistant manager and lead producer of the skit, explains: “We want to reach out to uncles and aunties who would be more comfort-able with vernacular languages.” In one scene, the taxi-driver expresses disbelief in Mandarin and Hokkien that the government would give money to the poor.

And so it proved that the use of dialect struck a chord with the public.

Mr Tan Chwee Poh, 54, a resident who watched the show in Ang Mo Kio, says: “I think that this [the skit] is a good way to publicise a government policy. It is good that the characters spoke in Hokkien which helps more people to understand [what the policy is about].”

TeAM SYNerGYThe team camaraderie is palpable. Asked if they had difficulty getting into character, most said no as they

have acted before in other shows at the workplace.

Also, they were assigned roles similar to their own personalities, says Ms Chang, who teases Ms Iris Sim, 27, a senior executive and the other Banana

Jin Hao lian

Jin Hao Lian aka The Show-Off

(Corina Yong, 37 executive officer)

She pretends to be a rich tai-tai until she realises

that she would not be benefiting from the WIS,

which leads her to reveal her fake rings and real

occupation as a seamstress.

Getai , or live stage performance, is held throughout the Hungry Ghost Festival to “entertain the spirits”. During this period, many Chinese believe the gates of hell are opened and ghosts would roam on earth. Getai perform-ers, clad in dazzling costumes, would sing, dance or act, usually in Mandarin and Hokkien.

Sister : “ Ir is can act sultry very well, in a way that makes guys sit up. It ’s her forte!”

Executive officer Joseph Lau, 41, adds: “I’m always asked to be the taxi-driver as I use a lot of Hokkien in my daily speech. Because that is how I am like in person.”

Executive officer Corina Yong, who plays the snooty tai-tai, says: “I don’t know why they sabo[tage] me [to act this role]. I’m not haolian (showy)!”, and Mr Lau interjects playfully: “But she’s jin (very) haolian!”

The cast have fun onstage and off, and made the roles their own. Manager Angela Kwek, who plays the coffee shop assistant, suggested the mole and wig. Ms Yong, 37, got her own props, such as the shiny gold rings, to complement her outfit.

Some performers literally ‘broke a leg’. Ms Kwek, 27, who fractured her ankle in July, had to get another colleague to replace her, and was nursing her ankle at the show in Ang Mo Kio. Mr Lau aggravated his slipped disc injury during rehearsals but carried on despite the pain.

The whole department chipped in as ‘backstage crew ’. A team of six designed props such as the mock-up

taxi and billboard featuring the WIS scheme’s hotline number.

Ms Lai adds: “Even colleagues not involved in the skit helped by covering the workload of those who are, without complaints. Everyone in the department was part of the project.”

Taxi- Driver Kopi

Soh

Kopi Soh aka The Stingy One(Angela Kwek, 27, manager)Prudent and down-to-earth, the coffee shop assistant encourages her husband, the taxi-driver, to find out how he can qualify for WIS.

Taxi-Driver aka The Convert (Joseph Lau, 41, executive officer)Initially sceptical about the scheme, he is eventually won over by the benefits of WIS and charm of the Banana Sisters.

Go to www.challenge.gov.sg for exclusive pictures of the cast!

31Feature

by I. Warto

n Ong

LISTENINg fOR fEELINgS

MOST OF US WANT BETTER communication skills, especially in dif-ficult situations related to performance appraisal, bad news, or actions beyond the call of duty.

Our communication tends to focus on problem-solving, we forget feelings are inevitably involved – frustration, arro-gance, indifference, anger, helplessness and anxiety.

Bosses issue orders in a vacuum, without any attempt to understand how recipients feel. Family ‘discussions’ play out the same arguments over and over – because feelings are ignored.

Feelings have three general types: happy, angry or sad. Happy makes a person feel good. Angry or sad makes a person feel upset or threatened.

When feelings get in the way, participants ‘solve’ the problem through fright, flight or freeze. None is a good solution.

Our most common way of listening is not listening. We listen to our own talk. Even when we do listen to others, if we focus exclusively on content, we miss detecting feelings.

Listening to, and for, feelings can make or break a difficult discussion.

A good listener will hold back on offering advice until he is clear about the other person’s feelings. He can help the other person verbalise the issue he is facing and his feelings. This helps clarify the issue and move ahead with options that are available.

Here is a simple example:

Listener How is work?Speaker Stressful and I’m overworked.Listener When you are stressed, what happens?Speaker I am not able to concentrate and I face persistent conflicts with others. This has affected my ability to perform my supervisory functions effectively.

