Nmtp04rubilynlim's Blog

Social network tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have combine to make up the majority of the social networking traffic on the Internet. They are not the only industry leaders that occupy up to a total of around 1/5 of the Internet’s daily traffic in Singapore, but they also have a broad audience overseas that can help to share and spread resources around.

FaceBook: The advantage of FaceBook is to attract more new potential customers to the organization and receive different information from surrounding friends. Another advantage is the ability to stay in front of the target audience consistently. With the help of Facebook, it engage with people who might not need the offerings right now, but at a later time may become interested. During this process, we are building relationships and making friends with others and promoting own organization.

Source: http://images.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=facebook%20logo&imgurl=http://www.stolaf.edu/services/hr/facebook_logo.png&imgrefurl=http://www.stolaf.edu/services/hr/jobs/&usg=__QYSOWUVTHa17vt5RYXN1ueM9PYo=&h=311&w=311&sz=54&hl=en&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=b_65DXkKSdvnIM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfacebook%2Blogo%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1&um=1&start=2#tbnid=b_65DXkKSdvnIM&start=6

YouTube: YouTube is a video sharing website for users to upload and share videos. Most of the content on YouTube could be uploaded by individuals’ media corporations and other organizations which offer some of their material to the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are allowed to upload an unlimited number of videos.  The account profiles of registered users are referred to as “channels”.

Source: http://images.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=youtube&imgurl=http://www.erikbosgraaf.com/images/youtube-logo.png&imgrefurl=http://www.erikbosgraaf.com/news.html&usg=__85KGc1taMq5alw5IoD-HdMFkEGg=&h=424&w=640&sz=191&hl=en&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=NLKLllaxCevhfM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyoutube%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1&um=1&start=0#tbnid=NLKLllaxCevhfM&start=1

Twitter: Users can send messages, called ‘tweets’, that are no longer than 140 characters in length.  The user could broadcast their message to everyone on Twitter. From June to September 2009 the estimated number of Twitter users grew from 10 million to 45 million. It was amazing to me. For those who don’t know the concept behind twitter, this is a type of service called micro-blogging.

Micro-blog services combine the idea of instant messaging with the idea of a blog to create a stream of data that goes out to anyone who is subscribed to it instantly when it is updated. Users choose to receive messages from particular people by selecting to follow the people they want. Users make new contacts by finding people with common interests through searching.

Through twitter they can answer with links to websites, titles of music or TV shows, location names, pictures or interconnects to other social networking sites. The benefit of using twitter to a business owner was having the ability of maintaining a continual contact with potential customers who choose to “follow”.

Source: http://images.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=twitter&imgurl=http://www.api-play.org/upload/images/webpage/API/twitter.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.api-play.org/&usg=__MFeSt0nZ_KcI7V-CmCdyNAAJoF8=&h=300&w=450&sz=44&hl=en&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=UOawm3Lpi4cYEM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtwitter%26hl%3Den%26um%3D1&um=1&start=0#tbnid=UOawm3Lpi4cYEM&start=1

 source: http://ccf.org.sg/

 Who are they? 

 Children’s Cancer Foundation helps to improve the quality of life of children with cancer and their families through enhancing their emotional, social and medical well-being. Their visions are to become a world-class provider of resources and psycho-social services to children and families impacted by childhood cancer.

 What do they do?

The Children’s Cancer Foundation provides services such as counselling services to children and families that are diagnosed with cancer. These professional social workers and counsellors help the child and the family to better cope with the illness that they are suffering; and lastly to bravely face the consequences and challenges ahead. Therapeutic Play activities are specially designed to provide a nurturing and enjoyable experience for children diagnosed with cancer. It allows a child diagnosed with cancer to stay happy and positive despite the pain, distress, anxiety and other emotions they may experience. There are also support groups that help parents who are undergoes similar experiences that they can receive and share information with each other, and at the same time provide mutual support and strength.

What do they provide?

