An Update on My Life in Singapore

I have been in Singapore for a full month now. This month is definitely important in my life. I know my decision to take a term off from the University of Oregon is right though it means I postpone my graduate date.

So what happened to me in the past month?

1. I start my three months internship in The Asian Media Information and Communication Center. Right now, I’m working on a project trying to find out why major Asian newspapers like to use news sources from western news agencies when reporting Asia’s regional news. First of all, my team need to do the research on 15 newspapers across Asia by taking out their Asia’s regional news between March 2009 to August 2009. Then, analysis all of them and write a report. Finally, publish a journal about the result we find.

Research work is a little bit dry after days of same work. However, I feel I’m indispensable in the team because I’m the only one in my team that can read Chinese. China is an important part of this project. This feeling always encourages me to work hard and efficient.

2. A lot of people have asked me before why do I want to do this internship since it’s not that related to my major PR. My answer is: networking. Yes, Twitter and LinkedIn are two good ways for networking, but if I can do it face-to-face, wouldn’t it be better? I want to work in a PR agency in Singapore after I graduate, so coming to Singapore to actually know something about the PR industry here is crucial.

I attended Spikes Asia Advertising Festival between September 16th to 18th and really learned a lot from it. Taking MRT everyday for 40 min from Pioneer station to City Hall station at 8 in the morning was an unforgettable experience. More  importantly, attending all kinds of seminars and workshops learning about media industry in Asia and the whole world was truly exciting.

I enjoyed listening Cheil Worldwide Creative Director Thomas Kim talking about how important is digital storytelling. I enjoyed listening David Elsworth from Coca-Cola Japan talking about the corporation between agency and clients. I also enjoyed listening the founder and creative chairman of Droga5 David Droga talking about “The Great Schlep” campaign for Obama…

On September 17th, I attended Ogilvy’s networking party. It’s the first time I attend networking party like this, besides, I don’t know anyone there. The lesson I learned there is: force yourself to talk to people. It worked. I got to meet two young PR account executive of Ogilvy. They shared their stories about how they got the job, what’s the work in Ogilvy PR like and also encouraged me to apply for internship in Ogilvy next year. Later I found out I’m following one of them on Twitter. What a small world!

Last Saturday is China’s Mid-Autumn Festival. I attended the networking party held by Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry at Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall. There, I learned trading business between China and Singapore, and also met some interesting business people.

(News: I’m going to meet a senior account manager of MS&L personally soon. I just want to try my best to get the most I can during this three months.)

3. Of course, my past month is not just working and networking.

I go shopping, watch movies and do other activities with friends every weekend. I watched F1 from a high commercial building when it was in town. I also attended the 25th Singapore French Film Festival at Alliance Francaise Singapore.

I had a wonderful month in Singapore, and I’m sure my next two months here will be great and unforgettable as well. I do miss my family in China and friends around the world, but now it is the time to fight for the future. I know I have a long way, but luckily I’m on the right track.

 

Why Chicago Lost 2016 Olympics?

After awarding the 2016 Olympics to Rio, all media in United States was shocked that Chicago wasn’t selected, and it is actually the first out. Even President Obama’s personal pitch for the games didn’t make it work. According to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge, the decision was not made based on money — which would seemingly make it a first.

“If we had thought about how to make a lot of money we would have chosen Chicago,” Rogge said, ”Money is not what drives IOC members when it comes to choosing a host city.”

So, from the beginning, Chicago has no advantage.

Moreover, Chicago didn’t have people’s support.

When the big day approaches, different from other three cities, a Tribune/WGN poll showed that 45 percent of Chicago’s city residents oppose Mayor Richard Daley’s Olympic plans while only 47 percent of the residents are still in favor.

Chicago Tribune also quoted Dennis Howard of the University of Oregon in the article:

“When less than half of the folks polled indicate they’d be willing to support the Olympics, that’s certainly not an enthusiastic mandate for bringing the Games to Chicago,” said sports finance expert Dennis Howard of the University of Oregon. “I can’t speak for the IOC members who will be making the decision, but I’d be fairly certain this would not help the cause for Chicago.”

When we start wondering why a large number of people don’t want to bring the game to the city, we can’t avoid seeing the campaign was focused on “big figures.” Watching Chicago 2016 Olympic bid videos on YouTube, we can see President Obama, Michelle Obama, Michael Jordan, etc. However, we don’t see the people, the majority.

In China, there’s a saying that “As the water can float a boat, so can it capsize a boat.” People are like the water, and Chicago 2016 Committee are like the boat. Without people’s support, Chicago 2016 Committee can’t achieve anything.

