another sam chan: the student blogger

By now, you may have started to hear about WINDmobile, a telecommunications start-up trying to join the bridge game that Dr. Bell, Aunt Telus, and Mr. Rogers have been playing for far too long. While all three elders haven’t got a clue about social media, WIND has already gotten a step up with them with a simple, yet hilarious youtube video campaign (see left). They are doing the Twitter and the Facebook as well (where’s twitter.com/rogers, may I ask?) as well. But the thing that has led me to preemptively jump on their bandwagon is their web page. It’s a gorgeous web 2.0 styled page that is community based.

I love that they are asking what they (as in the telecommunications industry in Canada) can do better even before they’ve started. The people-first approach is something that I believe in strongly, and I’ve always wondered why the honest sales guy doesn’t succeed. As far as I’m concerned, when you take care of the people, people will take care of you. For now, WIND Mobile has me sold that they are that type of company. WIND is pending a CRTC trial on October 29th that allows them to officially launch. Here’s hoping that us Canadians will finally get a company that gives a damn about the people. Don’t blow it, Canada!

Blogging seems like a sweet gig. Mostly, when I tell people I’ve just met that I aspire to be a work full time in the social media realm one day, I get a lot of raised eyebrows, as most still think of blogging as leisure, or a way to let express themselves during their off time. I can practically see the “You gotta be kidding” thought bubbles pop up above their head. But my absence here during the past few months has definitely made me realize that to be a blogger, a good blogger too, takes lots of work. There’s not many people who have John Chow’s God-given penmanship, so the rest of us have to work at it. On an average day, I realize that I don’t want to work for 8 hours, walk home, and then re-live it here. All my body wants to do is sit on the couch and play some darn Halo or something. It’s been hard to keep up with the latest ways that Facebook is copying Twitter, who’s getting cut on the Canucks, the latest social media rave, and figuring what to eat for dinner at the same time. Anybody with a full time job is most likely thinking boo-***ing-hoo at this point, but hey – it’s true, this is typical post-teenage denial stuff. The more I realize how much work it is though, makes me want to work even harder, because like the cliche says, no pain no gain.

As for what I have been up to? In the past few weeks, I have moved down the street, helped launch a new b2b program, created a new blog for my great roommate and spent the rest of my time catching up on news with my phones. It’s been tiring, but fun. I have still yet to install that Snow Leopard thing everybody’s been tweeting about, and I haven’t touched a basketball in months and need to call Bell to cancel their service (because it sucks). So as I keep trucking along, I just want to thank everybody for their support for visiting here and that I am not giving up here. I still have many plans and through time, they will come to fruition, but it may be a little quiet on the forefront here for a while as I re-org and create some processes. Until next time, I’ll catch you on twitter and facebook.