a groovyweb by isman tanuri

When Jason Parker wrote to ask if he could use an academic work of mine for his Social Media appreciation class at the University of Chicago Graham School of General Studies, I was thrilled. It also dawned upon me that social media is certainly worth all that time and effort.

How did Jason, Adjunct Professor at University of Chicago and Planning Director at Leo Burnett and quite possibly on the exact opposite of the world, discover ‘Role of Social Media in Contemporary Marketing’, an ‘obscure’ literature review I had completed only last September?

Social media.

And how did I make that happen?

Social media.

I had sowed ample digital opportunities where Jason and others could have found this piece of work. And this is how I did it.

Slideshare & Scribd

I had shared this literature review (an extract from the full Final Year Professional Project I had to accomplish for undergrad studies) on Slideshare and Scribd since last September.

Here are the stats, so far:

996 views + 100 downloads on Slideshare

667 views + 115 downloads on Scribd

Impressive numbers, I guess, for a ‘non-viral’ academic work.

So why did I choose to publish and share my work online? Am I not afraid of it being plagiarised or copied?

The answer is ‘No’. If it isn’t for the openness and the acts of mutual sharing all over the Internet, we’d still be visiting libraries every day, painfully looking for stored manuscripts and hidden knowledge. Or my work would still be languishing in my hard drive, waiting to be ‘nostalgically re-discovered’ a few years down the road. (Technologically, there are restrictions in place on both Slideshare and Scribd to protect your work.)

Jason Parker does it too. See Jason’s slide deck for his first class lecture on Slideshare.

Also, as many people increasingly continue to come online and partake in digital citizenship, I am one who believes that digital personal branding has an increased importance in today’s society and it is the ‘invisible edge’ that is needed to move ahead of the pack. Be it in social circles or, most certainly, for professional opportunities.

Sharing your interests and expertise on social media is one way to do this.

Blog It

I had also blogged about this literature review earlier. I am certain the format of the study (literature review), combined with the timely relevance of the subject matter, had provided enough search engine optimisation (SEO) for my initial blog post to be found. In fact Google searches on ‘literature review social media’ and ‘role of social media in contemporary marketing’ brought up my blog and literature review pretty high on the list. As they say ‘Content is Always King’.

Jason Parker does it too. You can follow Jason on his Social Media Class blog as he updates his class on a regular basis, the social media-way.

Others have also found my work. To date, I have received emails from two current students of Northumbria University in the UK asking for my full project (which I have refused for obvious reasons, it is about effort and interaction, guys). However, I had provided enough ideas and direction for them to accomplish their undergrad tasks.

I have also connected with Susan Schwendener, a fellow communications practitioner, from Jason’s class. The possibilities are endless on social media.

What Price is Social Media Sharing?

I really hope Jason’s certificate program class ‘Insights and Opportunities in Social Media’ had enjoyed reading the literature review distributed during their Week 1 class. Gives me the chills.

So what did I ask for in return for sharing my intellectual property?

What else but an endorsement in social media currency!

Jason kindly provided me with a LinkedIn endorsement that is viewable by my current and future prospective employers as well as my peers. The permanency and transparency of this and my other LinkedIn endorsements ensures that my professional profile, accomplishments and body of work is as truthful as I present it to be.

Read more about leveraging on LinkedIn for bloggers at Online Media Gazette or how to use LinkedIn to your professional and commercial advantage (via NateRiggs.com)

Acknowledgements

To Jason Parker for extending the opportunity to share what I’ve gained.

And to Erik Yek, my undergrad tutor at the Marketing Institute of Singapore, for the guidance and patience.

Here again is the literature review ‘Role of Social Media in Contemporary Marketing’. You may wish to download the PDF for later viewing or scroll through the presentation below.

Tell me what you think in the comments?

Are we really a First World country with a world-class service industry serving the economy? Certainly not if our still unresolved issue with Singapore Post (SingPost) is a yardstick for measurement. A simple request for Singapore Post to re-deliver my wife’s parcel (containing online purchases of clothes from Forever 21) has dragged on for almost 3 weeks with no end in sight. Much worse is the customer service treatment we have been receiving at the hands of this monopolistic (we don’t really have a choice, do we?) Singaporean postal service. Truth is: no one at SingPost seems to care!

