Spotlight: Storyteller/Reporter Ken Yeung

MagMaker / April 13, 2015

My name is Ken Yeung and I’m a Strategy and Research Content Lead at Orange Silicon Valley, a subsidiary of the global telecommunications firm. My role focuses on generating content to help promote our mission of working with the startup ecosystem, investors and our corporate partners and better understanding the changing digital landscape.

Previously, I was the Bay Area reporter for the technology publication The Next Web, where I covered startups and companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Flipboard.

My love of technology has led me to a lot of great experiences. I’m a marketer by trade and I’m fascinated by the new tech innovations sprouting up every day. It piques my interest to see how companies can utilize these devices, tools and software to not only communicate with their employees and constituents but to really grow and be a real global citizen.

FYI

I use Flipboard as a means of curating all the news. I’ve discovered that I’m a bit of a news junkie (no, not of the gossip kind). But anything technology-related, plus political or news with a global impact, is something I’m fond of.

I started using Flipboard as a way to easily bookmark stories and articles that were really important to me but I didn’t have time to read at that moment. Now it’s become a repository for me to share with others things about potential world-changing events.

The first magazine I created was called “FYI” and it’s aptly named as I felt that if you’ve had a busy day and don’t want to navigate through numerous sites to consume the news, then “FYI” will provide you the tl;dr you need to get what’s important about what’s happening in tech right now.

My collection has since evolved to include more magazines focused on things like design, photography, U.S. and world news, business, viral tidbits and those long editorial features one would usually read in the Sunday papers.

The best article I read all week was a three-way tie…but for different reasons. The first one is called “The Shut-In Economy” by Lauren Smiley as it paints a very realistic picture of the current on-demand economy. We’ve all done it and experienced what she’s writing about in one way, shape or form, I’d imagine.

Another article was in The New York Times entitled “Female-Run Venture Capital Funds Alter the Status Quo” written by Claire Cain Miller. It was very complementary to the last one I’m throwing in as a “best” article: “The Discrimination Double Standard” written by Re/code’s Liz Gannes. Both the NYT and Re/code articles are relevant given the current state of the tech industry when it comes to equality and I found both to be especially informative.

My favorite topic on Flipboard is technology. As a former reporter and someone who has spent the past few years bearing witness to some interesting innovations, it’s like I’m a kid in a candy shop when I see people demo their products and I’m amazed when they have the gumption to go off and create a business and also when it receives funding. Each idea, no matter whether it’s good or bad (and this is often subjective), opens up the mind to provide you with a new way of looking at an industry, platform or problem that needs to be solved. It’s interesting to see why one startup succeeds while another similar one, sadly, does not.

A magazine I’ve found on Flipboard that’s made my life better is Mike McCue’s “The Designer Standard” (hi Mike!).

I have an appreciation for design and while I may not have the right skills to succeed in that profession, I still admire it. Magazines like Mike’s offer me inspiration for how things can be done better, at least aesthetically speaking.

Another magazine would be Robert Scoble’s “Startups Only” as he curates a great list of startups that really feeds into my desire to know what the latest startup is up to.

~ShonaS is reading “Steve Jobs Lives”