BizBuzz

Research director at Thailand Development Research Institute, Deunden Nikomborirak, has found WikiLeaks, a whistle-blowing non-profit website, a reliable source of information on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. She had to bank on that website before the official documents were released later by the US authorities.

“To come up with this initial assessment [on the TPP impact on Thailand], I had to depend on WikiLeaks that had the documents on some sectors, especially on IP (intellectual property,”

“Now that the official documents have been released, I don’t have the time to go through all of its 1,000 pages. Anyway, I found WikiLeaks quite accurate,” the researcher told the “Thailand Focus” conference last week.

IT veteran bans gadgets

Although Scott Brown, vice president of the Enterprise Segment in Asia Pacific and Japan at Cisco, is an IT veteran, he has a family rule: Every family member must “disconnect” all their electronics gadgets when they are on a family trip. Well, the only exception is himself, as Scott admits he cannot afford the risk of missing any urgent task.

A father of four, Brown recently returned from a family trip to Turkey and Dubai. Bangkok was a previous destination for his family where they enjoyed taking a bicycle tour together in a quiet route of the busy capital.

“Anywhere, we go, we will have our food, culture and biking tours,” he said.

The American executive currently lives with his family in Singapore where Cisco has its regional headquarters.

Be smart with coaching

Voraparn Eua-arporn or “Coach Dr. Coco” believes her latest book, “Can Be Smart with Coaching Process” (Mai Keng…Kor Keng Dai), is a must-read.

“Because coaching is mainstream popular nowadays,” she said.

Coaching is the science and art that each person has to apply by himself or herself to suit each circumstance, says Voraparn. Coaching can be deployed for themselves or for colleagues in the workplace, and your loved ones, for daily life in the office and the family.

Her book launch was held last week at a SE-Education bookstore. Panellists of Creating Coaching Culture also joined in the event, including Panu Satienpoch, chief people and information technology officer at Tipco Foods, and Sochat Ngamnurak, a financial coach or “Coach So Cool”.

Contributed by Pichaya Changsorn