‘Parcel is Lost in Our Service’ says Singapore Post

The parcel, with a total purchase value of US$385.16, had been declared ‘lost’ by Singapore Post. And this happened while it was in its care! Unbelievable? Unfortunately, this is true, SingPost officially states so in this email and this one too. And for the record, there WAS an attempted parcel delivery to our door step on 30 December 2009 (more on this later). But it seems as though the parcel simply….vanished!

Obviously, we were deeply concerned and wanted this resolved as quickly as possible. As the lost item was a combined purchase between Elisa (my wife) and her friends and acquaintances, it is only right on Elisa’s part, as purchase coordinator, to rectify this quickly. If the parcel is really lost as claimed, then compensation must be made, especially when SingPost has clearly acknowledged losing it. Simple enough? Turns out, not quite.

Ignored by Singpost?

It is painfully obvious from our interactions that Singapore Post does not see any urgency in this matter nor does it feel totally responsible for this blunder. Despite countless calls and information request via emails, no single person at Singapore Post took the initiative or claimed any service responsibility over our case. Read on to find out how SingPost tries to ‘tai chi’ this problem away. (Note: ‘To tai chi’ is Singlish for shifting work or blame to someone else)

Since January 11, Elisa had been making periodic calls to Singapore Post’s customer service hotline to enquire about this parcel. The same mantras were repeated countless times: ‘We are looking into it’, ‘Our operation team is still investigating’, ‘The parcel is still missing’, etc. And she kept being told ‘We will give you a call’, but never heard back from anyone. Not a single call-back came from SingPost in the course of 2 weeks. Unbelievable but true.

This perceived ‘lack of interest’ by SingPost is also evident in email communication. A certain ‘Jacqueline Lim – Senior Manager’ offered to keep a close watch on this case when Elisa spoke to her on January 22. Unfortunately, that did not happen. See the chain of emails that is still unresponded (and possibly ignored by Miss Lim) since January 22.

All Talk, No Action

From January 11 till the 22nd, this case was ‘ping-ponging’ between Singapore Post’s Customer Service team, their Investigation team and quite possibly their Claims Department. It seems like no one wanted to make any decision. If it takes 2 weeks to locate a single physical parcel, then there must be something seriously wrong operationally at SingPost.

Only on January 22, when we demanded immediate concrete action to be taken, was a police report given to us the very same evening (more about discrepancies of this police report later). We deduced it to be SingPost’s way of saying: ‘Yes, we lost your parcel but can you wait in case it turns up so that we don’t have to claim insurance and save some bucks?’

This whole episode, coming hot on the heels of the controversial Singapore Post’s “Acts of Vandalism” publicity stunt that backfired, does make us wonder the quality of decision-making business managers currently helming the company. SingPost is not exactly doing itself any favour here. And to think I had voluntarily proposed a revolutionary business idea to SingPost previously.

Next, I’ll detail a factual rundown of events that led to this blog post.

What Actually Happened

20 December: Elisa and myself left Singapore for a 3-week holiday in the Middle East.

29 December: Parcel arrived in Singapore on 29 December at 3.10pm. View the online tracking report by United States Postal Service for item CJ242179875US (Elisa’s parcel).

30 December: Delivery was attempted on 30 December by owner of mobile no. +6581461087 to our flat in Toa Payoh Central. The following are text messages (signed off as ‘S’pore post’) sent to Elisa on the same day regarding this attempted delivery:

Another text message was also sent on January 2:

31 December: My mom called on my mobile and mentioned that our neighbour, an elderly lady, had contacted her to inform of a postal delivery man at our door the previous day. Our kind neighbour had spoken to the delivery man and that she was ready to ‘make payment’ on our behalf (we found out later that Goods and Services Tax (GST) was due on Elisa’s parcel). However, our neighbour mentioned that the man was nowhere to be found when she returned to the door later with her money bag.

8-9 January: Elisa sent several text messages to +6581461087, but did not receive any reply.

11 January: Elisa made the first call to Singapore Post’s Customer Service to enquire on re-delivering the parcel. She was told that parcel cannot be located and SingPost advised that it will need at least 2 working days to look for the parcel. SingPost assured her that a return call will be made within the next few days.

Text messages and phone calls made to +6581461087 were still not answered. Gave up on that channel of communication.

