Sales, Social and Tech

The North-East Line train fault of 11 April 2018 was my virgin experience of a rush hour train fault since I moved to Punggol. One would have thought that with the number of train faults experienced by the North-East Line operator, SBS Transit, they would have improved the communications and handling of train faults. However, my personal experience told another story. First, there were no announcements at the Punggol LRT stations of the train fault even though SBS Transit manages them. The train fault was reported as early as 7.10am as I had a friend who was also stuck in the train. I boarded the LRT at Coral Edge around 7.30am and I didn't hear of any announcement nor was there any signage to inform me o the train fault at Punggol Station. Second, the announcement kept saying that there would be a 15 minutes delay, but 15 minutes passed and the trains, on both side, wasn't moving. If the announcement would be more frank to say it will be a longer delay, commuters would...

In my earlier post , I wrote that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's letter of demand to Alex Au over his post on the AIMS issue help lift the profile of the Yawning Bread blog.  The Senang Diri blog also highlighted similar points. Wrote Senang Diri ,  "Firstly, Yawning Bread has been elevated to the status of thought-leader since it was the blog that broke news of the relationship between information technology company, Action Information Management (AIM) and the ruling People's Action Party (PAP)... ... Secondly, by declining to comment on the number of companies the PAP owns, the system surrendered the initiative in info management regarding this episode. This loss of initiative means the system is reacting to public opinion, rather than leading it.... ...Thirdly, legal action is high-handed but admittedly necessary where reputations have been besmirched. However, unleashing the silks comes with a price: It gives rise to concerns among Singaporeans that perh...

Yesterday, 102 SMRT bus drivers from China staged a *wage protest* over unfair wages and unsatisfactory living conditions. Today , 60 of the 102 did not turn up for work. A wage protest of that size is very rare in Singapore. The last wage protest, sorry, strike in Singapore was in  Jan2, 1986 . In Singapore, it is officially a strike if the members of the union vote unanimously to do a walk-out. Without this official vote, it is not a strike. So the unions are coming out to communicate their views on the incident. However, it seems like NTUC, the National Trade Unions Confederation that confederates all the unions in Singapore, and the National Transport Workers' Union (NTWU) gave conflicting comments on how these bus drivers could have address the issue more amicably. It was reported that " NTUC director of the Unit for Contract and Casual Workers (UCCW), Mr Zainal Sapari criticised the workers for not adhering proper procedures and acting without the know...

Words used in communications frames the perception of the readers' reality. As such, words plays an important part in creating the right public relations between the subject and the reader. An example of this is highlighted in the choice of words used by our political parties in explaining mistakes or errors made in statement.  " WP clarifies Gerald Giam's remark in Parliament " shouts one of the headlines in The Straits Times today. This is reference to statement made by Mr Gerald Giam in Parliament recently on the debate on ministerial salary. When PAP's Grace Fu tried to explain her Facebook status update on ministerial salary, the headlines shouts, " Public misunderstood my comments: Grace Fu ". Without going into dictionary definitions, one can clearly see how these two words "clarifies" and "misunderstood" immediately create a perception of how one frames the image of these two subject making that statement. "Clari...

They say offense is the best defense. London Weight Management, on the other hand, dug itself further into a PR nightmare with its statement defending their ad. By doing so, London Weight Management lost an opportunity to score some PR points from the negative audience. It all started when TV host Anita Kapoor blogged that the London Weight Management’s TV advertisement “portray women as pathetic, unworthy individuals. Losers on every level if they are overweight; winners at every level if they are slim”. London Weight Management Capsule from Stan Chee on Vimeo . Anita also summarized each scene of the ad. For example, she wrote that the scene showing “a woman with a crying baby, looking over the edge of a building’, created the impression that post partum depression and suicide were being trivialised. Anitia’s post was reblogged at The Online Citizen and the readers got extremely worked up by how London Weight Management portrayed obese women. It took awhile for London...

A Member of Parliament was caught fidgeting with her mobile phone on ‘Live’ TV during National Day when the National Anthem was being played.   Image from MrBrown.com The MP, Ms Penny Low, she apologised to the Nation but her apology fall short of forgiveness from most Singaporeans. Wrote Yahoo Blog , "I was so caught up in the wonderful NDP 2011 and felt so proud of being a Singaporean that I wanted to capture that moment of pride at the very tail end of the anthem, to share on Facebook with my residents," she said. "If in my enthusiasm I offended anyone, please accept my apologies," she said. "NDP is a time to unite, not divide. Majulah Singapura!" Singaporeans online have found it hard to accept her apology. In her apology, Ms Penny Low asked offended Singaporeans to forgive her enthusiasm and not for her actions. A student fidgeting with his mobile phone during assembly when the National Anthem is played will have to spend a ...