Less may sometimes be more.

Sun, 8 Feb 2009
2 min read
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I stay on campus during the weekdays, and when I go back to Hougang on weekends, I try not to use the Internet (or minimise my Internet usage, at least). Call me silly, but I believe it gives me some recharge time and forces me to do some offline reading – I’m finally starting on David Brin’s Glory Season (one year too late, some might say). Until it comes to be seen that this ‘no Internet on weekends’ policy is more bane than boon, I’ll stick to it. Nevertheless, one good thing that has resulted from the policy is in me realising the powers of micro-blogging.

I’ve just started using Twitter, and even more recently, tweet.sg. The latter allows me to send Tweets by texting to a local number, so in essence, I’m micro-blogging while offline. I’ve been wanting to do this for the longest time ever, because of all the thoughts that come to my head while I’m disconnected from the Internet. I’ve never been able to do it, though, due to either the lack of technology available to do so, or my lack of knowledge about the technology available to do so.

More importantly, I’m micro-blogging. Because of the 140 character limit that Twitter imposes, my thoughts are pared down to the bare minimum, so I’m forced to keep everything as succinct as possible. No lengthy discourses, sadly, but in this situation, it’s really the ideas that matter. One of the most important thoughts that came into my head over the weekend was this gem:

While waiting for The Girlfriend, am thinking of how a Writing Fellowship might work to improve standards of literary production in SG.

It was supposed to have been followed up by this:

Alternatively, a Writing Scholarship? Full tuition, yearly stipend, bond free. But recipient must produce literary piece biennially.

but somehow tweet.sg didn’t relay it, for some reason.

Nevertheless, it’s been a good weekend, and a good discovery. Looking forward to more of these weekends – and discoveries – along the way.

Updated wiki + rationale.

Wed, 28 Jan 2009
1 min read
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Have updated the Creative Works portion of my wiki, so all are free to go and read/check out the latest works. You’re welcome to muck around inside too – play with the text if it’s there, transfer the text from PDF to the wiki if you want to, create your own works, etc.

The rationale for this is simple:

  1. I’d like to get user feedback as I’m writing. The best way for this is to use a wiki. I know most people haven’t used one before, so don’t worry – I’ll create a simple ‘lesson plan’ soon. (Alternatively, anyone who’s bored can create one for me. Whee for wikis!)
  2. User engagement = business strategy. By involving the audience, I’m (hopefully) engaging them, in the hope that this translates to establishing a solid fan base + customer loyalty. Will this work? It remains to be seen, but I’m hopeful, as you can tell from my repetition of the word in most of its forms.
  3. Last but not least, if mucking around in the dirt results in someone else becoming interested in writing, or at least learning about writing, then it’s one more starfish into the sea, no? 🙂