CCF provides various services such as: 

• Financial Assistance Scheme to help the needy families of children with cancer.
• Bereavement Programme aims to facilitate the grieving process and provides a safe environment for families to gather support from each other and from the professional staff at Children’s Cancer Foundation.
• Educational Talks/Workshops also organise in-house and public educational and informational talks and provides information on the medical as well as the psychosocial aspects of childhood cancer.
• A wish link programme aims to fulfill the favourite wishes of children with cancer.
• CCF planned activities help to provide a form of distraction for children who are waiting for their outpatient appointments and treatment.
• The Tuition & Befriending Programme aims are to help those children with cancer with educational needs and supporting their emotional and social well-being. Trained volunteers will assist the children and/or their siblings.
• CCF Childhood Cancer Transplant Programme aids children who are undergoing Bone Marrow Transplants (BMT) by relieving the financial, mental and emotional stress faced by the children and their families.
• They created a programme that focuses on educating schools on childhood cancer. This is achieved by helping the teaching staff and students at schools understand the needs of children with cancer, and dispelling the myths, misconceptions and fears surrounding childhood cancer as perceived by them. The other aspect of this programme involves our social workers working directly with children with cancer to ease their anxieties and stress faced in returning to school after a period of absence.
• The aim of this service is threefold: to strengthen the with cancer and develop their social interaction skills; to enhance the emotional bond between the children and their families, and to bridge and strengthen ties amongst families coping with childhood cancer.
• Researches into psychosocial issues or collaboration with local universities and hospitals.

What do they need?

CCF needs donation as they are an independent non-profit organization. Hence donations made to CCF in 2009 would qualify you for a 2.5 times tax deduction of the donated amount. To support the necessary charitable activities for children with cancer, we need to raise $3 million dollars this year.
They also need volunteers for annual fund-raising activities or some other major events such as Camp, Annual Overseas Trip etc. On the average and for each year, CCF has about 100 regular volunteers each with varying degrees of involvement. Full time staff are also require to handle services like counseling and therapeutic require special skills and knowledge.

Who are their clients?

Their clients are children diagnosed with cancer and their families. 50% of children diagnosed with cancers are below 5 yrs of age. Their services are just primarily focused at supporting the family as a whole. They also ensure that that their reserves are kept below three years’ of operating expenses so that they can help as many families as possible.

Current Situation

Web presence?

Yes. Source: http://ccf.org.sg

Effective? Practical?

No. The alignment of the webpage is placed more towards the left, causing too much of a blank space at the right side of the site losing the appearance. They have no links to social networking tools like twitter, facebook. No short stories of successful cases to convince the viewers. Lacking of information regarding the upcoming events and events are not update often. Advertisement of this website is not well promoted enough. Lacking of interaction and communication between viewer and organization. Not beneficial for the non-English educated visitors.

Website updates?

No. Their contributions are update till 2008 and Gallery and Newsletter till 2009.

What is lacking?

They update the latest news was till 2009, it does not benefits the viewer as they does not know what are the current situation that CCF faced and too little information to understand the organization.

How to promote CCF?

• They could have field trips for student to thier organization.
• They can go down to schools to give talks for better understanding.
• Volunteers speak up on how they feel about the organization when they help out in CCF.
•  Oversea promotion as to attract sponsors, volunteers helping out, volunteering specialists to help those financially burdened families.
•  Promote through social networking tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.
•  They should advertise through media (eg: TV commercials, charity show, TV programmes, radio broadcast, posters or flyers, etc……)

More improvement:

• Update more events and talks about CCF
•  Events collaborate to schools, for example flag days to help foundation to raise funds
• More examples of “kid’s speak up”
• Widen age range, instead of 18years old, they can allow younger volunteers to help out. (Nearer age to patient = better interaction, to learn to cherish their lives)
• partnership with similar organization/foundation
• Include “Discussion Forums” for commenting and feedbacks to increase interactivity between viewers and organization.

Addition stuff to add on site:

•  Add different languages panels on top for selection to translate the content of the webpage so that different races will not have problems in understanding
• Webpage could be place in the middle.
•  Interview successful recovered patients to share their stories.

image from: http://www.youtube.com/

1. What kind of customer value does Youtube provide in the marketplace?

Youtube provides video-sharing websites to all kind of people over the world. It is an online portal which users can watch and share video content. Youtube created a way which video can be viewed directly on the web without the trouble of downloading. Multiple formats of players could be used for the videos. Young people could show off their talents as home movie makers to increase their popularity. There are also trailers provided in youtube and advertisement or commercial.

