That morning, we picked Min up at 10am and head over to Kallang for breakfast. It was something we don’t get to do often. After breakfast, we headed over to Sims Drive for a K1 race with fellow blogger friends.

The concept of K1 was born when CS Racing and the Singapore Motor Sports Association came together with one common goal – to develop the future of Motorsports in Singapore by raising awareness and interest among the community.

There was also a F1 model car on display for photo taking and display of photos from past F1 seasons too. Infusing the F1 experience even in the neighborhood. How I wish the K1 karting experience would be around Sengkang! How can not take photos since we’re there leh?

Before getting ourselves into the race, everyone will have to sign an indemnity form. Maciam like sign our life away lah! But this is necessary for all such activities. Nothing to worry about, cause safety always come first for the organisers and helpers at the carnival.

Minmin wanted to drive around the circuit too, but she’s underage. So we took a photo with the K1 karts instead. She was a little shy as usual at first, but eventually went for it, the temptation too hard to resists. There was also a little boy who was crying out loud at the carnival, wanting to join his elder sisters and father in the race, but he’s way too young for it. The organisers pacified him by bringing him in to take a shot with the K1 kart on display too. This display is for use at the safety talk prior to every race.

Experience with the kart was fun! Though speed limit was capped at 25km/h for safety reason at such carnival, driving the K1 kart around the narrow circuit was still quite a challenge and still as exciting. I’m sure the other bloggers who were there all have their stories to tell. Links to their post at end of this post. Abang went for the race too. He loved it! And we’ll be doing it again!

If you would like to give K1 karting a try too, head over to their carnival over the next few Sundays! Each race at $5.

• 23 Aug, 10am to 6pm at Ang Mo Kio Ave 3 – Carpark beside Block 324
• 6 Sep, 10am to 6pm at Coleman Street – Beside St Andrew’s Cathedral
  (THIS WE’LL BE THERE!!! Drop me a message if you want to join us.)
• 13 Sep, 9am to 2pm at Carpark of Block 510. West Coast Drive

Do take note of the requirements for participants!
K1 DRIVER REQUIREMENTS

• MINIMUM HEIGHT: 1.30 M
• MINIMUM AGE: 10 YEARS
• MAXIMUM WEIGHT: 135 KG
• ONLY FULLY COVERED SHOES (SANDALS, SLIPPERS & HEELS ARE STRICTLY DISALLOWED)
• HAIR THAT IS SHOULDER LENGTH OR LONGER MUST BE TIED UP
• LOOSE CLOTHING MUST BE SECURED
• WEARING THE PROVIDED HELMETS IS A MUST

For more details, please refer to their website.

Read what other bloggers said about their K1 experience…

• Nadnut
• Hong Peng
• Weijie
• DK
• Neo

Working backwards:

• Sat 8pm: Reach home, shower and KO (hopefully!)
• Sat 7pm: Dinner (if there’s still energy left)
• Sat 6pm: End of Blogathon (#bthon)
• Fri 6pm: Start of Blogathon
• Fri 5pm: Reporting time to change and setup
• Fri 4pm: (For myself) Meet Cheryl at Tangs to try the pair of shoes I selected
• Fri 3pm: Leave home for Orchard
• Fri 2pm: Shower and get ready for 24hr w/o showering!
• Fri 1pm: Get some work done and assigned.
• Fri 12pm: If I can make myself sleep till 12pm that’ll be best! If I jump out of bed before 12pm than also no choice lah!

So you see! Base on my calculation, I will have to be awake from 12pm Fri to about 9pm on Sat. I hope I can survive that!

To prep myself for this ultimate challenge, I’m going to start listing down the things that I’ll have to bring to keep me occupied for the 24hr and some tips on how I am going to stay awake.

Claudia’s packing list for #bthon

The tech stuff:

• DSLR camera
• Tripod for DSLR camera
• Mobile PhoneS + charger(Yes! More than one)
• Sony Walkman + USB cable
• Nitendo DSlite + charger
• Multi-plug adapter
• USB Hub
• Remembering all my passwords!

