About Larry:
Larry Lim is a civil engineer by training and holds a Bachelors of Engineering (Civil) from Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). Upon graduation, he served Keppel T&T as product development for ISP services, voice-based solutions and telco products. The demanding role involved taking products from concept to profitability. He travels often and have visited parts of Asia, Oceania, Europe and the United States.

http://www.larrylim.net/about.htm

Best of all, anyone can find you on Facebook; http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=797019096&hiq=larry%2Clim

However, any kind of comments and criticism is bound to attract attention. And you should be held accountable for your actions. Welcome to the true Power of Web 2.0

You created your own problems.

floo

Read the Report

From 012-3927730: Is MalaysiaKini truly unbiased in your reports?
There is this one report that Ali Rustam called Pak Lah a ‘coward’ at
a PPP event. I was there, and it was a heated session. But I noticed
there was a little exaggeration in your report on this incident….

ANSWER:
I think the questioner exaggerated a bit too. Ali Rustam would be
sacked if indeed he called Pak Lah a coward. It was Kayveas he was
criticising and I don’t think he called him a coward. He said along
the lines of ‘if you’re not happy, leave BN’.

Most important of all, I would like to clarify on the video that was shown during the forum last Wednesday. I represent the cirKLe who produced the video.

The survey was just the first step in bringing up awareness in the power of web, although it may seem as though there are many IACT students involved, but the editing was not done in a way that would put more weight on where they studied or where they hang out. These young people all fell within the youth category and were in the general area of video shooting. As the length of the video is limited, the editing was done to include those who had best audio visual clarity, not taking into account where the location was. So in happenstance, kudos to IACT students, who happen to have very good audio visual bearing.

As I have previously said, this is just the first step and it will definitely not be the last, as we continue on in different areas and hopefully out of state, trying to find out just what is going on in the heads of our future leaders, the youth generation.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Wan Rozana Aziz Kasim
Media Director
the cirKLe

Hi Ham,

Thank you, and also to 4As, the organizer, for an entertaining and informative forum last Wed. After reading your post-event write-up online, I would like to mention 2 things:
1. As an attendee to the forum, I agree with both Nantha’s and your responses to Larry.
2. I have been thinking since the forum last week if I should write to you on this issue. And as I read that some of the participants (esp agency members) requested for the video you showed us, I feel obligated to state my opinion on the matter. I am of the opinion that it was very befitting to show us the video of today’s young Malaysians’ take and habits re their online & the Internet involvement in their lives today. The idea and concept was good. However, I have my doubts if we can seriously take what was shown on the video clip as a good representation of Malaysian youths. In fact, I’m also not confident that it is a good representation of the Malaysian youths in the Klang Valley. Why do I say this? Well, if I recalled correctly, 70 – 80% of the respondents interviewed happened to be IACT students. (Why is this so? I certainly hope your video producer has a good reason for it.) And from that pool of interviewees, about 95% belong to the very active, vocal, student leader type of profile of our IACT students. I mean, I was happy to see so many faces of my students up on the screen that day, but it would be quite wrong to say that they represent the current Malaysian or Klang Valley youths. I teach at IACT, and I know that IACT students are a different breed of students and nowhere near the general population of Malaysian youths. They are advertising students, Mass Comm students. It’s like doing a survey and interviewing all the ad agency people only in Malaysia and then projecting their views as being representative of Malaysians! Therefore, I would be very cautious, if I were you, to consider releasing that video to ad agencies in order that they can use it to persuade their clients to buy into online advertising. Yes, without a shadow of doubt that Malaysian youths today are all into the Internet rage, but the question is, to what extent? Is it as per what the video wants us to believe? Please make a right and just judgement call as to whether you should and would like to share your video with ad agencies as per the request mentioned.

Having said that, could I have a copy of the video please? I would love to show it to my students. I’m sure that they would love to know how their opinions/statements are being communicated or used in the video. Surely they are not paid to give their opinions and I thought it might make a good ‘reward’ for them to see themselves in action and I’m sure they will be very, very happy and proud that it was shown at an forum organized by the 4As!

I look forward to your favourable reply. I welcome your comments / reply to what I’ve said above and stand to be corrected.

Yours truly,

May Gan
Senior Lecturer & Program Leader (Dip in Adv / MarCom)
Advisor, CREACTIVE – IACT’s Student Advertising Agency
Institute Advertising Communication Training (IACT)

Unfortunately I missed this whammo event, but a discussion on how politics and bloggers (many whom write about politics at one point or another), are symbiotic and a brand wanting to leverage on an internet-based personality or organisation needs to address the repercussions of the political stance taken by the personality/organisation. A brand has no choice but to be populist, while walking the regulatory line. Nobody said that the internet was going to be easy. Forums like these begin conversations, open minds and along the way allow participants to explore opportunities and network.

More of these are needed, so HAM … MAKE THIS A QUARTERLY AFFAIR!

Thank you for your feedback, which was unfortunately about me instead of the forum. Short of turning this into a flame war, please let me just answer some of your comments:

1) I did not invite my friends over – they came themselves. Like me, they were attracted to the forum because the “main theme” was supposed to be “web 2.0″. If the 3 of us had that perception, I’m sure there are many others who did.

2) I thought I needed to backup my opinions with a resume because I am after all trying to convince seasoned marketers in Malaysia when I’m just an unknown. Not to sound arrogant but I don’t need self-promotion – I’ve never even advertised my services. As an SEO consultant, I have to rely on clients finding me from search engine results because that’s what I’m preaching anyway.

3) On the matter of “old school”, eveyone’s entitled to their opinions – welcome to web 2.0. Judging by the questions that have been posted to Ham (e.g. is a website effective for corporations?), I’m sure you would agree that there are many marketers who are still unaware about the power of the web.

Thanks but I don’t think I’m qualified for the big stage in Malaysia yet.