Dorothy Poon.com

28th Aug2011

See you there: Social Media World Forum – New York 2011!

by Dorothy

SNWF New York will be held on the 1-2 November at the Javits Centre, New York, including paid to attend workshop sessions as well a free-to-attend exhibition and Social Media Hub workshop. I’ll be attending thanks to the invitation from the awesome team at Six Degrees and am thoroughly looking forward to checking out the scene here in NYC, having attending several ;great sessions back in Asia.

What: SNWF New York + Discount codes to the workshop sessions (in this post)

Who: Some of the world’s leading social media thinkers, including representatives from leading brands like Tumblr, Hershey’s, Twitter, Nasa and many more.

Covering a number of key issues around the social media space, discussions will feature insight on measuring ROI on B2B and B2C social media activities, integrating relevant channels into your marketing strategy, social CRM, building and managing communities, social shopping, geo-location, measuring and managing reputation, how social media is changing customer behaviour and much, much more.

Check out these links for the agenda for the conference, to book your place at this year’s event. You get to save 15% on conference passes by entering the discount code DP15 when registering.

If you’re attending, would love to connect on Linkedin or Twitter. Drop me a DM if you are! More updates soon after the conference!

P.S: Full registration for SMWF also grants delegates entry to another highly relevant, co-locating event, Apps World N. America, which will explore the rapidly expanding apps market, attracting developers, operators, brands and businesses from around the region.

Here’s the list of the other media partners!

Category : Events and Conferences

Tags : Branding, brands, communications, conference, measurement, new york, NYC, smwf, Social media, social media world forum, speakers

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15th Feb2011

Social Media Week – New York; Musings.

by Dorothy

I’ve touched down right smack before Social Media Week New York starts. Jet lag could not keep me away from this. The cold at night, unfortunately occasionally won.

Too many good sessions, too little time, coupled with an inability to divide and clone oneself meant that one had to be selective about the entire week’s events in New York. The level of discussion was amazing, and listening to people who were really into what they did is always highly inspirational.

Several themes that surfaced across various talks that were of interest:

1. Culture & Digital Identities:

Don’t confuse Anonymity with Privacy
Mentions of the shift from hiding behind avatars, even in traditionally privacy obsessed cultures such as Japan
The question of the impact of culture on adoption?

I love how bits of culture still filter through online. As interactions become increasingly digital, there must be some discount to the 30-70% rule that body language contributes predominantly to non verbal communication. In my work, having a feel of the various digital conversations on the ground also helps – I’ve noticed that posts from India tend to be 2-3 times longer than other regions. Some social media landscapes are much more politically charged than others. We’ve found that there might be higher levels of sarcasm in certain markets than others. A huge bulk of Singaporean netizens might not haVe ReAchEd ThE sAMe MatUriTy LevEl of otheR PlacEs WorXX.~ (Note to self: If someone types like that to you. Run. Do not hesitate.)

Purely digital text conversation is full of nuances. How people behave and participate online is full of nuances. There is all this talk about digital plumage and how people create their identities online, and even how responses might vary to different avatars online (important for all those customer service folk). It’s been 2 years, I am still interested in how research in this field is developing.

The question posed was then, How can brands help people shape their identities, and share? Those who successfully tap into this would become part of the conversation, gain valuable mind space in this attention driven economy.

Another aspect of culture to take note of – organizational culture. Social media empowers a small number of people to change the culture of an entire organization. Like most change, time is needed, but now, all the tools are at your disposal. This is equally fascinating to me about how a dominant culture usually permeates those from a particular organization.

2. A Time Sensitive Idea Economy

One interesting thing about cloning was raised, about how the USA could learn from Chinese innovations. A mature culture will equate to more innovation, and it will not be the first time that copy and paste culture exists.

3. Platforms

Birth of Hyper relevance- Opengraph, the semantic web. Location based advertising and marketing.
Facebook positioning as a company to power the next generation of web.
Question: Who’s going to be the open graph of China? Since Facebook is not in china. Ans: Localized versions of Chinese platforms? They have the money and resources.

4. Infrastructure, Government & Politics

Big Government and politics also constantly surfaced. How people used social media to organize themselves in times of unrest.

Social media is now permeating up especially where government is concerned
Freedom of Speech – With the law finally catching on to the game and laying down the rules, I’m really not too sure of the extent of this anymore.
When mobile lines are cut, should an internet “kill switch” actually exist?
When platforms like Twitter are blocked – How to use other tools to mobilize people?

We heard first person accounts of how some used public phones to stay anonymous, when the sharing of information became their daily goal when dealing with the situation unfolding in Egypt then.

