Dorothy Poon.com

12th Jun2012

Coursera, and the alternative education paradigm

by Dorothy

Hello World. Thought of the evening is that Coursera is a really great concept. Signed up for some courses some time ago, and they’ve just started to run some of the classes, which is très exciting. I’ve never been a fan of confining learning to educational institutions or set periods of one’s life, so the ideals behind this site really appeal.

Amongst the many rather random questions that come to mind after the first session (I hopped into the Introduction to Sociology course at Princeton)

What this will mean for “branded education”. Coursera claim to provide courses from some of the top universities in the world, and interestingly, one of the readings for the Introduction to Sociology course involve an alternative perspective on the admissions to the Ivies. Should education then be limited only to the few who can gain entrance, or be available for all (as what Coursera purports to set out to do)? Can education in the Ivies continue to count as another way to distinguish between classes? Who are the people who will be drawn to this site beyond the first few sessions where they are merely curious, and what will they get out of the experience?
Impact on learning and certifiable education. Will a certificate from a reknowned institution then hold the same value in the distant future?
Virtual learning and interaction. This mode of learning takes away all geographical boundaries, if made more prevalent, would disrupt the typical move that would entail uprooting oneself to live on a college campus, changing the rite of passage into adulthood from adolescence for those who choose to learn online. Is this as real as being physically in a classroom, or is it even sustainable? It is one thing to take a single course online, but to do so for four years? Can one’s attention really be sustained this way?
What is the difference between learning in isolation and learning in a group? Online participants can volunteer to sit into webcam sessions and introduce themselves, interact with the actual classes etc, depending on the modules, which again is mutually beneficial for both sides.

The initiative reminds me somewhat of the LSBF Global MBA which debuted some time back, but this one seems simpler, cleaner, and stickier somehow, at least for me personally. Perhaps those familiar with academics would also be amused at the option to speed up the video of professors droning talking about their areas of expertise. Three options to speed up, only one to slow the video down…hmmm. Not a bad feature. (:

Just out of curiosity, checked out some charts from Google’s Ngram viewer and it seems that the concept of sociology peaked somewhere around 1975, and again in the mid 1990s, before a continuous decline all the way to present, at least in books. Maybe someone can explain the significance of this more.

Another random discovery – for a little red dot, there is a study group already active on the course forum, though nothing really substantial is being discussed in the forum (yet).

The quiz at the end of each video was a nice touch too, I shall take it as a good sign that I must have digested at least some of the main points by getting all these questions right even after dinner and a small pint. (: I blame the Interwebz for our short attention spans and wandering minds nowadays. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how this progresses, and if the community comes into play or otherwise, as time passes. Better than watching TV for sure (although apparently our generation doesn’t do that as much anymore…or so they report.)

Category : Thoughts

Tags : coursera, Education, internet, learning, online, random, School, virtual

0 Comm

20th Apr2012

Which Draw Something Player are you?

by Dorothy

Its been some time since I played DrawSomething though I can’t deny I was utterly hooked when it came out. Because that’s what happens when you have a huge phone that comes with a stylus. But then it became less intriguing when I started to guess the answers even before the drawings were completed, like how a single orange line could symoblize TheLorax, for example. There are also so many Furbies, Pegasuses and Lady Gagas one can draw before it all becomes rather cliche… well you get the drift.

So, I was pretty happy to see some new features being added, even with the FB acquisition of Instagram kind of overshadowing the original news of “Omgpop being swallowed up for a cool reported 210 billion(!!!)” but the rest of us mere mortals are still trying to keep up being drawsome and earning enough tokens for yet another colour palette.

So here goes…the various types of DrawSomething players and their psyche.

The Psychic – can guess what you are drawing with two strokes.

Clueless- The opposite of the psychic. “I have no idea what you just drew dude, and it looks like you’re done with your drawing. Great” or ” How is what you drew even remotely resembling a (insert phrase to be guessed here)??”. Amusement usually ensues, after you have to resort to playing the game like Anagrams because then it’s either give up (but that word doesn’t exist in your vocabulary, does it?) or make wild guesses with the letters.

