walk for cause.

Well well.. I've never done any thing of this kind before, as I claim to be an 'apathetic' person. But I did it! And I did two Sundays of 6.6km walking in preparation for today.

The idea:
The social media is quite a charm in this aspect of 'influence', I must say. I've heard so many events being talked about online, from pinkdot to tweetups and twestival, but I never once participated in any. Except for the Singapore Youth Olympic Games countdown celebration, which I only showed up for 5 mins to get my collection pin. So this is really my first. I got interested, plus drawn in by the PINK tees, plus I figured that this would be a good opportunity (motivation!) for me to start building my health, plus my mom was complaining that she was always busy with the babies and hadn't had the time to exercise at all, so I thought I would pull her along on this event - for personal reasons, you know, at the very least.

What actually happened:
And so she finally agreed to join me in the walk. I went to collect our goodie bags with the pink tees last Friday. Realized afterwards that the tees were made real tight! I barely managed to fit in a size M, and the largest size L (for my mom) is literally just 1cm longer and 0.3cm wider zzz And non-exchangeable too :( Turns out this morning that my mom couldn't come along because she wasn't able to get any sleep the whole night. Boo.

So I went with my dad. He was supposed to "substitute" my mom, but he was too, should I say, shy to join in officially (you will see why). The walk was a lot more tiring than usual! Lots and lots of participants - mostly women. First, we had to overtake at least 50 peeps to get a comfortable distance and pace. Second, my old man is really fast :o barely keeping up with his speed. At the end of the walk, my calves felt as if they'd been carrying ten tonnes of weight on the road. Good thing was, we were welcomed with Swensen's ice-cream (+ 25% off Reebok & free disposable razors) ! And this was where my dad failed. He thought it embarrassing to get himself an ice-cream because he didn't register for the walk, in theory. DOH! I even asked him if he wanted one (assuming that I would be getting it for him if he had said "yes") but he shook his head. Then when we were talking about it at home, he admitted that he wanted that ice-cream. Wasted lah! -_-

Still had quite a few vouchers from the goodie bags we got. Complimentary foot massage, spa, body treatment etc. Time to plan a relaxing weekend!

1 year to YOG

update:

Woot! My winning photo shot on Twitter :) Wasn't expecting this so I look kind of shaggy :s

So this was what I was at The Padang for. A limited edition pin for the 1 year countdown celebration of the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore 2010! Hurray for being the first to win the Singapore 2010 collection pin on Twitter :D

Thrilling.. a Singapore Blogathon 09!

update - blogathon afterwords:
Sometime in between there were negative comments made online about the Blogathon. Well, @twistedian wrote up a wonderful response to that. Kudos to Ian!

update - blogathon finale:
Congratulations to those who have won and big hug to all who survived! :D
@victortan did a good roundup of the blogathon.

update - blogathon online:
Follow #bthon on Twitter OR featured microsite on TANGS.


Hmm okay I've been lazy so stopped blogging for a while, it's bad cause now I have so much content piled up!! But here's something exciting for the bloggers and people who follow blogs. A 24-hrs Blogathon!! Tonight @TANGS!



Quick overview of Blogathon 09 on YouTube. Plus, some behind-the-scenes photos from @patlaw.

These are the ten bloggers featured:

• Claudia


• DK


• Fashion Nation (Dottie/Stephie)


• Greenlaundry


• Hillary Chan


• Jayden


• Nadnut


• Nicholas Aaron Khoo


• Sheryo

Some people say blogs are outdated!? I think not really! I feel it's very different from Twittering or Facebooking, and they should be maintained separately but inter-connectedly. Watch live how these ten top Singapore bloggers do it! Show them your support! Vote for your favorite blogger!

Definitely head down if you're free tonight. ;)

More details on Blankanvas.

@ IMU, June 15-22

Now that the ad:tech show is over, I've got something even more exciting in store for me, starting next week. :)

A 1-week free training program at
Inbound Marketing University (IMU)!

