Absolut Vodka: Absolut Vodka

“If you saw your life flash before your eyes, would you change the way you live it? Absolut Vodka thinks so, and to ensure people don’t get behind the wheel drunk, they introduce Absolut Life: a platform that allows people to watch a video of their Facebook lives flash before their eyes.”

Advertising School: Miami Ad School, New York, USA
Creative Director: Tara Lawall
Art Director: Lisa Zeitlhuber
Copywriter: Nick Partyka

France 24 Birds

French international news channel France 24 highlighted the power of internet freedom in “Birds”, an advertising campaign inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds. A commercial and print/outdoor advertising campaign featured a Gaddafi-like dictator and other powerful figures threatened by the Twitter-like birds of revolution. Three posters, emulating the style of the original 1963 Birds movie posters, feature Gaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali.

Online social networks played a significant role in spreading revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya earlier in 2011. France 24′s Arabic language version broke all audience records during this period. But the channel as a whole has benefited from an increase in audience. In March 2011 france24.com experienced a peak in traffic with nearly 14 million visits and about 59 million page views. The channel’s Twitter following grew quickly due to a large amount of tweets dedicated to the Arab Spring topic.

Credits

The Birds ad was developed at Marcel Worldwide, Paris, by executive creative directors Anne De Maupeou, Veronique Sels and Sebastien Vacherot, art director Souen Le Van, copywriter Martin Rocaboy, agency producers Cleo Ferenczi and Fleur Laruent-Bruzy, art buyers Jean-Luc Chirio and Aurélie Lubot, account manager Cécile Henderycks, account manager Michel Kowalski, working with France 24 communications director Nathalie Lenfant.
Filming was shot by director Philippe Grammaticopoulos via Mister Hyde, Paris, with producer Hervé Lopez.
Music is by Christophe Julien.
Illustrators were Marie Morency (Gaddafi), Souen Le Van (Mubarak), and K.I.M. Florence Lucas (Ben Ali).

New approach towards new media

The Government is likely to take a new approach and a more active approach towards the new media.
http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=33833

I have seen the bad side of the new media and how people can act irresponsibly when giving their comments (and untruths) and malicious attacks under anonymity. I like to see the new media being used in a more responsible manner and will welcome moves in that direction.

Subsidy for Japanese manufacturers

The Japanese government is introducing a subsidy to help its manufacturers to keep their production in Japan, in the face of a stronger currency. This shows that the system of free trade and open market is now under stress. http://www.cnbc.com//id/44983686

Communist Manifesto - 1848

I read some parts of the book by Karl Marx entitled the Communist Manifesto. He described the struggle between the proletariat (working class) and the bourgeois (capital owners). Today, 163 years later, it is a struggle between the 99% (ordinary people) and the 1% (elite). This can be seen in the "Occupy Wall Street" protest.

National Service Deferment

The Minister for Defence said that there was no preference treatment for National Service deferment. He explained in detail to Parliament how the process for deferment was carried out. However, the newspaper report did not carry the details. I hope that our MPs in Parliament would question the process, to ensure that the relevant questions have been asked and answered satisfactorily.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Parliament/Story/STIStory_725378.html

My preference is for National Service to be made fairer to male citizens, so that they do not need to sacrifice their time and opportunity. This can be done through reducing the duration of national service and/ or compensating them adequately for the time that they have to spend. The Singapore males have to compete with foreigners and females in the job market and should not be placed at a disadvantage.

List of contractors

The list of contractors have been updated to include plumbing, electrical and TV repair. There are now 13 categories of contractors. This list will be converted into a database for easy access at a later date. The contractors have been contacted to establish their responsiveness to calls or emails.
http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=579

Top-up CPF by cash

The charge (by eNETS) to top up a CPF by internet banking is too high. For an amount of $1,000, the charge is $15. For a larger amount, the charge is NOT specified.

To avoid this excessive charge, I decided to pay by cheque ($0.25 for postage). But I have to write a lot of detail at the bank of the cheque including an unweildly transaction number. See below.

This is not the only thing that I have to write. I still have to write the cheque and make sure that the amount in words and letters are correct, the date is correct, the payee is correct. I also have to make sure that the address of CPF is correctly written on the envelope.  This is a sad part of life in Singapore - so much hassle and over-charging.

Top-up CPF account

CPF took an advertisement to advice members to top-up their CPF account (for themselves and their family members). I responded and tried to do it at their website. My experience is shown in this report, which I sent to the Ministry of Manpower. My findings:

1. The CPF online process has bugs.
2. The administration charge is too high.

I hope that our Government will wake up and sort out the shortcomings and over-charging!

http://tankinlian.com/admin/file.aspx?id=581

Large bonus to bankers

Goldman Sachs pays large bonuses to its employees, in spite of making a loss for its shareholders. The amount of bonus is described as "ridiculous". http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/20/news/economy/goldman_sachs_occupy_wall_street/index.htm?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29

Too many investment choices

This article explains about the difficulty faced by consumers in investing their money, when they have too many choices. http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/20/pf/expert/401k_retirement.moneymag/index.htm?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29

My recommendation is for most consumers, who are not financially experienced, to invest in an indexed fund, such as the Straits Times Index Exchange Traded Fund. If you are financially experienced, you can make your own choice, i.e. DIY (do it yourself).

Sharing of medical records

There is law in USA regarding the rights of patients for access to their medical records and the duty of the health care providers to protect privacy of these records. We need similar laws in Singapore. http://www.tankinlian.com/Redirect.aspx?PK=2c77701b4c43102f8aebde1ae83d78a1   

Electronic Health Records

Medical costs have been escalating for the past few decades. As people get older, they have to spend more on health care. The experts have identified ways to improve the efficiency of health care and to cut down on wastage. They have suggested that electronic medical records of each person, that is available to their doctors can cut down on repeated tests.

President Obama actively proposed the creation of a central system to keep the health records. Google launched its innovative Google Health system to meet this need. But Google has decided to scrap this system, due to insufficient interest to use it. It seems that electronic medical record will not take off, at least for the immediate future.

What is the problem? If escalating health care cost has to be contained, why did these initiatives fail? Why are people reluctant to use electronic health records - which can help to improve efficiency and bring down cost?

Which of these factors are most important?

1) Doctors want to keep control of the records, so that the patients will keep going back to them
2) The Government failed to pass the law to give political support to these measures
3) Patients are reluctant to have their health records kept electronically
4) Consumers are weak in enforcing their rights and interest.

Please share  your views here.