In the age of high-definition screens and crystal-clear sound, televisions are multiplying, shaping themselves to suit the personalized tastes of their viewers.

A small group of Indonesians, who were having their pre-dawn meal in a fast food restaurant in downtown Seoul, South Korea, was quiet until one of their friends showed up with a new hat.

One of them quickly commented on how his friend looked like Pak Tino Sidin in the classic cap. Tino was a painting and drawing guru, who hosted a program called Gemar Menggambar (Fond of Drawing) that was aired by state broadcaster Television of Republic Indonesia (TVRI) in the 1980s.

“I remember Pak Tino always said ‘good’ to any kind of drawing. Television programs nowadays barely feature such a strong figure,” said Andi Soesmono, a ministry official who was among the group.

Soon, the group was involved in warm conversation, digging through their memories to recall other old programs, including the soundtracks and theme songs that accompanied the programs.

People who were born before the 1990s mostly have a strong collection of memories about TVRI. Some of the programs included puppet show series Si Unyil, quiz show Berpacu Dalam Melodi (Racing in Melody) and music program Aneka Ria Safari.

In the old days, viewers were quite happy just to have TVRI — monochromatic in its first years — watching everything it put on air. Established in 1962 to welcome the Asian Games in Jakarta, the state broadcaster only had state radio RRI as its competitor, which more or less offered similar music and news programming. Everything seemed memorable and easy to remember because there were not many options to choose from.

Today, people flock to 3D theaters to see movie characters leap off the screen. Laptops and netbooks are already too bulky compared to tablets. You put your PC at home, station your laptop at the office and travel with a tablet. There is a specific digital means for every occasion, for every person.

These days, people don’t really submit to centralized entertainment. Everybody wants an alternative.

Pay TV options have made such alternatives possible. Fathers, who watch news and sports, have different favorites than their children, who prefer Cartoon Network. Teenagers may only want music channels.

Similar trends are inevitable for free-to-air TV. After the end of TVRI’s monopoly, the first privately run television, Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI) was born on Aug. 24, 1989, while Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV) was inaugurated on the same date a year later.

With 47 transmission stations reaching 240 cities, SCTV claims to have 175 million potential viewers. Meanwhile, RCTI claims its 48 transmission stations reach some 190.4 million viewers in 478 cities.

To date, there are 10 televisions with nationwide coverage with headquarters in Jakarta.

As time has gone on, the government has made it possible for regions to run their own, localized private televisions. The window opportunity grows even wider with the on-going transition to digital technology.

By going digital, a broadcasting agency can send data more efficiently on a slimmer bandwidth, which means many more stations can fit on the airwaves.

Despite the rosy picture, a long road awaits players in the television industry. Broadcasting networks, national and local, are now engaged in a heated debate over how to run the switchover plan.

National and established networks fear the switch from analog to digital will cost them viewers, since analog TV sets will need to be retrofitted with decoders to view regular programming — something that may be difficult for poorer households. Middle-income families may opt for cable, as the service is potentially more attractive than buying a decoder box only to have local channels.

Established broadcasters argue the loss of viewers will impact their advertising slots.

The Nielsen Company recorded that advertisement budgets for TV accounted for over 60 percent of total advertisement spending, which reached Rp 60 trillion (US$6.3 billion) in 2011. Newspapers trailed in second position with 34 percent, while magazines came in third with 3 percent.

“Those who have received information from the analog system should not stop receiving the information when we move to the digital system,” SCTV corporate secretary Hardijanto Soeroso said.

Driantama, the corporate secretary of RCTI, said the challenge with new digital technology would be to provide great lighting and audio in their programs to attract audiences.

“The system gives us a chance to develop our programs. People will easily switch to other channels if they do not like one,” he said.

Local television stations face tougher issues.

The government’s new regime of digital TV would require them to pay expensive rents for broadcast frequencies at a time when they are struggling to survive with limited infrastructure and human resources, and a dwindling number of viewers as audiences increasingly opt to watch programs on the more established national networks.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/26/for-your-entertainment.html

News from the Jakarta Post

Tapscott and William’s Macrowikinomics (2010) discusses a mind-boggling topic entitled “Creating Public Value: Government as a Platform for Social Achievement” in chapter 14. The topic is definitely in line with the ultimate aim of Indonesia’s bureaucratic reform: Creating clean government that provides excellent services to its people, with creating public value a major theme

In some ways, bureaucratic reform has been mistakenly perceived by some as a generous government initiative to provide additional income to civil servants through what is called a performance bonus. This perception has sparked negative views among civil servants themselves as the bonus is not directly linked to performance but rather to punctuality, or clocking in and out of the office, which is far from the aim of provide excellent services to create public value.

