Trade logistics matters, and Asia knows it
To all my friends in the logistics industry, here's an interesting read:
The World Bank has released its Logistics Performance Index and Indicators 2010 (LPI), a ranking of 155 countries by their capacity to move goods and connect manufacturing and consumers in international markets. Germany tops the ranking this year. Of the top 10 countries, 8 are wealthy European economies (not suprising), and two - Singapore and Japan - are wealthy Asian economies (hooray!). Singapore is ranked 2nd and Japan is ranked 7th!
To read more, click on the headline.
Source: Supply Chain Asia
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Art of Storylistening
Everyone loves a good story. Storytelling is a powerful way to communicate. But it is storylistening that gets you the right story.
As organizations grow and become more complex, managers are facing the challenge of delivering clear and concise messages to stakeholders. Employees do not know how to make good use of information while Leaders are bogged down with lengthy explanations of technicalities, when it comes to cascading new policies. How do you inspire, influence and persuade ?
Clearly, there is a need for a guide to help corporations - using the storylistening techniques I learnt from Shawn Callahan of Anecdote. Shawn explored how narrative techniques can be used in a business setting.
Here's how:
1. Where do you start? Every single employee is a storyboard. With 100 employees, you have 100 story ideas! First task is to decide the project themes on the type of stories you want. Then craft questions that will elicit responses eg what is the major turning point for your life?
2. How do you collect anecdotes? Invite employees, transcribe recordings and extract anecdotes.
3. What do you do with the anecdotes collected? Sensemaking. Immerse employees in narrative and identify the patterns, encourage dialogue and tell stories to explain, test and reinterpret.
4. What do you want to achieve with the anecdotes? Decide what and how you want to achieve out of these information. Select an Endorsement Committee to help with the decision.
5. Understand the impact. Monitor at intervals and polish process.
Start with these listening techniques and you are on the way to building up a repertoire of stories for your organization. Tell it well and you will create a shared experience with your audience.
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
As organizations grow and become more complex, managers are facing the challenge of delivering clear and concise messages to stakeholders. Employees do not know how to make good use of information while Leaders are bogged down with lengthy explanations of technicalities, when it comes to cascading new policies. How do you inspire, influence and persuade ?
Clearly, there is a need for a guide to help corporations - using the storylistening techniques I learnt from Shawn Callahan of Anecdote. Shawn explored how narrative techniques can be used in a business setting.
Here's how:
1. Where do you start? Every single employee is a storyboard. With 100 employees, you have 100 story ideas! First task is to decide the project themes on the type of stories you want. Then craft questions that will elicit responses eg what is the major turning point for your life?
2. How do you collect anecdotes? Invite employees, transcribe recordings and extract anecdotes.
3. What do you do with the anecdotes collected? Sensemaking. Immerse employees in narrative and identify the patterns, encourage dialogue and tell stories to explain, test and reinterpret.
4. What do you want to achieve with the anecdotes? Decide what and how you want to achieve out of these information. Select an Endorsement Committee to help with the decision.
5. Understand the impact. Monitor at intervals and polish process.
Start with these listening techniques and you are on the way to building up a repertoire of stories for your organization. Tell it well and you will create a shared experience with your audience.
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Bad Eggs in Corporations
Having worked with dozens of agencies and suppliers, I have always prided myself for having the tenacity to build strong, lasting relationships, whom many became good friends including friends from Ogilvy, Burson Marstella, Senses Communications, PictureComm, Waggener Edstorm etc. I am cordial and respectful in every human sense until the trust is violated and I will not hesitate to set things right. In fact I took one to court not too long ago. This one has definitely been blacklisted - eternally!
The reason why I share this with you is not to forewarn or scare the wits out of anyone. No, this is not my style (In fact, I prefer to tell it like it is to your face:)). I endeavour to point out that every smart Communications Director should know how to get the most out of an agency. Work ethics tells us to treat them right and they will go the extra mile. I think most clients understand this. However I also saw for myself that many don't.
As the client, you always have the upper hands to almost everything. You have the power to throw out proposals, deny pitches to small unknown agencies, bargain prices in a cut-throat manner.. you can demand the sky, really... So what is acceptable and what's not?
Personally I did all of the above which I deemed as reasonable. As long as you know what you want, you raise the bar with each challenge to get the best deal from your agency. So that's my motto. However I detest despicable ways to demean people.
