Audience

So, here's the thing. I've been thinking, and this blog's at a standstill right now because I majored and worked in communications.

Let me explain. In PR, we've been trained (very well) to speak to specific audiences. In university, I majored in PR and Journalism and minored in Film & TV. My millions of assignments consisted of writing to the government (lobbying), writing hard news (rape, crime) for a newspaper, writing entertainment 'reports' for thrashy magazines, creating health/ political/ consumer PR campaigns (to name a few) that would attract and make believers out of those who 'heard' us... The list goes on.

Then in my ten years of working in various PR/ Communication departments of major corporations, a lot of my work included writing press releases skewed to either the news, business, fashion, sports or tech media. Writing financial reports for the reviews of either analysts, internal staff, investors, media. Writing speeches or letters for the management team directed to either government bodies, ministers, customers. Planning events to launch a product to the media or to consumers or the government. Planning investor relations activities. Planning staff motivation activities. Planning media relations activities. Planning management positioning activities to the government, community, staff, investors, media. Put very simply, it was all about crafting communication strategies that would effectively communicate a specific objective to a very specific group of people.

Every single piece of work that we had to churn out came with the same sort of information but had to be designed to speak to very different audiences in very different ways. And it might sound like I'm full of myself, but let me tell you - (in my favouritest job of all time, in the 5 best years of my career) me and my very super ex colleagues in the DiGi Corporate Communications team were the bomb when it came to effective communication. We had it down to a T. We were magic. We rocked. We kicked a§s. We were superstar PR-sters. We were cool. We were loved. Admired. Envied. And we got things movinggg! I like to think We ruled the Malaysian telco scene, baybeh.

Sorry. That got a bit long-winded and out of point. Reliving my glorious days as a career woman gets me a bit excited.

Anyway, back to the point. You see, the thing is, this blog started out directed to my friends and family who I wanted to talk to and update since I had moved to a veryyyy different time zone and regular skype calls or gmail chats were just not possible. The tone and manner of my writings was highly personal and familiar, and I could indulge in "telling-all". Which is why I used use my real name anyway. I figured, they all know me, and I'm too lazy it's way too complicated to log in and out of different gmail accounts every single time I wanted to blog. Also, being a google freak who loved to google my old friends, I thought, "it'd be awesome if my old friends (who I might have forgotten to email since I am also highly private on Facebook) bothered to try to google me, they'd find out what I was up to with my little blog and get in touch again!"


But when people I didn't know started visiting this site I guess I kinda froze. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy and absolutely LOVE reading the comments dropped by sweet readers, especially those who I've linked in my 'I Super Stalk' section, and the other anon ones who have been equally sweet and who always make my day when they comment. And to old friends who did find this blog, and read and dropped me emails of support and encouragement, I love you too!!! :)) All of you, known or unknown (yet) have literally become my virtual friends, and if it were just that, I could go on and on blogging away.

The problem is this. In the past 6 months, I've (finally!!!) become very wary of and annoyed with the fact that because Hubs and I are easily google-ble, I'm opening myself up to some very random people which I cannot really talk about here since, you know, I'm starting to realize that I should have started out being more private anyways. And it's always Hubby's name being googled, which makes sense because he is getting quite a lot of media publicity here in my new city and he was also quite famous in our old city. And since his most ordered dessert is named 'He*a ther' and everyone knows it's his wife's name, often, "He athe*r Will ia*m M a*hi" are also the keywords searched. So how am I supposed to blog about our life knowing there may be frenemies, customers, colleagues, media etc etc etc knowing too much about his personal life thanks to my tell-alls?

So anyway, the thing too you must know too about PR is that we stick to our strategies pretty strictly because consistency is key to not derail from the main objectives (which in the case of this blog was "to share stories about my current life with family and friends").

Hence the (almost) radio silence since June. 

The easiest thing to do would be to shut this down and move on. But I love the collection of posts I've accumulated and detest the idea of moving to another address, and I've really got sooooo much good stuff to talk about and pictures to show off share. So bear with me as I find ways to stay true to my objectives and gab to you in the familiar manner I love whilst finding a way to remain slightly more private and cryptic when dealing with this new audience that is not (yet) in my friends or family group.

Oh! And Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a good one and that your presents are as awesome as mine (yes, I peeked) :p