2. How do businesses like YouTube alter the ways that organisations and customers interact?

YouTube provides users to send a link through email to their friends in local or overseas, which led to a community of users. Youtube also allows bloggers and others to easily ‘grab’ a video and place it on their own web pages expanding more audience. Users decide which videos were worth watching and also rate the recommended videos.

3. What are the challenges facing YouTube in the future?

There are many other video-sharing websites that are following Youtube as a goal of achievement. Large organizations are developing online video offerings like Disney, which owns a television network and provides their latest and popular works on their own websites to let viewer view for free. Metacafe pursue different content from the large organizations. It takes an effort to select and promote ‘good’ videos at its own websites. Unlike youtube, it contends lots of video that can be publish by anyone and they did not select good quality videos, causing lots of same videos but different quality. Metacafe uses volunteers to critics and write about their videos whereas youtube just gives comments. Youtube faces major legal issues over copyright and approaching new rivals. Youtube will faces lots of obstacles in the future as it is a target for all websites.

“Lionel Chin is the co-founder of Ripplewerkz, which is an all in one design house which offers high quality Web, Blog, Print and Corporate ID development. Boasting an impressive portfolio of projects such as Nuffnang, Prominent bloggers/Celebrities (eg. Allan Wu (The Amazing Race Asia), Wong Lilin (Mediacorp), Nico Chua (FM 933 DJ), Lunch Actually, Airtrade and The Eurasian Association (Singapore) etc, the name Lionel Chin certainly resonates in the digital industry.”

Source: http://www.ripplewerkz.com/

Who they are?

Ripplewerkz is an all in one design house which offers high quality Web, Blog, Print, and Corporate ID development.

Their mantras, which are encapsulated in our work, are quality, efficiency and value.

They puts their heart and soul into each project, ensuring a laser-like attention to detail and high levels of customization for each and every client.

What they do?

Web design services including:

• Static Websites
• Flash Websites
• Content Management Systems (CMS)
• Web applications
• E-commerce shopping carts
• Blogshops

One of the work:

  Image from: http://www.nuffnang.com.sg/

1) Reflect on 5 key points the Speaker had mentioned during his presentation.

• Benefits of using new media tools
• How blogging is useful to us nowadays
• Freelance Designer
• Having a portfolio in hand is an advantage in future jobs
• Understand more about what the client needs

2) List at least 3 things that has inspired you from this lecture.

• If you put in effort, u will get back what u deserves.
• The speaker is young but he has a lot of experience in web designing and also made himself well-known in the digital industry.
• New media tools are very convenient for us.

3) Do you think its useful to have a guest speaker to share their expertise, experience and “Tips & Tricks” of the trade? (Explain)

Yes. After this presentation, I have learnt more the beneficial of using new media tools and the importance of having a portfolio. Lionel Chin is a young man and he proves to me that age is not a problem of being successful person. I think his age makes us more easily to communicate and understand as he will stand in our shoes and break down more simple parts for us to absorb in. He has gone through lots of obstacles and hardship to archive his success now. After sharing his experience, I could know more about what the society needs now and what I should prepare for my future. Attitude is also important in society. We have to be passion and hardworking in our parts. On the other hand, this talk is his first experience and maybe he left out some points. Therefore, I think he could share more about his views and experience in his blogs or having a next talk with us.

What is “Hot” and “Cool” media?

“As applied to communications, the terms “hot” and “cool,” were first introduced by the controversial culture maven and media theorist H. Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980).”

Source: http://condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/pers/hot-cool.html

 media

Image from: http://condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/pers/hot-cool.html

Hot media provides complete involvement without considerable stimulus. For example, print occupies visual space, uses visual senses, but can immerse its reader. Hot media favors analytical precision, quantitative analysis and sequential ordering, as they are usually sequential, linear and logical. They emphasize one sense (for example, of sight or sound) over the others. Hot media also include radio, film, lecture and photography.

 media

Image from: http://condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/pers/hot-cool.html

Cool media provides little involvement with substantial stimulus. They require more active participation on the part of the user, including the perception of abstract patterning and simultaneous comprehension of all parts. According to McLuhan “cool media” includes television, seminar and cartoons. He describes the term “cool media” as emerging from jazz and popular music.

Source: http://www.osteoporosissoc.org.sg/

I will introduce about Non-profitable Organization of Osteoporosis.

