May 2008 Archives

Since I’ve announced my MBA plans, I’ve been approached by a number of people asking me to freelance while studying.

My answer to this is: No. There simply isn’t enough time, even if the work involved is more strategic and less operational.

Those who are not familiar with what studying for an MBA entails - and even more who are unfamiliar with INSEAD’s system - may not realise there will be no time for such things.

Doing a full-time MBA at a top business school is already challenging. The classmates I’ve met so far are brilliant; many already have more than one degree, and are already high-flyers in their organisations. What’s more, our MBA syllabus is compressed into just 10 months while many American schools may take 22 months.

I want to dedicate my time fully to doing my MBA, and doing it well. What precious little time I have left will be spent with family, loved ones and friends. And that’s that.

My fellow Media Socialists Ben Koe and Walter Lim are quoted in today’s Digital Life article on Web 2.0 for companies. I won’t copy the full article, but here are the myths that were debunked:

** MYTH 1: Web 2.0 technologies are fine for building social networks, but they are not relevant to my business.

MYTH 2: I don’t want my employees using social networking tools in the office because productivity will fall.

MYTH 3: My employees are used to working via e-mail, so there’s no need for these new Web 2.0 collaboration tools.

MYTH 4: My company is too small to take advantage of social computing and Web 2.0 tools.

MYTH 5: It is difficult to manage social computing tools because they are too unstructured. **

My take: Web 2.0 is more than just a technology. Setting up the technology today is actually the relatively easy part. Building a successful Web 2.0 app or community requires a mindset change from within, first.

Examples abound. You may start a corporate blog because ‘everyone else is doing it’. But you’re afraid of publishing negative comments, or think it is a chore to reply to them, not understanding that a blog can facilitate real conversations and garner genuine feedback.

You may love control, and want to build your own social network instead of using existing networks - where everybody is already at. Web 2.0 is all about collaboration. You don’t have to own everything to get the most exposure for your brand.

Or, you can build numerous Facebook Apps, but as over 120+ other Apps are launched every day (and growing), you are lost in the sea of anonymity.

Many organisations are leaping onto the New Media / Web 2.0 bandwagon, but not always for the right reason. If it is just to make you or your organisation look ‘cool’, time will reveal whether your actions will reap any meaningful rewards.

And if you jump onto it expecting immediate returns on investment above everything else, you have not fully comprehended the nature of social media. Treat everybody as your friend and not some soulless cash cow; tell them things they are interested in. Keep in touch with them regularly - don’t go to them only when you want something out of them.

New media / social media / Web 2.0 technologies are not an end in themselves. They are enablers and facilitators; a means to an end. They can make it more obvious which organisations are more open and sincere, and therefore more prepared for the business of the future.

Had a great dinner with my SCGS girlfriends on Friday at La Forketta at Dempsey Road. We had a lot to catch up on. We called another schoolmate long-distance to wish her happy birthday as well, as that was the actual day for her.

On Saturday I had lunch with my mum and sis as usual, and then I did some shopping. Bumped into a Bristol Uni law junior along the way, had coffee with her and met two of her friends. Headed to Margarita’s at Dempsey for dinner and drinks with my Bristol Uni mates, and then to Angelshare a few units away for Bellinis. Talked until we realised it was just past midnight, and then the glass-clinking began.

On Sunday, I went to church as usual, had lunch with the clan, went to the driving range and did pretty well considering I had not practiced in perhaps half a year. Most of my shots went a decent distance in the right direction, and my drives were decent, almost as good as when I was playing more regularly. Had dinner at Gyu-Kaku where we cook our own BBQ meats. So glad my grandfather, who’s had a poor appetite lately, had finished all his food and the birthday cake my dad had sweetly arranged for. Ultimately it is not about going to a super fancy restaurant, but enjoying time with family and friends.

Not shyly, I congratulated my parents for their 30th anniversary of being parents, my aunts for becoming aunts and my grandparents for becoming grandparents :)

I have a couple more dinners to go over the next week. Should be great fun.

