You know who you are …
THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO YOU!
Here’s a song I found on youTube that I want to share …
I will miss each and every one of you.
Stay tuned for photo updates!
Goodbye for now…
Category Archives: Travel and Events
About Podcamp Singapore 08
Today, I had to drag myself out of my bed (on a cold, rainy morning) to attend the PodCamp 2008 in Singapore, organised by the Singapore Management Universities (SMU). It is rare to have weekends to sleep in since I am either busy with events/ work or travel, I did have second thoughts about attending.
However, once I was at the event, I was quite pleased that I got out of bed. Although there were no oversea speakers this year, the sessions were quite interesting. I gathered quite a bit of information and was inspired by a couple of the speakers.
Every hour, two sessions of presentations/ discussions happened concurrently in separate rooms. I had a hard time choosing which ones to sit in. A lot of the speakers are old friends and some are “online acquaintances”. Since I was there to learn, explore and hear from everyone, I chose the ones with speakers whom I have not really had much interactions with in the past. I ended up in the following sessions:-
1) Melvin and Walter’s combined session (phew, no need to choose). As usual, the two never fail to impress.
2) Charlie Pownall from Burson Marsteller on the topic of e-fluentials and shared a survey the agency did in US. Pretty insightful but would be great to have a look at the Asian scenes.
3) Preetam Rai - The guy whose brother works in the same company as me and have been an online acquaintance for a while now. Today’s the first time we met in person. I really enjoyed Preetam’s session. I have been looking for interesting bloggers in Asia and Preetam shared his recommended list.
4) Michael Netzley – Again. Another online friend who I have always wanted to meet. Michael’s session was very inspiring – about wikis and educating the Gen-Y. Earlier this year, I stumbled upon the wiki Michael set up with his students as part of SMU’s social media course. I find the wiki very informative. Definitely a great effort by the students.
5) Finally, Amelia Wong shared her experience as a food blogger. Apparently, the pretty lady can bake some really delicious cupcakes. I can neither bake nor take beautiful pictures, so I am just going to admire her work for now and perhaps try to persuade Jon to copy the recipes and bake me a birthday cake!
For more details on the different sessions:-
Claudia has done a very good job – live-blogged at the different sessions. Robin and his team who put together this year’s podcamp had also written about it if you want more references.
The session that I missed and really wanted to sit in was the one on podcasting in Singapore by the tech65 guys
Overall, I thought the 6 hours at podcamp 2008 today were well-spent! And I kicked myself for forgetting my camera battery – have to wait for Mark to upload his photos as I was using his!
Filed under Technology and Social Media, Travel and Events
Plainsunset @ the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards
Since I was 4 years old, I had always wanted to be a musician. I played the keyboard and piano for 14 years but the music dream didn’t really come true. Ended up doing arts and design and somewhere over the years, started doing something else, completely different. So, here’s where I am now. No complaints though. I love what I do now.
Last evening, I was at Zouk and for the first time, heard the local indie/po punk band – Plainsunset played. When Jonathan and my very cool colleague Ray (who also plays in another local band, Kate of Kale) first told me about Plainsunset some weeks ago, I had never heard of them. I was actually surprised that Jon has their albums. I heard their songs from his iTunes collection and thought they were quite good and last night, hearing them live was pretty awesome!
Ok. I didn’t really go to Zouk for the bands.
It was more for work. And that’s where the other group of local young talents are found. At the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Awards (YMDA) part.
I am trying not to pull anything from the press release into this post. You can find out more yourself, if you are one of those developers who are exploring to develop cool applications for mobile.
Briefly, the competition is about encouraging young developers from tertiary institutes to innovate and create mobile-optimised applications using Yahoo!’s latest mobile development platform - Yahoo! Blueprint based on real business briefs from 4 corporate sponsors, including DBS Bank, Kellogg Asia, Malaysia Airlines and travel portal UEEEU.com.
The party last night was to award 4 winning teams and one Best in Show.
DBS bank widget won the Best in Show
What impressed me most was the quality of submissions from the young developers who created what we called mobile widgets . Check out some of the screenshots of the winning mobile widgets.
IZ Reloded’s who joined us at the party had done some video interviews and shared some pictures of the event.
Looking at the local bands and the young developers, I have to say, we have some really talented people in this city.
