Sales, Social and Tech

Seriously, I have no idea how this can be implemented.  If you, business owner, have an idea how to link registering plant varieties and cloud computing and have implemented as such, Singapore's IDA would like to give you a tax reduction.  Terence Lee for SG Entrepreneurs wrote,  Companies who want to implement cloud computing can now receive a boost from the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore. It comes in the form of tax deductions of up to 400 percent on up to S$400,000 (US$316,000) of qualifying expenditure incurred per year on each of six qualifying activities, which are: Acquisition or leasing of  automation equipment ; Training of employees; Acquisition of Intellectual Property Rights; Registration of patents, trademarks, designs and plant varieties; Research and development activities; and Investment in approved design projects. This is clearly a cut and paste boo boo. IDA cut and paste from previous press releases and the assista

Social media marketers should know by now that deleting of comments, especially negative ones, is a cardinal sin that will forever go into Google infamy. Chapstick, an American lip gloss, however, decided to test it out with fans - deleting negative comments about an awful advertisement which focuses a woman's other lips.  Wrote Adweek ,  Blogger tries to reply on Facebook too. ChapStick deletes her comments. Others object to the image. ChapStick deletes their comments. ChapStick's ads with the line  "Be heard at Facebook.com/ChapStick"  start to look foolish. People keep commenting. ChapStick keeps deleting. People get angry. ChapStick gets worried. The image isn't even that big of a deal—it's ChapStick's reaction to the criticism that galls. "What asses," people say of ChapStick (get it?). People start commenting about why they can't see their old comments. ChapStick can't keep up with all the deleting. Comments are getting throug

Tech blogs are now labelling Nokia's Lumia Mobile Phone as the " prostitute " phone because Lumia in Spanish means Prostituta.. A friend also commented that Nokia Asha range of mobile phone may not do well in Chinese speaking community. Asha in Hindu means Hope, but in Chinese, it sounds like   阿傻  where  傻  means silly or stupid.   阿傻  is also a slang for calling somebody silly. Can you imagine a telco salesperson asking a potential customer, "Hello, do you want to buy a   阿傻  mobile phone from Nokia?" Customer, "No.. I want is smartphone, not a  傻  phone."

My son, Anson, is three-year-old this year and is the start of the learning process. As a parent, I noticed that my son learns faster when he can associate pictures with spoken words faster than the other way round. Also, my son is rather playful and can spend endless hours running around the house, instead of sitting down to start learning. As such, I bought a few set of alphabet blocks for him to touch and feel the alphabet instead of just seeing it in 2D on a piece of paper.  Alphabet Blocks As a father, I had pre-conceived ideas on how to teach Anson on how to recognise ABCs. When Anson started playing with them, I had to throw out of my brain and let my son create his own way of playing. In the process, it was a learning process for me as a father too.  Instead of forcing Anson to learn that A is A, I let him imagine what he can use the A as. This allows him to play with the alphabets, at the same time spend more time with each alphabet and increases exposures to th

If you are a Singaporean and want to be happy as a Bhutanese, voting for PAP's Cedric Foo, MP for Pioneer, isn't the right MP for you. Mr Cedric Foo was one of the other opponent of Ms Sylvia Lim, Workers' Party chairperson, proposal to put in a place a component in measuring happiness in Singapore. Ms Lim said, as quoted in The Straits Times, "If the happiness and sustainability of Singapore's society is the overarching goal, then there's a need to unravel the exact relationship between high property prices and fertility and what responses might arrest or even reverse the decline in fertility rates." Mr Cedric Foo, however, rebutted Ms Lim use of Bhutan as an example. Said Mr Foo, as quoted in The Straits Times, "I think the opposition member couldn't have chosen a more dissimilar country to compare Singapore with. We are exposed to the seas, exposed to the onslaught of competition from the world, we were dealt a different deck of cards...

The feature that stands out the most from the latest iOS is iMessage. Yes, Blackberry had the Blackberry Messenger and there were many iOS apps that provided free SMS services.  However, Apple has created iMessage to be seamless to the iPhone user.   First, there isn't another application for iMessage. It is integrated within the Messages application where you receive both your SMS and iMessage.  With the Blackberry Messenger, you need to share with other Blackberry users your pin number. You do not have to do the same with iMessage. iMessage will automatically detect if the other side is using iMessage. If you have 3G or Wifi, your messages will be send via iMessage. If data connection is switched off, it will send by SMS.  So far, iMessage only allow you to send images while the other SMS applications like Whatapps allow you to send your location and video files.  iMessage also allow you to receive messages via the iPad. This means if you have the iPhon

The video below about how a 1 year old thinks a magazine is a broken iPad is spreading across social networks. The video also got me wondering if my son would be reading print in the next 20 years? I was only introduced to a computer when I was 12. I clearly remembered it as I was supposed to be studying for the Primary School Leaving Examinations but sneak in a few hours of California Games on the 386 PC. It was a huge PC and was running on five quarter inch floppy disk. 23 years later, my son’s first computing experience is the Apple iPad at the young age of two. My son didn’t need to learn how DOS work. All he needed to do was press a button and swipe  his finger across the screen to get to the program he wants. He enjoyed on demand video, via Youtube. Within a few weeks, he knew where to find the history button on the Youtube app to play videos he played a few minutes ago. When he grows up to be a PEMB, would he still be reading print?

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Ragu Sauce is the current brand that has come under the social media spotlight on how not to do social media. Daddy bloggers are outrage that Ragu Sauce is spamming them on Twitter and labeling these dads as lousy cooks in a Youtube video. Wrote Joey of Jabna Media , Their first error was to spam bloggers with tweet mentions on Twitter with a link to the video below. The second problem is the message and tone of the video paints dads as inept and clueless when it comes to cooking for the family. Thirdly the video directs people to the Ragu Sauce Facebook page where the brand totally ignores the situation. CC Chapman, one of the Daddy Blogger, who got the “friendly” twitter message from Ragu lamented about how Ragu Sauce discriminated Daddy Bloggers from the Mommy Bloggers especially in a campaign targeted at Daddy Bloggers. Wrote CC Chapman , If You Want to Engage Parents, Don’t Forget the Dads A final point that only applies to brands who are targeting parents