Archive for the 'Book - International Communications Strategy' Category

The British Malaysian Society put on a great event the other evening at Jom Makan, just off Trafalgar Square, for the talk that I gave with my co-author Silvia Cambie on using social media for business. There was a good crowd there - a mix of Malaysians and British folk ranging from representatives from the Malaysian High Commission, Malaysian students and British and Malaysian business owners and solo professionals. Silvia spoke about the use of social media by global business, giving examples from multinational companies and also international associations. Changing gear, I focused on small business and solo professionals who use blogging and social networks, throwing in a mix of Malaysian and British case studies.

Here are some pics from the evening:

There were some interesting questions and also a good discussion after our formal presentation. To give you a flavour of the issues of interest, here are my notes on two of the questions that people wanted to discuss further:

How useful is Twitter for business use?

In Silvia’s response to this question, she gave some examples of how Twitter can be used to encourage delegates at a conference to participate in the discussions through Twitter - she is implementing this strategy for one of her clients, the European Commission, at an event coming up soon. The Twitter comments and conversations can be collected through tactical use of hashtags (a way of attributing a common keyword to a Twitter conversation eg including “#leweb” in your “tweet” to reference the Le Web conference will enable it to be collated via a search of that hashtag) after the event and analysed/ reviewed by European Commission ministers.

For small businesses or individuals, I suggested that Twitter is also a good way in every day usage to make an initial contact with people who may be tweeting on topics you are interested in and this contact can then be followed up by email, for example. It’s a good way as well to ask questions and invite opinions, especially if you are researching an issue eg for an article or a book. You can also raise your profile and expertise if you tweet about your speaking engagements and projects you may be working on as well as engaging in discussions on topics of relevance for your industry.

Can you make money using social media?

Silvia highlighted that sales of virtual items on the Chinese social network QQ brought in revenue for the owners of that network. There are ways to monetize social media through such innovations but it is a matter of identifying the right market and products that can be sold in this way.

I offered the counter view that the value of social media is not necessarily in direct sales but rather in creating networking opportunities. It falls in the ball park of sending out mail shots and newsletter or taking clients out to lunch or coming along to networking events such as that night’s events where you might learn something useful for your business and also meet some interesting contacts. There may not be direct monetary value but the value comes through making contacts and building relationships with them.

Thanks …..

And as a last word, Silvia and I would like to thank Haliza, Louise and Zehan as well as the other committee members of the BMS for inviting us and for organising such a pleasant evening!

I’ve been invited to speak at the British Malaysian Society on Thursday 21 January, along with my co-author Silvia Cambie, on how to use social media to boost your business and networking. We’ll be discussing some Malaysian, UK and other international case studies showing how businesses are currently using blogging, social networks and Twitter for their business purposes.

If you’re interested in finding out more about social media for business - or would just like to meet up with some cross-cultural British and Malaysians, please do come along. There’ll be some Malaysian food, too, as it’s held at a Malaysian restaurant!

The details are below:

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Leadership coach and good pal Nicola Stevens interviewed me this afternoon about my book International Communications Strategy and using social media for business. She used the Ipadio app on her iPhone to record our conversation and then posted it up to the web within minutes of our chat - so it was a little nerve-wracking knowing there was no opportunity for any editing before we went out “on air”!

She also snapped me in full flow with her iPhone and posted it up to her Posterous site.

Off record after the interview, we talked about how easy it is these days to publish images, video, audio and text. A click of a button on a mobile phone is all it takes! Even just a few years ago, it was still very fiddly to get the content from whatever source - a digital camera, a video tape, an audio recorder - convert it to the relevant format and find the software to FTP transfer it up to some specialist server and then to get it to your website… Now, even a self-confessed non-tecchie like Nicola can be a one-woman multimedia hub - all she needs is her iPhone!

Marc Wright, Chief Executive of simply communicate and Chair of the simplygroup, did a video interview with us during our book launch. He has edited the interview down to this great 3 minute video that brings out the key points of the book.

When I walked into the premises of Chicago Booth University in the heart of the City, I was stunned by the wonderful architecture and sense of space created by sleek, subtle lines. I had been a little nervous as our big day approached but the moment I arrived at these stunning premises, I felt a sense of calm and also, an eagerness to enjoy the party we were going to have that night.

