The Team Behind Social Media Breakfast | Singapore
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008I’ve been following up on Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 4 (SMB4) from Canada, and I’m glad that the general sentiment is that everyone had a good time and found the discussion meaningful. I want to just quickly blog about the team and how we evolved to where we are today.
You might remember me mentioning how we literally started out as strangers from SMB1. It was just Derrick posing an idea to me, and Sheylara joining us out of nowhere (neither Derrick and I had any idea who she was at the time. Oh how times have changed).
By the time SMB2 rolled along and with it came our brand new logo, courtesy of our designer Shermeen, the first “unofficial” addition to the “team”.
Claudia came on board with us for SMB3, and as you will know from attending SMB4, has been crucial in getting our website up as well as the forum and really tying together the threads that we missed from SMB3. In many ways the current manifestation of SMB has really been her work, especially with the three founding members essentially MIA at this period of time (I’m in Canada, Derrick is in the army and Sheylara is juggling multiple blogs AND work!).
Finally, Dorothy, was overseas for SMB1-2, but appeared for 3, and we decided to con.. er… convince her to join the team. You can tell what a difference the manpower made from the liveblogging of SMB4 that occured (that, by no means insinuates that all Dorothy will contribute is liveblogging).
When we were at five members, we debated over whether to get anyone new. On one hand five is “just nice”, on the other, six will provide us with additional manpower to cover missing personnel. So with six we went, and I think it’s a comfortable number for the foreseeable future.
Our criteria for taking on new people for the team? We don’t really have any, except that they live in the world of social media and fundamentally understand what it’s about, and what SMB stands for.
Why am I writing this post, you may ask. Am I necessarily revealing anything you don’t already know? Maybe, or maybe not. The key message for everyone is these guys have “day jobs”. It may be conventional like Shermeen and Claudia, unconventional like Sheylara’s, or school for myself and Dorothy, or army for Derrick, but we have them. Yet, every two or three months, somehow the time gets dug up from somewhere to organise Social Media Breakfast | Singapore, and no one gets paid for it.
So If you haven’t yet, do drop by their blogs, or the SMB blog or the SMB forum and drop them a comment, start a discussion, word of encouragement, and do keep supporting us with your enthusiasm, attendance and kind donations.
I think we’re in the middle of a social renaissance both in Singapore and globally, but this is only the start. Only by coming together and building community and forging bonds and relationships can it happen, and I hope you will continue to join us and grow from the sharing that goes on, develop from the networks you form and learn from the mistakes we, and others, make.
Tags: claudia.sg, derrickkwa, in the space, shermeen, sheylara, social media breakfast singapore, social media breakfast singapore forum, social media breakfast singapore logo
In a month, Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 3 will be happening. The tentative date is Saturday, 16th August at the Asian Civilisations Museum. I finally got to meet up with 
