Religious beliefs aside, Christmas means alot more than just gift exchanges, bright glittery lights, yummy food and alcohol.  (I do like Christmas sales though!)

Every year, I find myself all stressed up about having to buy ‘obligatory’ Christmas gifts for family and friends. I don’t believe in gift buying for the sake of it, esp. for people I am not close to. However, not to be the grinch at parties, I often end up doing rounds of gift exchanges (mostly secret santa styled). This year, I already have 4 secret santas!

So, in the attempt to give Christmas the true meaning of  “Season of giving”, here’s what I hope my secret santas would consider:-

I don’t want any more chocs (am on diet) and don’t need any more scented candles (I just bought a new bright lamp) and definitely don’t want any stuff toy (no space on my bed/ shelves), so if you are also stressing over what to get for my ‘obligatory gift’ …. please just donate in my name (my email at pris_tan@yahoo.com) to any of the three Charities/ causes I truly believe in and support:-

* World Vision
* Singapore Zoo
* WWF

This way, no stress for you and lots of benefits for the people and charities who really need help.

Thank you, Santas. :X

Recently, I realised “NO” is a very difficult word for many people.

Generally, I don’t like to say no. In the past, whenever someone (especially at work) had a request, I would say yes. A part of me did not want to burn bridges and I always try to avoid confrontations. I also try to compromise and say yes to help my friends whenever they ask, because I hate to disappoint.

I also realised many people cannot accept being told “NO.”  The word “No” is almost a dirty word, people take them personally even when the intentions were good.

Over the years, I’ve learned and grown wiser, thanks to various mentors and close friends in my life who helped put things into better perspective.

I learned that every time we say yes to something, we are actually saying no to something else.

When you say yes to working overtime every day, you say no to your social and family life and personal hobbies. When you say yes to a job you don’t love, you say no to a dream you may have. When you say yes to attending a meeting you are not even sure why you are there, you are saying no to another more important task that you could have done with that time.

Susan Newman, author of “The Book of No” wrote, “By saying no, you can focus on your goals.” Saying yes to everything can damage your reputation and hurt your career (and may I add, your life too).

People (myself included) should learn that saying no is okay. Recently, I said No to a couple of requests and immediately was made to feel bad. I was worried about being rude, seen as being unhelpful and not a good person. Someone told me “maybe you should just agree and do what you are asked anyway.”

The episodes kept me awake. I concluded that there was a reason for saying No. And even after communicating the reason, the recipients pushed back. (Aha, those were always tricky). The guilt doubled!

By saying yes to something I didn’t believe in, I would have to say no to doing the right thing and upholding my beliefs.

A very wise mentor used to tell me, “People (the smart ones anyway) respect you more when you say no to the right things.” Sure, everyone may like you because they can get you to do everything they want for them. But do they really have respect for the guy or for his time?

Now, go ponder. And then learn. This is not a post to encourage people to be lazy at work or be an anti-social being. This is a post of a personal reminder and a revelation that saying “NO” is not a bad thing. Learning to say “NO” is not easy but necessary and there are many benefits that come with it. Practising how to say NO in life and at work can be a challenge but one that everyone should take up.

For their ability to reach out to people who cannot read and for those who want to multitask in modern day busy lifestyle, audiobooks in India are slowly getting popular, though the industry is still in its infancy.

Audiobooks have been popular among children but now famous books and novels are being converted into this format for adults too.

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post about audio books. I mentioned that I didn’t think that audiobooks were doing well in Asian markets, now it looks like it is changing. I also wrote about the reasons I love audiobooks.

I love books – in any format. I bought the iPad to try save space on my bookshelves. I got addicted and started buying several titles on Amazon Kindle and via iBooks.

Recently, when I was listening to a podcast , I got a promotional code to get a free audiobook of my choice from Audible.com. Out of curiousity (how could I resist a FREE book?), I tried!

Do you know that Audible.com is a subsidiary of Amazon? I found out that you can listen to audiobooks from Audible.com on different devices, including iPod/ iPad, Android smartphones etc. According to the website, it currently has more than 85,000 titles.

I received my free audiobook and was very happy. The customer service at Audible.com was very quick to respond to questions and was very helpful when I ran into some billing issues later on.

A useful and interesting site -  NextAdvisor.com also came to my attention recently. It allows you to check out audiobook reviews, compares audiobooks subscription plans etc.