We must think back the long-term vision to achieve world class government by 2025 and evaluate what we have done so far, ensuring the actions taken are heading in that direction. The major issues in bureaucratic reform have long been identified and they revolve around two categories: systems such as structures, processes, and procedures; and people. Both are important as no change happens without them.

There is no way of implementing a new system without providing adequate skills, knowledge and attitudes to the people who will carry out the new system. There will be no fundamental change if we focus only on attitudes, without changing processes or procedures.

In any change initiative, two things emerge. The first is comprised new processes, new procedures, new structures, new facilities and the like, which require new skills to perform. The second and most important is the attitude of the people who perform the new tasks. Building new attitudes is much more important than new skills. People with new attitudes will behave openly to new ideas and exhibit strong will in delivering the best they can.

Focusing too much on building new skills and capabilities — put aside the attitude building — will foster mediocrity. Why? People with the right attitudes will act all-out as they know why they do what they do, as the vision in their minds is very clear. Government agencies must first focus their efforts on building new attitudes as a critical component of their reform agenda.

The next question is what attitudes? It must link somehow with the ultimate aim of reform where clean government basically requires people with integrity. To provide excellent services to the public, proficient civil servants are required. So, these two attitudes — integrity and proficiency — are very critical to making bureaucratic reform materialize.

The second attitude has a direct link to skills development, as being proficient means being skillful. There are soft components of “being proficient” that have something to do with attitudes, for example responding promptly to requests from the public or citizens over the phone or through direct interaction, acknowledging citizens who come to the office, treating citizens politely and the like. These attitudes have little to do with proficiency but are critical to providing an excellent service.

Max Weber, the earliest proponent of bureaucracy, said the main elements of bureaucracy were hierarchy, the division of labor, a set of standard operating procedures and impersonal relationships. Knowing this, it is imperative to start reform by focusing on some of these elements, such as changing hierarchy through massive organizational restructuring.

Executed properly, this will serve as high leverage of reform as the public will see that the agency is seriously taking charge of change to improve its services to the public. However, this exercise is painful and it typically creates resistance from people in the agency. Much preparatory work must be carried out carefully, crafted by the top leader of the agency, addressing the concerns and expectations of those impacted and how the agency will treat them.

There are other, simple things that can be implemented without major investments in time and money but that can still generate a significant public impact. The easiest thing is to change the mode of interaction with the public.

Let’s take a simple example of providing identity cards to the public at local government through to village leader level. The process can start by prompting citizens with ID cards about to expire one month in advance so that they are reminded. With the advance of telecommunication technology this can be easily done through a short message service (SMS) using a mobile phone. This also can be done by local police using driving licenses. There is no reason for not being able to do it as they know when the ID cards or driving licenses are about to expire.

Other simple things include building punctuality in delivering promises to citizens as well as conducting internal meetings, releasing special car park spaces usually allotted to Echelon 1 staff to guests/citizens, reporting the personal assets of civil servants, halting the use of office facilities (cars, office space, etc.) for personal use, stopping the receipt of gratuities when visiting local governments and the like.

All these simple things do not require major efforts, but they do require strong will, especially from those in top positions, to set good examples for others to follow. Remember, our culture tends to look at what the people at the top are doing before people are ready to follow.

Having had the right attitudes and implemented simple things, there is then a need to standardize the practice so that the outputs and outcomes can be precisely predicted through the use of information technology.

One may question the huge investment in the deployment of IT. But hold on. If local governments such as Surabaya or Pekalongan can make it happen, then why not the central government at ministry level?

Let’s learn from Vivek Kundra — the federal chief information officer in the District of Columbia, US. Where most governments build mainframes and buy expensive software, Kundra is encouraging federal agencies to use free Google services and open-source wikis for everything from word processing to performance measurement to service improvement. He calls it the government cloud, but think “app store for government” — a place where employees can access a vast ecosystem of secure applications and data sets for doing their jobs.
(Macrowikinomics, p. 259).

The Pekalongan mayor said clearly that during his administration he instructed his employees to use open source software so that they were free of any possible legal cases. The message is clear that making the best use of IT does not necessarily correspond to a huge investment in IT infrastructure. Software can be obtained from an open source. The chief reason to use IT is to secure standard, accurate and quick services to the citizens and obviously to eliminate possible bribery — so it creates clean government.