13 January: No news from Singapore Post. When contacted, SingPost informed that ‘the Operations team is still trying to locate the parcel’. SingPost also mentioned that if the parcel is not found by January 18, a police report will be made in order to initiate claims. We decided to wait it out and requested to SingPost to provide a prompt update by January 18.

18 January: Again zero communication received from Singapore Post. Elisa made a call and told the same thing: ‘the Operations team is still trying to locate the parcel’.

So no police report had been made. When asked when exactly the police report will be filed, the Customer Service Officer  quipped that she had just updated the system for the ‘Operations team’ to file the police report. Ping! Pong! Among other things:

• Was also told that the police report would take THREE working days to complete
• After which the report will go to the Claims Department to look into the matter and handle the proceeding steps Ping! Pong!
• Will be updated via a phone call regarding the police report and claims

I guess Elisa and friends have to wait. Again.

The Singapore Post’s Police Report Mystery!

22 January: Still no update on a late Friday afternoon so we decided to give Singapore Post a call.

No police report had been made! The atrocity!

The SingPost Customer Service officer on the line said ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it and will call you back on Monday’. ‘NO WAY!’ we protested. Eventually, by sheer verbal force, Elisa and yours truly managed to speak to Jacqueline Lim (Senior Manager, Customer Service) and she agreed to file the report so that a compensation claim can be initiated as soon as possible.

Do see the chain of emails here on this. Notice an attempt to delay official action again, despite an earlier verbal agreement with Jacqueline Lim. Elisa highlighted this in her last email reply.

A police report was eventually lodged by SingPost on the same evening and we duly received a copy of this report. Please do view the full copy of this police report.

Now, let’s play detective! Notice the following discrepancies in the police report:

1. Police report was made in the personal name of ‘Ayub Bin Hamzah’. Is this normal practice? I assume this is a safeguard so that Singapore Post, as a business entity, is likely to be absolved from any connection or responsibility in case a criminal offence had been committed.
2. No signature or name and details of police officer-in-charge visible in the report. The informant ‘Ayub Bin Hamzah’ did not sign as well. Extremely odd! I wonder what is the real story here. Anyone familiar with police reports?
3. Look again at the following text message sent by owner of mobile no. +6581461087 on the afternoon of 30 Dec when the parcel was still in his/her possession:

Notice the time and date message was sent and received:

30 December, 2.59pm

Now look at the ‘Time of Incident’ for loss of parcel as stated by Singpost in the police report.

30 December, 11.47am-11.59pm

So Many Questions!

• The parcel was reported/discovered ‘lost’ between those hours when it is obvious that, evidenced through the text messages sent to Elisa, the owner of mobile no. +6581461087 still had the parcel in his possession. Isn’t this downright fishy? A parcel gone missing while being delivered? Should this not be grounds for a criminal investigation?
• Who is the owner of mobile no. +6581461087 anyway? Singapore Post’s official response to us on this query is “We do not know to whom this mobile number belongs to”. ???
• Singapore Post does not keep track of its own delivery men/women? Inconceivable? Apparently so.
• Could the owner of mobile no. +6581461087 be ‘Ayub Bin Hamzah’?
• If parcel was already ‘lost’ on 30 December, why did Elisa receive another text message from +6581461087 on January 2? What was its purpose? There was no other communication after this message.
• How is it possible that a parcel, in SingPost’s care and ready to be delivered to owner, can go missing and untraceable within the space of a week? Aren’t all parcel shipments individually tagged and tracked?
• There was never a ‘Request for Re-delivery’ note left behind at our door by owner of mobile no. +6581461087 or was there ever an official SingPost call made to Elisa to arrange for re-delivery afterwards. Is this an attempt to cover up something?

25 January: No call from SingPost, specifically from the Claims Department.

26 January: Still no call and no news. So Elisa made a direct call to Jacqueline Lim to ask for status of the claims.

Jacqueline’s reply was: ‘Oh, no staff contacted you yesterday? Someone was supposed to call you. Ok, let me try to get hold of someone from the Claims department and have them speak to you.’

We felt really numb by now. Ping! Pong!

Later on a Fadila called, informing Elisa that the claims process will take several days. However, Jacqueline had earlier agreed to resolve the claims process by Monday, January 25. Fadila claimed that she was ‘unaware of this’. Com’mon, SingPost, COMMUNICATE!

