Author: coolerinsights

The Whats and Hows of Global Brands

November 18, 2008 Blog no comments


Courtesy of woodleywonderworks

I was invited to a sharing session yesterday afternoon by David Shaw, Director at Effective Brands and a former marketing stalwart at both Lenovo and HP. Founded by Marc De Swaan Arons, the company embarked on a worldwide global brand study seven-years ago which now includes close to 100 global brands with a database of about 40,000 marketers. In the study, the branding consultancy focused on global marketing challenges and possible solutions to overcome them.

Here are some of the key highlights which I picked up.


Podcamp 2.0 and The Story of Yesterday.sg

November 3, 2008 Blog 5 comments

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Giving my two cents worth on Yesterday.sg

At the kind invitation of Yi Xuan from SMU, I had the privilege of attending Podcamp 2.0 – an unconference of sorts organised by SMU, where doyens of the digital space proferred their views and insights on social media. Together with me were several bloggers and podcasters like Claudia, Melvin Yuan, Priscilla Tan, Daniel Tsou and Farinelli (of Tech 65), DK, Coleman, Preetam, Michael Netzley, Amelia Wong and others.

Sharing the story of how the National Heritage Board (NHB) – probably Singapore’s most ancient organisation – could leverage on social media, I hoped that I inspired some of the corporate representatives to venture forth. As an interest-based blog, Yesterday.sg took the slow and steady growth approach and the blog is still going strong after being around for two-and-a-half years (or 31 months to be exact). Social media outreach is a team effort driven by my great colleagues from team CCIP (especially Kim, Wei Chong, Kenny and Roy), as well as our dear Friends of Yesterday who have stuck with us through thick and thin.


Debates, Discussions and Dilemmas at DMFest 2008

November 2, 2008 Blog no comments

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Panel discussion on Web 2.0 and Building Online Communities moderated by Mark Laudi

At the invitation of Text 100 and the Singapore IT Federation, I had the privilege of attending the recent Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008 Television 2.0: Internet Services & New Media Mashup.

Together with me were other bloggers and podcasters like Shunjie, Pat Law, Claudia, Bernard, Darryl, Daniel, Coleman, Clapping Trees, Preetam, Howie (from The Digital Movement), Andrew Peters, Shalabh, the Tech65 crew, and a few others.


The Parable of the Spider

September 21, 2008 Blog 6 comments

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I spotted the above spider making his home at the lift lobby just outside my home. The little guy has been there for weeks, and interestingly, no efforts have been made to clean up his silky home. I don’t really mind though as I have a thing for spiders.

In fact, there are some lessons that you can learn from them, which relates pretty well to the world of marketing.


How To Write a Great Speech

September 17, 2008 Public Relations 4 comments

Michelle Obama DNC

Michelle Obama at the DNC (courtesy of AP Images)

[This post was updated twice on end March 2015 and 27 July 2016]

Michelle Obama brought the house down at the Democratic National Convention this year. Her wonderful speech affirming Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was widely lauded as one of the best speeches made in the ongoing race for the President of the United States, with elections slated for 8 November 2016.

Some have even proclaimed that she was the star of the show that night – and she isn’t even a politician by any measure of the word!


Celebrities Galore @ Omy Blog Awards

September 6, 2008 Blog 12 comments

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It was a starry starry night, with blogging stars and celebrity bloggers alike thronging the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) last night. ACM was all abuzz when the Omy Blog Awards was held at its River Room. Bloggers and social media users from all walks of life – students, young adults, mothers and fathers – gathered to participate in the event. It was a pretty interesting experience for me to combine work and play.

During the course of the evening, I had the privilege to meet both old and new friends from the blogging communities. They include Chun See, Marina, Claudia, DK, Chillycraps, Eastcoastlife, ieatishootipost, Sparklette, Samantha Chan, Angela Jean, Alice Cheong, Sabrina, and Miss loi amongst others. Special thanks to the team at Mypaper/Wo bao and Omy, Editor Chim Kang and Alvin, for having this event at our museum. Many thanks too to my hardworking team at NHB – Wei Chong, David, Kimberly and Kenny – for making this possible.


Wanted: Social Media Responses to the AIMS Report

August 30, 2008 Blog 2 comments


Courtesy of AIMS

Yesterday evening, a good friend and journalist at Zaobao called me to ask for my views on the freshly minted recommendations by AIMS. I gave her some inputs from NHB’s perspective. How we are actively embracing social media and reaching bloggers – not only on our own turf (Yesterday.sg) but through outreach programmes working with various online communities.

Some of you may already know that we have changed a position from e-Marketing to Social Media Marketing. I am also encouraging my team members to participate in various communities by attending their gatherings and meetings. You may wish to read more about NHB’s approach and views in the article at Zaobao (in Mandarin).