To summarize, all three things: attitude building, making actions with simple things and making the best use of IT are critical to making the reform agenda “fly” and not stay at the planning stage, never being implemented. At the outset, all of these things are deployed with VALUE principle in mind: Vision and Action Lead Us to Excellence.

Vision without action is just a dream, action without vision is just an activity, but when combined, both create sustainable value for the public.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/27/rethinking-indonesia-s-bureaucratic-reform.html

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Zhang Yu claims to have a lot of good friends, but they are not convinced. They joke that Zhang’s “friends” are a number of thumbnail-sized applications installed on her smartphone.

The phone is never out of Zhang’s hands, and she admits to spending more time with apps than with family and friends.

“With the popularity of smartphones and other mobile gadgets, apps – computer software applications designed to help users perform specific tasks via mobile devices – have greatly changed people’s way of life,” said Chen Ziming, vice-president of research and development at app developer Wochacha Information Technology.

For Zhang, apps function as a general assistant. Every morning, she turns to Moji Weather which provides a forecast for the day and helps her decide what to wear.

“It also advises on suitable makeup and the sun-lotion factor most suited to the day’s weather. For example, it says today will be hot and humid, so it’s best for me to use cosmetics designed to prevent dehydration and to apply less foundation cream,” said Zhang, 30, who works for a public relations and social media company.

Out on the roads, she uses Anjia Digital Dog, an app that alerts drivers of upcoming speed cameras, no-parking zones and the areas most often patrolled by police. “That’s a good app. It’s already helped me to avoid lots of parking tickets and speeding fines,” she said with a smile.

Zhang, a music fan, often forgets song titles. She found a solution with Shazam Encore, a song-search app capable of identifying a tune from just a few bars. “I’ve learned tons of new songs with it and won lots of applause from friends at Karaoke bars,” she said.

The app she uses most frequently is called Momo, an instant chat platform that provides users with easy access to other subscribers. It’s similar to text messaging, but far more advanced, and allows devotees to send photos and video footage and identify other user accounts. Subscribers can cyberchat, even if they’ve never met in real life.

“It’s a good way to share moods and emotions and its location service is very strong. I install new apps and delete old ones almost every day. It’s amazing that I can find apps related to almost every aspect of my life through App Store or Google Market. I find they make life more convenient and interesting,” Zhang said.

Changing lives

“I think that right now apps are changing our lives in the same way websites changed the world 10 years ago. Apps are a worldwide revolution and provide people with access to information about companies, restaurants, anything, in a convenient and fun way,” said Evgeny Kosolapov, CEO of I-Free Asia, a division of Russia’s largest mobile Internet company which both develops apps and provides a platform for developers, when he attended the Macworld Asia 2012 conference in Beijing.

“We still have to use computers at home or in the office because of the Internet access, but apps – no matter whether you use them in the city, on the road or on the train – are changing user behavior,” he said.

By the end of June, 388 million people in China were using cellphones to go online and mobile devices are now far and away the most common way for Chinese people to gain access to the Internet, according to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Centre.

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2012, Apple Inc’s CEO Tim Cook revealed that the number of downloads from the company’s App Store has surpassed 30 billion globally so far this year.

Liu Kai, an Apple fan who works at a newspaper in Changchun, capital of Jilin province, said apps are the best and cheapest tool for entertainment.

“I’ve installed many apps, but my favorite is iMovie, a video-making app. Even people without video- or directorial skills can make their own movies. I often use it to edit video I recorded with friends and family members,” Liu said.

“I think apps are a good invention. They allow regular people like me to really feel the development of technology. They also make my life more convenient and interesting than before. It’s really amazing that you can get whatever you want from them,” he said.

Hou Xing, manager of a cultural communications company in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, is also a fan, but he favors apps that aid daily life. “I installed a pocket health checkup on my phone. It tests my eyesight, memory, weight, hearing and heart rate. It’s very convenient and a good reminder for people like me who pay little attention to their health,” he said.

One of Hou’s favorite apps is China Survival Handbook, which supplies updates on food safety. “I just received a reminder that a bakery I often visit has been selling out-of-date bread. I used to buy snacks for my 2-year-old daughter there. Thank goodness it reminded me,” he said.