Non-tech stuff:

• Face towel to freshen up
• Wet facial tissue + Wet Wipes + Kao Biore Body Powdersheet
• Tissue paper
• Fluffy pillow to hug and support my chin when my head feels heavy (To buy one on Fri!)
• Sour and mint candies
• Whiteboard + markers + duster
• Muji notebook + pens for doodling
• Vicks inhaler + Vicks rub + Kiehl’s multi purpose balm aka Superbly Restorative Skin Slave
• Body mists + perfume
• Toothpicks
• Listerine mouth wash
• Hair clips
• Sunglasses + Cap (I’ve got hootie!) for the morning and noon sunlight
• Sweater for the night coldness
• list to be continued… what else will I need?

Claudia’s tips for surviving #bthon

• Watch movies/ drama online (suggested by molemole)
• Revamp my blog theme (again)
• Play games online or on DSlite
• Eat sour candies/ sweet
• Chat with fellow bloggers in other windows, at home or wherever they may be via MSN/ Twitter
• Plan for my new project idea
• Catch up on my blog posts (many many outstanding!)
• anymore suggestions?

The 10 bloggers in blogathon are:

• Claudia (that’s me lah!)
• DK
• Dottie and Stephie
• Hillary
• Jayden
• Melly
• Nadia
• Nicholas
• Sheryo

Come by TANGS (Orchard) on Fri-Sat to see us in action!

It was the first social media discussion that got all hot and sweaty (literally) over at Open Room tonight. Only Ogilvy dares to do something that most brands and agencies are afraid of, mixing the traditional media (TM) journalists with the social media (SM) bloggers together in the same room to discuss about Journalism. And may I quote, Journalism as explained in my trusty dictionary in my macbook states that – “the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television.” Hmm… nope, it didn’t include bloggers nor online digital storytellers. Let’s see what Wikipedia (the community dictionary) explains Journalism…

Journalism is the production of news reports and editorials through media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet. Journalists—be they writers, editors, photographers, broadcast presenters or producers—serve as the main purveyors of information and opinion in contemporary society.

There. The community speaks.

What am I trying to proof here? The way content is consumed depends on the way a person prefers or are aware of. Both the TM and SM know very well about this and they do well serving their own group of audiences. Let’s take the big boy in TM for instance, they’ve got BT for the business minded individuals, New Paper and Wan Bao for the tabloids and sensational news, and they’ve got magazines catered for different types of population. As for ST, guess I’m classifying it under the general category. Just like most of the blogs here in Singapore. No niche, just write whatever they were told to and censor whatever that’s not to be told.

In SM, there are blogs, websites, forums and lots of people we can follow on twitter, facebook, plurk or whichever social networking site you can name. But the smart users who are using these tools read, follow or participate in their selection due to their choice and needs. I won’t follow someone whose tweet nothing but conversation between his/her followers nor will I want to read a blog on a regular basis if that writer simply posts random things that doesn’t matter to me. Smart users know how to filter out the noise and focus on what matters to them. Same goes for TM. No one (with no reason other than its job responsibilities) will read every single publication and every single page in the TM publications.

Yes, I agree with Daryl that habits die hard (for the older generation), but for the young ones, we pick up new things everyday and our habit changes as we grow together with this new channel of information that’s available for free. And these young ones are eventually going to continue to grow and progress and changing their daily habits. Whether or not reading the newspaper daily will eventually become one of their favorite pastime in years to come, no one knows. Perhaps they’ll still read about the news, but from other channels and ways. So the questions now is how are the TM and SM storytellers evolving and embracing this change to match what may come in the future? Its about delivering the right content when the user wants it. Not when you think they want it. Consumer always have their final choice. No one can force them.

Than there’s the thing about credibility and professionalism. TM journalists state that they are the credible sources, but what about the many misquotes, over sensationalizing of topics, featuring article of certain products as there’s sponsorship involved, reporting of things that they see only one side of the picture, and publishing news that are of no need for public concern e.g. death of someone due to suicide. Personally I have got bad experiences with these things. How can I trust 101% that the TM is giving us accurate and credible news? What about the parts that were not published?

