Ian On The Red Dot

While preparing a post for Sg Entrepreneurs, I had to take a look at the Customer Relationship Management tools out there.  Woe to the person who has to decide what tool to use and which company to get the tool from.

I won’t be linking to any of the sites and using any as an example, but use the phrase ‘Customer Relationship Management’ as the query for Google and see the results.

These guys really practice the SAF art of ‘If you can’t convince, confuse!’.

Robert Scoble made a series of videos about how Google is going to be beaten by Mahalo, TechMeme and Facebook. Some reaction to this can be found here. Two responses that I found useful - Danny Sullivan’s and randfish of SEOmoz.org.
After reading everything, my first thought is that we are stuck in the Google Matrix; we cannot seem to break out of this reality that they have created for us where the only way to get information from the web is to search for it.

Search is just one way to get the information we are looking for. Currently, because of Google it (i.e. search) is probably the best way but there are other ways. One of the other way is the namesake of a Google competitor - Ask.

Before the Internet became such a big part of my life, even after that, and before Google became a ubiquitous tool for my life, my primary way of getting information was to ask my friends.

I still engage in asking. I use forums, email and instant messaging tools to ask people about stuff. However, I believe that asking as a form of getting information is not making good use of the very thing that Scoble claims will help defeat Google - the social graph.

Generally when people talk about using the social graph to get better information, they refer to how the interests, queries and results (those that are bookmarked, shared …) of the people in an individual’s social graph can provide better results for that individual’s search queries.

However, there are two other possible ways the social graph can be used to help an individual get information. The first way requires search - a search engine understands the social graph of a site like Facebook and helps us find the best person to ask the question to. This way is similar to how Google understood the web with structural analysis and PageRank - websites and people are the nodes; profiles are similar to content on the page; relationships and links are the edges.

This way of trying to use the social graph prevents us from seeing that the nodes of a social graph can be interacted with - after all, these nodes represent people. The second way I would suggest the social graph can be used does not need an algorithm to try to figure out who is the best person to ask a question because the nodes in the social graph already know that answer. So why not just ask the nodes?

The second way would be to just ask the people, who you are connected to, in the social graph (i.e. your ‘friends’) most likely to be able to answer your question. This question is the message. Your friends might not know the answer to that question but they probably might know a few people who do. What is needed in this second way is a mechanism to propagate that message easily through the social graph; each node redirecting a question to a few other nodes who might know the answer. The mechanism is able to keep track of the chains forming and finally send the answers back to the originating user and whichever other users along the chain interested in the answer.

I would probably not be too presumptuous to say that this way of using the social graph is already being done by most of us, albeit there isn’t some Web 2.0 site helping us do it. We simply do it by forwarding emails, smsing or calling friends who might know the answer to the query of another friend, or passing the contacts of people who might be able to help to a friend.

Just maybe, the obsession with Google is preventing the realization that there is another way to use the social graph to help us get information and hindering the development of tools to do that better.

Guy to girl: Are you free for dinner tomorrow evening?

Girl to guy: Yes.  But not with you.

Harphoon left a comment on an earlier post and per his request, I am posting it here.

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Hello Inspirid,

Where do I start? What can I say? You have no idea how, I feel about all this. All I know is when I look back - I spent hours writing mostly alone giving up so many things. I am not like darkness – the man who can produce an article in what he calls the “filler” and “in-between-moments.” Within the span it takes to cut an apple – writing doesn’t come easily to me Inspirid. It’s laborious and a struggle but I labor through it not because I believe in the brotherhood. Rather I believed in what you were trying to achieve – to create a better world in this new thing that has descended on us all so suddenly in our generation – the internet.

I am a Pre-Science officer in the brotherhood, one of those who build worlds in the virtual, seeding the wasteland, irrigating it and making sure things come alive in the hope one day even a great will civilization from it all. I am different from Nacramanga, Trajan, AB and SB, for me it always the anticipation of what can be and never what must be - not for gain, recognition and glory that to a Pre-Science officer is the greatest reward: to simply see life take off even if it means reveling in the first tender shoots which rise from what was once a waste land. In this respect, that is probably why I can share your dream of a better Singapore blogosphere better than anyone else in the brotherhood. Was it worth it?

