Burning Man – a personal experience, Part One
My brother, Edward (who lives in London), mentioned going to Burning Man to me earlier this year quite out of the blue and, whilst not on top of my things to do list, there were enough images and thoughts in my mind collected over the years of this enigmatic event for his suggestion to resonate wi [...]
A lust for wandering and creating goes a long way
You could be forgiven for thinking you have walked into a music store. Or is it a funky bar with its eclectic furniture? Or a Peranakan-themed French restaurant? Whatever it is, it’s hard to put Loh Lik Peng’s newest hotel in Singapore, Wanderlust, into any box.Which is how the hotelier (left), [...]
Worldhotels launches global Facebook contest
Worldhotels, one of the leading groups for independent hotels, has launched a global contest for fans of its Facebook page.Until September 30, 2011 the group’s Facebook friends are eligible to win 25,000 Frequent Flyer miles with one of the 19 Frequent Flyer partners of Worldhotels, and a two-nig [...]
2 in 3 Hong Kong travellers use multi-devices to book flights
A survey carried out among Hong Kong travellers by market research company, GfK, showed that two thirds of purchasers of flight tickets (over 65%) use all three devices - PCs, tablets, smartphones – during the entire purchase journey.The nine-week survey, between March to May 2014, polled more tha [...]
What would Don Draper do with Facebook?
It's the HSMAI Chapter's Asia Connect event - a full day event at Singapore's Pan Pacific Hotel and it was up to Dave Yang from Facebook to kick off the day's presentationsDave introduced his presentation with a key idea (one, incidentally, I think, many brands are still struggling with) 'You have y [...]
Why I Would Never Hire A Social Media Expert
WIT winning debater, and editor of Discovery Channel Magazine, Luke Clark argues that for most of us mortals, social media is best left for socialising. (This is the argument he shared at the WIT Conference.)• A social media expert is like a “casual Olympian”. Nothing as amorphous, random and [...]
Why part of me doesn’t want wireless, free or otherwise
I was reading a piece in the Straits Times’ ‘Digital Life’ yesterday about eReaders. One featured person liked the advent of eBooks because she already has ‘over 300 books on her shelves’. For her there was a very practical reason for adopting the electronic version of the paperbacks cl [...]
The costliest leg shave in the world!
There is a bizarre twist to the ongoing story of "Here comes Lady Branson in red", which will see 60-year-old billionaire Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin Group serving as a flight attendant wearing the striking red AirAsia outfit for the day on the May 1 AirAsia X’s London-Kuala Lumpur flight,A [...]
The new good, bad and ugly customer: Has social media changed the conversation?
In the past, a good customer was someone who didn't bargain too much, was loyal (almost always) and spent constantly and consistently. They were predictable, reliable and fair.However, with the rise of social media (and the new forms of accountability and reputation management that inevitably come w [...]
The what matters more than the how
On Sunday, I spent 15 hours on the road from Penang to Singapore. I had plenty of time to listen to the radio.Most of it was rubbish. I will be glad if I never hear Taylor Swift again. There was one sentence I remembered though, uttered by a deejay whose name I can’t.He said something like, “Do [...]
