The Musings of World Wanderer Jia　佳佳溜世界

2009年感恩节有机会去圣地亚哥旅行，分享部分照片拼贴。

Youtube版本地址：http://www.youtube.com/user/tibbettliu#p/a/u/0/mjMJuNdlJ9s

本科毕业时，我人在旧金山湾区，未曾体验穿上学士服的滋味。硕士毕业，总算没有留下遗憾了。5月16日, Suffolk的毕业典礼设在考泊利广场(Copley Square)的威斯汀酒店(Westin Hotel), 表姐夫Tom和表姐小兰(中上图)也从纽约州的宾汉顿(Binghamton)开车五个多小时赶来为我庆祝。

在考泊利穿袍戴帽，领受学位证书，再合宜不过了，因为这里是波士顿历史文化和现代生活的完美结合。

四四方方的广场，周围环绕的著名建筑有：

三一教堂(Trinity Church)(中下图)，始建于1873年，是自1885年被美国建筑师协会评为全美最重要的十大建筑以来，唯一一个至今仍位列榜单之内的建筑。

约翰.汉考克大楼(John Hancock Tower)(大图左边的蓝色玻璃建筑)，建于1976年，为新英格兰地区第一高楼,由华裔著名建筑师貝聿銘(I.M.Pei)和亨利·考伯(Henry Cobb)共同设计。

波士顿公共图书馆(Boston Public Library)，是美国最早的公立图书馆，其藏书量位于全美第三，仅次于国会图书馆和哈佛大学图书馆。凭波士顿的学生证或者身份证，就可以免费办理图书证，借阅馆内海量的图书资料。其内，我最喜欢的是贝兹阅读室(Bates Hall)(左下图)，屋顶呈半弧形，两端各有一个穹顶，令人想起罗马巴西利卡的建筑风范。一排排深色的木桌上，绿色灯罩配着金属底座，肃静又神圣的气氛，坐在其中，仿佛浸身于中世纪的欧洲。想休息时，可以到一楼的咖啡厅卖点吃的，价钱也不贵，或者走到中庭，找张凳子坐下来，听着喷泉的水声，望望屋角的天空。

旧南区教堂(Old South Church)(右上和右下图), 是独立革命前后波士顿最大的建筑，也是一个重要的集会场所，“自由之子”就是在此策划了轰动的波士顿倾茶事件。

此外整个广场西面紧邻波士顿重要的商业街区–十九世纪红褐色砂石低层建筑一字排开而去的纽伯里街(Newbury Street)和由封闭式过街天桥连接成的几家大型室内购物中心Predential Center, Neiman Marcus, Coply Place Mall,Lord & Taylor等等。

而东面则是波士顿公共花园(Boston Public Garden)和波士顿公园(Boston Common)。

往南有波士顿歌剧院(Opera House)、波士顿音乐厅(Boston Symphony Hall)、新英格兰音乐学院(The New England Conservatory of Music)和西半球列名第二的美术馆－－波士顿艺术博物馆(Museum of Fine Arts)。

往北走几个街区就是画面上美丽的查尔斯河(Charles River),与麻省理工学院和哈佛大学隔河相望。

毕业在波士顿的地标，丢下一粒石子在记忆的河流中，有咕咚一声，还有水花溅起。

小毛同学老早答应陪我去看场NBA,　正好今天是凯尔特人波士顿主场对马刺，有我这个伪球迷唯一喜欢的NBA老星邓肯，自是不能错过。可惜不能带DSLR,只好借小毛同学的point and shoot勉强拍一下，加上座位是在高层的balcony,图像看起来有点吃力。不过开赛前也有机会走到下层的位置，近距离感受了一下。邓肯打得真不错，呵呵。更多照片，点击下面的链接图片。

NBA Celtics Vs Spurs

08年的最后一个28号，天还没亮，小毛同学送我和妈妈到波士顿Logan机场，行李四大箱两小箱，绝对不让西北航空的大鸟轻装飞上云霄。

转到底特律这个金融海啸下的“哀伤”之城，飞机晚点，有一个戴眼镜的黄皮肤空艘安抚乘客情绪。她留着齐耳短发，貌不惊人，却相当了得，英语、日语、国语、粤语样样精通。再到东京时已是夕阳西下了。

成田机场完全没有给我留下好印象，长长的转机队伍得窝进不甚宽敞的安检厅重新和透视设备亲密接触，真不知为啥落地第三国的手续要搞得这么复杂。折腾一番后，从飞机舷窗往下望，东京湾已是灯火一片了。