If citizenship journalism is encouraged by the TM, than what makes the differences from a blogger reporting about an incident or happening on their own blog or twitter as they’d encountered it and a citizen that posts up to Stomp? Citizens are encouraged to Stomp about happenings so that the big boys can get the traffic from tabloid or gossip hunters to visit their website, increase their pageviews and get advertising dollars from all the flashing irritating banner ads. If they can do that, than why can’t the bloggers?

On a final note, I’ve to say this again – I read what I want to read, if I’m not interested in the war that’s happening out there nor the new jet that some army purchased, I can’t be bothered. When I really need to find them, I search! If google or yahoo (or bing) doesn’t list your content within the first 3 to 4 pages, I’m sorry you didn’t reach me. Eventually I’ll get my source from somewhere else. Whether or not the source is 100% reliable, its all up to the smart reader to decide.

Updates – posts I want to remember

• POV from Daryl, one of the panelists at Open Room
• Interesting analogy by Lucian
• Ian’s thought never fails to make me put on another thinking cap
• Brian’s shares the building of future media organisation (with reference to Monocle.com)

But for social media blogger engagement, I can’t do that. As a community member and one whom has a reputation to uphold, I cannot just pop a few names out and refer them. When I do ever make referrers, I give quality ones with certain standards and who are interested in the subject matter. If you have a relationship with me, often I would be more than willing to help. But if we hardly communicate and the only time I see your name is in my inbox with a BCC press release or media invitation, sorry, can’t help you.

Reason is simple. You’re not listening and participating enough.

There have been many talks and posts on how important relationship and contacts is in the game of social media. Well, at least in context of an event invitation or a possible test drive of products. And there are plenty of ways you can start building that relationship. Or at least, be seen elsewhere other than just their inbox.

Some of the things you can do to start the relationship (and build it):

• Add them in facebook
  And keep in touch regularly or comment on their posts/updates.
• Follow them in twitter or plurk
  And participate in discussion or drop a hello once awhile. These are great listening tools too!
• Read their blogs and start commenting
  Hello! You’re engaging bloggers right? They blog right? They blog because they want people to read and participate in discussions/ commenting right? So… are you giving them what they want before you asking them to give you what you want?
• Be part of the communities
  There are so many social events and gatherings! Join in! Introduce yourself and be seen. If you are not willing to commit some extra hours outside of the official hours, than perhaps you’re not ready. And did I mention that some potential clients are there to observe too? So where are you???

If all the above is beyond what your time and energy permits, than perhaps a system can be put in place to help you. Would you like one which can help you filter out the quality content providers that fits your target audience and list of criteria? How about one that will display very nice profile view of where the person is active in, his highlighted (or best) entries, his authority and influence level? Wouldn’t that be nice? But still, its only a system. The relationship building part still has to be injected somewhere in the process. Are you prepared to do that?

If you’re ready or think that you’ll be in months to come, perhaps you can be looking forward to a system like this, let me help keep you posted. You can sign-up for updates and news here. I believe this system will come in very helpful.

one fine friday night, a group of plurkers from singapore gathered at

i started flashing at everyone and kris gave me that WTH stare

while ben was waiting for his turn, i flashed and spinned at him

and i got the best flashed and span shot of the night

i love doing the flash and spin as the result of the photo
surprises me everytime
it may turn out sexy or ugly
but still i enjoyed it
it was fun!

i even tried flashing myself

ridz got curious and wanted to try it himself

so dk and I tried to set the right setting on his camera

while we continued our experimental flash and spin
kris was playing five-ten with a pretty lady with his gf watching

he tried to get the pretty lady to dry bottom-up a huge glass of hoegaarden

than the rest of the group started learning five-ten too

with uncle willy as the instructor

david with the big gun arrived later that night

my flash cannot compare to his lah!
(watch out for amazing photos from willy on facebook)

here’s the group shot by the big gun

(photo by david)
with many others who had already left

willy did something which he’d not done for awhile

he made us all looked down at the big gun

(photo by willy)

i got tired of all the flashing, i left

saying goodbye to everyone there

it was a great night with great people and great fun!

