social media, social events

Bloggers Audio Interview

A couple of weeks ago some of the Social Media class bloggers (Calin, Amelia, Jacqueline and myself) dragged ourselves to school on a Sunday for an interview for SMU Campus Radio, for a show called The Talk Show hosted by Daryl. We had a rather fun time during recording, and here’s an audio clip of the interview if you are interested (though I must warn you of my bad radio voice and incessant “umms” and “mmms”).

Social Media Breakfast Singapore

Then last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending (and making food for) Social Media Breakfast Singapore, where about 40 of us bloggers and social media users dragged ourselves out of bed on a nice Saturday morning to talk about ourselves (or as Derrick says, “to pimp ourselves”) and how we use social media in our lives.

It was nice meeting people ( Derrick, Andrew, Michael, Brian, Sheylara, Coleman) and then there was the personal tagging, which basically involved tagging people with stickers with adjectives on them (mine read “I am Lao Ban”, “great poem writer”, “thief” and “helpful”), and to the contrary of the organisers’ expectations, was a great hit with everybody!

Though it was tiring making all the food and running around, it was indeed exciting to be part of SMB, given that it was the first (until someone proves otherwise, Daryl says), and I’m pretty sure not the last. My only regret was not managing to talk to everyone, but there’s always SMB #2! You can read more about the breakfast at Daryl’s blog and even Mitch Joel has picked up on it. (Good job guys!)

Photo+Haiku exhibition

As for this week, me and Jac are having a collaborative haiku+photo exhibition in Frujch based on the theme of Time, apt since it’s our last term in SMU. Do come by tomorrow to check out Part 1 (Moving), and Part II (Still) if you’re in the area.

I just love how blogging has provided me with these opportunities to meet new friends and make new memories. I really have to thank Professor Michael Netzley for introducing me to this world of social media, it has indeed been a fascinating journey that is just beginning.

Social Media class has really created a big impact in my life and I’ve made new friends from class like Andre, Jasmine, Valene and Xiao Hui (in addition to Calin, Amelia, Jacqueline and Daryl) and I was really sad when we had our last class last Saturday (see above picture, that’s me holding back my tears :p)

Well, then again there’s always Twitter (add me!)

social media brekkie fun

Calling all bloggers, podcasters, twitter users, youtubers, Facebookers, etc

Do you feel extremely guilty when you don’t blog for a day? (I’m looking at you, Amelia!)

Do you feel a constant need to check on Twitter and update about anything and everything?

Do you feel like Facebook is the answer to all of life’s most important questions? (ie. Where in Singapore is Mas Selamat?)

Are you on forever on youtube, and were you one those people who sent that video of the MDA rap to all of your friends and asked them to send it to all of their friends?

Are you so into social media that friends have been known to threaten to cut off all ties with you?

Congratulations! You’re a social media junkie!

Here’s the good news:

You are not alone.

Yes, there are others like you! (yayyy) And we’re all meeting in safe, secure environment where others won’t hurt us or call us names (remember, sticks and stones, sticks and stones) and where we can discuss our grand plans on how to take over the world.

What? Social Media Breakfast - Singapore

When? 29th March 2008

Where? Frujch at SMU

Thanks so much to Derrick and Daryl for arranging this! I am super duper excited and it’s my pleasure to hold it at Frujch for you guys.

More details will be released soon!

TED: More ideas for your noggin

So today during Social Media class we watched an awesome video from TED, which reminded me that I had yet to explore the videos on the website. If you’re even remotely excited at the prospect of hearing extremely smart people talking about great ideas in every field imaginable, then I strongly encourage you to check out TED.

Well, finally I did tonight, and after watching one video, I just kept clicking and clicking and clicking on more. And the more I listened, the more it made me think (such that now my head is buzzing, and I’m pretty sure it will keep me awake for a while).

End of ramble (sorry).

Anyway, I watched Malcolm Gladwell’s speech, on what we can learn from spaghetti sauce and realised that what he was talking about was basically the idea behind the Long Tail, which we were discussing about in class today.

The 1st thing about the video that I liked: the democratising of taste.

He talked about how marketers were asking the wrong questions by trying to create the perfect mustard, or the perfect Pepsi, because we all have different preferences that cannot be met with just one type of mustard/Pepsi. From what I gather, trying to find the perfect version of a product is

1) undesirable because what you deem is “perfect” won’t make everyone happy anyway, so why waste your time and

2) impossible because what you then deem is “perfect”, isn’t really.

