Striped:Shirt

When we arrived at Frujch for Pecha Kucha, you can sense a totally different atmosphere than usual. Frujch was filled with professionals from the creative industry (and there were a few students like me). Before the presentations even started, you can already sense their creativity through the chatter, their outfits and of course the plastic eye-glasses with the funky hair.

Overall, the presentations that night were entertaining (except for a couple) and informative. My favorite from the night was the presentation by Graham Perkins, a consultant, who talked about creativity and the education system. He presented first about a topic that was relevant to the audience. More importantly, he was the only one that stuck to the 20X20 format of Pecha Kucha. Like the way it should be done, he timed his slides to transition every 20 seconds and he adapted what he was going to say to that constraint. I was impressed with the design of his slides so I went to Google him and found out that his career was surrounded with creativity from Adobe down to MTV Asia. Kudos to Graham for presenting Pecha Kucha the right way.

HJGHER somewhat followed the 20×20 format but I’m not sure if each slide lasted 20 seconds. I’ve to review that from the video that I took. They presented a well-written short story accompanied by photographs which made it look like a semi-short film. It was probably my second favorite and it was a nice way to end the night as they presented last.

Andrew Lo from MTV Asia was the most entertaining that night because of his personality and his courage to present the reasons why he hates MTV. Although I think that he should have stopped after his last point and chose not to present about MTV’s campaigns because it completely went off topic and he kinda lost the audience then. (Oh yeah! When I first saw this guy, I thought he looked really familiar. Found out later that he was the guy behind the Spot the VJ campaign which I saw the making of on TV.)

Steve Lawler’s (not the DJ) was visually stimulating. He’s a very talented guy and it was nice to learn about the inspirations behind his work. He fascination with Stanley Kubrick is something worth remembering.

The rest of the presentations were just alright. I felt that they were presenting too much about themselves and their work. Even though Pecha Kucha Nights let you present on any topic, it would be nice to watch a presentation and learn something new. Not something that we can just read off the About page on their website. This is why Graham Perkins was the best of the night: everyone in the audience listened to “ideas worth spreading”. (His presentations reminded me of TED Talks, which he made several references to.)

To sum it up, the first Pecha Kucha Night Singapore was a success! Can’t wait for the next one. I’ve got all the presentations on this Kyte channel. Enjoy!

Sadly, the answer is No but Jolly V is.

When I was in Hong Kong a few weeks ago, one of the best meals I had was eating Jollibee again after leaving the Philippines 7 years ago. Don’t get me wrong - I also enjoyed eating local Hong Kong food very much but Jollibee just brought back childhood memories. According to Inquirer.net, the Philippines is the only country where McDonald’s isn’t in first place with regards to market share. Jollibee slowly but surely overtook The Golden Arches in the local market.

When I found out that there’s a spoof of Jollibee here in Singapore called Jolly V, my friend and I knew that we had to give it a shot. It’s located at Lau Pa Sat near Raffles Place MRT. Another Filipino from Singapore tried Jolly V last year and gave their verdict here. I have to agree with them - Jolly V is 90% close to the taste of the original Jollibee except for the gravy of the chicken but it was still good. I ordered the spaghetti with the chicken and it was a good lunch to start my week.

It ain’t Jollibee but it’s more than good enough. I’m definitely going back.

I’ve been converted to a Robbie Williams fan recently after watching a DVD of his concert at Knebworth. What We Did Last Summer: Live at Knebworth is one of the best concert DVDs out there. So pick it up or rent it when you can. It’s going to be worth it.

We wrapped up blogging last week in Social Media class, and after watching the DVD close to ten times in a span of two weeks, I was inspired to write about what bloggers can learn from Robbie Williams, as ‘a singer, a songwriter and a born entertainer’. Here it goes.

1. Engage Your Readers - Throughout the concert, Robbie tried to engage the crowd whenever he could. He told stories and he even had a massive karaoke session with the audience when he sang “Strong”. As a blogger, you can engage your readers by posing a question, asking for opinions or by replying to comments to keep the conversation going. ProBlogger advices that “Posting Less Frequently Can Lead to Higher Reader Engagement“.

2. Put 110% - I heard some of the songs in the DVD for the first time but because Robbie put so much effort in the singing and performance of each number, I ended up liking all the new songs. If you put effort into writing every blog entry, then readers will be coming back for more. Neil from Pronet Advertising suggests ways on how to get more readership/popular through content.

3. Be Real - One of the reasons why Knebworth was a memorable concert is because we saw the real Robbie Williams. He was honest and wasn’t afraid of showing his true self. Being real is what bloggers need to do if they want to build a long term relationship/conversation with their readers. Write to Done says that bloggers should ‘write from the heart’ and ‘reveal’ themselves.

4. Be Passionate - Robbie’s energy on stage comes from his passion for what he does. In this concert especially, it shows through. If you blog about topics that you’re passionate about, then your readers are likely to enjoy and benefit from your writing. Here’s a good article from Blog Herald about passion and blogging.

5. Say Thanks - Robbie Williams wouldn’t be who he is now if his fans did not buy his records. At Knebworth, he showed how much he appreciated how his fans stayed with him throughout his career. Blogging relations is about the act of reciprocity. If you get mentioned in a another blog or receive a comment, leaving a simple ‘Thank You’ note will go a long way. NorthxEast provides 15 ways to thank your loyal readers.

