As of now, all the tickets for the concert are are sold out.  But the good news is, Hotmail has one pair of tickets left to give away as a Thank You to its fans and users. What has Bruno Mars got to do with Hotmail? Read on to find out, and when you’re done, sign up for what looks like the best opportunity to get your hands on an all expenses paid trip to watch Bruno Mars live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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Ever felt like being online gives you an information overload? Sometimes, I feel that way. And being online 18 hrs a day sometimes also means that I almost never switch off.

Friends have asked me: Isn’t it distracting for you to be “online” so much at work, on the various social media platforms?

For me, I now use different social dashboards to manage different things. One of the latest dashboard I now use is the Windows Live Dashboard! If you haven’t tried it out, you should. Just log in with your MSN/Windows Passport, and you’ll be able to access your dashboard.

From this dashboard, you can link up your Hotmail account, Windows Live Messenger, Facebook, LinkedIn,  Twitter and more, so you see all the activities going on on a single page! It’s really pretty cool. Here are the services you can use:

So if you haven’t recently logged on to Hotmail, you definitely should. You can post a single status update to all your social networks (depending on your settings, which are totally customizable). You can actually even reply to Windows Live chat buddies, Facebook friends, and more, from this new dashboard.

So it’s definitely great for people who login from different computers. You don’t have to install different types of software or social media client – this is web-based, and you always see the same screen, no matter whether you log in from San Francisco, or Singapore, or Melbourne, or London!

So what does this have to do with having an information overload?

Whenever you socialize or consume information online, you’re effectively using what we call ‘social energy’. With the various platforms and social media tools we use on a daily basis, you will realize that you’re wasting a lot of social energy, and causing communication inefficiency!

It’s like that movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You“:

“I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and then he emailed me to my home account, and the whole thing just got out of control, and I miss the days when you had one phone number and one answering machine, and that one answering machine had one casette tape, and that one casette tape either had a message from a guy or it didn’t, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”

Yes, it’s exhausting. So why not put everything on one single dashboard, and manage your communication more effectively?

This way, you can be more organized, productive and efficient, both at work and in your personal social life.

If y0u find yourself often feeling like everything is just too much for you to handle, Hotmail and the new Windows Live dashboard in your new Hotmail can also help cut down on the stress level in your life.

Doesn’t that sound great? It’s like taking a vacation from your online life, but not really leaving it at all. A win-win situation where you are still connected, yet you can cut down on the clutter and 5 million different voices shouting at you from 20 different social media platforms!

And… Even more good news coming your way!

To further help you relax and enjoy this new found freedom, Hotmail is going to send you on an all expenses paid trip to Kuala Lumpur in April, to watch Bruno Mars live in concert!

Contest closes on Monday, 31 March 2011, so HURRY check it out, if you wanna catch Bruno Mars Live In Concert!

And oh, don’t forget to watch this short clip about Bruno Mars.

Psst. I’m also going on the trip, thanks to the cool folks at Hotmail. So come join me! We get to hang out in KL as a treat from Hotmail, eat awesome Malaysian food, and watch this awesome performer LIVE in concert! HERE. REMEMBER. CLICK. HERE.

This awesome promo is brought to you by Hotmail. To find out more about saving social energy, CLICK:

Full Disclosure: My trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to attend the Bruno Mars concert is fully sponsored by Hotmail.

Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s image of women

“Advertising tells us who we are and who we should be.” Ads sell concepts that appeal to our senses, so much that we compare our lives to ads, and hope to live up to the standards of those in ads.

An example: I’ve shared this article on Facebook and Twitter before:

5 reasons to skip the diamond engagement ring

I quote from the article:

You’re ready. You have the entire scene planned out in your head, every detail plotted and mapped until it’s perfect. At the climax of this mini-drama, he will bend on one knee and present to you a beautiful diamond ring — or, if you’re the one proposing, you will watch as her expression changes from surprise to utter delight when she sees the ring. And that’s when you’ll know: Yes, you’re getting married.

Or so the diamond industry would like you to believe. The sole purpose of this appealing fantasy is to drum up sales. Once you look past the mythos of the diamond engagement ring, you’ll see that it’s not much more than a shiny rock.

Advertising sells ideals, and we are all suckers for believing that that is how things should be. Why must we conform and let these ‘ideals’ rule our lives?

Back to the video I shared, the speaker says:

[Advertisers] surround us with images of ideal female beauty. So we all learn how important it is for women to be beautiful, and exactly what it takes. Women learn from a very early age that we must spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and above all, money, striving to achieve this ideal, and feeling ashamed and guilty when we fail. And failure is inevitable. Because the ideal is based on absolute flawlessness. … It also influences how men feel about the real women they are with.

But there is a bigger problem.

She also speaks of how the shape of women’s bodies are increasingly used not only in display ads, but also to create objects (objectification of women’s bodies), like this, this, this, this and this. And while it does not directly cause violence, it does portray women as things and objects, and turning a human being into a ‘thing’ is almost always the first step to our justifying violence against that person – we see that person as less than human, and violence becomes inevitable.

So there we have it. Sexism in ads degrade women and make women feel like lesser beings than they really are, by telling them they are not an image of the ideal beauty portrayed in ads, and they may also incite violence against women.

These are only points covered in the first third of the video – Watch the rest. She is a very eloquent speaker; sarcastic, quick witted, and humorous. I very much doubt this will change the way the world’s major organizations advertise in the media, but there are things we can do to stop our daughters from thinking that they need to be a spitting image of the ideal beauty, as portrayed in advertisements, in order to be considered beautiful.

