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Crushed
I usually try to avoid the January sales but this year, I found myself accompanying my Mum to Selfridge’s as she had to exchange something she had bought there. We did not encounter the mad shoving and pushing that was captured by the BBC in the video clip below as it was just over a week after Boxing Day but we found it quite traumatic nonetheless.Perhaps we are much too delicate but we found the barrage of bodies along Oxford Street a tremendous assault on our senses. No one was pushing or being aggressive but it was the sheer numbers of bodies packed into the canyon of shops that felt overwhelming. Many people were also carrying loads of shopping bags full of goodies and there were some people who were trolleying small suitcases, presumably stuffed full of bargains — and it all added to the crush. more about “Shoppers hit Boxing Day sales“, posted with vodpod Since we were in the area, I thought that we could pop in to John Lewis to buy a new digital camera with some vouchers that I had saved up. Having battled our way along the length of Oxford Street to Selfridge’s, we now fought our way to John Lewis and staggered up to the top floor where the gadgets live. To my dismay, we came across a long queue of people waiting to speak to the sales assistants and an even longer queue at the checkout counter. I wanted to turn around there and then but we’d come this far… So I gritted my teeth and joined the first queue.I had checked online earlier that day to see that the camera I wanted was in stock. But something prompted me to stop a harassed member of staff to ask him quickly if that model was in stock. He shook his head and told me that not only was that model out of stock, they didn’t have any other models in the range at all!I stepped out of the queue, completely disheartened. The only consolation was that, at least I had not waited till my proper turn despite the glares of a number of people behind me in line.So we battled our way all the way down to the street again and headed home, crushed in more ways than one… I wonder if I was the only person who went to the January sales and didn’t buy a thing!I don’t suppose it is only in the UK that there is such mayhem during the January sales. There was that tragic story of the Wal-Mart employee who was trampled to death by marauding bargain hunters in the US only a few weeks ago. And the next video shows people being shoved to the ground in another Wal-Mart through the sheer weight of the stampeding crowd - frightening!Does this kind of behaviour happen anywhere else in the world over shopping?
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 1:08am
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One Year in 40 seconds
Happy New Year, everyone! This is a beautiful little time-lapse video that shows the passing of a year through the changing seasons in a woodland setting. One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.The only trouble is, it makes me feel that my life is passing before my eyes…!
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 2:09pm
4 Comments
Christmas Lights in Dulwich
 Click to Play play_blip_movie_1610481(); On my way home from work in the last few weeks, I've passed many houses in my South London neighbourhood of Dulwich with brightly lit Christmas decorations but I've not taken the time before to appreciate them properly. So, one evening, we took a stroll round the local streets, taking in the lights - and chancing upon some carollers along the way. Luckily, we had our home camcorder to hand to capture the festive mood for posterity. (We're not professional filmmakers so please forgive the sound and camerawork in some places…)If you have a favourite house or shop that's decorated up with Christmas lights, please add a comment below! Formats available: Windows Media (.wmv)
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Monday, December 22nd, 2008 at 11:01am
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What are you writing in your Christmas card?
