Forget ‘success’? ‘Contribution’? Like Mother Theresa?

Then it all made sense.

All our lives we’ve been told to be ‘successful’ and ‘over-achieve’ (a default if you’re a Singaporean). Our success is measured on the kind of education that we receive, the grades we hauled home, the jobs we land, the lifestyle we adopt and the property we live in. A very singular pursuit indeed.

Nothing wrong with personal wealth and accolades (perhaps some of you contributed a few million dollars to your company’s bottom line that enriched the lives of your colleagues.) But can we do more? Can we make a daily difference to the lives of others? Can we help others achieve and replicate our own success stories? Can we contribute meaningfully?

Success Through Contribution

No debate, we are part of a society, surrounded by family, friends, colleagues and even strangers. Hence, I truly believe it is only natural that our success is measured through our contribution to others around us. Remember that war movies’ refrain? ‘Leave no one behind’. Drucker is right, only if we ‘contribute first, achieve later’, will we be able to collectively move forward.

As a society, as an organisation (commercial or otherwise), as a generation. And what’s a great way to contribute? Sharing. Believe and do it often enough, it becomes natural (just like on Facebook).

The good news: the tools of contribution and sharing are already in place and in our hands.

Here’s a little of my story.

How I Caught Up With the World

I had dropped out of film school at 19, spent the next 8 years on concert stages and in theatre halls, ran a pioneering music label startup for a while and finally landed my first corporate job at Oracle at 28. I was off the starting line but it felt like I was really late to the corporate game. I needed to grow fast!

To make things even more interesting, I started school again. I believed I needed a formal education in corporate business and marketing. Again, I felt late to the game (although running a startup did impart some key learning, for instance, listening to customers is really important.)  I needed knowledge fast!

No surprises here. I looked around the internet (circa 2007) and instantly felt ‘a new social movement’ brewing. The music label business I had ran with the wife was built on the back of the internet and Myspace (I have been online since mIRC (1996)), but this was different. Blogs were really coming into prominence, social networks were coming into life and suddenly, opinionated content are being shared everywhere! It felt like everyone decided to come onto the internet and ‘do something’ (*my theory on this digital tsunami? Generation Y’s coming of age + Generation X’s late adopters finally discovered the lure of social networks)

So with all these contributing of knowledge and sharing of content, there can only be one obvious outcome:

Learning on The Social Internet

If I needed an honest and reliable opinion on a marketing topic, I didn’t need to look further than the blogs of industry experts, even the self-proclaimed ones. The thinkers among them usually have links to academic research I could follow through and the active ones are typically discussing relevant and current issues of the day. Beats learning about business and marketing from an academic textbook (typically a year behind reality).

Need to get a grasp of the news-worthy developments every morning? I discovered my own Twitter community and has since been served with news and fresh knowledge daily by others who share the same passion or industrial affiliation.

Want to know what others are reading and find useful for learning? Try social bookmark service, Delicious.

Need answers to difficult questions on business, technology or any knowledge area you fancy? Ask on LinkedIn Answers. Someone somewhere will be happy to help you out.

Want ‘free’ carefully-researched academic papers or presentations? Try Slideshare or Scribd.

As long as we keep sharing openly and meaningfully on the social internet as I have discussed, I am certain we are all contributing to others around us, enriching their lives and collectively move forward.

Social Sharing is Your Contribution to The Lives of Others

Let’s get personal. Recently, I completed and earned my first degree, a First Class Hons in Marketing Management, at the ripe old age of 31. For a teenage dropout, I suppose that’s a big accomplishment. I am sharing this with you because, apart from my family and my circle of friends, you have contributed immensely to my learning experience and my achievements.

I can only thank the many people (some are friends, most are strangers) who blogged on topics that enriched my learning, posted academic papers on Slideshare or Scribd, shared links to rich content on Twitter, engaged in tweet conversations with me, and gave encouragement and support on Facebook and through this blog.

Since this is my professional and personal blog, I hope you will allow me to archive some highlights of my academic adventure. I hope this will also be a showcase of that experience, to show that my methodology in learning and knowledge gathering through social means can be easily replicated and, hopefully, will contribute to someone else’s achievements.

