Finally Report

REPORT TIME!

Its time to get down to writing. Actually to complete the writing... We're basically following the format that Kun rong used in his previous FYP. It seems to fit our needs. We just have to change things here and there but its mostly there.

We're splitting to work up and then later compiling it all so. I think our advisor was not so subtly hinting that someone should be doing the proof reading, something about icing and cakes and reports... Don't remember exactly what, but here's a picture of what i think he was talking about...

So anyways it looks like more sleepless nights working on the report like i did last time. Not that any of us will have much sleep to begin with...

ZZZzzzzz.....

Cat-a-log

The catalog seems mostly done now.

Minor changes required at most.

I'm pretty happy about how this has all turned out.

The quality of the information that one can provide on the wiki is limited only by the information you can obtain.

It has a basic sorting function, we can create as many sorting criteria as we need and as long as the pages are properly formatted, the sorting works like a charm. As of now, the only real sorting function that's working is the SIRD grades. Mostly because we don't have much information on the other companies to properly sort them.

For the one company that we have managed to complete, I have to say I rather like the way it turned out. From my point at least, the information seems to flow well and the formatting of page looks good. Hopefully one day all the pages will be filled like that or better. Its going to be up to the future teams to do this. Which makes me quite proud to have a project that will potentially continue on for a number of years as well as one day be put to use.

Not sure if I've come to like it because i had to do it. But I really see this taking off. Information on security companies is oh so limited... I can see this at the very least helping future FYP teams who are tasked with security based FYP topics like we were.

I just hope others are as enthusiastic about this as I am.

7-Eleven! (Because Cheers stopped sponsoring this blog. Nah, just kidding.)

Interview with a Vampire (oknonotreallyavampiresuemealready)

Headed over to the HQ of Event Security Specialists Pte Ltd. I was somewhat apprehensive about the quality of the information that we would get this time around, considering the fact that my previous interview(during my previous FYP) with one of their staff was less than satisfactory...

But it seemed to have turned out better this time. We got a lot more useful information, part of the reason i believe is that this time round we had a clearer idea of what we wanted to do and what we required from them as well as what would go into the catalog.

We managed to get a better understanding of the services provided and more detailed information. Such as how they provided security for regional events. Their strengths and expertise in the various areas of event security.

I think one of the more useful insights that we gain was to do with the costing of security. The cost per man-hour is just one part of the entire equation. Some security companies may actually have a number of hidden costs that are only made known after the event. Some companies may charge for things like a customized SOP for each event and apparently those things can cost $50k?
Which means... If we were to follow our original plan of including the pricing of the various agencies, we end up not only being ethically questionable but also potentially way off the mark? Way to go... glad we had this little meeting... thanks ESS...

Phoo!(ph=f, so its supposed to sound more like foooo! for fooo! thats a lot of money!)

What am I Kneeling In?

What am I Kneeling In?

We're done with the calls and more or less confirmed which companies do provide security for events. But as always, something stops it from being easy. In this case its the formating or medium on which we will present our catalog.

As mentioned earlier on, Excel is FAIL. It fails at many things, the most vital being user-friendliness and "presentability". Its not neat its not easy to search. It only really works well as database for our reference. Chances are if you gave anyone this, they'd much rather pick another method, be it GeBIZ or looking through the yellow pages. We need something that potential users would find easy and quick to use yet be comprehensive enough that they can actually get useful information out of it.

We basically have a few other viable options,

A Physical catalog

A Website

A Blog

A Wiki

The following Graphic(s) should adequately explain it. Enjoy!

I hate describing my art. I find it so much more interesting when a picture means a different thing for each person. It makes my art that much more meaningful and valuable. But for the lazy ones here goes.

Essentially, The rest just don't quite cut it*. For one reason or another they've failed to meet the criteria we've set. So it seems we're only left with one contender. A Wiki. That's right, a Wiki.

Its the most capable of the options that we have. I honestly think this will work quite well.

IMPORTANT

I probably haven't mention this before but our project is a work in progress. Right now we're building the scaffolding. It tends to be the ugliest part of any construction work but without it the construction cannot begin. At this point you see little to nothing of the final product, the work is hard yet the results are barely visible but what happens here will affect the final product for better or worse. It is our vision that this catalog be continued by other teams and that they build on what we already have to make it into a comprehensive and reliable resource. The number one reason why we've chosen a wiki is because the work can easily be continued on it. The extent to which it can be modified and expanded is only limited by future teams abilities and resources. It is simple to use so anyone with a moderate level of "know-how" can easily work on it and continue to improve it. It is nothing like a website where once the structure is laid out, it becomes difficult and tedious to change or modify.

The incompleteness is not a flaw, it is the foundation on which the rest of the catalog will be built. It is a foundation that can change and evolve along with what is required of it, yet it will remain solidy in place so that great things may be built on it.

Don't judge a building by the scaffolding on which it was built.

Ring of Fire

Ring! Ring!

Call time!

In our never ending quest to provide event organziers with a comprehensive catalog of security agencies, we first need to... Find out which ones even do Event Security in the first place.

As one would expect, not all companies work on an ad-hoc basis and thus we need to filter out those that do not provide security for events.

Number of issues cropped up here:

• How to call them?

Calling 150+ companies through our handphones is going to be expensive. We could do it from home but then we'd lose a good amount of communication between team members. Thankfully wee leong suggested Media Ring to us. Free calls! All from the comfort of our laptops. So we can work together as a team and start prank callin... I mean doing our field research. Oh but media ring can be quite difficult to use, everytime we used it we needed like 5 updates and only 2 people in the whole of RP could do the updates. Like what?!

• What to ask them?

So besides asking them the main question;"Do you provide security for events?", we should also ask them more questions to make the most use of our call. Wee leong to the rescue again here, he suggested we ask them some of the major events that they have done. We should also try asking for prices.

• What to tell them?

Do we come clean and say we are students doing our final year project? Or do we throw a smoke bomb and say we're from some event company, we're planning our budget and thus we're calling to find out what they charge? Its evil but i like it. No seriously, If we come clean, the quality of our information and the co-operativeness of the security companies is going to be adversely affected. From my past FYP, I basically got the feeling that they aren't too keen on helping us students. So, time to be sneaky, but that brings its own disadvantages as well. Its unlikely that we can follow up, by interviewing the companies... Especially if they know we were the ones that called.

So the first week was Kun Rong and Sok Hong's turn at calling the companies.

Choon hua and I took the next week.

Fun stuff. It was difficult getting started, getting our story right and all. We also had a few hiccups along the way. Someone had difficult controlling their laughter. Totally understandable given the situation, trust me. But as we went along we also got more confident and calls were easier to make. Though a few companies seemed like they were on to us... Were we too obvious?

But we were racing against the time too. We planned our calls between 1pm and 5pm. Just after lunch and clearly within office hours. So that companies would have no excuse not to answer us. Still we got a few hang-ups without even answering, a few wrong numbers, a few no answers.

We finished well within time. We compiled the information and another milestone reached.

To Socks!