Musings by Grace Chng

I’m watching the swearing in of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the US. I’m watching CNN as well as on cnn.com. I counted 16 camera angles and another 4 on cnn.com capturing the excitment and the mood of this historic moment. 

Also interesting is the collaboration between CNN and Facebook. I can see all the Facebook members, mostly from the US, watching the moment online. 

I thought there would be problems getting into cnn.com. How surprised, no problem at all with the streaming. Smooth and no lag at all. Must find out from the ISPs whether there’s  spike in bandwidth tonight.

Good luck to Obama, I think he’ll have a short honeymoon before people start to hassle him to get the US back into shape.

An old friend Cecilia Pang has retired after spending 19 years at HP. When I knew her years ago, she was a PR executive in HP’s depot road office. She was then doing PR for HP Singapore together with her colleague Loretta Song.

Cecilia was head of PR for HP in Asia-Pacific for a number of years when she decided that it’s time to say goodbye to corporate life and take things a little easier.

To me, Cecilia and Loretta were the best in PR. They knew about HP the company and its products, they were on their toes and quick to respond to press queries. I would mention at an event that I would be interested in doing a certain story. The next day they would call to follow up and sometimes even lined up someone I could talk to already. And always, always, the stories were good. I never had an interview I couldn’t use immediately.

PR wasn’t just about products. It’s about people, processes and utimately the company that makes the products. What makes the company tick, what are its values etc. So we’d plenty stories about the wonderful HP canteen, one of the first air-con canteens, with a qualified chef and nutritionally balanced food on the menu. They also had floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking lush greenery. The story was so early in my career as a tech journalist yet I can still remember it.    They understood that journalists want stories that sometimes have nothing to do with technology nor products but would publicise the company.

They knew how to tip off without spilling the beans. They were aggressive without being nasty nor rude; yet friendly and professional. Over the years, we’ve become good friends. Pity, too few PR people today are like Cecilia and Loretta. I will miss Cecilia at HP.