Hi Guys,

I’ve been quite a while searching for some popular websites or communities where I can learn process model for my study. Learning of something is a lot faster when you have people in the same interests together sharing our stuff. Coping with widely accepted standardized process models such bpmn, it would be best to get skilled by joining such communities in complement of self learning.

So finally I manage to find some useful websites where I can learn better and instantly without having the software downloaded and run in your local laptop. Yes, they are on web and for free (everyone’s need I guess) with some registration to sign up. But they are woth trying. Some of them are hosted by bpmn community for academical and training purpose, and some are run by commercial providers but giving the software for free. There, have fun play around making models and gain more skill in process models with an easy drag and drop feature right in your web browser.

The list obviously does not cover the whole resources though, in fact it’s only a few. But, as world wide web is a place with unlimited resources, I would be more than happy if you would also share for all of us. To me as beginner, these sites give me enough basics, and more importantly facilitate my need for upgrading my process modeling skill. It is neither on alphabetically order nor of importance consideration. I just write them down as per my own intuitive feeling. Oh yeah, another thing, as I use my computing needs with mac, there might be some resources which can only run in Mac OS, but maybe can also run in Windows.

1. BPMN Community. Run by researchers at Business Process Technology Group of Hasso Plattner Institut, University of Potsdam, the BPMN-Community is an open and free platform for the exchange around the Business Process Modeling Notation. Registration is required. There, you will meet another member, and if I we’re lucky, we can contact and make correspondence with expert about some particular modeling issue. You can also create tutorial and some reference for other member. The latest version of BPMN (2.0), is provided.

2. Oryx Project. I am not sure, but it appears that this site is also managed by HPI. So when you select edit model menu in BPMN-Community environment, you will be directed to here. But by knowing the URI, you can immediately go to the editor. Doesn’t matter which way is better. The important stuff about it is, that you can access and modify huge collection of bpmn models stored there. You can, of course, create your own model. Like BPMN Community, you need to have id. Besides BPMN version which spans 1.0 to 2.0, it also give you many collection of other diagrams.

3. Oryx Project for BPMN 2.0. It is the specialized version for bpmn 2.0. The whole environment is the same.

4. Iyopro. This is actually a compony with freeware. It is great for those who want to feel a more “Window” atmosphere, because the software is design to be deployed as if you operate in Window. The artifacts provided are the latest version of BPMN 2.0. Membership is required.

5. yED Graph Editor. It actually a software with download approach. But in the website, they provide option to launch the software. As I’m not really aware of Java, the launch edition is actually operating with java web start technology. So you are not really working in a website look. Beside that, the graph editor is not exclusively for bpmn. And another disadvantage (relative to the other previous tools above) is that it uses bpmn 1.0, not the latest. But, for novice like me, I feel sufficed with yED. The only thing you have to manage is a little bit patience, as java web start will operate at your machine before it launch the editor.

That is all what I got. Feel free to broadcast further, and of course I would also be happy if you would share with me.

Much of the disparity between people who decide to stay abroad after their study done and those who choose to go back to their heimatland falls into reality and nationalism polarization. The former choose for building up their academics (or maybe commercial) career, be it in their former university or another institutions, see more on much more “realistic” sense, while the latter stand on the ground of nationalism. In one hand, “Well, what can I say, I do not know what I would become if I choose staying in Indonesia. I got no lab facilities, at least equivalent with my time when I studied. The government just don’t care with us scientist. The keep scientific budget low. We just have to live the fact and protect my family future.and so on so forth”. In the other extreme, ” Better or worse is my country. I shall return no matter how hard it is. Those who think of staying away from what happened in our country simply people with no more nationalism in their heart. And there you go, the debate becomes an endless discussion as both sides defends their own reason.

