Omy Halloween party at MINT Museum of Toys

Thanks to Omy, I was invited to a Halloween party at the MINT Museum of Toys. Since I'd never been to this museum before, but had wanted to for the longest time, I figured that this would be too great of an opportunity to pass up. So I RSVPed in spite of not knowing who else (besides the one friend I could bring along) would be there.

As it turns out, the weather gods conspired against me, and the thunderstorm that evening prevented me from arriving at the appointed hour of 7pm. Instead, I finally set foot at the museum about one-and-a-half hours later, or about midway through the party. As such, now I really didn't know what to expect. The programme at the registration table gave the impression that the organised events had happened earlier, and the rest of the evening was "free and easy".

After getting some food in the basement restaurant, my friend and I headed up to see the exhibits in this five-storey museum. In spite of its many floors, there are surprisingly few exhibits, mainly because the museum is housed in an old pre-war building, so precious space is limited.

There was supposed to be a guided tour of the museum, but I guess we'd missed that, so we just wandered around on our own. There were a lot of old toys, which shouldn't be surprising since this is a museum after all. So there were no Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, no Ben 10, no Pokemon or Digimon or whatever-mon.

In fact, there were no toys from the eighties (as far as I could tell)! So yes, it was quite interesting to see the range of toys on display, but none of them really struck a chord with me that made go "aaahhhh" nostalgically.

As for the party itself, the main action was on the third floor, where there was a buffet dinner and live music. The people there were just mingling about, resembling a party for people who knew one another already. Almost everyone was in costume, though not necessarily in the "toys" theme, unless you count witches and the like.

Okay, I realise that this was a more-or-less "social media" event, and I had been invited as a blogger. But there really wasn't much of that aspect of activities going on. I recognised one other blogger, but then I can't possibly know every blogger in Singapore. But bringing a bunch of bloggers together doesn't make a "social media" event. And just because we're bloggers doesn't mean that we'll bond automatically.

(Of course, I realise that by saying the above, I'll probably never invited to another Omy event. Oh well.)

The party went on after the supposed end time of 10pm, but I and my friend left then. We were given a free mouse pad (!), some bookmarks and postcards (!!). In the end, I felt like this party probably was either not organised for random invitees, or I had arrived so late that all of those formal introductions had already been over and done with, so boo to me.

Instead, the highlight for me was viewing the toy exhibits... and I gotta admit, I'm really glad I went in free of charge.

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Social Media Breakfast 7 at Lenovo

Picture from Willy Foo

It may have been raining, but that didn't stop me (though it did delay me) from joining almost a hundred other people from trooping down to Lenovo at Lorong Chuan for the seventh Social Media Breakfast outing. Instead of a hall, we were gathered in... the pantry! Well, at least the drinks were easily reachable.

The topic this time was to listen to a few case studies around social media marketing. As someone who's participated in a few of such "social media" events, I was eager to learn from the other side of the table.

Felicia from Text100 presenting on "Search for N". I don't read claudia.sg so I didn't know about this campaign. #smbsg7 11:58 AM Sep 19th from mobile web

First up was Text 100 to present a Nokia case study. This was around the "Search for N" campaign to launch the N97 phone. Organised as a treasure hunt, clues were seeded through blogs like Claudia.sg. Winners would then win the phone. I had no inkling of this particular campaign, but from the results, I'd say that Nokia was pleased with the results and publicity.

Express in Music talking about music personalisation. Something about composing and sales. I'm still trying to figure it out. #smbsg7 12:12 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Instead of a case study, the next presenter, Express in Music, described what it did. I wish I had more to say about it, but I can't. And from some of the tweets during the presentation, it seemed like I wasn't the only one who shared that view. From what I gathered, it had something to do with end users creating their own music for a campaign because music is more intimate. And then they could sell the music... or something like that. Like I said, I'm at a loss here.

Around this time, Daryl Tay had to quieten the noisy folks at the rear of the pantry. I guess people were just too lazy to walk out to the driveway to chat.

Waggenner Edstrom up next. Long intro, probably used up half their allotted time! *lol* #smbsg712:28 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Melvin Yuan started his Waggener Edstrom team's presentation with a long, somewhat rambling introduction. Anyway, the team then went on to present about last week's Twestival, in which they succeeded in collecting donations amounting to about $17,000 for the Children's Cancer Foundation. They also touched on Kiva.org (as an example of the power of micro-financing) and an HP event.

Brandtology introducing itself. No specific case studies? #smbsg7 12:41 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Like Express in Music, the next two presenters didn't provide anything specific in terms of case studies, but were more like an introduction to their services. Brandtology described their business of monitoring sentiment, giving the example of looking at the online chatter around four blockbuster movies this year. Kelly Choo also said that he would be giving away a free self-painted Twitter bird. (The part about giving away a bird generated sniggers around the room.)

Ammado introducing itself. Platform to support the cause you want. Again, no specific case studies. #smbsg7 12:53 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

From what I learned, Ammado is a (U.S.-based?) platform that allows charities to collect donations. Corporations and organisations can also purchase vouchers, which can then be used to donate to any Ammado-listed charity. The service seems to have launched in Singapore, though the freebie voucher for SMB attendees was in U.S. currency. But as a friend remarked, it's a mystery about how it generates any revenue.