Background of Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis Society (Singapore) was established in 1994. OS is a non-profit organization. The society is registered and domiciled in Singapore under the charities act. The main objective of this organization is to promote public awareness and knowledge of osteoporosis through community services and activities, public forums and educational program.

What is Osteoporosis?

Osteoporosis means ‘porous bones’. Porous bones are also known as brittle bones which can break easily after minor fall. Most common affected body parts are the lower forearm near the wrist, the spine and the hip.

Objectives of Osteoporosis

• Encouraging and supporting to those being prevention, diagnosis, causes and treatment of osteoporosis people.
• Collect, compile and assure accurate and updated information regarding all aspects of osteoporosis and to carry out regular and effective public education programmes.
• Establish and operate programmes rendering moral support, encouragement and financial assistance to needy patients and/ or their families.
• Recommend and assist in the formulation of such legislation to improve services to those suffering from osteoporosis.
• Co-operate with all relevant public and private agencies in services for persons at risk or suffering from osteoporosis.
• Campaign for, receive, hold and apply funds, gifts, bequests and endowments or proceed thereof, to any of the purposes described above.

How to improve the awareness of this website?

1. Media tools

They can co-operate with new media tools like facebook, msn or twitter. These tools are commonly use for communication between people. Therefore, the benefits of using these media tools will attract more viewers and let the public knows more about Osteoporosis. A person who knows this website could easily spread to another person using these media tools.

2. Public Events

 They have some activities going on in the public but this is insufficient. They provide services Educational Talks and Osteoporosis Risk Assessment and Screening. From 2007 to 2009, their average of activities is 3 events per year. Hence, they should increase such events or talks and also get the chance to advertise their organization and interact with the public to exchange opinions. Furthermore, they should also have a positive attitude to face all sorts of circumstances so that the patients are more willing to join them and more aware about their illness.

3. Advertising

 We can improve this website through mediacorp like television or radio. The media could explain to the elderly clearly as some of them are illiterate. They could also advertise their organization through newspapers, magazines or advertisement. As most of the people in this society are reading newspapers almost every day. Although, it will cost them a lot to publish in news but, more audience will be aware of their presence.

Reflection of National Archives

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/National_Archives_of_Singapore,_Jan_06.JPG

 Image from: http://www.nhb.gov.sg/NAS/index.htm

What is an Archives?

An Archive is a place where collections of historical records are place. Archives contain lots of documents which have accumulated late back in the early 19th century.  

Who are they?

The National Archives people recollect lots of old memories of Singapore and consolidate them. Their main purpose of their work is to take care of the old documents and touch up on those torn documents. These public records can provide advices to the government agencies on records management as to keep a memory of the government. Some of the records are even late back in the early 19th century.

What do they do?

The NAS preserve records of the nation and history documents. They kept it well and try to maintain back to its original. The records of document are government files, private memoirs, historical maps and photographs to oral history interviews and audio-visual materials. NAS is also responsible for the collection, preservation and management of Singapore’s public and private archival records, some of which date back to the early 19th century.

What type of services they provide?

 The NAS protects the rights of citizens by providing evidence to the government with actions. NAS turns out to be an important research centre for those who seek for information about the country’s history. NAS also promotes heritage through educational programmes and exhibitions to the public interest about the nation’s history.

Things they provided inside:

NAS implements an effective records management programmes  for the public service. These
vital records are scanned and output onto microfilms for preservation in climate-controlled conditions. They were recognition in 2003, of maintaining the quality and operational efficiency in their key preservation processes.

Providing Access

They provides relevance documents to people who need to understand the past, write research papers, as evidence of rights and obligations, or simply as creative inspiration. Public could also access to their collections through their Archives Reference Room or online.

Sharing Knowledge

NAS shares their experience and knowledge to the community through consultation and training. They provide regular seminars on using archival resources, records management and oral history methodology. They also conduct guided tours of NAS to educate the public on the archival work.

Archives Conservation Services

The Lab provides conservation services of paper records such as anoxic treatment, deacidification, leafcasting, mechanical cleaning, manual repair, tissue mounting, encapsulation and high value (rare) book binding using archival method. Most visitors include government agencies, companies as well as private collectors. They recommend the type of treatment(s) required and provide an estimation of the charges based on the physical condition of the records as well as offering advice on proper storage and handling methods.