Is it true that nationalism is a function of where you live? Putting to other words, so these people who choose to make an academic career abroad are not nationalists and do not care with Indonesia. Using a lens form a more holistic stand perhaps gives us better view. To some degree, we must admit that for some, or most researchers, especially who deal with lab and much more sophisticated tools, they can not really rely on government spendings. I learn that, managing education for 250 billion people is not a trivial task, not to count the challenge of corruption and government’ unreliable fund management. The latest 2010 audit report published was granted disclaimer opinion by State Auditor (BPK) revealed that the ministry of education is having plenty of housework to get done (the opinion is even worse from 2009’s qualified opinion. Beside that, we still have problem for unresolved high unemployment rate.

These scientists perhaps have been trying to find some ways to self fund themselves. However, after all, their nature is not a fund seeker, which means that the building of scientific work is not only placed upon their shoulder, but also to other part who bears responsibility for the ability to maintain conducive and secure working atmosphere. Go back to the question..are these people anti nationalists? We have two kind of people (1) Those who have this potentials and have no time to wait for government until they can finally do their job as expected, and (2) Those who are simply smart people but also jerks and they internally gnaw and hold back the progress of the nation. People in category 1 do not have time to think of pointing their finger on everybody to blame for the condition. They just need place to work seriously and give extraordinary output. And those is category 2, I guess no one benefits from them.

I believe the answer should be looked from the perspective what they actually and potentially do for Indonesia, not from where they work, the locus. From an actual viewpoint, at least, here, I am blessed to get a chance to know some Indonesians who happened to be star in their own field. They work in a quite diverse areas ranging from solar technology, mechanical engineering, computer science, biotechnology. One of them is even the only Asian working in Germanny’s Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung). From a potential viewpoint, Indonesian education and technology development may gain positive impact through a greater research and development network worldwide. Researchers working in overseas institution may create a mutual beneficial link between them and future studendts from Indonesia. Once they step up and trusted as decision maker, like professorship, they can recruit more Indonesian students to be their students or their peer’s students. We can imagine how strong and the merits of such a network chain if we mirror China and India. Their local students are scattered all over the world recruited by their national counterparts who work as faculty member in a highly recognized universities and research institutions.

So, this two perspective, actual and potential contribution can not be simply neglected. True, they are not working in Indonesia geographically, but what they do is obviously big. With a little bit seasoning of better G-to-G and U-to-U management, we will grow more seeds for Indonesia new order. As our Minister of Education once spoke, nationalism is not a function of locus…. valued global and valued local.

Our Minister of National Education, Mr.Muhammad Nuh, visited us with his team as part of his European visit work. Initially, the gathering was intended as private session between a number of Dikti scholarship holders with the Ministry of National Education team. But, it turned out to be an open gathering, as more people outside the scholarships grantees were showing interest to join the event.

Limited with time before next flying to Geneve, not much time was given to all audiences to have everyone spoke for their concern and question. But, I this 2 hours discussion was enough to make sure that most issues are addressed. The talk started with Mr.Minister giving the introduction. He gave some brief updates about what the Ministry are doing with regards to national education sector.

The session continued with question/answer session with Mr. Minister first having the whole questions answered from general side, and in the last part of the discussion, the Director General of Higher Education elaborated some detailed answers. Most of the questions ranges from some scholarship management challenges dikti needed to tackle and the opportunity for extending the grant.

My hunger because of skipping lunch were compensated with the discussion which I found pretty clear, engaging and giving my self more beliefs with Indonesia’s future. He mentioned that Indonesia are now focusing the higher education sector to three development priorities in the future. Those are engineering, science and agriculture. Of total university people, engineering, science and agriculture only account for around 11%, 3.3% and 3.6% respectively (correct me the number if I’m wrong). While not intending to underrate other sector – business, politic, law and other social science – our national education budget will be mainly used to foster the three sectors.