And maybe this will change your idea about who you should be and how you should live your lives too.

Project Reach is a programme presented and spearheaded by Murdoch University’s Public Relations students in Singapore. The programme consists of Causathon, an online fund-raiser competition and a Conference, which is the landmark event for Project Reach.

Causathon “the race for cause” kick-starts on 7 July 2010 and involves 85 students in an online fund-raising competition. To raise funds for 14 different causes, the teams will tap on social media and the online social giving portal Give.sg, which helps connect Not-for-Profit organizations with donors.

I found out about Give.sg during the first Twestival SG event which I volunteered at. I got dunked for charity! Anyway, the people at Give.sg are a really passionate bunch, who have been working at their Give.sg portal, to improve users’ experience. Check out some of the fund-raising projects that they had a hand in recently! One of the key offerings of the Give.sg portal is its personal fundraising feature, which allows individuals to start their own campaigns and get friends and family to fund their favourite social projects by donating to a cause or Not-for-Profit / Charitable organization that they support! If you’re interested to find out more, you can always give the site a try, or Tweet them at @GIVEsingapore.

But I digress! Back to Causathon - I’m really excited to go down and meet the teams, and find out more about what each of them are planning to do to raise funds for their cause. Perhaps I can even do my part and share with them some ideas about how to further reach out to people on Social Media!

But this is not all just talk – You can follow the teams’ progress at this Causathon microsite on Give.sg, and make a donation to help them achieve their targets for their selected beneficiaries!

Wanna find out more and meet the teams in person? Come down today, to SMa Institute of Higher Learning, at 410 North Bridge Road #01-00 (It’s just opposite the National Library and Bras Basah Complex at Bugis!)

You can also get to enjoy a good cuppa coffee from Starbucks, at just SGD 2! Yes, you read that right! SGD 2! All proceeds from the coffee sales go to charity.

So come on down if you’re free this afternoon, come and meet us, and have a cuppa joe with us, for a good cause! Some bloggers will be joining us too, to learn more about this project, and share the word with their readers! Interested? Join us!

Among the bloggers attending will be:

Sham of mhisham.org

Robert of robertsky.com

Catherine of camemberu.com

Aaron of aaronpeng.org

Nikita of iHengbok.blogspot.com

We’ll be having rounds at 3pm, 4pm, and 5pm! If you plan to come, just Tweet me at @daphnemaia or call me at 91685900 so I can personally meet you there!

Official Twitter hashtag: #projectreachsg

This brings me to ask, then, what can girls use for self-defense in Singapore?

In the past one year only, I have been: robbed, molested, and harassed by men of ages 20 to 40 (an approximate), simply because I look defenseless and vulnerable. And which girl does not look defenseless unless she is of big build and muscled?

Tonight, I was walking home from the MRT station at about 10pm, when, at my void deck, I was accosted by a man of approximately 40 years of age. He said in Mandarin, “Miss, miss, are you going home? Where do you live?” and when I ignored him and walked past him, he grabbed my arm.

Shocked, I stood rooted for a moment, and then tried to get away. He tightened his grip on my arm. Because of the awkward positioning of our bodies, I could not use my knee (you know, the usual defense tactic – bringing up your knee to kick him in the crotch), so instead, I kicked his leg using the leg I had nearest to him, and I suppose my high-heeled shoes hurt him when the pointy heel dug into his thigh. He loosened his grip, and I got away, leaving him to laugh maniacally behind me.

Lodging a police report will likely yield nothing (in fact, I made a police report when I was robbed, but no suspects were even caught), and what little I remember from my self-defense Aikido classes back in NTU is is not going to help much if the perpetrators are persistent and have more violent streaks in them than those that I have encountered thus far. Yes, I can use those killer stilettos that I perpetually have on, to attack the violator, provided I can get them off soon enough. But what else can I do if I happen to be wearing flats or kitten heels the next time this happens?

The Singapore Police Force themselves have put out banners and posters for their Crime Awareness outreach / campaign whose tagline reads “Low crime rate does not mean no crime!”

I think it is time that we take this campaign a step further, and admit to ourselves not only the fact that crime does exist in Singapore, but also to slacken the laws on possession of self-defense tools for the purpose of self-defense!

Yes, I’ve heard of Community Safety and Security Programme (CSSP) and the Citizens on Surveillance (COS) initiative. But what good are these to me, when in fact, I do not see any one sitting at void decks looking out for me at all? What good are these programmes and initiatives with fancy names when you are already being violated, attacked, harassed and when you are already a victim of crime ?

I personally feel that possession of a weapon would greatly help girls. I know the argument that if a person can own such an item for self-defense, so can anyone else, for the purpose of attacking others. But what else do you propose we do, for self-protection?

How feasible or practical are the guidelines (for self-protection) of:

1. Not going out at night (sure, you might as well impose an 8pm curfew for all women)
2. Always ensuring that you do not walk alone (and every woman is to hire a bodyguard?)
3. Using self-defense tactics (and in the event that they are well-built and resist your attacks?)
4. Blowing a whistle (how many of you would think anything of it, if you hear a whistle go off?)

I really hope that someone out there will listen, and start a movement towards legalizing the possession of weapons that women can use for self-defense and deterrence of perpetrators of crime against women. Because God knows, that in this sick sick sick sick world, we women need a way to ensure that we do not fall prey to sick sick sick sick men.

I’ll bet those people who made it illegal for us to own weapons for self-defense are men, and men who have never had their girlfriends, wives, sisters, daughters or mothers attacked by sick sick sick sick men.