The day started bright and early for me on Saturday. The team decided to meet at Asian Civilisations Museum at 9am to get things ready for Social Media Breakfast 3 (SMB3). Guess I was too “gan cheong” (excited) as usual, and reached at 9 sharp. When I reached, the venue for SMB3 looks like this…
My first impression? “WOW! What a place!”
It brought my excitement to the next level! Having missed the SMB1 and being in the cosy cafe for SMB2, the River Room at ACM indeed brought SMB3 to a next level! Thanks NHB for the great opportunity and hosting SMB3 at ACM. I’m sure everyone just can’t wait for SMB4 now! (Planning already in progress! Look out for it!)
Since I was early, and really don’t know what I should do yet, I went outside to take a look and was greeted by the beautiful morning sun by the Singapore River. What a way to start the day!
Beautiful view from River Terrace at ACM
River Room and River Terrace is the ideal place to host a wedding or any corporate events! Will surely recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a place to host their event. Imagine having it in the historical building with view of the beautiful river and Singapore skyline of the financial hub. Lovely place! I’m sure the night view will blow anyone away too.
Back to SMB3… as the clock ticks towards 10am, we got the place set-up. With help from Wei Chong and Kenny, Daryl and I arranged the chairs and get the reception desk ready…
Waiting for the arrival of all guests
Do you know, these chairs were arranged and moved around couple of time before we settled them in the final position? Looks like our plan didn’t quite work out at SMB3. But we hope things will improve for SMB4. (1) We would love to get any feedback and suggestions from you. Do keep them coming.
NHB press kits with the usual stuff for everyone
This time round, we wanted to try something different. There isn’t the “tagging kit” like those we had in SMB1 and 2. Instead, we wanted to help identify the guests better hence the color tags.
Blue = “I’m a blogger.”
Orange = “I’m in PR, from companies, or advertisers.”
Yellow = “I’m a listener and here to participate. (aka none of the above)”
Green = “I’m here for the first time.”
Blue, Orange, Yellow and/or Green = “I’m all/ some of the above!”
These color tags was quite a last minute decision, so the grouping was kinda off I think. (2) What do you think? Well, at least it did help me identify the first timers whom I managed to help some of them get started in the mini-discussions. I know how daunting it is to enter a room and not know who or what to do next. It’s great for the experience ones or those from previous sessions to help with the introduction part. (More on this in another post.)
From 10am, guests start strolling in and crowded the entrance area of the huge room. It’s interesting to know why is it that there were so much room inside the room but everyone choose to settle near the entrance? Or was it because the food was there? Maybe we should move the buffet table into the center of the room for future SMBs.
It was good to see new faces chatting away almost immediately with everyone. Once everyone was warmed up, mini groups were formed naturally and discussions took place. As there were still many guests who RSVP but hasn’t arrived, Daryl and I thought we should give a little more time before we ermm… do a little “welcome speech”. But even after almost an hour later, we still didn’t see some of them. Perhaps we’re too used to the fact that there’ll sure be late comers or has RSVP but couldn’t make it in the last minute for any events/gatherings hence it feels alright. Quite a bad habit but well… (3) Anyone has any suggestions how to improve this situation? We were wondering if things will be better if it was a paid event? Perhaps a small amount to cover the catering? Feedback?
Food for that day
There was quite a lot of left over! Maybe some of you are too shy to grab more food, but really, nothing to be shy one! Eat as much as you can ok? It’s better to help finish the food than to have them throw away in the end.
Daryl welcomed everyone to SMB3, Walter shared a little about ACM and the free admission for all those present that day and Jerrick asked anyone who’s free to join in their Podcast recording for Tech65.
The plan for a open discussion on a suggested topic didn’t quite take-off this time round. We wanted to try something different and hope to get some thoughts on bloggers outreach program from the various point of views. There was lots of post-it and pencils for everyone to write down their thoughts, ideas or comments and there were three huge papers along the sides of the room for everyone to post their thoughts to. But in the end, there were only two post-its collected. Some feedback that the topic was too serious and some said that it’s not suitable. (4) Any suggestions on how we can improve this and hopefully build some focus discussions for future sessions? (Or would you rather just have a free-and-easy session and meet to network and eat and be merry?)
Tech65 gang in action…
In short, this is quite a successful session in terms of the turn out and the good mix of people who came. I’m sure there were many meaningful and great discussions that took place that day, and I should make a note to snap less photos and do more talking the next time. It was great having to meet the old friends and meeting new ones! And finally I managed to put faces to those whom I’ve been reading their blogs, plurking and camwhoring in google lively with! *winks* SMB started by Daryl and Derrick hoping to build up the community and getting like-minded to meet up. This session reflected well on their objectives and I’m sure if Derrick was with us that day, he would have been happy to see the interactions and happy faces.
