Day in NTU

Whereas a day spent in NTU would be absolutely normal 2 months ago, now it seems so far away. Yet familiar. They’re doing a lot of redesigning with the buildings. Hopefully it will be more conducive to the students. The vegetarians store fried rice is so hard sia! thought was rock rice or something. standard drop le leh….or maybe its just the price of rice.

Finally got my graduate library “card”. a laminated piece with my glamorous photo on it. And i cannot use the auto checkout machine too. lan diao. borrowed 9 books. one more to the limit. will i be able to finish reading them this time??

suntan while reading crucial conversations. Some ang mors in bikinis came over to suntan too. didn’t think they shoulda missed the sun so much.

Crucial conversations:
Staying focused on what you want: keep asking yourself what is it eventually you want to achieve. Kicking out the suckers choices of only the dichotomy of if i do it i’m going to offend him and if i don’t i’m a wimp..
1. What do you want?
2. What don’t you want?
Stick them together with an “AND”
by combining the two, your brain is forced to search for a creative solution to such a complex problem then violence and silence.

Violence and Silence signify non-contribution to the pool of shared meaning. IQ of group measured by size of shared pool.

Look for signs of fear. When you are fearful of being attacked or humiliated, its hard not to be filtering what others are saying. When its safe, you can say anything. Therefore, make it safe to speak.

I’m supposed to do my style under stress test but kinda tired so guess i’ll do it tomorrow! (so much for dota)

I couldn’t help it. That guy was getting on my nerves! you know when the guy next to you keeps trying to be faster than you just a tiny teeny bit so he can stay ahead. And when you speed up…..he speeds up too!! GROWL! so my competitive urge finally consumed me and i ran way past him till he finds the gap too far to catch up to. You know when people lose sight of how fast they are running when alone and has to gauge by relative distance to the guys nearby.

Groundswell: Many tools. The groundswell is made of people and you can’t shut them down. You can’t control the wave but what you can do is thrive with it. To analyze how these tools work, an important concept is its always the relationship forged with its use.

Delicious
Digg
Forums and Reviews
RSS, Widgets
Blogs
Social networking sites
Tagging
User created content(wikis)

Profiling of customers. Social Technigraph
Classification into: creators, critics/reactors, joiners, observers

charactersistics…..arrr
creators can write blogs, do funny stuff.
critics review, add on to ideas.
joiners take part in polls etc.
observers…similar to joiners but more passive?

Important to find out wat percentage of customers fall into which category so as not to waste precious resources on certain tools. eg. alphamoms/ retirees to blog??
Can zoom out some more to country lvl or region lvl. Market research.

POST: People, Objectives, Strategy, Tools

More often start with objectives. Suggested 5.
energize enthusiasts to improve sales
idea generation from customers
marketing promotion

does not rest in silos. But the determinant of an objective makes it possible to measure performance and then to include others later.

Strategy: How to roll out. In stages. What are the responses that customers will have. eg. negative reviews impact on suppliers and manufacturers, salespeople. 2 years down the road? 3 years? Planning is not down in isolation. Should be undertaken by a senior person in the company. Depending on the objective, different positions will be in charge of the project. Most companies are unable to support the development of digital applications etc hence should be outsourcing to agencies. Most important is whether company understands where the brand is heading and can implement on the same line.

We all have movies running in our heads. Scenes enacted play by play based on previous experience and expectations. Especially with movies that don’t get to run to finish, the effect can be unsettling. Jumping to conclusions and basing your actions on that movie.

We are often unhappy because people are not the way we want them to be. And then…why should they be the way you want them to be? You’re not them. Obviously they can’t be all things to all people all the time. Loving what is.

The life of my chocolate is finally coming to an end after sitting for a disproportionately long period of time. Its longevity seemed even longer than my Hall 5 kiwi chocolate. HAHA