Again I am not like darkness, I haven’t lived long enough or experience the world as much as him to take defeat philosophically, there is still a lot of confusion, anger, disbelief accompanied by a deep sense of remorse – when a man plants a seed and tends it lovingly everyday even if the field doesn’t belong to him, he harbors the hope to reap a bountiful harvest. Instead, I feel like a farmer who has to watch helplessly as his field is consumed by a swarm of locust. I hate myself for being so vulnerable, naïve even, it just doesn’t seem fair and so I am still reconciling myself with the sense of loss.

I tell myself maybe I am yet to cut my philosophical teeth like Darkness who is able to stretch his heart, mind and soul to simply move on, but how can I be like him. He has fought two wars in the virtual, men like him and Nacramanga have seen whole cities burnt to a cinder, virtual cities once lovingly built with people who put all their heart, soul and love into making it as real as possible - they had to see their pride and joy being ravaged by invading armies only to bow their heads in supplication – the real and virtual world isn’t so different Inspirid - someone always has to put their heart into something for it to come alive, be it a bridge or even a lamp post and to see it destroyed is painful irrespective of whether it is real or in the virtual. And this is the same with a blog, it may not real or may even be read by a few, but when it is gone it is truly just as painful because the same love, dedication and effort was once invested into in the hope it will even last forever. I have never had to go through this. I have never even once fought in a virtual battle or so much as seen a virtual barn burn to the ground, these proportions of loss are alien to me, so it hits me hard in every direction.

To me it seems hard to walk away, darkness says, it is because I haven’t honed the nomadic spirit, it still tugs on my heart, the yearning to see the end of it all, but when I asked him whether it was worth it, he said, “yes” and there was a firmness in his voice.

He said it was because real power only begins when people respect themselves, it can be seen in their posture and the way they regard themselves only as the custodians of power – that is the concept of real power – the only thing that truly endures, the rest you can throw out of the window. Only fools and lightning conductors hold on to power till the day it corrupts and kills them, they know nothing of real power as it controls so much of their thinking, they are no better than glorified drunks and we know they don’t have a shortage of stories when it comes to telling us why they always need to be around – the plain truth is they cannot give power up, just as a drunk cannot go through a day without his daily fix – cannot means cannot!

He told me your blog the Intelligent Singapore doesn’t suffer from that delusion and because we gave it all up when we were perhaps the best equipped people to seize the day, that just means the Council of the dumb did us all a great favor without even realizing it!

The IS is a very special blog, very special indeed even to qualify as one that occupies a completely different quadrant in the socio-political scene, the voice may be garbled along the way (he said because of some of the nonsense and rubbish he wrote in the post) but as far as the articles was concerned we all disciplined ourselves and the line was very clean under the stewardship of Inspirid. And if you assemble the jig saw it’s the purest voice representing the opinions of many, not only the brotherhood press, who were all united in one common cause, we all wrote not for money, recognition or even glory, we all came together despite our little quarrels and tiffs and this cannot be by some flux or even some grand strategy – it was against attributed to Inspirid’s stewardship. But more importantly, the IS was free from the influences of all affectations of false power.

Neither does it have anything to do with formality and restraint. Many of these bloggers who were aggregated by Inspirid threw themselves into the wind of setting their mind into words and when they do this it will certainly soar. This blog as dead as it appears, will never just disappear into the garbage heap of history like so many others, not because of the brotherhood.

