It may have been raining, but that didn't stop me (though it did delay me) from joining almost a hundred other people from trooping down to Lenovo at Lorong Chuan for the seventh Social Media Breakfast outing. Instead of a hall, we were gathered in... the pantry! Well, at least the drinks were easily reachable.

The topic this time was to listen to a few case studies around social media marketing. As someone who's participated in a few of such "social media" events, I was eager to learn from the other side of the table.

Felicia from Text100 presenting on "Search for N". I don't read claudia.sg so I didn't know about this campaign. #smbsg7 11:58 AM Sep 19th from mobile web

First up was Text 100 to present a Nokia case study. This was around the "Search for N" campaign to launch the N97 phone. Organised as a treasure hunt, clues were seeded through blogs like Claudia.sg. Winners would then win the phone. I had no inkling of this particular campaign, but from the results, I'd say that Nokia was pleased with the results and publicity.

Express in Music talking about music personalisation. Something about composing and sales. I'm still trying to figure it out. #smbsg7 12:12 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Instead of a case study, the next presenter, Express in Music, described what it did. I wish I had more to say about it, but I can't. And from some of the tweets during the presentation, it seemed like I wasn't the only one who shared that view. From what I gathered, it had something to do with end users creating their own music for a campaign because music is more intimate. And then they could sell the music... or something like that. Like I said, I'm at a loss here.

Around this time, Daryl Tay had to quieten the noisy folks at the rear of the pantry. I guess people were just too lazy to walk out to the driveway to chat.

Waggenner Edstrom up next. Long intro, probably used up half their allotted time! *lol* #smbsg712:28 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Melvin Yuan started his Waggener Edstrom team's presentation with a long, somewhat rambling introduction. Anyway, the team then went on to present about last week's Twestival, in which they succeeded in collecting donations amounting to about $17,000 for the Children's Cancer Foundation. They also touched on Kiva.org (as an example of the power of micro-financing) and an HP event.

Brandtology introducing itself. No specific case studies? #smbsg7 12:41 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Like Express in Music, the next two presenters didn't provide anything specific in terms of case studies, but were more like an introduction to their services. Brandtology described their business of monitoring sentiment, giving the example of looking at the online chatter around four blockbuster movies this year. Kelly Choo also said that he would be giving away a free self-painted Twitter bird. (The part about giving away a bird generated sniggers around the room.)

Ammado introducing itself. Platform to support the cause you want. Again, no specific case studies. #smbsg7 12:53 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

From what I learned, Ammado is a (U.S.-based?) platform that allows charities to collect donations. Corporations and organisations can also purchase vouchers, which can then be used to donate to any Ammado-listed charity. The service seems to have launched in Singapore, though the freebie voucher for SMB attendees was in U.S. currency. But as a friend remarked, it's a mystery about how it generates any revenue.

Blogathon case study on now. Eager to know how Tangs benefited from it. #smbsg7 1:04 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Finally, the team from Lenovo, Intel and Tangs presented what Derrick Koh promised to be the "best presentation" of the day. They screened two videos from Blogathon, the 24-hour event at Tangs that had 10 bloggers staying awake to do stuff in the shopping centre, while getting their friends to vote for their favourite. Based on what they shared, it seemed like this event was all about generating awareness about... blogging? I don't know. Tangs apparently didn't fix any target in terms of sales or dollar return on investment, which I thought was unusual behaviour for a retailer.

After that was the food and networking moment. I caught up with some folks whom I hadn't seen in a long time. Almost everyone joked that we only meet at such social media events! Anyway, it seemed like people weren't staying for long, with most leaving within 10-15 minutes of the presentations' end.

What I liked about this SMB was that its continuing use of a fixed agenda suggests that its maturing beyond just a "talk cock" session. I'm sure there are those who prefer the old format (and thus were making all the ruckus during the presentations with their chatter), but this current format seemed to work in bringing in new attendees.

