Seoul sees expatriates living in Korea as its key promoters to the world.

“The best way to promote the city is foreign residents telling their friends that Seoul is worth visiting,” said Kang Cheol-won, director-general of Seoul’s Public Relations Planning Bureau.

Kang is reaching out to expats because Seoul is not as well-known globally as Koreans believe. Any help in increasing global awareness of the city is welcomed, as far as he is concerned. Kang is leading overseas marketing for Seoul.

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i’m super interested to see what strategies will be used for this. yes, ads featuring some top hallyu celebrities have done well to attract many asian tourists. and yes, how to employ, encourage, and maintain - successfully - expats to promote seoul globally - beyond asia - is not as simple as getting them to blog/fb/tweet about it (more or positively). what will we see? :D

i wish we had more time for discussion - especially interaction with the audience - but the event is set to continue, and i’m sure creative sparks will only get more interesting. 

mark banisch, my colleague and the organizer of the event, has written his initial reflection on the brisculture blog.

and wonderful linda caroli has posted her reflection too.

a very short video of me responding to the moderator bruce muirhead’s (eidos) initial question, while pleased with the wine.

as for my other work, my phd thesis will be sent off within a month, one of the articles i co-authored (with good men marcus foth and greg hearn) is out.

and i’ll be in sydney tomorrow for lowy institute’s 2009 new voices conference themed ‘networks.’

thanks, lucy. with no modesty, my final seminar was truly the worst one i’ve done. you know one of those days when you feel every drop of ‘astronomical mercuriness’ in you is going retrograde? yesterday was it ;)

surprised by communicative crashes. much trust thrown away. an error message seems sincere and friendly compared to sudden autonomous turn-offs without literal ’saving’ grace, leaving me with an empty shell.

well, buddhists say everything arises from emptiness! perhaps today something less twisted will emerge. in any case i need a lot of cooking. it has been my meditation for some time now. through it, i hope to find wisdom to forgive my mac and myself ;) xx

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nicemustard.com

thanks for the link, mitchell.