Tien Wong of Opus8 On Personal Brand, Food and Twitter News
Posted on March 30, 2011, by JD Kathuria, under Featured Interview.
Tien Wong, CEO of the Silver Spring-based private investment firm Opus8 and Lore Systems, explains why you need an online presence, and how social media has helped him promote his business. Wong also describes his most recent venture, a news website focused on technologgical innovation that is connected to Twitter.
check out The Tien Wong Times here!
How would you describe your brand?
I think we want our online identity and “brand” to have a consistent message of integrity and excellence. We want the external perception of us to match the internal reality of our focus on quality and doing things the right way.
When someone says your name, what do you want them to think first?
A good person who does the right thing and works to make a difference in the world around him. In business, someone who goes the extra mile for his customers and helps them become successful.
Why is building your brand important to you?
Everyone wants to be seen in a positive light. With us, it’s the same thing. We want the market and the community to know that when they are dealing with us, they have a partner who is genuinely interested in helping them solve problems and who will deliver a truly unique customer experience. Also, from a personal perspective, the thing about the Internet and having an online presence is that you can keep a sort of “public journal” where friends and family can see an online record of what you were thinking at a particular time. It’s fun to look back one week, one month, a year or a few years and see what you were posting and what was important to you at various points in time.
How has your brand helped your business?
It has helped a lot because it allows us to open doors with new customers and stakeholders who have heard of us and who know of our reputation. Lore Systems has been very fortunate in being able to get coverage in a lot of different channels and media, both online and offline, that have helped promote our business to our government and corporate clients. We’re a B2B and B2G shop, so even though we are not involved in B2C activities, building a brand is still vitally important.
How important is integrity in building your brand?
In my mind, there’s nothing more important than integrity. It is Number One, so it’s important not only to live a life of integrity, but also to make sure that everything you do is consistent with that key value.
You recently started The Tien Wong Times. Please tell us more why and the purpose.
Well, let me be clear that it’s still in BETA mode, but it started a couple of months ago when I was playing around with Twitter and I noticed that some of the people I followed had this automatically curated and generated e-newsletter which had articles from people they followed. While not all of the articles are completely relevant, Paper.Li does a good job of getting some interesting articles on the newsletter, and it has pretty much replaced a lot of the business and tech reading that I do.
Tien Wong can be found on Twitter @tienwong and @loresystems.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
Food has played a big part in my life. First of all, my favorite TV channel is the Food Network and I love watching it with my family. More importantly, I learned about customer service and hard work by working in my family’s Chinese restaurants for many years starting from a young age. Dealing with all kinds of people, insuring quality, speed, flexibility, etc. Those lessons were invaluable as we have gone about building our businesses and making investments.
Tony Cord on March 31, 2011
Thanks for showcasing one of the DC region’s savviest business builders. Tien raises the bar for all of us with his vision, bias for action and his focus on helping others achieve…