The.Buy.West.Mentality

Some of my readers had asked why I had removed my previous posts as they believe there were some truths in those posts and I have my rights to express my opinions. Well, I have re-read those posts and wanted to rephrase them in a different manner. Instead of giving the impression that they are whining posts, I would like to approach it in a more social and business related perspective to illustrate that things like that do happen.

I believed the topics deserve their own full post instead of mixing with the other topics that could lead to some misunderstandings.

Buy-West Does Exist

The first impression I have about most local people is that they have the Buy-West mentality. (Good, if you are local and don't have that mentality). This mentality is depriving a lot of local products and companies from being successful. My personal experiences and the past experiences with some of my ex-companies gave me this impression.

One of my ex-company had to establish itself in Canada and sell back to Malaysia in order to survive. Another company was in a dire state where they could not secure enough business locally to sustain and their software was not well-accepted here. However, the company turned around when they establish a branch in the United States and they make their successful headlines in the local newspapers. (Before that, the headlines was only about how gloomy the situation was with the company.) If only those companies were given the opportunity locally, they would have been great local companies.

As for my personal experiences, it was with my framework - Paladin. Yes, you may say it is no big deal but it is really a learning vehicle for me both technically and business wise. When I first started to conceptualize and produced my first prototype, I was persuaded by a friend to release it to the public. After some thought, I made it available on the GotDotNet workspace.

I really had a hard time getting the local people to try it. I posted it in forums but the response was too tepid. Then I started a one-on-one approach (more like direct hard-selling actually) to convince some friends and colleagues to beta-test it out. I showed demonstrations and highlighted the benefits but their interests lasted only as long to entertain me. The common answers I usually get is "I'm busy", "I don't have time" and the best is, "I'll download it and look at it later". As time went on, that became a typical answer and I became frustrated.

I felt like I was not given a chance. Not even my friends or colleagues gave a helping hand. (For those who did, I thank you). Sometimes, I get strange questions from people who ask me questions that my framework had solved. It clearly shows that they never look at it.

Things began to change when the Singaporeans heard about my work and started to evangelize it. They began with providing a complete section in their forums for discussing the framework (now why the local forums never think of that?) Last month, they featured it in their pamphlet during the SDA.NET conference in Singapore. Somehow, I think they believe more in my work than I sometimes do. (They do blast me for my lack of confidence at times). They are very encouraging and now, they are offering space to host the codes to my framework.

Most of the adoption of my framework now comes from Singapore. I admit there were some success and some failures but I'm glad there were opportunities. My work is also showing some light now in Sri Lanka and South Africa (Boy, I would like to see the South Africa implementation go live!). That really made me feel hopeful again.

Compared to what I get locally, this is really awesome. I'm quite disappointed actually with the Malaysian mentality of perceiving foreign products to be more superior. That's no wonder why many had gain success outside the country and gain recognition after that. Just look at Jimmy Choo and Michelle Yeoh.

Anyway, I guessed this is the playing field and one have to adjust to it if one wants to be successful.