He also proudly said on Indonesia geographical and demographical’s education complexity as something more developed economies regarded as of potential value. As gross participation number (angka partisipasi kasar – APK) gradually increases, so does the spending of national education budget. Increasingly, they target to boost the budget spending to Rp 1,000 trillion, 4 times of current spending on education. Since Indonesia’s education spending is set to 20% of total national budget, it means total national budget is also bigger. Something which is not caught to my eye. It is great to know that our nation, at least our minister, seriously plans seed for young generation to stand up for brighter future. However, continuous and serious monitoring on where the money flows and used is also worth of consideration. As the minister said, what happen to the fund is not actually kept by center government, but distributed to local government in 33 provinces and further to more than 300 regencies all over Indonesia. Out of 240 trillion budgeted fund for Ministry of Education, about 150 trillion is distributed to them for further management. It is on these points careful government internal control and close monitoring must be placed. We understand how these little new kings are full of sophisticated conflict of interest needs to be overcome. Until that happen, we can not just rely on the accounting-based report.

I guess, it is time, in fact everyday, for us to set our mindset that Indonesia can not, and will not be overlooked anymore as a nation. We have everything we need to be a great nation. Sounds cliché, but with a relentless effort on eradicating corruption, building people capacity through education, and maintaining better management on our national asset, we can be the next china or india.

Accounting Information System researches have been long pouring focus on risk and related controls. Particular to the issuance of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, some scholars started to examine the construct and internal validity of variety of control frameworks. One work has been performed to examine the internal validity of CobiT by examining the extent on which experts and senior auditors express the agreement on CobiT components to the way they think and view about control (Brad Tuttle and Scott D. Vandervelde, 2006).

Other also tested COSO framework components and information technology for their strength in representing material weaknesses (Klamm and Watson, 2009). To my self, this opens opportunity for accounting students for examining other angle of financial reporting process amid the close interdependency of accounting and information technology. My own expectation is more on the enrichment of final report topics, which still more on financial and auditing domain.

Though not completely mandatory, there seems to be a tendency in the process of final report working assistance to stay on those areas, which may impair the the holistic and creative side of research topics. The culprits I would say are, both the student’s propensity of working in a comfort zone and the lecturer’s limited time to seek out and to master more open and challenging topics. Sooner or later, it is imperative to stay open and be exposed with industrial practice both in information system and financial reporting practice. Afterall, we have heard about this saying, the only thing stay constant is change.

FYI, please give me comment if you’re interested to get the readings mentioned above, provided that it is for study purpose.

Guess what a song the lyric I write down here. Yes, this is my lifetime favorite band’s song titled Victory. My personal opinion is, it does not give real story of what a song normally sings about. Rather, Dave purposely wrote this to combine several of his epic songs ever made in this world.

I have deliberately modified the words so there are no songs title are recognized by their capital letter (every words are with initial small letter, except the beginning) or any signing symbols like “. Now don’t call yourself Megadeth fans if you can not count how many songs are there in this song. Happy counting 🙂

If helps, I attach the video too.

V I C T O R Y

Now, one day I started telling everyone that
killing Is my business and I was hung like a martyr
For looking down the cross my skull beneath the skin
Prophesied last rites/loved to death my friends
Then I started seeing bad omens in my head
good mourning/black friday will I wake up dead?
If I ain’t superstitious” then this won’t mean a thing
But some crazy shit has happened since the conjuring

Not even close
Not even close
Not even close
To overdose

Had fingers in my eyes, had needles in my veins
A knife right through my heart, I am a victory

Came anarchy to set the world a fire
Pain of hook in mouth, in my darkest hour
Corruption of the world peace sells… but nobody’s buying
Ignorant religion holy wars and the dying, tornado nearly got me by the skin o’ my teeth
this was my life, foreclosure of my dreams
May the past rust in peace in hangar 18
And countdown to extinction
Just be a bad dream
lucretia said…

Not even close
Not even close
Not even close
To overdose

Had fingers in my eyes, had needles in my veins
A knife right through my heart, I am a victory

I’m waiting the answer with my little guillotine in my hand :p .

The Cutter

The Accounting Research and Development Lab (PPA), a research and consultancy oriented subdivision of Accounting Department, Padjadjaran University, houses large number collection of researches and project reports recently conducted. We aim to share the result of our knowledge-based activities for the development of accounting and business information system domain studies and to bridge our academical and practical-backed potentials as professional relevance.

