“Women belong in all places where decisions are being made… It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Indeed, ladies of all ages are not just the fairer gender. They are also growing in their influence on the world’s economy – even in traditionally masculine businesses like construction, Information Technology, manufacturing and engineering.
Are blogs destined for the grave? (courtesy of Greg Ortega)
Are blogs heading the way of the Dodo? Or would they be here for the long haul?
Here is an extension of Steve Rubel’s thoughts on whether our obsession with newer and more summarised all-in-one platforms may lead to the demise of the beloved blog. As usual, he gave a no-holds-barred analysis of the situation coupled with his usual whimsical touch.
The Salvation Army is one of the world’s most recognised non-profit brand.
In this day and age, non-profit organisations like charities, trade associations, special interest groups, and clubs can ill afford to ignore branding. To reach a critical sized audience and membership, you need systems and processes to be in place. You need to also market your organisation for it to gain greater clout and reach so that it can better achieve its purpose. Just passion alone would not cut it.
Branding Insider, one of my favourite references for branding thoughts, highlighted 7 points of branding non-profit organisations.
Was reading Steve Rubel’s post about The Golden Age of Individualism which pointed to this decade old gem by management guru Tom Peters.
In Tom’s article on the “Brand Called You”, he wrote about the need to establish oneself as an authority on the matters which one is passionate about, the importance of influence and visibility, and the need to have BOTH style and substance.
David versus Goliath
Storytelling is sweeping the social media world by storm. However, crafting the perfect story can be quite a bitch for the uninitiated.
Thankfully, we’ve got brilliant online storytellers to help us here.
Podtech.net’s Jeremiah Owyang with The Digital Movement’s founder Steve Ng
At the recent iX-TDM New Media Forum, I had the privilege of meeting and hearing from Jeremiah Owyang. The director of corporate media strategy at Podtech.net, Jeremiah is a social media consultant to big guns like HP, Cisco and Hitachi. In his session, he spoke about trends and developments in the social media space.
Jeremiah started by explaining fundamental concepts. Companies need to shift their strategies and mindsets to look at harnessing all employees – not just corporate communicators (like yours truly… ha) – to be advocates.
Ian McKee, CEO of Vocanic, shared at the recent PR Academy Conference about the importance of Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing. Anybody who has spent time on the blogosphere will probably have heard about this term. However, what does it truly mean?
In his presentation, Ian shared some startling findings.
OK folks, for those who are in the know (and even those who aren’t), there are a couple of huge geek fests hitting town this week. One of them is iX Conference 2007 which is happening over the next couple of days at Suntec.
Part of it is the iX-TDM New Media Forum happening at SMU. That is going to rock because it features luminaries like Jeremiah Owyang of Podtech.net, Lynda Brown of New Media BC, Mike Downey from Adobe and Louis Broome from Microsoft. They are going to share about social media and engage you in a panel discussion on what’s happening and what lies ahead in the exciting 2.0 world.
Here are the details:
Blogging singer Genie sharing what tickles her fancy at Blogout
Just came back from Blogout which was a big social media bash at Geek Terminal attended by (who else) 2.0 geeks and celeb bloggers galore! The night was certainly interesting, with a veritable who’s who in the blogging scene making their appearances including Tomorrow.sg’s founder James Seng, STOMP’s editor Jennifer Lewis, Ping.sg’s creator Uzyn, Moblog’s originator Yoke Chin, Global Voices’ Preetam Rai, Kevin Lim of Theory Is The Reason and lots more members of the blogerati.
I certainly had fun moderating the panel discussion which talked about “A New Voice”, though it did go a little chaotic at times. My conclusion was that the crowd seemed to have more fun chatting with each other! Well, I guess that’s the spirit of the whole 2.0 movement, where EVERYBODY participates in the conversation. It’s “All Star Anything Goes” (for those old enough to remember that celebrity slugfest).
A special treat for the evening was having upcoming blogging singer Genie treating us to a music video of hers, hottest mummy contestant eastcoastlife sharing what makes her so special, and also hearing from celebrity STOMP blogger Joe Augustin. Nice to also know that we have upcoming technopreneurs in Singapore making their mark in the web 2.0 universe. Finally, it was great to meet Veron, DK and Dr Leslie Tay of I Eat I Shoot I Post fame, all big-time bloggers in their own right.
Special kudos go to Estee for the fabulous organising and professional emceeing of this event, as well as other digital movers like Ming Yeow, Su Yuen, Swathi, Chern Jie and all the other hardworking folks at The Digital Movement who made this possible.
In my recent series of posts, I have blogged about the increasing prevalence and popularity of outdoor advertising in Singapore. As cited in a recent survey, both taxi and bus advertising are on the increase. The growth in outdoor advertising has in fact led to the creation of its own awards – the Singapore Outdoor Advertising Award. It has also resulted in media behemoth Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) acquiring Media Box Office in 2005, allowing it to provide an integrated media solution to advertisers covering print, radio, online and outdoor channels.
As an advertising space, outdoor media opportunities have their pros and cons. I firmly believe that they do a lot of good for branding and positioning, as well as create greater consumer awareness. After all, most outdoor displays are highly visible, brand-driven, and specially designed to capture your attention. They are what I would call the widest end of the funnel – the first stop if you may to pique customer curiosity and generate interest.
The flip side about outdoor advertising is that it may be less effective in tactical and short-term campaigns. When you have a time-limited offer or promotion, TV, newspapers or flyers still work better. Often, the best integrated marketing communication campaigns employ a mix of outdoor, mass media, and on site marketing to generate the best response.