Cautious Guesser – Wont try to guess without (near) perfect information, i.e The One That Doesn’t Guess Till You Finish Drawing, even though after 3 strokes it was pretty apparent that what you were drawing was totally BritneySpears. Either really patient, or totally risk averse.

The Cheater- unabashedly writes out the phrase to be guessed.

Anyhow Whack - Guessing by wildly filling in letter tiles, and completely missing the point. Your drawing doesn’t matter because they’re just looking at the alphabets anyway. These are the people who should be playing Scrabble, Anagrams or Hangman, really.

MMOminus-the-RPG - Just Involved In Too Many Games At Once. You might have to wait till 2014 before they click on your game again.

The Messenger- (well at this time of observation, DrawSomething was still sans chat function) So there were the people who wrote you a message first on their blank canvas before flipping the digital page to start a drawing proper.

The Crowdsourcer – Posting SOS images on their Facebook when they can’t figure out what on earth the drawing is about.

Crab – Has phone orientaion on crab mode or something. Some people’s pictures just come out sideways. Seems to be something to do with the iPhone, I could be mistaken.

ColourCrazy – Absolutely intent on earning as much coins as possible to get all the available hues possible; ends up not using half of them anyway.

Intensely overkill & spoil market - Drawing a Monet with your phome while the majority of mere mortals stickman away. This tumblr shows it all. Some are pretty good.

The Chronic Mis-speller – Always places that one tile wrong. That one misplaced tile away from perfect spelling.

Spread Spelling – For some reason, fills up the tiles from the middle, instead of spelling the word from left to right. I’m not sure why but it’s interesting to note.

I Don’t Have a Phone That Supports The Game – I feel for you. I’ve had App Envy pre-iPhone/Smartphone days too.

The Late Adopter – Drawn into the game (pun totally intended) only because everyone at brunch seems to be playing it.

I suppose there could be a whole lot more profiles, so leave a note if you have anything to add!

Category : Opinion, Thoughts

Tags : drawing, drawsomething, games, omgpop, profile, psychology

0 Comm

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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20th Aug2010

Hello from New York!

by Dorothy

It’s been a couple of days in New York. Great ideas, great conversations being circulated so I’ll probably put all of the thoughts down when I’m back in Singapore.

Given that the heatwave of Summer is probably over, the weather has been incredibly agreeable with me, save for the sauna that is the Subway. I am loving the Summer outfits and feel of the city; quite a stark contrast to the all black or mostly bundled up crowd and rainy, wet streets from the past few visits in Winter and Spring.

Times Square continues to be a full blown assault on the senses. There is really no other way to try and describe this sensory overload – sights, smells, the weekend rush, the PRE-weekend rush, or should I say, perpetual rush…and the very suspect smoke steaming from the underground.

There is the juxtaposition of big branded billboards, and odd billboard like the below…which someone definitely needs to explain to me.

DO I GET RESULTS? DO I HAVE A BILLBOARD IN TIMES SQUARE?

There’s people everywhere right up till late night, dining al fresco, even the solitary old man on the corner table with a chess set all laid out, waiting for an opponent to sit down to game with him. Times Square is swarming with tourists like ants and there are a couple of new interactive billboards from AE and F21.

Social Media

….is more prevalent in New York than it is in Singapore, even compared to a mere 2 years ago, there are perceptible differences.

Very cool – AE plants your mug shot on their space when you make a purchase, and F21 simulates a leggy model taking a picture of the street below, which is, in fact an actual real-time shot of the current crowd. This then animates into a Polaroid snapshot, real-time used in a great way there. There are also the love tweets on F21 related content.

I missed my 24/7 internet so, and only periodically had access to things like Foursquare specials from American Eagle at Jersey Gardens. (Public Wifi, FTW!)

New York is inspiring, even in the strangest of places. It can be overwhelming at first, downright antagonistic in the winter, but every time that I’ve been back it just gets better and better. For some strange reasons.

I still believe that where you are defines who you are to some extent, but it has been a while since I’ve let a place change me. I hear constant calls, still.

But the funny thing is this is also the first time I am here; there; but also home.

