Alvinology | Working With Grace

Alvin Lim

Online Marketing Manager, omy.sg

1) You’re a marketer and a blogger. Is this your dream job (combination, if I may put it that way)? Do you see yourself doing the same things 5 years from now?

I love what I am doing currently, but I would stop short of calling it my dream job as I still have to work very hard, clocking in crazy hours. The Internet media landscape changes very quickly and 5 years is like 50 years in another business. I am very certain I will still be working in the online media industry five years from now, but I am pretty sure I would be doing something different as the Internet business is constantly evolving. Change is the only constant. If I am still doing the same thing five years from now, very likely I am not performing in my job.

2) You’ve spoken about Commercial Blogging before… As a marketer, what sort of blogs grab your attention and what do you usually look out for in blogs?

Blogs with clean, reader-friendly layout grabs my attention. Good writing, complemented with decent photography and videos help too. Basically, the basics of Journalism 101 applies to good blog writing too.

3) You’ve done a 2005 paper on Ethics in Blogging. What do you think has changed since then and what still remains?

OMG! You really did your research well! 🙂 Things have changed a lot since. Facebook was still small then and people were still using Friendster. I would think people are more aware of online etiquette now than in 2005, but yet at the same time, are more willing to share very private thoughts and material online, with scant regards for potential consequences. It’s an oxymoron. People recognise the wide reach of the Internet and the long tentacles of the laws pertaining to online discourse, yet at the same time, they are more flippant than ever with regards to what they share and post online via blogs and social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

4) How has Blogging/the Blogosphere evolved since you started your blog and where do you think it’s heading?

Singapore has an interesting blogging scene where you see many aspiring pretty girl bloggers who want to be the next Xiaxue. Yet there can be only one Xiaxue.

In the US, there are professionally managed content blogs like the Huffington Post, BoingBoing.Net, TechCrunch and many others that are focused on journalism content instead of personality-driven content like it currently is in Singapore. I hope to see a shift more towards quality content versus personality and controversy-driven blogs.

5) You share quite a bit on your blog, even your self-professed geek-ness. Tell us something about you that many don’t know yet.

Hmm…. I am born with holes in my ears that causes a slight hearing deficiency in both my ears. They do not impact me vastly in my daily life, but they can cause me much pain when there is a sharp change in atmospheric pressure. That’s why I always have to bring a pair of army-issued ear plugs when I travel via airplanes. They help ease the pain during take-off and landing.

Grace says: Alvin’s job does seem like a dream job to me! 🙂 He recently flew off with Scoot on their inaugural flight from Singapore to Sydney. Chua Enlai and Michelle Chong were also onboard and entertained all. How cool is that? You can read about Alvin’s experience on his blog alvinology.com.

And, if not for Alvin’s reminder about the Blog Awards’ nomination deadline when I was picking up a prize from a previous blogging contest, I would certainly have missed the excitement of being in the running for Best Individual Blog! Have you voted today? 😀

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