Sunday, August 17th, 2008
SMB3 broke huge new grounds yesterday at the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) thanks to great partnership with the National Heritage Board (NHB). I was getting messages all Friday long about people being excited to attend SMB at the ACM and I heard about the River Room from the NHB folks and saw the pictures at the website, but I was completely blown away when I stepped into the venue. It’s a HUGE space that looks like a swanky ballroom rather than a location for an informal event like ours. In fact when I met Claudia to set up, I said “Wow, maybe we should’ve gotten a smaller room so it won’t look so empty if less people turn up.”
The reception table
NHB!
Enter… the River Room
Huge, classy and stylish.
I needn’t have worried because this was the most amount of people we’ve ever had at an SMB for sure. When people were sitting the chairs were full, if not there were throngs of people standing around. It was really quite something.
‘
Many, many people!
I felt the vibe this time round was a little more “intense” than previous SMBs. Maybe it was the more official looking venue compared to the previous cosy cafes, but I definitely sensed a lot more interest and enthusiasm and mingling this time round compared to the previous two. It was as if everyone knew they were in a room with bright, like-minded people and wanted to make the most out of every minute and maximising their time there.
One thing that didn’t go too well, was the discussion topic. We wanted to have a panel but that didn’t work out so we thought going ahead with “table discussions” would work. But I guess they didn’t. We’re still experimenting with the format, but SMB is the community’s not ours. We just organise it. So if you felt the topic was too serious, too trivial, too boring, needed facilitators, needed moderators, let us know! We’re going to figure out a way to make this work for SMB4.
Walter from NHB sharing with us NHB’s social media efforts.
For me, the biggest thing at any SMB is the people. And I was incredibly excited that I didn’t know about half the people there! It’s amazing that almost six months after the first SMB, it’s still generating interest among people who are willing to come for the first time. I particularly enjoyed meeting Pat Law in person after so much communication on our blogs, Twitter and Plurk, Todd Murray from Active Channel who I only met online the day before on LinkedIn, Willy Foo from Live! Studios who provided great fun with his photography, and many many others who are too many to list here.
I really love how SMB is becoming this melting pot of people literally from everywhere in the social media space. Bloggers, podcasters, videocasters, in-house people, agency people, casual enthusiasts, academics, entrepreneurs, tech people and everyone else. It’s great to have Miccheng from Podfire filming Geek Goddess TV at SMB2, and the Tech 65 crew recording live at SMB3. It’s truly bringing together the best of both “social” and “media”.
Tech 65 recording live!
Admittedly right now SMB does not have a firm “mission” to drive here in Singapore, but we started off wanting to provide a platform to get everyone together to mix, share experiences and learn from each other, and I think it’s doing just that. Not necessarily at the three hours during brunch, but all the connections and conversations that happen after that. As much as I was delighted to see so many new faces, I was equally ecstatic to see so many returning faces who have been consistent supporters of social media in Singapore in general, and SMB in particular.
At this point I’d love to hear from everyone how you felt about the event. Be frank, be critical. After all if you’re waking up on a precious Saturday morning to come to SMB, it should be worth your time. Let us know what worked, what didn’t work, what you’d like to see more of in the future, etc etc.
Finally, I’d like to thank Walter, Wei Chong, David and Kenny from NHB for agreeing to partner up with us. I cannot state enough what a great help they were with the venue. It was really good knowing that we secured a great venue and not having to worry about it for the last few months. I completely forgot about signage but they had all bases covered with great signboards everywhere ensuring that no one got lost. Thank you so much. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible without my co-conspirators as well: Sheylara, Claudia and Derrick.
Willy has great photos up on Facebook. I’m going to insert two of the group pictures here. Memories of a good Saturday morning well spent meeting great people.
Group Shot 1
Group Shot 2
Links to other SMB3 Coverage:
Walter @ Cooler Insights
Dorothy’s post
Michael @ Communicate Asia
Cullen @ Media Slog
As always I’ll be posting a full rundown of all the blog coverage sometime next week, do let me know if you blogged about it so I can include you! Tagging your posts as “social media breakfast singapore” and “smb singapore” would be greatly appreciated!
Tags: acm, active channel, asian civilisations museum, claudia.sg, communicate asia, cooler insights, geek goddess tv, live studios, media slog, national heritage board, nhb, podfire, river room, smb singapore, social media breakfast, social media breakfast singapore, tech 65
Posted in Fun, community, social media breakfast | 11 Comments »
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Geek Goddess TV has a new episode out, featuring Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 with myself, Sheylara and Derrick being interviewed. If you’ve never attended one of the SMBs before, this is a great video to find out what we’re all about!
I’m glad with the recent hoohah surrounding Podfire, they’ve just stuck to what they do best, create content for the web and being picked up around the web as well. Good way to put Singapore’s social media scene on the web.
Little teaser for Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 3 - We have the venue locked down, and it’s an awesome one. Here’s a hint: Not only will you be attending breakfast, but will get free access to one of Singapore’s attractions as well. Let the guessing begin!