 Every year I plan to start my Christmas cards in November but every year I find myself in the second week of December having a panic that the last posting day for Christmas is fast rushing up on me and I still haven’t even picked up a pen. Cards from my more efficient friends are already landing on the doormat and stressing me out that I might not get my holiday greetings out in time.Part of the ongoing delay has been that we’ve been trying to get our Christmas newsletter together. In the past, I used to write little notes in the inside flap of the yearly cards that I send out but as my contact list got longer and my spare time got shorter, it became a painful chore (literally, for my aching right hand) to write out my snippets of news 70 or more times. So a few years ago, we started a printed newsletter which we would include in the mailing.I’m still a little ambivalent about doing our Christmas newsletter. I know that some people think that such an annual newsletter is “naff” or “too American” (ie too cheesy). On my part, I know that I enjoy reading my friends news whether they send it in the form of a newsletter or scribbled on the side of their Christmas cards. In particular, if we have not been in touch for a while, it’s nice to know what they’ve been up to. I find it rather disappointing to rip open those Christmas cards from friends I haven’t heard from in some time to find only their scribbled signatures — it’s nice to know that they have included us in their holiday greetings list but: What’s excited them this year? What’s made them laugh? What’s saddened them? What have they had to celebrate or be proud of? Isn’t that what friendship is about — sharing the good news and bad, the mundane and the extraordinary?So, in spite of the extra time and effort that it takes to put together the newsletter, adding photos and writing up our news as well as making it pretty to the eye and easy to read, every year we spend one weekend in early December sweating it out to produce this annual roundup of the past year. When we have wrapped it up and the PDF is ready to print, the marathon is not over yet as we still have to sit down at the dining table and write out the individual Christmas cards themselves. (Unfortunately, I think we have missed the mailing for overseas cards so for our friends and family who live outside the UK, we are sending the PDF by e-mail with a digitally designed Christmas greeting.) It’s all worth it, I hope.It gives me comfort that ours is not the only household that has been scribbling cards frantically these first few weekends in December. I have the image of thousands, if not millions, of people all over England rushing around doing their cards and on top of that buying Christmas presents and wrapping them and putting up their festive lights and decorations around the house. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, have you sent out your cards yet? Do you include snippets of news in your Christmas mailing? Do you still do it the old-fashioned way with physical cards or do you send e-mail greetings? Photo: thanks to krisdecurtis from flickr.com (CCL)
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at 2:00am
6 Comments
Obama brings social media into the mainstream
Barack Obama continues to use social media with confidence and style. Within weeks of becoming President-Elect, he is maintaining his presence online with the ease of a 21st century man, reaching out to Americans - and the world - via a weekly YouTube address. Previous US presidents and the leaders of other nations have used radio and television - was it Roosevelt who instituted a weekly radio “fireside chat” with the nation? Today, social media allows anyone to deliver their message to a national and global audience unmediated by the press or advertisers. It makes sense for Obama to use YouTube during the transitional months - there can only be one President at any given time so he cannot broadcast a weekly address on the traditional broadcast media without undermining the sitting President. YouTube is the perfect alternative, enabling him to continue communicating his agenda in this hiatus period while connecting with the younger demographic his campaign was so successful in capturing via a thoroughly 21st century, up to the minute, “hot” medium. Here is his Thanksgiving address.More to exploreThe Social Media PresidentBarack Obama’s ChangeDotGov YouTube channel
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 2:00am
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Dulwich OnView leads the way for heritage sector blogging