With that in mind, I thought that the venue was a letdown. The event announcement said that the place would be larger to accommodate the growing numbers, but it was actually quite small. And with two kinds of attendees (those who wanted to hear the presentations, and those who wanted to mingle), a venue that allows different activities would have been appreciated.

Unfortunately, even with a proper agenda and venue, it would still be up to the presenters to make attending SMB worthwhile. I was promised case studies and got only half of that. The rest came across as marketing spiels. And preparations were clearly inadequate, with presenters needing to fiddle with the sole laptop between their presentations.

Of course, it isn't easy to organise an event like this, especially from a logistics standpoint. And as SMB continues to grow, I guess details like these will be worked out eventually.

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Technorati tags: bloggers, case studies, gathering, Lenovo, marketing, networking, social media, Social Media Breakfast Singapore

It's been nearly a month since some folks discussed how bloggers are invited to corporate events. I've thought about this for a long time, but had not found the right thing to say. But as Preetam would tell everyone and Nadia seems to imply, nothing's happened unless I started some kind of controversy. So here goes.

Firstly, a chronological background of what this "debate" was:

1. It started with Shelly Sim listing a set of "criteria" for bloggers to be invited to these events.
2. In response, Ogilvy Public Relations' Brian Koh listed some reasons that organisations needed to engage bloggers.
3. Claudia Lim weighed in with some reasons why certain bloggers were invited to these events.
4. Adding her two cents, Priss said that almost any blogger could get invited if he/she wanted to, and that organisations needed to engage bloggers in the modern age.

(There may have been more entries written in relation to this debate, but I am not aware of them (as of this writing).)

To Shelly and anyone who's bothered by this debate, my suggestion is: "Don't worry your pretty little head over this." There are two "truisms" about the blogosphere:

1. Blogs are rated as the least trusted news source.
2. In Singapore, more people from many walks of life go to STOMP.

I'm also not giving that suggestion because I'm one of those bloggers who gets invited to said events and don't want any "competition". In recent events, I've actually been the one who said, "Hey, let's find more people who are outside of the usual circle to participate." If organisations want to "engage" bloggers, then they damn well better invite every Tom, Dick and Hari blogger that they can lay their hands on!

But if you still want to attend these events, then there are avenues to aid your discovery. I personally have gone to the extent of managing not one but two calendars of events. Social Events started off as a Google Calendar. Though that is still updated, Social Events really lives on at Yahoo Upcoming. If you see an event there and its notes don't say "By invitation only", then you're welcome to attend. Most of the time, you'll rarely even see those three magic words, which means you can attend if you have time and know how to get there.

Another way to find out about these events is through other people. As the saying goes, it's not what or how much you know, but who you know. Priss mentioned that she's been invited to events because she knows Sabrina. I don't know Sabrina (well, okay, I introduced myself to her once, but seem to have fallen off her radar since then), so I don't get invited to those events. So Shelly, don't feel so excluded. I may be invited to some blogger events, but there are many that I am excluded from.

Oh yeah, they are parties. They're events by name only. They're really about getting a bunch of people together and filling their stomachs with free food and drinks and their minds with hype and politically correct niceties. I've never organised a corporate blogger event, but my guess is that the thinking goes along these lines:

"Hey, I've got this awesome new product/service that's launching in Singapore. Yeah, social media is important and all that. It'd be cool to invite some bloggers down for an 'exclusive' event. Give them some free food, throw some freebies around. But don't forget to hype up the new product/service! Get them to write about it. (And subtly encourage them to leave out the bad stuff.) Yeah, that is so cool, man. Oh, after that? *pfftt* The newspapers/TV will take care of that."

That's the impression I get, anyway. They're just a one-night-only, two (okay, three)-hour partying and networking and hype. After that, you go your way, I'll go mine, at least until the next event for the new "gee whiz" product/service.

As the saying goes in "Grey's Anatomy": "Seriously?" Shelly, is this really what you want?

Perhaps I've become jaded to all of these so-called "blogger events". Sure, they're fun, in a way. For the penny pinchers, they're great places to load up on unhealthy food and get some free entertainment. For social butterflies, they're wonderful venues to catch up with pals and make new ones. And for the organisers, they're a low-cost way to (hopefully) get more related results in a search engine.