looking forward to the next time we meet again soon

thanks daphne, robert and ingrid for organizing this outing

more of my flash shots will be uploaded to facebook shortly are up in facebook

Click here to view photos taken with Canon Ixus 950IS

Updated
For those of you who would like to try flashing it too, here’s how you can do it (depending on your camera)…

• Turn off any AF-assist light (the red/green light that is flashed whenever you try to take a photo in the dark). You can do so usually in the camera setting
• Set your camera to manual (M) mode
• Set your ISO to the lowest (usually ISO80)
• Turn on your flash (if you have SLOW flash setting use that one)
• Take photo of your subject with flash and spin your camera as you please immediately after pressing and releasing the shutter button. DO NOT SPIN TOO MUCH

This should give you the effect above. Best used at night. For day shots, it’ll be probably not possible with an point and shoot. I tried spinning my camera (DSLR) before too.

HAVE FUN flashing and spinning!

I’m going to split this post up into sections as logical as possible…
1. Planning an online blogging related contest.
2. Marketing these contest.
3. Executing and monitoring these contest.
4. Initial objectives Vs the final end product at end of contest.

Planning an online blogging related contest

I’m referring to contests that are targeting the bloggers and readers of blogs. Be it a contest that requires people to write post on blogs, post comments on blogs, emailing the bloggers to take part or any form of engagement that uses blog/blogging as a tool for the contest.

For most of the people out there, these contest seem the easiest to plan and execute. But in actual fact, there are many things to consider too before announcing of such contest. Just to list a few common points to consider…

>> The type of quality and quantity of responses one is going to get for a contest like this.
>> How will the responses affect the branding and status of your company?
>> The bait (prizes) to attract more participants.
>> What if someone out there write bad things about the company or the contest?
>> What will the reactions of bloggers and readers going to be for the contest?
>> Steps to take to counter any possible problems or situations.
>> Will the end product for the contest be what was initially planned for?

There are many more things to think through during the planning of such contests. Especially the target audiences are free to voice their thoughts and opinions freely on their blog. And with it being openly available for anyone to search about such cases, it takes some courage for a brand to embark on the campaign. Especially if the company/brand is big and established. Unlike the traditional media where it used to be a one-way conversation from the publication to the audience, the new media now allows multi-directional conversation! One person blogs, 100 people reads, 15 people comments, 3 people pick up the story and reblog on their blog and another 300 people reads, 45 people comments… and the conversation may just get out of control! Imagine the damage control the PR folks has to manage!

So when you’re planning for a contest like this, it’s very important to have all the terms and conditions laid out as detail as possible and has to cover all angles that may take place. The planner has to be able to view the contests from the bloggers, readers and company’s point of view.

When you think you’ve got everything covered, someone, somehow will still be able to find a tinniest cut to dig out the unexpected sides of things. When that happen, be prepared to fight the fire!

Back to content

Marketing contests to target audience

With so many tools available for free online, departments will try to save on the marketing budget and try to get the contest out to as many people as possible through all these channels. But one big problem is that not everyone online are using these channels on a regular basis. Hence you’ve to either apply all to the campaign or you select those with the largest reach and stick to it.

Some of the channels commonly used:
>> Facebook groups – inviting their friends to the group and hoping for friends to invite more friends to create awareness. But often after awhile, the group become a spamming arena for members. The group lacks update and the team didn’t make full use of it. Facebook group also needs constant monitoring and one can use it as a marketing tool especially when you can send message to everyone in the group. But please do it moderately. Spamming too many messages out will just pissed members away and they’ll quit the group.

>> Facebook pages – these a little trickier as you aren’t able to invite friends to become a fan of the page. Hence you need to promote it on facebook groups or messaging personal friends to inform them about it. But everytime there’s an update on your page, fans get notified about them. This feature not applicable to the FB groups. And on FB pages, there’re also more things that you can do, like running a paid ad on facebook to promote the page, adding RSS of the official blog and adding applications to enhance the users experience and discussions.

>> Blogs and microblogs – You can either start a blog and use that to spread the words out or your engage bloggers to help talk about the contest on their blog. There’s also microblogging tools such as twitter and plurk where you can publicize the contest. But these channels take more time and effort as you’ve to first build your readership and followers of your blogs or updates. And in order to get bloggers to blog about the contest for you, you either have to be super good friend with them, or you set aside some budget to pay them as an advertorial post. Or entice them with fantastic prizes that make them want to blog about it for the contest.