My fellow book lovers would often argue that electronic books will never replace the hard copies and I doubt many of them have tried an audiobook. I just loved the fact that I can consume books in different formats at different time. I usually listen to audiobooks when I am running. I do drag my iPad out to read during commute and sometimes, I laze by the pool or on my couch with a nice paperback novel.

However, I noticed that not many of my friends (those who actually read and love books) are into audiobooks. I asked the Rambling Librarian why and he said “short attention lifespan for spoken words …”

So, question – Have you bought an audiobook and why do you think they are not doing as well as other format of books? Price? Reading behavior?

For those of you who want to try one out, here’s a 30-day trial on Amazon/ Audible.com,  iTunes has a good selection and check out Simply Audiobooks too.

For my Singaporean friends, the National Library has a a good selection of audiobook titles too.

Happy Reading!

Ah! dolce far niente!. It means “pleasant idleness”, the sweetness of doing NOTHING (in Italian)

It is the start of a new year. Many friends have been posting their new year’s resolutions on Facebook. I believe in having goals and working towards them but somehow, like many people, I have not been very successful in keeping my new year’s resolutions.

This year, I decided to make only ONE resolution. One that sounds too simple and almost silly to make it as a New Year’s resolution.

I want to learn to find the joy of doing nothing. The two key words “Joy” and “Nothing.”

Before you jump in to tell me how I should not be lazy (my mum would), I am not referring to being a beach bum, not finding employment or inactivity.

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” -  Winnie the Pooh

The concept of ‘doing nothing’ sounds good to many people but something that many fail to do, especially Asians (and women). Many of us are so used to being too busy and doing too much. Learning to do ‘nothing’ or finding the joy and sweetness to just do nothing sound like an impossible task. Doing nothing is not inactivity. “Sit” around is a verb, so is “Smell” the roses but how many of us are actually doing that?

I read a great article in ELLE magazine asking readers when was the last time you really take a day off to sit on your couch, with a nice cup of coffee, read a good book and not feel guilty about not cleaning the house, not running errand, not attending to last minute work emails and just give yourself a day to just ‘be with yourself” and “do nothing much?” The article went on to say that women are prone to suffer from guilt for taking time off for themselves.

For a long time, I had been so busy with work and when I had a day off, I also had a long ‘to-do’ list – “go for gym training, go to the bank, reply ‘urgent’ emails, pick up groceries, meet up friends for dinner etc” Before I know it, the day off was gone and I was tired and upset that I didn’t get to REST!

Recently, due to various reasons, I decided to take a break from work (I realised it was a great decision I made in 2010).

A part of me is so eager to find the next new exciting role, especially when great friends and contacts are enthusiastic about sharing work opportunities. The wiser bit of me is persuading myself to just take some time off to breathe, enjoy this rare period when I can truly do the things I have always wanted to do but always too busy to.

I am convinced that doing nothing takes more effort and more determination than to rush around and doing many things.

I am not saying that my goal is not to work so that I can master the art of doing nothing, what I am saying is, I want to learn to find the joy in resting and taking absolute pleasure in idling some times (even if it’s just spending 15mins each day after work lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and not feel guilty that I’ve not updated this blog or not reply to my work emails).

My pastor often reminds us of a great revelation he shared about the topic -”restful increase.” Key words – Rest and you’ll find the Increase. I am not going to preach here (follow the link if you want to read more about what Pastor said…).

To end this post, here are some pictures of my New Year holiday at a lovely resort by the beach in Bintan, Indonesia where I learned to enjoy doing absolutely nothing much. I eat, sleep, rest, read, stare at the sea, at the sky and strolled from one end of the beach to the other by myself, listening to my favourite music …then eat and sleep again..”

So, today marks the start of my new year resolution – in search of la dolce far niente. The next time you see me stressed and rushing around doing 1001 things, you know what to tell me!

So, here’s a quick re-cap of my 2008!

I have 2 more days to my 1-year at Yahoo!. It has been a fantastic year for work. Despite all the ups and downs, I make alot of new friends, visited alot of new countries (I’ve never traveled so much in my life) in 12 months and learnt alot of new things. Broaden my perspectives of business in the region and learn about different cultures in Asia. For a while, I was living out of my suitcase, my boss called me the “little road warrior”. While it was alot of tears and sweat, I had alot of fun. While outsiders commented and criticized about the company, I truly think this is one of the best organisations I’ve been in; with a great culture and I am very blessed with a fantastic “multi-cultural” team and most importantly, I found great mentors.
Socially, I have cut back on time spent on blogging in the second half of the year and invested more time with my girlfriends, family and loved ones. While I sometimes feel bad that I don’t update my blog as often, despite drafting several entries (that are still sitting in the draft folder), I am glad that I chose to take time off to rest. I do, however missed hanging out with the other bloggers and discussing PR and social media/ technology topics that are close to heart.