This story I heard just last week is by far the most outrageous!
This client from hell, let's call her "Miss Idiot" called up her PR agency on Friday late evening 7-ish and demanded for a proposal to be delivered to her house the next morning by 10 am. She said she has a very important meeting with her boss on Saturday.
The agency abided by her instruction, worked through the night (until 4 am) to deliver the proposal on time. The parcel was dropped off at Miss Idiot's condomnium's security checkpoint as per her instruction. The weekend came and gone. However the parcel was not picked up until the security officer alerted the agency that the house owner (ie Miss Idiot) had gone off for holiday during the weekend !
The horrible fact they discovered was Miss Idiot's boss cancelled the meeting on late Friday night and she decided to go to Batam for the weekend ! Not even a courtesty call to stop production?!!
Apparently Miss Idiot thought that her outrageous act stays within her and the agency. Well, she is so short-sighted on a few things. First, she better keep her job FOREVER because of her well-known records of abusing agencies. Second, she forgot that Singapore is just a tiny dot where words travel at a lighting speed. True enough, a headhunting firm who was bouncing off names within the industry found her horrible records through this very agency's Managing Director.
So the morale of the story? if you are a bad egg, it's time to quit. It's not too late !
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
The reason why I share this with you is not to forewarn or scare the wits out of anyone. No, this is not my style (In fact, I prefer to tell it like it is to your face:)). I endeavour to point out that every smart Communications Director should know how to get the most out of an agency. Work ethics tells us to treat them right and they will go the extra mile. I think most clients understand this. However I also saw for myself that many don't.
As the client, you always have the upper hands to almost everything. You have the power to throw out proposals, deny pitches to small unknown agencies, bargain prices in a cut-throat manner.. you can demand the sky, really... So what is acceptable and what's not?
Personally I did all of the above which I deemed as reasonable. As long as you know what you want, you raise the bar with each challenge to get the best deal from your agency. So that's my motto. However I detest despicable ways to demean people.
This story I heard just last week is by far the most outrageous!
This client from hell, let's call her "Miss Idiot" called up her PR agency on Friday late evening 7-ish and demanded for a proposal to be delivered to her house the next morning by 10 am. She said she has a very important meeting with her boss on Saturday.
The agency abided by her instruction, worked through the night (until 4 am) to deliver the proposal on time. The parcel was dropped off at Miss Idiot's condomnium's security checkpoint as per her instruction. The weekend came and gone. However the parcel was not picked up until the security officer alerted the agency that the house owner (ie Miss Idiot) had gone off for holiday during the weekend !
The horrible fact they discovered was Miss Idiot's boss cancelled the meeting on late Friday night and she decided to go to Batam for the weekend ! Not even a courtesty call to stop production?!!
Apparently Miss Idiot thought that her outrageous act stays within her and the agency. Well, she is so short-sighted on a few things. First, she better keep her job FOREVER because of her well-known records of abusing agencies. Second, she forgot that Singapore is just a tiny dot where words travel at a lighting speed. True enough, a headhunting firm who was bouncing off names within the industry found her horrible records through this very agency's Managing Director.
So the morale of the story? if you are a bad egg, it's time to quit. It's not too late !
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The PR deathbed without digital
A friend shared with me over lunch today that a well-known local PR house is about to close down after 10-15 years of establishment. In their good old days they managed major mncs and they were in big demand so much so that they probably won't get out of bed if the account is not worth half-a-million! Today, the founders are well into their 50s. Old school thinking, laid-back and too tired to learn new tricks to stay relevant. One of them was quoted saying "digital media is too hard!". So gone too were the major accounts and they are losing money every day.
For those practitioners - be it in corporations or agencies, if you are still betting on press releases, media conferences and 1-1 interview pitching to make news... you will face the same fate as this PR house. Multi-channel PR is the way to go with the advent of the social web. Innovate to create more value-add or you will find yourself at your very own PR deathbed.
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
For those practitioners - be it in corporations or agencies, if you are still betting on press releases, media conferences and 1-1 interview pitching to make news... you will face the same fate as this PR house. Multi-channel PR is the way to go with the advent of the social web. Innovate to create more value-add or you will find yourself at your very own PR deathbed.
Lili Koh
7Skies Communication
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