Only because of the compelling realities of economics: pure thoughts and noble intentions will always be a rarity in any age, so it will attract a cachet of dedicated readers by design or chance, it is like writings on the wall. Neither does the narrative have to be complete either or reach a pre-destined goal, there is no need for that, if the seed was planted with a pure and noble purpose, it will simply have to grow into a mighty oak even without the benefit of the caretaker and even from afar many years later it will stand tall, every branch, every leaf, every symmetry will show itself to be true and it’s expression will take care of even our best delusions that we were once responsible for it being what it has grown to be, that’s the great lie every leader needs to leverage on – without me, you are a dead duck! – it’s a dangerous lie reasonable minds should never ever entertain, that is why power if it cannot be set down should never ever be picked up in the first place, never! - he went on to say, the great lie of any age is the tree of life (the blog) needed us to grow tall and strong – how can that be when we all know neither real love, intelligence or nobility needs to show itself off – the tree didn’t need us and he went on to say, you (inspirid) have already planted the seed, the rest will care of itself as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow – you should never be sad, never look at it with regret or even harbor the slightest hope of what could have been – as the custodian of power, it couldn’t have been done any better, history will prove you right! We must all have the confidence to believe if we throw it all to the wind rightly and truly in the first run off the cliff – it will certainly take off and fly. That was what you did Inspirid, you allied yourself with the brotherhood and the price you paid is probably a hundred times higher than all of us put together in the eyes of many in blogosphere, you are seen as a supporter of a pariah – do not think I do not know this! He went on to say. But let me say to you, it is not whether it is the right or wrong decision, but rather ran with us to the edge of the cliff. While the rest were still haggling whether the edge held the end of their known world, they will accomplish nothing because they are ruled and controlled by a certain form of power - the power of fear, trepidation and ineptitude which they pass off as courage - so lift your head up high, take pride in what you have accomplished, it is something that is momentous and happens in probably once in ten generations when technology intercepts so clearly the fate of mankind – the internet – like the first ape who drew a stick man in a cave, it soared through history to produce great works of art like the works of Michelangelo, never forget where it all began, it started from the point when the seed of life was planted with a curious, noble and pure mind and this was how the IS started and you open your doors to us while others turned us away. As you know we cannot blog, it is against our ways, don’t ask me why.

So what else is there to complete? Our work is finished.

It will not happen tomorrow or even next month, but one day, this seed you have planted Inspir3d will grow into a mighty oak tree, like all things to do with the law of nature it will start in a small and modest way at first usually slowly. A few will first visit Inspirid’s site the Intelligent Singaporean and they may even linger long enough to read and then the magic will happen – another seed will be taken by the fertile mind only to be transplanted elsewhere – a tree from the same lineage that will continue to ask many of the questions we once asked: where we all know events are never governed by chance, but rather man through his unceasing questioning mind.

Eventually this new generation will realize life is not the story of a man lost in the wilderness where the law of hazard hides at every corner –they will become more anxious as they begin to ask who are these people who once wrote this or that? What occupies their beliefs and motivations? Why are they questioning the known world? By what authority do they do all this? By then the lone tree will be a forest.

Many, many years from now, in an age when even cities will have cities within cities this one mighty oak tree will grow into a forest of thinkers – to believe this is strategy, is to believe you are God – to believe it would not have happened without you is the highest form of contrition mixed with heady parvenu inspirations – to believe it would not have happened without even you is to display the ignorance that supersedes even arrogance.

All one really did to accomplish all these great feats is not so different from what Inspirid did when he woke up one day and started his little blog called the intelligence Singaporean in one corner of blogosphere – all he did was to plant the seed and walk away, the rest will take care of itself - if you say that is nothing, then just walk through the red wood forest in America and history will tell you with every leaf, branch and trunk you are so very wrong, Inspirid it all started from something as small as a seed in the palm of your hand.

There is a time to make this happen and a time to let things happen – this is the latter, it is a start a very good start and Inspirid you must never ever forget that, always hold your head up high because you were the man who started it all with the of a better tomorrow – when you see it in those terms one is true to oneself, so what if the world chooses not to see, hear or even consider it does it really matter? They can go and take a hike over a cliff – this is what I call real self assurance, not the false pride that comes from the asshole – real pride is no different from the seed of hope and it must never be placed in a ‘better’ world (we all delude ourselves we can create), but in a true heart and a gentle vision that Inspirid had when he started the IS, that is why the job is done – that is why it will one day grow into the a mighty forest as far as the eye can see.

