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5 years ago
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Do you want to go to the seaside?
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
True Love Awaits or an Ad guy's take on finding your Soulmate
One of the advantages of being in an advertising agency is the amount of data available to channel our thoughts and help us work. For example, according to Nielsen, there are 730,000 potential instant noodle eaters in Malaysia and The Star(daily excluding Sunday) has a readership of 1,079,000, with 65% of those numbers from Klang Valley alone. The trick is to use those numbers to the benefit of our clients.
A recent chance listen to some sap song on the radio about having soulmates got me a-thinking; if "Soulmates" do exist*, what would be the most effective way of finding them, and how would we target them to induce a sale - in this case quantifying the odds and increasing chances to be with the soulmate.
So, using publicly available data, I've done up a communication plan with specific calculations to answer the problem. For the sake of argument of this discussion, we'll have the following ground rules**:
As an example***, my chosen language is English (1.5 billion native and non-native speakers) and my preferred sexual orientation is straight female. The global gender ratio is about 51:49 in favor of men, so I multiply 1.5 billion by 0.49, which would be roughly 735,000,000. I would then reduce that number further by 2% to get my SI (which is the alleged gay ratio, very important this), leaving me with 720,300,000 straight English-speaking females. If you were a gay male, you would multiply 1.5 billion by 0.51 and then again by 0.02, giving you a much smaller SI, at only 15.3 million.
Okay, now that we have established the product problem, let's see how we can make the sale. So, the likelihood of me meeting my Soulmate is roughly 1 in 720,000,000, and what we’re going to do over the next few paragraphs is work out just how “likely” that is. I’m a 28-year-old Malaysian, and have a life expectancy of 74 years. That means I’ve got a potential for 46 more years of searching for that blasted soul mate of mine. Let’s be more micro, and calculate how many days that is:
(365 days * 34 common years) + (366 days * 12 leap years) = 16,802 days to go
For a fighting chance at this, let’s tack on the past 10 years of my life as well, or since I turned 18, ie, legally capable ofhaving sex with my soul mate should I meet her marrying & losing myself in my soul mate’s eyes forever.
16802 + ((365 * 8) + (366 * 2)) = 20,454 in total
Big number & days are rapidly going by. We can express all of this very simply by saying that if I want to meet my soul mate and I am unlucky enough to have had to meet every single person in my entire SI before I finally meet her, I would have to see 720,300,000 people over 20,454 days starting when I turned 18. (35,216 people per day, or roughly half of the sitting capacity at Old Trafford)
Very discouraging. Let’s do some quick math to work out the problem some more.
I’m sitting at KLCC as I write this, and there are easily 30 other people in and around this place with me. I’ll walk to the car later to go back and there are another 60 people who would be in my way. Later tonight I’ll have dinner at the Pavilion since I need to fix my watch, and will come into indirect contact with about 100 or so different people. If I were taking public transport, I’d get on to a the LRT car with 50 other people all mashed up against each other.
Depending on how much you move around, you come in to indirect contact with about 150-200 unique people every day. Possibly even more than that if you really pound the pavement. That means that without drastically changing my lifestyle, I will see about 4,090,800 people over the course of my life or about 0.56% of my SI. Expressed in more practical terms, my chances of finding my soul mate at any point in my post-18 year old life is about 1 in 200.
Isn't that depressing? Very. 20 years ago, that would be pretty much all she wrote too. But these days we’re fortunate enough to have a way to connect with thousands more at any given moment, ie, the internet or the social networking sites. You have twitter, contacts all around the world from work and studies, facebook, which in turn highly increase the the chance of coming in contact with more people Your own numbers will be differ of course, but the point is that we’re able to cheat the odds by making ourselves really visible online and offline. In fact, if I assume that my soul mate is a straight female who speaks English and has Internet access, my SI is reduced even further. There are 1.4 billion people on the Internet, 430.8 million of which speak English, and 206.8 million of which are probably straight females. Now my chances are about 58:1. If all that sounds a little fanciful, it’s really not. I mean seriously, what kind of cosmos would give a Soulmate that didn’t use the Internet in this day and age? That would really be cruel.
