A diagram of Frank Da Silva's Internet Presence.

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Rahim. In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

I’m not a web developer. Yes, I make websites for a living. But I’m not a web developer. I’m an Internet Presence Facilitator. Many people make this 1 mistake about going online or doing business online. An Internet Presence, is NOT a website. A lot of the advice I’m giving also applies to individuals on how you can better manage your Internet Presence, so do read on.

An Internet Presence is a multitude of tools and services that identify you on the web. This can simply be an email address, a social networking profile on Facebook, or a directory listing on an online business directory. So, very often, a lot of people think that having a website is the end all and be all of making your business work on the web. And so, they go to the most cheapest web developer on the market, just because you can do that nowadays.

I’m sure the designs they come up with are nice, perhaps because they purchase it off a themes marketplace. But if your online storefront does not make money for you, then what are you missing?

Some of you are going to shout out “marketing! marketing!”. Of course, you don’t sell if you don’t market. But that’s not exactly what’s missing.

I’m very sure you can put together a site, and start purchasing Google Ads and Facebook Ads, run a Twitter campaign and amalgamate that with standard offline marketing like ads on your daily newspaper or on TV. But marketing is not the FIRST step.

The first step, is an Internet Presence Management Plan. And I cannot say it enough that people don’t plan from the beginning they develop their Internet Presence. They just think they need a website and/or a Facebook page, and expect that to work.

An Internet Presence describes who you are, your brand and what could compel a visitor to want your services. From the domain name you purchase, to what you put on your website. Its a mashup if you will of a lot of different sciences that deal with Information, Business, Psychology, Design and Technology.

So what’s a good Internet Presence plan?

1. Understand you, your personal philosophy and how you translate it into your business.
2. A business is not about making money. It is about producing value. So remember that before you start to think about your multi-million dollar online idea. It’s about the value you give to your esteemed clients, not the amount of money you receive.
3. Once you figured out your value, duplicate that to your services and products. Describe its value. Put it into paper.

Ok. That wasn’t an Internet Presence plan. But those are the things you need to think about before crafting a plan! So below are the basic steps you need for a good Internet Presence Management Plan.

1. Choose a domain name based on the value of the name you chose for your business or yourself and also a domain name based on the actual name of your business or yourself. This could be something like nirvanicinternet.com for my value and verbeter.com for my business.
2. Focus on putting up information about your business first. This should go into a website of your business. Not the companion site that discusses the value of what you do.
3. The reason why you need more than 1 website is often because you can’t depend on your businessname.com to stand out from the billions of sites around the web. You need a few that will stick. A companion site allows you to develop your value, while your businessname.com develops your business.
4. Only use your name@businessname.com as your email address even on the companion site. This associates your value to your business name. So if people go to avast.sg for avast antivirus, they will also quickly realise that Verbeter Group is the go to company for providing Internet Security software.
5. Develop the content of your companion site based on your value and your philosophy. For example, this would be an informational site that discusses what you do and how you do things. The nature of the site could be blog or magazine-based. Remember, you are giving value to people, for free.
6. Now we bridge the brand to the site visitors and/or your clients with a marketing plan. This can be using a variety of different platforms, both offline and online. Understand where your crowd is, and focus on a select avenue of platforms. You may want to use a YouTube video to visually describe your value and YouTube has plenty of viewers looking for how-to videos and epiphany clips (something that inspires viewers to take action or have a eureka/enlightened moment). You may want to communicate your brand to your clients on Facebook, or encourage your clients to follow you on Twitter for news on limited offers and even posting ads on Google, Facebook or your newspaper. It’s all about giving value, not receiving money.
7. Marketing gurus will tell you to be consistent. That’s good advice. What does being consistent mean? It means maintenance. You need to maintain your brand everyday. So be consistent in posting new and compelling items on your site.
8. I will tell you to be inconsistent. Stand out. Differentiate yourself from other competitors. Make your value compelling. So everytime you consistently run your marketing campaign, stick out like a sore thumb.
9. Treat your clients with respect. Remember, its your niat (intent). If your intent is just to make money, then you will not have a Nirvanic experience in business. Receive your client gently, as you would to an inquisitive child. They need your help. Help them.
10. NEVER produce an Internet Presence without security. No email without antivirus or antispam. No online forms without spambot checkers. No development without scanning your website for loopholes. Backup! Backup! Backup!

