Last month, I had to leave the country again for the famous visa run. Many digital nomads then go Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. This time, I chose to visit Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur (KL). I had planned a trip for 7 days. Should be enough as getting a new visa usually takes about 5 days. At Denpasar airport, I neatly passed through the electronic departure gate for a 3-hour flight to KL. Applied for a new visa right away the next day. Unfortunately, the application failed. Apparently, I was still listed as an active person in the visa system. Hu?! But surely I was really the out of country!? Still don’t understand it actually. Probably there is bug in the system somewhere…? Still e-mailed the ‘helpdesk’ but never got a response back. Although I was already prepared for this scenario because this also happened to me when I did a visa run to Philippines. Fortunately, I was able to get back to Indonesia via a visa agent. Had to stay in KL a bit longer though. It took some doing. But KL wasn’t bad either.

Been studying hard again last period. This time for Microsoft’s PL 600 Solution architect exam. The moment was there. Was well prepared. For this I had booked a private office at Outpost (my co working spot) because for an online exam the room has to be otherwise empty. Still, it became a bit of a hassle. Before you can take the exam, you have to log in to the registration system. Everything went well until the system had to make a video connection with a server. There it unfortunately stopped because this foreign server was blocked by the Indonesia government… Unfortunately, a VPN connection was not allowed. Then I came up with the idea of taking the exam in a test centre. However to convert this through Pearson’s portal also had some issues. A customer service agent chatbot would have come in handy here, because the FAQ didn’t really make you any wiser either and it all referred to itself. Recognisable? While you often just look for an email address to put your problem down and it gets solved. In the end, I found a phone number and got a solution. Although now I may have to make a trip to Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Surabaya or even out of the country. To be continued.

Perhaps recognisable this…? A lot of attention is often paid to the happyflow. But in my opinion, there is actually extra value in when organisations think carefully about it when things are not going as conceived for the user/customer. How can we then make it as easy as possible for the customer to get out of a ‘roundabout’ situation? Now, of course, there are all kinds of options within the Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365 such as Copilot Studio or the Customer Service module. Although of course it is not about the systems themselves but first and foremost about the intention to really want to help the customer user instead of it being seen as a (cost) cut-off point or start of a new sales opportunity. Possibly a bit naive. But only through close customer loyalty do you get desirable good reviews, don’t you?!😉 And those ultimately yield ongoing profit, don’t they!

Last month, I also started the routine (see previous blog) of writing down five goals to achieve in the morning and evening. Notice that the routine is not quite there yet. In the evening when I get home late from an activity, it sometimes slips in. In terms of achieved goals, it has not yet led to the desired result. Think it still needs some more time or my monthly goals are a bit too ambitious…🙃

The great thing about travelling is that you meet other Digital Nomads who work in ICT in this way, via via. For instance, I met compatriot Rene -via a Dutchman I met in a Filipino hostel- who has been travelling around Bali for years. Coincidentally, Rene is developing a cool open source AI chatbot platform that allows you to create your own theme agent that can help advise for a business process. Who knows, maybe I can help him…? By the way, if you know someone -via via- who could use help with Power Apps or Dynamics CE/CRM, for example? A message is easy to send 😉.

With Balinese regards,

Sander