Berita Harian, Tuesday, 29 June 2010 : National Malay-language daily newspaper, front page header and page 3 article (click to enlarge) MyPaper, Tuesday, May 18, 2010 : Nationally-distributed daily newspaper Click to download and view quote A central theme in my convocation speech (pg. 5) touched on the virtues of open social sharing, especially in knowledge and collaborative work. Convocation Speech, Northumbria University, 22 May 2010

So how about sharing your experience on social sharing? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments.

Look Who’s Back

For the second year running, the folks from Six Degrees are back to present Social Media World Forum Asia 2010 in Singapore. This year’s event promises to be bigger than last year’s and will present a host of speakers from many sides of the social media story.

Among the many distinguished speakers I look forward to hearing are:

Brian Solis : Acclaimed original thought leader on social media and writer of the new book ‘Engage’

Blake Chandlee : VP & Commercial Director at Facebook, EMEA

Thomas Crampton : Asia Pacific Director, 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Shalabh Pandey: Leading digital marketing personality in Asia. Author and founder of Chasingthestorm

I Am Interested in

What I really am excited about is to hear how businesses are transforming their organisations through embracing ‘social media’ within their organisations. Or is it all merely outwardly PR- and marketing-focused? What are the initiatives taken by business leaders to empower their employees to engage in social media? Is it ‘See & No Touch’ approach? Have they built ‘social media-like’ infrastructures in their organisations to facilitate social conversations and learning? Are their employees allowed to be on ‘social media’ in the office?

After all, ‘social media’ is really all about ‘online conversations around bits of information and new learning’.

I look forward to meeting these folks in person with these ‘difficult questions’.

Derek Yeo : Head of Marketing, Tiger Airways

Pooja Arora : Brand Manager, P&G

Jeremy Khoo : Deputy Director, Marketing & Communication, NTUC Fairprice

Disclosure: A Groovyweb will be at the two-day forum as an official blogger, courtesy of Six Degrees. If you would like to follow the live coverage of the event, follow me on Twitter via @ismantanuri

The hot topic of discussion in the social web right now is Facebook’s push towards becoming a more public platform and its ‘shenanigans’ with your privacy. There is now an organised movement (QuitFacebookDay.com) that has earmarked May 31st as D-Day. For a better idea of what has changed on Facebook, I suggest you have a look at the informative graphic below. PC World has a good article that outlines Facebook’s open social strategy too.

The Open Web is The Future Web

Without a doubt, I am all for an open web. I keep my Facebook profile public and I do not shy away from sharing most parts of my life on the web. I believe the more we are willing to share, the better our experience with the web will be and the more knowledgeable and useful the internet will become. Note this: I chose to be open.

I am blogging this in response to Daphne Maia’s own post ‘Privacy Has Been Long Dead. Mark Zuckerberg Didn’t Steal It’. Daphne made some great points that I agree big-heartedly, including:

• Facebook still remains a juggernaut in our lives. Our friends and family are in there and it is a great platform for businesses with over 400 million Facebook users to tap. How will we ever let go?
• Facebook is a “structured blog..within a big big community” and more (eg. games, online shopping, news, etc). I agree with Daphne here that Facebook’s main draw is its blog-like feature, a space to share with people on your network. There are really an abundance of things to do on Facebook. (FarmVille anyone?)
• ‘Facebook users need to learn how to: exercise gumption and exercise discretion’. I agree wholeheartedly. Very important. I have seen so many sharing failures on Twitter (an even more public platform) that I sometimes wonder if people ever realised they are being watched and read.

But my stand and opinion differ from Daphne’s here on on a large part of her observation and belief. Disclaimer (if one is required): Daphne and I are friends, online and in real life. Friends can disagree, yes? :)

Not Everyone Is Schooled in Social. Open Social.

Daphne knows the value of social media, just as I do. We are communication professionals who know how to control the message. The what, where and when to let it out. We share and blog ‘smartly’, we behave appropriately online (Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, you name it, we’re on it!) and we ‘game’ the system to build our own personal brands, consciously or otherwise (Daphne on Google).

But not everyone is as well-versed as us. That is the very real reality. Despite all the goodness of being open and social online, not everyone understands it and not everyone wants it. And that is essentially a basic right of the consumer that has to be respected.

In the long run, I would love to have everyone contribute to the open web but, realistically, that time is still much far off. Lots of education and understanding is needed to move people on the same open-thinking platform, perhaps only with the next generational change even. But for now, we, marketers and communicators, must respect consumers’ rights in wanting to protect their personal profiles and data. That can only be a positive prelude to a much more open relationship with consumers in the future.

