Presentation: Facebook guide for executives

Found a good simple deck about using facebook for business.

Ogilvy On: Facebook for Business

Also, here's a cheap way to use facebook to promote consumer products:



(or you can read a friend's blog on this)

There are already many famous facebook campaigns. Except they aren't campaigns at all. They are long term dedication to a conversation with their customers, bordering customer services, about their brand, products and sometimes themselves. Some of the ideas can be re-purposed, but just like the Internet, novelty counts. Any bright ideas of how to promote our work through facebook?

Sharing my Jerky Moment!

I love jerky! Bite size and flavourful! the combination of spices on the hard and dry texture, usually leaves me no choice but to chew on it slowly ...and deliberately.  Somehow..in between those bites and chews..I sometime discover new sensory insights, of old familar taste.

I got my Jerky today.Separately, a few speakers managed to provide me with those Jerky moments for me. Bite size knowledge, spiced by with perspective... and left  me..savouring the favour of what is to come on cloud computing. Wanted to share this jerky moment with you.

A jerky veteran on how best to experience a jerky moment :

1. Do not assume you know what it taste like
jerky is special, you never know what to expect. Since jerky is made of different part of a cut and they have their unique texture and thickness; spices are willfully layered on, each bite loaded with a different blend.

2. Take time to chew on it.
Its easlier to digest if you leave it in your mouth and chew them up properly, then to swollaw the pieces. Jerkies are not stable, it dont feed you. its only purpose is to offer you savouring moment.

3. Personalised savouring.
I am sure I am not alone in playing with food in my mouth. Meshing up the tohu inbetween my teeth, sticking the gum round my molar. Tightly compressing the food on my tongue against the "ceiling" of my mouth, in an attempt to drain my food of the liquid. Well, in these little experiments, i discover my personal interpretation to the taste of the food.

4. If you are vegetarian, try imgine all the above performed on a well seasoned KimChi.
I think it will work the same. :)

Okay enough with that. What I meant to say is that I hope to provide some bite size insights for you and hope that you find a flavour to them.


Social Computering :
The begining  of community computing - 80s, Workgroup based (lotus); 90s, Intranet (Sharepoint) and now we are entering Social Computing.

Social computing is more than just (and i think,  probably useful part about) social networking. Consider sieveing out, facilitating the social nature of our behavour and integrate it into business operations.

Thoughts : Today, when we cant figure something, we go on the web to check. "how do we... " the last time, I can't figure my Apple Time Capsule with my SingNet router. I surf the web to learn how to do it. I did this, becuse I know SingNet wouldnt know and neither with Apple cust. care. But on the web, another user would have experience the same situation, and likely to solve my problem more specifically.

Hey! So what would Customer Support operation looks like tomorrow when we integrate "social" "crowd sourcing" into the cust. care environment?

Social Connected What?
There was a good catergorisation of what type of socially connected are we.. thought it provide a good insights into the building of our social networking strategy - can it really be one size fits all? are all likely to be the same socially, even digital?

a. Creators : blogs and create articles.
b. Critics: post rates, review comments and join forum
c. Collectors: use Rss feeds, Add tag to web, help organised content
d. Joinners : manage profile on social networking sites, visit social sites
e. Spectators: Watch, Listen, Read about review
f. inactive.

Wat are you? Which type is your audience likely to be? Who among them to make, likely to make creators? Who you need to provide the inform, how.. to help spread it?

Social marketing  B to B
B to B marketing has always and is still heavily reliance on social marketing. In most survey throughout the years, word of mouth (colleagues, friends, business contacts) is still the number #1 reference for customers' buying decision. Though, there is a growing trend in nline media, eg thr social networking websites, but this is just a changing mode of access- B to B has always been reliance on social marketing, its something we already apply and know well as B to B marketer.
So its about creating new mode, respectiving and faciliating the new digital mode. Social Marketing is not replace, but strengthen in BtB marketing. What does it mean to us?

