Which should come first? Digital or Traditional?

Well it depends on who you ask really. Ask any Ad-Man and the answer would be traditional. Digital is always the little bawling kid that makes the most noise but gets the least attention.

I had the chance to work closely with a top tier Japanese traditional agency on a partnered pitch to a automobile brand recently. The initial idea was integrated with them leading on the big idea and strategy while digital will complement.it. The usual.

Half way thru, they did a 180 and asked for digital to lead instead. We would loved to have the opportunity to do that. But even then, it kinda shocked me. Really? Digital on the forefront instead of being dragged along like a dog on leash. Eventually we went ahead with a big digital push. The ideas and strategy were great, but I'm not sure if the conservative Japanese client were ready for this paradigm change.

Look around you. More time spent on TV or streamed TV? Paperback or ebooks? Magazine/Newspaper or Flipboard/Pulse? Meet up with friends or Facebook/Twitter? When was the last time you NOT HAVE a phone/tablet before you drift to sleep? We are spending more time on digital interactions, whether we like it or not. An entire generation of adults are in the making right now, who does not know a world before mobile phones, tablets and Internet.

But I agree with the article, they can both be in the front. I recently mentioned about an interactive print ad. There are tons of other examples where traditional and digital fully complements each other and forms a bigger whole than the parts.

Now if only our clients recognize this and be cognizant that digital is equally important. And blardy show us the money already!

Read more here.
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/10/digital-first-print-first-both-should-work-together291.html

Image credits: http://www.pbs.org 

End of the road for SMS marketing?

I used pagers in the good ol days. (remember these babies?)
So when mobile phone came out and we could type messages, it was godsend. Swear that I won't need anything else. For a while, there were mobile plans in the market that caters to this group of users who would sms or text more often than calls.

Then came the smartphone. And WhatsApp and BBM slaughtered text messages. Why SMS when I can have emoticons laden text conversations?

But. Does that mean the end of the road for SMS marketing. The article seemed to think so. I'm not so sure. There would always be marketeers who want to reach out to customers via the most commonly used channels. Mobile would be one of them. Someone in the near future would be able to find a way to market via WhatsApp and other SMS-replacements. Maybe it's not that far from now.

Read more here.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/mobile-operators-to-lose-54bn-in-sms-revenue/story-e6frgakx-1226494103185

The constant hunt for professional development units (PDUs).

Ah. The bane of all PMP certification holders. PDUs.

I value the structure to 'ensure' continual learnings and recency with  the project management discipline. But its definitely painful for busy practitioners to maintain this score of 60. I'm into my 2nd cycle of renewal now, having earned my PMP back in 2007. Hope to renew this for as long as its of professional interest to do so. I do not see many PMs in this industry having proper project management certifications or even training to say the least.

Recently attended a 2 day Symposium organised by the Singapore Chapter of PMI as part of this great PDU hunt. This is my 3rd Symposium. I do see a difference in mindset when I attend this particular session. The need for PDUs is still there (i will be honest here, that's the primary motivation), but I do find myself selecting/approaching each presentation from a broader perspective. Its less of what's interesting for my personal development, but more of what can I bring back to implement in POSSIBLE.

To name a few:

• Further develop and incorporate Agile in our PM processes
• Professional development of the PM department.
• How do we measure effectiveness of the training that staff gets sent to?
• Setup and management of our project management office (PMO) 
• Networking to lookout for potential clients and PM candidates to hire. 

Tons of stuff that I think is beneficial for myself and the team. Will try to spend some time over the next few weeks to flesh them out and maybe even discuss some here. 

As per my old army times, Advance and Overcome. 

How interactive can a Print Ad be?

Wow. This is nice. Gimmicky for sure. But nice.
Lexus used a proprietary technology called CinePrint to create the effect that you see in the video. The Lexus 2013 ES would seemed to change colors, throb to music, turn on its headlights etc.

Nice multi-sensory experience that combines the sight, sound and touch. Next question would be. How interactive can your Next Print Ad be?




Read more and view the video here.
http://mashable.com/2012/10/09/most-interactive-print-ad-lexus/

The uncommon truth: Why can't we get taxis in Singapore when it rains

Ah. The uncommon truth. We try to use this alot in our work with clients. Find out beyond what they are saying. What is not the obvious?

Use of big data to the rescue.
A study was actually done on why can't we get cabs in Singapore when it rains. Now this is unusual because we have tons of cabs (or taxis as Singaporean like to call them) in our city state. We have like 5 cabs per 1,000 people. Compared that to 2.6 in Hong Kong, 3.3 in London and 1.5 in New York.

So why aren't we getting our cabs? Ask any Joe on the street, the answer would usually be more demand for cabs due to the rain. Cabs are really quite affordable in Singapore compared to other similar cities.

