Cooking

One thing that I have definitely enjoyed and improved in Melbourne, is cooking.

With the freedom of cooking whatever I want, I can sense that my general cooking skill has been constantly improving (chopping, frying, seasoning etc) and I am always trying to cook something that I've never done before. here are some of my recent ones:


Scambled Egg sandwich in bite size, ham and tomato salad in truffle balsamic vinegar and olive oil 
(yes it's not really cooking, but the egg was pretty fluffy and soft, i was pretty happy)


天津飯 (てんしんはん)
Its a Japanese Chinese cuisine that really has nothing to do with traditional Chinese dishes. Since I have never eaten it in my life, i can only imagine what it's like and make the sauce purely out of the blue. in the end i used smoked salmon and ham instead of crab stick/crab meat and made a hot and sour sauce instead of...watever sauce. 
 

Gyoza or Dumplings and some vege soup. The main focus of this photo is the fact that the dumplings were frozen when i fried them. After 8 months of eating frozen dumplings, I can claim myself as a master at frying frozen dumplings. Period.


Yakisoba (焼きそば) basically it's just japanese fried noodles, mixed with chicken liver, pork, cabbage and beansprout, nothing special, but tasted bloody good~~

Walking in a Smokey Forest

I didn't know why did I stop posting about half a year ago. I would've thought that moving to a new place that excites me wouldve made my blog more interesting, but life in Melbourne turned out to be quite different to what I thought it would be. and the major reason, is uni.

Everyone told me that master is such a bludge, you don't have to do anything so coming from my bachelor, i would take it the same way. It turned out that I would go to uni for 4-5 days a week, despite the fact that I am only spose to be there for 3 days. Most of my weekends are spent going to different group assignments, and eventually go home to work on it...

but either way, i think overall i am having a great time here, despite the fact that its not really what i had in mind a year ago when i decided to come.

so this should be another re-start to my blog, hopefully the next one won't be half a year apart.

Multicultural Impact

Prior to this post graduate course, I expected roughly 6:4 ratio of local student and international students. However, I was surprised at the fact that it was more like 7:3 international to local. Being a Hong Kong Chinese that grew up in Australia, that moved to Melbourne purely for this master course, i find my identity slightly blurry. Seems like at times i am perceived as an Australian by international students, but on the other hand, my lack of knowledge towards Melbourne made me look like an international student. Little did I know this has actually became one of the best thing that can happen to me.

As I speak fluent English and Chinese, I was able to communicate with a most of the students in our course. As most international students came from China, I was able to meet many Chinese students from different part of China, which I was not exposed to back in Brisbane. On the other hand, I would consider myself as an Australian as well as a Hong Kong Chinese, which allows me to associate with local student from Melbourne. Alongside with other students from other countries such as Singapore, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia etc, everyday you can hear opinions from all different ethnics and background on one topic. This is a very helpful aspect of this course as the cultural barriers between each countries and races are becoming thinner and thinner (thanks to the help of the almighty internet), globalization is something that we will have to understand and work with for the rest of our career.

*Much like the book my Thomas Friedman: The World Is Flat, I think it is the same for Advertising Industry. Media and information are being spread across the world practically with no delay whatsoever, advertisers needs to be aware of how the rest of the world will see their work*

In one of my course, International Advertising, we learned about the importance of Globalization + Localization = Glocalization. Having such a diverse group of students studying together everyday, it is like glocalization conference in every class. For example, having the chance to meet students from Germany made me realize how open their country is towards nudity in TV advertising, and on the other hand meeting a student from Indonesia has also opened my world towards country where religion plays a really big part.

In a personal benefit point of view, getting to know all these people from around the world also means expanding my personal network worldwide. As mentioned in previous posts, the rise of social media is something that will change our life, if it hasn't already done so. Maybe one day, because of my multinational network on Facebook, I would be lead to places that I have never considered or thought about, who knows?

The Constantly Changing Industry

If there is one thing I learn about the constantly changing industry, it would be the rise of digital and social media. As we all know, mobile phone and social media has already become a fundamental part of our daily lifestyle. Traditional media such as TVC and prints are nowhere near as effect as they were 10 years ago because people are simply not watching them nearly as much as they used to. As Tim Evans has stated in his interview, mobile advertising is one of THE area that his team will focus at; coming from the largest digital agency in Australia I think it's fair to assume this is because it has the largest potential.

From the interview, research and what we learned in this program, I would say the way to deal with changes is to accept it, study it and become part of it ASAP. It is always important, especially in this industry to become a leader and get your name out there. For example using Facebook as a media channel was not something that would be included in a media plan 4-5 years ago. However, the first person that started this method would have became leader and dominated the market, atleast during the initial stage.

So my take on changes is not to go against, but go with the flow as soon as possible. In terms of impact, it is too early for me to predict what area of advertising will I fall into, but it would be a great accomplishment if I can one day become the innovator to start a trend within the Advertising world. For example the use of Facebook and Twitter as a marketing tool.

My Future in this Industry

At this stage of my study, the area that attracts me the most in Strategy Planning. As I have no prior education in the field of communication, advertising, design or media, creative and media agencies are out of my target list. The reason i want to be a part of the planning department is because it seems to be everything about advertising packed into one. It requires thoughtful research and thinking, as well as creative ideas about the direction of the brand or campaign.

In terms of skills and knowledge, I don't claim to be the most hardworking or intelligent student. Many students in the course have worked in the industry and have much deeper knowledge than I do and others just simply work harder than I do. I would consider myself as a better employee than a student, because I somehow take more responsibilities in others' work and business, rather than my own grades. However, that being said I am confident that I have learn what I need to enter the industry, and because at this stage of my life, this is what I want to do the most, I am very eager to learn from the real world and ready to push myself.

