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Bite-sized inspiration: Things We Forget

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Don’t be surprised if you were walking down a street in Singapore and you see a post-it note trying to impart some inspirations to the masses. These little post-its from Things We Forget  are left to their fate in the “wild”  in public spaces throughout Singapore and contain simple yet brilliant reminders of things that we might easily forget.

“Count Your Blessings Today” at Liang Court, Singapore:

Started by an Advertising-man for the iconic stationery company 3M – the premise for the campaign was simple: use a digital tool, a.k.a, a blog, to spread the use of post-it notes.

The campaign costs not much more than the time of the copywriter to come up with clever and inspirational little ditties, a stack of 3M post-it notes and places to leave them at. The reaction it has garnered in Singapore is great, however. It has won campaigns left and right: the Grand Prix title (better than Gold) at the prestigious Spikes Awards and Gold at the Digital Media Asia Awards, showing that this has touched the many hearts who have passed by these little post-it notes on the streets of Singapore and on its blog. How can it not with such frank yet inspiring little truths of life such as “Be Bigger than your circumstances” , “Well done is better than well said” , “Count your blessings”  and so on. It has nearly 40,000 fans on Facebook so far!

“Let Failure not Defeat You”  at Crowne Plaza, Singapore:

The other charm about these post-its is that they are in places in Singapore that are not preachy – nope, these are not at the local church. For example, Liang Court, one of the places where these post-its have been spotted at, is a small but buzzing shopping centre next to Singapore’s Clark Quay, a thriving location for clubbers, bar crawlers and night-life lovers. Crowne Plaza Hotel, another Things We Forget spot is a 5-star hotel next to Singapore’s award winning Changi Airport.

My friend Pamela even paid this little act of goodness forward by working with the Ad-man to auction off these inspirational post-it notes on her birthday, to raise money for Baan Dada orphanage  in Thailand benefitting refugees in the Thai/Burma border.

Although the campaign has won the awards, and I’m sure the corporate folks at 3M are pleased, the post-its continue to appear in little nooks and crannies throughout Singapore. It reminds everyone of just how important simple things can be, though often forgotten.

Next time you are in Singapore, be it at the beach in Sentosa, in the local Chinatown area, unique Portsdown road area famous for colonial houses, go on, look out for a yellow post-it note and you just might find some inspiration there.

But if you don’t live in Singapore but you might have been lucky enough to have been in Cannes? Looks like Things We Forget was there recently too.

“Well Done is better than Well Said”  at Cannes, France:

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