You look out of your window and see the thick haze covering the sun. Instinctively, your brain and heart tell you the PSI level should be very high.

You switched on the television and the free-to-air screen indicates the 24 hours level PSI level is at 60, at the moderate range.  The source being Singapore National Environment Agency (NEA) 24 hours PSI reading.

"This can't be right!" you feel as you see the haze reducing your visibility and the burnt smell starts to be fill your nose.

You google "air quality singapore and the first link you see is the link to aqicn.org and you click on it.

aqicn.org comes up first in Google search

The "air quality" at the website shows the air quality in your area to be entering the Unhealthy range of 109.

"NEA's 60 vs Aqicn's 109 - which is real?" your minds questions the authenticity of both readings. You take another look at the thicker haze. Your perception becomes your reality, which leads you  to conclude with Aqicn's readings and dismiss NEA's reading.

NEA tries to clear the air, pun intended, about the readings and offers one of their senior scientific officer to the media to clarify the differences between the two readings.

In the interview, the scientific offered cold hard facts to prove the accuracy of NEA's readings.

"She explained that using the 1-hour PM2.5 readings may not be meaningful because “scientific findings (on the effects of particulate matter on a person’s health) are based on 24-hour exposure to PM2.5”.

“There are very limited findings on one-hour exposure to PM2.5,” she added.

Source: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nea-addresses-questions-over-veracity-psi-alternative-air-quality-readings-pop-online

You mind starts to wonder, "So NEA is telling me that if I stand outdoors and breath in the hazed air at 109 for one hour, there is no effect on my body because there are limited findings on one-hour exposure to PM2.5?"

As you read the article, another confusing statements comes to play.

“The Air Quality Index (AQI) by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advises that you’re supposed to use the average 24-hour PM2.5 readings (to measure air quality). But (aqicn.org) is using NEA’s 1-hour PM2.5 (to measure air quality), which is not accurate.”

Source: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/nea-addresses-questions-over-veracity-psi-alternative-air-quality-readings-pop-online

Aqicn.org is sourcing its data from NEA's 1-hour reading and you say the data from NEA is not accurate?

In trying to prove that there is no wrong in NEA's readings, the human touch to the article was just like the facts, hard and cold.

Not once in the interview did the interviewee took any opportunity to highlight what precautions readers can take to prevent or reduce breathing complexities during this period of haze. The scientific officer should have just added a statement like "Please wear a N95 mask to reduce breathing in particles for individuals with breathing difficulties," or "Reduce outdoor activities during this period".

Or the interviewee should have replied with "We are continuing our research on one-hour exposure to PM2.5 articles to improve the accuracy of both one-hour and 24-hours readings.

Facts are facts, but they are hard and cold. Insisting you are right, with facts, just alienates the audience you are trying to convince.

I get asked a bit on LinkedIn on tips of building a partner/channel community in Southeast Asia.

From my experience, there isn't any magic to building one, and is more a combination of science and art which requires more relationship building than selling itself.

Why go through partners when the Internet allows one to reach directly to the customer? The main reason is that these partners have developed a relationship with the customer where the customer will just buy from one partners.

The direct method means the customers will have to work with many vendors which can be hassle. Thus the customer might rather appoint just one partner to deal with all the vendors.

The science of partner sales is in the numbers. Most partners earn from the margin or discount they get from the vendor and they very from company to company. Some margins can be huge while others can be comparatively smaller.

When the margin is small, the alternative for the partner is to earn on Professional Services or known as PS in the tech industry.  The PS includes installation of the system and maintenance of the system.

Most vendors would like their partners to perform the PS to the customers as it means the vendors require less resource while the partners earn from the PS. The customer, having already a close relationship with the partner, will further trust the partner in the maintenance and upkeep of the system.

It is, therefore, the responsibility of the vendor to prepare the partner to sell and provide PS through training. The smaller vendors would often provide this training for free, while the bigger players will charge the partner a fee to attend the training.

As such, the more money the vendor can help the partner make, the more the partner would want to sell your product.

In rare occurrence, the margin may not be the deciding factor and the partner may just want to associate themselves with the brand because it brings them other advantages.

The science is about the money equation, so what about the art?

The art is in the building the relationship with the partner which is sometimes hard to define.

The old school relationship building is going for drinks with the partner. However, today's building relationship could be as simple as being there for your partners.

For example, if your partner ask you a question, you should try to respond to it immediately or at least within a 3 hour time period.

If you do not have the answer and require some time to look for it, respond to acknowledge that you received the message and is will respond when you get the answer.

It could also be working closely with your partner to do some sort of marketing event to the partners' customers to get them interested in purchasing your solution.

Or it could be a simple act of ensuring that your partner is well taken care off during the vendor's offsite event.

There is no magic to building a successful partner/channel sales, but hard work is required to make it a successful one, regardless of your size as a vendor.

 Dear Audrey Chong,

From your travel post at Youth.sg Facebook Page, I wonder if you ever thought how lucky you are for being able to travel to a foreign country via airplane, sans the hassle of organising the travel.

I agree with you that organising the trip can be a hassle and a pain, but this is nowhere compared to what you need to do when you are at work doing almost something similar.