Although I grew up in Australia since 8 yrs old, I am still very familiar with the Hong Kong and asian culture and I would actually like to start my career in Hong Kong. Partly because I have never really experienced what it's like to work there, but also I find myself having a great advantage of speaking fluent English, Chinese, Cantonese and although not relevant, conversational Japanese. As Hong Kong is one of the major city that links up the Chinese market and the Western market, I feel like it is an exciting place to work at with opportunities to venture into the China market as well as other Western countries.

The challenge would be adapting to the fast pace living style and the fact that I have no prior working experience I guess.

The Digital Team (or we call ourselves The Great Team/ The Perfect Team))

When team first formed, the idea behind it was relatively simple. The first four member of the team was me, Quinton, Josh Dorevich (Josh. D), Josh Oakley (Josh. O) and Jonathan See (Jon). If you didn't realise, this is actually 4 of the 5 guys in our class. Having known Josh. D and Jon from pretty much every class since semester 1, it was a logical decision to group as everywhere else seemed to be groups and groups of young ladies. When Josh. O sees us forming, we assumed he just wanted to be a part of the boys group, even though we haven't met before. And as the other groups were getting too big, Natalia Alessi (Nat) and Amy Gao were added to the group and this is how the group was formed.

We did not assign a particular leader or anyone to organise our work as we all get along quite well during the class and out of the class. It wasn't until Josh. D got us an interview with Tim Evans through one of his friend then we decided maybe we can let him be our spokesperson for now. We let him decide on the date and time, which more or less follows the Tuckman's model of forming.

Ever since the assignment have started, we meet up on a regular basis, discuss related or non related topics on our own Facebook group page and slowly building up a relationship between each other. Of course there were times when we have disagreements, but as a whole, I would say each and every single member of the group are relatively easy going and after all, we all understand that we are here to get the job done. I personally felt that team building, whether for a uni assignment or in the workforce, if the team atmosphere is good and everyone are striving towards the same goal, the final outcome will always be better than a collective of individual work.

Of the 5 stages in the Tuckman's model, I would say that the fifth stage, Adjourning is the hardest part. Regardless of the final outcome, we have put in a great deal of efforts in our assignment and as a team, we are very proud of what we have accomplished. Throughout the whole process, we were enjoying ourselves but at the same time learning about the topic and how to work as a team. For example Jon is the most skillful in the area of multimedia, so he took up the role to produce the power point and the layout of the report. And since Nat and Amy were not very confident about their speech, we all helped them out prior to the presentation, hoping they would feel less nervous and confident about themselves.

At the end of the day, of course we wouldn't have difficulties moving on from this group, but it was a great experience and I am sure we will be keeping in contact in the future. This is what a great team building to me is all about, it is not only about how well you performed in your assignments, but how well did you end up knowing the person in your team and build relationships with them. I would say we were very lucky to have found a handful of people that get along with each other, and there really isn't much negative comments I can say about this Digital a.k.a The Great Team. Again, regardless of the result, we all put in our effort for the presentation and report and I am sure as a team we were very happy with what we did.

D.T Digital and Tim Evans

Before I engage into the actual blogposts, I must say I am grateful for this assignment, or else I would probably never update my blog again. So thank you Kerin.

So on the 17th of August, me and my team (consists of me, Josh Dorevich, Josh Oakley, Jonathan See, Natalia Alessi and Amy Gao) went to D.T Digital to interview the Digital Strategy Director of Ogilvy Group Melbourne, for our group assignment about Digital Agency. Before the interview, we all went and looked up on Tim Evans and wanted to know some background information about him. So we found out that he started off in Fashion industry, then moved to BBDO and eventually Ogilvy.

here is a picture of the man himself:



For most of us, that was the first time entering an actual agency and being the biggest digital agency in Australia, we were pretty excited. As we were nervously sitting in the reception area waiting for Tim, we started fantasizing about one day working at somewhere as awesome as D.T Digital. Situated in top floor on St. Kilda road, 360 degree view with creative looking people walking around, we were sold to the advertising world. Shortly after when Tim arrived, all the boys were shocked, but later we all came to a conclusion that this man in front of us is what we are aiming for (although the girls denied, but we think they lied). Firstly he is young, being 26 years old and already a strategy director has already amazed us, but it was his passion, his confidence and his knowledge that really got us excited. And the worst of all? He was actually quite a good looking guy.

He took us for a short tour, then we sat down at the pantry for a short interview and said our goodbye. Throughout the interview, Tim not only answered our questions related to our assignments, but also shared some of his personal insights about the industry and advertising in general. Obviously, being the leader of a digital group, he is very aware of how digital and technology are affecting our lifestyle. What i got out  of him is how supportive he is to the industry, but also how excited he is about all the change that is going to happen, and most important of all how is he going to be a part of it.

He told us how mobile technology and social media have become the dominant focus of their company and the reason behind it. Ever since the introduction of iphone and the smartphones that followed, we have changed our way of communication. Tim himself is very excited about having the ability and power to be a part of this revelation and is willing to make a change.

What I personally got out of the interview is a question to myself: What role do I want to play in this industry?

Being a student with no prior knowledge and education that relates to advertising, I can honestly say that I do not have the passion or objective to change anything. However, it seems like for the next few years after I graduate, I would become a part of this industry. Which occurs to me that in order to become someone like Tim, it is the driving force that sets yourself above your competitors and how much do you enjoy your career. As I have not gained any working experience in this field, it is too early to comment, but I think it is very important for me to treat Advertising as a part of my lifestyle, rather than part of my education and future career, if I want to become someone like Tim Evans one day.