What the study uncovered was astonishing. GPS records of cabs was compared against weather satellite. The uncommon truth? The cabs were not zipping around like bugs due to high demand. In fact, they stopped moving.

Why? Because of cab company policies , the drivers are penalised in event of accidents (even if its not a fault of theirs). So most of them opt to just sit out the rain.

Read more here.
http://www.computerworld.com.sg/resource/applications/why-you-dont-get-taxis-in-singapore-when-it-rains/

Permanent data storage

How advanced do you think we are, in terms of being able to store information?

The most common medium that we have now would be paper, tapes, CDs, harddrives and memory cards.

You might say that we have progressed well in terms of technology. The memory cards we used now sure beats the floppy disks that I used back in the 1980/90s in terms of speed and capacity. But reality is, these medium of storage dun last very long. Worst, due to the technology advancement, we find it difficult to access old mediums. Try finding a disk drive to read your vintage 5 1/4in floppy disks. In another few more years, you probably will not be able to access your old CDs. Heck, most laptops nowadays do not even come with CD drives anymore. Go further, a decade into the future, I doubt anyone has USB connections.

But access aside, how long can our current means of information storage last? Paper can last several hundred years without significant deterioration under storage conditions in libraries and archives. Digital storage like your CD and HDD could probably last a hundred year at most. Magnetic tapes will last max of 50 years.

Compared to what the Egyptians did. They carved in stone. Those last for a few thousand years. Until now, we could not outdo them.

Someone invented quartz glass storage. These babies technically could last forever.
Wedding photos storage, anyone?

Read more here.
http://gizmodo.com/5946110/this-piece-of-glass-can-store-data-forever

Having our own labs.

Innovation is key in my industry.

Yet in most of the companies I worked in, research and development is managed haphazardly at best. During good times,a single piece of equipment or technology might catch the eyes & ears of management and kickstart a fury of activities to purchase/learn, trial and implement. Most of the time, it is a series of disconnected activities carried out by individuals out of their interest.

R&D projects compete for the same resources that works on paid client projects. There are often multiple start-stop cycles as different resource hops in and out of the R&D projects. Its tricky to manage such projects as internal requirements can change over time and there are usually tension between business (that wants to see business value) and IT (who are just excited to try anything new and innovative).

The current company that I'm with right now concluded on the same as well. Global HQ created a labs toolkit which contains the necessary information required to setup R&D labs  across all regional offices. This includes list of hardware and software to purchase, the type of packaged demos, possible areas to R&D into etc.

For once, we have budget set aside yearly to run these, would be really interesting to see how far we can bring the labs concept to in POSSIBLE Singapore. On plan we are looking at being able to showcases prototypes around:

• Augmented Reality 
• Proximity 
• Kinect 
• RFID
• NFC
• Scentbot
• Leapmotion 

Interesting times ahead. Let's see if I can manage to take a couple of videos of the demos in the near future.

For those who want to lead, read.

I miss reading. Being with a good book is way more enjoyable than the best movie. I'm sure many of you who might be reading this would agree.

When you read, your mind wanders. It enters a world beyond what the author is trying to convey and conjure. I would like to think that we learn and gain a little more wisdom from these experiences. Studies have shown that the more varied is our reading the better we learn.

Having said that, when was the last time you really read. Shut off all outside distractions and read. Bite each word and sentence, chew on it and digest the meanings. I find that truly enjoyable, but its such a rare occurrence now. As work and family commitments piles up, its so difficult to just have some time off to read. And its not just me or us, according to this article by HBR, we are reading less. We are getting more literate, but reading less.

I aspire to read everyday. Could be anything, just 15mins a day before I go off to bed. That will be my new resolution. Read more, to know less and ask more.

Read more here (pun intended).
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/for_those_who_want_to_lead_rea.html

Image credits: http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com 

Understanding someone's inner logic

This is an interesting article from Harvard Business Review.
How many times have we faced the same problem. We find someone's behavior or thinking as unreasonable or illogical. But if we delve deeper and probe with the right questions, we might be pleasantly surprised that its perfectly reasonable and logical when we understand the motivation and mindset that the person is working with.

This is especially important in the context of project management. When you face a seemingly unreasonable stakeholder or client, maybe its time to take a step back. And ask different questions. Find out what could be motivating this unreasonable request.

I remember this quote from Ayn Rand (one of my favourite writer), "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong."

Bear it in mind. It might get you out of an awkward confrontation.

Read more here.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/08/discovering_the_other_persons.html

Leap Motion gesture based interface

Ever since it was made popular by films like Minority Report (which I'm extremely proud to mention that Possible Worldwide's Chief Interaction Officer, Dale Herigstad was behind some of the UI concepts used in the film), using gesture to manipulate devices have been somewhat of a holy grail from a user experience standpoint.