I can't believe it. This is like the ultimate opportunity I can get to learn all about this whole online marketing thing at once. & it's FREE! The best thing about online courses is how everything can be archived. Makes it very convenient for people from different countries and time zones to participate. Students and professors can come together to form "study groups" on the forums and even use Twitter during class time to live-stream their questions, answers and ideas using the hashtag #IMU.

Have very high expectations for this program. A great training experience, and a chance to "interact" with industry experts like Chris Brogan. Also has a certification exam which adds immense value to this program.

Class schedule online.

Will blog more about the process when the courses start.

@ ad:tech singapore, june 9-10

update:

• Thanks to @misenscene for sharing his Twitter analysis on the ad:tech show. Go here to download!
• Found @mashable's 8 Ways to Create Paperless Business Cards. Exactly what I needed! I could have made use of this at the show. ><

The ad:tech Singapore ended after two days of keynotes, panels, and workshops, touching on the hottest trending topic in the digital marketing world. There were a number of interesting topics I wanted to join in, but unfortunately, it's still a normal work day for me and I only hold a free visitor pass, so I'm usually out after the first keynote presentation of the day. :\

Don't know what the ad:tech show is? Visit www.adtech.com.

My experience

Considerably my first "official" attendence at a conference, which I went in Cellcity's name but didn't have any name cards to exchange! ><; Yes, so the one thing that I failed most at this show is networking. & What a great opportunity to meet lots of people with the same passion! Definitely need to get my cards made for the next show.

* Many of the tweeps I was following were there too, like @claudia10 and @belindaang, but didn't find a chance to say hi. :\

Part of the reason was probably because my attendence was a "last-minute" thing. I only learned about the show a week ago. It was much related to the online/social media direction that Cellcity is going into, so there wasn't much of an "agenda," just listening in to see what can be learned. I took more of a personal interest attitude to the show, but it did help me to rethink certain issues of Twitter and of social media/mobile marketing in general.

The two keynotes I attended were:

• Digital Consumers & Interactive Marketing in Asia Pacific - The State Of Play by Steven Noble, senior analyst at Forrester Research (jun 2)
• The Power of Digital Branding through the Lens of the Obama Campaign by Scott Goodstein, external online director for Barrack Obama's presidential campaign (jun 3)

My thoughts

Digital Consumers & Interactive Marketing in Asia Pacific - The State Of Play
As the opening keynote of the show, I was a little disappointed with the quality of the presentation, to be honest. While it might have been a good statistical introduction to businesses outside of this trade, I think the insiders would expect a little more insight on the future trending of digital marketing. Steven also appeared to have a specific focus on China and Australia, rather than Asia Pacific in broad, throughout his speech. Perhaps a quick comparison with the trends in North America or the Europe might be an interesting addition to the presentation? Or so I thought..

Still, there were some interesting numbers and consumer profiles to share. And the discussion session (interview + q&a) was a lot more exciting - specifically on the use of social media and mobile marketing! I always enjoyed Don Knox's (VP of ad:tech Global) interview sessions, where he posed key hot questions displaying his clear understanding of the audience and the objectives of the show.

You can download Steven's presentation here.

The Power of Digital Branding through the Lens of the Obama Campaign
I'm sure you've heard a lot of talking about the success Obama Campaign by leveraging the online media, social networks in particular. Much expectations were generated around this talk, and I thought the outcome was a satisfiable one. Scott talked about various key factors in engaging social media and mobile in campaigns, the evolution of online marketing and where it's headed to, using his experience in the Obama Campaign as core case study. In the q&a, he also gave strong advice to young businesses who were still rather new in social media marketing. My favorite word from Scott - tastemakers.

Read about @bleongcw's interview with Scott here.

There was another small talk by the Global CEO of Acronym Media (one of the sponsors) - Anton Konikoff. Real straight to the point, Anton gave his audience compact but valuable and insightful overview of the search marketing revolution(-ing) and the impact of social media, based off their Global KDM (keyword-driven marketing) Officer's - Mike Grehan - new whitepaper New Signals to Search Engines.

The whitepaper is available for download here.