Our pro-bono blog project Dulwich OnView was the subject of a conference for the heritage sector the other week, bringing together representatives from the major musuems and cultural centres around the UK, including The Barbican, The Globe Theatre, The Royal Academy, The Natural History Museum, Canterbury Catheral and more - all keen to find out about how we put together the project and how we make it the success that it is.One of our team editors, writer and museum strategist Steve Slack, described the day for our Dulwich OnView readers and I’ve poached his post (with his permission, of course) to share here with you. Steve writes:Dulwich OnView is all about celebrating people and culture in the Dulwich area. Last week we tried celebrating ourselves, for a change.We’ve just held a successful gathering of the Membership Membership Forum at Dulwich Picture Gallery.The DOV (Dulwich OnView) co-editors gave an extended case-study about why and how we set up this online magazine and why we think it works for us, for the Friends and for Dulwich Picture Gallery itself. Here’s a snap of us about to present. Left to right are: Alix Slater (convenor of the MMF), Bernard Hunter, standing (Trustee of the Gallery who kindly introduced us), Ingrid Beazley, Steve Slack, Sally-Ann Johnson, Angie MacDonald and Yang-May Ooi (chair).The delegates at the conference were mostly membership, marketing and development professionals from some of the most prestigious arts and heritage venues in the country. It was great for us that so many turned out to hear our case study and were eager to learn more about what we are doing.It was also really encouraging for us to have so many people agreeing that what we’ve done is worthwhile. We – the writers of the Dulwich OnView blog – all left the gallery on Friday feeling really proud of what we’ve achieved as a team of volunteers.The Dulwich OnView model won’t work for all museums, of course. The Gallery is unique and as a result so are the Friends and this magazine. But we certainly hope it was food for thought for those who attended.Well done us. A great big pat on the back. We’re also filled with enthusiasm for the future as well. 2009 is going to be a great year for Dulwich OnView.Related articles:Dulwich OnView makes impact in heritage sectorHow Dulwich OnView came about - PhoneblogPhoto: thanks to Steve Slack (with permission)
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 1:00am
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Disconnectivity
After about 2 1/2 weeks of being off line, we have managed to ditch our broadband service provider Tiscali in favour of O2 and we are finally connected again to friends, family and The World!  In the first few days of being off line, I thought it might be quite refreshing not to be always available, always connected, always wired. I decided to make the best of the situation by spending my evenings and weekends reading, catching up with friends on phone or meeting face-to-face and taking the time to do other things that did not involve sitting at the computer. And for a time it was quite relaxing not to have to deal with e-mails or instant chat messages popping up on the computer screen at regular intervals. I also re-discovered the joy of sitting in my favourite armchair with a book and a glass of wine on a cold winter evening.But after a little while, it felt like we were on a desert island and out of the loop and I couldn’t resist the urge to check e-mails. We managed to stay in touch by accessing our e-mail accounts on my partner’s iPhone — which is great for reading e-mails but a bit fiddly and clumsy for writing anything more than a few lines. Also pretty soon, unless I regularly checked e-mails via my sister’s computer or at work, my inbox would become bloated and unmanageable, with email upon email piling in at an unstoppable pace. It also became very frustrating not being able to keep my blogs updated. I did manage one short audio podcast by phone but I prefer to write my blog posts and having to “perform” the phoneblog all in one take is somewhat stressful and not something that I wanted to do regularly. Not being able to blog made me realise how much it is a part of my life and how much it connects me with other bloggers and my readers who engage with me online.I also usually keep in touch with my sister and a number of other friends by Skype. My sister and I have a video chats most days in a week — the conversations are usually about nothing much and are the equivalent of having a bit of the natter over the garden fence in the real world but I enjoy them as a way of staying in touch. We still managed to chat regularly on the phone that it’s just not the same — there seems something formal about a phone call these days and of course, you don’t have the fun of seeing the other person in real time.We were invited to dinner at a friends place and I realised that I couldn’t check the train times online as I would normally do. I also had to dig out the old tattered A-to-Z to work out the directions to her house instead of merely typing in her postcode to Google Maps and printing off the map and handy directions. My calendar and diary are online, as is my task list. So being off-line meant that my whole life, literally, fell apart as I had no idea what I was doing all where I was meant to be on any given day. I had to hurriedly dig out a paper diary and transfer all my appointments and tasks from the online applications onto it. (I did used to back everything up onto my computer at home, syncing the online applications with Outlook, but that didn’t help me when I had to check my calendar and tasks at work but had updated my home computer in the meantime without it syncing with the online version.)My parents in Malaysia don’t have a computer so we keep in touch by fax. The only thing is that I fax them via e-mail, using faxtastic.co.uk, which also allows me to receive faxes as e-mails. So being off-line meant that I was also disconnected from them.There was also a day when I would have liked to have worked from home so that I could go to a doctor’s