Of course, as more people attend these events, more entries will be written about the product/service being hyped. That could lead to more irritation by readers who wish wistfully for the time when blogs were online personal diaries without the product placements. I've no answer to that except to stop reading them. Besides, blogs aren't trusted, remember?

In summary:

• Yes, you can attend blogger events! Check out Social Events or contact the right "influencer" (that's my label, not any PR agency's or organisation's).
• Blogger events are these delightful, free parties. And don't forget the product/service marketing hype!
• If you don't like reading event-related entries, don't read them. No one trusts blogs anyway, so you'd be better off too.

Aside to organisers of these events: just because you invite a few self-proclaimed bloggers to your event doesn't immediately make it a "social media" event.

Aside to folks who invite me to these events (or were going to): if this entry takes me off your list of invitees, so be it. But I hope you replace me with someone who is not one of the "usual suspects". At least then my exclusion can count for something.

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Technorati tags: blogger events, social media

Sometime back, I started a Google calendar to keep track of so-called social media-based events in Singapore. Today, I'm "moving" Social Events to Yahoo's Upcoming service.

Actually, it turns out that there was already a group for listing such social media-based events. Not surprisingly, it's named "Social Media Singapore". However, it looks like it hasn't been used at all. So I've started listing the events that used to exist in the Google calendar.

Truth be told, I was never really comfortable with using Google calendar. I had the feeling that not many people were familiar with such iCal services, let alone know how to subscribe to one. Upcoming, on the other hand, uses a familiar RSS feed, which anyone can subscribe to. In addition, anyone with a Yahoo account can also contribute to the group (hint to all social media event organisers!).

(And, of course, I'm an idiot for being slow to pick up on this free service in the first place!)

I hope the move helps to increase awareness of these social events in Singapore. There is definitely a need to raise awareness of social media in Singapore, as seen from growing corporate adoption of it in marketing. I hope the Social Media Singapore group helps to facilitate that growth.

And if you're an organiser, please add your event there!

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Technorati tags: calendar, Social Events, social media

The Open Lab workshop started proper today, after a hearty continental buffet breakfast at the hotel. (Mmmm, scrambled eggs...) The hall was tucked at the rear of the hotel, but that also meant that we wouldn't have any distractions for the next few hours.


Altogether, about 35 bloggers or prominent tech writers had been invited to Open Lab. About a third came from the U.S. The U.K. and Finland also had fairly large representation. From Asia, there was one guy from India (though an Indian was from the U.S.), one from Japan and one from Taiwan (though both were American expatriates) and one from Singapore - yours truly. About 15 Nokia employees joined us as well.

The opening speech provided an overview of what Nokia thought of the digital and mobile landscape today and what it hoped to get out of Open Lab. Following that, we dived into the first of the four sessions. Each session consisted of a presentation, then a discussion and presentation by each group.

1. Social media - James Whatley
   
   • social media has made media more "sociable" - great amplifier
   • when? NOW!
   • you are the stream, not the apps or web services (YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
   • Group 1:
     • need for people to own their own data, not depend on the service
     • privacy issues
     • services organised around groups of friends, e.g. one service for work, another for family, etc.
   • Group 2:
     • neighbourhood of communities?
     • success depends on interface
     • generational gap in usage / experience
   • Group 3:
     • currently, only a high level view of what social media is, as defined by geeks
     • need to move away from the term "social media"
     • social media needs to fade to the background
   • Group 4:
     • ego, narcissism
     • "killing time"
     • desire to communicate
     • digital drop-outs, e.g. go somewhere with no Wifi
     • low barriers to success, e.g. system, requirements
     • social media like pixels: different dots that form a picture
   
