The Social Media Club, Kuala Lumpur Chapter (SMCkl) held it’s inaugural meeting last night. I was proud not just to attend but also to be a founding member and a part of the committee of volunteers. There have been a few blog posts reporting on the event last night, so I wanted to do something different and give a behind-the-scenes look at what went on behind meeting #0.
First, a bit of background. Founded in San Francisco in June 2006, Social Media Club (SMC) consists local community chapters all over the world who gather to share best practices, establish ethics and standards and to promote media literacy. SMCkl is the 3rd Asian chapter after Mumbai and Taiwan out of about 97 active chapters worldwide.
Last night’s meeting was numbered #0 to imply that SMCkl is still not yet fully baked and that we’re still taking baby steps. The idea to start our local chapter was planted only about a month ago, when Mike Chapman from Ivy Worldwide visited and met up with some of my colleagues in social media. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I get a message from Yung-Hui Lim and Carolyn Chan that they were in the midst of planning the KL Chapter’s inaugural meeting.
In our first committee meeting just 10 days ago, we had yet to confirm a programme, venue, speakers and any form of sponsorship. A flurry of emails, tweets and direct messages later, we had Chris Brogan presenting via pre-recorded video, Pete Teo speaking about his super-successful 15Malaysia project, 20 copies of Brogan’s not-yet-available-in-Malaysia Trust Agents book by Pulse Group, venue and beer refreshments sponsored by P1 and ruumz, a live broadcast on Ustream all set up and a small army of volunteers.
10 days prep so you understand why meeting #0 was a little half baked. I don’t know about the rest of the committee, but I asked myself several times if we really knew what we were doing. However, the programme was solid and the turnout was a simply amazing number of 100 guests. All this in 10 days! Chris Brogan’s short presentation was well received and Pete gave a very insightful look into his 15Malaysia project.
I would rate yesterday’s event a great success which kicked SMCkl off to a great start. The committee of volunteers will coalesce into more formal portfolios and I foresee great interest from businesses and marketing professionals throughout KL. If you’re either one of the former, please feel free to be a member and join our meetings. It costs you absolutely nothing to become a member.
I really believe in the Social Media Club concept. I love the tagline—If you get it, share it. I also know for a fact that the committee’s main motivation for running SMCkl is to share. We don’t earn anything from SMCkl beyond a professional affiliation and the opportunity to learn.
What are you waiting for? Please be a fan of SMCkl on Facebook and follow @SMCkl on Twitter to be notified of our next meeting.
The organising committee. L-R Ben, Carolyn, Rachel, Lim, Mike and yours truly. Photo credit Nigel Sia
Finally, a shout out to everyone involved in SMCkl, especially Lim (@zhiQ), Carolyn (@thechannelc), Ben (@ben_israel), Rachel (@redsheep), Mike (@mikefoong), John (@johnlim), Colin (@bytebot), Daniel (@cerventus) and everyone else who was involved. See you all at the next meeting.