Facebook: Rogue Business Practices?

Facebook’s success is fuelled by the rate of adoption and use by the masses. It sold us the idea and premise of a “private social network” to connect with “friends and family”. It has a secured, login-required platform that even Google’s mighty spiders do not have access to. And that was the pretext of joining Facebook for most people. Share your photos and thoughts, say Facebook, and shared away we did. We did not even care if Facebook owns our data for eternity. Why? Because there was ‘CONTROL’. Easily-manipulated controls over our profiles and what was to be shared with others. (There are now 50 settings with 170 options in Facebook’ privacy settings. Can YOU figure it out?)

Daphne made a point: ‘What makes the content you publish on Facebook so differentiated (in terms of privacy) from the content you would put on your blog?’ On the contrary, THAT is exactly the reason why most people on Facebook don’t keep an open personal blog. Instead they trust Facebook to keep their sharing and profiles private within their inner circle. They add friends very very carefully. These folks want to have control over their online profiles and engagements and Facebook offered this great and innovative solution. A ‘friends and family-only’ network. We have to respect this right to remain private as much as we expect others’ not to go through our personal belongings.

The Erosion of Trust

Do you think there is a trust issue here?

In business, trust is everything. Facebook is a business. One that earns from advertisers and 3rd party developers, but the way Facebook is pushing its open social platform forward (way too prematurely, I think) in a daredevil, yet blasé manner, I am not sure if they are building upon the trust granted by its users. People are leaving already. Robert Scoble, despite his arguments for going all-out public on Facebook (with a very public profile with public data. Because Scoble does not trust Facebook with his private data), suggests splitting Facebook into two: one private and one public. Scoble obviously knows the value of trust within the every day republic. Read more on Scoble’s suggestions to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s CEO)

In Facebook’s pursuit to compete with Google and Twitter (both being very public and open platforms) in chasing the advertising dollars, where, I wonder, is the respect for its users that have kept its platform alive and well? Remember, Myspace, once mighty, now languishes, feebly.

Do Not Lose Control of Your Consumer’s Rights

As the graphic illustration below shows, much has changed on Facebook. For me personally, and I agree with Daphne on this, privacy on the web remains an elusive endeavour. As long as you use somebody’s online asset, be it Google, Twitter, Hotmail, etc., your privacy remains at their mercy. Even Steve Jobs got his emails outed in public. Another thing, are we, online users, a part of a huge market research data pool for advertisers? You bet and I don’t care!

But what should remain always yours is your control over your personal profile and your data. As an online consumer, you have the right to make choices on who receives your data and who has the right to capitalise commercially on it.  But should every online move we make be granularly tracked and sold on to 3rd party services without our permission? I’m not keen. Just because someone in my network is playing FarmVille does not mean Zygna (FarmVille’s developer) has the right to access my profile and those of my friends’ and family. That is an outright abuse of trust.

In fact, one of the main reason why I remain on the fence about staying put on Facebook, is that I feel uncomfortable exposing my family and friends’ privacy (those who still value them) and profile data through my very public Facebook page. I chose to be public because I believe in openness but at what cost? Now it seems being public and open is such a selfish thing to do.

So Will I be leaving Facebook too?

I don’t know as yet. I know it is hypocritical if I stick around in Facebook, but much is at stake (including my professional needs) so I would like to look at options and solutions. But for a start, I will look at how I will now interact with Facebook and how I can move my personal relationships within my network beyond Facebook.

For those who treasure and are still pursuing online privacy, Gina Trapani’s Online Privacy: Check Yourself (Before Your Wreck Yourself)  is a good read and outlines what steps to take. When I get home tonight, I will be looking at the service Youropenbook.org. As explained by PC World in the article ‘Facebook Privacy: Secrets Unveiled’, there are so many personal stories, some damning, to be found on Facebook that has been publicly published, unknowingly.

But I am sure you won’t miss me if I do leave Facebook. Want to keep in touch with me? Here’s my Google public profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/isman.tanuri This is the truth, nothing but the truth.

And I’m in control.

Share your thoughts on this Facebook and privacy issue. Are you still keen on Facebook now? Which side are you on?

