Archive for the 'YM's books and writings' Category

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 (362)

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

I think the writers and book readers amongst you could find this behind-the-scenes process interesting in terms of seeing how the publishing world works and also, understanding the importance of a book title, whether in the fiction or non-fiction sector.

When I was writing my first novel, The Flame Tree, that was the working title I used and when I submitted it to Hodder & Stoughton, that was the title they went with. The flame tree is the central symbol of that novel and it also evokes the Asian setting of the book.

With my second novel, my working title was Mindgame but Hodder were not initially keen on it. I remember sitting down for days coming up with a list of over 30 different alternative titles in response to their feedback. In the end, they looked at my list of 30 something titles and came back to say that Mindgame was the best of the lot!

For the last year, my co-author Silvia Cambie and I have been using the working title New Trends in International Communications/ PR for the business book on cross-cultural communications that we’ve been writing. The title seemed to us to sum up what the book was about and whenever we talked about it to friends and people we met, they would nod in recognition and understanding so we wouldn’t have to go into a long-winded explanation.

Originally, our publisher Kogan Page were keen to ensure that the title included the words “Public Relations” but Silvia, an experienced business communicator, always preferred the word “Communications”. She explains that in the world of business communications, marketing and PR, “communications” is the wider expertise, of which marketing and PR are subsets and that a title that encompasses that wider context would have a wider audience. From my point of view, coming from the world of social media, I also prefer “communications” as, unfortunately, “PR” has a bad name in the online landscape, being associated with spin and hype without authenticity in the minds of bloggers.

So when we submitted the manuscript to our publisher Kogan Page, it was time to discuss the final title of the book in some detail. After some discussion about the issues around “communications” and “PR” with her marketing and editorial team, our editor came back agreeing with the choice of “communications.”

There was another issue, however, she told us. The problem was with “new trends.” The book is going to be published in July this year and the aim is to keep it in print with good sales over the foreseeable future. What is “new” now is not going to be new in a few years time. Similarly, what are “trends” now are likely to have become mainstream in time. But what we are writing about - the case studies, the concepts etc - which are the meat of the book will remain relevant for businesses and communicators because they have practical and useful applications beyond newness and trendiness. So the publishing team felt that the phrase “new trends” did not fully or accurately capture the thrust of the book.

So what to do? We batted some ideas back and forth in a series of emails and finally, we all agreed on the final title: International Communications Strategy: Developments in cross-cultural communications, PR and social media. We introduced the word “strategy” to capture the aspects of the book where we discuss how businesses can take advantage of developments in technology and cultural sensitivities. From the publishers point of view, the word also emphasise that the book is aimed at high-level executives within businesses and communications professionals who will need to be thinking strategically in today’s globalised world.

Dulwich Picture Gallery is running an exhibition on the theme of What Are You Like?, based on a Victorian parlor game where you create an image of yourself based on a number of your favorite things e.g. your favorite book, animal, music, place etc. Some friends were telling me about it the other evening and someone said, “The modern equivalent is Facebook, isnt it?” - which started me thinking…

On social networks like Facebook and MySpace, you can show off to the world your favourite music, movies, books and interests as well as who your friends are. On MySpace in particular, you can redesign the look of your page with wallpaper that reflects your personality and you can play actual music that plays when your visit to comes to your page. On both social networks, you can add a picture of yourself and people often change this photo to reflect their current mood or status. Some people use a photo of their dog or a cartoon image of themselves. All of it is a way of saying to the world: this is who I am.

It seems to me that this is a very human instinct going back beyond the Victorians playing their parlour games to time immemorial. Wherever we humans have been, we have wanted others to know us. Perhaps those ancient hand prints and paintings of buffalo in dark primeval caves are no more than a prehistoric people’s way of saying, “This is who we are. This is what we are like.” Archaelogists usually interpret these markings as religious symbols or cultural totems but perhaps they might be no more than the graffiti of a Neanderthal teenager who might have been trying to impress a girl… (”Me, I like bison, you like too? Look, me have big hands, you - hands so small and sweet.”)

We tell each other what we are like when we first meet as friends or when we go on a date. We want to find common interests and we want the other person to like us. We often present ourselves in the best light or at least, in light of that we think will appeal to the other person. I guess this is what we are doing on Facebook and MySpace when we share our music and favourite things online for our friends and also the world to see. On the Indian marriage and dating site Shaadi.com, users can include information about themselves such as their hobbies, interests and also there Indian astrological signs. They can also add photos and videos, and in fact the more information they include in their profile of the more helpful this is to the “eMatchmaker” that will be searching the database to find mutual matches for them. So, In the same way that the Victorians bonded with their friends - and perhaps grew closer to potential love matches - during the fun and flirtation of their evening parlour games, these days we find friends and modern day love matches via the pixels of online digital parlours.

So, lets see - what I would put on my Facebook or MySpace profile ( if I ever got round to filling those boxes in):

• My favourite animal - hmm, the problem is I dont really like animals.
• My favourite clothes - a pair of old, comfy jeans.
• My favourite place - home.
• My favourite pastime - writing and blogging.

Picture: thanks to mrnizz.blogspot.com

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been watching how video dramas have been taking off online and engaging audiences in a different way from how film or TV dramas have traditionally engaged viewers.