Blogathon case study on now. Eager to know how Tangs benefited from it. #smbsg7 1:04 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Finally, the team from Lenovo, Intel and Tangs presented what Derrick Koh promised to be the "best presentation" of the day. They screened two videos from Blogathon, the 24-hour event at Tangs that had 10 bloggers staying awake to do stuff in the shopping centre, while getting their friends to vote for their favourite. Based on what they shared, it seemed like this event was all about generating awareness about... blogging? I don't know. Tangs apparently didn't fix any target in terms of sales or dollar return on investment, which I thought was unusual behaviour for a retailer.

After that was the food and networking moment. I caught up with some folks whom I hadn't seen in a long time. Almost everyone joked that we only meet at such social media events! Anyway, it seemed like people weren't staying for long, with most leaving within 10-15 minutes of the presentations' end.

What I liked about this SMB was that its continuing use of a fixed agenda suggests that its maturing beyond just a "talk cock" session. I'm sure there are those who prefer the old format (and thus were making all the ruckus during the presentations with their chatter), but this current format seemed to work in bringing in new attendees.

With that in mind, I thought that the venue was a letdown. The event announcement said that the place would be larger to accommodate the growing numbers, but it was actually quite small. And with two kinds of attendees (those who wanted to hear the presentations, and those who wanted to mingle), a venue that allows different activities would have been appreciated.

Unfortunately, even with a proper agenda and venue, it would still be up to the presenters to make attending SMB worthwhile. I was promised case studies and got only half of that. The rest came across as marketing spiels. And preparations were clearly inadequate, with presenters needing to fiddle with the sole laptop between their presentations.

Of course, it isn't easy to organise an event like this, especially from a logistics standpoint. And as SMB continues to grow, I guess details like these will be worked out eventually.

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Viral in Singapore - when juicy news is leaked and a newspaper gets caught flatfooted

On Sunday, the headlines of the local English daily, The Straits Times (ST), was about a change in the off-peak car (OPC) scheme. This was something that was really big news given the government's obsession with reducing vehicle ownership and traffic congestion in land-scarce Singapore. The changes in the scheme promised to make it even more attractive and cheaper for drivers to own their own vehicles.

FYI the OPC scheme is one where cars are registered to be driven only at non-peak hours, i.e. early mornings, late evenings, and weekends. It's supposed to alleviate traffic congestion.

So that was the big news on Sunday: a massive change in a key land transport policy. And I found out about it like most other news-reading Singaporeans -- through the local press.

But it turns out that that wasn't the big news, as I was to discover on Tuesday. While going through my Twitter feed, I came across this tweet:



That got me intrigued, though I was to find out through later tweets that said link had been removed. But those tweets also recapped what had happened. In summary:

• the Land Transport Authority (LTA) had briefed journalists about the OPC scheme's changes, ahead of the weekend
• the news was to be embargoed until after Minister Raymond Lim's speech on Sunday
• but a press release went up on LTA's website, which local car enthusiasts discovered and started discussing on car forums
• ST asked LTA if they could run the story since it had been leaked, and LTA said no
• but LTA later said yes, given that the leak had spread far and wide
• ST journalists blogged about this incident, but later censored themselves

What did they censor? These are what I gather:

1. That an LTA executive had screamed at the journalists not to run the story
2. The phrase "red faces" in reference to LTA

You can read a fairly detailed recap at Mr Brown's blog.

I guess this is some kind of milestone in the government's dealings with cyberspace. Given the ease of connecting with people of common interests at certain online channels (forums, social networks, instant messaging, etc.), it is possible for juicy news to spread very quickly without control, like wildfire.

However, here's my additional two cents, from my personal perspective. As a non-car enthusiast, I had not known about the leak until I saw my friend's tweet. And in spite of my so-called digital connectivity, I had not known about the ST blog entry, again, until I saw those tweets.

Therefore, it is entirely possible that I would have missed out on this sensational news, had it not been for my connection to a well connected friend. Currently, I wonder how many people, especially those who are interested in the OPC scheme, are still in the dark about what had transpired.

In my view, this goes to show a few things about online connections and their impact on viral content:

• Content must be extremely alluring to key recipients in order for the former to spread. In this case, it was the juiciness of a government news leak and a screaming government official.
• It's really about who you know, i.e. whether you know the "influencers", not what you know or what you are. Like if I hadn't followed my friend on Twitter, I would be none the wiser of this event.
• If you're an entity (person, company, society, etc.) with a sizeable and deeply engaged following, what you say and/or do online can be picked up immediately, and no change you make subsequently can cover up for it. Like ST censoring its blog entry to reduce LTA's embarrassment.

The above observations apply to the current craze of social media marketing, which I think is what makes that kind of marketing so difficult to do. I'm sure someone will eventually crack the methodology for effective social media marketing. And I'm sure the government will eventually figure out how to handle viral news to its benefit.