Filed under Technology and Social Media, Travel and Events
Blog Action Day – Stand Up, Take Action
A few topics came to mind as I reflect on this year’s Blog Action Day topic – Poverty. I had wanted to write a post personal experience and I thought of writing something relevant to this blog and my job – looking at how mobile phones could help with poverty in some emerging markets. (And some day, I might just post on that two topics).
But i figured, for now, I should highlight some initiatives/ organisations out there, supporting and fighting to end poverty and the opportunities for each of us to reach out and support/ do our part.
For a start, let’s look at what my own country, Singapore is doing? To support the Stand up 2008, a global initiative by the UN Millenium campaign in collaboration with the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, Singaporeans are organising a series of activities to “Stand Up, Take Action” together from 17 – 19 October. Check them out!
Thanks to my colleagues (Ray and Gavin) who brought Worldvision to our attention, Jon and I had recently decided to sponsor a child with the help of the organisation. It is a Christian humanitarian organisation dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tacking the cause of poverty and injustice. We are extremely excited and very blessed to be in a position where we can afford to give and bless. I will probably share more once we finalise details.
Again, thanks to Jeremy, my colleague who knew of my obsession with books – brought to my attention the Room to Read organisation. They are doing things that are very close to my heart. The organisation partners with local communities throughout developing world to provide quality educational opportunities for children in the countries, striving to break the cycle of poverty, one child at a time.
And there are many other initiatives, organisations and resources out there. Mashable.com has put together a good list.
Filed under Technology and Social Media, Travel and Events
Annual Blog Action Day – Proverty
It’s that time of the year again – the Blog Action Day this year is looking to discuss the topic of proverty. For folks new to the Blog Action Day, it is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. On 15 October this month, all registered bloggers will post a post, video, podcast etc on the topic of “proverty”. Find out more by clicking on the banner on the right hand column of this blog or click here.
Last year, I posted on saving the environment
Using the power of the blogging community globally, discussing one single topic and raise different issues and perspectives on that topic – that is powerful! As of today, there are already 7643 bloggers registered, pledging to write a post on 15 October.
For those who are keen to join in, register your blog here and put up the cool banners on your blog to help spread the word.
Filed under Technology and Social Media, Travel and Events
Fendi – A History-Making Event
What would you do if you were given $US 10 million as marketing/ communications budget to create a newsworthy event that will attract the attention of global media? Do what Fendi did!
Two months ago, the Italian luxury brand became the first to hold a runway show on the Great Wall of China. According to Vogue, 500 VIP guests were invited from around the world. This is a dazzling example of how seriously luxury brands are taking the Chinese consumers (and their spending power) very seriously.
I have attended very big events and organised several fashion shows myself but to have one of the world’s ancient wonders as event backdrop, 88 models walking down the runway and Hollywood A-listers at the front rows as well hundreds of global news media attending your event – it’s a marketer/ communicator/ event manager’s dream come true.
Fendi boss Michael Burke said,
“The Great Wall showed that Fendi is clearly one of the few brands that is going to be known everywhere as a magical brand. It’s not a stretch for Fendi to do something like this. But how many brands could pull this off with credibility? If Coca Cola did it, it would be a stunt. For many of our competitors it would be a stretch,”
This is definitely no stunt. It is a history-making event. Godfrey Deeny, the European editor of Fashion Wire Daily titled his news report, ” The Fendi show you could see from space,” and you probably could.
Creating a successful event:-
A couple of my friends who are great event producers/organisers told me – to create a successful fashion show or in fact any event, depends on a few key elements: Location, Budget, Set-up, Products and Guest list.
- The ancient structure of the Great Wall sounds like a fantastic LOCATION, providing a long, natural runway.
- US$10 million was also a great BUDGET to have. Flying those media and celebrities down to the event and lighting up the Great Wall – not an easy task at all.
- The Fendi show featured an exclusive mini collection as well as the highly-acclaimed spring/summer 2008 collection.
- Guests were given complimentary hand warmers and were seated comfortably on heated seats. (it’s amazing the amount of details and thoughts that went into the production and set up)
- The SET UP and the guest list? Take a look at this SPECTACULAR show:-
To read more, simply do a google search and you have pages after pages of news reports (including Singapore’s owned network, Channel News Asia featuring it on primetime news).
Filed under Fashion, Beauty and Health, Travel and Events