As a give-away, here’s my one of my favorite songs from the DVD. I think it also is a good representation of the tips above. Enjoy! (Although YouTube doesn’t do justice. Buy the HD DVD.)

I was searching the net for restaurant reviews and recommendations in Singapore and I came across two different yet informative food blogs.

1. i eat, i shoot, i post

i eat, i shoot, i post has been up for a long time just by looking at its long list of food categories. I went to explore around and found the blog’s visitor statistics and it just reaffirmed what I initially thought. This food blog gets an average of 3000 unique visitors and about 1,800 loyal readers a day. To be honest, I wanted to close the Firefox tab on this blog right away because I was turned off by the design and layout. As I scrolled down, I learned that this blog has some really good content in it (both food photography and reviews). It even has its own community of ieaters. Thanks God I gave this blog a second look because I have now added it to my RSS reader and will be recommending it to friends.

2. flavor

flavor is definitely in touch with web 2.0: the website design and a Facebook group. Impressive. By the looks of it, they haven’t officially opened their blog/site to the public yet. However I was able to access one of their pages through Google. It looks really neat inside. I think they are at that stage where they’re filling up their blog with enough reviews before their launch. Content-wise, flavor distinguishes itself by focusing on higher-end restaurants. There’s not much activity at present but I wish that when they go live, their content would live up to their presentation.

I shouldn’t just a blog by its first page.

I went to Botak Jones three times already in this month alone. The food’s good, but the reason why I’ve been going back to eat there is the little things they do to make their customers smile.

Last night, they surprised us with nachos and salsa dip. It wasn’t the best nachos, but it’s the thought that counts.

I went to watch By Definition at b-one’s (formerly Bar None) launch party last night. They were great performers on TV so I was curious to see how much energy they projected performing live.

I enjoyed their gig. It felt like a mini-concert: the props, costume changes,  dancers, etc. I can see the effort that they put into their performance, which I really like. They’re probably one of the best, if not the best in Singapore. Ash, the lead vocalist, probably got all the women drooling with his bare chest and stage antics.

Despite all the energy coming from the band, the crowd wasn’t really reciprocating. (Ash was really trying his best but to little success) The audience last night was mainly expats and the working crowd. Somehow, By Definition’s song choices and order did not connect with the audience. I was only there for their first set, and half of their second set. They played mostly recent songs, which appeals more to the younger generation. There were a few rock classics, which the whole bar enjoyed. I felt that the band that opened for them was able to connect better with the audience through their song choices.

By Definition has performed in other venues before, but last night was probably the first time they faced a different kind of audience. Part of being a great band is to engage your audience and that’s something the band can improve on.

They are great singers and performers, no doubt. They just need to better understand the b-one crowd since they’re the house band.

To By Def: Keep rockin’!

In Social Media class today, Michael Netzley recommended a blog of a fellow classmate. Without hesitation, I googled ‘daryl smube’. Daryl is his name and I figured that he belonged to SMUBE based from his name card. Voila! His blog, Unique-Frequency, was right up there. In short, his blog focuses on media.

Daryl’s blog is now subscribed under my Google reader because after skimming through his entries, I found that we have similar interests: marketing, Godin, TED, web 2.0, etc. Better yet, he’s in the same school and class as me. As Michael likes to put it, this is an excellent example of “People Like Me”.

Based from his personal blog, I think that Daryl has been on the blogosphere for quite some time now. What he has done since early last year was to focus on a single topic: media. That’s smart because more people like me will start reading his blog as we find it useful and interesting.

With more than 20 entries in less than a month, there’s always something to look forward to in Unique-Frequency. Keep it up, Daryl.

Several months ago, I let my girlfriend listen to David Choi from YouTube. Before you know it, she already posts like 5 videos of him on her blog. Guess what. I’ve found another YouTube Wonder, Marie Digby.

 ( I just got off the phone with my girl, and she still claims David Choi is better. hah!)

Here’s Marie’s version of Umbrella.

Her voice is not bad. Although I have to admit that David is also good. However, Marie’s more successful than David Choi - she’s appeared on the radio, on tv, and her songs are selling on iTunes. It’s amazing how YouTube discovers all these new artists. No need for shows like American Idol.

Watch out for my girl! She can sing too! and she’s got the looks! I just have to get my camera ready. Are you reading this, sweets?

I just found one of the most useful Firefox plug-ins: Diigo. It let’s you highlight text from websites plus add your own “sticky notes” just in case you need to jot down some notes alongside the text. Here comes to cool part - you get to save all these highlights and then bookmark the pages (all saved on their server once you register with them). You can then refer back to all the sites later on, easily spotting the lines you chose to highlight. There are other features such as sharing the sites with others. Also, you could choose to use the Diigolet (a simple, light-weight version) or install the Diigo tool bar which has a bit more to offer. Now, I can start reading about the pros of genetically modified trees, highlight the important text, and just pop those sites back up for my meeting on Wednesday. Awesome!

I wished I found this add-on a long time ago. It’s a student’s best friend when it comes to researching for projects and papers.