Few weeks ago, I agreed to co-author a separate blog with an ex-colleague, mainly recording blessings and revelations of God. Completely different from this blog but I see that as more of a journal-writing, helping both of us remember the blessings of God, despite the crisis and turmoils in the world.

Financially, 2008 has been fantabulous! I am crowning myself “THE SHOPAHOLIC!” From the Gucci bags, Tiffanys, to $10 junks and I’ve built a mini library of books! I’ve spent so much this year, which I have to significantly cut down. But again, I had fun!

Other highlights in 08 include signing up with WorldVision on the sponsorship of a kid from Thailand. I am very excited about it and see that as a long-term commitment. Shall share more if i get the chance in next post.

So, what’s for 09?

I am not sure yet. I am still thinking of “resolutions” but a few key things in the pipeline – Make a trip to UK and making plans to volunteer @ Habitat for Humanity. Pay a visit to the sponsored kid at some point and looking for a new house to buy!

I am looking forward to 2009, despite the financial crisis. Life goes on and I pray that all my friends are truly blessed in the new year!

How was your 2008?

I honestly don’t think it’s an excuse for bloggers to not blog as much. I think blogging shouldnt be “hard work” as well. I remembered a good friend who’s one of those top bloggers telling me “don’t feel obligated to blog because you have to, blog because you want to..”.

For myself, I’ve definitely slowed down, though not stopped. I twitter and interact on facebook more nowadays. It’s not that I didn’t want to write a post every other day but when you are traveling alot, and unlike agencies who might see their responsibilities to “engage in social media”, therefore more blogging and more podcasting, there are alot of people who have endless meetings to attend, endless traveling and endless hours of late nights doing a job that has alot of other objectives to meet (beside engaging the communities), so when some of us get home, the last thing we think of is to switch on laptop and start to write a blog. Personally, all i could think of, most of the nights is – try to get some sleep (and there is family and health to consider).

There are many ways to connect and communicate. Blogging is one of them, not the only means.

Having said that, I am keeping this blog and I’m still writing when I have an opinion to make, when i have something to share or when i want to record some thoughts for future reference.

So, honestly, does a reader really feel CHEATED when a blogger stopped or slowed down blogging? As a reader, I see it as a shame if my favourite blogger stopped completely but i am not sure about feeling “cheated”… I have a couple of friends who are in digital media business who used to blog about wonderful stuff but had to stop because of overwhelming amount of work, do i feel bad or cheated? Not really…

Note that these might not even be the usual tech/ pr/ social media folks. At podcamp yesterday, I was inspired by Amelia’s and Preetam’s blogs even though they don’t blog about topics that I usually write about.

I shall start with the ones that I actually know the authors (and they are all Asians and none of them really write about the topics I usually cover). Here are the 3 for today -

1) Siew Kum Hong – He’s my colleague at Yahoo! (our senior legal counsel) and also Singapore’s Nominated Member of Parliament. Although I was never quite into politics but Kum Hong’s blog posts are often inspiring and spur discussions and thoughts from members of the public. At podcamp yesterday, someone mentioned that there are more and more MPs writing blogs and going onto facebook.

2) Pluit Solutions – Herryanto Siatono is probably not an unfamiliar name to many. He’s the founder of BookJetty and recently joined Yahoo! too. As an avid reader, I find Herry’s blog really informative.

3) Timothy Go - Tim is a fantastic friend and a great news anchor on Channel News Asia. We used to blog on Livejournal (he still does) and I moved to wordpress and set up this blog. Expect to find a wide variety of topics in his blog, from behind the scenes of his work to his travel adventure (yes, he travels more than i do) and follow up to some cool events (that he always get invited to the chi chi and glam stuff).

Have you read any interesting blogs recently?

I have been avoiding speculations or engage in any form of discussions about some topics lately…

I also didn’t want to turn this blog into a “publicity channel” for whatever I am doing at work. I still would like to keep this blog as a platform for explorations on PR, new media, technology as well as my favourite topic – books!

