Sales, Social and Tech

The accusations that Michael Cheng made in his recent blog post was unfair and at best, libellous. Blogger’s Treat was an idea that I developed and saw into fruition early 08, with an original intent of being inclusive to all bloggers – famous, just starting out, young, old – in the spirit of something more ‘open-sourced’. I am neither rich, nor had the resources when we first started out, making do with mobile phone vidcams – nowhere close to the professional equipment that PodFire has. Yes , quality was not perfect and nowhere near broadcast quality, but that was true to our roots – content created for bloggers, by bloggers – raw and natural. It was never meant for ‘MediaCorp’ style programming. I’m grateful to PodFire for their fantastic video production skill sets but let me first set the record straight. This argument is all about PodFire’s various efforts in wresting intellectual property, creative control, and go-to-market – as a large company they have the means to play such ...

Have you tried to "Google" your own name and found that were plenty of folks out there who share your same name? Jim Killeen Googled his name and found a few, but only 7 was willing to be interviewed. I tried to Google my name once or twice, but with a Chinese name, it can get rather unique. Here's the full length video on YouTube, starring 7 Jim Killeen.

If Web2.0 is all about mash-up of different Internet languages, PR2.0 would probably be a similar rojak*. (*Rojak is a "fruit and vegetable salad dish" found in Singapore. The word when used as a slang in the form of a verb means to mix.) So how is PR1.0 different from PR2.0? During my early years writing for some technology magazines, I attended countless press events, received many pitches and emailed terabytes of press releases. Throughout my conversations with the PR folks, I also heard of the different strategies and media angles clients have to agree, it should also attract the journalist to the story. Now that I am on the other side of the fence, some say the dark side, I am doing the same thing. In my one of my recent media angle proposal for a B2B client, I suggested a few media angles that might interest the journalists from different publications. Strangely enough, none of of the angles were product or solution hard sell. There were more looking at positioning the ...

I was a one day conference today about "What PR directors need to know about New Media" and I was like one of the few who has a blogged and was Twittering via GTalk on my blackberry. The rest of the 16 participants were interested to find out what was the safest route to engage social media. It seem the answers lies in internal corporate blogging as it is in a closed garden that only internal members can access. But even if it seem like a safe idea, there were questions about how to make it even safer. IBM was used as an example where it was the employees who set the guidelines to the internal wiki or blogs, but it seem like there are wondering if there guidelines on creating these guidelines. Is internal blogging the safest way to get corporates to engage social media?

As of this posting, several bloggers are in uproar against Nuffnang for banning Sisuahlai for a post with an image that the web2.0 advertising agency feel maybe be defaming them. Going through Sisuahlai's blog post, it seem like Nuffnang was responding to the wrong issue followed by the wrong actions. The consequence of it was the negative responses it got from fellow bloggers. Sisuahlai has taken down the post which included Nuffnang's reason for banning him. Cached post showed that Nuffnang wasn't happy with the image of the evolution of mankind that ended with the fading of the image to a bank robber. Nuffnang responded by banning Sisuahlai for two months. This made Nuffnang looked heavy handed and created a perception for the web2.0 agency only allows members who say good things about them and ban members who are critical about them. From the initial post , Sisuahlai asked if the 30 (Nuffnang)/70 (bloggers) division of ad revenue fair to participating bloggers. Ironic...

As part of its outreach program, the Singapore Police Force has uploaded a three parter titled "Confessions" on to YouTube. Wrote SpfCommunityOutreach , Brought to you by the Community Involvement Division of the Singapore Police Force as part of our crime awareness outreach to youths, this video features 3 true stories of how 3youths ended up behind bars. The protagonists were interviewed as themselves, but their stories were acted out as re-enactments. The offences and consequences of shop theft, rioting as a result of joining a gang and outrage of modesty are covered as themes in this short feature. Visit www.spf.gov.sg for more information. Here's Part 1:

The two social media outings I attended in the spat of three days, Ogilvy's Open Room on Monday and the Podfire.sg launch last night, has given me some insights into bloggers relations. Tania, of Ogilvy, and I joked that we should do a manifesto on bloggers relations but the act of doing so would be an irony. As PR agencies look to deal with bloggers as the new media, here are some useful tips. Mind you, these are in local context, not some based on examples with foreign blogs. Tip 1: Personal invites please. A PR person charges by the hour and mass invites via BCC is the most effective way to deliver those invites. Bloggers, however, prefer personal invites. If you are inviting the bloggers to an event for the first time, a introduction to the email is a must as the blogger would not know who the agency is. Thanks to Rinaz for reminding me about this. Tip 2: Communicate with bloggers through the medium they use The two common ways PR communicate with mainstream media is either by...