My Revival

I realised that it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I've recently set up a company, Epiphany Education LLP., with a partner and time just seems to fly by when you have to handle school, work and life.

I've decided to start writing again but this time under my company's blog. I'll be commenting on issues relating to communications, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship and financial literacy. If by the off chance you've stumbled upon this blog, check me out here instead.

Have a good one.

I got a B- instead of an A?... oh it's Facebook's fault.

Alright, the word is out. Facebook is officially messing with your grades! Quick! Delete your account!

Okay, I'm joking, but only a little bit. I can imagine all the Facebook addicts going "delete... facebook...? How.. How will I live? Where will I see pictures of my friends? Where else can I type random and useless information about what I'm currently doing!?"

There have been several articles recently on the effects of facebook. Check this one out. On today's daily alerts (something here at SMU), an article published in "The Chronical of Higher Education" seems to be singing a similar tune.

I quote:

Notes to students: surfing in class lowers test scores

A professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder has found that students who used their laptops for non-classroom activities, like updating their Facebook pages fared worse than their peers. In the face of this, some law schools have banned laptops from classrooms and even created laptop-free zones.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, p A14

So maybe the creation of Facebook was just a ploy to lower the grade point averages of schools all around the world! *snigger* Well I'm not a frequent Facebook user, so unfortunately for me, I cannot blame Facebook for my crappy grades. But for the rest of you, at least there's a convenient excuse.

Before you scoff at these articles and dismiss them, take a look at your own Facebooking habits... It might not be that far from the truth after all...

Reflections...

It's the time of the term when everything begins to slow down in preparation for judgement day.

I've come quite far in my digital media journey, with some success and failures along the way. In retrospect, I've learnt alot and I believe this knowledge will help me way into the future. When I first started the blog, I was skeptical about social media. I failed to maintain a blog with more than 2 posts prior to this class and am very happy to say that in comparison, this one is much more successful!

I would like to summarise my 3 learning points in this digital media class. It has been tough, but I have a good feeling about my newfound grasp of this technology.

#1 - Social Media is a lifestyle.
The tools are out there for everyone to use. You can sign up for any number of accounts across various social media platforms within minutes. Using them efficiently and effectively however, takes time and practice. Personally, I started with google reader, facebook, blogger, linked in, delicious and twitter. Currently I'm only active on my reader, blogger and twitter. I struggled to find time for these tools.

The point is, new social media platforms and tools will pop up every day. Signing up for every single one of them is pointless. The important thing is to incorporate social media into your daily life and only then will these tools perform their functions and be useful to you.

#2 - Social Media is communications in the future.
Much of the class talked about PR agencies and how they fumble their way in social media, trying to figure out the best way to use this new technology. Evident from Daryl's Blog, not understanding blogger relations will lead to serious consequences. The truth is, social media is still very new and PR agencies are racing for the right to claim to be the leader in social media. So far, social media platforms haven't found a business model that ensures profitability. Even so, its influence and impact has been proven to be immense.

Social media is THE future in communications and understanding how it works will become the basis of PR and Marketing work in the future.

#3 - Social Media is powerful and measurable.
In our final class discussing social media metrics, a classmate asked a very good question. Traditional advertising has been around for many years now and people generally accept that it's effectiveness cannot be measured accurately. (Current metrics are vague and untracable) So why is everyone making such a big fuss over measuring social media's effectiveness now? This is simply because for once, people have the technology to do so. With digital media, you can relatively accurately determine how many people have viewed your advertisement, how many people have given you positive ratings, how many people have propagated your content and even how long an average person spends looking at particular pages of your website.

I am fortunate to be a part of the measurement team in class because in doing so, I've uncovered the science of social media. Marketeers and communications professionals can tell what you view, for how long and what steps you take before you make a purchase. There are so many ways to use this knowledge, one of which is to earn more profit. Watch out consumers!

I guess to end the class, I feel proud to be doing the measurement project. I realised that this is unchartered territory. Even experts cannot agree on how exactly we measure social media. To know that I am part of this pioneer group and have the potential to contribute to this whole new science makes me honoured. May my team's hard work benefit the future generations to come.

Wow, noble eh? *hah*

whoops...

Whoops! I just realised that my "edit post" window has been on my desktop for the past few days. It's been a hectic few weeks leading up to this break week. I'm almost able to take a breather, just a couple of final assignments and projects to go before I officially try to begin studying.

Sometimes I wonder how effective is university education. We spend 15 weeks rushing through a set of syllabus, muddle our way through projects and papers, fumble around memorising content and when the final exams are done, everything goes out of the window. How much of what we learn is kept in our brains? How much that is applied? I'm really not sure.

Maybe I haven't taken any advanced modules that require knowledge from previous classes yet. When that happens, I might appreciate what I've been through before. For now, I'm just kind of jaded and dreading the viscious cycle of assignment-quiz-project-midterm-assignment-presentation-assignment-finals. Definitely looking forward to a break from everything when I go on exchange.

Where is our creativity?

I just had my Marketing 101 class today and we got to check out advertisements. We've got some really creative minds behind some of the advertisements out there... Unfortunately, not so much in Singapore. Compared to some of the adverts that air overseas, Singapore's creative adverts fall short.

There is a very interesting trend though. Our government services tend to have very creative adverts. At least they are more witty than many commercial ones. At least they don't remind me of a poorly done powerpoint slideshow with tacky taglines and bad voiceovers.

Here are afew good examples, though I'm sure there are more good ones out there.

I thought this was quite funny. Saw it at Marina Square.

Very chilling advert, definitely gets the message across.


Our armed forces has a series of very interesting commercials. I wonder whether these adverts are effective in their recruitment.

They are definitely doing something right. I hope corporates out there take the hint and stop using crappy adverts. Take a hint from our government agencies! Spend some money on good adverts!

Have you been SIFE-ed?

It's here again. The beginning of a new team's SIFE journey. It seems like it was just yesterday that I got selected to be part of our SIFE 08 team. I still remember the hours and hours in school. Working until nothing made much sense, sending my teammates home at really late hours in the night.

I've always asked myself whether it was worth it. For a good 3 months, nothing else existed in my life. In terms of skills, my presentation skills have improved. I've become more critical in assessing business feasibility. I've been introduced to so many business models and have learnt so much from them. The thing is, I think it's only now that I see the real value behind my experience.

For the past 8 months, I've been obsessing over trying to find a self sustainable business model for a social enterprise. I've been experimenting with several ideas and working on a couple of projects. I've become more aware of people around me, realising that I'm very lucky to be where I am and to be given what I have. I believe that's the true value of taking part in SIFE. To be inspired by the projects and make a change in your own life to become more aware.

Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) - Check it out.

Social Entrepreneurship with a twist?

Before I get into Social Entrepreneurship proper, here's a link that's truly entrepreneurial for a social cause.

Pimp This Bum!

Ethical issues aside, I think this is a brilliant way to effect change. In one of the videos on the site they quote Mother Theresa: If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

This isn't the first of its kind though, it's been done before. A family tried to auction their belongings on Ebay to tide them through the credit crunch.

In the words of my Social Entrepreneurship professor, "in what way is this entrepreneurial?" What do you think?