Here, the listener must be careful not to hear this as an announcement of “persistent conflicts” and “affected my ability”. It is in reality a confession of anxiety, and perhaps fear.

The listener now has three options. Ignoring will put the other person in the dark as to what to do next. Resentment builds up and the relationship becomes an unauthentic one.

Confrontation typically fails to influence the other to change his actions. No progress is made.

The best option is to acknowledge and understand. Say: “I understand that you feel stressed by the situation. How do you think I can help you perform better?”

Remember to use “I” often. It shows you recognise and are affected by other’s feel-ings. It helps bring others on board.

American autobiographer Maya Angelou aptly sums it up: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

There is virtually no business without difficult communication.

But if we make the simple, practical shift to listening for feelings, we can create a more open, participative way of address-ing our challenges.

I . Warton Ong is an associate trainer with the Civil Service College. He con-ducts classes on The Art Of Effective Listening.

Level Up32

RIghT CLICkS

What makes a great website? Challenge f inds out from

the experts.

THE INAUGURAL SINGAPORE Government Web Excellence Awards were presented in June this year to agencies whose websites won top marks for user-friendliness, content presentation, overall website man-agement and effective delivery of electronic services. In addition to a panel of judges, the Web Excellence Awards included pub-lic voting as a key scoring component. More than 26,000 votes were cast for their favourite agency websites.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) won one of the three Outstanding Awards for its ONE.MOTORING portal at www.onemotoring.com.sg.

Challenge asked website experts from Digital Boomerang, XM Asia and Qais Consulting for their take on the portal and how government websites, in general, can be even more engaging. The three companies have worked with government agencies such as the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, the Economic Development Board and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to design and/or revamp their websites.

The specific page that provides live updates to current COE bids is almost like a stock market chart. The COE prices updated ‘live’ show great transparency by the government, while making sure potential buyers have managed the ‘right’ bid.– Tripti LochanQais Consulting (QC)

Which feature of the oNe.MoTorING website is your favourite? How does it enhance the website?

I was surprised to discover that LTA e-Services had easy access to all the critical functions that motorists intuitively need. I especially like the way ‘non-login’ LTA e-Services was organised, based on user types – ‘car owners’ and ‘aspiring car-owners’. The above features position onemotoring.sg as the gateway to all things related to car ownership and road users. It is an aggregator of useful, relevant and usable content.– vince LuiXM Asia (XMA)

It’s great because both (the camera and traffic news) offer close to real-time information. It solves my problems, for example, how to get from point A to point B without getting caught in traffic.– Charlotte ongDigital Boomerang (DB)

UPDATeS oF Coe PrICeS

LTA e-ServICeS TrAFFIC CAMerA

What is the most important feature of a good government website?

Credible source of informationDB> Government websites are au-thoritative and credible sources of information. I think that accurate and up-to-date content that solves users’ real-life problems is most important for government websites.

Accessibility Qc>It has to be easy to find in terms of Search Engine Optimisa-tion (SEO), easy to understand (good navigation), easy to work (intuitive), open to all ages and groups (content that appeals to all races and uses) and convenient (users can access this site from any place on any device

including on mobile phones).

Tailored services XMA> A good government website should provide e-ser-vices and information tailored to different target audiences. When users land on the website, they should be able to im-mediately identify the journey required in order to get to thedesired service or information.

What can government agencies do to improve their websites?

Understand usersDB> Find out who your web users are and the problems that they have. Then you can create content and eServices/ applications that solve their problems without creat ing new ones. Once you have the killer content or application, you can cross-sell or promote other government messages.

Make it easierXMA> Understand target us-ers, develop effective informa-

tion architecture and explore other ways to present text-heavy information.

optimise and standardiseQc>Technically and creatively ensure the platform can deliver a site that is optimised for search. If we cannot find it, we cannot use it. Also, ensure the process, interface and customer experi-ence online is as consistent as possible with one another.

What are some of the features that can draw more people to a government website?

Killer appsDB> Any feature that makes accurate, updated content (that solves users’ problems) more accessible will draw people to use a website. For instance, an app that helps you chart or visualise government statistics so you can assess the data quickly and make decisions.

Good design XMA> A good government site should constantly strive to have a contempo-rary look and feel. With the increased popularity of devices such as the iPhone and iPad, people have become more sophisticated in terms of what they expect from user experience.