One way to look at the 58:1 ratio is: if I had 58 times to relive my life, I would cross paths with my soul mate once (and here's to hoping one of us didn't screw up karma-cally and end up as a dung beetle). That sounds incredibly sad, so here’s another way to look at it: if you took 58 other guys with similar soul-mate indices as me, only one of us would find our soul mate. I like the sound of that a little bit more, but I’m not entirely sure it’s the right way to look at the numbers (or any less depressing)
The trick here really is to make yourself as visible as possible online and offline so as to reach as many people as possible. Joining social networks and generating online content is the new-school equivalent of taking yoga classes or joining photography clubs in order to meet new people, and it’s a lot more cost-effective too. The idea of course is not to stop looking.
I'm all written out now.
*I personally don't believe in the concept of a Soulmate. I believe in Compatibility.
** If you do not agree with these, do your own calculations. Or you know, don't read anymore.
*** Not that I am looking of course. I said EXAMPLE.
A recent chance listen to some sap song on the radio about having soulmates got me a-thinking; if "Soulmates" do exist*, what would be the most effective way of finding them, and how would we target them to induce a sale - in this case quantifying the odds and increasing chances to be with the soulmate.
So, using publicly available data, I've done up a communication plan with specific calculations to answer the problem. For the sake of argument of this discussion, we'll have the following ground rules**:
- Your soulmate exists and is somewhere in this world. No need to waste time thinking the universe royally screwed you over by having your soulmate born in 2B.C. Let's all assume fate gave you a fighting chance.
- Your soulmate is of the preferred sexual orientation. Why bother otherwise?
- Your soulmate and you share at least a common language. How would you communicate otherwise? Body language doesn't count.
As an example***, my chosen language is English (1.5 billion native and non-native speakers) and my preferred sexual orientation is straight female. The global gender ratio is about 51:49 in favor of men, so I multiply 1.5 billion by 0.49, which would be roughly 735,000,000. I would then reduce that number further by 2% to get my SI (which is the alleged gay ratio, very important this), leaving me with 720,300,000 straight English-speaking females. If you were a gay male, you would multiply 1.5 billion by 0.51 and then again by 0.02, giving you a much smaller SI, at only 15.3 million.
Okay, now that we have established the product problem, let's see how we can make the sale. So, the likelihood of me meeting my Soulmate is roughly 1 in 720,000,000, and what we’re going to do over the next few paragraphs is work out just how “likely” that is. I’m a 28-year-old Malaysian, and have a life expectancy of 74 years. That means I’ve got a potential for 46 more years of searching for that blasted soul mate of mine. Let’s be more micro, and calculate how many days that is:
(365 days * 34 common years) + (366 days * 12 leap years) = 16,802 days to go
For a fighting chance at this, let’s tack on the past 10 years of my life as well, or since I turned 18, ie, legally capable of
16802 + ((365 * 8) + (366 * 2)) = 20,454 in total
Big number & days are rapidly going by. We can express all of this very simply by saying that if I want to meet my soul mate and I am unlucky enough to have had to meet every single person in my entire SI before I finally meet her, I would have to see 720,300,000 people over 20,454 days starting when I turned 18. (35,216 people per day, or roughly half of the sitting capacity at Old Trafford)
Very discouraging. Let’s do some quick math to work out the problem some more.
I’m sitting at KLCC as I write this, and there are easily 30 other people in and around this place with me. I’ll walk to the car later to go back and there are another 60 people who would be in my way. Later tonight I’ll have dinner at the Pavilion since I need to fix my watch, and will come into indirect contact with about 100 or so different people. If I were taking public transport, I’d get on to a the LRT car with 50 other people all mashed up against each other.
Depending on how much you move around, you come in to indirect contact with about 150-200 unique people every day. Possibly even more than that if you really pound the pavement. That means that without drastically changing my lifestyle, I will see about 4,090,800 people over the course of my life or about 0.56% of my SI. Expressed in more practical terms, my chances of finding my soul mate at any point in my post-18 year old life is about 1 in 200.
Isn't that depressing? Very. 20 years ago, that would be pretty much all she wrote too. But these days we’re fortunate enough to have a way to connect with thousands more at any given moment, ie, the internet or the social networking sites. You have twitter, contacts all around the world from work and studies, facebook, which in turn highly increase the the chance of coming in contact with more people Your own numbers will be differ of course, but the point is that we’re able to cheat the odds by making ourselves really visible online and offline. In fact, if I assume that my soul mate is a straight female who speaks English and has Internet access, my SI is reduced even further. There are 1.4 billion people on the Internet, 430.8 million of which speak English, and 206.8 million of which are probably straight females. Now my chances are about 58:1. If all that sounds a little fanciful, it’s really not. I mean seriously, what kind of cosmos would give a Soulmate that didn’t use the Internet in this day and age? That would really be cruel.
