Yesterday I had the good fortune to participate in the IBM round table on The Future of Business Collaboration in Singapore.  Several interesting people from government, business and academia shared the table and there were plenty of insights around challenges and opportunities associated with the use of social computing tools in small and large organisations.  In the coming weeks there will be associated articles in The Straits Times as well as an IBM-hosted blog to continue the discussion online.

Nope this is not a rollercoaster blog post to match Dave's visit to Monterey, but rather a reference to my wife's and my own experience of the slowest / fastest pregnancy in the East - fastest because it is compressed, and slow because of the risks involved.  Many CE practitioners and customers know that Stacey and I are expecting twins, and unusual ones at that, and often ask how they are going ..

Last week I mentioned the roundtable and that an article would appear in the Straits Times.  The article has appeared online here, but unfortunately like all Straits Times articles you have to be a paying, registered user to view it!  If you are in Singapore you can at least pick up the paper and have a read - it is part of a worthwhile six page feature on social networks.  If it triggers any thoughts on your side, you can continue the discussion online at the blog4biz, hosted by IBM and using their collaborative software suite.

Dave and I recently decided that Cognitive Edge is ready to take a big step - bringing people onboard in permanent positions in Singapore.  We're doing this because CE is growing fast, and we want to step up the level of service we offer to clients and the Network.

Last night Stacey and I enjoyed an excellent dinner with a couple of senior people from Germany from a large technology company, who were in town for the weekend working on some business with their client here.  The discussion ranged over quite a bit of space - from the woman from the former East Germany who was seeking her long lost North Korean husband, to the intellectual ability of Nicholas Sarkozy (I found they had a different view to that of French friends of mine!).

Partway through the meal though we got onto the difficulties of doing business in parts of Asia.  The more senior executive of the two shared a story about a trying time he had in Korea.  The services team he was managing there got a horrible, horrible report card from the client - 5 out of 5 on every measure - where 1 was ideal and 5 was the worst!  Following due process, they convened a meeting to find a scapegoat to hang at first light.

Having now lived in Singapore for seven years, and watched it change reasonably dramatically just in that time, I have to admit I get irritated by media coverage that is stuck with an outdated view of the place.  Today was a great example - not only of the misinformed views that infect many foreign media editors, but also of the double standards to which they must be oblivious.

IMO the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) is now often not much better than a local suburban paper, but I read it because its good to stay in touch with what happens at home (and they have pretty good rugby coverage).  But their constant depictions of Singapore as an 'authoritarian foreign regime' are unfair.