邻座的小女生一看就是地道广东人，颧骨分明，太阳肤色。有意思的是，她居然抱出了一碗方便面，起身冲热水去了。第一次看到有人坐飞机吃这玩意儿的，想想西北的飞机餐还不至于差到要吃方便面的地步啊。

到广州白云机场已经是午夜了，走出行李提取厅，人群中居然冒出一大束花还有一只毛毛小熊，那后头是四年没见的老哥还有从未见过的准嫂子，呵呵，乐颠颠的冲上去，头埋在了花里，一边拽一只手，回家真好！

2009 fall with mom： Coply Square, boston

晚，无聊，填了两句诗：黄叶满地秋意浓，天高云淡汝心如。

This post is what I prepared for my boss at the Interactive dept at PJA.

Reference credits to Jeremiah Owyang.

How a company should and could use Twitter? Any other possible micro blogging tools in local countries?

Identify if it’s the right market place

Use tools such as Twitter Search, twitscoop, tweet scan to dig out. Also, blogs of target audience are great resources if there are any. Once you find someone representative, check out his/her followers and who he/she is following to spot more prospects.

Decide on corporate domain and persona

Adding personal elements is important as social media’s essence indicates. Either register a hybrid domain such as OracleJulio or personalize the About section with more detailed information. Of course, there are brands act without personal interactions such as Popeye’s chicken and TrendMicro. But it may encounter more difficulty to get followers at the beginning.

Decide on method of engagement

1. Publish content in a ‘push’ style: It could be blog posts feed as TrendMicro is doing or other info such as press releases. Twitter in this sense is more of a publishing system aggregating info and helping to augment influences. This is of the lowest level of effort and risk but its success depends on if the content is interesting or helpful enough

2. Dialog: A two-way conversation by responding, answering, and asking questions. Twitter in this sense is more of a customer service center, new business development channel, and a humanized press center. This is of the highest level of effort and risk but may also bring the highest level of success. Companies such as Oracle, Comcast, DELL had been doing this.

3. Glean insight: This method focuses more on listening rather than talking. Twitter in this sense is more of a market research and intelligence collecting tool This is of the lowest risk but medium effort.

Set up the digital communications policy

1. Define the definite line between work and personal stuff.

2. Make clear the difference between company spokesperson and common employees.

3. Constantly review and implement the policy.

Integrate Twitter effort with other online presence

1. At least, brands should cross link twitter accounts from their corporate blogs, traditional websites, etc. and vice versa.

2. Ideally, the twitter conversation be better syndicated on traffic-heavy corporate online hub etc. to influence audiences who are not on twitter. An example is from comcast: http://getsatisfaction.com/comcast/overheard So far this is a service provided by the human-powered customer satisfaction site Get Satisfaction only. I thought if similar features could be integrated into the brand’s micro site, corporate site, or landing page, then the target audience and engaging consistency might be enhanced.

3. A comment mechanism could be set up with the syndication of Twitter conversation to allow audiences’ participation without a Twitter account.

Mash up twitter with other communication tools

Twebinar is such a recent mash up. What it does is mashing up traditional webinar and twitter together. While webinar is going on, webinar attendants who are also twitter users could participate in conversations with webinar hosts. Conversations could be streamlined through a widget embedded in the webinar window and anyone else could see it. This is more than a chat function because attendants could build up even longer relationship with hosts on Twitter afterwards. Also, conversations could be tracked through twitter scanning tools.

The benefit of this is limited if the audience on twitter is just a small group. If the syndication of Twitter conversations on other sites could entice more prospects to participate in Twitter engagement, then this kind of mash up could truly benefit the corporate brands.

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My fellow blog readers,
Jia’s back blogging after taking a long rest! Did you miss me while I was away?
As you have already known, I went to several European countries for the most of May. Fantastic trip I should say, even though I was extremely exhausted after coming back to Boston.

