Most of my friends know that I am a huge bookworm. Both Jon and I are regulars at Kinokuniya bookstore in Singapore and Amazon is our favourite online store. When Kindle was launched, I really wanted to get it but I held back. My handbag is currently filled with all kinds of little gadgets (I tend to carry two ipods and several mobile phones). I don’t think I’ll be able to carry one more device.

So, the last couple of months, I have started buying audio books. It all started with me being really busy with work and traveling a lot. Reading a book on the plane gives me headache. I can’t really read when I am in a cab too. I used to read 2-3 hours per night but lately, I am so tired after work, the moment my head hits the bed, I go into dreamland. Audio books became the “solution!” I convert all the tracks to MP3 and save them onto my iPods. Easy! No need to drag a pile of books with me when I travel or go for holiday and no need to bring additional “reading gadget.” I can now pack 10 “books” or more with me everyday and listen to them while I am commuting or when I wait for hours at airports.

In my last post on Social Media books, a lot of those books are also available in audio cds. I did a quick check on Wikinomics and The Cluetrain Manifesto and they have the audio version!

What I also like about audio books is, it reminds me of childhood - when Mum and Dad used to read to us (my younger brother and I) before bed time. And then, they tend to stop half way into the story and insisted that we should be sleeping. I love having people read to me. Oh! I have an audio version of the NKJV Bible too. Being a church-goer and a fan of a female preacher, Joyce Meyer, I have been stocking up her audio books recently, as well as C.S Lewis’s.

Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think audio books are really popular in Asia, specifically in Singapore (where I am based now). I can hardly find any audio books at the retail stores. The only few i found are from BORDERS and they are really expensive. The good thing is, iTunes has a really good selection and there is always the wonderful Amazon.

I am not saying I am giving up books (in print) or magazines (that are not available in cds), I am glad that I am enjoying the alternative to reading books!

Interesting read:-

Last year, New York Times reported on a budding author who recorded a short audiobook for her unfinished print. The audiobook climbed to the top of iTunes’ best-selling books after she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

I think all new books from now on should have the unabridged audio version!

I was just looking at some of the searches that landed in one of the top posts in this blog - Social Networking Book Sites. I wrote that post quite a long while back and it constantly came up as top. Some of the common searches that ended at my blog includes “social media books, new media and social networking”

That post is not exactly about books on social networking but more of online cataloging sites (such as Shelfari and the Library Thing) that allow users to catalog their books, connecting with other book lovers and share reviews/book lists.

I did a quick Google search on the keywords “social networking books” and true enough, that blog post came up third in the first page of results. I have received a couple of emails from a few folks who surfed in and asked if i could recommend any books on social networking/ social media. I replied two of them and then I got really busy and didn’t manage to get to the rest. So, I thought, I might as well list down a couple of books that I personally thought are pretty cool. Walter Lim recommended a few too (via Facebook).

Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the way businesses Talk with Customers - by Robert Scoble

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything - by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams

The New Influencers: A Marketer’s guide to the new social media - by Paul Gillin

Now is Gone: a primer on new media for executives and entrepreneurs - by Geoff Livingston and Brian Solis

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies - by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff

Join the Conversation: How to engage marketing -weary consumers … - by Joseph Jaffe

Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution - by Justin Kirby & Paul Marsde

I am sure there are alot of other good books out there. I am currently reading Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae that Walter gave quite a good review on.

The book that I am trying to get my hands on now is - Presentation Zen - by Garr Reynolds.

Book Description
FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI — Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making “slide presentations” in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

Blame it on work. I have been unable to do much outside of work. Now that I am taking a short break, I can start writing..

Several topics and thoughts went through my mind the last few days and I shall try to jot them down in this and next couple of posts.

One of my colleagues came to Singapore from Sunnyvale to work on a project with me and we had a chat about how different the bloggers are in Singapore VS those in the U.S . He was highly amused at the “type” of bloggers that show up at events and the things they blog about.