appointment — and because of remote access to my work computer is, I would normally have been able to do that. However, being off-line, meant that I had to postpone the appointment to another time and go into the office instead.What’s more, I couldn’t even do my grocery shopping, which I normally do online, nor could I shop for books and DVDs from Amazon. I actually had to go into physical shops to do all that!It really has been quite startling, these last couple of weeks, as it has really revealed how dependent I am on being connected to everyone and everything via the Internet. It was only about 10 years ago that I had first heard about this Internet thingy and at that time, I wasn’t very convinced as to its usefulness. Is it just me that I am a net Holick? Or is this how everyone runs their lives too these days?Photo: thanks to elvis_payne from flickr.com (CCL)
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 11:36pm
3 Comments
Yang-May Ooi’s Phoneblog #2
Phoneblogging without internet connection - using Pocket PC mobile phone without much success but an iPhone saves the day. Gabcast! Yang-May Ooi’s Phoneblog #2Listen Now:  Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (132)document.getElementById('podPressPlayerSpace_963_label_mp3Player_963_0').innerHTML='Hide Player'; document.getElementById('podPressPlayerSpace_963').title = 'mp3Player_963_0';
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 10:13am
3 Comments
Reality versus Fiction
 It always amuses me when I see writers portrayed in films. Our hero — and it is invariably always a man — who is a moody and sensitive sort, arrives in the big metropolis with his typewriter, a packet of cigarettes and a whiskey bottle. We see him sitting at a desk facing window, tapping away at his typewriter and occasionally dragging on his cigarette. If he is swept away with creativity he types feverishly through the day and night. However, if he is stuck, he pulls out sheet after sheet from the typewriter roll, flinging them into the bin in exasperation and working his way through the bottles of whiskey. Occasionally, he stares broodily out of the window. Eventually, he finishes his manuscript and ties up in brown paper to post off to the publisher.The next thing you know, he has received a letter from the publisher and is waving it around in his local bar, buying drinks for his friends to celebrate the publication of his book. In the next scene, he is swanning around at a swanky launch party, the toast of the town and on his way to becoming A Famous Writer.All this happens within five minutes of film time!The movie version of writers came to mind recently because I have been preparing the draft of my third book to send to the publishers. This is the book on New Trends in International Communications which I am co-authoring with Silvia Cambie and although it is not a novel like my last two books, the process of manuscript preparation is exactly the same. You have to keep drafting and redraft thing until you are absolutely happy with what you’ve written, checking and rechecking for typos, grammatical mistakes and errors in context and sense. You then had to make sure that the formatting is consistent e.g. that each paragraph is justified and consistently spaced, that key terms that recur are consistently spelt or capitalised alright italicised and that your page numbering is seamless from chapter to chapter. You need to check the word count of each chapter and add them all up together to see whether your total word count falls within the required thresholds. You need to make sure that the header and footer has the correct references to the book title, your author name and the relevant chapter. It is tedious, tedious, tedious…We are due to deliver the manuscript at the end of November and Silvia and I have been having regular meetings to make sure that the sections that we are respectively writing work together. She is putting the finishing touches to her chapters and we then need to collaborate on the Foreword before the final bundle is ready to go. And the last thing we will need to do is to collate the hard copy into the correct order, prepare 2 copies to send to the publisher and further copies to retain ourselves. These days of course we also had to prepare the electronic version to send out at the same time.Once it is with Kogan Page, our editor will no doubt come back with notes and there’ll be another period where we will have to do some further rewriting and re-crafting before the final version will be ready to go to print. The publication date has been set for July 2009, which is around nine months away to give us and Kogan Page sufficient time for the editorial process, the copyediting process, the print preparation process and also to fit in with their overall 2009 catalogue.A lot longer than five minutes, wouldn’t you say?I remember that as a teenager, one of the reasons I was inspired to be a writer was the way that the lives of writers are portrayed on screen. In the movies, it all seems so glamorous and intense — and easy. Well, now that I’ve actually become a writer, I have to laugh at my youthful innocence!Photo: thanks to (waltzing) matilda from flickr.com (CCL)
Posted by Yang-May Ooi on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 2:00am
5 Comments
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