Hou also often uses weibo, or micro blogs, to access the latest news and to share views on certain topics. “I really like micro blogs. For me they’ve opened a new window to the outside world.”

Negative effects

Despite the convenience, experts warn that apps can also have a negative side. “The mobile Internet can benefit our daily lives. Apps can provide shortcuts in the way we do things and are convenient for dealing with daily affairs,” said Dong Yan, an assistant professor at Renmin University of China’s psychology department.

“But there’s a problem we can’t ignore. Many young people cling to their phones so they can check social networks or text messages every few minutes, and that can interfere with the normal process of working or studying,” she added.

“Communicating or problem-solving via apps is quite different from contacting real people to tackle difficulties. To take an extreme example, say one day your map app fails, and you have to ask a real person for directions. You might not know how to approach a real person to broach the question politely and may end up causing offense. That would be because you’ve communicated lazily via your phone for a long time and have never developed interpersonal skills. When people become absorbed in playing game apps or reading in public spaces, they may easily forget their surroundings and subconsciously become indifferent to other people’s needs.”

It’s a problem that has already occurred to Hou. “The most obvious downside is that they make people lazy and help them find excuses if they don’t want to chat or go out. Many of my friends feel the same way. Apps narrow the distance between people through cyberspace, but can disrupt relationships in the real world,” said Hou.

“I find the recent graduates who work at my company really amusing: When we go out for lunch or dinner, they just stare at their cellphones and rarely speak until the food is put on the table. When the dishes arrive, these people immediately take photos and upload them on micro blogs to share their views,” he said.

“My interest in apps is almost morbid,” said Li Weiwei, 26, a government employee in Wuhai in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region who has tried to break her apps addiction, but failed. “On several occasions, I’ve accidentally left my phone at home and felt nervous and uncomfortable the whole day. Take Sina Weibo (one of China’s most popular micro-blogging websites) for example. I feel the impulse to log on and keep updating even when I go to the restroom. If I don’t, I feel like I’ve been abandoned,” she admitted.

The phenomenon is common among young people, especially students, as smartphones become increasingly affordable.

Gao Han, a student at Renmin University of China has been obsessed with apps since the beginning of 2011, and has more than 70 installed on his smartphone. Like many of his classmates, he uses apps to read books, visit websites, play games and communicate with friends. While appreciating that apps can provide a more-structured existence, Gao admits that the amount of time he spends with friends has fallen since he began using apps regularly. “It’s not the apps’ fault, the problem is people’s lack of self-control,” he said.

Face-to-face contact

Hou recommended a game he often plays with friends when they go out for meals. “We put our mobile phones in a pile and the person whose phone rings first has to pay the bill. And anyone who touches their iPad before the meal is finished has to share the bill. It’s a really good way of avoiding the embarrassment caused when people sit together holding their phones and not talking,” he explained.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/18/life-theres-app.html

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Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group will kick off operations in Indonesia in December this year, aiming to produce 3 million cell phones in the initial phase, top government officials said recently.

Industry Minister MS Hidayat said the company’s first production facility in Indonesia would be ready in October, located in the Modern Cikande Industrial Estate in Cikande, Serang, Banten.

The industrial estate, 68 kilometers from Jakarta, has a good access to the country’s main port Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta and Soekarna-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng, Tangerang, Banten.

The initial phase of Foxconn investment in Indonesia will absorb hundreds of million of dollars from the total investment, amounting of US$10 billion, he added.

“They will break the ground of the second phase in July 2013. The plants will be located in an area of 400 hectares,” said Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan, who held talks with Hon Hai founder and Foxconn CEO Terry Gou over the planned investment.

Gita, who recently relinquished his post as Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) chairman said that Foxconn would allocate the largest portion of its output to the domestic market, with a smaller portion for exports.

According to Gita, Foxconn will manufacture 10 million mobile phones and other electronics items, including smart televisions and computer tablets, when the second phase of its project is completed in the next two years.

The location of the next phase of investment has not been determined, but for the long term, the firm is open to investing in all six economic corridors (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali–Nusa Tenggara and Papua–Maluku ) in the government’s Master Plan for the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development (MP3EI), particularly Sumatra and Kalimantan.

The government requests Foxconn produce medium-end mobile phones and smart phones with prices around $100 per unit to tap the country’s mobile phone market where demand is driven by the affluent middle class.

At present, Indonesia, home to 240 million people, relies heavily on imported components and finished electronics products with much of the production process stopping at mere assembly.