Tags: daryl tay, derrick kwa, geek goddess tv, podfire, sheylara, smb, smb singapore, smb video, social media breakfast singapore
Posted in Blogs, Singapore, community, social media breakfast | 11 Comments »
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
A few more thoughts on the influence issue, part one is here. Once again, I’m exploring this from the consumer’s point of view based on how I surf and am affected (or not) by what the blogs I read say.
Case Study 4: Podfire Soft Launch
The Podfire soft launch got pretty good coverage on ping.sg. I think that night and the day following, easily 3-4 of the top then most read posts were on blog coverage of the Podfire launch. One thing about influence and popularity is network effects.
One person talking about it positively on ping.sg is very different from five people talking positively about it. Again pulling in the “people like me vs bloggers” debate into the picture, I’m thinking someone who knows some or all of the five people talking about it (or any other topic) will probably feel a compelling reason to at least check it out.
Will it lead to the complete viewing of a video? Will they be repeat viewers? I don’t know, but by that stage, the product has to speak for itself. But leading them to click is the first step.
It’s Not About Reach Or Circulation
I read a comment somewhere ridiculing the buzz of the Podfire launch saying some people didn’t hear about it. Completely missing the point. I’m always asked in school whether I saw an article in the newspapers, or a good/bad advertisement on tv last night, and the answer is usually no. So…. people didn’t hear about it via print or tv either and therefore it’s useless?
The important thing for Podfire (and how blogs should be approached), is to try to reach the immediate community (small as they may be) and work from there. It’s targeted as opposed to the shotgun approach.
Get Help!
Su Yuen has a Facebook application called Get Help. It allows users to post out a question and get replies back from friends, acquaintances or maybe strangers. Again, the idea of influence seems relative. Anyone can help on the app, to varying degrees of influence. Would you discount a brilliant idea via Get Help just because a person who replied is a stranger?
Even “Weak” Links/Influencers Play A part
Case Study 1: Camera Buying
When I was deciding which dslr to get, Ingrid recommended a friend to of hers to help me out. I didn’t have any idea who that friend was prior to this, but I did continually go back and ask her what she thought of product A over product B, and bought the final camera based on that advice. Could I have made my decision by reading a professional photographer’s review? Sure. But the fact that I could interact with this person and listen to firsthand experiences made a difference to me. It just happens in this case she isn’t a blogger. But… what if she was?
Case Study 2: Iron Man
Twitter has been alight with raving, positive Iron Man reviews. I’m reading about people from all over the world (majority of whom I’ve never even met) saying how good it is. The Straits Times gave it three stars. After watching the show, I’m glad I didn’t listen to an “expert” reviewer, because anyone who’s watched the show will know it’s not deserving of three stars. Would you like to listen to an “expert” reviewer and forgo the show? (Assuming three stars is your threshold for “not watching”)
Ultimately this issue is still a tough one to tackle. My point here is not to say bloggers are the influencers, but that pointing to the various research without considering the intricacies of it is probably a bad idea. We know about the Long Tail (The ants have megaphones) and about the Wisdom of Crowds and crowdsourcing, and blogging fits squarely into the realm of these phenomena.
Tags: ants have megaphones, bloggers, crowdsourcing, expert reviewer, facebook application, get help, influence, influencers, iron man reviews, network effects, people like me, ping.sg, podfire, podfire soft launch, straits times, the long tail, twitter, weak links, wisdom of crowds
Posted in Blogs, Media, Research, Singapore, social media | 5 Comments »
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Second social media event in two days (the other being The Open Room by Ogilvy), is none other than Podfire’s soft launch at Geek Terminal. I came armed with my camera because Michael says I don’t post pictures!
What Is Podfire?
Podfire is a network for local podcasters/videocasters to come together and basically run their shows. Issues with hardware? No problem. Just come with time and a remarkable idea, Podfire will do the rest. The first two shows to be launched are Blogger’s Treats, a show featuring blogger’s favourite food haunts (featuring Sabrina and Daphne) and The Geek Goddess show, centered around web and tech happenings in Asia (featuring Estee and Peter).
How Were The Episodes?
I must say the episodes definitely impressed me in terms of quality and post-production. Having dabbled in videos myself, believe me when I say it’s hard work. Pacing was a little iffy, but hey, we’re bloggers, not TV hosts!
The Event
The event itself was pretty good. As usual I met a ton of people. Shannon for the first time ever, the aforementioned Daphne, Claudia, and Nicole for the first time in person and people who are by now “regulars” like Nadia, Michael Cheng, Jean and Ridz. As a new blogger, it’s all about meeting new people and forming new relationships for me.
The Aftermath
I gotta say I’m giving serious thought to entering the podcasting world with Podfire. My biggest issue is that my niche is covered so well in North America that it would be a great challenge to differentiate. Gonna have to think about it over the next week or so.
The second thought I have is that I’m getting closer to cementing my thoughts that social media may not be primed to work in Singapore despite our great infrastructure, lack of a language barrier, high internet penetration rate etc. I’ll probably blog about that tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and before you go, check out the two inaugural episodes! (As usual, Wordpress is giving me issues with Vimeo videos, so click on the links at the top of the page!)
Tags: blogger's treat, geek goddess show, geek terminal, Podcasts, podfire, Singapore, video podcasts, videocasts
Posted in Blogs, Podcasts, Singapore, social media | 7 Comments »
‘