Changing direction of knowledge & communication
Past ( deliver information) Now ( engage interactions0
Past (domain knowledge driven) Now ( crowd mashed knowledge)
Past (outbound) Now ( inbound, plug in to dialogue)
Past (send - recieve) now ( continous iteration)
Past (single tenanted, 1 place, 1 kind of knowledge) Now (multi-tenanted knowledge)

P.O.S.T
Common Mistake of social netowrk strategy - how should i use twitter/facebook.
Strategy focus dont change - it stay focus on People!
consider P.O.S.T. model.
P : people (who is the audience we want to connected)
O : objective (what is the objectives, for them and for you)
S :  Strategy (how will/do you want to change this relationship)
T : Technology (then how to use the exisitng digital property to deliver the above)

Well that is all for now.. my jerky moments today. Hope they provide titbits thoughts for you.

Happy Snacking!
Lee Fong
SFO

Tis the season to be jolly!

Glad to know there's a group blog! It's great coz I'm such a reading person (I think I tried to measure how much I read online once, end up with a ballpark of scanning 20 websites a day and 100s of status updates / news headlines), although the frequency of posts here would probably make it not feature on any RSS readers... 

One of the reason people find it so hard to "blog" is the expectation of having the post look "long" and substantial. So I'd suggest that we don't feel obliged to write so much, just quick and easy. Better frequency than long articles (this is not some town council publication anyway).

Think I'm settling in fine. Thanks for all your support, especially boss Lee Fung :o)

And finally some up-selling (ehm.. I'm also a bit salesman hehe), here're a list of concerts you might want to attend in the coming 2 months, some small, some major, where moi is performing (playing hard!). In chronological order:

1. 18 Nov 7pm: An evening with chamber brass by Just Brass (www.justbrassensemble.com) @ WCEGA Plaza (Bukit Batok) #4-47 $10
2. 3 Dec 7:30pm: Mendelssohn and Beyond: A midsummer's night's dream by The Philharmonic Orchestra (www.tpo.org.sg) @ Esplanade Concert Hall $20, $25, $35
3. 6 Dec 7:30pm: Cityscapes by Philharmonic Winds (www.philharmonicwinds.org) and a visiting band from Thailand (Nontri Orchestra Winds) @ Esplanade Concert Hall $15, $20, $25, $35, $50

I also have some discount tickets *wink* speak to be personally. If you hang around town during Christmas season you might also bump into me busking around, fa la la la la, la la la la.

-Jiin Joo

How the Mighty Fall

I just finish reading a book, the latest title from Jim Collins “How the Mighty Fall and why some companies never give in” and thought that it would good to share some of the findings in this book. From the author of “Good to Great” and “Built to Last”, this book offers a fresh perspective of why some seemingly great companies fall and even slip to oblivion. His research indicated that organizational decline is largely self-inflicted and recovery largely within their own control.

There are five step-wise stages of decline:

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
Success is viewed as “deserved”, rather than hard earned and people believe that success will continue almost no matter what the organization decides to do, or not to do. Leaders lose the inquisitiveness and learning orientation and people presume that success is due entirely to the superior qualities of the enterprise and its leadership.

Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Companies have this unsustainable quest for growth, confusing big with great. There is an erosion in cost discipline and declining proportion of right people in key seats. People increasingly think in terms of “jobs” rather than responsibilities. People seek to capitalize for the short term, rather than investing primarily in building for greatness decades into the future.

Stage 3:Denial of risk and Peril
There is a tendency to discount or explain away negative data rather than presume something is wrong with the company. Rather than confront brutal realities, the enterprise chronically reorganizes and people are increasingly preoccupies with internal politics rather than external conditions. Leaders set audacious goals and/or make big bets and shift towards either consensus or dictatorial management rather than a process of argument and disagreement followed by unified commitment to execute decisions.

Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
There is a tendency to make dramatic, big moves or to find the silver bullets. Leaders “sell the future” to compensate for the lack of current results, initiating a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering. People cannot easily articulate what the organization stands for; core values have eroded to the point of irrelevance, the company has become “just another place to work”, a place to get paycheck and people lose faith in their ability to triumph and prevail. People become distrustful, regarding visions and values as little more than PR and rhetoric.