That is the reason Chicago lost 2016 Olympics.

 

Melody of Life

This ads won the first Spikes Asia Advertising Festival TV/Cinema Grand Prix.

I was deeply touched, so I’m now sharing it with you all. David Droga said at Spikes Asia Awards Ceremony that if people don’t feel touched by this ads, people can’t be touched by anything.

MELODY OF LIFE

Advertiser	THAI LIFE INSURANCE CO.
Product	THAI LIFE INSURANCE
Entrant	OGILVY & MATHER Bangkok, THAILAND
Type of Entry:	TV/Cinema
Category:	Corporate Image
Title:	MELODY OF LIFE
Advertiser/Client:	THAI LIFE INSURANCE CO.
Product/Service:	THAI LIFE INSURANCE
Entrant Company:	OGILVY & MATHER Bangkok, THAILAND
Advertising Agency:	OGILVY & MATHER Bangkok, THAILAND

Enjoy!

 

Online Information Credibility

The internet thrives on the idea of information sharing, which allows everyone to contribute to the sum of human knowledge and opinion on important issues that populates the web. However, not everyone uses this new power and freedom with a great sense of responsibility to criticize reliability of information, and this can have devastating results.

Not long ago, news of a 22-year-old Dublin student resulted in a fake quote being published in newspaper obituaries was spread all over the world. The quote was attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre who died at the end of March. According to Irish Times, the quote has no references, but it was posted on the online encyclopedia shortly after his death and later appeared in obituaries published in the Guardian, the London Independent, on the BBC Music Magazine website and in Indian and Australian newspapers. The student wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source and how people are connected especially through the internet.

Same kind of example can be found in China as well. Two weeks ago, famous journalist Shi Hanbin wrote a blog post “Sacrifice Resources Can Lead to National Disasters (post in Chinese).” This post contains some controversial issues on national resources trading, and it provided an inaccurate example of Sino Gold bought Lannigou gold mining in Guizhou without spending much money because it’s “administrative allocation.”  Soon, this post was copied to other news Web sites and blogs including Sina.com, Sohu.com, ifeng.com and much more without checking the credibility.

Internet is a great place for netizens to share all kinds of information. Sadly, it also becomes a place to perpetuating lies. By gathering information without checking credibility, mistakes become repeated in other media and cruel twisted in further reporting.

We all understand that daily journalism highly involves gathering people’s comments and statements quickly and effectively, then pick the well-minded ones in the newspaper or online. Though, it’s important to differentiate between comments and statements of fact. In fact, finding the truth is one of journalists’ most important missions. It is also a first taught subject in journalism education. But how often do journalists stop to ask whether the information they are printing or broadcasting is actually true before information get spread out?

There’s no doubt that internet is the greatest information resource we have ever known. Almost all the human knowledge and opinion on important issues are wholly available if we just type a few keywords. However, so are all the mistakes, rumors and lies which are polluting the quality of our online information. As internet grows deeper and deeper in our lives, the importance of safeguarding truth from bias or deceit is going to become bigger.

 

Last blog post for my advanced PR writing class

This is the last blog post for my advanced PR writing class at the University of Oregon. I want to keep writing here even though my blog assignments are finished, and I want to share some ideas about how to keep up blogging.

Ending a blog isn’t an uncommon occurrence; the web is littered with blogs that have been long forgotten for one reason or another. Most of us don’t want to do it because keeping up a well-written blog is so beneficial, and the blog forced ourselves to stay updated. However, we only have limited time and energy. Sometimes, this limited time and energy overwhelms us, and we start to assume that we can’t continue anymore.

When it happens, we need to try to not let this feeling drag us down. We can update our blog less often, but we shouldn’t give up. We all understand that there are only 24 hours in a day, and sometimes we just don’t have time to update the blog no matter how hard we try.

Another way to keep up blogging is to set up a short term goal. Instead of saying “I will keep up blogging,” try to set up a goal like “I will blog about my summer internship for this summer.” It works in the same way as we write the blog for our PR class in the spring. Spring is much shorter than forever, so it’s much easier for us to achieve the goal.

I also like to read others’ blogs. It encourages me to write my own blog because I feel they have the same problem as me. I always read Han Han’s blog, which has nearly 250 million viewers already.

I hope I can keep blogging here. I know it’s hard, but I will not give up. I find writing is a better way to share my ideas and opinions with others because I don’t have the advantage to speak in English when it takes time for me to put words together.