I had the opportunity to attend the above event held at InterContinental Hotel on 24 April 2011 courtesy of Malaysia Blog House... thanks to Tony Yew!
Being a sucker for punctuality, I had to sacrifice my Sunday morning sleep-in just to be there early so as to not miss any 'juicy' details that might crop up! Well, it goes without saying that the timing could not have been more appropriate, considering the goings-on in the cyber world... xxx videos and all!
So, there I was in the early Sunday morning and, finding my way up to the venue of the conference, i.e. the ballroom, I found myself facing an empty registration counter. Nevertheless, the registration girls arrived not long after and I promptly registered myself.
By and large, the Conference was a success in my opinion, considering the gargantuan task the committee had to shoulder... I was told they only had something like 2 months to prepare. Compound that with the announcement of the Sarawak state elections, it must have been excruciatingly tiring for the committee... as some of my friends would say, 'Gua tabik spring sama lu la bro!"
The presence of bloggers form around the region, with some having to dodge bureaucracy back home just to be here, was a pleasant surprise. And much were learnt from their very own experiences in their respective countries.
Apart from the valuable workshops and the (ehem!) generous food, from breakfast to lunch and on to dinner, with breaks in between, a major achievement for the organizers would be the presence of two of the most influential personalities in the country, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed. They attended the opening ceremony with their charming spouses and were very obliging to the participants, taking pictures and signing autographs.
I don't know about the rest of the participants, but I felt an air of camaraderie and a great deal of warmth, pleasantly present throughout the event. Needless to say, the media coverage was pretty extensive with all mainstream media reporting the event at first break. Print media had them on front page, while the electronic media reported it as the first news.
For those of you who missed the tv news reports, here are the recordings -
TV2
TV3
All in all it was a successful event, and though there were some hush-hush whispers and little voices amongst some of the local participants such as "How come so-and-so were not invited huh?", which is pretty much the norm in Malaysia, I'd say kudos to the organizing committee for a job well done!
The closing was pretty much an informal affair with most participants expressing hope that there will be a follow-up forum in the near future, and with standards being set at such a high level, it will be tough to match, but hey, there's always a first for everything! So don't fret guys, even if the next forum is held on a low-key basis, it's the quality that counts! Ehem! Phuket is a nice choice! ;-)
And now that the curtains are drawn, and the applause fading, the prevailing question in the minds of most of us is... now what next? Where do we go from here? How do we keep the momentum going?
Any clue guys?
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