Gotta look good tooAll three experts agree that user-friendliness and being aesthetically pleasing go hand-in-hand. “At the end of the day, looking good and working good is the aim,” says Char-lotte Ong of Digital Boomerang.

Tripti Lochan of Qais Consulting thinks that “one without the other suffers” as it is all about customer ex-perience, which is determined by the visual experience (how something looks) and the content and user experience of the functional aspects of the website (how something works). “Government sites don’t need to be boring and ugly,” she adds. There is no need to bring out all the bells and whistles like Flash or large image files to make a site look good. “A website can have a clean and contempo-rary look and still provide good usability by using the right technology such as Ajax, advanced CSS and HTML5,” says Vince Lui of XM Asia.

“With a web platform such as an ad-vanced content management system that tracks and profiles users and serves out relevant content – similar to Amazon.com’s – a website can still be both user-friendly and visually desirable.”

Government sites don’t need to be boring and ugly.

DOs• Get toknowusersandnon-users.

• Conduct in-depth research to understand problems, questions, issues and tasks that users face while seeking information on government websites.

• Provide tools,utilitiesandcontent that your users trust only you for.

DON’Ts• Avoidshortcuts,especiallybyshovelling on content users can’t understand or don’t want to read.

• Steerclearofbeingsomeoneyour audience won’t believe you are; keep it simple, don’t try to cover too much.

• Trynot tomakeyourusers think (too long). A well-designed website lets users instantly get what they want. A badly designed one creates confusion, leading to frustration.

A FEW TIpS

35Feature

Hopefully in 50 years’ time, we will have developed and matured enough politically to be more tolerant of contrarian views.

Empowering parents, consumers and artists are key focus areas of the 2010 Censorship Review Committee (CRC) report, and

this “is always a good thing”, says sociologist

Terence Chong.

by Alexis ong

TO ThE PEOPLE

37Word on the Street

AFTER A YEAR-LONG REVIEWof Singapore’s media regulation policies, the CRC – a 17-member citizen panel – released 80 recom-mendations in mid-September. It called on parents to take on greater responsibility for control mecha-nisms to filter content on the Inter-net, TV and films in particular, and to educate their children on social ills such as violence and drugs.

Dr Chong, who is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies, agrees that this is a positive move, because “this means that other people who might not be offended get to watch it, so it ’s not a blanket ban”.

But he is critical of how parenting here has been “outsourced”. “Many people leave it to maids and grand-parents and don’t have conversations with their children about what is acceptable, whether their children feel comfortable with their bodies, their sexuality, or what they see on TV… until parents start to do some real parenting, they ’re going to feel uncomfortable… in effect, the state does the parenting.

By relying solely on state censor-ship to determine what their chil-

dren can or cannot see, parents are abdicating their responsibility as parents.”

The new CRC report also emphasis-es providing consumers with enough information on a film, play or TV show so they can make informed de-cisions whether to allow their chil-dren access. While technology has made it tricky for the authorities to stay on top, the government is mov-ing towards a more enlightened ap-proach to media regulation.

Nonetheless, even in the age of iP-ads and microblogging, Dr Chong feels that many artists in Singapore still look to the state for guidance. This ties in with the general belief among Singaporeans that censor-ship is a given, as “we are trained to think it ’s needed because we buy into the idea that people should not be offended – that people have a right not to be offended. This belief is often at the root of any argument for censorship”. In the end, the creative community, despite recent lobbying by the group ArtsEngage, will have minimal im-pact on policy, because the CRC was not set up to consider whether censorship is fundamentally needed

in Singapore. Dr Chong does not think artists will change much in their approach to self-censorship. “You are always trying to figure out what the authorities might allow or disallow… (which) is never a good starting point for creativity or artis-tic work. Many times, people tend to misread the political winds. Peo-ple might self-censor too much, to err on the side of caution, and that ’s never good.’

The CRC 2010 report is mov-ing Singapore on the right track in opening up more space, and the country has come a long way since the days when the police vetted the-atre scripts. Dr Chong is optimistic about the future, suggesting that, following the same sociopolitical trajectory, “hopefully in 50 years’ time, we will have developed and matured enough politically to be more tolerant of contrarian views”.

Meanwhile, that evolution can per-haps take a cue from Speakers Cor-ner, which, as Dr Chong puts it, is “a bit like the United Nations… it ’s better to have it than not to have it. We’re not going to create a revolu-tion from Speakers Corner or change policy, but it ’s good to have.”