Infrastructure always plays a huge role in communications (do not get me started about the lack of reception underground in the MTA subways.)

In India, even the roadside florists are implementing mobile orders for their businesses. Free Wifi is increasingly common.
The Delhi Traffic Police Facebook Fanpage allows citizens to upload traffic offences (hopefully the posters were not committing one themselves when documenting this.)

….and many have never even gone to school.

Interesting discussions & amazing people aside, this should be the beginning of a good trip.

And now, allow me to indulge in some #iphoneography.

Hues of the Brooklyn Bridge

Iconic.

Advertisement v.s Consumer Sentiments:

Horses @ Central Park

Flag.

NYSE; Wall Street.

Category : Events and Conferences, Opinion

Tags : facebook, interaction, internet, iphoneography, new york, NYC, Social media, Social Media Week, Sociology, Thoughts, web, Web 2.0

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29th Dec2010

iStrategy: Social Media Conference – Enterprise 2.0 and beyond

by Dorothy

Received an invitation to attend the iStrategy conference early December and I’ll have to say it was a conference with a difference, right from the welcome desk to the conference content itself – great team behind it, insights and sharing all around.

Two general trends that surfaced that were of interest:

1. Organizational structure

One of the key things that seemed to come up often was how various corporations and institutions had shaped themselves to adapt, in light of the “social media revolution”. This is sort of a cliche phrase, because social media is not really so much of a revolution anymore, but I believe in varying stages of adoption into the mainstream.

It’s all too common to look outside (what leads can social media bring to my business, what new customers can I engage) that it would be a paradigm shift for most to view it as a very powerful tool for internal stakeholders as well, which brings us to the next point.

2. Enterprise 2.0

Don’t just take my word for it, the good folk over at Mckinsey have also recognized this, and they have data to prove that performance is markedly improved.

A new class of company is emerging—one that uses collaborative Web 2.0 technologies intensively to connect the internal efforts of employees and to extend the organization’s reach to customers, partners, and suppliers. We call this new kind of company the networked enterprise.

Web 2.0 use of these companies is significantly improving their reported performance. In fact, our data show that fully networked enterprises are not only more likely to be market leaders or to be gaining market share but also use management practices that lead to margins higher than those of companies using the Web in more limited ways.

So, how is your organization structured to accommodate/harness social media?

A single digital executive that is cross functional and supports many different teams?
A full team dedicated to this purpose? How big is the team? How big should the team be?
Who does social media “belong” to?
How will the majority of large corporations, mostly still somewhat mirrored after the very top-down hierarchical structure of the military, accommodate or react to the largely bottom-up, non linear values of social media?

These are really thoughts that are just skimming the surface, and I’ll try to share more in some case studies. Strategy has always been an innate interest, and I’m always keen to find out more about how different corporations adapt to new landscapes. What is it that most companies want to achieve, is probably a more important question before anyone can figure out what it is that must be done, to get there.

p.s: There’s a brand new Facebook fanpage I’ve created, please Like it (in support of my first attempt to conquer FBML). Still learning, page will continually evolve!

Thanks for reading this, and I’m looking forward to 2011!

Category : Events and Conferences, Headline, Thoughts

Tags : Business, conference, corporation, enterprise2.0, event, istrategy, mckinsey, organizations, Social media

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29th Nov2010

A HP AMPed Christmas!

by Dorothy

Was at the HP Amped Christmas event at House @ Dempsey, and here are some pictures!

The folks at WE sure do know how to throw a party… I am most fascinated with the 3D station where 3D comes to laptops, now if only I wouldn’t get so nauseous viewing it…. Those, coupled together with mini HP products on cupcakes, games and a whole lot of other festivities!

So…Christmas is the arbitrary season where everyone is a little more indulgent and allowed to get more than a little contemplative, so indulge me. ( but really, contemplative doesn’t need to happen only at year end).

I really need to stop sitting on posts, this has probably been lying around for weeks! Ok, so the question was, “how are you going to Amp your Christmas this year?”. I haven’t any super concrete ideas as of yet, but I’m hoping some things come through, and I’ll share that when it happens.

Well, I suppose a lot of times we think doing something means having to make some grandiose efforts for external parties. Right now, I’d love to be able to focus on the ones closest to me. The handful of people whom you actually interact with beyond hi, bye and small-talk.

Here are some things that I wish for everyone this year. The 8 Fs.

Faith – This is not just the literal religious manifestation of the
word. It is about belief. Trust me, that can go a long way.

Family - They are the only ones you’ve got. No matter what may have transpired. When was the last time your entire family sat down for dinner, or headed out together?