One way to look at the 58:1 ratio is: if I had 58 times to relive my life, I would cross paths with my soul mate once (and here's to hoping one of us didn't screw up karma-cally and end up as a dung beetle). That sounds incredibly sad, so here’s another way to look at it: if you took 58 other guys with similar soul-mate indices as me, only one of us would find our soul mate. I like the sound of that a little bit more, but I’m not entirely sure it’s the right way to look at the numbers (or any less depressing)
The trick here really is to make yourself as visible as possible online and offline so as to reach as many people as possible. Joining social networks and generating online content is the new-school equivalent of taking yoga classes or joining photography clubs in order to meet new people, and it’s a lot more cost-effective too. The idea of course is not to stop looking.
I'm all written out now.
*I personally don't believe in the concept of a Soulmate. I believe in Compatibility.
** If you do not agree with these, do your own calculations. Or you know, don't read anymore.
*** Not that I am looking of course. I said EXAMPLE.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Camper-holic
No really, try 'emWhen I shop for shoes, I’m usually looking for something that’s a little off the beaten path. I like my shoes to be a little funky, conversation starters, the kind of shoes that get noticed on the street and most importantly, comfortable! That’s why I love Campers. They're everything that I ever wanted in a pair of shoes. I've got a few pairs lying around (literally) and they are the best pair of shoes I have ever paid good money for. A bit on the high side but I've not had to a pair ever go down in comfort levels nor break on me, ever. (take notes Converse!)
Now, how do I find a pair that will be borderline acceptable in Greener Pastures? Bloody HR policies *mutter mutter*
"We all laugh at the Chuck Taylors' behind their backs"
Friday, January 23, 2009
Sign o' the times
I really don't see Malaysia being visibly affected too much by the Global Economic Slowdown just yet. Malls are packed, fancy diners are chock-full of people, there's just as many cars on the roads and job cuts are all abroad.
But today I saw the first signs of things to come; When CNY is next week, and an ad agency only gets one (1) hamper that cost RM80 from a supplier, you know things are just swirling around waiting to be flushed down the toilet.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Disconnecting
not quite..I've cleaned up my desk, packed all of my personal items in a big box, shredded documents, took out the trash. Funny how much junk accumulates over 3 years of setting up camp.
Packing everything was especially difficult. Each item has very distinct memories to it. The letter opener given to me when I was in Tokyo, little paintings from Kyoto, the Japanese fans, small Japanese metro stubs, Autumn Feelings -the painting given to me for my last birthday by a client, my books on communications, pictures of us going out when the agency first started out, little post-its with notes over the past 3-years, and more.
I've also untethered the 'berry from the office calendar and email. That at least gives me some peace and quiet, though I don't get as much email anymore anyway. As Khaylis said, my last day may be this Friday but I've checked out a long time ago.
T-minus 3 days and counting.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Southpaw drivin'
Part of my responsibilities* at home is to make sure the Pajero** doesn't die from lack of use. Which in turn will cost us 400bux for a new battery, a wobbly drive to the petrol station to fill up the tyres with air and a scolding. Which means we (I) have to drive it around over the weekend to keep it in shape.
Driving the Paj isn't a problem. Nice enough car. Sure, it drinks petrol like mother's milk but there's that sense of Rawr everytime I accelerate. But, I'm still relatively lazy to take it out for a spin more often.
The problem comes from it being a beast of a left-hand drive 4WD. Driving it requires a physical and a mental effort. Amongst the issues I have with it:
It's the little things that makes it all fun. Hee.
*Among other but not restricted to: Watering the plants (ini sungguh penting), making sure there's ice in the icetray, taking the trash out, trying to make sure the dishes doesn't pile up (personal 2009 resolution this) and doing the laundry.
** Useless knowledge: Pajero in Spanish = wank. In Spain the Mitsubishi Pajero is the Mitsubishi Montero.
Driving the Paj isn't a problem. Nice enough car. Sure, it drinks petrol like mother's milk but there's that sense of Rawr everytime I accelerate. But, I'm still relatively lazy to take it out for a spin more often.
The problem comes from it being a beast of a left-hand drive 4WD. Driving it requires a physical and a mental effort. Amongst the issues I have with it:
- S t r e t c h i n g to pay toll/get a parking ticket and having that moment where I swear I slipped a disc. Thank god for Smart Tag (when I remember to bring it lah). Having a co-pilot is also highly recommended.