Category : Opinion, Out and About, Thoughts

Tags : new york, Social media, travel

0 Comm

11th Sep2009

More random thoughts: Excuse me, are you a phone?

by Dorothy

Iphone Musings
More little tidbits from some great conversation in the past weeks….

The Apple folk just have a way of making normal features seem heaven sent. While people are pumping R&D into increasing megapixels, shiny new hardware designs (wow! 10 colours to choose from), Apple have managed to make a 2+ mega pixel camera phone (that still seems a tad bit laggy if you ask me) into the TOP camera phone on Flickr. Also, they made picking colours seem so yesterday (like the first generation candy coloured imacs). I can only imagine the gap between the ubiquitous iPhone and it’s other competitors from Nokia and Blackberry will widen, given that Flickr is coming to the App store.

Clear market leader!

Top camera phone is not interesting on it’s own, given that in most cities, within a 3 m radius on the train, one can probably spot at least one Iphone user. Given that most of them will probably be on data plans, this naturally leads to a lot more submissions from the hardware in question.

What is more interesting is that …on Flickr, the iPhone has been comparing pretty decently against the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi. Now that, is a flipping DSLR from Canon, ten megapixel and all sorts of other great features thrown in….but the graph below shows the slowly dipping popularity of the Canon Xti. Compared against the rising love from netizens holding an iPhone, Apple isn’t doing too shabbily at all. The iphone is also the only cameraphone in the Most Popular Cameras mix.

*I wish the horizontal axis from the Flickr graph had some dates thrown in, so we could correlate that sharp spike with the release of the Iphone 3Gs, hypothetically or otherwise.

All this has some connotations for the camera market. Given that Flickr is (in my impression at least), a great community of artists and photographers who range from amateur, semi professional to professional, I do wonder how product lines will evolve in future. What will happen to the cameras that are in between (neither the powerful DSLRs for the serious photographers, nor quite as handy and functional as a camera phone)?

On another note, I have my thoughts about the interesting correlation between handset monopolies (aka sole iphone telco providers around the world) and bad customer service. But I will save them for another day.

Category : Opinion, Thoughts

Tags : Apple, Canon, Design, Flickr, Handhelds, internet, iPhone, Nokia, Smartphone, technology, Thoughts, Youth Culture/Trends

3 Comm

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.

Category : Events and Conferences, Opinion, Out and About, Thoughts

Tags : China, facebook, Optimus Prime, Plurk, Singapore, Twitter, United States, YouTube

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13th Jun2009

Ad:Tech Singapore Thoughts: #2 Engage the Youth Keynote session

by Dorothy

Just got back from a pretty cool experience speaking at this year’s Ad:tech… the keynote panel on Engage the Youth – a direct dialogue…Starting off with some snapshots of the session!

It was a pretty lively session, from the responses on Twitter and conversations. Here’s the gang panel in discussion with Graham.

Amidst the blinding lights, waiting for the delegates to come back from coffee….

So a couple of highlights from the discussion:

Q: What do you like about digital marketing? What do you not like?

I remember saying that the one thing that I really felt didn’t quite “work” was corporate accounts following me on Twitter. I’d probably follow back if I like the brand, but if not…it just feels like going back to the old days of intrusive advertising. If I like the brand, I’d hunt them out. This point apparently resonated with Jeremy Snyder, in his great summary of what transpired on Day 1.

The concept of Friends

… To me, it’s really not about the numbers game. The people who are in the numbers game are SEO/digital marketers on Twitter who follow 10000 random people who vaguely mention a keyword once, and have about 100 followers back (maybe other spammers“digital marketers” who can help you “get rich quick”).

Someone asked if Gen Y measures success by how many friends you have. I sure don’t. The only people who do are the said people above…and probably the likes of Ashton Kutcher when he was in the CNN Twitter challenge.

Digital Identity

The question was whether or not digital identities were an accurate portrayal of ourselves, since marketers were probably using social profiles to try and get a sense of who you are as a person.

My answer : I (and partial mountains of psychology research that I had to trawl through for a past paper) believe that digital identities are not accurate on their own, but they could either be an extension of who we are or an aspect that may not be seen in our offline selves. True, social profiles are completely malleable online, so that people can choose to “create” their own digital identities, but the same can be said of how we pick how we speak, what we wear, how we behave, and where we choose to hang out. Impression management works the same way in real life and the digital channel.