Twitter intervention
Now here is a real-time great example of the power of Twitter and microblogging. The best of ad:tech Singapore were live on Twitter! All thanks to @claudia10, @uniquefrequency, @summerisque, @danielgoh, @youareonvisual, and @armchairdude for filling me up on the discussions I missed out on. :)

You can still read the old tweets on #adtechasia. Other great tools life streaming are TweetGrid and twazzup. Try them out the next time!

100 followers on Twitter

Yay hit 100 followers today! (Actual count now is 115 as I'm writing...) Well this may not be significant to many twitterers out there, but it sure is a milestone for my personal development! Been learning A LOT from my tweeples about this great tool the social media as a whole, and many many things. Hope to share some of the stuff I learnt here soon.

Start Go Green on Earth Day

For Earth, every day is Earth Day.

Hit on Google's homepage today and thought "Ooh what's the special occasion today?" It's Earth Day! So I started to tweet a bit about Earth Day. Found some go green/eco websites and tips. Followed few new "green" tweeples. And sad to realize, Singapore is still a quiet city in this aspect.

Some Singaporeans simply do not possess the mindset to go green. And this is reinforced by @AngMoGirl's experience today where she witnessed rejection when a lady asked to have her lunch packed in her own to-go (takeaway) box. Kudos to the lady who brought her own lunch box! Been away from Singapore for few years, I really thought the BYOBD (Bring Your Own Bag Day) was a good change and a good start. I do see shoppers who bring their own shopping bags to NTUC, but seriously not many. And I could imagine a group of those who did not bring their own bags whine about the 10cents they are "forced" to pay for each plastic bags. And reading @AngryAngMo's blog, "Anti-Bring Your Own Bag Day" as one of the top 10 worst consumer behaviors is just not surprising after all.

I don't know what are the best ways to promote green living. It's really up to the person whether they want to do things the better way. But I thought it's not a bad idea to sell money-saving together with energy-saving or the 3Rs - reducing, reusing, and recycling. Especially in Singapore, where I believe most people are more money-minded than eco-minded. I recall receiving a handy booklet in my mailbox couple months back. The booklet contained many tips and guidelines to everyday live, such as save money, look for jobs etc (basically the govt's effort to help its people ease off recession). One of the tips is on air-conditioners: Set temp to 25° for optimal usage and save $X/month (I need to check on the actual number) for every degree you increase! Budgets are tight these days, so these are great tips to follow and really save on money. What's more, it saves energy at the same time!

I think companies should also encourage eco-living in their workplaces. If it's made a "rule" in office, maybe people will start taking similar measures when they are at home (vice versa). There is a corner in my office right by the door, like a small waiting/reception area, whereby most of the time it's empty. But we never fail to switch on the lights in that corner. Whenever I'm the first few to reach the office, I would deliberately leave those lights out. But strangely the next person who comes in will switch it on. I still don't know why, perhaps to light up our big logo hanging by that wall? And I just saw lights in the conference room were left on for the morning. (Sue beat me to switching them off tho :p)

Eco-living is actually beneficial both ways. Helps the Earth, and helps us save some bucks. So why not do it everyday? For one, I reuse plastic bottles that I fill up with water at work. Use the back side of unwanted printed paper for notes. Even in the toilets, I always see the rubbish bin overflowing with crumpled paper towels at the end of the day. Paper towels literally used up every day before 5pm. It's there for our convenience, but we shouldn't abuse it. Dried your hands with a paper towel? Why not bring it back to your office to wipe your desk? Or tear a piece into two so you can save the other half for later. It's all so easy to do, we just need to put our mind at it!

Useful links:

• Earth Day | TreeHugger
• 8 Easy Ways to Start Being Green | Earth911
• Go Green Family Guide | Earth911
• Green Your Shopping | Earth911
  
• Got 5 Minutes? Do One of These 5 Green Acts | Planet Green
• The Social Media & Web Guide to Going Green | Mashable
• Go Green: Energy-cutting apps for your PC | CNET

P.S. Blizzard should implement an Earth Day festival in-game. :)