Sales, Social and Tech

April Dunford was a Social Media Release skeptic until she released a couple in that format and started to see results. What impressed me most was her key takeaways of releasing a SMR that could also be applied to a standard press release or a story pitch. April wrote, The "Who" in "Who cares?" has changed - It used to be that technical products were mainly discussed by technical media only. More than ever, mainstream sources are interested in how technology is changing people's lives. These folks are less interested in your newest features and functions and more interested in how your product is going to change the world. Mainstream Media surfs the web just like the rest of us - by providing keywords and tags the release is easily findable. Providing video, photos, links, make the release easily bloggable, which in turn, make your stuff even more findable for both the mainstream media and your customers. Getting the coverage in mainstream me...

Take a look at the above Cisco ASR 1000 series router, sexy? Cisco Systems took the launch of the their Cisco ASR 100 series routers onto Web2.0 and many blog commentators have highlighted how this has made its routers sexy again. Wrote Lidija Davis of ReadWriteWeb , Cisco says they met their goal of increasing visibility and involving their audience by using the social Web, creating buzz and building a community at a negligible cost; a soft cost that involved time, resources, and creativity instead of budget. Given the state of the US economy right now, the social Web seems to be the smartest choice corporations (or individuals) can make if they want to create passion and excitement for their brand - at a soft cost. Write http://amaappendagy.blogspot.com/ The biggest lesson here is this: Routers aren't sexy. If Cisco can make a router exciting enough for social media, you too can utilize social media to create a buzz about. If you wanted a textbook guide,...

We have seen the Asian stock markets affected by the US banking crisis recently. But what does this crisis mean to the tech industry in Asia? It depends on who you are asking. If you asked an Asian C level spokesperson, they seem optimistic that the currency crisis in 1997 has prepared the region with stronger fundamentals will enable tech companies here to ride the wave. Westerners seem to have more pessimistic view of the crisis. Interestingly, many western IT publications are asking the same crisis and it seem they are more focused on western economies. Wrote The Guardian , The squeeze will also push companies towards open-source models, since those don't require expensive licenses as well as expensive support. That could be a threat to Microsoft - something that its chief executive Steve Ballmer may have had in mind when he spoke on Tuesday in Norway. "When businesses have less money - they can borrow less money, they can spend less money - that can't be go...

Is this the malaise faced by publications today? Technorati Tags: Palin , publications , youtube

I repeat. F1 Singapore isn’t my cup of tea as I find it boring to see cars going in circles 55 times. But I was highlighted of SAP-TV offerings on the Web. SAP Formula One Grand Prix Event As much as Web2.0 has enabled end-users to create their own content, corporations too have the medium to create their content for their public. What is needed now from this corporations is a little publicity plan to increase awareness of its multimedia content. One method is to make use of the social media release format which calls for the placement of such multimedia content together with their standard text based press release. If html isn’t your cup of tea, try using Pitchengine ’s WYSIWYG SMR platform. It should also consider using Twitter to highlight followers when new episodes, especially Asia Pacific based episodes, are release. Or even starting a Facebook group to that social networking reach. If you are a big or small company looking to take full advantage of the Web2.0 I...

Have you ever been to a IT shop where they try to amaze you with their technical knowledge only to convince you that should get a pricier product? My mom almost fell victim but her decision to make the purchase the next day save her from spending close to SGD600 more. The family was looking for a new TV after the current CRT went kaput after 8 years of usage. As my mom had the time, she went around the shops to get the best deals in LCD. She came across a shop selling a LCD TV for half the price as it was under promotion. Not surprising, the salesmen tried to up sell by highlighting the comparative low contrast ratio of the LCD TV. “This LCD TV only have a contrast ratio of 10000:1,” said the salesman. “This means when you turn channel, the colour will fade and you have to manually adjust the colour accordingly.” “You should get this LCD with 20000:1 ratio. Cost SGD600 more but you don’t have to manually change the brightness.” When my mom told me of this, I was like WTF? W...

I am not much of a fan of F1 so I decided to stay home during the recent night race in Singapore. I also decided not to blog anything about it. But these photos from The Boston are too cool not to blog about. Check out the BIG PICTURE at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_singapore_grand_prix.html

It has been awhile since this blog was updated. Reason number one: the birth of my son, Anson Koh. Reason number 2: coping with the KL office. It is no surprise that this Social PR father bought his new born son into the social networking stage. Anson has a Gmail account which I have invited all family members, relatives and friends to leave him an email so he can read them when he grows up. Anson also has a Facebook account set up which friends of my wife and I can check out updates on the little boy. How can this web2.0 father forget the blog! Check out Anson’s blog at http://seventeenzeroeightzeroeight.blogspot.com/ The blog is filled with photos and little comments to make it interesting. Thank goodness for digital photography as I have take quite a number of photographs of Anson. And thanks to Web2.0, I made us of the features of Picnik.com and Picassa 3.0 beta to give it a little bit of jazz. 20 years of color fading now takes 2 minutes with picnik.com...