Personally I have many little thoughts that I would like to share, but if I should continue, this post is going to be too long for the causal readers. I will share more in individual posts soon. But if you’d noticed, there are 4 points which I highlights and hope to get feedback and suggestions and thoughts from all of you. (more brains work better than 4!) To recap the 4 points…
(1) Are chairs necessary at such event? (3 hour session) What to you think is the ideal setting/arrangement for SMB sessions?
(2) Thoughts on color tagging to help identify individuals? How do we group the guests since the group is so diverse?
(3) How to encourage guests to arrive on time? And how to encourage those who RSVP to eventually turn up for the event?
(4) How can we improve future SMB sessions? (This is actually the most important question out of the four!)
For those who prefer visuals or had missed SMB3, here are some other shots taken that day…
Jerrick jumped out from nowhere when I gathered the girls for this shot
Beautiful people
Photo by Willy
This was how the above shot was taken!
And this was how I got this photo of me below!
And this is how it came about!
Thanks Willy for the shot!
And here’s how one duplicate digital photo in the modern time…
Me taking photo of DK taking photo of Willy’s group photo!
And there should be one more where Nicole taking me taking photo of DK taking photo of Willy’s group photo! Wahahahaha! Crazy things we do at times! *LOL*
For all links and posts on SMB3, please check the SMB Facebook group!
Great post and pictures! Can’t thank you enough for being part of the team =)
For easy reference, this is copied and pasted from FB on behalf of Weichong…
Nice post! Glad to see that you guys liked the location. Some thoughts on your questions:
Chairs – A must! Especially for an event which is 3-hour long.
Colour tagging – Not useful, I forgot what the colours meant after a while. Was randomly chatting with people without really looking at the colours on their tags.
Punctuality – Perhaps early birds (say the first 30) get a freebie? I’ll say no to getting attendees to pay…for now. :P
Just my two-cents worth. Cheers!
(1) Are chairs necessary at such event? (3 hour session) What to you think is the ideal setting/arrangement for SMB sessions?
maybe u might want to have the chairs near the wall giving space in the centre for interaction, but of copusre that means if u going to have a speech then u’ll need to re-arrange the seats
(2) Thoughts on color tagging to help identify individuals? How do we group the guests since the group is so diverse?
colour to mark speakers is fine if not other then that it would seem abit cliquish? [groups? erm something like dat?]
(3) How to encourage guests to arrive on time? And how to encourage those who RSVP to eventually turn up for the event?
~first 100 get a goodie bag LOL [singaporean style XD] hrm give added items for those who RSVPed XD
(4) How can we improve future SMB sessions? (This is actually the most important question out of the four!)
make people pay for the food XD and put it futher from the enterance? XD
hrm i might attend the next one just to gain some knowledge XD
(1) Are chairs necessary at such event? (3 hour session) What to you think is the ideal setting/arrangement for SMB sessions?
Yes, think chairs are necessary, but it might work better to cluster them closer together. This time with the chairs so far apart, it was difficult to talk to anyone more than 2 seats away.
(2) Thoughts on color tagging to help identify individuals? How do we group the guests since the group is so diverse?
I liked this idea – clearly identified the different groups present. But the tags were small and I ended up not noticing them. Maybe the sticker itself that people write their names on can be colour coded?
(3) How to encourage guests to arrive on time? And how to encourage those who RSVP to eventually turn up for the event?
Personally find 10am on a Saturday a little too early.
(4) How can we improve future SMB sessions? (This is actually the most important question out of the four!)
Personally what I enjoy most is meeting people I’ve been reading/following online. To facilitate this, maybe a speed dating concept where people rotate groups after say 10 minutes? And rotate based on categories (like food – prata-lovers one corner, pasta-lovers another; hobbies – divers one place, shoppers another; favourite cities, etc) – helps connect people with similar interests. This might be too ‘structured’ though.
Btw, I LOL-ed seeing your pic of the empty room – you really were there early! I feel doubly bad for being late now, and will work on above point 3 for the next SMB… =)
Thanks Wei Chong, Rinko and Ssumin for the feedback! More discussions on this will be up on the official SMB website at http://socialmediabreakfast.sg.
Looking forward to SMB4! :)
whoops, looks like i really missed out.. well, SMB4!
what u do there?
@saga You mean at Social Media Breakfast? So far what we do is to come together for breakfast, network, discuss about Social Media stuff and meet like-minded people in Singapore. We’ve just started a forum recently for discussions, you can join in too! http://socialmediabreakfast.sg/forum
:)