Priceless

My MMS to Terence re. the Sun Mobile that's on loan to the company read: Wanna ride?

His MMS reply: sorry I am busy having fun:-D

My take on blogging... back in 2002 (!)

The truth is... I started my first blog back in 2002. Joy would remember it; she gave me my first comment. I only wrote one entry. But I'd like to think of myself as a blog-pioneer still.

ROTFL

I googled myself+blog, and finally found the story I wrote on blogging when the movement first start. (I think) LexisNexis picked up my story, a blogger published it in 2003, and CMP 'died' after that (RIP. I love you.).

Here it is for your reading pleasure and for my vanity's sake. I don't think the full story is here; I remembered writing more than 429 words!

# # #

(http://blog.schee.info/2003/01/29/the-future-revealed-blogging/)
LexisNexis™ Academic
Copyright 2002 Financial Times InformationAll rights reservedGlobal News Wire - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire
Intelligent Enterprise Asia
December 1, 2002
LENGTH: 429 words

HEADLINE: THE FUTURE REVEALED: BLOGGING
BYLINE: Leong Khay Mun

Imagine if everyone in your office kept a diary about the lessons they learned everyday while managing an e-business project, or the things to avoid when building a customer contact centre.
Now, imagine that their diaries are placed online and made available to everyone in the office, and this knowledge pool grows.

Web logs, or blogs, is such a Web-based platform that will allow your office to do just that. Blogs are different from online bulletin boards and chat rooms, which are group-oriented; they are personal in nature, featuring a single person’s point of view. Blogs have been hailed in the US as the next big knowledge management (KM) tool that will enhance knowledge dissemination in the corporate world, because they are easy to set up, use, and maintain. And many sites allow people to blog for free.

But KM solutions providers are less than enthusiastic about encouraging corporations to use blogging for their KM initiative. They say that not only is the concept over hyped, there are also downsides to the platform itself.

“I marvel the IT industry for justifying things that we (KM vendors) have been doing for a long time with discussion databases. For us, blogs are just another way to deliver knowledge sharing capabilities to the workplace,” said Al Zollar, general manager of IBM Lotus Software , which recently enhanced its workplace collaboration products in October.

Microsoft’s David Foo, product marketing manager (Enterprise Servers), agreed. He emphasised that the first thing to be clear about is that blogs do not equal KM. “Like instant messengers or e-mail, blogs are a basic communications tool that can be part of a KM strategy.”

But public blogs are, by nature, not secure, either in terms of access or data storage, he cautioned. They are also a one-way tool, even though they can hyperlink to other information, whereas KM depends on a two-way or group oriented communication. Effective KM goes beyond basic communication, into collaboration and organisation of different kinds and sources of information.

The fact that management will not be able to control the content that goes onto these personal online diaries makes it a dicey communication tool: The rantings of a frustrated employee can reach a wide audience as quickly as useful knowledge will.

Said Simon Phipps, chief technology evangelist with Sun Microsystems , who is an avid blogger: “The mindset behind the blogging movement is really autarchical… that is why blogging is more of a grassroots movement, not a corporate phenomenal.”

Feature lights

It was a last minute decision to get a feature light for our room in the office. So off I went on my 2 inch heels down the Balestier stretch.

Too many pretty lights at too many difference prices. I finally picked one with a grey shade and crystals (supposedly from Egypt).

I like how the lights throw its shadow on the ceiling, yielding varying shades of grey.

Thanks

After months of hunting,

weeks of nasty negotiation,

stressful days that swing between frustration and jubilation,

sleepless nights,
working weekends and...

last minute changes

We finally moved 10 staff out of a small 500 sq ft office to a comfortable 1,250 sq ft space.

Three years of tears and sweat, highs and lows, unexpected kindness and dedication, and (yes) unpleasant exchanges have brought our company to a higher level. It isn't strange saying "our company" though it legally involves only two partners and friends. But it feels like "our company" because so many people are part of Flame--be it an ex or existing staff, an ex or recurring client, an ex colleague, new and long-time friends, parents, spouse, in-laws, suppliers, partners.

Some believe in us, some roll their eyes at us, some give us two thumbs up, some give us one thumb down (ha!). No matter what, they have moulded us one way or another and created this unique entity called "Flame Communications".

I hope the victory I feel is shared by everyone. It is a team effort.

Thank you.

New year, new clients

It is a little hard to blog about Flame's achievements on the editorial front. We have a lot of well-known Fortune 500 clients from the IT and healthcare industries, who commission us on a monthly and sometimes weekly basis to write customer success stories, internal newsletters and announcements (via e-mail/edm).

So while our PR accomplishments can be made public, some of the editorial projects can't be elaborated in my blog. But they are very exciting projects as they give us insights to how companies perform, operate, and manage their business.

Already, we have two new clients to add to our customer base as we ride into the year of the Rat. Here's a view of the Singapore Flyer from one of the clients' office. May Flame continue to fly high in 2008 and beyond!

Flame is the PR agency for...

JobsDB.com Career Expo 2008 (18-20 Jan)

Flame is the PR agency for...

Dr. Martens

Flame's third Christmas celebration

It's nice to see how the company has grown from just a three-man operation in 2005 to the current 7.5 staff outfit (0.5 because Joy's stringing for us from Australia). And what's even nicer is that we've got ex-employees who're still in touch with the rest of the team.

(Clockwise: Jack who's now in Fairfax, Chien Way who's now in STB, Gary who's gone off to be a daddy, Samuel who wears Crocs in the office, sweet Michelle who gets hit on all the time, Kelyn who is more bilingual than anyone else in the office, super partner Florence, uber talented Resse, and moi)