Friends – Then there are the friends. None of those loose ties. I’m
talking about the friends who know you’ll need decaff, no onions in
your sandwich, absolutely only KFC with the ketchup, and remember it each and every time.

Fight – Not all battles are worth fighting. About a year ago I wished
for something worth fighing for. A strange wish, perhaps, but always good to have something to aspire towards.

Fear - (the unlearning of).

Fun – Frankly, it’s hard to do anything without the element of fun. School can be fun, work can be fun. Why drag your feet everyday to what you’re doing? The best stuff is when you can say “Look, no chains.. I’m here because I want to be.”

Freedom – Of speech, of love, of life. Freedom to be yourself.

This is what distinguishes the older cultures of other societies and ours. Acceptance of
diversity. Freedom to be and to deviate from the norm. We aspire after all the glorious products of a vibrant society but we fear the ills that come with it. Why?

(Finding) Time

Lastly, I think one of the best gifts you can give someone this Christmas is your time.

Time flies. It’s been two years since the magic of walking through a 5th avenue
Christmas struck, and watching the first snowflakes fall. Somehow there is a really strong visual correlation between Christmas and snow for me, such is the power of commercialization.

Merry Christmas.

We are each given the chance to leave a unique imprint on the world. What will be yours?

I wish I could touch & change lives, positively.

“I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.” ~George Balanchine

p.s: head on over to the HP Facebook page here to check it out!

Category : Events and Conferences

Tags : 3d, AMPED, christmas, hewlett packard, HP, HPAMped, life, Thoughts, xmas

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16th Jun2010

CommunicAsia: Skype

by Dorothy

Popped by the Skype booth at CommunicAsia with a bunch of other bloggers, thanks to the folk over at XPR! Loved the booth, which was like a breath of fresh air and probably the most well designed amongst the others at the exhibition.

Branding wise, these guys have got it down…from the almost irreverent and fun decorations (think rainbows, clouds and synthetic grass) to the friendly staff that were hanging around the booth.

All this extends to Skype-blue Slushees, and the iPhone case….All great talking points as well.

CommunicAsia: Skype Slushee

CommunicAsia: Skype iphone Case

CommunicAsia: skypetv

“You’re on Skype TV!”

CommunicAsia: Peter Parkes

Peter, one of the faces of the social media team, whom you can also find over on the Skype blogs.

_______________________________

Curious about the Skype story in online conversations in Singapore, this is what was came up in terms of the top discussed themes/buzz clusters in relation to the Skype brand name.

Unsurprisingly, Skype is strongly associated with functions like Video Conferencing and Calls.

Video Conferencing/Video Calls

Mobile Phones: Given that mobile usage is increasing, the fact that Skype is often mentioned in conjunction with mobile phones isn’t all that surprising.

Phone Models discussed

iPhone 4 /Apple iPhone : Interestingly enough, there were separate conversation themes for the iPhone 4 versus generic chatter on the Apple iPhone itself, possibly double the share of voice for the iPhone compared to other phone models.
Windows Phone 7 : There was a previous rumour floating around that Skype wouldn’t be developing for the Windows Phone 7 but that has since been cleared up over at ZDNet Asia.
HTC Touch
BlackBerry
Motorola

Communication Centric:

SMS
MSN
Social Networking
Facebook – Skype was also one of the top Web 2.0 brands often mentioned together with the likes of other communication options like MSN and Yahoo!.

“We have cellphones if its important, and email, IM and Skype if its not.” - a post from The Singaporum Forum.

Skype for “not important” calls. Issue or non issue?

“Erm i normally use skype to call my friends during gameplays… Not really used for overseas purposes. ” - Hardwarezone Forum.

While Skype might be utilized heavily by the overseas crowd ( I know I would!), it’s interesting to note that gamers might also be an alternative target audience in their messaging. Not something that immediately comes to mind.

_______________________________

Also saw that the Skype business solutions offering was given a counter of its own at the booth. Skype still seems to be resonating with the average consumer online, but it will be interesting to see how their branding might translate to serious enterprise customers, and the impact or effect, if any.

Full Disclaimer: All buzz clusters phrases were taken from Brandtology’s (where I work!) Digital Conversation Workbench.

Other official pictures from the event here! : Skype Twitter Accounts

Category : Events and Conferences, Opinion

Tags : blogger, bloggers session, communicasia, Communication, event, mobile, msn, Singapore, skype, web2.0

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20th May2010

Upcoming: Social Networking World Forum – Asia (Singapore) 2010 – See you there!

by Dorothy

Social Networking World Forum(SWNF) – Asia …back (and better) for this year! There’s even a ticker on the new look website counting down! Honoured to be one of the media partners for this event. Attended the SNWF Asia last year, and had a blast, thanks to the great team at Six Degrees. Guess this is one event that’s gaining traction and looking forward especially to the discussions (more Asia-centric case studies please) and sharing by others in the field.

