When I first created this wiki with Akanksha Goel (Akanksha's Twitter) in spring of 2007, here is how I described our wiki project.

Rapidly evolving. New challenges. Learning opportunity. These terms certainly could describe almost any company's first experience with social media. These words also describe our course experience (COMM 215 at Singapore Management University). There were no social media textbooks. Harvard style case studies designed to evoke conversation, debate, and analysis were rare, and most cases had to be written by our students. There was very little in the way of precedent to build this course on....and that is what made this class so exciting.

Honestly, I had little idea where this class or wiki was headed. We simply embarked on a learning journey, following whatever path appeared before us, fueled by the enthusiasm of podcasts such as Inside PR, FIR, Six Pixels. Blogs added more thought leadership, but little evidence existed that social media was important in Asia. The world was talking about social media in USA and Western Europe. Naked Conversations was a help, but this new course on social media was really just an experiment based on faith. Honestly, not a bad way to embark on a learning experience.

Perhaps most difficult of the course has been the "in Asia" aspects. The social media conversation's ethnocentric bias (print or otherwise) is unfortunate. As these wiki pages illustrate, social media develops differently in each nation and culture. Asia, with the current exception of Japan, does not have massive advertising markets like the United States. Thus, business models tend to be based on user-generated revenues rather than third parties (here, China's QQ is a great example). The preferred media properties vary as well, with BBS sites in China proving dominant. Mobile in Japan or Hong Kong, and Wordpress in Jakarta, are additional examples of different preferences. Finally, culture impacts the ethos of a blogosphere in many ways. Not only do we have unique linguistic communities around languages such as Korean, Thai, or Tamil, but the blogosphere within national boundaries reveals unique tastes as well. Singaporean bloggers often discuss food, electronic gadgets, shopping, or star personalities and receive many visitors. Professional or business blogs, however, seem to attract only niche crowds.

I am proud of the students' hard work--which they continue to put in through the spring of 2010-- and I have learned much from our conversations. I am also very pleased to report that people like Sam Flemming in China, Debbie Weil from the USA, and John Kerr from the Edelman-Singapore office are supporting the class and this wiki by volunteering important information. Kind guests such as Mitch Joel and Jon Hoel have taken things a step further by sharing their experiences via podcasts. And this, my friends, is what the spirit of education and social media is all about. Today, my students follow people like Kaiser Kuo and Ben Joffe in China, as well as our homegrown talent like Daryl Tay. In 2008 the folks at Ogilvy--including John Bell, Tania Chew, Brian Koh, and Andrew Thomas--have been amazingly supportive and help lead the way forward with The Open Room. We are all better off as a result of building this community and sharing.

So what does the future hold for this wiki? In 2010 I am honored to be a Fellow at the Society for New Communication Research and plan to dive deep into questions about online behavioral preferences, motives for using social media, and barriers to adoptions such as privacy and protecting "face." Along the way, I hope to share more original content in the form of podcasts, video podcasts, blogs and research papers. Please stay tuned or follow me on Twitter and Posterous. You can also follow the class on Twitter using the #comm215 tag.

I am honored to share this wiki with you. Enjoy...and please, join the conversation!

- Singapore, 7 February 2010