This coincides with the concept of the Long Tail. Businesses and marketers need to move away from trying to find the holy grail, that big hit that will rake in the big money, because of the above 2 reasons. Why spend all your resources trying to find that one product that you think will satisfy the masses, when you could serve all your customers (and citizens) better by giving them exactly what they want? In other words, satisfy the “misses”, rather than the hits, because

1) it’s the “misses” that are craving for their needs to be met and

2) due to the nature of the long tail, the “miss” market is infinitely large.

Long story short, businesses need to recognise the diversity of human beings by giving them exactly what they want, not what the businesses think that they want.

The 2nd thing about the video that I liked: that Howard Moscowitz (not too sure about the spelling) didn’t give up on his breakthrough idea after being shown the door the first time.

This was sparked from the comments from my previous post, where I asked what happens when you have a great idea but the people you’re pitching to, for a variety of reasons, reject it. Businesses that are scared of creative ideas and don’t take risks, in my opinion, don’t get very far. And I’m pretty sure many businesses are still afraid of taking a chance.

This puts individuals with creative ideas in a difficult position, and such was the situation faced by Howard as described by Malcolm Gladwell. So I really liked that Howard didn’t give up and managed to convey his idea to business that got it (Prego).

I did disagree with one point in the video, that people don’t know what they want. I think that people do know what they want, but it’s just that sometimes what you want hasn’t been created yet, so it’s simply a case of not knowing what to call exactly what you want.

On a general level, we all want one thing - happiness. We want happiness in our personal lives, happiness in our career, happiness when we drink that cuppa, happiness when we walk our dog in the park, happiness when we turn off the light and turn to our favourite side to sleep on. Businesses need to realise that they ultimately should think about how to help their customers on the way to happiness, and customers need to realise that they deserve to find that desired happiness.

And the best way to make them happy is to give them what they want.

See this post on how customers want business experiences that make them happier and this post on how businesses need to help their customers feel less stressed.

With that I bid you a goodnight.

[Photo taken from http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2007-04/pat-cooper-

spaghetti-sauce-and-other-delights.jpg. I just thought it was pretty darn hilarious.]

Doing away with corpspeak/ cut out the BS (updated)

Found this site from Lee Hopkins’ blog, Better Communication Results
which features the extremely refreshing and brilliant way one company seeks to engage their customers via telling the whole truth and nothing but.

Here’s an excerpt from their website:

Cool job titles make us sound smarter and more clever.

Welcome to the world’s most dynamic eBusiness marketing, design and consulting agency. We provide distinct clients with groundbreaking business strategies and cutting-edge designs to aggressively and creatively compete in a changing economy.

Our consulting ideas will entice and excite you. Our professional design solutions will give you the confidence to succeed. And our web site will make you think we know what we’re doing.

And now our cutting edge consulting and design solutions include New Web 2.0 Technology™. That means we’re not only better than everyone else, but smarter too.

Our name will confuse you, but, you have to admit, the logo design is pretty cool. That’s because it was designed with New Web 2.0 Technology™ and the New Web 2.0 Shiny Table-Top Thing™. And we’re good at turning regular words into “eWords,” such as “eBusiness” or “eSexual harassment.”

Our office is really modern and we’ve got nice computers and stuff. If you ever saw it, you’d say “Wow, cool office. These guys are legit.”

And this:

We have really smart people who are always thinking up totally cool shit. We have a meeting room with a big, round, expensive table. When you hire us for marketing and consulting projects, we spend lots of time sitting around the table having meetings.

Our female staff members are all hot, so, even if there’s nothing to meet about, we’ll sit and flirt with them, and charge you for the time. When one of our new-age marketing gurus or design experts or consultants has an idea, the rest of us look at him or her with serious expressions and write stuff down on paper.

We also have one of those dry-erase boards on the wall, and we take turns making flow-charts and brain-storming and talking about “injecting creativity into market positioning,” and cool stuff like that.

How’s that for honesty! I love the wit! This puts them in a class of their own against companies still doing things the old way (ie. treating customers like chumps by talking at them, as opposed to talking to them).

Edit: After thinking more about the topic, I think that huhcorp gets it right because more than just trying to talk to their customers, they’re nudging their customers in the ribs, sharing a joke based on mutual understanding. Having a sense of humour makes them more human too.

Another company that does not take itself so seriously is Puma (found on Seth Godin’s blog. Thanks Seth!) Also note the sneaky aside on research findings. Love it!