Justin Foster's Kuala Lumpur Trip

Trip Home and Final Thoughts

The flight home was long and uneventful.  I did arrange to have a seat with no one around me, which made the trip more bearable.  I did watch Forrest Gump (for the 40th time).  I don’t know if I was just tired or missing my family extra, but I was more emotional than I had when watching it prior.  I’m sure the flight attendents were wondering what was wrong with the big, weepy American!

I had a 5 hour lay-over in LA, so I met up with a close friend in LA that I hadn’t seen in awhile.  We had lunch at a great fish place on Wilshire Blvd and spent the time visiting and catching up.  My friend is an Orthodox Jew.  I mentioned my dinner with my new Muslim friends and now lunch with him - and that I felt like Jimmy Carter (without the horribly misguided political opinions, of course!).

I arrived home around 11:00 pm and was so happy to see my wife and boys meet me in the airport.  It’s good to be loved!

Besides my family (and Sam and John a little bit!), here I the things I missed:

• Diet Pepsi
• Driving my car fast and listening to loud Outlaw country
• Talk radio
• NFL coverage
• Twitter chatter
• American breakfasts

Some things that opened my eyes:

• We are all the same (I know this sounds cliched) and this sameness connects us; making diversity the things that make friendships rich.
• We Americans are unbelievably priviledge in our freedom and liberty - both to do amazing things or do nothing at all.
• Besides entreprenuers, there is a lack of industriousness here.  Way too many people that have settled for a life of mediocrity.  More on that later.
• Politeness is another thing that is lacking; just a general civility and being nice to each other.
• Boise is truly a cool place with cool people.

Overall, this is was #6 on the Best Experiences list.  I have the opportunity (hopefully) to do the same workshop in Cairo and possibly Johannasburg; plus whatever doors being an “international speaker” opens. 

In short, glad to be home, but ready to do it again!

Tuesday in KL

Day 2 started off pretty much the same - but a lot more interaction.  There were some great questions - very insightful and well-thought out.  I called them “Gold Star” questions (I should have brought gold stars to hand out!) and this prompted even more questions and stories.

During the breaks, there was a lot more interaction between the attendees, as well as people approaching me with specific questions.  I enjoyed this even more than the workshop questions because I was able to learn more about their individual companies and roles.

There was a lot of similarities to American companies; primarily people dealing with distracted and/or stubborn CEOs.  This understanding helped me craft the key points to be more tactical and related to their specific jobs.  I did emphasize, however, that creating customer evanglism doesn’t work without the right cultural.  This lead to a flurry of other questions about how to create that culture.  Over-all, great dialogue!

During lunch we had a lively discussion about Paris Hilton!  They were mystified how someone with essentially no talent could not just become famous, but have their own perfume and clothing line.

After lunch, I shared some pictures of my brother training horses.  That lead to a bunch of questions about ranch life.  Not specific to customer evangelism, but great to create more conversations.

After the session ended, we just sat around and visited.  It was great to see the new friendships made between the attendees as well as my new friendships.

I was invited to dinner by two of the participants, so we met up at 8:00 and headed out to a restaurant.  One of the guys was from KL, so he took care of the ordering.  We had a seafood omlette, fish paste (tastes way better than it looks!), seafood noodles, chicken, beef, and an awesome “pickle salad”.  This was small pickles in sort of a cold salad; sweet and spicy.

I had a great visit with my new friends (I’m not mentioning their names out of respect for their privacy) covering a huge range of topics - business, American politics, Islam, careers, etc.  I have never gotten to know Muslims, so I was greatful for their patience as I peppered them with questions.  One of the perceptions they wanted to correct (they had read my previous posts) was that the Arabs were just visitors; here on Holiday to shop.  We had a great discussion about spirituallity; not just customs and practices.  One of the guys had lived in the US for 8 years (in Washington DC), so it was great to hear his perceptions and thoughts on the US.  He mentioned how inefficient US Customs (and other goverment agencies) were.  My comment back was that any government good at bureaucracy was also good at suppressing their people.  Of course, that sparked another lively debate!  We ended up hanging out until about midnight just visiting.  This ended up being the highlight of an amazing trip.

Monday in KL

Monday was the first day of my two-day workshop on customer evangelism.  I don’t really get nervous before these things, but I did want to be prepared - and on time.  I met Grace and Stephie, the two people from UNI that had been coordinating the event and my trip.  They were very gracious and professional.  One thing that struck me was the huge custom-made sign (see photo in separate post) for the event.  That was pretty cool!

There were 15 people in the class from a broad geographic area including: Singapore, Dubai, Maldives, Malaysia, and the Philippines.  Many of the people were in banking, with the rest in construction, Philip Morris, and malls.  There were no owners or CEOs, but all fairly high ranking in their organizations.

Grace had alerted me that they would be quite shy; which turned out to be true.  I figured the best approach was to tell them about my life in the US, so I showed pictures of my family, the Blue Turf of Boise State, plus some funny marketing/branding cartoons.  This seemed to help loosen everyone up.

I was extra careful on not using too many analogies, American slang, or anything culturally insensitive.  This was more difficult than I first anticipated, but did force me to keep things simple - and to tell lots of personal stories.

At lunch, we went up to the buffet I had eaten at before. They had a long table prepared where the waiter insisted that I sit at the head.  I was able to talk with the people at my end of the table.  I especially enjoyed watching what they selected from the buffet.  This became a conversation point as did discussions on American v. Asian culture.

Because there were not as much interaction as I anticipated, we ended up getting in to Day 2 stuff in the afternoon.  This actually was a good thing, as I was able to add more content and more stories.

I had been told by a Twitter friend from KL that the culture holds teachers and facilitators in high regard.  As such, they were a bit more deferential than I’m used to - and also much more attentive than an American class.  They were also back from breaks on time!

After the workshop, I headed back over to the Pavilion - the same huge mall that I went to previously.  This time it was just to eat and people-watch.  I had dinner at a Thai restaurant where I had seafood Phad Thai; a delicious mix of prawns, octupus, and crab.

One thing I didn’t mention before was how much of a cultural draw the downtown McDonald’s is.  It had dozens of scooters parked out front, with tons of young people just hanging out.  To add to the scene, there was techno music blasting from outdoor speakers.  Interesting how something like a McDonalds was a hang-out place - similar to a club here.

New post - “Lessons from Kuala Lumpur” - http://tinyurl.com/5ujk6q Observations on marketing, branding, and not sucking.