I was discussing the same topic with another friend who commented that, perhaps the blogosphere here is not as sophisticated and generally still revole around recreational writing rather than niche blog posting. For example, I have always been trying to find influential technology experts who blog and have a healthy traffic in Singapore. I can only think of, perhaps 2-3 right now. If i am a client, trying to reach out to tech bloggers here, i have extremely limited options and would probably end up raeching out to tier 2 (and slightly less tech-savvy) bloggers.

I guess, this post is also directed to the social media consultants who are constantly advising clients to include bloggers outreach in PR/ marketing campaigns. It is definitely more than relationship building with the bloggers, we need to also know what we want to tell and WHO we want to tell it to.

Why would I want a popular food blogger (who might have 20,000 readers) whose interest is in food, restaurant reviews and receipes to try force a new high-tech application launch to his face and get him/ her to write about it?

If i am announcing a business strategy, why would i get a 17-year-old blogger (regardless of how popular his blog is) who writes in broken English to review our announcement?

Reach is one thing, influence is another. Quality (as in targeted audience and type of blogs) is definitely key. As a client, if i were to hold a bloggers outreach event (ie: in the office), to launch a new product, I would probably love to read/ hear about what the bloggers think of the product, ask intelligent questions about it and even if the post is controversial/ negative, at least it helps the client /company understand what users are thinking. What a client probably doesn’t necessary need is the blogger’s thoughts about the furniture, the carpet, the toilet signboard or the noodles he/she ate during the event and no mention about the product. When this happen, I can’t help but wonder where the problem lies.

————————
Some interesting blog posts:-

Brendan Hodgson wrote about “There’s more to digital PR than social media“

Brian Solis on “Making Mistakes and Amends in Blogger and Media Relations“

Kevin Lim’s (non-social media post) but a hot topic on iPhone in Singapore

Last week, I replied to a list of questions that Kevin posted on the topic of “would you hire a social media strategist?” . It’s an interesting question, - one that many of us in marketing, communications, PR, new media field are questioning.

I’ve given my replies to Kevin and looking forward to his next post on the compilation of thoughts from different people on the topic. (part 2 of his post was updated here) Meantime, I am gearing this post to a different direction. I am more interested to understand what the “social media strategists” themselves (and here, I mean, those who do it for living and not bloggers who blogs for fun or passion and charging people for attending event, calling themselves experts) think of their value to companies and the audiences.

Are they merely the connector between the clients/ companies they represent and the audiences? Will the role be a “stand-alone” or an integrated one , meaning this person will at the same time, manage other forms of communications ie: marketing/ traditional PR?

Are social media strategists in our midst explaining their roles clearly to us (the employers or even the mass audience). They are another layer of (for the lack of better word) “barrier” between companies and the audiences now, and if so, what does this layer do?

Steve Rubel presented an interesting post on his views about “3 internet careers that soon won’t exist” and one of them is a social media manager/ strategist.

Jeremiah Owyang, responded in his post “The need for the social media manager” . However, he also agreed that “social media skills will eventually become a normal bullet point in nearly every marketing resume…”

As far as I know, most of the social/ new media experts are sitting in the same offices and integrated into public relations agenciess that runs a digital department.

So, back to Kevin’s question, what qualification does a social media strategist need? I believe, to answer that, we need to ask, “what is the exact role of a social media strategist?” and from there, we can see the skill sets required.

To me, right now, this person should be a voice for the people/ audiences and at the same time, an evangelist for the companies/ agencies they represent. This person, shouldn’t be just an expert in technology or the “new” media. How do you actually know what’s NEW when you have no experience in the “old”?  For a start, i have a strong urge to say, a bullet point in the social media strategist resume should be “communciations skill” and being a strategist will also require him/ her to have some business sense. Otherwise, why would a company hire you if it’s not making a difference to the business?

Heh, i can see my social media strategist friends sending me hate mails soon.

I stumbled upon this wiki on social media when I was doing random surfing this morning about PR in Asia. It is really quite interesting and I believed it is put together by some university students.