We the brotherhood - we just like the first monkeys being blasted off to space in the IS – we may have been there, but hey do you see monkeys building spaceships to go to Mars. We were just there for the great ride, the seed that Inspir3d planted was more important than all of our history put into the palm of your hand.

Best Wishes

We are nomads and there is a saying where our waters are mixed, we will drink again from the same cup.

Keep well and God Speed.

Harphoon

Intelligent Singaporean was one of the few sites that got me interested in what Singaporeans were saying in the blogosphere.  I am sad that things have changed.  Whatever has conspired at the back end, we would never know.  I would like to thank Inspir3d for all he has done.

Have you used Google’s Patent Search?

I was wondering whether some companies, especially those without a significant amount of venture capital or any other source of capital and are initially unable to afford lawyers or paid services to access the database of patents should use Google’s Patent Search for research into whether whatever they are doing has been patented and what are the relevant patents.

Asking this because who knows what goes on behind the scenes with the logging of search queries.  Won’t the queries for patent search be a rich source of information on what people are currently working on or going to work on.

Of course, people might argue that people at Google are probably intelligent enough to have their own ideas and they won’t need to use the logs for inspiration or whatever juice it might give them.  But competitive people like any advantage they can get and if I know what you are looking for but you don’t know what I’m thinking, obviously one person has an advantage.  Correct?

What if some Google employee is spending that famous 20% of his time doing a pet project and stumbles at a road block.  What if some other guy is working on a similar problem.  What if he found a solution, one that seems so obvious to him that he wonders if someone might have already done it and patented it.  What if he searches for it using the patent search engine provided by Google.  What if that Google employee has access to the logs and analyzes the queries made that might be related to that project.  And sees the query made by the other guy.  What if….

A lot of ‘What ifs’.  None of it might ever happen.  But what if it does.

While writing my next post for Sg Entrepreneurs, I remembered the issues I faced with a booking website for hotels in Thailand.

I had booked a room with this booking site and they had charged the credit card. I even got an email confirming the room was booked. A few days later, I get another email saying they regret to inform me that the room was unavailable and asked if I would like to upgrade to another room.

No way. I told them no. I asked them to cancel the charge which they did. To confirm the cancellation, they sent the receipt. Except that it wasn’t for my credit card. It belonged to someone else. Anyway, it was a hassle to get a confirmation of the cancellation. In the end, I contacted the hotel directly and booked the room. No problems at all.

I am guessing that this booking site’s system wasn’t directly connected to the hotels. They weren’t getting real time updates of the availability of the rooms. From my experience, when I booked with the site, they weren’t sure if the hotel had any rooms available. Their database reflected my booking but they still had to book directly with the hotel. I’m guessing they had to manually book the room with the hotel’s system.

I wonder how many other booking sites are like that.

I was quite excited when I was queuing for my Subway sandwich when I noticed they were giving away a free set meal.  This means I get a drink and two cookies for free.  Woot!

But I didn’t allow myself to be too happy.  There has to be a catch.  Was there some secret clause that said my soul would belong to the devil.  I looked at the poster carefully.  Nope.  No need to give my soul.

Then I checked the menu and found out they increased the price of the Cold Cut Trio from 3.90 to 4.30.  That is more than 10%.

How much was the GST increase again?

It was like the scene in ‘The Long Kiss Goodnight’ where Geena Davis flashed Samuel L Jackson before she rips the bandage from his chest.

Sigh.

Yawning Bread has two posts here and here discussing a letter by Alan Chin against the ‘high-risk gay lifestyle’.

