Jokowi and Semiotic Theory

Jokowi is jakarta’s governor for period 2012-2017. He was selected by lot of jakarta’s resident because of his campaign way was unique and interested . He also has good reputation when he became Mayor of Surakarta, he was success became the second runner up 2 in best mayor competition which organized by city mayors foundation.

Based on this achievement, Jokowi unintentionally shows he has ability to be a leader and has power to encourage thousand people to choose him as the governor because he worth it. So, what does he do to give more influences? Remember “ Kemeja kotak-kotak “ which is one of his campaign way. Everything about kotak-kotak pattern was different before jokowi labeled the ‘ kemeja kotak-kotak ‘as his campaign way. His shirt was popular by jokowi because jokowi has power to give meaning.

This shirt has meaning and philosophy which “ kotak-kotak “ pattern itself represent the elements such as;  cultural diversity, ethnic, tribe and there are some colours such as: blue, yellow, green, and the most dominant is red which  represent the party who propose jokowi as the party’s representative .

The Jokowi’s supporter buy this shirt as a symbol of  supporting and this shirt becomes popular not only on jakarta, even on other province or city in Indonesia. So the Jokowi team sold to public to collect campaign funds and the people give positive feedback. Now The ‘ kotak-kotak ‘shirt identic with jokowi

So, based on this theory people who have power can control and handle the situation. As same as Jokowi, he has good leadership’s background which make a power to influence people to choose and support him . Then through his sign  “ kemeja kotak-kotakas the signifier Jokowi give the signified , which means people who wear this shirt is Jokowi’s supporter. 

Actually this way was successful in jakarta election. Until one day, I read news about one of the candidate of west java’s election; Reike and Teten also followed jokowi’s campaign way. They use “ kotak-kotak pattern “ as the symbol and identity of the candidate. Probably they (the candidate) believe if they use “kotak-kotak pattern“, it can push up the number of supporter. And even when the campaign, the candidate also invited Jokowi as a JURKAM (Juru Kampanye). This is a fact if rieke and teten use Jokowi's effect as their power to collect support. But the fact is rieke and teten didn’t win the election .

Based on my opinion, actually the kotak-kotak pattern has not power at all , the person who made it actually has power, I meant jokowi. Even though rieke-teten were supported by jokowi, the citizens will choose based on the candidate’s ability, not based on jokowi’s power. From this theory I can learn how powerful person can make something usual and change it to become unusual, even become identity of the person. 

Written on second semester - 2013

Papandayan, Me and Them

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL Journey! 

Sumpah gue ngak pakai lebai tapi I was SUPER EXCITED pas menginjak kan kedua kaki gue di gunung yang terletak di Garut - Jawa Barat ini. Really PROUD of my self karena gue bisa melewati one of my 21Challenges! (Jadi ceritanya gue ada 21list gitu selama umur 21 tahun). I learn a lot from this short journey! Hopefully my sharing will motivate you guys to grab what u want! 

This weekend bertepatan dengan Halloween, where every one are ready for halloween party! Me and 3 others: Silvia, Sisca, Ricky memilih untuk hiking (Ceritanya anak-anak anti mainstream hahahaha) So, we start our journey from Kampung Rambutan sampai di terminal garut! Sesampainya di teriminal, kita disambut oleh dinginnya kota Garut! BEH! ini luar biasa dingin nya, ditambah lagi baju nya kita kayak baju anak-anak ABG mau lari pagi di GBK (pakai legging, kaos, jaket parasut) #salahkostume. Sembari nunggu angkot, kita makan bubur dulu, awalnya kita sharing gitu 1 mangkok bedua (sok sok centil mau diet), EH! ujung-ujungnya nambah jadi 4 mangkok #mabokbubur. Dan ini yang bikin gue suka sama ini kota; semuanya MURAH! bubur ayam hanya dan cuma 5.000/ porsi (TAU NGAK?!? Rasanya melebihi bubur Kamseng + banyak banget daging ayamnya) 

Selesai makan, kita masuk ke angkot yang sebenarnya bukan angkot (ngak tau deh apa namanya). 1 mobil di paksa masuk sekitar 13 orang gitu, can you imagine!? How was the inside of car? Penuh sesak dan rasanya habis ini kita ngesot! Terus kita jalan melewati perumahan warga, di kiri dan kanan kami terlihat sawah yang hijau (maklum anak kota jarang lihat sawah) sampai di sebuah kampung dekat kaki gunung. Kita harus ganti mobil lagi neh, dari angkot ke mobil pick up (kita kayak sapi yang siap di potong). Sampai di kaki gunung, gue sama temen gue melakukan persiapan yaitu; PHOTO-PHOTO (maklum we are asian, dimanapun harus photo) Dan you know, kita mulai jadi bahan tontonan karena keberisikan kita (ya udah lah ya) and our journey begins here!!!!! We're coming 2.600 M!!!! 

