26 September, 2006

The Writing is on the Wall


I was invited to an interesting lunch on Monday, where I was introduced to Dr Georg Kolb (pictured, right), an amiable German, and the New York-based Executive Vice President for Global Consultancy & Practices for Text100.

A mixed bag of journos, purportedly the cream of Singapore's blogging crowd, were there to reflect on what blogging in particular, and Web 2.0 in general, meant for traditional media.

Dr Kolb shared that Text100 has recently set up shop in Second Life, the online alternate world created by California-based Linden Lab, suggesting that it was an interesting experiment in evaluating the flexibility of this newest of new media. If you pop along to Text100's 'island' you'll come across a welcome introduction from their company CEO.

Over some really rather pleasant French food, we agreed that proliferating sources of content were placing immense strain on journalists to defend their turf against encroachment from citizen journalists, and subject matter experts.

This 'Open Source' content creation seemed to ruffle the feathers of some of the other journos, who seemed to be obsessed with the lack of accountability of something online vis-a-vis something published by a reputable paper, such as Strait Laced.

SL's new Editor of their 'STOMP' participatory news service was an interesting lady; she explained that SL had decided that user-generated content was the 'secret sauce' (my words, not hers) for grabbing eyeballs for SL's online properties, and feeding back the word on the street into the newsroom.

I agree with the overall thrust of user-generated content, infact I think it is an inevitability (but more of that later) . However I was rather surprised about how candid she was about the appeal of the paper's lineup of straight-talking, independently-minded columnists. Apparently SL decided that nobody would read them online, hence the launch of STOMP ...

... call me old-fashioned, but surely if the columnists don't have much appeal online, then do they really have much appeal offline? And if their appeal is marginal, why not change the columnists, or change their editorial direction? Other newspapers seem to be able to attract a significant following for their columnists, whether online or off - and I thought the best of the blogosphere revolves around informed commentators shooting from the hip.

I asked whether this supposed lack of interest in the columnists was a reflection on the audience, or the columnists themselves - but didn't get a satisfactory answer.

It was around about this time that a correspondent for Little Strait Laced started talking a lot. With the kind of penetrating insight you've come to associate with Little SL, he explained that blogging was going to die out soon anyway - a revelation which came as a bit of a surprise to the rest of us.

"There's no money in blogging, so why bother? After a while everyone will get bored with it," he explained.

Of course though it will be heartrending, I suspect that people are more likely to get bored with SL and Little SL sooner than they'll give up sharing their personal musings in a connected online environment. So I suggested that blogging was simply a more scalable means of holding dialogues (or multilogues, really), and a means of filling the void between 1:1 conversations, and traditional mass media. A new kind of tonal option for people looking to say something.

But the newshound from Little SL assured me that the majority of blogs he read were boring, revolving around discussions of family, friends and work rants.

And that, I think, was my point.

Peoples' interests are local. National markets for information were based on traditional media requiring large audiences to create economies of scale - but internet economics has changed all that, and now people can spend a bit of time, and self-publish for free. In a sense we are watching the rise of a digitally-enabled mass vanity press, and hey that's okay.

It is just an alternative means of expressing the kind of kopitiam chit chat that human beings have always engaged in. When humans get bored of gossiping, then the bloggers will shut up shop - but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

We consume content locally, and our most immediate preoccupations tend to be local - therefore what could be more local than a media environment driven by content created by the actors that directly touch our lives.

This is what will increasingly consume the available media bandwidth of individuals - traditional largescale media will continue to be pushed to the margins, and the primacy of the traditional channels for content distribution will erode. That means that media, government, marketers need to learn some new tricks - and do it quickly, I reckon.

Ultimatelty the reason media exists is to transfer information as efficiently as possible between interested parties. The newspaper as we know it represents an aggregated audience, drawn by the masthead's content mix. Obviously not all of us are equally interested in all of the different sections of the newspaper - so in effect, we're paying for newsprint that we don't need. Therefore the traditional newspaper needs to be seen as a staging post in the journey towards a 'iPaper' - or in other words, a content mix that is tailored to the unique interests of the reader.

That doesn't mean the newspaper doesn't provide something worth keeping - I am a firm believer in serendipity, or the happy accident. So not knowing what you might come across in a newspaper is one of the joys of picking the things up. Also the traditional newspaper functions much like a surrogate search engine for those readers unable to steer their way to the content available online. Those who can Google, those who can't are stuck with reading newspapers.