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Why I don't use Google Latitude

Google Latitude seems to be all the rage now. I don't recall ever receiving so many invitations to join and share my location. Is it suddenly popular to let everyone know where in the world you are?

Not for me.

Over at Mocca's "Techie Monster" tribe, I've explained in detail "Why I don't use Google Latitude". Do you share the same sentiment as me?

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Facebook is everywhere in APAC, right? Well, almost.

Over at the company's blog, I wrote an article, "Facebook is everywhere in APAC, right? Well almost." The topic came about while doing some research about the usage of social network services in the region for a project.

I think we'd all like to think that Facebook is the only social network service that we should care about due to its immense reach. But the thing I like to remind myself about Singapore is that we're a very Western influenced country, unlike the rest of the region. As a result, though we follow the U.S. and European trends, our neighbours may not.

Read on to discover what I learned about Facebook and other social networks in APAC!

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Dear omy.sg - blogger engagement, you're doing it almost right

As mentioned in my previous entry, I was willing to forgo certain "blogger liberties" in exchange for access to an exclusive event. (That event was the preview of "Star Trek".) On one hand, I was very excited and thankful to be one of the 30 bloggers who obtained free passes to watch it.

On the other hand, the overall experience left me feeling like a half-filled glass. Trouble started when I arrived to collect my passes. It turns out that this wasn't an omy.sg-only event. Rather, (I think) three other blogger-related groups had co-organised it. But this lack of exclusivity wasn't what frustrated me. It was the registration table. Representatives from the three groups occupied the same table, with their individual registration lists.

But there were no markers on the table to indicate who they were! I had to go from the Nuffnang representative to the omy.sg representative. Okay, I had to take an extra walking step down the table, but I thought that the situation could've been handled better. After all, such set-ups are second nature at wedding dinners, so someone somewhere should've known how things should be done to facilitate the registration process. (Unless none of the organisers and/or representatives had ever been to a wedding dinner.)

Then there was the lack of concessions. Ah, forget it. Getting a free pass to "Star Trek" was sufficiently awesome to overcome any lack of free food and drink.

But then, there was the issue with the free pass. We had to surrender them at the entrance, I suppose in lieu of an actual movie ticket. I later found out that some attendees were actually able to retain their passes. But I comforted myself with the assurance from the cinema usher that we would be able to get the pass after the movie.

How naive of me! By the time I left the cinema hall, the only passes left were those that were horribly bent or distorted. And then I realised -- of course! -- that people would take more than their allotment. Which thus left me empty-handed of freebies, save for a small badge.

But should I blame the organisers for this? Well, actually, yes. The free pass is a greater boast factor and much valued item than a badge (which was actually given out by the Starfleet uniform-clad Star Trek volunteers, not any of the organisers). We should've been allowed to retain the pass after passing the entrance. There was never the chance that someone would be able to give the pass to a friend outside of the restricted area, because of the ushers at the entrance and the demarcated queue and the general law-abiding nature of Singaporean residents.

So omy.sg, I hope that your next event is better planned and executed. Keep giving us the good stuff and you're bound to get very positive PR from your core market in return.

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Blogger engagement with penalisation - sign me up!

Here's a curious case for social media beliefs. It's said that bloggers have generally become a force to be reckoned with. Some would say that they have more privileges than the mainstream media.

Case in point: organisations that engage bloggers in outreach programmes are generally advised not to dictate the terms of engagement, e.g. forcing the bloggers to write about the engagement/event. Instead, the organisations are told to let the bloggers do what they want, a privilege that the mainstream media does not enjoy. The theory is that these bloggers have developed a following of readers based on an unspoken agreement: readers will read the blog as long as the blogger does not sell out through non-voluntary endorsements. Therefore, it would be against the organisations' best interests to force the bloggers to do something that they don't want to do.

So, why would I agree to attend omy.sg's sneak preview of "Star Trek" (i) with the agreement that I will have up to three days to blog about it, and (ii) failing which I will be blacklisted from future movie previews?

Because this is an awesome opportunity for me that I can't afford to pass up!

Movies are one of my many passions. To be able to enjoy that passion on someone else's tab is an even sweeter treat. And I like writing reviews about the movies I watch. Heck, I even set up a movie blog dedicated to those reviews.

So since I was planning to write a review about "Star Trek" after watching it (on my own dime), writing a review for omy.sg is a non-issue for me. Of course, I'll thank omy.sg for the opportunity. But I don't have a problem with being blacklisted if I fail to live up to my side of the agreement.

(Which reminds me: set a reminder for Saturday to get the review up!)

Of course, undertaking such an engagement is not something that every blogger will agree to. I'm sure there are avid moviegoers who will pass on the sneak preview because they don't want to be tied to the three-day contract. That's their decision. I'm just not one of them.

It's like if Apple invited me to Cupertino for an all-access tour of their campus, and I had to sing their praises for the next year, then yeah, I'd do it too. Though I'd keep my praises in a measured tone because not everything that Apple produces is gold (remember the PowerMac G4 Cube?).

So with some engagements, a non-voluntary response is acceptable. But you, i.e. the organisers, have to be darn sure that your engagement is worth it if you expect to succeed in doing so!

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