Dari kaki gunung neh sampai ke area kawah belerangnya, kita disungguhkan permandangan yang luar biasa! langit biru yang bersih dan terik matahari yang menyegarkan (ngak lebai ya, mataharinya beda sama yang diJakarta!) dan inilah saatnya memanjakan mata sejenak dengan ciptaan Tuhan yang luar biasa. Bener-bener bikin gue semakin exciting! view macam apa yang bakal gue dapet on the top of papandayan. Honestly, gue sih kebanyakan istirahat; heart beat gue kayak lagi konser dag dig dug dengan kecepatan 100km /detik #hiperbola, sangking baru pertama kalinya naik gunung. (Secara gue grow up di daerah pantai, jadi ngak ada fisik buat naik gunung) Tapi gue ngak NYESEL! banyak istirahat, I can enjoy the view and forget everything #padahallagigalau. 

Well, selama gue naik neh, gue perhatikan our guide: Koko selalu say hi atau basa basi ke semua orang, gue binggung dia memang terkenal atau sok SKSD gitu ya. And he does the same things sampai kita turun gunung!!! #tepuktangan. Pas gue lagi jalan neh, ada juga yang bilang permisi-permisi, gue jadi ikut-ikutan bilang permisi tapi kenapa gitu ya? terus gue lihat temen-temen gue juga di permisi-in dari mereka. Ehmm mungkin mereka lelah jadi permisi melulu. TAPI TERNYATA NGAK! mereka sebenarnya mencoba untuk menyapa kita lewat kata permisi, dari pemisi pasti dung kita bales oh iya atau silakan. Dari situ lah the real communication happens! (cie anak komunikasi kumat) kita ngak fokus dengan gadget tapi kita fokus dengan manusia disekitar kita (for information: di atas ngak ada sinyal dan ternyata kita bisa kok hidup tanpa social media!!!! #tepuktangan) dari kata permisi, sebuah pecakapan bisa berkembang menjadi kalimat tanya "dari mana dek?" haiyaaaa #modus. Entah kenapa gue ngerasain gue bener-bener enjoy ngomong sama manusia tanpa harus lewat perantara gadget or social media or whatever lah. 

So, selama dijalan ya kita selalui mencoba untuk berinteraksi dengan kata "permisi" dengan para pendaki sampai akhirnya di camp pun kita bilang permisi dengan penghuninya (ini baru namanya the real halloween). Padasaat kita sampai di spot untuk membangun tenda kita, kita disambut oleh para pendaki lainnya yang lagi masak-masak untuk makan siang. Dan spuriously, kita dapet WELCOME DRINK; segelas teh manis dari tena tetangga. OH MY GOODNESS, pada saat itu juga gue merasa diterima gitu dari mereka karena sebelumnya selama perjalanan kita dilihatin orang dan mungkin di anggap manusia aneh karena naik gunung pakai running shoe dan outfit kayak mau ke lari di GBK. Gue rasa ini moment dan hal yang paling unforgettable yaitu KEKELUARGAAN! kekeluargaan bukan berati harus punya ikatan darah tapi kekeluargaan disini di interpretasikan dalam sebuah ikatan yang kuat antar sesama pendaki, dimana kita harus saling care dan tolong menolong. (bacot banget ne gue) tapi beneran lho, kalau kalian mendaki coba rasakan hal ini, pasti kalian bakal amaze sama moment ini. 

Banyak banget cerita-cerita kita selama perjalanan, here's our SILLY and FUNNY moments yang dilakukan oleh kami manusia gila: 

1. WORK OUT untuk manasin badan 

You know!!!!! di papandayan dinging-nya parah! sangking kedinginan, gue-Silvia-Sysca sit up and ngeplank untuk manasin badan hahahaha, sounds stupid sih tapi it works! at least we feel warmer lah ya. 