Now of course, an Internet Presence Management Plan is a lot more detailed than this, and it requires the development of your Business Plan and Marketing Plan. If you need help with planning your Internet Presence, Effective Web Presence Solutions for Small Businesses is a very thick book that could help you explore the strategies that go into place in much greater detail. If you’d like, you could even let my web development team do all the work for you for a fee and I can develop a plan and help you Nirvanise your Internet Presence. I’m just a click away.

May your Internet Presence always be well managed and maintained. Amiin.

See larger image Effective Web Presence Solutions for Small Businesses: Strategies for Successful Implementation (Advanced Topics in Global Information Management) (Hardcover) By (author) Stephen Burgess List Price: $165.00 USD New From: $106.75 In Stock Used from: $102.76 In Stock

When I coined this term back in November 2008, it was a term I used to define this movement which I co-founded with other Malay New Media professionals and practitioners as well as to initiate a culture of improvement within the Malay community.

I was present about 9 years ago when the “Melayu Baru” debate came up. As a teenager, sitting in the old MUIS building’s board room, listening to the older youth (then about 30+ years old) discussing definitions and semantics to the Melayu Baru debate. It was afterall the year 2000. A new Millenium. An “Alaf Baru”.

A lot of politicising was happening. There was the Collective Leadership issue between AMP and the government, the Tudung issue of Fateha.com and Madrasah issue of the respective Madrasahs and their stakeholders.

9 years has passed and exactly what have the Malays achieved? For all the politicking, debates and constant chatter about these and many other issues especially post-9/11 Singapore, all we had to show for, was the incidental PSLE top scorer in a certain 12 year old from a blue-collar, lower class, Malay family.

Her success was not the result of some concerted effort by the Malay community. It was her own success. No one intervened to help her achieve it.

If anything, the Malay community needed a revitalisation which would help them renew their efforts towards this Muslim community of excellence that is prescribed across all the relevant Muslim bodies.

I wanted the Malay community to upgrade itself, yet retain its Malay-ness. I wanted the Malay people to have a more technological definition, yet still remain true to what is a Malay, self-defined, on your own terms.

Thus, I coined the term Melayu 2.0, a combination of the word Melayu, and Web 2.0. On its own, Web 2.0 is a definition of what the web is today, an amalgamation of social technologies and networks. It is from this web-derived vocabulary that the term Melayu 2.0 should be understood.

When we first came onto the scene on Facebook, much of the criticism of the term Melayu 2.0, came from the Malaysians. As this was a Singaporean effort, we responded that we’re not out to redefine orang Melayu such that the essence of the Malays are lost. There were questions on what’s the need for another identity? Melayu je lah. Kan senang.

My response is simple. If you want to identify yourself as simply Melayu. Then that’s your own prerogative. No one is forcing you to be a Melayu 2.0 if you even understand what that means. Melayu is still a race. Melayu 2.0 is not a race. It’s a Web 2.0 movement consisting of Malays who upgrade themselves to better their society.

If you cannot appreciate the intent of this movement, then you should look in the mirror to see if you have indeed justified the meaning of being a Malay? The word Melayu, defined by Javanese vocabulary, means to run as fast and far as possible. The entire Malay culture was seafaring. Malays expanded throughout the globe all the way to the ends of South Africa from the first anthropological evidence of Malays in Hainan Island. We’re a race that defines globalisation without eroding its culture. The Chinese have lost much of their culture through modernisation. But Malays everywhere, whether they are in Taiwan, Cham, Papua, Manila, Sandakan, Cape Town, Kuala Lumpur and Geylang have rode on the waves of globalisation and have not lost the essence of their Malay-ness. We keep our heritage proudly.

But as Singaporean Malays, where are we now? As a community, have we truly, really progressed in the past 10 years since the Melayu Baru debate first arose?

