OpenMagazine

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear about “Journaling”?

It is usually considered as an approach to project your feelings. Journaling doesn’t have to be difficult once you get over a few common misconceptions about it.

• Write every day. If you put too much pressure on yourself to write every day, it can be discouraging when you miss a day or are unable to write. Instead, try starting with an hour a week. Or a day a month. 

• sStick to just writing. Journaling is not just about writing, it can include thoughts out of your head, including doodles, collages, drawings, lists, stick figures and image boards.

• Journals have to make sense. Journals don’t need to follow a coherent narrative. Use your journal as a place for those feelings that you are yet to unpacked or crazy thoughts you have.

Here are a few reasons why you should start journaling:

1. Room to grow: Ideas can quickly become stagnant when they exist only in your mind. Journaling can help to expand these ideas and your creativity. For instance, jotting down your business thoughts and fleshing them out on paper allow you to discover further ideas that branch out from the original idea. 

2. Provide a safe place: Many entrepreneurs go through something called  “impression management” or the thought they should seem shortcoming-free. According to executive coach and therapist Megan Bruneau, “Many entrepreneurs believe that, in order to be considered competent by stakeholders, we need to be perceived as infallible…This perpetuates shame and disconnection (which both cause depression).” Your journal is a safe space that will let you connect with your feelings and deepest fears.

3. Track your development: The pace of life is fast. We seldom get the chance to pause and reflect. Journal writing allows you to  track your achievements over time; you can look back at your mistakes and work on improving for the future. 

4. Collect Compliments: It sounds odd to jot down compliments, but when you start writing about how the world looks at you, your own perspectives about yourself will change. You will notice how great it feels to get appreciated by the people you love and even total strangers! 

Improve your skills: Every entrepreneur would reach a point where he or she encounters a difficult problem. Putting the problem down on paper encourages you to look at things from different angles and brainstorm diverse solutions.

Happy journaling! 

“ What I feel is a deep satisfaction when I get it right. It’s the feeling when I’ve explained something in writing that I couldn’t explain to myself before I started.”  

                                                                                                                  – Anne Nelson

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The Bloom of The Gaming Industry

As the world continues to hurtle through the fight of Covid-19, the majority of outdoor activities have been put on hold and most mundane human activities have been moved indoors. On that account, it is undeniable that mobile and video gaming have surged as people have little choice but to seek entertainment indoors. According to Tom Wijman, the Senior Market Analyst at Newzoo, a company that quotes sources for game market insights and analytics, it is said that “mobile games will generate revenues of $77.2 billion in 2020, growing +13.3% year on year,” due to the impact of the Covid-19 global pandemic. 

One of the reasons why mobile gaming, in general, has garnered such an increase is because it has the highest accessibility as compared to PC and console gaming. 

On another note, E-Sports in general has brought a magnificent change to the dynamics of gaming. In the past, having a professional career in the frontline of gaming was frowned upon. But now, an average professional gamer could earn $60,000 per year, and the amount will only get bigger if you are a true expert. The highest-paid professional gamer, Johan Sundstein, aged 27 this year (2020), has earned 

$6.9 million to date.

What Goes Behind PUBG and LOL

Of course, being in the arena of Call of Duty sounds fun, but what if you are not that keen on playing in front of huge crowds? There’s always a place for everyone. 

Always remember that without those behind the scenes, there will not be platforms for pro gamers to showcase their shooting skills. 

Being a game developer and designer is more than just taking a pen to a drawing board, and drawing out sceneries in games. They are the ones that visualize the gaming experience by taking an idea and actually bringing it to life. Not to mention there are many more roles than just designers and developers.

The basics fall on game programmers. They are in charge of coding and planning the software in order to ensure a smooth sailing gamer experience. It is a bonus if they possess additional talent in AI or 3D designing!

Designers are the visionaries of games. They design and create characters with distinctive features, as well as bringing out the conceptual elements of the game. They possess the imaginative and creative skills needed to breathe life into the game’s characters. 