I’ve been invited to a couple of social media events/ gatherings and the discussion topics have always been focused on which tools/ networks/ channels/ methods are best to reach out to the audiences. I realised there is always a tendency to generalise too much and assume that what works in US will work in Asia when we discuss marketing communications, public relations and social media.

The last couple of months, I’ve been traveling to different parts of Asia and spending time, trying to understand the different markets that I am managing in Asia Pacific region. It’s interesting to note how diverse and unique each Asian market is when it comes to managing PR/ communications in each country. It is even tougher to come up with a regional campaign that works across several Asia countries. When we talk about Web 2.0, PR, communications in general, at times we forget that there is the cultural element. Communications in an emerging market versus communications in Latin America will obviously be very different. How consumers in different market consume information is also very different and that should affect the way we plan our communications campaigns. As much as we have all heard that in the Web 2.0 world, it is all about the people, the online communities gathering together, sharing information, contributing to conversations, everything is becoming  more globalised. However, as I’ve observed and agreed with the students who wrote in the wiki, i think we’ve missed several points.

So obviously despite the market’s globalization process, there are differences between countries …because of cultural factors…which are partly responsible for the marketing environment in that market. Asia is a region with many layers: different languages, different cultures, and different technology preferences….all in a region filled with different countries, laws, etc. It does pose a tough challenge, not only for inter but also for Intra-national communication.

These observations are quite accurate. There are a lot of so called “social media experts” out there who sometimes called me up and said, “hey, we can offer you help on regional campaigns using social media….”

My immediate thought is, do you really know how people in India consume information? Have you stepped into Bangalore and understand the language difference? Do you understand the technological great divide between different cities in India or do you know what’s really big in Vietnam right now? Do you know that, web/ PC penetration is so much lower than mobile phone penetration in many Asia countries? So, it makes me wonder at times how companies and agencies hire their “experts” who hardly step out of their own country and hardly understand communciations on the web, let alone the 2.0 or the ability to reach/ engage consumers out there in Asia. Sure, some of us may understand how the web2.0 and how PR works (in general) but to put together some really successful campaigns, it takes much, much, much more than that.

In HK for instance, there are three primary communities in Hong Kong. The expatriates, who favor English, the local Chinese whose first language is Cantonese and the increasing numbers of mainland Chinese immigrants who use Mandarin. These differences are important to businesses as based on their target audience; their medium of advertisement has to change.

While we raved and make a huge fuss about Facebook, nobody really bothers about it in countries in Asia. In China, Korea and Japan and other emerging markets, there are some really big and powerful social networks that are locally relevant to the people.

When it comes to PR, it doesn’t really matter if Techcrunch or New York Times are raving about a certain product or website, if i’s not locally relevant to ie: Thailand or Vietnam, (that are not even english speaking markets) or big markets like Korea, India and China, honestly, the key media there don’t really care.

I have always hoped to find more great bloggers, influencers and thought leaders in Asia who cover topics on social media and communications, especially those who have not only in-country knowledge but cross-cultural, cross countries expertise. If you are one of them, please do drop me a note. We’ve heard so much from the US and UK folks, I think it is time to hear from Asia’s point of view on the topics of Social Media and new media. (honestly, it’s really not about knowing how to set up a second life account and far more than using facebook to set up an event invite).

My stack of new books from Amazon.com had arrived! I am now flipping through Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae and Brian Solis & Geoff Livingston’s Now is Gone.

Both have some really interesting points about new media and new media marketing. Since I have not finished reading them, I shall reserve any comments for now. Both are definitely worth reading!Recently, I’ve observed that some PR folks have decided to completely ignore / not get involved with the new media, leaving them in the hands of the community managers. I am not saying that’s right or wrong, I am just considering what it means for us, as PR professionals, to only care about getting what our clients or companies want us to say to our ”target media”. Do we, at some point consider what our CONSUMERS are thinking, saying, commenting, wanting, needing from our company?

A recent chat with a PR friend made me ponder more as she pointed out that, ”UH! It’s so hard to CONTROL bloggers, sometimes, they get their facts all wrong and refused to hear us out..”

