It all began when the four of us got together through email to "group think" about what we can do with regards to the recovery of the Malaysian economy. We are a completely un-organized, non-political, non-partisan group of Malaysians. We just believe that we have to return to making money the old fashioned way -- by earning it. And how can we focus our minds on it amidst lots of political rhetoric, noises and voices out there.

This coming together resulted in An Open Letter to the Prime Minister on 31 August 1998. Full text of the letter can be viewed at http//www.rayma.com.my/rayma/
bg_mahathir.html. As businesspeople, we believe in following up and following through. Friday 13 November 1998, we met the Deputy Minister for Tourism to follow up on the idea we proposed about a national email campaign to promote Malaysia to friends abroad, leveraging on Malaysians who studied and are studying overseas.

On this historic day Thursday 1 December 1998 we launched the Visit Malaysia CyberCampaign. We believe this is the FIRST of it's kind worldwide where citizens play a role to promote one's country in a unified and concerted effort. We want to demonstrate "People Power" in a different and constructive manner. The aim is to get every Malaysian who has access to email to send personalized messages to as many foreign friends as possible, and make a one-to-one effort to tell others about our country. In our view, we have not done a terribly good job in telling our story, this is time to make up for it.

If we can imagine it, we can do it! Imagine if there is a million Malaysian Internet users - if everyone send ten messages, we would have narrow-cast to 10 million foreigners. If we persuade our friends to pass it on to ten of their friends, we are imagining a universe of 100 million people getting to know Malaysia. As students of marketing, we believe that planting the seed is all important.

We need help and group wisdom. Sponsorship and support in kind. From a group of 4 in August, now it's 9. For example, Wendy Song and Katherine Yip, two good human beings lent their hand in translating the Visit Malaysia CyberCampaign Letter in Malay and Mandarin so Malaysians can use these samples in sending their email. Gerard Lim and Celine Chan volunteered their creative talent to design and host these beautiful pages on the net. Jack Soo runs around and coordinates everyone's efforts together.

We thought of making this CyberCampaign exciting and fun by putting together an extensive Voluntary Reward Program for Malaysians who took the time to reach out and send the most emails, comes up with the best slogan to promote Malaysia, as well as encourage junior Malaysians to use emails for a good cause. In fact, as we are thinking aloud with you, this can be a very powerful program that binds the family, adults and the kids alike - parents sharing their overseas contacts and kids sending the email, helping parents get acquainted with the latest communication tool. This may indeed turn out to be a wonderful family experience.

Do join us. We look forward to your participation and support. Kindly contribute in whatever way you can.

Please bookmark this page and come back often to check on the progress of this campaign. Email us on your comments and suggestions - just sign the guestbook below and share with the rest of the nation at the same time.