It’s NOT The End.
[Long Entry Ahead]
As you guys probably know by now, I didn’t make it to the Top 10 #WCI ! Am I disappointed ? Perhaps a little but I’m sure there are reasons why the final 10 is the final 10 and there’s nothing much to ‘cry over’ since I’ve tried my best and it has been a fun experience. So not to worry about me, like I said – your same old @iammyy here !
Getting into Final 23s was already a bonus to me – to think that I’ve never quite considered joining this in the first place to coming up with the last minute post just because my friends around me were like ‘Come on ! Just give it a go ! It’s so you please!” to finding out that I was in the Final 23 among the thousand over applicants to rushing out a video in the middle of the night after school with my closest bunch of friends till 4am. What more can I ask for ? I would have never experience all these without trying in the first place ! So thank you @StanChartBreeze for the opportunity !
To answer some questions I’ve received so far :
1) How did you get into Top 23 ? I have no idea ! Perhaps I was the wildcard ? (haha) But all I did was blog – shared on 3 platforms and waited. Nothing special in particular (I did not use the $100 GoogleAd credit as well)
2) Did you have a strategy ? Obviously not ! I was rather last minute (my bad) since school is still my first priority afterall !
3) I was reading your old entries, do you have a boyfriend ? What a personal question, but not anymore and not looking ! Enjoy my life, focusing on school/career. Happy to have my family+friends around ! Romantic relationships can wait I guess ? haha
4) What’s next ? Continue my undergrad life and hopefully end it by next April ! Grabbing any opportunities along the way when it comes =) AND this will be my last WCI-related post for sure !
5) I really like your AOTW posts ! Thank You ! I think that’s the only thing I can be proud of as a ‘blogger’. Haha !
Here I am, after a much needed rest (lack of >3hrs sleep for the past few days is no joke). Just wanna briefly thank each and everyone who supported me for this #WCI competition ! Something I doodled within 15 minutes…There’s a reason why my Design School lecturer gave me C- for drawing ok! =P
Thank You to the Mak family for understanding, especially when I contributed the most to the electricity bill (haha!) Esp to my elder sister, Hilda for her support on the other side of the Great Firewall (yes, she’s currently in Beijing).
Next would be you readers, friends on twitter, facebook and plurk for the never-ending flow of support and encouragement ! Every single retweet/plurk/message counts and because of all these platforms, I’ve met many wonderful new friends. Thank You for all the opportunities and kind words! It has been an amazing journey since I first designed my website on Geocities and now, I have my own blog with growing number of readers. Really a motivation to continue blogging and knowing that there are people who actually like to read my entries! Thank You once again !
These are the people whom I’ve been with for the past 3+ years and despite the fact that I dislike school (who doesn’t !?) I am glad I’ve made wonderful friends in there. Special thanks to those who spared that few minutes to write a message and be publicly featured on my #WCI video ! Week 13…HANG IN THERE PEOPLE ! It’ll be my final term next year, will miss everyone alot ! Not forgetting the wonderful seniors who are busy working but not forgetting to drop me words of encouragement too !
Last but not least, this is the bunch of people whom I can never thank enough. My other family ! People who shared my tears and joy along the way, who helped me no matter how busy they are, who shared stupid jokes and giggled at everything, who stayed with me in school till 4am to finish up the video and a spontaneous marketing team till 7am, who flooded the rest of their network with my links/video in the middle of the night, who made sure I am fed all the time and had enough rest – not forgetting not to skip school (lol), who gave me words of support and much needed hugs when I feel like breaking down/giving up. You guys know who you are =) They have been the biggest support in my entire 4 years of SMU life and the friendships I’ve made in the club is something I’ll always treasure. Thank You everyone in SMUBE =) *sniff*
There’s just so many things to say and people to thank but I’ll stop here before everyone dies from my ugly handwriting and drawing..Once again, Thank You for being part of my life ! Cone Testicles all !
<3
p.s : sorry to disappoint you guys =( no treats from me…..hahahahaha *runs away*
Challenge Accepted ! Difficulty Level #23
First of all, a BIG THANK YOU for all my friends aka readers who supported my (rather) last minute blog post to join the hunt for World’s Coolest Intern ! You should have seen the look on my face when I sat down at McDonald’s with my salt-less fries and turned on my laptop, welcomed by this flood of ‘CONGRATS!’ msgs without knowing what’s going on. Took me awhile to figure out what’s going on and *BAM* – it felt like someone just announced my name ‘Ingrid Mak‘ as Miss World 2010 *sniffles -waves- sniffs* moment. Haha!