However, I did think about my friend’s question and here’re my thoughts…. Hell no! No regrets at all. Although I admit, there are days that are tougher, what is really special about my new job is, people are extremely passionate about what they are doing at Yahoo! It is a very different experience. I had my fair share of bad clients and bad colleagues in the past jobs who made going to work feels like the end of the world.

Right now, I am busy. This is easily one of the busiest jobs I ever had but I am loving it! In my very short time (this is my 6th week) with the company, I can’t help but noticed a few things about the place – what I was told before I joined the company was true… it has a great culture. Beside the great view at my work desk (next to the full-length glass window, on the 37th floor of Suntec City Tower), I love working with alot of truly great, talented and extremely cool people.

Sure, it is sad to read some negative news coverage but what I find encouraging is, everyone works together and despite tough times, we are having fun and we work hard to achieve what we set out to do.

And this week, we see some great results as Yahoo! made various announcements at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. One of which is the new Yahoo! oneConnect (read more on TechCrunch) and read what many others wrote.. .

“A few of the innovative features of oneConnect are its Pulse feature, which lets users see what their friends are up to, including their status, profile updates and recommendations based on their social network pages, and Status, which lets users see their contacts by their most recent status updates on social networks, as well as update their own status on their social networks and automatically broadcast it to their friends” – RCR WirelessNews

 

“Yahoo continues firing on all cylinders in the mobile area despite the looming presence of Microsoft‘s aggressive moves to acquire the Web giant.” – InternetNews

“oneConnect is a very promising and I’m not surprised Yahoo is moving ahead,” Gartner analyst Mike McGuire told InternetNews.com. “Yahoo can’t be paralyzed by what Microsoft says it wants to do — it has these developments and deals in place and as [CEO] Jerry Yang has said to his employees, they have to focus on what they need to work on.”

“Has Yahoo beaten Google to the punch?” – TechWorld

 

“OneConnect is part of a strategy to open up Yahoo services to work side by side with those of rival services, thereby making itself a more relevant starting point for users seeking to find what’s going on the web.” – ZDNet UK

On a side note, the coming Monday is my 30th birthday. To me, it is a brand new chapter of life – a new starting point to more great things. I have a lot of goals set for the next 5 years and I have been very blessed. I am surrounded by great friends, colleagues and family who have been so awfully wonderful. Thank you to all those who sent me all the lovely birthday wishes, gifts and stuff!

This is usually what happens when you are in a new job, a bigger role and everything’s new. You spend every possible waking hours trying to read alot of information, talking to many people, think and think about how to make various things work to make sense.

The good news is, I have learnt so much in the last 3 weeks about everything mobile and of course, the big purple house. I am attached to the mobile business division of the company called Connected Life, managing the communications for the Asia region. Before this job, I was spending my time exploring the whole web2.0 (thus the creation of this blog and signing up at a whole load of social networks) and not paid much attention to the mobile space. The last few weeks opened up new perspectives on social media on the go. (hopefully, I can start sharing more when I settle in).For now, I am happy with a brand new BlackBerry Curve and unlimited data access! For those who have followed news at CES and heard Jerry Yang’s keynote, (and I am not promoting the company’s product) but my brother and I are having alot of fun with the new beta Yahoo! Go 3.0.

Try it or read more about what others wrote. This is the case of not having to even provide links, do a quick search for Yahoo Go 3.0 and you get endless pages of news/ blog links. Wonderful thing to do communications/ PR for a brand like this. I am excited!

Sure! It was really exciting for about two days then I started to dread being here. If not for work and CES, I would love to be home right now. It is cold, dry (and I mean, very dry) and despite the gorgeous fountain at the Bellagio, the fancy “Paris”, “New York” hotels and casinos and the grandeur of the MGM, it is a city without much culture and everything is just man-made. I did, however, enjoyed myself at the Cirque du Soleil shows – Zumanity and KA.

Oh wait, I must make a disclaimer, I totally love my new job too! It has been a blast meeting fellow colleagues from different offices and learning a lot about the newly launched Yahoo! Go 3.0.

I was planning to post a day by day CES (personal) updates in this blog but I was so busy and I only had chance to walk around the other exhibiting booths yesterday. The pictures I took will have to go into flickr once I get home. I am sure many bloggers and media covered everything that is interesting this year. I personally am quite wowed by the new ultra big, thin and sleek LCD screens.

I am heading back to San Francisco tomorrow, then the long flight home the next day. I love SF (except for the really wet weather last week). Shopping is really great in SF.