- I keep banging my left hand on the side every time I want to shift from P to D to R to whatever.
- Overtaking. 'Nuff said.
It's the little things that makes it all fun. Hee.
*Among other but not restricted to: Watering the plants (ini sungguh penting), making sure there's ice in the icetray, taking the trash out, trying to make sure the dishes doesn't pile up (personal 2009 resolution this) and doing the laundry.
** Useless knowledge: Pajero in Spanish = wank. In Spain the Mitsubishi Pajero is the Mitsubishi Montero.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Smart Playlist: Most Played songs in 2008
I love Apple. They simplify everything for me.
Situation: I'm having a hard time uploading songs into the new Nano. If possible, I want everryyything in. So instead of making the decision myself, I am delegating it to iTunes.
Playlist formula: Highest Play Count + Range from 1 January 2008 - 31 December 2008+ Limit to 2000 songs =Songs to be transferred from ye ol iPod to the new one. (only 607 songs came out though)
Et voila. A full iPod to take around.
And speaking of music, in no particular order, here are my favourite singles of 2008:
Chairlift – Bruises
These guys got the big break when El Jobs used them for the new nano-chromatic TVCs. The apple iPod ads are a real jewel in introducing new music (It certainly worked wonders for Feist). Plus I've always had a thing for Indie bands with girl lead singers.)
Feist - Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)
Okay so this wasn't released in 2008. Ben Gibbard's eclectic remix + Feist's lovely voice, a great combination of jazz+indie rock+bossa nova landed her the top played artist in my iTunes. Mushaboom the original was great but the remix just gave it that extra liveliness and fun to make it great.
On another note; Kudo, she sang La Même Histoire on your Paris Je'taime soundtrack.
Pete and the Pirates - Knots
This band from Reading cuts through the clutter with the KISS formula. Awesome debut album. They remind me of The Kooks , with a bit more distortion & wah-wah built in. Worth adownload listen!
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Hands down, "Only by the Night" is my favourite album in 2008. I first heard the KOL when they released "Because of the Times." That album was hard to top by they did it somehow w
MGMT - Kids
Dancey. These guys sports one of the best/catchiest riffs in a song ever. They also look like a bunch of treehuggers who hopped in a time machine to play in 2008. What's not to love? (Note: the youtube link featuring the Thundercats/Gene Simmons hybrid is a band endorsed unofficial video)
Other releases I really enjoyed this past year included the Brendan Canning-led Broken Social Scene album, theRacounteurs Raconteurs’ Consolers of the Lonely, and the Dodos’ psychedelic-folk album Visiter. A lot of year-ender lists also rank The ‘59 Sound and Fleet Foxes very high as well, although I never got as into either of them as I was expecting. Still, they’re all worth checking out if you want to get a preview of what other bands will be sounding like in 2009.
Now, please excuse me while I add covers into all in the songs in the Nano. 200-odd songs to go!
Situation: I'm having a hard time uploading songs into the new Nano. If possible, I want everryyything in. So instead of making the decision myself, I am delegating it to iTunes.
Playlist formula: Highest Play Count + Range from 1 January 2008 - 31 December 2008+ Limit to 2000 songs =Songs to be transferred from ye ol iPod to the new one. (only 607 songs came out though)
Et voila. A full iPod to take around.
And speaking of music, in no particular order, here are my favourite singles of 2008:
Chairlift – Bruises
These guys got the big break when El Jobs used them for the new nano-chromatic TVCs. The apple iPod ads are a real jewel in introducing new music (It certainly worked wonders for Feist). Plus I've always had a thing for Indie bands with girl lead singers.)
Feist - Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix)
Okay so this wasn't released in 2008. Ben Gibbard's eclectic remix + Feist's lovely voice, a great combination of jazz+indie rock+bossa nova landed her the top played artist in my iTunes. Mushaboom the original was great but the remix just gave it that extra liveliness and fun to make it great.
On another note; Kudo, she sang La Même Histoire on your Paris Je'taime soundtrack.