2. Mau ke toilet? NGANTRI 1 Jam 

Sayangnya gue terlahir sebagai kaum hawa, kita sih ngak complaint tapi cuma sharing kok, kalau mau ke toilet ngantri 1 jem lah, ini bagus banget buat kita latihan menahan kantong kemih!!! 

3. Makan Kacang Edamame MENTAH! 

Dear silvia sayang; ternyata yaa itu edamame yang sudah dikupas bukan berarti siap dimakan T.T Kita tetep harus masak dulu, at least di boil gitu dan alhasil 1/2 bungkus habis sama gue! Poor me 

4. Air Aqua versi Gunung Papandayan

Awalnya kita pada ngak mau minum air gunung sampai akhirnya kita kehabisan air botolan dan terpaksa minum air gunung dan jadi ketagihan air gunung! hahahaha 

5. Bunga Edelwise yang malang 

Papandayan memiliki savanna bunga edelwise yang Indian. Karena terlahir dengan tangan yang gatel lihat barang bagus! Edelwise-nya dipetik dan bawa pulang hahahaha, #janjingakmetiklagi #janganditiru

6. Dilema Pinjem Bendera 

Pas lagi photo-photo di hutan mati, lagi ada segerombolan anak-anak pendaki yang lagi photo pakai bendera merah putih terus gue sama temen-temen diskusi neh how to borrow it? At the end, kita di pinjemin berkat bantuan our guide; koko yang dateng samperin mereka! hahahaha, #kitangakpunyanyali 

So, selama dua hari ini, rasa cape gue terbayar sudah dengan melihat lanscape yang menakjubkan, boombastis, cetar membahan dan apa lah itu. Gue merasa bangga jadi orang Indonesia, karena Indonesia punya tempat yang sangat teramat luar biasa. Kecantikan alam dan kesejukanya papandayan akan selalu menyelimutiku #LEBAI Pokoknya, one day gue pengen balik lagi kesini. 

SALAM DINGIN, 

Hannah Manuela 

Deal with Whistleblower

Many companies will set their public relation on the frontline, when companies are facing a serious issue that damage their reputation. Here’s public relation do their job as the gatekeeper who responsible to maintain the reputation. Public relation usually deals with a lot of internal crisis and issue, including whistleblowing case.

Whistleblowing is kind of internal issue that may be become global issue of company if the company cant handle it well. When worker reports or claims doubted wrongdoing at work, this called as making a disclosure in the public interest and company should prepare to protect this problem. Here’s public relation stand for, public relations should make-sure; what does worker complain or report and validate if it does not spread to the public and media, if it already happened, public relation should take an action to facing question from media and prepare back up plan to reduce the media intention to the company.

 There is no easy way to be solved this whistleblowing case. Even Public relation will need particular strategy to handle it. Public relation should build the policy or law before this case happens to the company, because unconsciously if it happens; it will effect to the company business on long run period.

For an example, One of BUMN company: Garuda Indonesia has their own strategy to face the whistleblower. They know whistleblowers are damage but Garuda Indonesia try to handle it with well prepare approach, so they can control the whistleblower. Garuda Indonesia has whistle-blowing system where whistleblower can report any criminal things, violation of ethnic code, violation of SOP (operational procedure), so if worker find desecration, they can go to http://www.ga-whistleblower.com then report. I think this is good strategy, where public relation prepares any possibility can happen to Garuda Indonesia.

If I was Garuda Indonesia public relation, it can be easy to detect the whistleblower and filter the complaint in order to manage them. Because if whistleblower do not have a place to tell, they probably will go to media and tell anyone. But Here’s whistleblower can tell anything without worry but their identity. Garuda Indonesia positioned whistleblower as their source, where they can evaluate themselves and also whistle blower can be their internal issue-maker.

To sum up, public relation has big responsible where they should watch and maintain the reputation, at the same time they solve whistleblowing case. Garuda Indonesia is good example that shows how the public relation trying to understand the case and what happen to the internal company, so they can give hand to deal it.