On Friday I was on the blogger perspectives panel at Ogilvy’s Verge conference. Went OK though feedback was we tried to cover too many different topics in a short space of time, thus it was a bit disjointed. I felt I tended to be more anecdotal in explaining a certain trend, compared to the others. My most favourite PR anecdote currently is about Dell’s blog - how often do you get to meet the customer advocate who’s been replying to your angry blog posts? And at SXSW at that :)

I heard the Microsoft-Yahoo!-Google panel was funny, with the latter two pretending to gang up against Microsoft. Would’ve loved to see a video of that!

MTV had some new insights on the Asian youth market. From what I see, there’s no one magic formula we can apply to all, because our youths prefer local music followed by Western music.

I am honoured to be speaking as a panelist at Ogilvy’s Verge digital summit in Singapore today at CHIJMES. It will be quite exciting. As with Yuhui, I’d really like to see representatives from the three Internet giants - Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! - all in one panel.

I know all my esteemed fellow panelists personally, particularly Walter Lim. I will also catch up with Prof Michael Netzley whom I met at Podcamp last year, and Nicholas Aaron Khoo whom I met at the HP Mini launch last month.

So I think we will have an interesting dialogue with each other, and hopefully with the audience!

I noticed that the programme mentions everybody else’s designation and organisation, except mine:

In case anyone gets the wrong idea, I would like to clarify that I am still with the Health Promotion Board. Earlier on, I provided the organisers (who invited me) with my Startup Singapore bio as a reference. It clearly states my designation and organisation.

For the record, I have no intention of snubbing or disowning my organisation, which has given me the best job I’ve had so far.

I also hope it does not give attendees the impression that I was a super last minute addition either, because I sent in my details earlier this month. At least, I hope it isn’t so! ;)

I have also clarified that the omission is not because I am only expected to be a representative of the blogging community in general. I can, and will, speak based on my experience promoting the use of blogging within my organisation and the public sector as a whole.

It will be more interesting than talking about my own blog, which beyond a certain point can get narcissistic - as we bloggers tend to be :)

Looking forward to the conference!

Yes, I have started my own INSEAD blog. It will chronicle my life before, during and hopefully after my MBA. You can find it at vantan.org/insead.

Zanat0s, fabled Greek INSEAD blogger, had lamented in our Facebook group as to why my batch had yet to produce one MBA blog…

Well, at the time my plans weren’t officially made known at work, so how could I announce my INSEAD blog until now? :P

I will try to split myself between this blog, the new blog and a few other blogs. I think I may just end up updating the first two! Of course I want to tweak my blogs and add more features but have no time so will just add new content for now.

Another classmate asked how anyone could possibly upkeep a blog while doing our MBA. Firstly, to me, sitting down and blogging is not difficult provided I have something interesting to say. Of course I anticipate there will be busy days, even weeks, but there should be updates.

You only do your MBA once in your life (even if many of my classmates have more than 1 degree already - swots! :P). So why not chronicle it and also be a spokesperson for your school, and inspire prospective students?

I paid a visit to INSEAD in Second Life. It is cool that my business school has a campus there and is using it for real lessons. This is because we are an international school, with campuses in Europe (France), Asia (Singapore), with alliances in China (Tsinghua) and a centre in Abu Dhabi, along with the exchange programme in the US (Wharton). Thus, classes and projects may be conducted in different continents. Second Life is a great medium to facilitate such collaborations.

Unlike my previous attempt last year to visit the Campus, my Avatar didn’t bounce off an invisible wall. This time I managed to join the INSEAD group and accessed the entire island without a hitch. Here are some of the better photos:

The main classroom.

Sitting on a carpet, hovering above the beach.

I had an intelligible conversation with the INSEAD chatbot, which I mistook for a real Avatar initially! He managed to understand that I was going to INSEAD, and congratulated me. See our dialogue at the bottom left corner:

What a pretty discussion area! This was in the lush garden outside the building.