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death.

Although the book content is primarily in the context of an organization, I feel that there are some lessons that we can apply or learned in our daily activities and also department.

1) Get the right people for the right job
From the book, it states that any exceptional enterprise depends first and foremost upon having self managed and self motivated people. If you have the right people, you don’t need to have a lot of senseless rules and mindless bureaucracy in the first place! This can be manifested in what as known as Packard’s Law which was named after David Packard, cofounder of HP. The Law states that no company can consistently grow revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth and still become a great company.

2) Distinction between wrong people and right people
Wrong people see themselves as having “jobs”. Right people see themselves as having responsibilities.

3) How to react to panic and desperation
When we find ourselves in trouble, our survival instinct and our fear can evoke behavior contrary to survival. This is the very moment when we need to take calm, deliberate action. Breathe, Calm yourself. Think. Focus. Aim. Take one shot at a time.

4) Failure vs success
We would all fall as we go through life. It is one thing to fall, but another thing to give up. Failure is not so much a physical state as a state of mind. Success is falling down, and getting up one more time, without end.

5) Good vs bad innovation
Innovation does not mean that a company would not fall from greatness. In his study, even when the company increased the number of innovations or activities, it still goes on to the path of decline. The examples he quoted are Motorola and HP. Innovation can fuel growth, but frantic innovation – growth that erodes consistent tactical excellence – can easily send a company cascading through the stages of decline.

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This has nothing to do with the book, but thought of sharing some thoughts and experience after I left the team. After I join product, a few people ask me why I want to join product since I am doing “so well” and “so comfortable” in marketing. Was I “tricked” into joining product or “asked” to join product? Is marketing becoming very “siong” or is it because of the boss?

To put things into perspective, I joined product of my own accord. I have been in SingTel long enough to also know that product management is not a bed of roses. (question you might want to ask is why do I want to change, am I not happy in marketing ?)

Actually it is for my own career development that I wanted to change to a different function. It allows me to gain a different perspective of how the company operates from a different function. I gained that when I moved from bid to marketing, and moving to product just seems a natural progression (since I don’t think I am a sales person). Of course, it is tougher for me now that I am in a position that I have no experience in and new things need to be learnt and new relationships need to be built. In a way, product management might even be “tougher” than marketing since product people deals with more internal stakeholders than external people. Not even BG people but singtel people outside of BG. It helps that I am not “new new”, in the sense that I did not join from outside, but that also had its own set of “problems” in the sense that people have a certain expectation or perception of me since I am not that “new”.

I think we all agreed that we are not that “well paid” in SingTel, no matter what HR said or how much “Brain washing” or “propaganda” that we get from management. But there is one advantage that SingTel has over a lot of other companies, is that SingTel is a large organization with many diverse functions and responsibilities. Make use of the opportunity if you have to experience the many different job scopes that come with working in SingTel. That is not to say that you must change department or job scope, but does give you an option to continually learn, meet new people, upgrade yourself and experience new challenges. I would never have imagined that I would become a marketing manager when I was studying in university, doing events and generating leads for sales. But I did.

Yes, I am still “struggling” and learning the ropes and there would be instances when I would hit the wall, but tough times would not last forever and I am sure there would come a time when I am as “comfortable” in product as I was once in marketing.

weeyong

Insurance by Ronnie

I am writing this blog not for the sake of selling Insurance (in FSI) but rather my thoughts on it recently. Insurance has given me a Deep thought in many aspect Family, Life & Car.

Insurance: this is one of the most "Taboo" subject that people has assumed as "given" and not so interesting as discussion topics.

1)Healthcare Insurance
My son was recently hospitalize for 7 days in Jun.
It was very tiring and worrying. He was diagnosed with "Fei yan".

We took a lot of effort and time to take good care. I must thanks my Parent-in-law whom happen to be in Singapore. Without them, I guess my family and I will have to really absent from work for 7 days. Even so, it was really tiring to spend 6 nights at hospital.