I wish I had a photo taken with Devin and his hot pink glasses. Cool stuff.

Advertising

I think that advertising will move towards being invisible in the future, it will become content. Ideally content that people are searching for. If I’m looking online for the best hotel to stay while in a particular country, it says a lot if your brand is mentioned in the top post that search engines return. And no, I’m not talking about the text based ads (which I never really pay attention to anyway because they are not what I’m looking for).

Media consumption from different perspectives

Great to have fellow panelist, Devin, from Uni of Texas on the panel, with his statement that no one really reads the newspapers in the States anymore (“You’re throwing your money down the drain advertising there”, to quote him) . He also mentioned how magazines were probably 85% of advertising ( I reiterate the importance of my point about advertising as content in future). TV – no one’s watching. Malik watches TV ..but online. Did that count? he pondered aloud, to the chuckles amongst the audience.

The very tired argument about traditional v.s new/social media

Daryl & I have recorded some live Ad:tech thoughts on our newest installment of the GennY Podcast. , where we address:

the traditional v.s new media issue as mentioned (must there really be a distinction? I’d vote for a wholistic campaign. Just because everyone is increasingly on digital doesn’t mean you stop talking in all other channels altogether.
Influencers – do they need to be friends/family? (not really)
Reaching out to youth…
and finally questioning if youth are really that different?

Thoughts
All in all, it was a fun session. Always too short – its hard to really gleam insights when you’re pressed for time, so I do wish there had been more responses to Graham’s call for questions, both on radio and on the official Ad:tech blog. We’ve got forever now online to really respond. Would love to hear in the comments if you have any opinions!

True, we’re mostly alpha users of the tools online and exploring the social media space, but a panel session is not much different from a focus group. Qualitative research has never been about the numbers, but more on insights and trying to find out the reasons why, how people do what they do. We all fall somewhere along the technology adoption curve anyhow, so once you have a clearer picture of that path, you can pretty much predict some possible trends for the population at large.

A Different Kind of Currency

by Dorothy

With headlines about the bleak state of the economy dominating the news, it is quite difficult not to feel discouraged about the situation. Nevertheless, here are a couple of links to some good reads.

A different kind of currency
Lets talk about a different kind of currency, one that is not financial, but financially linked.

Will Online Volunteers Transform Our Economic Recovery?
Josh Bernoff is the co-author of “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies“.

“A pessimist sees value erosion. But the value’s not gone, it’s just different. The consumer/creators get paid for their contribution in love, admiration, pride and a sense of belonging.”

“The online social world is driven by free, volunteer activity. Now add a horde of unemployed and underemployed digital talent, both those laid off and new college graduates who, when they reach the doorstep of the job market, find a sign that says “Sorry, We’re Closed.” While they wait for better jobs to appear, they’re going to invent online tools that supplant the current ones — tools whose modus vivendi is emotional, not financial.”

You know you truly have someone’s passion when they would be doing it for free anyway. Intrinsic motivation is hard to beat, easier to sustain in the long run. Will we see a surplus of innovative tools as digital talent fuel the volunteer economy? Only time will tell.

What people want – a “good job”
Here is another read on Global Migration Patterns and Job Creation.
The article details that what people really aspire for is a good job. Given that employment levels are at an all time high, there are no surprises there. As the world moves beyond the basic needs in Maslow’s hierarchy, it is only natural that other qualitative factors come into play in determining one’s fulfillment in life.

This article makes for a good manifesto that leaders of countries, education, lawmakers, military leaders, amongst the few listed, could look into, as we try and move out from the current crisis. It also looks into the driving forces behind global migration and how best to tap into this trend of mobile talent.

“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” Work is crucial to every adult human because work holds within it the soul of the relationship of one citizen to one government and one country. The most important World Poll discovery, so far, is that the primary driver of almost everyone is a “good job.” This particular condition relates to net migration in high-income countries and GDP growth in low-income countries, but it is also a core influence of elections, revolution, and war.”