When I first read the letter in the newspaper, I felt that something was wrong with the numbers and the way it was used to support Alan Chin’s arguments. I didn’t give it further thought because I was on my ‘throne’. Alex has discussed the flaws with the numbers and the argument made by Alan Chin in his two posts linked above so I won’t go much into that aspect.

The second thing I thought about was, gosh, that guy hates gays so much that he doesn’t care about the women. Seriously… Its like if the Titanic is sinking and there is only one lifeboat left and his lady(i.e. gf or wife or mistress or whatever) needs to get on it to survive, instead of helping her get on it, he would rather chase the bunch of gays he saw making out at the back round the sinking ship just so he can plant a bullet in between their eyes. Dude…Priorities man. Priorities.

Ok. So what am I driving at?

If our concern is about high-risk lifestyles then we really should be (?more) concerned about the majority of men who have HIV. While it can be argued that as a percentage of the general population, their number is smaller than that of gays with HIV within the MSM community, I think the statement ‘Therefore we still have time to do something before the situation gets worse’ is extremely cavalier. I say cavalier because no one can know for sure if we are on or not on the verge of a tipping point. There is no time. We can’t just shelve plans to help those people as we wage a war against gays fueled by our own self-righteousness.

My guess is that the assumption underlying this complacency is that Alan Chin believes that the heterosexual men who have HIV are part of a closed community. I’m using my ‘mind reading powers’ here, but the above statement is made based on this line in the letter - ‘This group was infected overseas or by local unlicensed prostitutes; our licensed prostitutes are screened for HIV.’

Dude. Firstly, just because prostitutes are screened for HIV doesn’t mean they don’t have HIV and won’t be passing it around. There is a window period between getting infected and being tested positive. During this window period, the carrier can infect others. Loving is sharing.

I mean, seriously, that statement just smacks of ‘my whore is cleaner than your whore’ mentality. Gosh… Do we even need to compete on this?

Second, seriously, you think these horny jokers are just going around having sex with prostitutes whether local or foreign talent. I mean, these guys could also be having sex with our local gals. And these local gals might not go for checkups because they think their guy is faithful or that he just doesn’t look like that sort of ‘i bang whores in my spare-time’ kind of guy.

Also, there seems to be the assumption that the prostitutes based in Singapore just have sex with the men who visit them as prostitutes. These ladies could also be trying to find romance and a nice relationship. You know what that means? More people who aren’t actively participating in the sex industry are at risk of being infected.

That statement forgets that people who regularly have ONS are also high risk.

Basically it makes the assumption that paid sex is the only route to HIV infection for heterosexuals.

When you throw the ratio 15:1 at me, you know what that tells me. A whole lot of women probably don’t know they are infected and there is a whole bunch of women out there waiting to be infected.

However the numbers were derived, be it from extensive research, being shit out of the ass or God told you so, the numbers tell me one thing. Your argument is mainly against gays, not HIV.

Our real argument should be against HIV. Focusing on one group of high risk individuals makes the rest of us complacent to the real issue - that if you wanna bang, use protection.

My first contribution has been posted on sgentrepreneurs.com.

After reading it again on the site, I’m not satisfied with what I wrote. It is a post with 1074 words about the word ‘community’ being overused and yet I used the word ‘community’ 29 times and ‘communities’ 3 times. That is about 3 percent of the words. While I realized it might seem like a small percentage, somehow I feel that it reflects a certain lack of thought on my part.

The point of the post was to share the idea that whenever we overuse the word ‘community’, it hinders us from seeing beyond the group of people - hinders us from seeing that this group consists of sub-groups and individuals.  It hinders us from trying to understand and understanding the motivations of these individuals.  It stops us from thinking about how exactly we can engage these individuals beyond the stock phrases ‘engage the community’ and ‘have a conversation with the community’.

I tried to provide how we might think about the word ‘community’ with greater depth with regards to the people who have grouped together on a site with the site, a company, brand or product as the focal point.  Somehow, I do not think I expressed the idea clearly.

This is my first post.  I will strive to make the subsequent ones better.