But future readers will take it as read that they can source for content more easily online, than off. And how many of us have time for happy accidents? In a proliferating universe of content choices, we're stretched to read all the things we need to read. Therefore I suggest that the traditional newspaper, as an awkward assemblage of stories that may or may not be of interest to the reader, is on the way out.

However, it also points to an interesting future for content. That future is niche. That future is informed. Dare I say it, that future belongs to the kind of tightly-defined communities of interest that traditional trade magazines serve. How serendipitous then that this is exactly the kind of company that Alphabet Media is.

22 September, 2006

Media feeding frenzy !


Another Friday, and another rather generous free delivery of food ... this time from our good friends at Mercury. Naturally we are all as pleased as punch [see above], even inspite of a recent Strait Laced article warning us that moon cakes contain over half an adult's daily allowance of calories or something. To be honest, we need all the calories we can get if we're to avoid wasting away in the run-up to the Government Technology Forum next month.

Have just been asked by CICT whether we can accommodate several more CIOs from the Philippines? Silly question, bring them on. Meanwhile, we're waiting on confirmation from the Director of IT at India's Ministry of Railways, the world's largest railway network - think ticketing transactions, think communications networks, think public safety: all in all, a great potential speaker...

So as another week flies past, any regrets? Well, yes actually. If the courier uncle had been a bit quicker to the office with those moon cakes - I could have saved on having to buy myself lunch...

21 September, 2006

Data, data everywhere


Data entry. I'm now an expert on data entry. Been entering it for most of the last four days, but it keeps coming - seems sometimes like Alphabet Media is all about data entry. James says that regional magazines generate loads of data, so I guess this will be a regular activity... Guess it makes a change from studying - and it is not so bad when we get treated like full members of the team.

Certainly I like the fact that Alphabet feels like home - and besides being looked after by the other staff, it's nice that we have our own desks, stationery.

We actually don't see too much of James as he is busy working on a large conference next month [Editor - Government Technology Forum. It's bigger than Ben Hur.] - but when we do see him it's normally for him to look worried and say "hmm... I think I need to find something else for you to do to keep you busy."

So now we're getting to grips with new work - interview transcription. James, Gerald, Raj and Lianngan promise that there'll be plenty of interviews to transcribe over the weeks ahead. Guess it can't be worse than data entry? Sarah, stop laughing!

19 September, 2006

I don’t give an arse for ass


It’s not every day I get to talk about the difference between arse and ass in this company. I mean, we do have other things to do. But in the spirit of linguistic anal retentiveness I want to get something off my chest - I want talk about buttocks.

Yes, you heard me.

‘Arse’ is a lovely old coarse word for the buttocks, and it originates from Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, before AD1100. ‘Ass’ on the other hand, is a beast of burden, yes a donkey. How the two came to be confused, I don't know. Actually I do, that's what three years studying linguistics does for you. Sluggishness to prounounce the ‘R’s in speech culture has led to a preference for ‘Ass’ over 'Arse' over time. Technically, linguists refer to this as the loss of the ‘rhotic’ nature in Standard British English. I call it damned laziness.

When someone complains that her ‘Ass’ is huge, and points to her bum I always wonder what she's doing with a herbivorous quadriped up there, though I'm far too polite to ask.

Anyway, I hope I've made my point. And don't get me started on the illogicality of American spelling. Time to get back to my interview piece with India’s Economic Czar, Dr Montek Singh Deputy Chairman with the Planning Commission of India (who spoke very rhotically, I'm pleased to say). Coming soon to Urban Development Asia!

Day Two


It's only my second day, but already I've covered a lot of ground, almost literally: I've seen more addresses than I knew existed, and that's just Singapore. Just joined as part of an internship, and have spent the first two days sifting through subscription forms, and amending job titles.

To start off, the first day of work went by with a blur of events (thankfully no culture shock or queasiness - though the toilets could benefit from a lick of paint).

The contrast between coming into the office five months ago and coming in yesterday was a bit of a surprise. They have knocked down a wall, and doubled the floor size - so technically they are now 43-45c Beach Road, rather than the old 43c Beach Road.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the piles of paperwork all over the floor have now disappeared to where they belong, shelves and files, and having our own PCs, telephones and email addresses made us feel part of the team from the first moment.

Being taken out for lunch, and watching my new colleagues interact, joke and laugh - it is clear that Alphabet Media works and operates very much like a family. It is heart-warming and encouraging to hear the way they cheer for each other when a contract comes in and how they wish a person “good luck!” before s/he goes out to meet a client or conduct an interview. Doesn't seem like there is any place for office politics - though I suppose it is early days, and I'll report back if I come across any [Editor: No you won't!!! SNIP, SNIP goes the censor's scissors].