“…A successful team of global leaders will need both state-of-the-art classic economics, such as GDP, inflation, population, and birth rates and state-of-the-art behavioral economics, such as law and order, citizen engagement, and well-being to affect the migration patterns of the most talented people and create the next global economic empire.”

Time for a “less selfish” capitalism?
The concept of progress is questioned in this article.

“…despite massive wealth creation, happiness has not risen since the 1950s in the US or Britain or (over a shorter period) in western Germany. No researcher questions these facts. So accelerated economic growth is not a goal for which we should make large sacrifices. In particular, we should not sacrifice the most important source of happiness, which is the quality of human relationships – at home, at work and in the community. We have sacrificed too many of these in the name of efficiency and productivity growth.”

These reads were pretty thought provoking for me, and I do wonder how this situation we are all in will play out. Of particular interest for me would be how technology can help to connect talent around the world, so that physical migration is no longer necessary.

The reasons are, of course partially personal, and ones that I will expand on in future posts!

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Tags: management, economy, finance, talent, currency, social media, volunteer, job, career, capitalism, life, online

Category : Headline, Opinion, Thoughts

Tags : career, inspirational, life, Thoughts

0 Comm

07th Mar2009

The “Difference” Factor – Why it matters…and why it does not

by Dorothy

Here, Guy Kawasaki talks about the Harvard’s admission process, an alternative take on an educational institution that one normally assumes does not have to pro actively reach out to get applicants.

Full disclaimer: I am currently schooling in a tertiary institution in Singapore.

Having said that, I am not going to engage in one of those comparison posts. I do not want to compare, because one cannot do so if one has not been in any of the other major universities in Singapore. What you hear about the various institutions is probably true, but remember that perception largely depends on who is perceiving it. It would be prudent to see if the source of an opinion is of a similar personality to yourself, or is similar enough for you to think that a similar experience would result if you attended X institution. Just because your best friend’s niece loved a certain school and excelled while being in it, does not guarantee the same for yourself. But then again, what do you know when you’re around 18 to 20 years of age?

The institutional salience filter: Labeling Theory

Obviously, labels make a difference. I suppose, to a certain extent, all these labeling issues will always be around. Here’s a take from the article on Harvard.

“What we aim to do is to get the very best faculty together with the very best students,” he says. “Our hope is that these synergies will develop the talents of these students to a much greater degree and that they will then give back a lot more to America and the world.”

That is their promise, and that is the edge that Harvard students get in their first impressions. I suppose the general rule of thumb is, never, ever in a situation to introduce yourself as being from a certain institution and stop there, expecting that that alone will entitle you to anything. Where you are from at most gives you an edge, it is not a reason for anyone to hire you.

Another thing, it is not just the student cohort that makes any institution different. It is also the gatekeepers, the ones selecting who gets to be in the institution, both at an administrative, faculty and student level. It is the industry, the ones who come into contact with those associated with an institution that will perpetuate the external brand image of the typical character found in that institution. It is the school “culture”.

Why I am loving where I am/have been
Totally awesome modules like the Business Study Mission (I’m New York Dec’07), Digital Media Across Asia (here’s what we’re building for the community), opportunities for Student Exchange Programs (GO HOOS! UVA) are amongst the things that I will cherish in my undergraduate life.

A whole multitude of other opportunities are out there when potential students come in, for anyone keen to take them up. These come in the forms of the various CCA clubs, Case Competitions, Overseas Community projects, bond free scholarships. And most of all, the hunger and drive that is in the student cohorts. So there are many chances for you to learn, and also to give back. There are many chances for you to step out of your comfort zone and grow.

Of course, you could choose not to participate in any of these, and just exist as a normal undergraduate.

What I am advocating
Take a more proactive stance in your education. The pedagogy is not entrenched in stone, neither is the syllabus, neither is your educational route. The opportunities are out there, it is up to you to find those that have the best fit with who you want to become. There is also nothing wrong with stumbling into something that you find you are good at.

Open House
I have to say I am loving the experiment into Web 2.0 elements in this year’s Open House Campaign with blogs and the like, but there are just too many things going on in the front landing page of the website, completely overwhelming the viewer. Where do I start?