And if there’s budget, one can always publicize the contest in the papers, on Tv and radio etc. Or go the online way, buy banner ads on high traffic sites, run ads on blogs and forums etc. But seriously, how many readers pay attention to ads these days? So why waste the money?

No matter which channel you use, there’ll be pros and cons. Especially with the new media tools, the team has to manage the campaign every minute and take action almost immediately should anything goes wrong. And this is a very tedious task. Imagine the number of hours spent checking and replying emails, reading blogs, twits and plurks and monitoring activities on facebook and forums!

Like in my case, I try to be online with all the sites I’m monitoring open in many many tabs in multiple browsers. And when I’ve to be afk, my mind will keep thinking about the things that might be happening while I’m gone. I constantly want to check back the sites and emails. It’s disturbing but I just can’t help it. If I can be online and watching them 24-7, I would! LOL!

So don’t just think about which channel you want to use for marketing, but do take note of the monitoring and usability of these tools too. Don’t use it because your competitor is using it.

Back to content

Executing and monitoring online contests

I remember long long ago I used to cut out coupons and forms from magazines to send out for contests. There wasn’t any website to visit or blogs to comments on then. There’s not as much monitoring needed at the agency side who’s running the contest. Its pretty direct and straight forward. And almost 99% of the forms and contest you take part, you’ll either forgot about it or don’t know the ends of it. Although I’m always interested to know who won that condo or car or that 40″ LCD Tv at the lucky draws. But how many of us really bother to look out for the results? If we don’t hear from them means we didn’t win. Simple.

But things has changed. With blogs, forums, plurk, emails and IM, anyone can just do a quick search online for contest results and details of winners etc! This make having a contest online rather intimidating. If there’s a lack of monitoring and something goes wrong during execution, someone somewhere just have to mention about it anywhere online, and soon tens and thousands of people might get to hear about it. Imagine the damage that might already have caused to your brand if its not handled in time!

For online contests involving bloggers and their blogs, I suggest you have someone to monitor it 24-7 and to react to any situation immediately when it happens.

And the scariest thing is, for the world online, there’s no rules. And ANYTHING can happen. Even right from the second you announced the contest online to the very last second of the end of it. Even some to the extend of months/years after the contest, someone may still dig it up to discuss. Headache right?

Back to content

Initial objectives Vs the final end product of the contest

What is the objective of your contest? Do you want the bloggers to find out more about your products and share their thoughts and feedback with you so that you can improve? Or do you want them to help you spread the words out for the product so more people can find you when they search or read blogs?

The objective of a contest or bloggers outreach campaign is very important. It’ll determine the direction of the campaign. But no matter what you plan, you still won’t have full control of what might happen during the execution. And often the end product might not be what you’d wanted. It may be better or worst. So is your brand ready for this? Many friends shared that this is the uncertainty that’s blocking their brand from taking the step to engage New Media.

In my opinion, if there’s a right team of people who’s dedicated to execute and monitor the campaign, there outcome of it could be pretty powerful and good. But if you’re going to leave the campaign to some agency or your team is not going to get their hands into the dirty work, than perhaps you’re not ready for it yet.

And do you know what is the scariest thing that may happen? Nobody takes part in the contest! Or the number of participants is too little to justify the cost of the campaign. When that happens, what will you do?

Back to content

Claud’s Disclaimer

I am a very hands-on and practical person, and is not good with expressing my thoughts cohesively at times. I try hard to make sense of my own thoughts and writing on my blog, but if some points doesn’t make sense, please pardon me. I wish I can write beautiful posts like many of you out there, but my english and writing skill is limited. I hope my sharing has not confused you more.

The above thoughts are all personal and does not reflect any comments or thoughts for any party I am or may be working for. If you disagree or have other thoughts on my above post, please feel free to contact me or leave a comment here.

Thank you for your time spent reading my thoughts. Hope it had been useful for you.

Here are the video clips I took with my shaky hands that night…

I want to shake too!! Wahahahahaha!