   
2. Journey - Glenn Latham
   
   • mobile has changed GPS, e.g. geotagging
   • GPS films - film ending determined by geolocation
   • Group 1:
     • simplified navigation
     • need to make info useful
   • Group 2:
     • a lo of geotagged output/creation, but little usage
     • localised data that is of interest
     • need to make it easily accessible, e.g. auto-download geocache info
   • Group 3:
     • set it and forget it
   • Group 4:
     • milestones - Operation Desert Storm, Google Earth, 9/11, natural disasters
     • social recommendations - from friends/family
     • GPS to be integrated in existing services, e.g. Twitter
   
   
3. Entertainment - Anne Toole
   • TV studios figuring out how to monetise / use new media
   • online gaming - 39% of online activity
   • only 1% create content
   • Group 1 - Internet short films
     • "Me Media" - one story, many channels
     • community involvement
   • Group 2 - music
     • watermarking / advertising
     • tip jar / micropayment
   • Group 3 - film
     • upsell, e.g. different formats, stories
     • social context, e.g. contest for consumers to participate in film
   • Group 4 - games
     • share your life as a game
     • games for solving technical issues - people describe "cute" pictures and Google will learn this and auto-categorise e.g. a cat is cute
   
   
4. Collaborate - Chris Moore
   • corporations are willing to give up control to consumers
   • Group 1:
     • how to start / implement, i.e. top-down, organic
     • IT - from Information Technology to Interaction Technology
     • organisations as people: business process (skeleton), RSS (nerves), wiki (brain), blogs (senses), internal network/chat (blood), resources/money (muscles)
   • Group 2:
     • corporate culture needs to change
   • Group 3:
     • collaboration tools will change corporate culture
     • private versions of public service, e.g. Yammer vs Twitter
   • Group 4:
     • job aggregator
     • immediate, automated, seamless, painless

Overall, I found the session to be quite informative. Some bits left an impression on me, e.g. the metaphor of organisations as living, breathing people. However, perhaps due to the skew in participants' nationalities, I found that the opinions tended to be one-sided / biased, reflecting the First World view of the new digital landscape. My impression is that my opinions may have come across as too improbable/impossible to believe, based on their experiences in their countries, and so were not as accepted. Or maybe I wasn't forceful enough?

Anyway, I think our Chinese, Korean and Japanese friends would not agree - or even laugh at - some of our opinions. I'm sure that culture plays a big role in shaping one's opinions, especially with regards to usage of technology.

The day ended with a dinner at the hotel's pub, which had been closed off for us. I found myself sitting with some Nokia employees, so I had a chance to find out how the participants had been selected. Long story short: Nokia wanted to hear what prominent tech leaders thought of the digital future, so they sourced for representatives from around the world. I assume that they worked through their existing contacts (regional offices, partner organisations).

The night ended with a performance by local guitarist and one-man band, Petteri Sariola. That guy has some mad guitar skillz! BTW the video was recorded with the Nokia E71.


continued...
Nokia Open Lab - day 1
Nokia Open Lab - day 3

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Technorati tags: collaboration, conference, entertainment, GPS, Nokia Open Lab, Nokia Open Lab 08, social media

On a bright and sunny Saturday morning, I went down to the Asian Civilisation Museum to attend the third Social Media Breakfast. This must be the swankiest venue ever for such an event. The previous SMBs were at small cafes, so this was definitely a leg up, especially in terms of first impressions to new attendees.

Aside: the ACM could do with better signage to tell people that it is the friggin' Asian Civilisation Museum. I only confirmed the location because of a small sign that had a write-up on the history of the building (complete with a dried-up bird dropping on it).

I arrived half an hour late, though still fashionably early for a Singaporean event. I chatted with a few familiar folks and met new ones, November and "Min-tea". There was also food galore, and I helped myself to egg sandwiches, chocolate swiss roll and grossly diluted bandung.

At about 11am, things kicked off... in a manner of speaking. There was a round of introductions from Daryl, the organiser, and Walter Lim from the National Heritage Board. Then, the theme of the day was recapped, which, if I remember correctly, was about how and why bloggers could be engaged for mutual benefits.

Or something like that, because things didn't go according to plan. So people just went back to doing what they did at previous SMBs, i.e. chat and mingle and eat.