Have we built a confident informal Malay leadership in the absence of a Collective leadership? Have we managed to build trust and greater confidence with other races, so much so that they better appreciate and understand our differences and religiosity? Yet, most pressing, have we improved educationally? economically? spiritually or religiously enlightened?

The reality is that we’re nowhere near these things.

Thus Melayu 2.0 defined itself 3 areas of focus, in Education, Economics and Enlightenment (to be read as both spiritual and religious).

To create a pleasant environment for people participating in the discussion, we prescribed the OB markers of the debate. We believe in Free Speech. But hate speech is not free speech. We also believe that discussions need to be productive, and people need to come away with a sense of fulfillment. So we want to avoid potentially divisive chatter which more often than not revolves around religion.

I personally laid down the rules of engagement. Islam is not up for debate. I did not say you cannot talk about Islam. You can! You can make points with religion as a reference. What you cannot do is debate religion based on political schisms. We recognise that there are Malays of other Mazhabs like the Shia. And instead of excluding them from the discourse, we’d rather include them. They’re still Muslims all the same. So what I do not wish inside the discussions are questions over someone’s religiosity, or someone’s particular flavour of Islam. This is not respectful and not productive, and I cannot allow this in the discourse. The few Shia Malay/Muslims have taken the initative to write Shia-centric postings, so that Sunnis are better informed about their Shia brothers. It is this culture of respect and tolerance that make us Singaporean Malay/Muslims so much more different than the warring Arab tribes as we can see in the Middle-east.

Next, we’re an independent movement. We’re not created by the government. We don’t work for the government. The government works for us and we ensure that the government works with us with mutual interests in mind. We’re part of civil society engaged with the government over policies that affect the Malay community. We’re an informal leadership, allowing others within the Melayu 2.0 community to take up an issue so long as it is with our blessings and approval.

Do we discuss politics? Yes. We’re a non-political movement. That means we’re not a political party. That does not mean we’re apolitical. We’ve defined the focus areas which we want to see an improvement, and these are social issues at its core. So what we want in discussions are not political discussions that are rants of displeasure. We don’t want to have discussions that light the flame of discontentment. What we want are discussions that are productive and arrive at solutions which in turn could become policies the government may implement. This is a community with many different political affiliations. I am not a PAP member. I criticise quite openly, the affairs of this government. But politics is a divisive matter. And what we want is to put aside political ideologies and focus on getting things done for the greater good of the community. The Malays need to stand united as one people in order to improve. Not bicker over politics.

Our channels with the government are clear. We work on respectful, mutual interest basis. We do not believe in locking horns with the government. We give direct criticisms to the proper channels. But we do so respectfully. The fact that we are re-invited for more dialogue is a step in the right direction. The government is listening. The people are speaking up. Isn’t this way so much more better than the aggressive, combative methods used by different community movements of the past?

When we discussed the name Melayu 2.0, we recognised the limiting definitions that affect our mode of administration. So we arrived first by public vote and then by internal vote to choose the name Generasi ME as the official name of the movement, and Melayu 2.0 as the concept of the establishment of this movement. This allowed us to purchase a domain name gen-me.org which would not be possible with Melayu 2.0. Because melayu2.0.org is simply technically impossible.

We then prescribed ME as self-defining. We established that ME means MElayu, Millenium, ME (a collective success of self). You can intepret ME however you like to suit your tastes. We’re not going to push the meaning down your throats. You define your own idea of success. It is about yourself and your success.

It is hoped, through this informal, lightly-managed movement, the Malays will take the initiative on their own to carve a future that defines who they are in this new Knowledge-Based, highly globalised economy. We only established the parameters of this success. You, the Malays, are the ones responsible to realise it. You fail in 10 years time. That’s your own fault. You succeed, that’s your own success. I’m not responsible for your success. You are. You don’t owe me anything. I don’t owe you anything. But in order to achieve this success which you crave for, we need to work collectively.

So enough of this debate on semantics. You can argue all you want but you know as much as I do that it is not helpful. If you want progress, we need to move away from debating about these semantics, and more about finding solutions to pressing problems like the education of the Malays, the economic standing of the Malays, and the spiritual or religious enlightenment of the Malays.