Had the chance to work with Dale in the past, its almost next to impossible try to keep up with his ideas in UI with current available technology. He is always pushing technical dudes like me to the limit of what is feasible.

This gadget however looks really promising. Gesture based interaction with your computer to replace your keyboard and mouse. The ipod sized device allows you to control a computer as an I/O device with natural hand and fingers movements. 

The intro video on the site looks really good.

Only catch? Its not on sale yet. Expect delivery of the device in Dec 2012/Jan 2013.

Read more here.
http://www.leapmotion.com/

Image credits: Screen cap of leap motion video on http://www.leapmotion.com/

Death of SEO as its commonly defined.

SEO has always been a big part if what we deliver. For a long time it has not been sold as a separate add-on to any web projects that we deliver. It is a basic hygiene factor. From the creative design, to the frontend development, to the copy and file/folder naming. 

Ongoing SEO has always been a relatively dodgy business. After you have deliver the initial SEO 'friendly' site. There is the external SEO activities to raise your search engine rankings, much of which are geared towards beating the SEO rules that the major search engines employ.

This recent Forbes article now highlights how that 'dodgy' part of SEO could now be changing. With the recent "Penguin release", Google is changing the rules. More emphasis will be placed on backlinks from social media, in terms of likes, comments, views, tweets and shares.

This is re-emphasising what we at PWW have been trying to tell our clients for a long time. Content is king. Relevant, timely and targeted content that your readers, users and customers will appreciate and share; will do more for your SEO than anything else.

Read more here.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2012/07/20/the-death-of-seo-the-rise-of-social-pr-and-real-content/

Published with Blogger-droid v2.0.6

Choosing the Right Social Marketing Platform

Social Marketing. How do one make sense of this new frontier? 

Everything starts by planning and having a strategy. Having a Facebook and Twitter page is not a social marketing strategy. Social marketing strategy should drive overall direction and approach to how social marketing fits into the greater marketing strategy. How does social fits into your CRM, websites, search etc. activities? Especially if we have more than one type of social media platforms. How do we ensure consistent management of these platform? How do we efficiently manage social marketing campaigns, have central view of results, conversations, insights from various social media platforms? How integrated are your campaigns and web properties? Are they able to meet your users/customer's needs and expectation?

There are many tools and players out there that tries to make sense of these problems. Here are some that we have worked with to manage various social channels, from Buddy Media, Wildfire, Tiger Pistol, Hootsuite, to Adobe. The list is endless with new players entering the ring. Most are focused on selective aspect of social marketing and none are emerging as the clear overall leader in this space. Finding a platform that works with China based social platforms is a struggle as well but many vendors have highlighted that they are looking into this deficiency.  

Social listening is also an important part of your social marketing arsenal. Being able to gather and listen in to what your customers are saying about you on social media gives you good insights and allows you to get a pulse on what's happening around your brand, product and offerings. 

Your users/customers expect your web properties to be integrated and social. They want your web properties to be an extension of their social experience;  to know what their friends like on your site, be able to easily share content etc. With the recent Google "Penguin release" (see my opinion here), being able to easily like, share and comment your content would have SEO benefits which you should not ignore. 

Read more here.

http://mashable.com/2012/07/13/marketing-platforms/

Innovative use of shadows to create a time sensitive QR code

We have all seen QR code implementations before. But one based on time of the day and shadows?

This innovative use of QR marketing is developed and use in Seoul for a  retailer. Consumers are rewarded discounts at quieter times of the day, in this case between noon and 1pm.

http://www.springwise.com/retail/seoul-retailer-3d-qr-codes-sun-deliver-discounts-quiet-times/

Where IT is going? Impacts on digital marketing.

CNET.com posted an interesting article recently on Where IT is going in the coming future. They reckon that the new IT buzz will be around Cloud, Mobile and Data.

I kinda agree to the 3 main points. Being seeing it moving towards that in the projects that we are increasingly handling. So what's the impact on digital marketing?

Here’s my take on the 3 main points in relation to Digital Marketing

Mobile

• Mobile devices would be more prevalent in both consumer and businesses.
• Everything we develop will have to consider mobile. Be it, websites, CRM campaigns (mobile optimised emails etc), touch friendly interfaces, display ads etc.
• Mobile Apps will be a big thing. Thin apps that will sit in the phone, use of cloud computing to make complicated processing.
• Mobile devices will capture a magnitude of data. (photos, videos, social media, web browsing, use of apps etc). These data would be stored on the cloud.
• Mobile devices are ubiquitous, they are always on and always by your side. Real time marketing based on proximity, location, time of day etc.
• Well-connected devices. Sharing of information and data between devices.

Cloud

• Due to limited processing power of mobile devices, complicated processing would be done on the cloud to improve performance.
• Moving away from actual physical server hosting. More and more, we are using cloud hosting to allow for flexibility and scalability to adapt to spikes in load due to marketing campaigns.
• Websites and applications are becoming more global and regional in reach. Depending on content delivery networks (CDN) like Akamai and AWS cloudfront to serve content.
• Able to quickly scale up for data storage.