For the first 12 days I was in Germany with my Global Seminar classmates and professors. This is a spring country with intoxicating green on the landscape that I will never forget. The bread, only if you had it, you won’t never know such a staple could be so tasty. Even at the Heidelberg youth hostel I stayed with Meghan on the first night, the morning breakfast came up with freshly baked bread. Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Wolfsberg, and Berlin are where we did the company visits. The Lufthansa Cargo day was most impressive. My team learned how to load freight onto a cargo for safe taking off and flight. Our lovely guide even let us sit on the pilot’s seat and took pictures. (I wish I could really fly!) Adidas day was really awful. Guess what? My roommate and I slept over and was shocked when one of our classmates was heavily knocking on our door. Oh, My god! I couldn’t believe what I did… Oh, My German professors…those most on time men in the world… I knew their anger are in flames. Luckily, they let us pass once I apologized. In the wrap up class after coming back, I particularly mention that as something I didn’t expected. It was so funny how the professor responded me, “We were hot inside, but sweet outside.” Volkswagen factory tour was amazing, seeing those many dinosaur looking robots making cars all over the place. The touring car was superb, especially when the factory manager speed up. Unfortunately, I had a very hard time working on the VW Subcompact car case as I was not at all interested in cars. The VW men were the most bureaucratic men I’d ever seen. Why? They were unhappy about our presentations that the subcompact car will be a failure unless they listen to what we said. Anyway, we joked on the way to Berlin that VW lost 19 potential customers forever. Bayer Schering day was the most easiest one with no group presentation. I really enjoyed the presentation by its Global PR head, a candid and humble men who beautifully answered my questions on crisis management. All right, German part ends here.

On May 12th, I flied from Berlin to Marco Polo Airport at Venice, Italy. The thousands bridges, the come and go countless Gondolas, the marvelous glass arts and “mysterious”masks on the streets’ booths, the flocking pigeons on St. Mark Square… If you still remember the essay by Zhu Ziqing, then what he said are just what I saw. Taking a water bus on the sea, what in my heart was just the feeling of enjoy. The Italina train took me from Venice to the Como lake, a serene Italian town next to Switzerland.

One night stop there, I headed north to Lugano, the Southern part of Switzerland and was excited to meet Jieqing, a friend I came to know through my blog. She was doing her master at that beautiful place. Everything was good except for the price. I went to the local supermarket COOP, many of the stuff there could cost me an arm and a leg. A little bit exaggerated… I was so glad to be living with her for two days, cooking, chatting, drinking coffee….Just like a local folk. The boat cruise, the Bellizona castles, the village towns surrounding the dreaming lake, a wonder land now with my footprints. Departing Lugano, I went north to Luzern and then transferred west to Interlaken, a famous resort close to the Top of Europe, Jungfraujoch. Good and bad news the next day, it was rainy and not a good timing to go to Jungfraujoch. But I saved around 100 Euros, oh, that’s a lot of money. I had no choice but to go to the waterfall valley, lauterbrunnen. Snowy peaks accompanied by running waterfalls; cattle and sheep scattered around on the green fields and hills; fairy tale like houses here and there with flowers burgeoning…I was there alone, but luckily in a paradise. Geneva was the last stop of my Switzerland trip. It’s a real international city not far way from Lausanne and sits beside the Geneva Lake. An afternoon walking beside the lake, I came across the long-hoped-for rainbow smiling in the clear and sunny sky. Close by is the famous Geneva fountain featuring a big Euro Cup football. The spirit of Geneva –romantic and welcoming.

Three hours with the high speed TGV train, I finally arrived the last destination, Paris. A huge city with spider-shaped subways. First Youth Hostel Oops was out of bed. The second one… I was forced to go because my roommates at Geneva told me it’s awful. Anyway, I had no choice. My suitcase was getting super heavy after those 20 days trip. Oh, absolutely packed with a big bag of Swiss chocolate. After settling down, I happened to talk to a Japanese girl at the hostel lobby and finally went out together to tour the city. Hopping on and off the subway without my suitcase was so pleasant. That afternoon, we walked around the highland of Paris－－the white outfaced church, street performancers, painting market, Gypsy，pubs and cafes, and a Chinese restaurant. Near sunset, we were at the Arc de triomphe de l’Étoile，the famous gate built during the Napoleon Period, Ave des Champs-Elysees, the most expensive shopping district (I went to zero of those stores, Oh, it would really cost me an arm and a leg), and Eiffel Towel, a really romantic background for taking pictures (Unfortunately, I took one with this Japanese girl, not a boy ). Next day was museum day, Musée du Louvre was a must see. However, Mona Lisa was the only art piece there too well protected with too many people standing around that I can’t even see it clearly. Isn’t that bad? The catholic church Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris was my last impression of Paris. It’s a huge buiding with incredible details. The last Mass of a day was going on … the bishop, the holy music, the prayers, the candle lights…I felt peace was pouring from inside. When the Mass finished, one of the staff, to my puzzle, walked towards me and put a necklace pendant on my palm. It was Jesus on the cross and the men was gesturing that it’s for necklace. I was overjoyed after receiving a nice gift at such a holy place. Isn’t that a perfect ending of my days in Europe?

For more of my pics, please go to http://picasaweb.google.com/tibbettliu

Hi, This is Jia saying hello from Frankfurt, Germany.

Please enjoy my flight to Germany with this slide show! More details followed after I come back to Boston.