I laughed when I was told about this opportunity. Me? In SHAPE magazine? My perception of the magazine is where the slim, healthy and sunshine-type of women are featured. The monthly cover with perfect body female in bikini makes the pear-shaped body me feels motivated to want to slim off and be like the cover girl. After multiple attempts, many of us gave up. Some things are better left the way it is. Staying healthy is more important than having a to-die-for-figure. (Self-reassurance speaking)

The 3-page story, written by Esther, shares the story behind seven women whom SHAPE admires. I was labelled as the Entrepreneur, a young boss and one who embraces work-live balance. Well, all three relatively true in some ways. But I’ve to admit, it’s not 100% all the time, especially the work-life balance portion. In such hectic and fast paced reality, and still much in the infancy stage of the business, my team and I take every project we have very seriously and put in all we can to ensure it’s success. We are more than grateful if we can have a peaceful weekend to rest!

So, if you have not read the article about these seven women, go get yourself a copy. Might post up snapshot of my portion later in August.

Aside: @nadnut spotted me and tweeted my pic. And @jerricklim and @nanyate tweeted that I’m hot! I blushed. But personally, I prefer the camwhored photos with my 7D that day.

Being in the almost forefront of the digital space here in Singapore, and thanks to the many good friends whom I’d met throughout the journey, I’ve got a few opportunities to share about my thoughts and experiences in the social media community with traditional mainstream media journalists. Usually there will either be an email interview or a phone interview. Sometimes there may be a meetup at a cafe where the interview is conducted. Being who I am, I will share whatever I know openly with those who really are keen to learn and write a well prepared article.

But when the journalist tell me that she’d failed to search the web for information or find blog posts about the topic in discussion, it irritates me. If I can use a single keyword, e.g. the name of an even to find an entire page of blogs posts discussing about it in Google, I don’t see why you can’t. Now that I think about it, I regretted sending links and information over to them. It’s their job to search and investigate, not mine.

Blogging has helped me record my life, happenings and memories in a way that’s openly searched, read and used by anyone that chances upon my blogs. Some of these posts come in very useful for future referencing or if there’s a need to provide a set of comment with regards to that particular event that happened months ago, blog posts surely serve a better memory refresher than trying to squeeze your braincell dry trying to remember what happened or who were there etc. Especially if you keep your posts organised and accompany it with related photos, videos or links, referencing back your past is made easy and possible through blogging.

Every journalists, in the digital space or not, need to get into the talks and walks first, before trying to make sense of something totally new to them and try to draft an article on it based on interviews and hear-say from others. Why not take the plunge and dive into it yourself and experience it? That’s one thing bloggers love. Experiencing things first hand. We would rather spend time attending an event and trying out the product in real life, then just reading off a press release. We take action first and blog later.

Are you picking up social media tools and learning to be human in the digital space already? I hope you do!

This was from two months back, but decide to post it up still so that I can remind myself about this in years to come. This blog has become part of my memory repository too, in case one day, I forget who I am or needs help in recalling portion of my life when I’m old. And my children and grandchildren can read about me too through this blog. Ha! Ok, back to the article on BT.

Companies reluctant to woo customers with tweet nothings

Larger version

Larger version

Nothing to comment on this right now since it was from two months ago. Progression and growth digitally is too fast too furious. Something two months ago may not be news anymore. Just want to post it up as a record for my own reference. And if you’d missed this, for your reading too.

We were all once a child before. Some of you already having your own. So what I am going to share, is nothing new to you. And all I hope you will do, is to give a little support to these children who need your help. This is a call for your pledge for more hope for these children.

I may not have seen the worst, but I have seen enough…

1. The parent who couldn’t afford to buy a proper meal for their children.
2. The parent who can’t accept the reality that their child is autistic.
3. The parent who can’t understand why their perfect child isn’t able to learn like other children.
4. The single mother who is trying to get ends meet, had to make her 10-year-old daughter to work with her at the coffee shop serving beer to the uncles and men.
5. The child who has no one to turn to at home because her parents are always no way in sight.

All these and much much more. There are simply too many problems, family and children in need. Most of the times, the children in these cases are innocent and were brought to the situation by the lack of love, concern, care and support from their parents and family. But there is still hope. You can help them!

Singapore Children’s Society – http://www.childrensociety.org.sg

M.I.L.K – Mainly I Love Kids – http://www.milk.org.sg

The above are two local initiatives who are here to help these children. But it takes more than just their love, support, time and programme to spread out to so many children out there. Yes, there are fund raising events, flag day, donation drives and charity runs organised to help raise funds and awareness. But now, there is one more way for you to help…

Samsung has set aside USD700,000 for total of 21 beneficiaries from 5 countries. All of them already will receive a base sum set by Samsung. But now, you can help Samsung decide how they can distribute the remaining sum. Help them by pledging your hope at Samsung Hopes Take Off.

I have made my pledge. Have you?

If you have a blog too, you can help spread the words out…

Wear a badge of support (Simply copy and paste this code into your blog)

<center><a href="http://www.samsunghope.org/"><br /> <img src="http://www.samsunghope.org/img/badges/200x80-HopeTakesOff-button.gif" width="200" height="80" alt="Hope Takes Off !" /> </a></center>

School holiday is here! And I know parents are all cracking their heads thinking what to do, where to go and how to keep their kids busy and entertained. With the bad economy and lesser bonuses coming. Traveling is not quite within the budget isn’t it? Well, I’ve a suggestion… why not bring them to Explore Singapore!

From 20 Nov to 7 Dec, there are a whole line-up of interesting activities for everyone! And you also get to meet up-close with Dim Sum Dollies, Mark Lee, Vincent Ng and many more!

Aren’t these cats cute? How much would you pay for them?

Hello! And welcome to my first issue of Claud talks Gadgets! The purpose of the start of this series is to help me consolidate my thoughts and posts on the gadgets (latest or not) I’ve come across from day to day. It can be something I spotted while window shopping, introduced by a friend or gadgets which I find interest and power-packed to share.

For this issue, I’ll be touching on a few new cameras! Yeah! My all-time favorite gadgets!