Social Media Week Singapore recently had an evening with three events focussed on music and social media, sponsored by the online music platform Deezer. The night was hosted by Broadcast HQ, which is a cleverly designed bar, bistro, music store and live venue. Where Music, Social & Tech Collide The main event was a panel [...] Read full article
Social Media Week Singapore – Keynote
This morning I overcame a looming migraine (maybe lightning does cause them) and a gnawing sense of cynicism to attend this morning’s opening to Social Media Week Singapore. This morning’s event featured largely frank and jargon-free talks from Laura Balkovich, Head of Social APAC for Google and Damien Cummings, Regional Marketing Director, Digital & Social [...] Read full article
Be Weirder
There's a lot of ideas out there about running a small creative business or being a solo creative. Branding, marketing, pricing, appealing to the mainstream and the like. A recent experience talking to some fellow photographers got me thinking about this, my journey and what advice I might give on how to be known and attract good clients. Read full article
Niche Blog If You Can Get It
Focus on a niche. That’s the common advice for bloggers, when it comes to starting, growing and marketing a blog. Focussing on a niche makes it easier to target a specific audience, attract sponsors, sell ads and grow a “brand.” As a blogger, I’ve resisted that path. Instead, I’ve chosen personal blogging, or as I [...] Read full article
Interview With Jay Oatway
Jay Oatway is a Hong Kong based author, journalist, tech and social media commentator. I first met Jay in 2009 and it’s always fascinated me to talk to him about trends in technology and the way people and companies use social media. We worked briefly together setting up HKSocial (before I left Hong Kong), a [...] Read full article
iPhone 4s
I love The New Yorker’s cover art. The print you see above is one of my favourites and lives in our home library. At first glance it seems like the phone has been accidentally dropped into the water, then you start to wonder, did she drop it on purpose? Yesterday I unwittingly re-enacted the scene [...] Read full article
Klout, Influence And Other Urban Myths
Klout is a service that claims to be able to measure people’s online “influence.” Supposedly, Klout can analyse your social media activity and by assigning you a number (out of 100), show how “influential” you are in comparison to other social media devotees. To say I’m skeptical about Klout’s accuracy and objectives is something of [...] Read full article
Living Without TV
For the past six months, we’ve lived without television, at least in the conventional sense. There are two TVs in the house, but neither is connected to a TV service, either free-to-air, or cable. You can’t just turn the TV and watch “something” or “channel surf.” Why Have A TV? It’s a pretty bold countercultural [...] Read full article
A Better Music Scene In Singapore?
Tomorrow I’ll be attending a music industry forum here in Singapore. It’s exactly the kind of thing I swore I wouldn’t be doing this year. I’m going out of respect for the organisers, the speakers and because I actually believe it could be the start of something good for the local music scene. But, with [...] Read full article
Dalí, Subversive Humour And Learning To Be An Artist
My favourite film of 2011 was Midnight in Paris. Among the many memorable scenes there is a wonderful moment when Owen Wilson’s lead character meets Salvador Dalí, played by Adrien Brody. Of course, the real life Dalí was every bit as over the top and amusing to behold as Brody’s portrayal suggests. Yesterday I stumbled [...] Read full article