Their Photoshopped signages in the advertorial campaigns need much more work. Take the cue from Industrial Light Magic when they created Star Wars, and realized that a bit of dirt on their shiny spaceships made it seem that much more realistic. The signs are too clean, too glossy, too distant. On a random note, the signs are also mostly significant only to those already in the institution, who outside would know that they are part of the school architecture? Then again, maybe that was a good way for the campaign to build up the rapport from within the school and not just be outward orientated.

To those contemplating admission…
I guess to sum up, I hope that if you are “different” in terms of what you have to offer to your future counterparts in school, you will come. Don’t expect mere admission into an institution to give you that differential edge. The sooner you realize that the world does not owe you anything, the sooner you can change your strategies towards getting what you aspire towards in life. And the good thing about it is, there are now multiple channels open to you (that are also less socially stigmatized).

To the graduated/graduating…
It is myopic to say that this issue does not concern you, just because you are graduating. In some ways, you are affected by the current cohort in school. You should be very concerned about the kind of people that your alma mater is accepting. It’s heartening to see the Student Association asking if seniors should be invovled in the admission process. This concept has was what they envisioned for the LCKSP program, I wonder if it would be possible school-wide.

There you go. I couldn’t be there physically to help out, but at the end of the day, I am thankful for my institution for shaping me into who I have become today.

Be Great.
So yes to being different, even though I still cringe slightly when people talk about it.

But even more so to being great. Some of the most amazing people around still haven’t got a clue about what they would be doing in 5 years time, but they are great at what they do currently and they continue to strive for this.

Focus not so much on being different (it is possible to be different in a wrong way), just take the time to find out what you excel in, and simply, be great at doing that.

Live or merely exist; the choice is yours.

Tags: SMU, school, university, life, education, passion, singapore management university, experience, admission, choice,

Category : Opinion, Thoughts

Tags : creativity, Education, inspirational, life, passion, Singapore, Thoughts

1 Comm

04th Mar2009

Media Economics ….& Piracy

by Dorothy

Here is an article that I came across some time ago.

The Problem of Media Economics: Value Equations Have Radically Changed

“It seems that most media companies still haven’t figured out how to adapt to or even understand the changes to the fundamental exchange of value in media.

Some of that stems from a failure to understand legacy media economics.

People ask why no one wants to pay for news anymore, referencing the decline in newspaper circulation, when in fact that misrepresents the value equation. People were paying for newsPAPERS, which contained a lot more than news, and they were also paying for newspaper delivery, which is a service.

….It’s not that no one wants to pay for music or movies, it’s that increasingly we want to pay for content when, where, and however we want. We’re willing to pay for the convenience of video on demand, but the service isn’t always being offered. Digital technology has put content producers in the services business, but they don’t yet fully understand that value exchange.

New business models for media require entirely new exchanges of value — it’s not about finding new ways to balance the old equation.”

It’s interesting to read the author’s take on this issue, because people have focused largely on the death of traditional media, when perhaps they should be focusing on the dearth of companies that should be working to deliver content on demand in the most cost effective and efficient way.

The Craigslist example where the author had been looking for someone to rent their room out to, and was “able to achieve for free on Craigslist what they couldn’t achieve by spending money in the newspaper” is also rather telling. The question is, Is the Freemium model, or even, Free, model sustainable in the long run? Then again, content has always been used as bait for eyeballs in advertising.

The internet has changed a lot of the ways that processes and services can be monetized. For benefits that accrue to end users, think about postage. Telegrams, airmail, shipping costs all used to come into play before the arrival of the web and suddenly, email made communication (almost) free, easy, and much faster to boot. Of course, the illegal side of free (aka piracy) has the the people in the software and music industry tossing in their sleep, but that is another issue altogether.

On that note, I blogged about the Pirate’s Dilemma book last year, and you should check it out if you haven’t. Youth culture, trends, innovation and “piracy as a business model”, that’s what this book promises. The author also informs you why the book is relevant to people from all walks of life(and not just the suits from Hollywood and the music labels). Other stuff also ties in nicely with the economic thread running through this post- the author weaves his own background and training in the said field and you can read snippets about his thoughts on the book here.

Enjoy!