One word…..Zombie.

Cost: Luckily, we had got a Insurance package for my son, such that we pay only a partial of the 1000/day. Without it, I can't imagine the entire cost to us financially.


2) Car accident
I had a minor Car accident in Jun as well. Luckily, no one was hurt and it was someone fault.
The other party claimed against his car insurance. This driver happens to be interested to join SingTel SiX event and hope to be a potential ISV/partner with SingTel in the near future. It was a unique way to meet new partner. Anyway, it was troublesome and distruptive for myself again due to this car accident.

Cost: the other party has a Premiem insurance and hence all cost (est 2000), included a Courtesy car was all paid by the Insurance company.

I guess there is always things/plans that we wished and maybe not able to proceed as per plan due to many many reason in Life and etc. How a wish I could just buy all these Insurance plan or package?

With these 2 cases, I recalled that in my Army days, we always need a “Plan B” for just in case.
Perhaps we should always have more Insurance or “Plan B” in Family, Life & Work etc.

Do you agree?

Ronnie
29/Jun/09

Savouring the Past...(thank you BD!)

After much coercion and "poking" from GC, I finally dust off tt procrastination and got my lazy fingers to pen down my thots... :) This is no "parting gift" but purely giving me a chance to satisfy my blogger itch. :p I'm gonna repeat some of those stuff tt I've mentioned over lunch the other day, pai seh....dont have new stuff all the time.

My stint with BD isnt too long - all of 12 months, but it was an intense, action-packed, hilarious and fun one year! Right from i.luminate to understanding the life of a BDM to RWS, there was never a dull moment. In my 4 years in BM, I've been blessed with opportunities in Pricing, leading the Pricing team and finally, BD. Each role/function gave me tt training and foundation for me to understand the different aspects of the telco biz. When I took up the opportunity to be BDM for Hospitality, I did it without any hesitation cos I knew this was the next milestone in my life/work experience. Indeed the learning curve was very steep, no time to ponder if it's right or wrong, just "cheong" lah and pray I dont get clobbered along the way! :p

We spent many hours in brainstorm & workplan sessions to expand our BD ambition. I fully understand and empathise with the ups and downs of BDMs. However, optimistically, due to the fact tt we work with such varied functions/BUs across SingTel, we are indeed very different in our thots and the way we manage situations. I saw tt I've changed in the way I conduct meetings, analyse a particular problem or even dealing with external parties.

I'm a firm believer tt all that I learn from an experience (be it good or bad) is for me to keep and it will only make me a "rounder" (not fatter hor!) and better person.

So fellow team-mates....continue to persevere & smile! :D

With love,
Lynette

Here comes the Heroes & Heroines

Beware of the Zurros!

It was a night of fun.

This is really what we call work hard and play hard. I must say the BD team is really serious in everything we do. Even for our D&D night, we have Meng Ger together with Anya and Eunice, bring the team the most professional outfit...for our Zurros image!

As if the outfit is not loud enough, our best actress, Eliza has to act so professionally and the team has to walk around to show off the $25 outfit. This is a true dynamic team that I am proud to be part of. I always believe that we can work hard and have fun at the same time. The laughters are the glue that gel us together and prevent us from shatering under the pressure of stress.

No matter what we do, how we do it and what we can achieve, don't forget to continue to smile and laugh. When you laugh, the world laughs with you.

Geok Chwee

FY0910 : Get Set, Ready, Go!

Dear all,

We are now at the start of FY0910. First of all, thank you all for a wonderful FY0809 where personally, I felt the team had achieved much.

Looking back...

We had our i.Luminate 2008 where our 4 key industries and mobility track form part of the core content for i.Luminate. Without the hard work by the team in pulling in our partners to form the showcase, getting the right content and speakers for our tracks, i.Luminate 2008 will not be as successful as it is. Not forgeting the sponsporship that the team had brought in to support our event.