CSR VS CSV

These days, lots of companies begin to concern their society; start from internal, such as caring the employee through employee engagement, look carefully to the work place. Also external aspect of the company like environment, human resources or local people around company, and even can be the global issue: health or human right. This concern represents the symbol of respect and responsible from company through what company has done to the society.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Creating Share Value (CSV) attend to fulfill the company contribution to the society. But what is the difference of these programs? Based on FSG.com, which is social impact consultant; they divide social program to 3 kinds of social corporate program.

 As we can see from the table, CSR tend to minimize harm to society and the company. On the other hands, CSV prefer to find business opportunity in social problem. So, CSV look problem as a business opportunity where they can set the strategy gain company reputation and profit. CSR is more ethical and focus on sustainability, whereas CSV integrates social and environmental improve into economic value creation which means company exchange the program value to the economic value. To explain more about CSR and CSV, there are some examples that can be references to understanding this.

Take the Coca-Cola Company as the CSR example, in 2012; they started a program called 5by20 in economic aspect to empower young women entrepreneurs. The program aims to bring five million women to have business skill, which can be use to prosperous the family and community. At the end, the company hopes they can develop world into business by 2020 as local bottlers and distributor of Coca-Cola.

Adidas group will be good example of CSV. Adidas did partnered with Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’s micro-finance organization, Grameen Bank to produce the low cost shoe for Bangladeshian. The purpose of doing this is to provide affordable shoe in order to protect poor people from diseases. [1] They create and share value which profitable to adidas (financially) and good reputation for Grameen Bank.

These kind of responsibilities shows the company is not only focus on gain profit but also the build reputation among society and the interesting is company want to set two way communication through the program that company have. Through two ways communication that company set, the management or company itself aim to encourage employee/ customer/ stakeholders/ local people have contribution to the company, also maintaining the harmony. By running these programs (CSR/CSV), Company and employee/customer/stakeholder can create long run relationship.

According to the Forbes Article[2], the writer mentions If Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not going to solve the world’s problems. That said, CSR is a way for companies to benefit themselves while also benefiting society. I agree of this statement where company actually tends to benefit themselves. Company do not solve problem but essentially set the strategy to reduce the effect of problem.

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[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2011/06/14/three-great-examples-of-shared-value-in-action/

[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2012/02/21/six-reasons-companies-should-embrace-csr/

How I Understand Philosophy

The first thing that comes to my mind when hear bout philosophy is “Atheist” That’s how I know philosophy at the first but I’m totally wrong. Then when I come to this class and begin with questioning this class, what is Philosophy? For what purpose I learn this? Is it a logic process or just discuss a complicated decision making process or find solution for a problem? Honestly, I have no idea bout it, but then I try to figure it out from some resources and I got big picture of it.

Philosophy has existed since 7^th century in Greece, before Socrates era; Philosophy comes from west then expands to east. Based on The Story of Philosophy Book (Magee: 2001) Philosophy begins when human being started trying to understand the world. Not through [1].

religion or by accepting authority, tradition, revelation, but through the use of reason. Also at that time, want people to use their own reason and think for themselves. Afterwards, these reason become the fundamental of rational thinking which growth in human knowledge and understanding. So, in my word, I see philosophy as a study about reveal mystery of reality and existence. Which also explain bout relation between humanity, nature, and society.  Then Philosophy branch out to: metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethic, and etc. Nowadays, philosophy takes big part of this world; it is a subject that influences many things in every field of activity such as: politic (democracy), religion, science, etc

As a human, philosophy will help you to have critical thinking skills when you are disagree, problem solving skill, and also changing the way of thinking and even life because when you think and question it more and more, you will have different perspective and changing your point of view unconsciously. Another good point of conceiving philosophy is makes you more aware bout everything because the basic of philosophy is questioning everything.

In this modern era, philosophy as a guideline, which guide human to the life changing. Understand philosophy in life will practice human to handle their problem and try to solve it with the logic solution. Such as; apply philosophy in work field, when HRD Manager is facing a serious problem between labor and company, manager should find a solution that can be accepted to both: labor and company. Probably manager can use philosophy and ethic try to solve it then make a the best decision for both. 

At last, How people see philosophy will depends on how the people put their perspective in many angles, because people can’t see philosophy only on one angle. As many as people can see the different angle, as many as it people will come up with many the solution.

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[1] Mage, B. (2001). The story of philosophy. London. Dorling Kindersley