The Government needs to regulate TV

programmes, but parents need to take

responsibility for what the kids are

doing – you can’t blame others if you

let the kids stay up until midnight and

they watch something they shouldn’t.

- Joey Fong, 45, limo driver

The government should set the

standard for what we see in the media.

If the government doesn’t care, then

anyone can watch anything. I think the

government should do something about

things like violence on TV.

-Kng Poey Choo, 63, retiree

Kids can look at violence, sex and drugs on the Internet anyways, so it ’s the parents’ problem, you know? Not the government’s.

- Melanie, 19, student

Standardisation is good.

Then artists don’t waste time

because they won’t end up

writing something that is not

allowed.

- Jane Eng, 29, banker

Production

Scene Take

Challenge ASKS

SINGApOREANS WHAT THEY

THINK ABOUT CENSORSHIp

37Word on the Street

Somewhere on Jurong Island is a hive of activity – unseen and unheard – beneath the surface. Carefully planned explosions take place daily as workers, in 24-hour shifts, blast rocks away to carve out the first underground rock caverns for liquid hydrocarbon storage in Southeast Asia.

Welcome to Jurong Rock Caverns, where the sun never shines. They lie 132 metres deep, beneath the water table and seabed, which explains the constant trickle of seawater everywhere.

Keen to work here? Don’t apply if you are faint of heart.

The first time Project Manager Melvin Ng took the wire-cage lift down to its depths – “I didn’t expect the shudder-ing” – he felt his heart skip a beat. Since that day in 2007, the civil engineer has overcome his fear of heights to make daily trips down.

Working in confined spaces and breath-ing thin air are other challenges. But “there’s never a dull moment”, says Se-nior Project Manager Teo Tiong Yong, who first delved into subterranean work in 1996.

His deputy, Project Manager Chong Pui Chih, sees the sun a lot more, being in charge of building facilities such as the jetty and pipelines that will send tonnes of oil down to the caverns. The earliest among the three civil engineers to join the JTC Corporation project, she has been involved in feasibility studies as well as the design of the entire facility.

The Caverns, to be completed in 2014, reduce surface land use by 80%, freeing it up for higher-value operations. Risks identified early on included the possibil-ity of flooding, the safety of underground explosions and the issue of ventilation. But a thorough risk management strategy gave JTC the confidence to embark on what has been described as an “innova-tive” and “bold” project.

uNDERgROuNDChallenge went down under to see what lies beneath the seabed at the Jurong Rock Caverns.

Text by Bridgette See

Photos by Norman Ng

Project Managers Melvin Ng and Chong Pui Chih go underground to view the work in progress.

KEEN TO KNOW MORE? Join us for an exclusive photo essay

at www.challenge.gov.sg

39Perspectives

1. One of the two access shafts that lead to the caverns below.

2. The man-lift that brings workers down to the bottom of the shaft.

3. Project Manager Chong Pui Chih briefs colleagues before they enter the caverns.

4. An excavator clears out the blasted rocks and debris.

5. A supervisor directs a specialised jumbo machine that is used for drill and blast rock excavation.

6. Senior Project Manager Teo Tiong Yong gives a briefing to JTC colleagues about the project.

01

02

03 0504

06

NO WrONg DOOr

by Alex Tan of dbl O

What’s in it: bacardi breezer peach 60ml, green

apple vodka 30ml, Violette Viot 1883 philibert routin 20ml, bombay

Sapphire dry gin 15ml

Alex’s idea: Just as public officers don’t

reject queries from members of the public, it’ll be hard for anyone to resist this

looker of a cocktail – tall, slender and alluring. And

it’s supposed to taste even better than it looks,

promises Alex, a champion in the creative cocktail

category of the National Cocktail Competition 2008.

The party season has arrived so here’s the chance to throw a good one to impress your bosses and colleagues. Drinks are a must if you want to loosen up those stiff shoulders and straight backs. Clueless? Fret not. Challenge asked six bartenders to concoct drinks that are sure to break the (Public Service) ice. learn from the best and bottoms up!