Graphic above originally found at: http://s3.moveon.org/images/with_dims/facebook-graphic-1.3_750x615.png (Courtesy of @lucian on Twitter)

The Attraction of Swedish Meatballs

In all honesty, I had earlier started on a post about how Fika Cafe excites me with its niche business idea: halal Swedish cuisine in Singapore, a rarity indeed. Couple that with a major culinary disappointment for Muslim food lovers/hunters over the years: Ikea’s Swedish meatballs (they contain pork which is forbidden in a Muslim’s diet). Because those who had them, have been talking about them for years! It is a gilded gap in the market and Fika is on to it. Fantastic so far.

Then something happened. My close friend (whom I had introduced to Fika via Facebook) had a confirmed reservation (made in person!) double-booked, 20 mins before breaking of fast (its the Muslim month of Ramadan). She was turned away with mere apologies. What really didn’t sit in well was the fact that the staff who attended to her did nothing more than merely saying “really sorry”. There was no attempt to find a solution, or have them on priority once a table clears or to simply ask for contact info to make up for what happened. So when I stumbled on a fitting post by Fika in my FB stream, I left a note about this matter. I kept in mind to be as objective as possible, as I care that a new business will need all the help it can get to tread the 2.0 waters. Click on image below for an enlarged view of my comments, captured earlier.

Fika did reply to my initial comment and so did others. Some in support of Fika and others who agreed with me. Fair enough, but I was really happy that Fika responded and engaged. It showed that they are savvy with this.

So, this was a new story that I wanted to blog about, so I began drafting a new post to say how well Fika Cafe has done in connecting and engaging its customers/fans online via their Facebook Fan Page. I was impressed with this, the direct replies to their FB fans, the genuine concern and their public promise ‘to make it up to me’. (However, at time of this post, I have not heard from them. I am still interested in a friendly chat.)

The Horror!

While trying to get screen captures for this post, I discovered something which made my heart skipped a beat. My comments on Fika’s Facebook page were deleted! There were at least 6 other comments in that deleted post. Another fan’s post, an ‘Erin Syahnaz Bangi’, which touched on her disappointment of a recent visit, was deleted too, along with 2-3 other posts from Fika’s fans, in response to me, who commented on the excellent service and experience they had received.

(Click to enlarge view)

The realisation that I, along with others, was censored in free speech didn’t feel good. Not at all.

Nonetheless, I do agree that Fika is free to do as they wish on their online properties.

Voices in the Social Economy

We are all aware that the online identity is an extension of your offline self. Same goes for a business. More important than online commerce, it is a PR tool. Hence, all conduct is scrutinised, a recent case in point being Microsoft’s Photoshop fiasco. Therefore, I can only conclude that it is important for businesses to remain open and transparent with customers or stakeholders, especially when engaged in social media. Any discernible actions deemed negative will be amplified and passed on to the next listener.

Is it any good to be all too transparent? In the age of corporate social responsibility (CSR), this is all the more important.

Again, let me use Zappos as an example. Try visiting twitter.zappos.com. Any mention of “Zappos” by anyone in Twitter-verse gets streamed on this page. Good or bad, its all exposed and open. They have an Employee Tweet page too. With 474 tweeting employees to date, you can certainly have a feel of what goes on in Zappos HQ.

What Went Wrong

In Fika’s case above, censoring comments is akin to saying “thanks for chatting, noted, but let’s keep these away”. If there is an open Facebook Fan Page to comment on, then these comments should stick. Be open, but consistency is important too. Also, what are the justifications for deleting these comments? I personally believe comments are delete-able only if foul language, personal insults or insensitivity to religions are involved. Otherwise, its fair game. And if there’s a real need to delete, then send a note to explain the action and why it is necessary. Be accountable for action, a CSR mandate.

Perhaps the comments struck a nerve with someone at Fika. But the only way to respond to bad criticisms is to respond positively (remember word-of-mouth is powerful.)

This is the problem, in reality, Fika did really well in responding and very positively at that. The Fika comments would have been a good positive indication of whom the people behind the brand are. To me, they seem genuine and honest. But regrettably the comments have all but disappeared. I can’t show them to you and I can’t speak more good things about them. Its an opportunity lost for free and good publicity.

Here’s a quote from Seth Godin’s ‘Spare No Expense’: ‘The way around it, I think, is to set expectations early and often. If you’re going to give me your phone number, you better answer it. If you’re going to offer a warranty, you better honor it. If you position yourself as a company with real people eager to make every single person happy–you better deliver.’

PS. Still looking forward to some halal Swedish meatballs.