Saturday, September 12, 2009

Stop the Press





Yesterday, I delivered a 30-minute presentation on ‘Magic for Beginners’. It was part of the Mandarin newspapers’ Zao Bao’s supplementary tabloid, called zbCOMMA. This 24-page, Mandarin tabloid reaches out to 80,000 secondary students in Singapore. For several weeks, its Page 22 features a magic trick, and its accompanying principle. Over the weeks, students were featured as guest-performer in this instructional section.

Youth favourites like computer graphics, blogs, magic shows and entertainment news are also featured to enhance reading interest. Its website, zbCOMMA.sg includes online discussions and interactions with youth on topics featured in the paper. Teachers can download questions set by experts on news and articles in the paper through the eClassroom. As a newly launched paper, zbCOMMA is gaining popularity among students and teachers have started to use it as teaching material during Chinese lessons.

Mr Soo Chan Hua, a secondary-school teacher from an independent school volunteered his services during the one-week school holidays. He rounded up a team of students as magic coaches to perform and teach the audience how to learn the syllabus of tricks. A large turnout of 50 students and parents participated in this unique one-day event where they learnt simple, but effective magic tricks.

My presentation focused briefly on magic history, magic etiquette, magic tips, and a performance of my three favourite tricks. Singapore veteran magician, Bob Chua also performed after my segment to an enthusiastic audience. Both of us were interviewed after our respective segments on our opinions on the future of magic, popularity and its next trend.

The highlight for Bob and I was when we spent lunch with the editorial team, and then had a guided tour from the editor, Ms Lim of the production facility (spanning three buildings). We met journalists, editors, and viewed the gallery of old newspapers. An extensive length of walls was dedicated to the framed, headlines of the earliest Chinese newspapers published in Singapore. Bob and I agreed that it was an edifying and educational experience. We thank Ms Lim, and her colleagues for attending to use us so closely and respectfully. She took great pride in giving us the tour and introducing her colleagues.

Leadership Lessons: Leaders lead by enthusiasm and pride. Punctuate your sentence with a comma, as it allows a more purposeful verbal delivery instead of a hurried and aimless pace. Leaders punctuate moments of the mundane with useful questions, and sharing of observations and perspective.

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