Raise the

Text by Chen Jingting

Art Direction by Jasmine Tan

Photos by evolvefoto

41Life.Style

reD OceAN, Blue OceAN

by Lau Wei Jin of eM by the River

What’s in it: Outside (blue): Grey Goose L’Orange

Vodka 40ml, ripe apple juice 30ml, 100plus 30ml, Vok Blue Curacao 10ml,

peach syrup 10ml, frosted longans Inside (red): Smirnoff Vodka 10ml, ripe mango juice 10ml, Ribena 5ml,

grenadine syrup 5ml

Wei Jin’s take: Tired of battling your

rivals head-on in the red Ocean? Try plunging into

the inventive unknown of the Blue Ocean. If

you’re feeling brave, down both together but Wei Jin suggests you “take the blue

liquid first as it is more refreshing and has a lighter

taste than the red one.”

reD TApe by Dominic Lee

of Chit’s Bar & Restaurant

What’s in it: Top: Peach tea 180ml, Martell 45ml,

Bols cassis 45ml, peach syrup 30ml, with a rind of beetroot peel Middle: Fresh mango puree 30ml, evaporated milk

30ml, passion fruit syrup 15ml Bottom: Canned peach 1/2 slice, fresh mango

puree 30ml

Dominic’s take: “My impression of the

public servant is more of a ‘tea’ than ‘alcohol’ person”, says Dominic, so he used

a tea cup-like shooter glass to serve up red Tape. This fresh, fruity drink rewards

the red tape-slashing public officer who follows through to the mango and peach at

the bottom. For an olfactory oomph, rub a kaffir lime leaf

against the cup.

Watch the world’s best bartenders pit their skills at the International Bartenders Association Congress 2010, held in Singapore from November 22-27. The event is supported by the Singapore Tourism Board and Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts.

sMOke DeTecTOr

by Shah Dillon of BottleFlipz

What’s in it: Kahlua 30ml, lychee liqueur 30ml,

Cointreau 15ml

Shah’s idea: Raise the alarm with this

smoke Detector. The fanciful swirls of dry ice will wow your

guests but once the smoke screen fizzles out, what’s

left standing is a plain but powerful drink.

YOu’re fireD! by Kenny Hong of Zirca

What’s in it: Bacardi 151 5ml, La Fee Absinth 5ml, Midori

5ml, Cointreau 5ml

This drink burns your throat and leaves a bitter aftertaste – probably how you’d feel after

getting the boot. The high alcohol content (more than 20%)

will also help to drown your sorrows. But steer clear if you

want to keep your job.

EDITOR’S NOTE:This drink should really be banned from festive year-end parties. But we couldn’t resist including it. If your staff can take a

prank, this will be a drink that’ll leave a burning impression.

MONDAY Blues by Kazuhiro Chii of Bar 84

What’s in it: Absolut Ruby Red 20ml, Teichenne Peach Schnapps 20ml, Vok Blue Curacao 10ml,

fresh lime juice 10ml, Marie Brizard White Pepper Mint 1tsp

Kazuhiro’s take: “The grapefruit flavour

provides you comfort and its peach taste makes you

happy. The peppermint also brings a pleasant cooling

sensation,” promises Kazuhiro, a Yokohama native who has

been a bartender for 15 years. If we had this every Monday, the blues sure won’t be there.

43Life.Style

The Irreverent Last Page44

Need We Say More?Here’s where we let the humour loose, and learn to laugh at ourselves a little more. Have ideas or jokes about the Public Service? Email us: psd_challenge@psd.gov.sg

1. The excellence through Continuous enterprise and Learning (exCeL) initiative was launched in __________.

A. May, 1990B. May, 1995C. May, 2000D. May, 2005 2. The theme for PS21 exCeL Convention 2010, held at the School of the Arts Singapore (SoTA) from November 2-3, 2010 is ___________.

A. Capture It!B. Be the Agent of Change!C. Sparking Innovation, Spurring ProductivityD. Small Idea, Big Returns

3. The __________ system (also known as “Six Think-ing Hats”) is a thinking tool for group discussion and individual thinking. It provides a means for groups to think together more effectively, and a means to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way.

A. de Bono HatsB. pro bonoC. BonoD. Al Bono

4. __________ diagrams were first proposed in the 1960s. They show the causes of a certain event and are commonly used to identify potential factors causing an overall effect.

A. Pork boneB. Dog boneC. Chicken boneD. Fishbone

5. The famous inventor__________ was once quoted as saying: “If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” A. Wilbur WrightB. Steve JobsC. Leonardo Da VinciD. Thomas A. Edison

Submit your answers by

DECEMBER 13, 2010 at:

WebSitewww.challenge.gov.sg

email psd_challenge@psd.gov.sg

fax6333 4010

Please include your name, email address, agency and

contact number.

All winners will be notified by email.

MovieVouchers There are f ive pairs of

to be won