Images inside National Archives

Source:http://app.mica.gov.sg/DesktopModules/SimpleGallery/SlideShowPopup.aspx?PortalID=0&ItemID=192&Border=White&sb=0&sd=0

Source: www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/ar/2005/05.htm

2) Do they use any Social Media & Web 2.0 technologies for public communication & education?  

The NAS people use social media to communicate with students and everyone. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. IT savvy Singaporeans today expect “instant” information to be made available via Internet. To meet the increasing demand for on-line research and to remain relevant in the Knowledge Age, National Heritage Board (NHB) as a major content provider on heritage information, needs to ride on the changing mindset and expectation and re-engineer information delivery mechanism.

source: http://www.a2o.com.sg/a2o/public/html/abouta2o.jsp

The National Archives of Singapore (NAS) developed the Access to Archives Online Singapore (a²O), a one-stop portal site on heritage information dating back to 17th century. a²O allows users to search information across NHB’s various independent databases and view photographs, maps and plans, listen to oral history interview samplers and watch snippets of audio-visual recordings, round the clock. It also provides information on recently acquired materials by NAS, Online Exhibitions, how to access our archival collection as well as student programmes.

They also creates games site for the students to play which could be more interesting for the students. They can cooperate with new media tools like facebook, twitter, or MSN. Through these tool NAS website will have lots of people browsing and also could educates teenagers. To attracts the students, they also provides valuable prizes for the winner.

Source: http://syonanrace.s1942.org.sg/

Communication Process:

The communication process works as following:

• A message: what need to be communicated
• A messenger: the person who has something to communicate
• A receiver: the person who will receive the message
• Encoding: verbal and non-verbal convention of communication
• Decoding: reading by the receiver of the encoding done by the messenger
• Channel: the means of communication

Reducing Interference:

Miscommunication often because interference occurs in the communication process.

Here are some examples:

• The message can be unclear.
• The state of mind of the messenger can influence the message. (E.g: emotions, body language or mood)
• If the wrong channel is used for the content and intent of the message they might get lost.

These few steps are important for effective communication and could brought up conflicts easily.

Shannon-Weaver model of communication:

The Shannon-Weaver model deconstructs communication into the following 6 elements:

1. A  source
2. An  encoder
3. A  messenger
4. A  channel
5. A  decoder
6. A  receiver

The destination in the journey is the receiver.Without a receiver,there is no-one to communicate with.

Article 1:http://mashable.com/2009/01/29/stats-old-media-decline/
Article2: http://mashable.com/2008/09/08/will-new-media-save-television-ads/

1_Stats: Old Media’s Decline,New Media Ascents
Article 1 talks about most Internet users prefer using new media rather than old media sites. Although most users thought that blogs, facebook, and other social media are in trends but, it was not completely true. Nowadays, many adult Internet users finding information from local media or local news are increasing. Some of the new media are changing their concepts to compete with others as to attract more users to browse their site.
According to the survey below, from 2006 to 2008 there is a growth of Internet users using more media from the internet.

survey from:courtesy of eMarketer
The increase of percentage users are a result that more new media are catching up and a decrease of using old media. Overall, we should keep on upgrading ourselves and keep up for the latest updates of new media it also benefits us if we plans to open a company or a blog selling items.

2_Will New Media Save Television Ads?
Article 2 talks about old and new media are being separated by people often. Most people thought that traditional media did not benefits us and should always look forward to new media. But, large bulky television were now the latest hang on. Many people prefer using old media because new media takes time to process a show and audience could not interact with the hosts. The hosts will prompt questions to the viewer and ask them to put their comments on Twitter. There are also financial consequences of downloading shows or video and more advertisement are included to attract more viewers.”People are more likely to engage the show in real time and therefore more likely to see traditional commercials” quoted from the article. Old media television is showing dramas ,reality shows, varieties. For example: varieties show in the past they will invite audience to stage to give their answers. New media now have lesser concepts of show hence,there is no new performance of show.

(Image via Flickr()/ dailyinvention)

In conclusion,media regardless old or new benefits us and discourages us. We should focus mainly on the points which helps us. On the other hand, i truly agree that new media helps us alot in works or information. With new media processing i belief our future will be more bright.