When asked to speak to Jacqueline, Fadila informed that she had left for the day and instead a ‘Miss Uma’ would be calling by 9.30pm that evening. Unfortunately, Elisa missed this call. A return call to ‘Miss Uma’ was, however, unanswered.

The Final Straw: Singapore Post Washes Hands and ‘Tai Chis’ Tasks to USA Post, Forever 21 and Us!

27 January: Elisa picked up the phone and called a ‘Miss Umamagasvary – Asst Manager, Customer Relations’ (we theorise that the concept of calling back or following up apparently does not exist in SingPost’s operations manual). In the call, the message communicated by Miss Uma simply astounded us!  Elisa asked that this be documented in an email, which was received promptly. The full copy of the email is available for viewing. Reproduced here is an excerpt from Miss Uma’s email:

Dear Ms Elisa

ENQUIRY ON USA PARCEL NUMBER CJ242179875US

Please refer to your conversation with our call center dated 12 Jan 2010.

We are sorry to inform you that despite a through search, we are unable to locate the parcel. As such, the parcel has been declared as lost in our service.

We have reported the lost of the parcel to the USA Post and have requested to liasie with the sender accordingly. We have also informed them to compensate the sender at our expense as in accordance with the UPU Regulations.

As the sender would have the prior right of claim, please advise your sender to file a claim with the USA Post.

Our sincere apologies for the lost of the parcel and the inconvenience experienced

Yours sincerely

Uma (Ms)

Asst Manager, Customer Relations, Customer Service (Business Division)

DID: 65 68456222, Fax: 65 68425114

Case closed?! This is totally unbelievable! MAJOR PING PONG!

This is as good as Singapore Post saying:

‘Sorry, we fxxked up, please help clean the mess after us’.

After 3 weeks of dealing with Singapore Post’s Customer Service and after it admitted to losing Elisa’s parcel, SingPost now wants to close off this matter by making USA Post, Forever21 and us to ‘take care of business’. How much more crazier can this get? There are even more questions now:

• Why is Singapore Post getting USA Post involved in this when it is pretty obvious that SingPost lost Elisa’s parcel in Singapore? The parcel was delivered and arrived safely in Singapore on 29 December at 3.10pm. It went missing under SingPost’s watch, for goodness sake.
• And why is Singapore Post making my wife do their work for them? “Please advise your sender to file a claim with the USA Post”. Not content with making Elisa constantly following up with customer service at SingPost (who lost Elisa’s parcel, by the way, if I haven’t already mentioned that), she is suddenly asked to TAKE CARE OF HER OWN BUSINESS? Nasty.
• “Compensate the sender”: Whatever happened to the person whose money and time has been spent in this? In this email from Miss Uma, there is ZERO mention of claims or compensation to my wife, the paying customer. An oversight? Nah. It is likely that SingPost just does not care. Instead, the email implied as such: ‘Sorry, we tried our best but you are on your own. Now shoo. Leave us in peace.’
• Is this a way for Singapore Post not to claim compensation on its insurance? Or not to fork out any money from its own coffers by making the sender claim from its own insurance, etc.? In the real world, if I were to lose someone else’s property, I should jolly well be made responsible for it.

Answer our questions, Singapore Post!

Elisa and myself have given enough opportunity and time to Singapore Post to ‘play’ nice’ and resolve this matter amicably. Yes, Elisa will probably be fully compensated, albeit in a ‘gazillion years’. But there are still so many questions that need answers, even legal ones.

Thus, we decided to bring this out to a public forum. We decided to let you be a witness and, hopefully, a commentator to this issue. We are always lamenting about our Singaporean service industry and this is probably just one of many cases you’ve heard. Now here’s a platform for your thoughts so that we can all learn from this unfortunate episode.

But above all, we would like Singapore Post to respond publicly to our many unanswered questions and the mysteries surrounding the vanished parcel, police report, compensation etc. Keeping it quiet and under wraps have not worked at all in our favour. We have stopped believing in your ‘stories’ over the phone and now we desire some real deal honesty.

On to you, Singapore Post.

Here is something different on this blog. My experiences, thoughts and learning over the last week.

#BarCampSG4

Last Saturday (21 Nov), I attended BarCamp Singapore 4, organised by Preetam Rai and Kelvin Quee. Sponsored and held at IDA Singapore (also co-sponsored by Yahoo! SG and Hackerspace.SG), BarCamp was open to all. This being my first attendance at a BarCamp, I was not too sure what to expect although I had some ideas, having read some accounts on previous BarCamps.

