Bjorno.licio.us

Woah, its been a long time since I blogged. Anyway, I met my ex-vice-dean (”ex-” because I graduated) yesterday in school and she asked me the question I always get these days.

Have you found a job yet?

Sometimes, this kind of questions irk me but I know she has good intentions. She thinks a graduate with no job 2 months after graduation is a cancerous anomaly in the booming economic climate of Singapore today (not counting the Shanghai-instigated stock market meltdown recently).

I laughed off her probing questions with my usual answer. I work for passion, not money nor social recognition of my self-worth. I also proceed to tell her stories of me rebuffing job offers, which is only met with expressions of horror and disbelief. Someone who understand me less will think I am arrogant (to actually reject employers, WTF does Bjorn think he is?). But I see it as a case of being fair to the employer. If I do not have passion for what you are hiring me to do, I shouldn’t do it.

So how do I survive?

I do freelance (but not free!) consulting projects. Currently, I have 2 open projects. One is an online marketing project to build and publicise a microsite with viral videos, podcasts and blog articles to engage with a young audience in the educational field. Another is a project to write business plans for an entrepreneur seeking funding in the healthcare recruitment sector. I might also have a new gig to consult in corporate blogging. At the same time, I network a lot through my role in Entrepreneur27 Singapore, meeting with professionals, entrepreneurs and students as I build a local Web 2.0 community for like-minded individuals to meet and share ideas.

Where am I headed with all these?

I want to work in the web industry, where changes are happening rapidly in media consumptions habits, marketing tactics and corporate-customer communication strategies. This is a pretty big space and that is where my values come in. I strongly believe in community-building; in being open, direct and frank in interactions with the masses of consumers who now have a voice on the internet and have no qualms about complimenting or complaining about a product or user experience exercising that right (pity our neighbor Malaysia is taking a step closer to the Stone Age by censuring [political] bloggers)

Few companies in Singapore, my home country, truly understand the value of reaching out to consumers over the web. This is where its disheartening and maybe one good reason why I can’t find a suitable job. There is no visionary mentor I would enjoy working with, someone who dares to take chances and bet with big stakes for an even bigger payoff. Most companies look at the young spending huge amounts of time on the internet and jump to conclusions they are either bootlegging illegal content through P2P downloads/ youtube or penning down thoughts into their “public diaries” or blogs. This is a common stereotype even for experienced professionals and one which requires much industry education to overcome. While the mass media’s hyper-ventilation over breathtaking buyout numbers of Youtube or Google’s revenue figures make some of these companies do a double take on such “new media”, it is not enough. My interactions with some entrepreneurs and businessmen still make me believe they only see the obvious “whats” of this “new media” phenomenon but not the “whys” of how this phenomenon gained such success. I don’t think anyone not understanding the “whys” of how Web 2.0 or user-generated media came about, will be successful in making money from this market.

A good rant while I am sick and stuck at home, missing out on a good party in Sentosa Cove with the E27 folks. Don’t mind me while I sneeze my way out of my drug-induced stupor..