An uncommonly thought of role are that of the testers for these games, who will provide feedback and constructive criticism in order to help the developers understand issues from a gamer’s point of view. 

Being on the E-Battlefield

Being in the foreground of gaming certainly sounds and looks intriguing, it looks simple, just playing games, entering e-tournaments, then you’ll be at the top in no time. Well, in reality, that’s not quite accurate. 

To enter an E-Tournament or gaming competition, you need to possess a certain set of skills, especially if you are in a team or a multiplayer game. To be able to carry and coordinate with team members is not as simple as it sounds, as each of us enjoys playing freely at our own pace.  

Other than that, there are coaches and trainers to help you along the way and it requires a high level of self-discipline as you will need to practice for long hours. 

On the bright side, if you do get into the top tiers, the monetary value that comes with it is no doubt worthy. Because one of the sole differences between gaming professionally and leisurely gaming is that one turns a profit, and the other doesn’t, but can a leisure gamer turn into a professional gamer that competes at e-gaming tournaments? The answer is YES! Read What it Takes To Be A Streamer/Professional Gamer, to find out if you have what it takes!

Which Character Will You Choose?

So a future career in gaming doesn’t sound all too bad, right? 

In the end, the choice is still entirely up to you. If you have a keen interest in gaming, why not try out positions within the gaming industry, because the future of the gaming universe will only continue to expand as we know it!

What is Social Entrepreneurship? To put it simply, it is the combination of commerce with social issues. Social entrepreneurs aren’t only concerned with profits, however, success is also defined by how their business improves the world. Unlike non-profit organizations, social entrepreneurship still earns profit, however, the focus is placed on the social or environmental changes made. Entrepreneurs are widely known to be those who have an idea, and use that idea to start a company that generates profit. They are the ones who are responsible for writing a business plan and work tirelessly to scale their company and drive profits for themselves and their investors. However, we live in a startup nation in this day and age. Entrepreneurs have different motivations now for starting a business, similar to how consumers have different motivations to buy.

In the age of heightened competition, social responsibility is a differentiating factor that allows many companies to appeal to specific buyer demographics. Employment rates are climbing and employees have a choice in who they work for. For many, they choose to work for companies with strong missions as well as earning potential. Social enterprises have taken off as a new formula for success, combining capitalism with a do-gooder mentality. These self-funding, for-profit businesses also have a mission to tackle global issues such as alleviating hunger, improving education, and combating climate change. 

These are the reasons why social entrepreneurship has become the new business model:

1. It connects you to your life purpose

It is about connecting your brand with how it can be used authentically to serve the world. It is not a gimmick or a marketing tool as it should be a genuine mechanism to solve social problems while feeling connected to a higher purpose. 

2. It keeps you motivated

You need to ask yourself, what keeps you going? At the end of the day, giving back is much more rewarding than any business success. Create pillars and values in your company that would make you motivated to work with incredible people, making great products or services, and benefiting an impactful cause. 

3. It brings you lasting happiness

Working for a purpose that you have created for yourself and actually making it happen will bring you lasting happiness. Being able to fully succeed in what you’re doing whilst making others happy can be a very rewarding thing. No amount of money can be compared to what you are feeling while making you and others happy. At the same time, it can make you feel more responsible for working hard to build the business so that you can contribute even more. It’s a win-win situation.

4. It is what today’s consumers want

Consumers have redefined themselves as citizens of the world. More and more people are interested in products and services that align with their values. Businesses are being built on smarter frameworks revolving around ecological, economic and social sustainability. The most fulfilling goods and services are those that connect us in relevant ways to other people and help us live in concert with our values. 

Along with social problems, social entrepreneurship also focuses on environmental problems. Child Rights foundations, plants for treatment of waste products and women empowerment foundations are few examples of social ventures. Social entrepreneurs can be those individuals who are associated with non-profit and non-government organizations that raise funds through community events and activities. The field of social entrepreneurship is rapidly growing and attracting the attention of numerous volunteers. It is a field where extraordinary people put their brilliant ideas into work and bring real change in society.