Data

• Analytics would be a big thing for marketing. How to make sense of different sources of data and make recommendations for marketing?
• Change in the way data is stored or structured. E.g. NoSQL, Hadoop.
• Change in the way marketers understand data, increased use of data dashboarding tools.
• Use of cloud to store data that can quickly scale up when required. 

Read more here.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-57419230-61/where-it-is-going-cloud-mobile-and-data/

Is Project Management Relevant to IT, Specifically Digital Marketing?

I have been focusing on project management in the last 14 years. Throughout the places that I've worked in; from the extremely hierarchical Singapore Army to various bureaucratic government agencies and statutory boards to free-for-all startups and digital marketing agency.  There is an increasing recognition on the importance and value of effective project management. This is especially true for IT projects.

According to The Standish’s CHAOS Summary 2009 report*, 24% of all IT projects failed (i.e. cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used) and an additional 44% were challenged (i.e. delivered late, over budget, did not provided all of the required features or functions).

Here’s a comparison table compiled by The Standish from 1994 till 2009. To give credits to the greater fraternity of PMs, the amount of failed projects has greatly reduced.

But still. Those are scary numbers! I worked in a digital agency currently; the PM team and I will get slapped on a daily basis if only a third of the projects we run are deemed successful!

To put into context, the projects audited as part of the report are mostly large scale and highly complex IT projects for large corporations or governments. The digital marketing projects that we run for our fortune 500 clients are nowhere near that scale or complexity. 

But considering the stats above and lessons from my daily work, there is definitely relevance and need for competent PMs with strong leadership skills to handle digital projects. The PM has to find ways to motivate and inspire the project team to meet deadlines and deliver quality work. 

Digital marketing projects, like most IT projects has certain key project success factors that must be met. Here are the top 10 identified within The Standish report:

• User involvement
• Executive management support
• Clear statement of requirements 
• Proper planning
• Realistic expectations
• Smaller project milestones
• Competent staff
• Ownership 
• Clear vision & objectives
• Hard working, focused staff

Have a quick look at that list, and you can clearly identify the ones that require proven project management strategies and tactics.

Next, I will talk a little more about the key considerations that a PM has to take care of.

Getting users involvement and strong management sponsorship of the project is a must have. No point in delivering a project that no one would use because users’ buy-in or requirements were not considered. Or if the project did not have the management’s blessing. The PM must always ensure that both of these key factors are taken into account during project initiation.

A key nemesis to IT projects is ‘scope creep’. This little bugger could come in all shapes and form. Especially difficult to managed if there is not clear definition of the project scope in the first place. How many times have we received a brief from sales that the client has $X to develop a website and no other details. What kind of website, what features will it have, who are the targeted audiences, what technical platform will it be on, when is the go live? etc." Everything for everyone by end of Q2" is not the answers we are looking for. A talented PM knows exactly what questions to ask to clarify the scope. With a define scope, the PM is in a better position to manage the project and scope creep.
You will only know if someone cross the line, when you know where the line is.

Stakeholder management is a key area greatly emphasized in PMBOK or other PM methodologies and theories. But in real live, this area is grossly ignored or under-considered. Knowing who the stakeholders are and what are their involvement and key objectives in a project is critical in understanding their motives and expectations.

Proper planning is essential. All PMs must spend some time just thinking through the project and how they intend to approach it. A project timeline does not equal to a project plan. Other areas like, project communication, project organisation, risk management etc must be considered and planned out. Planning out smaller, more frequent and quantifiable project milestones helps in managing expectations and progress of the project. No one likes to be on radio silence for 3 months after the initial project kick off meeting, wondering what had happened to the project.

P.S. *In case this ‘infamous’ report is not known, the Standish Group collects information on project failures in the IT industry. They aim to make the industry more successful and to highlight ways to improve project success rates and increase values of IT investments. The latest result were compiled into the CHAOS Report 2009 and was published in April 2009. 

Different language & expectations.

You probably would have seen some variation of this set of images. I created this sometime back as part of a "Project Management 101" training program for my team of project managers. I wanted to show how disconnected a project could be, in terms of expectations and responsibilities from different stakeholders involved in a project. With simple images, it really does push the point across.

I truly believe that the project manager is the key person in making sure everyone has the same objectives and speaks the same language. A strong project manager would greatly reduce the disconnect seen in the cartoon above.

Does your organisation have a different set of stakeholders? Like to create your own set of project management cartoon like the above? Try this at Project Cartoon.

First steps..

I've been working in the web and digital marketing industry since 2003 and in the military since 1998. And I've always wanted a place to store all of the interesting reads I come across in my daily work and life.