Natgeo failed publicity for Every Singaporean Son

I was only half interested when the news of this publicity stunt by Natgeo for 'Every Singaporean Son' broke. Then I became interested and amused at the developing brouhaha. Also it was nice Breakfast Network summarized it well because I regularly missed important bits. Again I noticed Ng Eng Hen didn't look good. BN will point out the obvious ST typically avoid.

I went to take a look at Yahoo's report on Natgeo apology to get a better picture.

Natgeo and for that matter nobody that is even half intelligent would want to do a publicity campaign ending up this way. Fortunately Natgeo brand power is more than sufficient to weather this and I am sure the documentary is far more serious minded.

I think this is a heads or tails you lose situation. Natgeo could make it politically correct and boring. Another group of people will appear and criticized it severely for lacking creativity and adhering too closely to officialdom. But it did what it did and got vociferous complaint from a different quarter. So what's the point? You can't please everyone. Also the happy ones keep quiet and the unhappy ones scream murder.

We are getting to becoming more divided and fractured. Religion and race is a lesser divide than interest groups, schools, occupations, age, social and income class. We need to talk to each other better. If you want to be positive, we are experiencing the growing pains toward a more vibrant and resilient democracy. Everyone is learning, we are out of touch with those who are not like us living cheek by jowl and all of us are making mistakes. The hallmark virtue of this process is tolerance and respect. Time and experience will tell if we deserve to have a bright tomorrow.

Let's understand what is happening to us and don't get so excited and over react.

Update: 1:15pm

The ink on what I have written hasn't even dried and see what I have just found at Singapore Daily - The Gen Y black sheep. Another gap, a very hard to understand not to mention close.

There is another perspective of Gen Y we have seen which even their teachers up to university level missed. Gen Y are often more hard working than the earlier generations. Although they and the millennials seek work-life balance, I discovered often it is more accurate to say work-life conflation or union. Today most organizations cannot provide that and I suppose many of them don't respond well. If we take a positive slant to their demands, they are asking us and when frustrated demanding that we up our game. No different from me telling the very good government to up its game.

Update: 1:25pm

I returned to Singapore Daily and found this: Daddy NiVleK: The Challenge of Work Life Balance

I think this is a blog by a Gen Y father. He has a view of work-life balance I just wrote about minutes ago.