Kinda surprised to be on the Top 23 list along with other brilliant candidates whom I’d never imagine to categorize myself with…like I said in my application entry, competition is tough and I wasn’t very confident to begin with – definitely lose out on the technical skills and not having a fanbase (But hey ! I have an awesome FRIENDbase) It is a pleasant surprise to see my name on Breeze’s blog (and damn,I should have changed my twitter DP if I knew it would be on the blog..haha) Quite an honor to be part of this Top 23 finalists as World’s Coolest Intern – quite a personal achievement already (If my parents are reading this – now you can stop nagging about me wasting time infront of the computer and bringing home only the electricity bills ! hehs) and definitely an early birthday gift to start the month right !
So what happens after being on the Top 23 ? Nothing ! (Ok, maybe I’m just still quite clueless what’s expected of me at this stage….lol)
[Update : Oh, a video post is required ! Hmm...I will....sleep on it. (Don't you know sleeping on a problem is the best method? hur.)]
But you can expect my regular Artist Of The Week (AOTW) posts, an awesome HP party post coming up and more…not forgetting a casual reminder to support my birthday wish ! *coughs*
Pretty much still the same old me who will blog what I want to say…not going to pay extra attention on the way I blog or the language..and I will not hesitate to say this to my readers….”I CONE TESTICLES *which refers to <3s aka hearts* YOU(s)!” =P Like I said, same old @iammyy !
P.S : If you’re on twitter,
if 140 characters is too difficult to understand – basically tweet to “@stanchartbreeze (inserts reason why I should win) #wci” ! Thanks =)
Once again, whether I make it to the final 2 or not – I want to thank everyone for the well wishes and support ! Not forgetting the new friends I’ve made through this…was nice to see other candidates congratulating each other and those who unfortunately didn’t meet the cut to wish the final 23s best of luck. It’s not just about a competition…There’s still love all around =) *awww*
[In addition : Sorry to those who are following me - I know my #WCI posts and tweets are probably getting annoying and flooding your timeline...but please don't love me any less ? ^^]
World’s Coolest Intern…Perhaps ?
I know, the original deadline was 15th October. It took me this long to figure what I wanted to blog about, I’ve seen professional-looking videos, amazingly written resume-like posts, visually pleasing entries…let’s just say, the competition is tough, not just within the social media circle ! Suddenly, the mainstream media was talking all about this internship – even the aunties in the market heard of this ‘S$30,000′ internship. I was really cracking my head to come up with something that would made me stand out among the applicants and yet not too ‘superficial’ or ‘extravagant’…so till the last day (which is today) – I decided to just blog like how I’d normally do – being myself is always the best choice!
No one person is perfect – it is important for employers to find out the strengths that’s required for a position and find someone who is ‘world class’ in these areas despite certain weakness in the less important domains. I may not be the best (knowing there are many out there who might be better than me academically or with pages long resume..hur) but I do think I’m up for this challenge and it will not be just a job but self-discovering learning experience for me (like how my other internships have been).
Just earlier this year, I was thinking of my future career path and looking for new learning experience and this opportunity came along! Not only is the job scope attractive (Events+Social Media = What more can I ask for!) and a brand new industry (Working in a bank is like the ultimate dream for most SMU students but reality check : No non-finance/business student will apply for a banking job with a <50% success rate) AND perfect timing since I’m graduating next April !
Instead of pleading or hard-selling myself like many others (since you can pretty much figure out from my blog/facebook/tweets/social media platforms/getting to know me better when we do meet..lol), I will just share my views on #WorldCoolestIntern. Needless to say this is an amplifying marketing tactic and it has certainly maximize conversations in social ecospheres. Not only there’s a product tie-in (the iPhone app ‘Breeze‘ ), the excitement of this competition was buzz worthy (be it negative or positive) and increased traffic, not only in terms of this campaign alone I’m sure. In HR perspective, I think by searching for someone in the blogosophere allowed the team to see one’s personality and passion as well – it’s not always about popularity (though of course it still plays a part, aka traffic). Honestly six months is not enough to accomplish anything concrete but that being said, the intern will definitely learn from the guidance he/she would receive.
On a side note that is unrelated to my application, I think Social Media is a wonderful platform and the next big thing for HR executives to pay attention to. Look at DIGG‘s case and you’ll understand why. Such a warm ‘buzzy’ feeling I get reading those tweets to help those in need ! =)
–
Cutting the long story short, 5 reasons why I think I deserve a chance to be with the Breeze Team :
I.AM.MYY and IAM….
1. Serious Fun : Always a balance between having fun and being serious at work
2. Leader-Follower : I love being in a team but I am self-driven to achieve my goals
3. Conventionally Quirky : I believe in rules but there’ll always be twists in life to make things more exciting
4. Illogically logical : There’s no such thing as impossible – we humans make illogical decisions and claim we’re logical anyways!
5. ‘Barney Stinson’ : Ordinarily AWESOME…and challenge accepted ! *Ok, I admit I’m a TV junkie too*
Can’t end the post without featuring a song…and secretly wishing the team will start singing Fefe Dobson’s ‘I Want you’
“Now let me say it again,I want you…I’m gonna gonna make you mine!“
so “just see what we could be“… and fingers crossed ? 
