Amanda.T's Scoop - New Realms

Hello everyone!

I'm here to share some of the work I had been doing in my organisation so far.

Infographics

My supervisor, T, knew the fact that I used to be an Architecture student in polytechnic, hence, he roped in my help to research on 'infographics' and to create infographics for our client, as he believed that I am creative. :P

Basically, 'infographics' is the art of compiling information into a picture so that consumers would be able to comprehend the information easily.

Here are some interesting infographics I had found:






Images from: http://www.good.is/infographics

However, as easy as it may seem, creating an infographic is no child's play.

Some simple guidelines I have observed:

1. Information must be concise and clear-cut
2. The images chosen for the inforgraphic must be related to the topic/theme
3. The completed infographic has to look structured and as a whole
4. Terms used have to be generally comprehensible (preferably to use layman terms)
5. To add in numbers and figures when possible, for these aid in gauging and comparison between data
6. It is best to keep the design simple. If not, it is vital to use arrows, lines and so on, to ensure that others looking at the infographic know exactly where the relevant information is.

And yes, I managed to create a couple of infographics for the client as well.

Influence Tracker

Influence tracker is the quarterly analysis on the amount of coverage the client gets, as compared to the competitors and within the industry. It usually takes about two weeks for a full report to be churned out.

Team effort is needed to complete this daunting feat, which involved keying in hundreds of headlines and publications, calculations (done via Microsoft Excel), creating charts, keeping information concise, and so on.

The analysis, data and charts were then compiled into a Microsoft Presentation deck, all ready to be presented to the client.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Recently, our client held a competition worldwide by 'presenting 18-35 year olds with a 5-minute platform to pitch their inspired idea to the world and win a US$25,000 grant to make their idea a reality'. As quoted from the website, 'the grant will be used to bring to life the winning idea and empower disadvantaged women or children in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa through education, skills training, financial inclusion or social entrepreneurship'. On top of that, a special grant of US$10,000 was awarded to the team/individual with the best financial literacy/livelihood proposal aimed at helping women.

1 March 2011 was the media launch of the project and call for pitches were opened.

As an intern, I was very honoured to be part of the team.

The bulk of my job scope for this task is to key in the participant's names and location, view the videos, write a summary on the content of each video and rank them. I also had the chance to participate in a conference call with one of the organisers as well.

While watching the videos, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the participants. They were unselfish, innovative, courageous for pitching in ideas on how to improve the livelihood of women and children who are not even related to them. I applaud them for their kindness. Some of the ideas were really creative, but they had to be sustainable, realistic and implementable as well. Isn't it amazing how a group of people can improve the livelihood of hundreds of women and children with just one idea?

Some figures derived from this project:

- 450 pitches proposals from 50 countries were submitted

- 13, 000 voted were casted

- There were 15,600 views on the project's YouTube Channel

- 300 tweets were tracked by Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa on Twitter, with 7.72 million impressions garnered

- The project attracted 2,100+ fans in Facebook

- Supporters from 117 countries had visited the website

In the end, ten finalists were shortlisted from the long list of submissions, and their videos were being uploaded onto the project's website for public to cast votes on. The winning team was determined by a combination of public votes and judges score from the 'live' pitch in mid-August.

This is indeed an eye-opener for me, because most of us who are fortunate to be living in Singapore would not be able to see, let alone comprehend, the plight these women face in some countries. Things we usually take for granted might be a blessing to them. An example would be public transport. We have taxis, buses and trains in Singapore, but some of the women in Africa have to walk hours under the hot, blazing sun in order to gather their nearest resources (may it be water, firewood, and so on).