Up till recently, movies have relied on audiences going out and gathering at a given time at a given place and all sitting down together to watch a film, munching popcorn and drinking soda. TV dramas need their audiences to gather at a given time, though they can stay home to do this, in front of the telly, munching whatever comes to hand from the fridge. Technologies such as DVD and recording devices changed those behaviours to the extent that we can now choose the time we watch a film or TV drama but we are still bound to the place we do that ie usually a living room with a telly in it. We still settle down for a stretch of 40-90 minutes, sometimes more, to watch an episode of a TV drama or a movie - and it is sociable in so far as we are there in the same space with our friends or we talk about it later with our mates or we text / chat on the phone during the programme.

There are a number of online video dramas that are changing the rules of engagement. One example is Sofia’s Diary, which is being shown on the social network, Bebo.com. The episodes are uploaded twice a week and run for around 2-3 minutes. It’s an online soap opera around the life of a 17 year old girl, her family and friends with the occasional to-camera video diary. You don’t have to sign up to Bebo to watch it but if you do sign up, you can interact with the “Sofia” and the Sofia’s Diary network of “friends”. You can become a “fan” so you can receive email alerts when the site is updated eg with photos or another episode. You can opt to receive text alerts twice a week to be kept up to date with what’s happening. You can also add comments to each episode - many comments are inane but in respone to one episode where one of Sofia’s friends dies, many of her Bebo friends shared their own experiences of bereavement and grief.

The production quality is high - and, no wonder, as it is backed by Sony Pictures, developed from the original Portuguese online hit. The show is also the first online series to make the transition across from the internet to good old fashioned broadcast TV, having been bought by UK’s Channel Five.

I think that this is likely to be the future of drama series - not being tied to TV or film or the internet but across many platforms, including mobile (and books, too), with added features such as interactivity with the show, its characters as well as other fans. As the teens and young adults who are the current fans of Sofia’s Diary grow up, they will be used to this kind of interactive relationship with their entertainment and media, and no doubt come to expect it.

For writers and creatives, it’s becoming increasingly relevant to think beyond the medium you are currently used to working in, whether it’s print, TV, film or radio and to start experimenting with other media and to think about building in interactivity. For businesses who are interested in engaging with a public that is growing ever more multi-modal, it’s time to explore multi-platform, multi-media ways of grabbing - and holding - the attention of your customers and clients. Sure, not every different media is going to suit every kind of narrative or every kind of customer and certainly, a frenzied spray gun approach is not going to work either. But if you don’t explore new ideas and fresh ways of doing things in a strategic considered way, you could miss out on opportunities to expand the reach of what you have to say.

For more on interactive online dramas, take a look at What happens next…? where “Each of our show’s episodes ends with a decision for you to make and your vote determines the direction of the series itself.”

This post is part of my occasional series on Digital Narratives. If you are a fan of any online dramas or other digital narratives/ stories or if you’d like to share your views/ reviews of online storytelling, please add a comment and let me know.

dignar

Ever since the start of this year, I’ve been working like mad on my third book, the business book on New Trends in International Public Relations. It’s been fascinating exploring the web in search of great examples of how businesses and individuals are using blogs and other social media and also making contact with bloggers and others to interview them for their views and experiences of using social media tools for communications. But it’s been very “full on” and exhausting as I’ve been working on the book at weekends and on my days off as well as following up contacts in the evenings after work or during my lunch hour. I’ve now got one more chapter - the rounding up and final views chapter - before I finish the first draft.

So I’m taking a break from the book for the next couple of months.

I’m really enjoying having the time to do a bit more of my own blogging, which I’ve neglected somewhat due to all my time being taken up with the book. I’ve also got into reading books again - having spent almost a year, maybe more, reading blogs, newspapers and magazines to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in fast-moving world of social media. What books I have read related almost entirely to blogging, marketing and social media so I’m really enjoying indulging my eclectic and varied taste again. I’ve recently finished the e-book version of 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, a social history of that tumultous year and an audiobook of 1776: America and Britain at War, a history of the critical year of the American Revolution and I am currently reading Steven Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought:: Language as a Window into Human Nature (Penguin Press Science), about how our use of language reveals the way we view or construct the world. And my poor garden that has been unloved for so long is finally getting some love and attention - it’s been great getting out there, pruning and chopping and mucking around in the dirt, getting it looking tidy and lovely again.

Hopefully, the break will give me perspective on what I’ve written so far and help me with forming my conclusion for the upcoming final chapter. It’ll also mean that I can go back to the book refreshed and rested and ready for the next stage, which is reviewing and editing the first draft into a more publishable form. After that is stage three, which is to review with my co-author Silvia Cambie both my parts of the book and hers and work with her to sew the patchwork of the two manuscripts into one cohesive whole, ready to be delivered to our publisher, Kogan Page, in November.

Photo: thanks to Gianluca Neri from flickr.com (CCL)

Fred Dervin, a Finnish professor in cross-cultural studies at the University of Turku in Finland has included my podcast Two Voices in a paper on Dissociation and Complex Interculturality - You can dowload* the pdf here and go to page 7.

Grace Chin of the University of Hong Kong has referred to my books in her paper on The Anxieties of Authorship in Malaysian and Singaporean Writings in English: Locating the English Language Writer and the Question of Freedom in the Postcolonial Era - you can download* her paper here

Tamara Wagner of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore gave a paper on my books at the 2005 at the international conference on the Chinese Diasporic and Exile Experience organised by the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Zurich - you can see an abstract of her paper here. Professor Wagner also delivered a paper on A Passion for Other Lovers: The Transformation of Occidentalist Stereotyping in Ooi Yang-May’s Fictionalisation of Malaysia a the international conference on Overcoming Passions: Race, Religion and the Coming Community in Malaysia organised by the Asia Research Institute, Singapore, 11-12 October 2004) - not currently available for download.

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