“Brands often struggle with social media and the danger is to view it as just another marketing channel. Many realise it’s a completely different approach to interacting with consumers, building communities, integrating social CRM strategies and more. Much understanding still needs to be undertaken into consumer engagement, and the long term value social media can bring to brands.” commented Ian Johnson, MD Six Degrees Events.

Event Info

Leading Asian brands will be discussing the latest in social media marketing, social CRM, social search, community building and the role social media plays within their organisation. The Social Media World Forum (SMWF) Asia running on the 22/23rd September at Suntec, Singapore (www.socialmedia-forum.com/asia) will showcase the leading social media trends taking place in Asia through a combined conference and exhibition.

The event will examine who the key social media influencers are in the Asian community, and the major trends in the likes of China, Singapore and Indonesia. It will look at how Asian marketers are realising the potential of social media and the role it will play in their future success, along with key emerging social media tracking tools.

Speaker Line up Teaser

• Pooja Arora, Brand Manager, P&G
• Nicki Kenyon, Vice President, Digital Marketing APMEA, MasterCard Worldwide
• Reynold D’Silva, Global Brand Marketing Manager, Unilever
• Blake Chandlee, VP & Commercial Director, EMEA, Facebook
• Damien Cummings, SMB Online Director – Asia Pacific & Japan, Dell
• Lito S. German, Marketing Director, BMW Group Asia
• Argha Sen, Head of Marketing & CRM, Toys R Us
• Fotini Paraskakis, Director of Production, Fremantle Media Asia
• Derek Yeo, Head of Marketing, Tiger Airways

Early Booking Discount Ends 21st Aug 09…As I’m a partner with the event you can receive a 25% discount on delegate passes to Social Media World Forum Asia 2010. All you have to do is quote ‘dorothypoon.com’ when you register. Here’s the registration link. http://www.socialmedia-forum.com/asia/register/conference And this year’s agenda!

Drop me a note / Tweet if you’re going to be there. Catch up then!

Category : Events and Conferences

Tags : Advertising, conference, conferences, event, marketing, Singapore, Social media, social networking world forum

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20th Apr2010

Mobile Marketing Association Forum 2010: Singapore – An alternative Blog Post…

by Dorothy

Spent a couple of days last week at the #MMAF2010 and decided to do a different version of a blog post on the event! So here are my exceedingly Twitter centric slides below… Enjoy!

#MMAF2010 Singapore: Mobile Marketing Association Forum – www.dorothypoon.com

Just also wanted to give a very huge shoutout to the great team at Ricecomms for the invite & a wonderfully organized event, you can view their press releases here and here.

Really appreciated the making sure that we had power, internet ( all the essentials for Tweeting/Blogging/list of Tweeps/Speakers & what not….), standardized and clearly communicated #hashtag, and even Tweets that shared relevant links throughout the session. Great stuff!

Other posts:
Geekanomics @ CnetAsia
ZDNet Asia
Isman’s post
@cerventus’s thoughts

Category : Events and Conferences, Headline, Noteworthy, Opinion

Tags : #MMAF, Advertising, Branding, case studies, Google, iPhone, mobile, Singapore, slides, technology, tweets, Twitter

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02nd Apr2010

Social Media – Moving forward…

by Dorothy

It’s kind of past the season where people throw up new ideas of what the future entails (this seems to happen largely towards the end of the year, because for some reason, the new year seems to trigger the sort of “what’s coming next” type of thoughts. Though if you think about it hard enough, it doesn’t really make sense since every day or any day is a good time to attempt some crystal ball gazing. But I digress.

I was at the HP #futureis event earlier this year, and there were many interesting presentations given by the various folk who shared. And yet, right now, while the whole Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare phenomenon has taken various parts of the world by storm, sometimes it easy to forget that there are many out there who still mainly stick to good old fashioned email, and surfing websites. So what constitutes this whole “social media” concept, anyway? It probably means different things to different people, and just when you think that you’re starting to understand the landscape, it moves again. We’re probably not even scratching the surface of what could possibly be done with all the information we have, and even trying to make sense of the upcoming trends in the scene.