BTW I wonder if anyone has the contact of the girl at left (without glasses)? Her name is Emily, but I didn't get her contact information. (And yes, I'm an idiot for not doing so.)

The only on-topic conversation that I had was about the relationship between blogs and old media, i.e. newspapers, TV, etc., and how/why blogs could rise above the noise. And I was also advised to start using Facebook "like the other 90% of people".

I didn't really notice the time till I saw that chairs were being stacked up. People had already started leaving at around 12:30pm. An hour later, there was just a handful of us left. Those who attended could supposedly tour the museum for free, but I chose to skip it. Besides, Chinese propaganda doesn't really appeal to me... though on hindsight, it should. (I've since found out that the finalists of the Omy blog awards had a guided tour, those lucky "devils".)

I think it's a good development that such so-called "social media" events attract the turn-outs that they do. One person mentioned: didn't these attendees turn to new media because they value their anonymity? I think that's a myopic over-generalisation. We "social media" blokes are human beings, and human beings are, at their core, social beings. While some people can live their lives as hermits, the greater majority of us still yearn for human contact.

New media simply makes it easier to create and maintain such connections. I personally would never have met any of these people if not for the connections built up through Internet services. So I don't see anything wrong with identifying ourselves publicly, if it helps to foster greater social connectedness among individuals.

Read about the first Social Media Breakfast, held at Frujch.

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Technorati tags: Asian Civilisation Museum, social media, Social Media Breakfast Singapore

I've started a public calendar, Social Events, to list all social media-related events in Singapore. It's free to use, hosted on Google Calendar, publicly accessible and "subscribable". Check it out! Better yet, subscribe to it with your iCal-compatible calendar.

Social Events is not actually my idea. That distinction belongs to... err... oh rats, I forgot his name! (At least I do know that he's the webmaster of SYINC... right?) Anyway, at the first Social Media Breakfast, he mentioned about how there were all of these really fun and interesting social media-related events in Singapore. The problem was that they tended to clash at the same day and/or time!

That made me think about my personal experience. My exposure to such events is limited to Facebook invitations and the occasional email. There is, to my knowledge, no central public repository of social events.

So I thought: why not build a calendar? Which I did... initially. Then I remembered that there's already the Google Calendar platform. Why rebuild the wheel? Besides, I could add like-minded people to manage the calendar too, and thus build it into the repository it should be.

And lo, a local social media calendar was born! Now, all it needs is more events! Right now, it's skewed heavily to geeky, technology-oriented events, like the monthly PHP meetings. Hey, I only know of what I'm exposed to!

As such, I really, really, really could use some help in beefing it up. I'll be adding a few people to get things going, but if you want to join, please don't wait for an invitation. Leave a comment with your email address!

After all, a social media calendar should have user-generated content, right? *wink*

And in case you missed it earlier, that's Social Events.

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Technorati tags: calendar, Social Events, social media

Early this morning, I went for something called the "Social Media Breakfast". It was held at Frujch at Singapore Management University. It was scheduled to start at 9am, so I courteously showed up (relatively) on time. Of course, the bulk of the attendees turned up half an hour later. I shouldn't be surprised.

I met a couple of familiar faces, but also some new ones too. Also reacquainted myself with one other person whom I had met on a professional setting previously (and reconnected through Facebook just a few days ago). We had a good time chatting about Internet usage across the region. Fascinating and insightful stuff!

Breakfast turned out to be brunch, and consisted of sandwiches, lemon-orange squash and some cakes. Some of the others also played air hockey and pool, but I spent my time chatting and checking out some sites.

The weird thing of the event -- to me anyway -- was that we were given small stickers with which we could "tag" others. It worked the same way that online tagging does, except that this was in the physical world and we had to write the tags in pen! I didn't tag anyone, but was tagged twice.

I don't know if this will become a regular affair or was a school project for SMU's "Social Media" course. I think such networking events are good practices, but require organisation and location.

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Technorati tags: Social Media Breakfast, networking, bloggers