Category Archives: OpenSchool.MY

Singing Performance + Human Experience

A special fun time was added to the 11th learning session organized by OpenSchool.MY when Catherine Liow sang a Chinese song and did a little talk show with our founder Ricky Soo before the start of event.

Catherine lost out to Ricky in a personal bet after Ricky managed to complete 16 out of 15 runs he promised to do in a month in September. The “punishment” for whoever lost in the bet was to perform a “talent show” in one of the events.

As Catherine chose to sing a Chinese song, the performance was done in this Chinese-speaking event. It was fun to listen to Catherine in her maiden singing performance on “stage”, using banana as make-shift as her microphone!

Everyone listened attentively to Johnson

Everyone listened attentively to Johnson

The event proper OpenSchool.MY | 人的经验结构 (meaning the structure of human experience) was held in a restaurant in Bangsar on 23rd October 2014. The main speaker, Johnson Liang who has done a few rounds of sharing with us previously, shared again this time on the structure of human experience.

As usual, Johnson gave his usual superb sharing based on his knowledge and training on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). He also had us do some exercise in pairs to put theories to practice and experience what he shared.

As usual, the participants were divided into group for discussion and presentation. Each group discussed a scenario and sent a representative to share their findings, ideas and solutions to the case.

After the presentations by 4 groups, Johnson came in again to give feedback and comments on the points presented. May Seow was chosen by the whole group as the best presenter of the evening.

So it was an entertaining show by Catherine at the start, insightful sharing by Johnson on human experience, interactive discussion by the participants and opportunities to present by all groups. This was how this OpenSchool.MY session worked.

OpenSchool.MY | 人的经验结构 – Photo album

Projecting Powerful Presentation in OpenSchool.MY

What makes a quality presentation that leaves a lasting impact to the any audience? What came to your mind instantly? Is it just about content & objectives? If you think purely that, then think again.

Shinyi Tai from Three V-Admin Solutions was the main speaker in the 10th group learning session OpenSchool.MY | Projecting Powerful Presentation organized by OpenSchool.MY on 18th October 2014.

Starting out as a secretary, she accumulated much corporate experiences and worked her way up to be personal and executive assistant to business owner and decision makers. Later she became a business owner herself by running a successful education franchise.

Certainly, Shinyi has witnessed a lot of successful presentations by decision makers and trained herself to be one good presenter too. In her initial half-hour session, she presented her points on how to project powerful presentation to the audience sitting around a long table in a local restaurant.

Shinyi Tai sharing about projecting powerful presentation

Shinyi Tai sharing about projecting powerful presentation

Instead of using PowerPoint slides, Shinyi made use of paper slides and that made the presentation even more lively and memorable. Then she broke the audience into 4 groups, and asked each group to decide on an upcoming event, and brainstorm how best to present the event in a talk or roadshow.

The groups decided on their events and strategized on how to best frame and present about the events to prospective audience. Each group then spoke the crowd their plan. It was interesting to learn about their events and their strategies to promote and present about the events.

As usual, a voting was carried out to choose the best group presenter. Andre Quah was chosen to be the best presenter in the session. His group discussed a talk on health care and they have successfully attracted the crowd’s attention on the talk.

The OpenSchool.MY session was the first of three events affiliated with Pitch ‘n’ Win on the same day. Having learned about presentation, now the event participants went on to attend the second session at the same place – an experience sharing and talk by seasoned entrepreneur.

OpenSchool.MY | Projecting Powerful Presentation – Photo album

Power In Your Handshake by Jonathan Gan

In business, we initiate most of our meetings with a handshake and conduct business presentations with gestures. Needless to say, a lot of power lies in our hands.

After sharing his knowledge in body language in one previous event, business reporter Jonathan Gan came back to share more specifically on various kinds of handshakes, this time as the 9th event under the banner of OpenSchool.MY.

This event called OpenSchool.MY | Power in Your Handshake was organized on 4th October 2014 in AMPM Cafe, a new venue located in USJ21. The host Shinyi Tai has kindly arranged with his friend and the cafe owner for us to use the cozy space.

Shinyi started the session by introducing the event and the speaker Jonathan. Then Jonathan started his sharing first by sharing everyone’s hand. The handshaking proved to be experiential learning for all of us as he later explained what it meant by each handshake!

Jonathan then went on to detail the what, how and why of various handshakes. Trained in psychology and having a special interest in body language, he gave very lively sharing and demonstration, having a lot of interactions with and bring much laughter to the participants.

Based on the book The Definitive Book on Body Language which he also used in previous event, and also his own experiences dealing with various business people and interviewees in his work, Jonathan has successfully delivered a very fruitful and enjoyable sharing on this niche topic on handshakes.

Jonathan Gan demonstrated handshakes with host Shinyi Tai

Jonathan Gan demonstrated handshakes with host Shinyi Tai

Facilitated by first-time host Shinyi, we enjoyed a lot of interactions and laughter among the participants, despite a small turnout of just 7 of us in the event. There was no group discussion and presentation as in previous OpenSchool.MY sessions. But we did discuss many related issues and all of us spoke up to present our views.

Each one of us also introduced ourselves and what we do, together with feedback on the session. After the session has ended, some of us still stayed back to chat and find out more about NightSchool.Asia business venture by Steason Tee, one of our participants of the day.

OpenSchool.MY | Power In Your Handshake