Real time is so Yesterday; Predictive Analytics is the Now <?>

Last year around this time, the chatter was all about the real time phenomenon and how microblogging sites like Twitter could contribute to this. A year later, Twitter still surfaces in conversations, but now we’re looking into something that I’ve recently become very interested in – using past and present data to predict the future. Apparently, Twitter can even predict box office revenues of Hollywood movies, better than some established standards. All this is inherently fascinating to me, and something I’d love to explore more. The end of the research pretty much sums up the importance of this.

At a deeper level, this work shows how social media expresses a collective wisdom which, when properly tapped, can yield an extremely powerful and accurate indicator of future outcomes.

So effectively, this could apply to product launches, electorial campaigns (as the paper highlights) and all sorts of other CRM related issues.

What is Privacy?

On top of that, the definition of privacy continues to evolve as well. I’ll have to say that the behaviours linked to Foursquare still border on stalkerish creepy at times, and other sources like Facebook house such an incredible amount of (mostly accurate and genuine) data about demographics, user interests and the like, it’s seriously hard not to see this as a gold mine for marketers/advertisers. Imagine the conclusions that could be drawn from all this information.

What goes viral? Some good folk at UPenn/Wharton have published some research studying the list of the most emailed articles on the NYtimes that suggests that positive, rather than negative news is more viral (all those in PR can heave a sigh of relief) and that “useful” information is more likely to be shared, given that these could enhance connections with others. That goes for awe (inspiring) stories too. The generalizability of the results is a little suspect, given that it was largely confined to the readers of the NYtimes.com, and those who actually use the email function, but interesting nonetheless.

Share Prices & the Bottomline Another angle that has surfaced recently has been the effort to try and measure some real world impact of social media. We have the entire situation with Nestle and the impact of the Facebook debacle on it’s share prices. Zilch, at least according to this article. My sensing is that this is largely to do with the nature of the conversation. I do not deny it’s importance, but CSR for the most part, has been a tricky component to compute in terms of tangible profits. Perhaps it might have been different, should the issue have centered around an actual product, or service deficit. ROI is a tricky thing to nail down, one simplistic formula would probably not be able to encompass all the variables to be taken into account.

These are just some random musings that have come up… More about some other trends and thoughts on those in the next post!

Category : Events and Conferences, Opinion

Tags : analytics, facebook, foursquare, marketing, predict, predictive, privacy, research, ROI, share prices, Singapore, Social media, Thoughts, Twitter, virality, Web 2.0

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05th Sep2009

Behind the Great Firewall of China…

by Dorothy

I’ve spent the last week or so being intermittently barred from all of my usual haunts online, but it has been interesting so far.

The plane ride to China was within a bearable threshold, unlike the grueling 24 hour journeys to the USA. I am entertained by the H1N1 cartoon they’ve created, the animated characters looking like a Chinese New Year food product advertisement rather than a warning about the disease that has affected people worldwide.

I survive the taxi journey from the airport during which the driver weaves in and out of trucks the size of Optimus Prime. Privately, I suspect he fancies himself as auditioning for 2 Fast 2 Furious, because he drives like (well, a taxi driver…) he is behind the wheel of a Forumula 1 Vehicle.

The next morning, I am having breakfast in the hotel, and something is having my foot for breakfast. I later spot the culprit – a lone Hangzhou mosquito hovering around and having eaten it’s fill, finds its business elsewhere. My foot bears the only trace of its presence. The breakfast area plays Christmas saxophone songs and I think of snow. End of the week, I realize that that same CD basically plays everyday, at any of the eating haunts, and repeatedly from morning to night.

Despite the revolving doors at the entrance which usually hint to me of freezing cold weather, it has been pretty much “like Singapore” and not “hotter than Singapore” as I had been forewarned. Maybe I have some sort of luck with the weather right now, because it has apparently been raining in Singapore since I left. Perhaps then, my perception of this place is somewhat different from the rest, because talking to the locals gets me the information that this is an uncharacteristically cool bout of Summer weather we are experiencing.

The office here is seriously swanky, with a pantry area that looks like a cafe, LCD screens mounted on the ceiling and kick ass conferencing equipment. I love the happy colours, and the chinese logo is a nice touch on the introductory wall that greets everyone who steps in.

Till then, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Youtube, Blogger are amongst the sites that I’ve been unable to access in certain places….

Facebook reassures me that they “take my privacy seriously” with their investigation that I really am who I am, since I’ve not logged in from this location before. I wonder if this happens only in China, because I didn’t get the same screen in the USA.

More on the great firewall of China (and Iran for that matter) here and some other interesting insights on the other parts of China.

Because, I can imagine from the sheer size of this country, there are many Chinas within the whole, and what I’m seeing is barely scratching the surface of what it is like in all the other cities and provinces.