Pete and the Pirates - Knots
This band from Reading cuts through the clutter with the KISS formula. Awesome debut album. They remind me of The Kooks , with a bit more distortion & wah-wah built in. Worth a
Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
Hands down, "Only by the Night" is my favourite album in 2008. I first heard the KOL when they released "Because of the Times." That album was hard to top by they did it somehow w
MGMT - Kids
Dancey. These guys sports one of the best/catchiest riffs in a song ever. They also look like a bunch of treehuggers who hopped in a time machine to play in 2008. What's not to love? (Note: the youtube link featuring the Thundercats/Gene Simmons hybrid is a band endorsed unofficial video)
Other releases I really enjoyed this past year included the Brendan Canning-led Broken Social Scene album, theRacounteurs Raconteurs’ Consolers of the Lonely, and the Dodos’ psychedelic-folk album Visiter. A lot of year-ender lists also rank The ‘59 Sound and Fleet Foxes very high as well, although I never got as into either of them as I was expecting. Still, they’re all worth checking out if you want to get a preview of what other bands will be sounding like in 2009.
Now, please excuse me while I add covers into all in the songs in the Nano. 200-odd songs to go!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Quickie
As mentioned before, I'm slowly warming up to the idea of micr0-blogging via twitter. The issue (as pointed out by a bright-eyed rocket scientist) is that my name is on the twitter panel on the right. I suppose I'll have to take it out sooner or later.
Speaking of which, last week Twitter was a victim of phishing scams. Several prominent names like Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez and Brit Brit got hacked. Check out the what the wiley bugger did with Britney's Twitter. Hilarious:
Lastly, heard Lily Allen's version of Womanizer ?(credit to Khaylis for high-jacking my speakers to let me listen to it) Lovely slower-beat, proper Brit-ish enunciation and a whole lot sexier+less skanky than Britney's.
Shit I actually have to do proper work today. Woe is me.
Speaking of which, last week Twitter was a victim of phishing scams. Several prominent names like Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez and Brit Brit got hacked. Check out the what the wiley bugger did with Britney's Twitter. Hilarious:
Lastly, heard Lily Allen's version of Womanizer ?(credit to Khaylis for high-jacking my speakers to let me listen to it) Lovely slower-beat, proper Brit-ish enunciation and a whole lot sexier+less skanky than Britney's.
Shit I actually have to do proper work today. Woe is me.
Monday, January 5, 2009
#1
Thanks to an (almost) infinite amount of time at work now - I have opted that it is best to part ways with the current Slave master and move on to Greener Pastures - I have started blogging again.
Prior to this, I have tried everything to fill in my daily timesheets; 9 hour internal meetings (A new thing. Usually at Chili’s Bangsar during happy hour for 4 hours which makes it a mathematical miracle), 9 hour reviews (the internet is a big place), 9 hour Recces (Bangsar, Pusat Bandar Damansara, Mont Kiara), 9 hour of new talent review (lots of live concerts & stand-ups on youtube), 9 hour courses (I highly recommend @GoogleTalk & Ted) etc etc; Sounds fun but too much of a good thing and all that jazz is apparently true.
To sum it up, I.am.Bored. A far cry from the hair-tearing-working-weekends-not-enough-time-in-the-world before.
So here I am, blogging again. Welcome to my new online real estate. A few things to try out this time around.
Stay fresh, beetches.
Prior to this, I have tried everything to fill in my daily timesheets; 9 hour internal meetings (A new thing. Usually at Chili’s Bangsar during happy hour for 4 hours which makes it a mathematical miracle), 9 hour reviews (the internet is a big place), 9 hour Recces (Bangsar, Pusat Bandar Damansara, Mont Kiara), 9 hour of new talent review (lots of live concerts & stand-ups on youtube), 9 hour courses (I highly recommend @GoogleTalk & Ted) etc etc; Sounds fun but too much of a good thing and all that jazz is apparently true.
To sum it up, I.am.Bored. A far cry from the hair-tearing-working-weekends-not-enough-time-in-the-world before.
So here I am, blogging again. Welcome to my new online real estate. A few things to try out this time around.
- Not use company names at all - From the above-mentioned free time, I have trawled the ‘Net looking for clues to what to expect at Greener Pastures. You’ll be surprised with the amount of dirt I dug up. I now virtually know of quite a number of people, what’s down with office politics, who’s who and who are the cool kids in school. This could get Nasty.
- People - Not use my name, your name, everyone’s name. Ditto reason. Anyone have a preference of nicknames or can I just make things up? (Friendly-warning to not use names here.)
- Micro-blogging - I didn’t warm to the idea of twitter before as I didn’t see the sense of paying 15cents every time I wanted to update it. But with twitterberry it is all good in the hood. Plugging into twitter is like plugging into the Internet itself. Everything that goes on in the planet (and on other planets) can be found on Twitter. It’s about as fun as when Blogs first exploded. Be careful the overload of information though.
Stay fresh, beetches.
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