Last but not least (except in terms of the amount of clothes), check out my INSEAD bikini! You can windsurf, surf, float, tread water, lounge about on deckchairs… now if only we had a Mediterranean island all to ourselves! (I say it’s Mediterranean because the waters are so blue)

I never thought the day would come, but soon I will be starting a new decade in my life. Ugh. I feel so old! The only consolation was that another Singaporean INSEAD classmate thought I looked younger than her, and she’s only 28, so that made me feel better :)

Up to recently, I harboured thoughts of organising a huge bash, inviting friends from all walks of life to party-party. But that’s more like a 21st birthday bash. At this rapidly maturing age, I’d rather spend quality time with each group individually instead of flitting about from table to table.

So. These are the dinner dates already arranged:

1. With my nearest and dearest SCGS schoolmates. 22 May, venue TBC but in the company of cultured foodies like Dimsumdolly, Monoceros and Fatgirltales, I don’t think we can go far wrong. And yes, we will all wear dresses, OK?

2. With my former bible study mates and church friends. Booked for 23 May (venue TBC) and 31 May (Min Jiang at Rochester Park, yum yum).

3. Family - probably on the day itself. Nothing planned yet.

That’s all for now!

And happy birthday today to another old SCGS schoolmate and ‘bad tennis’ partner, Tinkmartini, who is celebrating by climbing a mountain. It must be a HUGE mountain, for her to begin climbing at age 29 and descending when she’s 30 ;-P

Met up with Alan Rambam, Fleishman-Hillard’s youth and mobile marketing guru yesterday. We learnt about what was being done in the US and other countries such as location-based messages, SMS, MMS, Twitter and too many others to mention.

My main thoughts are that what’s successful in the US cannot be transplanted wholesale in other countries, and vice-versa. This we all agreed on. The next question is which CAN be adapted successfully and this has to be a case-by-case basis considering the country and the organisation involved.

Also, Asians are more shy than Westerners and are less likely to come forward if they have a disease or condition that has been stigmatised in their culture. So marketing strategies involving user-generated content or at the very least, personal testimonials, have to be tactful and respectful of privacy.

I was pleased to hear about Twitter being used, but it would be better if we had a local number for Twitter. Where regular use is asked of us, cost will be a concern. Unless of course we again depend on the wireless internet.

Another point we all agreed on was that in Singapore, a lot still depended on our own mobile phone packages. I am on GPRS and my bill shot up after getting the iPhone because I was checking mail etc in places without wi-fi. No way am I going to download some MP3 or video file on my handset.

I was amused to see WAP sites being presented. WAP feels so passé in developed Asian regions. Even if some of us don’t have 3G, more likely we’d use Wireless@SG and a phone browser to view web pages.

As for apps designed for handsets, I feel we have to cater for too many different platforms, whereas for the Web we just need to comply with Web Standards. Browser detection can help to adapt our web pages for mobile devices, so there is no need to design a separate site in many cases. But of course many of our local vendors don’t know or care about this, and charge clients extra because it’s seen as doing two websites.

I also feel that while Singaporeans can own more than 1 mobile phone each, and many have 3G connectivity, not many of us fully utilise this. There was a news report on this last year, if I recall correctly. Most of us still use it for SMS and calls instead of video conferencing or downloads. We thus need a behaviour change. Alan’s example was getting the American public to vote for their favourite Idol contestant via text. 40% did so for the very first time.

I am also interested to see how things may change once the iPhone officially comes to Singapore. We should actually start designing Apps for the iPhone already, using Apple’s SDK. But my suggestion a few months ago was pooh-poohed because of the belief that it would take a while to catch up with other handsets. I am not too sure about that and will try again via other channels.

Just cancelled my French class this morning as we have an urgent rehearsal before an event this afternoon. That’s three lessons in a row this week, which confirms my suspicions it won’t be possible to study an intensive course and do my kind of work at the same time. And this is just to meet my third language requirement so I can graduate next year!

Come Fall, we will be fully submerged in a heavy-duty MBA syllabus, squeezing what US schools take nearly 2 years to teach, into 10 months. Some classmates may still be learning their third language during this time, which will be tougher on them. This is why we have all been advised to clear our third language requirements before starting school.

I really hope to take and pass my French exam before starting school, but at the rate I am going, it is not heartening. I have to carve out some real personal time to catch up with the rest of my language classmates now. Hopefully this week’s series of urgent events will be one-off and I won’t be required to cancel my leave again.