Have you ever yearned for specific products or consumables that just bring back certain tastes of childhood memories? Well, you are not the only one. In recent years, as technology becomes more advanced and a robotic future where flying cars seem to be realistically achievable, more and more people seem to crave a hint of old taste and trends from the past. And marketers realize this phenomenon. 

Introducing Nostalgia Marketing – a marketing technique that incorporates past trends to invoke a nostalgic emotion in consumers by ‘bringing them to the past.’

How does Nostalgia Marketing actually work? 

Well, with the use of social media, marketers can easily pinpoint certain keywords or feelings that consumers are constantly talking about. Social media is also used as a thermometer, which marketers can easily determine the exact moment when something switches from dated to retro. (Nostalgia Marketing: What is it, Social Media Today)

Marketing campaigns are incorporated with past elements and trends that are familiar to the target audience. For example, #Throwback is a very popular trend on Twitter and Instagram, where consumers share incidents from the past in videos and images. Brands do utilise this hashtag to engage with followers and consumers as well as coming up with themed campaigns inspired by this hashtag, like Funky 80s and Glorious 90s.

Why does Nostalgia Marketing garner so much attention?

1. Authenticity and Originality 

Nostalgic content is naturally more down-to-earth and authentic when it comes to personal appeal. Positive receptions of these types of campaigns are also higher as the content relates to the past memories of consumers, hence good memories and positive influence are often associated with the campaigns.

2. Millennial Influence 

With the target audience for most brands mainly consisting of millennials, you can’t deny that incorporating 90s throwback content won’t garner the attention of millennials. Having to see ads or marketing content that resembles iconic trends from the 90s are a major soft spot for millennials who grow up during that era. Hence, this causes consumers to willingly open up to brands that they have never even heard of before. 

3. Establishing Personal Connections

With plenty of digital content today, being catered to the general public, many ads and marketing campaigns do not resonate much with consumers, but a hint of nostalgia may invoke positive personal memories of a consumer. Thus, because of this, consumers feel a more personal connection to the brand that implements nostalgia in their marketing plans. 

Social media has become a public platform for customers to speak their minds and one of the places to do so is in the comment section. Since public comments are viewable by both existing and potential customers, they are often the best way to catch a brands’ attention. This also means that negative comments have a huge impact on your brand image. As a brand manager or business-owner, it may be tempting to delete negative comments and resolve the issue in private to minimise the damage, but this may actually end up doing more harm than good. Why?

Deleting comments ruins trust.

If a customer posts a negative comment, deleting their comment would be the worst way to regain their trust, even if you contact them privately. The act of hiding their opinion makes it seem as if you have no faith in your own service or product. This also holds true even if a customer does not have a bad experience but notices the deletion of negative comments made by others. The best course of action would be to reply publicly, even if the issue is ultimately resolved in private. This way, you can appease the dissatisfied customer while displaying your professionalism to others. 

To illustrate the harm that deleting a comment might cause, here are two potential scenarios:

Customer A comments that they haven’t received their product.

Scenario 1:
You delete their comment and contact them directly. However, before checking their personal messages, they check their comment for a reply and realise it’s gone. They feel slighted and cheated. Not only do you lose a customer, they may resort to leaving negative comments on a platform beyond the brand’s control, like a public forum or a review site. 

OR

Scenario 2: 

You reply to the comment and apologise before directing them to their personal messages. The issue is resolved privately and Customer A is satisfied. Some time later, Customer B sees the comment and asks how the situation unfolded. Customer A responds positively that they’ve received their product. Both Customer A and Customer B are left with good impressions of the brand.

So while there are instances where comments should be deleted for your brand and your customers’ safety, like spam or inappropriate content, any other negative comment, be it criticism or a negative review, should be responded to appropriately rather than deleted. Use it as an opportunity to improve and build customer trust.