If I were a Swede…
Food for Thought : If you were a Swede living in China and looking at the countries around you, how would you communicate across national, cultural, linguistic and technological boundaries?
Looking at this question from a personal perspective, as a ‘partial-foreigner’ myself in Singapore (I came over in primary 2), I understand the pain that one has to deal with when it comes to a new environment. To put it simply, let’s break them down into 3 main challenges.
Speak thy language
Interestingly, the very first obstacle that comes to everyone’s minds is probably the language factor – which I won’t deny that it’s going to be a huge issue if you can’t even utilize the language that the country you’re residing is using. However, I believe that language can be easily picked up and with the help of technology and tools such as NJStar CJK Viewer and Firefox plugins that makes things easier.
Power of Weak Ties
We’re lucky that Singapore is a country that supports multiculturalism. China is known for its strong nationalism which unified the people and its culture. It is important to understand one’s culture, be it via blogs that fellow foreigners living in China share or researching via travelling sites from a tourist’s point of view or even finding fellow Swedes in China via social networking sites. Do your homework ! At the same time, it is important to keep an open mind to other’s opinions as it may differ from your own experience. Embrace and respect one’s culture and you’ll learn that it is not too difficult to be welcomed into the community.
The Great Firewall
As much as censorship is concerned in China, I won’t say that China is not open up to technological advancement but perhaps in their own ways. Looking at the list of ’60 Best Blogs on China in English, it may seem like Google-China case is not going to affect the social media scene as much as the outsiders would assume. Who are we (or Google) to claim that China is wrong ? Instead, I think we should start exploring their internal networks and reach out to the various target audience from there. It’s all about connecting with the right people.
From a business pespective, in several decades to come, China or just in general – Asia will emerge as the primary growth market for the world. Looking at this economic reality, how do one or a company position himself/itself better in Asia? I believe that there’s no tailored solution or template to follow as how Professor Dan Ryun Chang puts it and having a Pan-Asian Strategy might hurt your business in the long run.
To sum it up, it is about an open mind, basic respect and mutual understanding.
Find out more about communicating across Asia, click here !
–
Note : If you’re wondering why the sudden post after annoucing a ‘Time Out’, this is an assignment for my Digital Media Across Asia Module. Thank You !
Good Enough Is Not Good Enough
A friend replied to my earlier tweet :
“Why go for good enough when you have a better option before you?”
His reply ?
“@iammyy cos life is simple like that. good enough is really enough.”
Let me clarify something, I don’t disagree with his statement that sometimes (or rather, most of the time) – good enough is really enough.
However, let us all remember that just good enough does not equate to
- Low quality – this is not an excuse to produce low quality work
- Poor effort – it’s about efficiency and not having a ‘heck care’ attitude
I believe that you don’t begin planning with a ‘good enough’ mindset but instead, set realistic benchmarks and identify those unrealistic ones so that you will know when ‘good enough is enough’. What sets it apart is “tried-my-best-good-enough job” and “half-assed work”.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes if that’s what stopping you, it’s just part of the growth and process. Nothing is flawless in my opinion, so embrace your mistakes and learn.
Don’t be mistaken. I’m not a perfectionist.
If I strive for perfection, I don’t think I’ll get any blog posts out anyways ! (HAHA)
Your own radio station ? Holy Blip !
I’ve joined blip.fm since 17th Sept last year and so far, I’m really loving it.
I meant to blog about blip ages ago and go into details but let’s just keep it short and simple.
8 reasons why i love blip.fm :
- It is like the best bit of last.fm+twitter all rolled into one.
- It has a realtime feed of what other “DJ”s are listening to.
- It is personal/interactive because you pick the music for your playlist and you get to reblip others.
- It encourages “value-system” – it requires contributions from its members in order to benefit from the others in the society.
- It has an idiot-proof interface and system – just search and *tadah*, there you go!
- It has a built-in virality and a good feedback system.
- It has alot of “undiscovered” artistes, oldies and radio hits shared by others.
- It is addictive – it’s almost becoming a habit for me to share my music pick everyday.
What I really liked about blip is that it directly updates my tumblr and twitter to allow others to see what I’m listening to.
Most of the time I’ll also plurk about my blips as my “music of the day” plurk. I guess it’s a good way to share great music found online and so far I spend at least half an hour on blip.fm to look for good songs and am getting props/positive feedbacks on my music taste – which really is quite an ego booster. (HAHA) 
Sure, there are many music sharing sites out there and probably better ones. But Blip.fm is still my favourite as of now. Do give it a try (c’mon, it’s not like you don’t have 9867545122 different accounts out there already) and let me know what you think about it ? 
Speaking of music, I’m planning on adding a new “element” to this blog. Keep a lookout for my little project! =)
