On Saturday, 24 May, Daryl, Sheylara, Brad and I hosted the second Social Media Breakfast. I want to thank all who came, and my apologies for not being able to talk to all of you. If you were there but we didn’t manage to talk, feel free to connect with me online – all my contact details are on my blog sidebar.
Daryl posted about the successes and the failures of the event, and it got me thinking. When we first started this, it was more of a “make it up as we go along” kind of thing. We never really firmed up what we wanted from it.
So here’s my opinion on the topic. Disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion of why I wanted to start this. It doesn’t represent the whole group or community. So feel free to disagree.
To me, the Social Media Breakfast is a way to build real, deeper relationships. It’s about making friends (Friends with a capital F), not just about business contacts or networking per se. That’s why I like it with the informal format. I think there are lots of networking sessions out there where you can meet really intelligent people and have good discussions. They are all well and good, and there’s a place for all that.
But I want this to be more than that. I want it to be about building deeper, more personal friendships. I want it to be a place where you can meet and catch up with friends, and build personal relationships and just have fun together.
It’s very easy for us to get caught up with work and with the online social world – our blogs, Twitter, etc. But no matter how personal our blogs or tools like Twitter are, they can’t replicate or replace the personal connections made through real life interactions.
And that’s what I want the Social Media Breakfast to provide. A platform to bring the social back, as CC Chapman put it.
Yes, when you gather intelligent, passionate people (like all who were at the event) together, there are bound to be interesting discussions that get you thinking. But that isn’t what I want the main focus of it to be. I would like the main focus of the Social Media Breakfast to be the relationships built, not the discussions that took place.
Once again, though. That’s just my opinion, and I’m just one person. So from you guys, especially those who have been to one of the first two breakfasts, what do you want from Social Media Breakfast: Singapore?
But if it's just to be “social”, what's the compelling reason to come for this? For eg if the Ping.sg community has an outing on friday night (which is “social”), and our brekkie is on sat morning, there has to be a differentiating factor other than “oh we can see the same ppl again”.
Daryl Tays last blog post..Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 – The Failure Part
But if it’s just to be “social”, what’s the compelling reason to come for this? For eg if the Ping.sg community has an outing on friday night (which is “social”), and our brekkie is on sat morning, there has to be a differentiating factor other than “oh we can see the same ppl again”.
Daryl Tays last blog post..Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2 – The Failure Part
Hey dude,
I agreed with you SMB is a great event for meeting and making new friends with like-minded people.
Its like we know people online but we never met them, and this event provides the platform for us to know each other from online to offline.
As for the interesting discussions, i guess like you say when many people who are intelligent and passion abt their respective fields, we will definitely have different type of conversations, and i think this is great as we get to know more things, and i don't see why we cant focus on building friends, and having interesting discussions at the same time.
Cheers
Brad
ladyironchefs last blog post..Cedele
Daryl: Well, I'd like to think it's more open, and not tied to any organization. Not knocking Ping.sg or anything. But for example, I'm not a member of Ping.sg. So if they have an outing, chances are I wouldn't know about it or be a part of it. So it's more or less limited to the members of the network. And it would be less open to newcomers, like Hun Boon, the guy who does bamboo flooring. At least that's what I would think.
Brad: Yeah, there's no reason why we can't have both, but personally, I see the interesting discussions as a natural by-product rather than the original main focus, if that makes sense.
Hey dude,
I agreed with you SMB is a great event for meeting and making new friends with like-minded people.
Its like we know people online but we never met them, and this event provides the platform for us to know each other from online to offline.
As for the interesting discussions, i guess like you say when many people who are intelligent and passion abt their respective fields, we will definitely have different type of conversations, and i think this is great as we get to know more things, and i don’t see why we cant focus on building friends, and having interesting discussions at the same time.
Cheers
Brad
ladyironchefs last blog post..Cedele
Daryl: Well, I’d like to think it’s more open, and not tied to any organization. Not knocking Ping.sg or anything. But for example, I’m not a member of Ping.sg. So if they have an outing, chances are I wouldn’t know about it or be a part of it. So it’s more or less limited to the members of the network. And it would be less open to newcomers, like Hun Boon, the guy who does bamboo flooring. At least that’s what I would think.
Brad: Yeah, there’s no reason why we can’t have both, but personally, I see the interesting discussions as a natural by-product rather than the original main focus, if that makes sense.
[…] of the Singapore coalition inside, followed by an interview with the founders (Daryl, Sheylara and Derrick) of the Social Media Breakfast in Singapore. You can watch the video here or check out the show […]