It is disturbing to see myself becoming tardier about punctuality. Over the last few years I have developed this unrealistic belief that more things can be squeezed into less time and that I can magically appear at another part of Singapore in a few minutes, in a parallel universe where no traffic exists and car park space is abundant.

Part of this tardiness is due to psychological reasons. Sometimes there is a fear of offending someone by walking out of an overrun meeting. So we leave late and start the next appointment late and the domino effect begins. I always marvelled at how American TV shows showing how schoolchildren packed up their books and left class as the schoolbell ran, even while their teacher was talking. They have less stigma about leaving on time.

At work, perhaps scarce rooms are a solution - when they’re booked at fixed time slots, the next group will be knocking on the door when time’s up, and the meeting will have to be concluded quickly. And perhaps rooms should only be booked for one hour slots or less, so that nobody should be late or longwinded or unprepared at a meeting.

The worst experience I myself have had as a customer, was with my new personal banker. I asked him to meet me at a restaurant near my office. I sent him a food review page from Hungrygowhere.com, which also contained a Google map of the place. He parked somewhere else, walked off in the wrong direction and lost his bearings. After a few phone calls he was still lost. When he finally found the restaurant, he was an hour late. He paid for lunch.

So, my two new mid-year resolutions are: To smile more, and to be on time. Dare I?

In the space of a few days, I was told by people from different walks of life - my mum, a random French shopkeeper, a couple of friends - that I should smile more.

The thing is, often I’m not feeling unhappy but my default expression is a :-| not a :-> and I don’t realise it.

Last night I was Twittering about how a local gal in French class was annoying me by pouncing on my every mistake. She’d go ‘Harh?!” when I asked a question or said something not quite right, even though she herself wasn’t that good in French either. She would also chat to the Brit guy beside her but not turn to talk to me. There are only 3 of us in the class.

In the light of the weekend’s feedback on my demeanour, I thought I could do a couple of things (apart from punch her in the face, which @dominik recommended :).

I could work harder on my French so that I’d make less mistakes and we’d learn from each other instead of pointing out each other’s faults.

Next, I could smile more and make the effort to talk to her, as much as I initially thought she was one of those who were nicer to expats than to their own kind. But we tend to stereotype each other when we have bad first impressions. Maybe she assumed I was unfriendly because of my serious face, and I classified her as a snob when she ignored me.

As it was, it was our second lesson together today and it was much more enjoyable because we actually loosened up more and found out more about each other. Somehow my French had also improved and the vocabulary I picked up 11 years ago was coming back, so I could enhance the sentences we were learning to make. We left, feeling positive about our lesson and looking forward to tomorrow.

I’m officially announcing that I will be doing my MBA at INSEAD this Fall.

It took me many years to decide to do an MBA, and it was not easy. I told God I could not do it without Him, and He answered my prayers.

Of course, an MBA is not an end in itself - as if any paper qualification would be, though some places peg your prospects to it - but I hope it will teach me things I’ve haven’t learnt at work, and open up more opportunities for me. There are many worlds I have yet to see, explore - and dare I say, conquer?

This explains why I have been rushing to take my French exam, as we need at least 3 languages to graduate at INSEAD. It is certainly not easy, but we’re up to the challenge. Being in an international school requires you to communicate in different languages. Speaking 5 or 6 languages at INSEAD is not too uncommon, from what I’ve heard.

I finally got to meet my classmates at the Open Day on Saturday and it was great. We spent the whole day together. I think there are many nice people around, and the number of countries we’re from is mind-blowing. Some may prefer US schools but I’m happy with going to a school where no nationality is dominant. A cross-cultural understanding is important in today’s globalised business world.

Some friends had the impression I would be leaving Singapore very soon. To be precise, I am going to my sister’s convocation in the UK in early July. My orientation and preparatory course (for those with no business background, such as ahem public officers) will start in August. The actual term will begin in September. Next Spring I intend to make my way to the Fontainebleau campus, and that is where I may spend 2-4 months.

