Crowbar Seminar 2009 Thoughts

I attended the Crowbar Seminar 2009 at Nanyang Polytechnic today.

4 big names in Singapore's advertising/film industry, namely Jeff Cheong, Sng Tong Beng, Mark Fong and Eugene Cheong, and the General Manager of the University of Adelaide Singapore, Lim Mei Mei, came down to talk to attendees on topics about the creative industry.

They were very honest and frank with their words and they seem to be very nice and fun people who cared about the future generation despite the huge reputation that they have and they answered our questions with enthusiasm and sometimes a jab of humor.

Sng Tong Beng said that he envied all of us(students/young artists) because unlike his time, we are privileged with technology and choices and are entering the industry at the possible beginning of a media revolution.

The knowledge and insight I gained from what these experienced and wise people had to say was extremely helpful and revealed the outlook of the creative industry more clearly than before.

Eugene Cheong touched on 'The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness' and '8 Habits of Highly Creative People'. He basically spelled out, based on his research, what makes up a truly creative person. And in my opinion it mainly comes down to a person's character.

Repeated actions define habits and habits define character.

That also means that excellence cannot be achieved by just an one time effort but a consistent and constant push for success.

They also touched on what they wanted to see in a person they want to hire.

Mark Fong said that the most valuable asset the creative company has is not the computers or software but the talent(employees)that they have.

He also asked what are the things that will make it so irresistible that he would be tempted to hire someone in the fear that a competitor company might 'snatch' him/her for themselves?

Most importantly, the biggest take away from this is that I feel even more inspired to keep faith and push onward with my work more than ever before!