We regularly update the working papers and are currently organizing for a better interactivity of our website. To see the collection, please go to this link : ppa working papers. We also organize our research publication entitled Jurnal Akuntansi dan Keuangan which has been in our fifth volume (and progressing). We are currently on our way for accreditation for the journal. Wish us luck!

Here is one of my paper written ( in Indonesia) for academic journal initially performed with my other three friends. Thx to Deni, Ina, and Darwin for the excellent team. I guess it’s a good idea to be able to discuss control in accounting information system context.

It can be seen that we can adopt COSO’s control principle while at the same time, reconcile it with CobiT reference. Only, to comply with CobiT control calls for further refinement in developing the application control. Hence, this write up attempts to bring up some idea to fit the COSO into CobiT (or vice versa).

Anyway here’s the abstract.

Business process analysis has been found in many literatures as a mean of a well developed accounting information system. Application control exists as one of its core component. This paper investigates the business process analysis to understand application control better by embracing combination of COSO and COBIT control frameworks. Case study was conducted in a Singapore-based small furniture trading company. The author employed several process modeling tools such as flowchart,logical data flow diagram and control matrix along with the explanation to obtain richer and more understandable picture of current business process.

By matching COSO-oriented control objective for operation and information process with COBIT-based control objective at application level, a number of presented and missed control are detected within order entry to sales business process as improvement requirements for the company’s internal control activities. It can be concluded that adopting internal control analysis with COSO and COBIT control framework to business process provides practical way to attaining IT governance.

Furthermore, combination of flowchart and control matrix brings about effective communication between management and accounting information system professionals.

Keyword: Internal Control, Business Process, COSO, COBIT, Flowchart

and here’s the full version

Can’t give opinion on this, just check it out…sourced from this link

The End of a DBMS Era (Might be Upon Us)

Michael Stonebraker

June 30, 2009

Did you ever feel that every pieces of your footstep in your life at a point in time may at least lead you to a wiser and bigger meaning of something? well I maybe one of those who thinks that way. I see that mailing list and my reading during the last two weeks lead me to to start understanding how collaborative working can rule the new competition.

I’ve been reading this cool book for about two weeks from the first day I bought it at a bookstore in Bandung. Oh yeah, I forget. Anyway, the book is entitled Wikinomics. Pretty eye catching for an impulse book reader like me by just looking at the cover. Though I read its Indonesian translated version, the message is pretty clear and delivered nicely. It’s a pity that I’m in the middle of my peak time to finalize some stuff for the end of January.
Authored by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, the book is promising a new look of how information society revolutionizes. It’s not food company vs food company anymore. It’s not also rivalry between two competing value chains. It’s way bigger than that. What happened now is global competition. I’m not talking global in a “multinational” or “enterprise-wide” sense, but global in the sense that all people are powered by the new version of the little e- (e-business, e-commerce, e-money, e-banking) to enhance new innovation, new product and even bigger, a new paradigm. Collaboration, seems to be the most looked up buzzword to define how people are now enabled to create a new kind of working style, dumping self and license protected product and services.Whole range of collaborations now exist to demonstrate the capability of shared-working: blogs, wikis, peering, open source application, and to my knowledge, mailing list.

In Indonesia, the wave of collaboration is also moving on. I realize the going by looking how community media is having its evolution. From 20 mailing list I have been joining so far, at least now I’m part of some mailing lists that serve for certain domain of knowledge. One community/mailing list, KOM-TEK, stands for KOMputer TEKnologi, is an Indonesian -based mailing list dedicating for improving the member skill. It is a place where few humble and IS experienced people are dedicating themselves for the development of Indonesia human resources, especially in ERP and other enterprise application. They hold ranges of free ERP trainings given that internet connection is available. As a result, now more people are coming that are competitive for ERP human resources market after they graduate from the training.

