The Social Media Club (Kuala Lumpur edition) has been going strong ever since it started. It’s a meetup for social media buffs and anyone else who’d like to network and learn more about social media. It’s impacts, growth, lessons and experience from involving social media in their personal life and corporation.
I missed the first 5 meetups and the 6th was one which I definitely wanted to attend. Mainly because the topic of discussion was related to the government and an Internet platform.
The speakers who were present and speaking at SMCKL this time were:
- Tina Malone (US Embassy)
- Khairy Jamaluddin (Member of Parliament, UMNO Youth chief)
- Kam Raslan (Writer & Director)
- Tony Pua (Member of Parliament)
- Asohan (The Star, Moderator)
The introductory presentation was delivered by Tina. She discussed about how the US is now moving forward by sharing government data with the public. It definitely would be something Malaysians would show interest. Especially, government spending. Just where is our taxes going this year and right now.
Once the presentation was over, the other speakers and moderator was asked to be seated at the stage for an open discussion. The topic up for the night was; government in the age of social media.
Questions were posed from Twitter and to the floor. Anonymity proved to be a strong platform for questions to roll in. Simply because there were more Twitter questions in comparison to attendees standing up.
There were a number of mixed final thoughts but the ones which I took back:
- Government doesn’t know social media because a program isn’t available.
- Malaysia apparently lacks talent in programming pool.
- Not whole of Malaysia is ready for the social media movement.
- Social media isn’t reaching and being picked up by more conservative parties or politicians.
I had some questions in my mind during the event, but I deleted them every time I typed it in Twitter. Because I don’t think the questions would be posed to the right people.
- What’s the government doing internally to educate about social media?
- How is it lacking talent when a Malaysia company was recently acquired by Facebook?
If you’re in the industry of Web, then Social Media Club Kuala Lumpur is an event not to be missed. It’ll also be helpful for business owners.
But mind you, it’s not for the “but I don’t want people to post bad feedback/comments online“. That was yesterday.
Today, people talk about you online whether you’re there or not.
P.S.: You can view the event photos at my photoblog; Cameranoob.