After two years of hard work with my co-author Silvia Cambie, this lovely evening amongst friends and colleagues was the best way to celebrate. We are really indebted to Chicago Booth University (especially Arnold Longboy and his team) and also The International Alliance for Women (especially, its president Diane Morris) for sponsoring the event - support for our book from such well-respected institutions means a great deal to Silvia and me. We were also honoured that Helen Kogan of Kogan Page came to the event and say a few words about their response to our book proposal and why they are excited about the book - so excited that they nominated our book, one of two nominations from their list of business books published this year, for the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

Silvia and I were also delighted to be able to have a party to thank all our friends and colleagues for their encouragement while we were writing the book. In particular, we were very happy to see some of our respondents who gave up their time to answer our interview questions for the case studies in the book, sharing with us their experiences of international communications and social media. We were also delighted that Cafe Spice Namaste supplied the finger food at our party.

The slideshow below captures the formal presentations and hopefully, some of the atmosphere of the party.

I was also pleased that Mark Smith of Ipadio could make it. We’d been in touch by email and phone over the last few months about Ipadio’s live phoneblogging service and it was great to meet him for the first time. He’s a lot like his photo on Ipadio but very, very tall - he used to play rugby and has the build of a rugby player! It was his love of sports that inspired him to create the live phoneblogging service as a way for ordinary people to broadcast live sports commentary online. Now it is being used by those who have difficulty accessing typing-based online communications as well as - well, writers at their book launches: Mark kindly streamed live audio of the presentations onto the internet via Ipadio. You can check out the archived audio here.

And finally, the most important person on this roll of honour I want to thank is Silvia. She has been the driving force behind this book and I really admire her energy and intelligence in everything she does, not least her work on our book!

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If you’d like to view the slides from the formal presentation that Silvia and I gave at the event, you can view them below:

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Update: You can read a write up of the event in The New Straits Times, Malaysia

My co-author Silvia Cambie and I are very excited that our big day has arrived. The launch of our book International Communications Strategy is taking place tonight, hosted by Chicago Booth University and The International Alliance for Women.

Due to restrictions on numbers, this is an invitation only event but Mark Smith, CEO at Ipadio.com, is kindly running a live phoneblog from the event where he will hopefully be able to live stream some of the speeches and also interview some of our guests during the party so that those who have not been able to come along will be able to get a flavour of the event through the audio feed.

I’ll also be calling in at various times during today to let you know how the preparations are going.

You can listen to the audio blog via the player below. When the tab “Live: On Air” shows up, you will be able to listen to the live audio feed (subject to a 5 second delay). Otherwise, you can listen to already-recorded audio sessions by clicking on the Previous tab (and move about the various sessions by clicking Next and Latest as required).

The event starts at 6.30pm UK time (GMT +1hour). The live audio feed will be running intermittently whenever Mark calls in on his mobile phone.

I hope you enjoy the audio version of the event.

I’ll be phoning in after the event, too, to share my impressions and de-brief of the event so do come back in the next few days as well!

Business communications expert and podcasting guru, Neville Hobson, interviewed my co-author Silvia Cambie and me on Friday for his influential For Immediate Release podcast. We talked about how we came to write our book, International Communications Strategy, the main themes and ideas we explore in it and our favourite chapters/ case studies.

Neville has now uploaded the podcast interview on iTunes and his blog - so if you’d like to listen to our discussion, please do go and check it out.

Thanks, Neville!

Or you can listen to it via the grey podcast player below.

Photo: thanks to Neville, with permisision

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (196)

It was a great tutorial on how to conduct a podcast interview when Neville interviewed Silvia (@XCulture) and me about our book for his FIR podcast show this afternoon. He’s got the knack of making his interviewees feel comfortable and for asking good questions that allow you the space to express yourself easily. And I got a strong case of gadget envy when he whipped out his portable stereo digital recorder with detachable mike and sound level monitors….
 
The show will be uploaded next week - check out For Immediate Release on iTunes/Google.

Posted via email from Fusion View Lifestream

My 6 author copies of International Communications Strategy that I’ve been working on since November 2007 with my co-author Silvia Cambie arrived in the post today. After 18 months of hard work - involving research, writing, re-writing, editing and more - it’s very satisfying to finally hold the end product(s) in my hand. Even more so now that the book has also been nominated for the FT Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award 2009!

Posted via email from Yang-May’s posterous