It is a big time in my life, as I step into a brave new world. In some ways I’m sad to leave some great memories and people behind; in other ways, happy and excited at starting life anew.

My blog was bombarded with comment spam an hour ago, and I could not log in to update anything because all the database connections were used up. My web host has since blocked all IP addresses that were attempting to connect to my database.

Contact me in case your IP was blocked and you cannot post a comment.

I’m quoted in the papers today regarding YouTube as an outreach channel. Thanks to Tan Weizhen for the coverage!

I was explaining how some may have concerns that uploaded videos could be downloaded and manipulated, etc. But this also happens with anything else you put online. You have a corporate website? Well, someone could modify your logo. If you’re afraid, then forget about this new outreach channel. Don’t be too upset if something rips your copyrighted videos and uploads them to YouTube instead - on the positive side, that gives you more exposure. If some have bothered to go through this trouble, it could indicate they’re interested enough in the cause.

And if you want to see what our youths can do in a user-generated video contest on health, check this out for quality and depth!

I’m fine with Maria Sharapova as a tennis player, apart from the shrieking. Now I’m more ingrigued to learn that Maria has now turned to her fans for advice online, since this smells of Web 2.0 spirit.

According to the Beeb, she’s protesting against a WTA ruling that she and other stars must do a publicity shoot possibly a day before the matches.

Her official website announcements are generally written in the third person. However, Maria’s personal tone of voice comes through in this message, which seems to be written by her (or someone on her behalf):

This links to the online poll, where you can also vote.

You can also view the results. Right now most of the 4,000 odd fans have voted for her to refuse to do the photo shoot.

Personally, I think she should just do the photo shoot but insist that the WTA refrain from such requests in future. To kick up a big fuss is not very sportsmanlike, and besides, other big tennis stars also have to do the same. It is usually easier to convince the authorities to chance a policy when you aren’t giving them bad PR in the first place.

I and two of my cousins played at my grandmother’s birthday dinner on Saturday. These are recordings from our rehearsal on the day itself. It was a last-minute affair, since we were ‘volunteered’ for it!

Violin and piano rendition of ‘Think Of Me’ from Phantom of the Opera, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Violin, cello and piano rendition of ‘The Prayer’, originally sung by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, and written by David Foster. If you don’t have time, skip to the best part which is 2:28.

I don’t like reading scores, so I just read the chord names on top of the notation and made up the rest of the accompaniments along the way.

So it seems that a second friend has had her Facebook account broken into. I urge everyone not to list any personal details on their profiles, such as your email address and mother’s maiden name. If you haven’t logged in recently, do so just to make sure everything’s OK. Both my friends hadn’t logged into Facebook for a while, and didn’t realise what was happening immediately.

My friend told me that the only thing she recalled clicking on recently was Facebook Chat. I thought that couldn’t be possible, because that is an official Facebook feature. However, my Facebook Chat appeared at the bottom right corner of my screen, while hers was on top. When she clicked on it, apparently nothing happened. When I clicked on mine, I started chatting to my Facebook friends.

So now I have a question for my readers: If you’ve got Facebook Chat enabled, is your Chat window at the top or bottom right corner? Let’s get to the bottom of this.

…fell asleep earlier than expected, and woke up, also earlier than expected. Since that shouldn’t be happening on a public holiday, I went back to sleep. Sleep does magical things for mouth ulcers, like making them almost disappear overnight. I should apply more sleep for a longer-lasting effect.

Surfed the net as usual, bummed about. Explored some eating places near Mustafa Centre for lunch. Went to the neighbourhood mall to buy fruits and stationery. Went home and completed my French homework. I suck at doing homework cos I’m just lazy and every time I use my MacBook Pro, I end up surfing the web instead of looking up French conjugations online.

Went to Sin Huat Seafood restaurant at Geylang for dinner. Waited for nearly an hour, as is the norm, but other family members were too hungry, so we headed off to Roland’s for late night seafood. Moral of the story: Never go to a famous restaurant during peak hours, especially soon after it’s received a writeup in the papers - in this case, for its crab bee hoon.

Came home late. Surfed the net, as usual. Going to sleep. Felt I had to post something. Done. Zz.