Around 95 percent of 45 million new mobile phones in the country each year are imported, with a value of more than $5 billion, according to an Industry Ministry estimate.

Foxconn is said to have canvassed local electronics manufacturers, including PT Hartono Istana Teknologi, a major manufacturer of consumer electronics products under the Polytron brand; state-owned cellular network developer PT Industri Telekomunikasi Indonesia (INTI); and PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), Indonesia’s largest telecommunication provider, for possible cooperation.

Foxconn, a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Ltd., is the world’s largest electronics manufacturer. The company supplies about 40 percent of worldwide electronics output, according to The New York Times estimates.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/23/ministers-say-foxconn-begin-operations-dec.html

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Which major developing country has the highest level of consumer confidence? Answer: Indonesia, at 145. Which major developed country has the highest level of consumer confidence? Answer: Australia, at 114. Which major developing economy has the steadiest GDP forecast? Answer: Indonesia, at 6 percent. Which major developed country has the steadiest GDP forecast? Answer: Australia, at 3 percent.

They are two peaceful neighbors who could do so much more for each other. Two countries blessed with much of nature’s bounty, in different stages of economic progress. Considering the potential, they do very little. They don’t rank in each other’s list of Top 10 trading partners. That sobering truth defies logic. Both countries and their citizens are conscious of each other. But the awareness translates into very different perceptions of each other, most of which are based on suspicion, not fact. Ignorance often translates to fear. Fear makes it difficult to do business. That is how I see it, even though it may not be politically correct to say it so plainly. Armed with research data from both countries continuously, often in conversation with businessmen on both sides of the ditch that divides the two countries, I believe ignorance lies at the heart of the problem that limits RI-AUS bilateral trade.

There have been more than 100 ministerial visits between the two countries in the last five years. Every time, the right speeches are made, more agreements are signed. From an Australian perspective, the conversation all too often revolves around how many more holes in the ground Australian miners can dig in Indonesia, how much more cattle can be exported, how many more “boats can be turned around”, how many more terrorist cells can be uprooted. All very important conversations, undoubtedly. But they are the same conversations between the same small group of people on both sides, year after year. Is that all these two neighbors can do with each other, for each other?

At a time when traditional businesses are slowing down around the world, the consumer economy in both the neighboring countries deserves greater attention. Using exactly the same yardstick in both countries, we know that consumers are inclined to favor products manufactured in the home country. But as a preferred “country of manufacture”, Australia ranks No.3 following closely after Japan and China. Almost 30 percent of Indonesians are “more likely to buy products” made in Australia. Where are the Australian products and services taking advantage of the goodwill? Only in recent years have two Australian banks shown real interest in this large developing country. Everywhere you look, the opportunities for Australian business to invest in Indonesia are virtually unlimited. From infrastructure development to healthcare, education to agriculture, transport to logistics, financial services to e-commerce, Indonesia could use more of just about everything. Of all the big populations, it is home to the fastest-growing middle-class in the world. Investments have been pouring in, but not much interest from Australia in new, non-traditional areas.

Not nearly enough. BKPM and KADIN would do well to think outside the box. There is very little to sell to the same old boys, they’ve known what’s in store for decades. Till such time small and medium-sized businesses in both countries forge stronger people-to-people ties, fear and suspicion will keep these culturally neighbors apart.

Other than natural resources, most Indonesian businesses have struggled to find a foothold in Australia. The high cost of entry into the very competitive environment of the Australian marketplace is an obvious hurdle. The fact that Indonesia ranks No.17 in the list of preferred country of manufacture, doesn’t make it easy for Indonesian products to win Australian customers. Indomie is on the shelf in most supermarkets, but there’s a limit to how many packs of instant noodles are going to make it home. New ways need to be considered. For example, the same supermarket chains are steadily expanding their range of “house brand” products. Many international brands are now manufactured in Indonesia for the Asia Pacific market, proof of consistent quality. Indonesian companies manufacturing the wide array of such consumer products would do well to start conversations with Australian retailers to produce “house brand” products, from household detergents to packaged foods. Just one example of a new conversation made possible by the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand free trade agreement that came into effect earlier this year.

These conclusions are based on Roy Morgan Single Source, the country’s largest syndicated survey. More than 26,000 respondents are interviewed every year, week after week. The data is projected to reflect 87 percent of the population 14 years of age and over.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/08/07/analysis-ignorance-limiting-ri-australia-trade-ties.html

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