Another girlfriend commented, “Why pre-brief bloggers? Why even bother talking to XX business magazine? I just want to get this story out in 3 key dailies and i get my REACH! It’s just too much effort and trouble to talk to XX business magazine and YY trade media because their reach is so much lesser…” 

There are some truths in each comment but something tells me, we are moving backward rather than forward. I realised what happened to many PR people. We are extremely busy folks, sometimes we get so bogged down by work, we become very reactive and we just keep on doing doing doing the same things, hoping for different results. We forget about exploration, learning new tools, new communications strategies as we move on into a new technological era.

At times, we are so narrow-minded. We are given a set of “key communications statements” from our clients or our corporate communciations department and we follow them so strictly, we forgot that our consumers and the media are not stupid to believe a  set of statements that doesn’t make any sense to anyone else but us.

I realised I am trying to make several points here. I guess, what I am trying to think through is, as much as I believe and blogged quite extensively about how PR folks should always go back to basic and get our messaging/ foundation right before we move on to new media. On the other hand, there is frustration with PR people who are too afraid to move on and get too engrossed in trying to make sure that they have coverage in the 1 or 2 newspapers (that might have readership of 200,000) but is that enough?

Some XX company might have a full page coverage in The Sunday Times (Singapore’s most-read broadsheet) last week but I was on the plane, my boyfriend was sick and slept through the day and my brothers were out and not touched the papers. So, even though we might be the target audience of that XX company, we missed it.

So, explain to me… how is the excuse of targeting only 3 key media every time we have news announcements (because they have the most reach) ensure that most, if not all our target audience (consumers) read about our announcements? How is that making an influence? How is that moving the needle, making an impact for the business you are in?

My good friend and a fantastic blogger, Melvin Yuan recently stated in his blog post…

In the same way, PR professionals could never master the craft of Influence because our tools for the task were ineffective (think press releases, articles and events) and our measurement was flawed (think size of news coverage and the ad-dollar equivalent). Both never did translate to direct impact and measurable results that businesses really need.

But today we have the right tools (think blogs, micro-sites, e-mails, search engines etc.), the right knowledge (in search, digital storytelling and social media), and better ways to measure business (not communication) results (think click-throughs, readership and online decisions).

We have what it takes to communicate directly, track and measure results effectively, making Influence as much a science as it is an art.

A friend asked me, “You must be feeling really sh**ty about your new job now…all those uncertainties and distractions… do you regret your decision to move to the new place?”

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!

I was given free upgrade to Flickr pro account two weeks ago (one of the great perks of being staff). I am in the process of (still) downloading the images from the Vegas/ SF trip. Work has taken up quite a bit of time but no, I am not giving up this blog (yet).

I noticed that a lot of bloggers are spending less time blogging but continue to be “social” on other networks such as twitter, facebook and flickr. Sometimes, I find my flickr pictures receiving more comments and views than my blog posts. I guess, the good old saying of “a picture paints a thousand words” is the reason why many people (myself included) start spending a little more time putting up our favourite pictures that document our interests and life.

A quick look at my current flickr, you can almost tell Jon and my obsession with monkeys.

A couple of weeks back, I read in The New York Times:

As part of an effort to expand access to its photograph collections and tap the collective knowledge of user-generated content, the Library of Congress Wednesday launched a pilot project with photo-sharing site Flickr to publish some 3,000 photos.

The key goals of this pilot project named The Commons are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the huge Library of Congress collection, and secondly to show how your input of a tag or two can make the collection even richer.

My friend, Ivan Chew wrote a fantastic post about it at his Rambling Librarian blog. (read more here, especially the part about whether community blogging will work).

I’ve got facebook notes, IM messages and emails from friends and some of the blog readers asking if I am “alive”. Of course I am. I am just spending a little too much of my waking hours at work the last few weeks.

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!

I’ve heard so much about Vegas and I’ve watched CSI and many other movies, set in this colourful city. This is the first time I am here and when people asked me, “so, how was it? Exciting!!??”

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.