to be fair, I think that offering free internet is still a bit costly, considering that Singaporeans tend to be massive consumers of bandwidth (not to mention, quite cheapskate too).

Interestingly, I think that it’s not so much an issue in SG cos many of the people who attended had their own mobile broadband.

On the second day, Claudia (claudia.sg) opened up her mobile broadband for everyone to use, which I shamelessly tapped. Thanks Claudia!

i think your negative comment is totally valid. it made me chuckle – a web 2.0 conference with no internet access? at the very least, if they were going to be ‘kiam’ about it, WPA the connection and give people at the conference the password.

we need to catch up soon. i feel like we haven’t talked in twenty thousand years.
x

To both Daryl and Melvin, sorry for causing the confusion regarding Transparency and Accountability.

I think that my notes didn’t really capture the right message “transparency and accountability cost companies something in the short term”.

Apologies to Melvin for that.

thanks for capturing and sharing some of those points and it’s always good to catch up with you at events!

I won’t be sharing those slides though… because those slides were created specifically to make the point I was making on Friday. And because I always use slides and headlines for effect (to start a point, rather than to communicate the whole idea), they may be taken out of context.

And that leads me to respond to Daryl’s question.

Daryl, my point was not that Transparency doesn’t bring in money. Good, honest companies profit in the long run. My point was that – Transparency and Accountability cost companies something in the short term. And some/many businesses are often not prepared to pay that price in the short term for obvious benefits in the long term.

I don’t agree that transparency doesn’t bring in money though. As you’ve pointed out, shareholders are a big part of it, and in the long run (and I mean really long run), I think those who are transparent online (and offline) will have less to worry about than those who aren’t.

Immediate case that comes to mind, Steve Jobs. Is he sick or isn’t he? The reason the stockprice takes a hit when some news about his condition surfaces is because a) Steve Jobs = Apple (and this is a big reason), and b) we can’t tell whether he’s really okay or he’ll drop dead tomorrow. It’s a lot of uncertainty for investors to deal with.