I had a great week here in Singapore with a fantastic user event and a lot of productive meetings. Here’s this week’s list of tidbits to help you wrap up the weekend!
Most interesting study this week
Singapore is known for its long work hours, hustle culture, and competitive work and school environments. However, it was ranked the happiest country in Asia once again according to the World Happiness Report. I was interested to see that the happiness ranking started off lower (50th globally) for people under 30, and rose through each age bracket until peaking (26th global) for people over 60. Overall Singapore ranked 30th globally, just behind Saudi Arabia and Kosovo. Singapore is amazing and the convenience, safety, food, public parks, and melting pot of people are just some of the reasons I’m personally very happy here and am glad to have made it my home.
What I listened to this weekend
One of my favorite podcasts is Talks at Google, I like the straightforward format and quality of the speakers and content. This week’s episode featured Rudrani Chettri, a champion for LGBTQ rights in India, she has founded several initiatives including BOLD, the first transgender modeling agency in India (and one of the few in the world). It was amazing to hear her story and the work she has done, well worth a listen!
Best email I got this week
While preparing for a new ABM campaign I came across a tool called SendSpark that scales video messaging. I signed up for a free trial and was super impressed with the welcome email I got (pictured below). I like that it is short and to the point, the subject line is unusual and eye-catching, and it is sent from the CEO herself. I also think it is a great idea to ask these two questions right off the bat, which allows SendSpark to get intel on their competitors as well as spark a conversation with new users.
What I’m watching this weekend
I’m a huge fan of food shows so after I finally signed up for Disney+, mainly to get access to all the kids’ stuff for my daughter, I started watching Uncharted with Gordon Ramsey. While I’ve enjoyed his shows like Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares (I even once worked at a restaurant that was featured on the show), I really am enjoying his humble attitude and seeing him explore other cultures and cuisines. He’s still cocky and a bit over the top, but he really acknowledges the quality of the local foods and chefs and tries to pay homage to them while integrating his culinary skills.
Best marketing post I read this weekend
Jon Miller, cofounder of Marketo, published the post The Marketing Playbook I Helped Create Doesn’t Work Anymore. Here’s the New B2B Marketing Playbook. There were many great points, but the one that caught my attention the most was when he talked about the over-reliance on lead generation campaigns and how we need to put more attention on awareness campaigns and “harder to measure branding”. He points out that buyers today prefer to stay anonymous longer and not have to fill out a form to view content. This resonates with me, as that is in line with what we are currently seeing and although I had to get used to the shift in ungated content and no lead-scoring, the results we are getting for inbound are true hand-raisers with high intent and fantastic conversion rates.
Most heartwarming moment of the weekend
I watched the original Lion King with my daughter for the first time and while she didn’t sit through the whole thing, I loved experiencing her excitement and dancing during the songs. The best part was when Simba was running around the cave playing with Mustafa at the start of the movie, he calls “Daaad, daaaaad!”, and my daughter started doing the same thing. We are going to the zoo next week and I can’t wait to see how excited she gets about the animals!
That’s all for this edition, I hope you had a great weekend and wish you the best for the last week of Q1!
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