Another mailing list, IPOM-APICS are opening opportunity for those who are interested in industrial engineering and its related field. The mailing list is associated with APICS (a non profit organization that offers three internationally recognized professional certification programs:CPIM – Certified in Production and Inventory Management, CFPIM – Certified Fellow in Production and Inventory Management, and CSCP – Certified Supply Chain Professional designation. Since its formation, the mailing list has been able to provide its member access to knowledge in operation management.
Having read this, I guess it’s not impossible to create new innovation from this community controlled area. And that’s what I call the power of community.

The newly appointed Pertamina CEO Karen Agustiawan raised different comments over her next steps for rescuing this state-owned oil company. To me, the assignment probes me to nominate Indonesia women who are inspiring in business and leadership within the last ten years.

The list is obviously subjective, based on my own feeling :). They may be public figure. Furthermore, the ordering doesn’t indicate superiority. So feel free to think about other figures or add it on your own list:

1. Sri Mulyani
Starting her career as lecturer at Faculty of Economics, University of Indonesia, Dr.Mulyani now bears responsibility to drive Indonesia future economic to be better and more stable as a Minister of Finance. She earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After the so-called monetary crisis in Indonesia (1997- now?), her name started to emerge in many economics discussion in many media. Some of her profesionall recognition I guess are 2006 best Asia Finance Miniter by Emerging Market, the 2nd Indonesia most influencing woman on Globe Asia version, and the 23rd the world most influencing woman Forbes version in 2008. I still recall several occasions where I saw her in the TV arguing and debating her opponents, which sometimes led to a furious debate. One thing I can’t accept is when she took a role in International Monetary Fund. To me, it’s like working for someone who has a hidden and adverse agenda to you.

2. Betti Alisjahbana
In Indonesia, Alisjahbana clan brings their own reputation for being a talented people with a very impressive track record of academic. Alisjahbana is a family name, taken from a everlasting reputable Indonesian author, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana. Though not a direct I may say that the importance of education runs in the family. Born in Bandung, 2 August 1960, Ms.Alisjahbana was raised with many kind of academical activities. She graduated from a nationally reputable Bandung Institute of Technology with major in Architecture. Her highest achievement in career is to role as an CEO of IBM Indonesia, quite amazing for an architecture.

3. Eva Rianti Hutapea
Mrs.Hutapea was a CEO of Indofood, one of the Indonesia’s largest instant noodle producer. From tokoh indonesia , she mentioned three success factor: opportunity, capability and luck.She is regarded as the woman behind the rescue of Indofood due to the huge loss of Rp. 1,2 trilion in 1997. Its biggest revenue source, instant noodle sales plummeted to 7.8 billion packages. Her success in rescuing Indofood made her being awarded as Indonesia Best CEO on Swa Magazine version. Additionally,

4. Rini Suwandi
I know little about her, but I started to recognize her when she was as A Minister of Industrial and Trade when Megawati acted as President of Indonesia. Sometime before being a minister, she was named as a CEO of Astra International, a holding for a number of leading Indonesia’s companies. Most of her time was spent abroad, yet, it doesn’t make her forgeting her root as Indonesia.

5. Karen Agustiawan
Obviously, her update is the most sought-after news recently. She challenges male domination of oil and gas industry by chairing the first person at Pertamina, state-owned oil corporation. Before appointed as president director of Pertamnina, she was also first woman to head the state company’s upstream division, responsible for the management of the company’s drilling rigs, a job which was once seen as too macho for a woman. Graduated from Bandung Institute of Technology, major at physical engineering, she has also been roaming about oil and gas industry from Mobil Oil, CGG Petrosystem, Halliburton, before eventually joined Pertamina.

7. Widyawati
A very famous artist and still enchantedly charming to me. Her husband, Sophan Sopiaan, is also a famous actor from early 70s. They made Indonesia fell in love and made them Indonesia sweetheart from the first time they show up in movie industry until now. Her husband passed away when a street accident took his life during his travel with bikers club to promote nationalism.

8. Mari Elka Pangestu
Ministry of Trade.

9. Miranda Gultom
Deputy Governor of Indonesia Central Bank.

Number n….. Mrs.Taufik Kiemas’s wife???
Well….this one? no comments 🙂