We had a challenging target for Blue Ocean which we exceeded! Give yourselves a pat on your shoulder for turning ideas into reality and bringing in results!

We had some significant break through in getting value from our CACs, our PR in 2008 as well, propelling SingTel's thoughtleadership in the various industries.

Now, looking ahead..

FY0910 would be as challenging if not more than FY0809. We are at a different phase of growth, an increasing expectation from our bosses as we raise the bars for ourselves and facing a different market that no one is wiser to tell what's going to happen next.

Nevertheless, I am confident that we had a strong team that can band together to face the strong current in the Blue Ocean and we will continue to deliver break throughs. With the right strategies and visions set, we should continue our effort in pushing through our executions, perfecting every move till we get in the results that we are after. So, focus on our last "R" in our famous "IRR" -- RESULTS!

If you sit into enough strategy presentations , be it internal, external, from analysts, or from internal business managers, you would see that strategies rarely varies. Maybe all came from the same business schools...tought by the same teachers....What varies significantly is the people that can exceute vs people that can only produce slidewares.

We have been working closely together as a team to drive our break throughs and I trust the team can make a difference AGAIN in this new FY0910.

Let's ride on the waves that we had created in FY0809 and build on the momentum to reach the next height!

Geok Chwee
5th April 2009

Happy Birthday Nicole!

This posting is kinda late...sorry Nic! :)

It was Nicole's birthday on 8 Jan and a surprise mini celebration was organised by Meng Ger. We were in the midst of updating our BD activities to Kai Hock when Meng Ger came thro the door with a cake and candle. That really took all of us by surprise! :)

Cheese!! :D

I wish for....

Happy New Year!

Dear Team,

Wishing all a Happy 2009 and many good things ahead of us!

I had a good break over the last 2 weeks with my family in Europe. Great scenery, good education on Europe history and architecture, quality time with my two kids and having fun with snow and the freezing cold weather...

I always felt grateful after a long break, that I have a job to get back to and it is not just a "job" that I do to get paid, but one that I truely enjoy doing with a group of people that I love working with. It is always the people around us that matters and what always motivates me in my work are my team mates who are passionate in their work, who are eager to learn and make a difference alongside me; my bosses who are appreciative and supportive of me. Thank you, team for making this place a wonderful place to be in and a place where I love to come in every morning to work.

So, as usual, we need to make some "new" (or not so new) resolution for the New Year!

My personal resolution for 2009:

1. Health

This has been always the number 1 on the list (almost every year...don't ask me if I had achieved my resolution every year) . This year, my resolution is to increase number of time I exercise every week, minimially, 3 times per week.

2. Work Life Harmony

Yes, family is number 1 priority in my life. Many times, we get too engrossed in work and lost the balance. So, readjusting working hours to get more work life harmony is something that we have to constantly remind ourselves. I believe that having a happy family life is the foundation to all other things in life, without which, nothing will satisfy the heart.

3. Growing as a team

I believe in continuous learning and self development. Many people stop reading or learning once they leave school which is very sad. Some one ever said that some people maybe on the job for ten years which equates to ten repeated experience of the same one year work which is terrible. No matter what we do, we need to continuously improve ourselves. There is no one out there that can help us if we are not taking charge of our own personal growth. There are many ways that we learn. I love to read and get the wisdom from those great people out there and learn from their experiences. Self reflection is also another way of learning where we reflect upon what we had seen,done or experience and think about how we can do better next time. I also like to observe how other leaders behave in certain situations and learn from them.

In this new year, I hope that we can grow as a team. Learning how we can communicate with each other better, how we can bond together and break barriers ahead to make the impact that we want in the marketplace. I am very grateful to have a great team but there's always room for improvement. So, there's work to do in ensuring tight team work among the BD & SMM, ensuring we all share the same vision and commitement to make things work. We need everyone of us to be proactive in putting forth more good ideas and push our initiatives through together to make a big wave in our Blue Ocean!

Let's work together and grow together as a team. Next year this time, I believe the team would emerge even stronger and Better!

Best Wishes,

Geok Chwee