The Magnificent Seven

Turns out that I wasn't hearing voices in my head - Business Objects have confirmed their sponsorship of the Government Technology Forum, with a panel discussion on 'Information Strategies for Agile Governance'.

That's great news - and we've already managed to confirm that Ringo Chiu, the Chief Information Officer of Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission, will be speaking on their panel session.

And did I mention Thailand? Turns out that we now have over 20 government CIOs making the trek down to Singapore to attend as delegates. I'd say that is a pretty clear indication that some big ICT plans are in the offing in Thailand for 2007. (I've actually had official confirmation of this, but it was off the record...)

Anyway, it looks like we're on track to maintain the 50-50 split between local and overseas delegates that we achieved last year ... looks like things are coming along nicely, touch wood.

17 September, 2006

Catching up with FreeBalance

Caught up with Matthew Olivier last night over dinner at Boat Quay. He's the Director of Global Communications for FreeBalance, a Canuck financial management vendor that specialises in working with developing countries to put the financial controls in place expected by the international donor community.

I first caught up with FreeBalance in October 2004, and since then they've completely reoriented their business away from their traditional customer (the Canadian government) to opportunities in Africa and increasingly Asia.

I knew that they'd been quick to get a toehold in Timor-Leste; but was pleasantly surprised to see that they'd also got traction in Mongolia and Afghanistan - and they're currently in play for a number of potentially "company altering" deals here in Southeast Asia.

What I found interesting was the significance of the new financial management solution to the civil servants working in Afghanistan's Ministry of Finance. As far as they're concerned, it regularises their work, and builds bridges between them and their peers in other countries.

Sure it's baby steps in the right direction, against a backdrop of a very challenging security situation, but you need to build up institutional identity - and effective financial management at a pan-government level will be a key component for building a sustainable sense of mission in Afghanistan's public sector.

Oh, and why did FreeBalance start looking overseas for its future business? Because an "international vendor", (okay, SAP if you must know), seems to have sewn up Canada's pan-government financial management software deal...

Mark Whybro says yes

Hot off the press we've just learned that Mark Whybro, Chief Superintendent for New South Wales Fire Brigades in Australia, will be joining the Government Technology Forum's panel discussion on emergency planning. I met him last year, and we interviewed him for the March issue of Public Sector Technology & Management.

I'm pretty pleased, as it's a major coup to get such an experienced security planner to make the long trek from Sydney for our two day meeting - which now means he'll be joining Manju Hathotuwa, CEO of ICTA in Sri Lanka on the same panel. Manju oversaw the deployment of applications on the fly to cope with the immediate aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in December 2004.

Mark mentioned that I was lucky to get through - apparently NSW Fire Brigades' IT department automatically blocked my initial email because of the reference to 'Asian Security Review' in the signature. As he said "Proof that you can have too much security!"

15 September, 2006

Happy birthday, er, Ariba


Yes, we always make a point of celebrating Ariba's birthday ... and this year, just as we were about to get into the swing of things, a courier turned up from their PR agency (Text100) bearing a bloody great chocolate cake. It didn't last long, but the extra 30 minutes I spent on the treadmill later that evening seemed to last an age ...

... okay, so we don't normally celebrate the spend management vendor's birthday, but hey, if they keep the cakes coming, this could become a bit of a habit.

11 September, 2006

Six, and counting

We were all pretty happy today in the office - as Diana at Microsoft told us the great news: they're coming on board as a sponsor of the Government Technology Forum. I'm pleased to say that they're in good company - they join Visa, Juniper Networks, Blackberry, Borland, Adobe Systems.

And a little voice in my ear keeps saying "Business Objects" - not sure if I have early stage tinnitus, or whether there's more great news in store. Watch this space I guess.

Finally ... have just learned that the Thai government is looking to send down a delegation of 20 government CIOs! That's a great achievement, and I'm extremely pleased with Gerald 'Commando' Wang, our resident Thai expert, in extending our reach to the higher echelons of the Thai government.

The Commando takes no prisoners, though he is challenged by Hoegaarden...

09 September, 2006

Celebrating Sachin's 26th birthday


It started off civilized enough, with wine at Dempsey Road, but I should have known it couldn't last.

Before I could say 'Another bottle of Chablis, please' I'd been bundled into a cab, and taken to a dimly lit bar with a pool table, and way too much tequila.

By the end of the evening the alcohol-ravaged Alphabet All Star pool hustlers could barely hold the pool cue straight ... so Sachin Satish, no more birthdays for you for a while please.