What is BarCamp? Read on Wikipedia.

BarCamp is Crowdsourcing

Just like the concept of crowdsourcing in social media, most of the topics of the day were suggested by the attendees (pasted on IDA’s wall as shown on photo to the right), then voted by attendees and eventually presented by the attendees. Anyone was free to present on any topic they fancied (technology, social media, creative arts, culture and social sciences) and there were really off-the-wall submissions including ‘How to Present Difficult Concepts to Lesser Beings’ by Coleman Yee (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and one that I rued I missed: Adrianna Tan’s ‘How to Hack Your Own Travel Channel Life’ (thank God for Slideshare). All in all, I enjoyed the sessions I attended, the learning and the impromptu discussions.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am almost finished setting up this blog and happy to welcome you to my new domain!

Why I Went Self-Hosted?

I felt constrained being on the Wordpress.com platform at http://groovygenie.wordpress.com, although it is a simple and easy to use blogging platform. The inability to customise themes or add plugins to Wordpress.com really felt punishing and suffocated the geek in me. I had to break free!

Web Analytics is Dope

But most importantly, I would like to deepen my learning in web analytics and the only way to do this is to have control over my blog, this blog. I see this as a worthwhile investment, got to walk the talk, baby!

Vanity is Evil

Then again, a really nice URL to call my own is pretty sweet as well! I am using Host Gator for my hosting needs. Highly recommended by tweeples.

Well, things have been going swimmingly well so far, so if anyone need some pointers on setting up your self-hosted Wordpress, I am happy to share! Drop me a mail or tweet me anytime.

So I welcome you to the new A GroovyWeb by Isman Tanuri! Do stick around ya’ll!

Yours sincerely,

The Groove Master

Updated 13/11: This post also appears as a guest blog post on Penn Olson.

I was recently reading an early chapter of Al and Laura Ries’ ‘The Origin of Brands’ and was struck by this concept:

The world’s best and long-lasting brands were typically created by a divergence from an existing product category and that these brands continue to survive not because of their ‘share of market’ but for being first in the mind of consumers.

Consider these examples of divergence and its disregard for market size of the day:

• What was the size of the cola market the day Coca Cola was launched?
• What was the market size of Mac users when Apple launched their Apple I system?
• How about the size of the personal computer market the day Microsoft launched their MS-DOS platform?
• And when McDonald first introduced the fast-food hamburger to the American public, what was the size of the fast-food market?

The answer to these questions: Zero.

However, these brands have proven they have what it takes to survive and prosper all these years. So, why is this possible?
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Conversations. Being social is about being conversant. In all of its forms, be it business discussions, friendly discourses or family chats, it follows a certain, two-way norm: a question, an answer, then repeat. A question, an answer, then repeat. An almost cyclical activity, but really valuable in facilitating the exchange of information and sentiments between two or more parties. Conversations can build passion or bring us to tears. Which is pretty much the foundation of many great social communication strategies. So, let me ask this, why then do brands on social media ignore the conversation?

Writer’s note: I approached this as a balanced study and I will highlight both questionable and best practices. Sometimes I do wonder though, what if the designated ‘social media person’ in the company goes on vacation leave? I’ve noticed this happening before where conversations totally dropped off the radar. Hence my belief that social media is a shared responsibility of an enlightened open organisation. Anyone and everyone can speak and will speak. More on this in posts to come.

Starbucks Singapore’s Facebook page leaves many questions unanswered. Like literally.

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Talk about itself. All the time. David Meerman Scott has something to say about this.

Writer’s Note: Hundred Trees is a condominium development in Singapore. Hundred Trees is on Twitter and Facebook. Please note that I have personally seen @hundredtrees reply to tweets previously (if you don’t see any in their current timeline). Credit to @hundredtrees for being social when it mattered.

So what should brands do instead?
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The importance of online branding is, without doubt, equally applicable for both businesses and individuals. With increased emphasis on branding through digital marketing efforts and social media engagement these days, the need for reputation management and preservation becomes critical. One wrong move or erratic online behavour may spell public relations disaster, brand damage or, worse, the loss of customer/community trust (trust creates loyalty). The following is a case study on Monster.com.sg (or perhaps an “authorised agent”) that highlights an online practice that is both unconventional and inappropriate on many counts.

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