No point responding to every criticism. From what some of them have written, you already have a feel what they are like and their character.sigh You and the rest can just save your breath and don’t bother to respond to explain or anything.

Let them write what they want to write and let them say what they want to say so long as they happy. Look how responding to these open condemnation by some our very own NTU students have led to?

Remember “If you fight with the pigs, you get dirty and they love it”. So my advice is to let them get dirty among themselves so long they love it.

I would suggest a face to face discussion if you realy care. You can do it in Jan when you are back to school. Anyway, DO office is located near to NTU MacDonalds. I don’t think it’s that troublesome after all to fix a short discssion with Richard. Other departments may not respond readily to you but I’m sure DO would. Only if you give them the opportunity. There are actually a few things which students in general are unable to see from our own perspective. I gave is not just about getting monies from students. There’s more to that.

If you had read my posts earlier, you would know I do feedback to organisations. But notice the outcomes. And I did not say anything about not dropping emails etc. I think I made it clear in my earlier post what I meant was meeting physically face-to-face.

Don’t worry, I was not wondering whether you were sent by DO or not. There is no need to iterate that. :)

Are you a working adult Sense? Well, anyway, sorry for sidetracking again. Well, at the end of the day, I am wondering about ways how Igive campaign could have been handled differently and how the reception of it will be… :)

Merry X’mas to all.

Well, it seems that you are telling me that you belong to those group who just know how to complain for the sake of complaining. You want to get your point across to others but not willing to listen to what others have to say? Having a dialogue is better unless you really just want to vent and vent your frustrations – one way communication. If you really care, just have a short conversation with them. Well, I have no respect for people like that!

Also, please understand whether you called it goals, quotas, objectives, targets or anything, such reference points are essential. You yourself are working full time and you should know about it. Talk to any other charities/any organisations and check it out if they have any quotas/KPI in place! Goals must be specific and measurable. You can’t just state that “i want to get as much donations as possible from publics”. This is too general and not workable and measurable. To be clear, you have to state that “I aim to achieve $1m donation from public by end Dec 09″ etc.

Many people will feel that, “Oh well, since it’s so troublesome to get my point across, I’ll just forget about it.” Maybe out of those 100 who want to feedback or voice out, only 1 will have the courage and patience to stand up. Is that really a true representation of the actual popular consensus? Nope.

By making it difficult to feedback/understand, it defeats the feedback system.

Have you followed the US Elections for the past months? Did you know that in the black communities, Hispanic communities and democratic states; due to inadequate voting booths, super long queues, machine breakdowns and the very complex nature of the computerised voting procedures, thousands of tired voters literally gave up and walked away from voting?

If companies or departments treasure feedback, well they would even pay to get it! LOL. Big companies even have personnel that lurk in public forums, messageboards as trolls and read blog comments because they know that is where a free flow of vital information is.

As for ‘goals’ and ‘quotas’, please do not mix those two together, Apple Pie. They are two different flavours entirely. Goals are more general sweeping statements that give your purpose and direction, that may or may not include numerical objectives. For example, “We want to try out best to get donations!” Quotas specify the specific targets that have to be met in an assignment. Meaning “We want to get at least 1 million dollars worth of donations!”

Setting goals are fine for charity drives/ donations. As for quotas, I don’t think it is appropriate.

Well, at least that’s how I look at it.

Anyone else? :)

PS: If I only take part in this online conversation and do not want to meet DO because I am working full time, timings clash and it is troublesome – and I a wimp? :)

I am a new i gave ambassador and I write in on my own accord. Well, sorry to say that I have to disagree with you on your first point. I feel that having quotas/goals and donation out of free will is not contradiction at all. Goals provide direction and they serve as a guideline and benchmark for any dept to progress. Of course, the processes of achieving the goals must not be that of coercion since donation must be done out of goodwill which i agree. If there is no goals or quotas set, i think it’s kinda difficult to monitor the overall effectiveness of any campaign.

Well, I’m sad to hear how you ended up being an ambassador last year which I presume you are not an ambassador this year? Ok. I also know that most i gave ambassadors last year were rather “passive” and “inactive” and i guess your sharing explains it all.

This year, it is clearly made known to all newly-joined ambassadors that they have to fully understand the message before they can become an ambassador. I believe things are changing and getting better. This year, I think we have more than 100 ambassadors in total whom i believe were all enlisted after the recruitment talk. At least, on my part, I know I joined this programme because I want to contribute back in some ways.

I’m not saying all are moles, but there are some who indeed are. They know who they are. And how I do know some are moles? Well, it’s up to you guys to think about this. Of course, sending in moles is not wrong. At the end of the day, it’s the kind of response and approach taken as well.

By the way, I was one of the I-Gave ambassadors last year. Most of us were ‘tricked’ to become one in case you do not know. We received an email last year to go down for a talk supposedly. And during the talk, they just dropped the bomb and told us we are I Gave ambassadors. How fantastic. How self-assuming. After the talk, they pestered some of us to ‘nominate’ some students from each school to be ambassadors as well. Hourly remuneration was given as one of the benefits for the phonathon work done. So talking about having full information, well, i guess that explains all.

Of course, things might have changed this year under the hands of Richard and I applaud him for his efforts.

I’m not sure if there are so-called moles or spies sent by NTU. Can’t they just be students with own views? I don’t think it’s fair to imply that students with views for NTU are actually moles sent by them? In this aspect, am I a mole too? I believe this forum is set up to facilitate discussions among students with various views. Thus, we need to accept one another’s views, whether it’s for or against i gave.

Well, personally, I think talking to DO is fact is a good way to better understand because I believe MOST students who posted their comments or criticisms here do not really have the full information or able to see the full picture. If students just want to post negative comments for the sake of doing so, then I think they would not want to talk to DO directly. Also, having a quota to meet is normal is almost any organisation. Don’t you have your own quota to meet for your exams? Do apply to work in an organisation without any quotas and see how long you can survive there. Well, I’m not a mole by the way. If you chhose to think likewise, i hvae no choice. I’m just sharing my thoughts and I hope you can take my criticism in good faith as well.