Distractions distractions

So here I am, trying to focus on the job at hand.  I have mountains of data on one side and my laptop on the other.  I have a strategy plan to present on Friday and a speech to deliver the following week, all of which I have not yet prepared for.  So what am I doing furiously reading an inane article on Cracked.com?  The title “13 worst ad placements” sounded innocuous enough, but it was well delivered, and it led me to “7 people who never gave up, but absolutely should have” and a huge treasure trove of belly laughs.  I learned tons of new things today, but unfortunately, unless I can find the discipline to click away from it, none of it is related to work.  Oh, and I’m blogging too….

Tong Hsien-Hui

Government taking over the net? Part 2

So now we have the infrastructure aspect done up.  Each country controls and runs their internal ISPs.  All net traffic thus passes through their servers before making their way out to the rest of the world.  There is now control of new online IDs being created although who is actually creating them may be harder to pin down.  I suppose the next step would be to create unique identifiers for each person before they can log on to the internet.  This would only be possible if the government themselves offered internet access free within their own country.  With the increasing prevalence of fingerprint recognition hardware, a person could log on to the net with his/her own bio ID.  Thus everything that person does on the net is now logged and retrievable.  It  is now possible to identify the person behind each action taken on the internet.  Sure, there are details to work out as to how to prevent or minimize fraud, etc….but this is already done imperfectly in the real world so I will gloss over that for the moment.

 

Tong Hsien-Hui

Government’s taking over the net? Part 1

This last week in Singapore, there have been quite a number of discussions regarding the role of Government within the domestic internet community.  The implication of the Government regulating the online community was met with derision, anger and not a few stupid comments that seemed to justify the Government’s stand.  In the end however, the relevant authority came out to state that this would not be the course of action they would take….for the moment.

This issue got me to thinking too however.  Should they really want to police the internet, how would any Government go about it?  I believe that its a matter of looking at what the internet really is.  Effectively, the internet to all intents and purposes is a world, no different from the world we live in.  That being the case, shouldn’t it be policed the real world is?  But how will this be done?  The NSA together with Homeland Security spends billions of dollars data mining the online traffic to pick out the nuggets of critical information that could lead them to a plot being hatched to destroy property or cause damage in the real world.  Does it make sense to do so however?  I think that with a fundamental shift in thinking, Governments can take automatic control of the key channels of the internet.  All they need to do is to takeover and run all the ISPs in the country.  If each country were to do this, it would be easy to impose strict guidelines on the users and the concept of anonymity would be significantly reduced.  Obviously it is not possible in practice to monitor every keystroke made by every user within the country, but it is no different from the real world where you can’t possible monitor all the conversations that take place in the country.

Fact is though, I love the internet as it is, with all the negative and sometimes gross things on it.  I’ve had more negative reviews and comments than positive ones, but that doesn’t make me want someone to control it.  However, this intellectual exercise is interesting and I will post more once I have had time to think through more of the issues.

Hsien-Hui, Tong

Everyone wants to sell through Social Media network communities

I met a prospective client today.  He was the owner of a medium sized company rooted in the traditional economy (he literally provided the mortar in the term “bricks and mortar”).  He had read somewhere about the way Social Media networks were transforming the way marketing was done and that it was a relatively low cost alternative to the traditional media.  I think what caught his eye was the term “low cost”.  Anyway, being an experienced businessman and not one too savvy with the internet, he asks around and as luck would have it, my name came up and he contacted me with the aim of understanding more of what this “technology” could do for him and his business.  Now keep in mind that this is a guy who took over a small business from his father and grew it to the current size, managing more than 500 employees.  With all the infrastructure projects going up in Singapore, the current recession is barely making him break sweat, and I believe that his secretary probably made more in bonuses last year than Vikram Pandit of Citigroup.

So anyway, we meet over lunch and the first question he asks me after we have done the socially acceptable things such as exchanging namecards and asking how business was (“Terrible”, he says, “can barely make ends meet.”  Even as he regales me with stories about how he bought a new Mercedes with a triple 8 number plate), is “How can I sell my product using this technology?”  Now I don’t look down on him because of his lack of technical savvy, I mean, his net worth is probably more than ten times mine, but I realize that he has the same misconception as a large number of my other clients.  Social Media Network communities to them are captured market segments to be bombarded with advertising till their will is taken away from them and they purchase the advertisers’ product online without further thought.  In fact, once I had explained how the community was formed, he quickly understood that the hard sell method he had envisaged wouldn’t work.  “Oh”, he exclaimed, “Like selling to big company, like dat.  First must buy coffee, then dinner, then sing song, then sell”.  He actually got it faster than most of my other more educated and younger clients.

So I start next week to try and carve out a strategy for him that will put his company in the minds of prospective customers.  It will be subtle, it will be indirect and it may not give immediate returns.  But it will be a first step.  At least he understood that to get a foot into this community, you need to “buy coffee” first.

Superbowl Ads…the only thing that interests me..

The Superbowl has come and gone.  While millions of Americans and viewers around the world stay rooted to the sofa during the match while restocking on fat laden, heart attack giving snacks, during the ads, I did just the opposite.  I remained focused during the ad breaks and goofed off, clipped my nails, read my book, drank my coffee, etc….during the match itself.  Before anyone gets the impression that I dislike American football, let me hasten to add that I am a big fan of the sport.  Not as much as I like tennis or football/soccer, but definitely more than some Olympic sanctioned sports like archery and bowls.  Fact is, my team, the NY Giants didn’t come close to making it to the Superbowl this year, so instead of following every move in the game, I thought I would evaluate the ads to see who spent their money most wisely.  These are my personal takes:

First, the better ones.  Pepsi did a great job this year.  I liked their ads even though I’m not American.  I can see it speaks to the people.  Pepsi Max was equally good.  Sophomoric humor but hey, look at th audience.  Next, SoBe.  Lots of big dumb people dancing with big dumb people dressed as reptiles.  You gotta love how it drops down to the intellectual level of the people.  Easy to understand.  Even I got it.  I liked Monster.com’s ad too….how often do we feel we are working under the moose’s ass….probably ALL the time!  I didn’t quite like Teleflora’s ad, but my two plebian friends went hysterical when they heard the punchline.  Reminded me too much of Little Shop of Horrors, but thought I would add it in since the two morons next to me went nuts everytime it aired.

Now the ones that were truly crap.  Careerbuilder was the ultimate.  The repetitions made me feel like I was being tortured at Guantanamo and after its third screening, I would have preferred the place in Cuba.  Budweiser with its horsey ad didn’t appeal to me.  What the heck was the message?  Since when is beer classy?  That ad reminded me of Sarah Palin’s lipstick on a pig comment.  Bud Light though was actually better.  Maybe Conan O’Brien’s a better delivery guy.  Both Coke ads were lousy too.  Sorry, this year was Pepsi’s year.  You guys in Atalanta should have saved your money and spent it on developing a better ad.

Oh, and I heard the Steelers beat the Cardinals…but that was a side story….

Just moved in!

Just moved from my usual blog space to this new one.  As most of my friends use WordPress, I have finally succumbed to peer pressure and moved too from http://hsienhuitong.blogspot.com/.  Looking forward to hooking up with more folks here and expanding my horizons a bit!

Just a bit about myself.  Have been a corporate drone for most of my life and honestly, the greatest thing that has happened to me has been the poor economic situation which has allowed me to stay away from the job market for awhile and check out new and interesting developments in the online and offline world.  Never realized the full power of social media networks till I hopped onboard….its addictive in the extreme!