The queue leads at least 5 shops down
There were at least 40 people in the queue outside of the clinic. The one at the head of the queue had waited from 1pm to 7pm just to get a consultation with Dr Ong in her evening session. Located in the East (Tampines) of Singapore, the queue was made up of patients young and old with some from the West (Jurong), and others further still from Indonesia. While I can't say this is the best customer service, Nik's Maple Clinic has definitely got word of mouth going for them. A simple Google search threw up discussion from forums such as Flowerpod, CozyCot, and Keeptouch all with words of praise. But what's amazing still is that while they can definitely work with a bookings system, the clinic is "walk-in only" with no appointments allowed. This tactic is amazing from a marketing point of view as people (especially Singaporeans) believe that long queues mean good quality/value. They know the customer is more than willing to stand in line for hours in hope of meeting with the doctor. While this seems cruel, the clinic does have the patients interest at heart by only entertaining a maximum of 30 patients a session giving each patient enough time with the doctor. Those at the tail end are asked to leave or wait for the next session. This is definitely the longest queue I've seen for a doctor, but a great example of quality service which is talked about and worth suffering for.
Opening for the 7pm session
Nik's Maple Clinic is open from: Mon, Tue, Thu & Fri 9am-12.30pm, 2pm-4.30pm, 7pm-9pm Wed 9am-12.30pm, 7pm-9pm Sat & Sun 9am-12.30pm Located at: Block 825 Tampines Street 81, #01-64. Singapore 520825. Please don't try to book and you might want to bring a portable stool and food next time you visit.

If you're a social media practitioner or just really interested, here's a quick tip for a must have.

1. Go to Google Alerts
2. Login to your Google account if you haven't already
3. Create an alert for "social media" (include the quotes)
4. Type: Change to News
5. How often: Once a day

Now you have a daily update on the state of the social media industry. The term "social media" has become enough of a buzz word to be used as a keyword filter. I don't recommend getting alerts from blogs or other UGC sources because there's too much noise. The News media acts as a great secondary filter.

Was just watching CSI:NY and the intro showed a typical public service call for a missing person on TV. This got me thinking about the effectiveness of mass media in our social media age. With so much content (on and offline), and just as many channels to consume them by, how does anyone convey a message effectively to the masses? The only medium that came to mind was the mobile phone. In Singapore, there's over 100% penetration rate, which means everyone has one next to them all the time. Sure there are other messaging platforms such as email, and possibly Facebook, but those platforms lack the attention and focus people give to messages on their mobiles. So the public service can definitely make use of SMS to reach the masses, but when the same is done for advertising or marketing, it becomes annoying and instead of converting you piss off the consumer. My take is mobile web content. 90% of the time I surf on my mobile phone, I'm either using Google Reader or Google News. Not that I can't access other websites, but they are not designed for the mobile platform making them difficult to read. High-qaulity content has always been the driver for mass adoption of technology. The vastness of the Internet drove adoption of broadband, well produced shows drove the adoption of cable TV. But mobile phones actually came before the content making them the ideal platform with no barrier to entry for the consumer. I believe in the near future we'll see some really good must-see / must-read mobile only content. Will you be a part of it?

Being interviewed by Rebecca Tan on Giant Steps In Mobility
I was recently interviewed on a show called Giant Steps In Mobility which was aired on ChannelNews Asia. During my interview I talked about social media trends while seated at the corner table at Borders Bistro. Although I had a friend who spotted me on the show tell me that I was really professional, re-watching the video again, I realised a few things about myself which were quite amusing:

1. I often looked away from Rebecca and the camera when I was thinking. Sometimes it made me look like I was rolling my eyes.
2. I speak slower than I think I do.
3. I smile a lot. =)

If you want to see if its true, you can watch the full show here. Oh, and if you freeze frame at 25:45 you can actually read the dummy text I was typing pretending to write a blog post. Didn't think they'd pick that up.

Check out Singapore's Google Zeitgeist page. It gives you a good sense of what we local folk are interested in. Sadly, it's leaked sex photos of a Hong Kong celebrity.

2008 has been a year of change in Singapore and people have certainly been using Google to access information about these changes. The fastest rising searched items on these lists ranged from the scandalous (Edison Chen – Hong Kong celebrity whose sex photos were leaked) to the scrumptious (chicken rice – local culinary delight). Sports was also of great interest in Singapore, with searches aimed at local milestones like hosting the world's first F1 night race, winning the bid to host the Youth Olympics in 2010 and winning its 2nd Olympics medal in 48 years (for women's table tennis). Each of these lists shows the fastest rising searches, meaning these were the search terms that saw the biggest increase in searches during 2008 compared to 2007. Take a look below to get sense of the zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, in Singapore for 2008! Fastest Rising

1. edison chen
2. olympics
3. facebook
4. iphone
5. f1
6. google map
7. htc
8. maps
9. wiki
10. beijing olympics

Most Popular

1. lyrics
2. youtube
3. yahoo
4. map
5. google
6. games
7. wiki
8. facebook
9. blog
10. video

Google News local searches

1. singapore olympics
2. singapore table tennis
3. singapore terrorist
4. youth olympics
5. 3g iphone
6. philips electronics singapore
7. f1 night race
8. singapore recession
9. mas selamat
10. feng tianwei

Hawker Centres

1. maxwell hawker centre
2. newton hawker centre
3. chinatown hawker centre
4. adam road hawker centre
5. east coast park hawker centre
6. whampoa hawker centre
7. changi village hawker centre
8. lagoon hawker centre
9. holland village hawker centre
10. tekka market

Local foods

1. chicken rice
2. punggol crab noodle
3. drunk prawn
4. kaya toast
5. popiah
6. bak kwa
7. laksa
8. muah chee
9. hokkien mee
10. nasi padang