JeeShen's Random Thoughts

I started playing basketball when I was 11. When I was a kid, I was lucky to have a basketball court right in front of my house - literally right in front, where I could see others playing from the balcony. On top of that, my friends at school loved the sport. For me, it was a getaway from the hectic UPSR tuition classes during primary school. Then I started playing for my class, representing my school and the state (Negeri Sembilan). I like the sport's competitive nature and its need for both creativity (yes, you need creativity if you play as a point guard or small forward) and teamwork. I made the state team, took three weeks off school to practice, and played at the national level (MSSM). Looking back, it's such a good experience. Not only did I get to play it along with my friends (ya, most of us got into the squad; they are good), but it was my first time leaving my house and learning to live away from home. There's no dorm; we literally sleep in a classroom on the fl...

A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) sits inside your hotel and makes the tech actually work. Here's what an FDE does for hotels — and how to hire one in SEA. Only 11% of hoteliers say they have a fully integrated technology stack, and 91% still do some part of their reporting by hand (Otelier, 2026 Hotel Operations Index). That is the real state of hotel tech in 2026 — not a shortage of software, but a shortage of anyone who will sit in your office and make the software you already bought actually work together. This is the reason why many hotels failed to adopt technology. Hotels have always needed a technologist on the inside. What changed isn't the need — it's the economics. AI has collapsed the cost of building software, so the bottleneck has shifted to fitting it into a real business: your PMS, your rate rules, your night audit, your staff. That work can't be done from a head office. It has to be done next to the user. That's why the FDE exists, and why the talen...

I was invited by the MMU Centre for Alumni and the FIST (IT Faculty Melaka) to guest lecture a class that talks about "Developing an Effective Business IT Plan". This Monday, I went back to the campus to share my experience in IT business planning. The lecturer told me that I was the first guest lecturer they had in the course, so neither of us knew what to expect. Before class, the lecturer gave me slides and asked me to add my own. I spent half a day on Sunday to prepare. It went well. The students seemed engaged. I hope they learned both what the lecturer wanted to deliver and some tips from me.