You wrote, "I faced all sorts of problems, from convincing worried parents and gathering enough money to finding friends who will not bail out before the trip." You shouldn't look at this as a negative but a prelude to what you can expect when you start working.

When you start working, you might want to start on a project. You will need approval, not just from your direct superior, but from a team from upper management. You would need to source budget and get approval. Trust me, convincing them could be as painful, if not more, as trying to convince your parents.

If you plan to be the entrepreneur, the pain can be 10x as worst to get investors, customers and even employees.

"In a country like Japan, where a bus that comes at 5.01pm is gone by 5.02pm, being just a minute late would require us to change a whole day of plans," you wrote.

I wondered what stopped you from reaching the bus stop at 4.45pm to be waiting for the bus instead. If you had to attend an interview at 5.00pm, would you want to be arriving at 5.01pm at the office's lobby?

Speaking of how lucky you are to be able to travel, I met people who have not traveled outside of their country, let alone sitting an aeroplane. Even with budget airlines roaming the sky, travel to them is a luxury they can ill afford to spend whatever money they have.

As you wrote, "But the most challenging thing for a non-early riser like me was being on-time", it reminded me of people I have met have stayed in inner lands and have never seen the beach their entire life.

Though a travel to the nearest shoreline required to wake up earlier than their usual rooster's crow and at least a day's travel, you should have seen their eyes brighten when hear the waves hit the shore and their feet touch the white sandy beach for the first time.

Never did I hear any complains about waking early or enduring a 24 hour bus ride both ways.

You shared Google Maps messed up your trip and how you had to share Wifi leading to arguments. You do know that there was a time when a map was a big piece of paper with no in-built GPS, you had to make will guesses to where you are and to find out which path to take.

Even if you get lost, enjoy getting lost. Maybe you will find something new that is off the beaten track?

Or ask locals for directions. If there is a language barrier, use hand gestures to ask for directions.

The worst case scenario is that you might have to take a cab to the nearest train station.

The whole point of travel is to experience something new. You paid for a trip to leave Singapore so as you can experience something different from Singapore. Why you pay for something, spend the whole time planning and lots of cash, only to expect your destination to be similar to Singapore?

I was giving a chance to spend time in Koh Samui, one of the other resort islands of Thailand, for about six months. It was an opportunity to be an entrepreneur in the resort holiday industry. I took it and roughed it out alone.

I once had to spend weeks showering in a small wooden hut and you could see all kind of creepy crawlers in the corner of the hut. It was that or no shower for an entire week.

From the experience, I found a coral reef near where I stayed where even the locals had no idea existed. I visited mainland Southern Thailand where the locals admitted this was the first time they met a Singaporean. I attended a local wedding and live to tell the difference between a Singapore and a local Thai wedding dinner.

My current job requires me to travel within Southeast Asia and Europe itself. The trips have opened my eyes to many different cultures and appreciative of what we have or do not have in Singapore.

Yes, the travelling can be tiring, but it is definitely worth it as I get to meet people and exchange views and ideas.

As they say, "it is about the journey, not the destination". Yes, the journey to your destination maybe tough, but it is through the experience that makes you a better person.

Your Sincerely,

Aaron, Not Koch, Koh

I noticed a very interesting psychological real life experiment at Ikea Tampines the other day. It was a classic example of follow the leader, to feel safe, at any cost.

There are three ice cream machine at Ikea Tampines. At that machine, one machine at the left end was not working. The other two was working fine.

Interestingly, there was a long queue at the other extreme right machine waiting to put their cones in the ice cream machine for the delicious soya ice cream.

The middle machine, though it was working fine, had no queue. No one was willing to risk their $0.50 ice cream cone on the middle machine because they was no one using it.

It was until a Ikea staff came about to tell the rest of the queue that the middle machine was working, people started to filter to it.

From the incident above, it shows that we, as a Singapore culture, how much we liked to queue. If there is a queue at one machine and there is none at the other, the machine without the queue is presumed to be not working.

I have also notice that if there two swinging doors and if only is opened, most will rather wait to go through this single door instead of opening the other door to walk through.

We need to take the initiative to trust ourselves to make the next move and not just follow the crowd.

Somewhere out there in the high glass castle of Krisflyer, a social media content manager is giving himself/herself a pat on the back for the "Humans of Krisflyer" campaign.

Obviously, this social media content manager hijacked the "Humans of New York" social media project, a project portraying the human spirit through the lens and conversation with everyday New Yorkers, exhibiting their life struggles and challenges to make it through the day.

"Humans of Krisflyer" is an extremely weak attempt to market Krisflyer points as millennium insertion into the Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

For the management, who approved such a campaign, either highlights their lack of understanding of this social media sensation or are so far attached from the realities of the ground.

The challenge of chalking up miles is nowhere as inspiring as the stories you will read at the Humans of New York or even Humans of Singapore page.

I am even surprised that the three interviewees agreed to accomplices in the hijack of "Humans of.." series, with one editor boasting the interview by publishing the full interview on company's website.

What makes the "Humans of Krisflyer" so distasteful is that it ignores the original goals but is supported and paid to make Krisflyer points a human struggle.