This is a guest post by Social Media Club Kuala Lumpur member Daniel Tan as part of our #MySMCStory campaign to capture personal
and professional benefits received from participating in Social Media Club events across the globe. Learn how others members are benefiting from Social Media Club activities by following #mysmcstory hashtag on Twitter or following our Clubhouse blog for members stories like Daniel’s over the coming weeks.
My name is Daniel Tan. I am your louder-than-life-wannabe urban male Malaysian Chinese born of the ‘mud city’ of Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia and I have been slugging it out with humanity since I could open my eyes over the past 35 years of my life. I wear a few hats most significantly in social media / online community management and previously, head-hunting & staffing.
A few years ago back in 2009, I somewhat remembered the chance to be part of the social media movement in Malaysia with the opportunity to volunteer in the formation of the Social Media Club Kuala Lumpur chapter or known better as smcKL. The meets organized by a motley group of volunteers provided so much interest amongst social media enthusiasts & evangelists alike (oh yes! I had the chance to represent smcKL up in Penang) that it was decided they needed a new chapter in another state in the Penang Island under the name of Social Media Club Penang or smcPg.
To give you some insight as far as I can recall, it was quite a feat to produce and organize the meet yet it was an exciting time all at once. I’ve had the privilege of growing this movement together with strangers, who in a very short time formed spontaneous friendships and in some cases, business entities spreading the love and passion for social media.
Zooming to the present day in 2012, though our movements activities have slowed down for the past year till now, I think the effort put-up so far by an evolving team of aspiring individuals ranging from entrepreneurs, professionals from the digital world and students was nothing short of a gallant social media awareness effort.
They gave much of themselves by investing in time, creativity and connections (getting all the right presenters and speakers) and in so many other ways. I can’t possibly say it enough without giving justice to the amount of dedication each individual team member brought into each meeting.
To elaborate with an example, I believe we played a significant part in sharing to the Malaysian masses in which we had the opportunity to have one of key meets to be hosted by our country’s main English-medium newspaper, The Star.
The night itself was a unique eye-opener of social media angled towards a key understanding of how social media impacted the political scene from both Malaysian and American point of views. i.e. Obama’s administration taking on the digital divide and on how the Malaysian politicians (where both opposition and ruling government politicians sat together in the same room and in one instance, candidly sharing their opposing social media views on reaching-out to their constituents).
In closing, I am just glad to be living & witnessing through this rapid growing state of mind knowing how more Malaysians embrace social media and engage heartily. It’s going to be exciting times ahead to see a lot of social media stories come about as it continues to evolve and influence lives unique only to me and my Malaysian peers.
P.S. This is embarrassing but best I own-up here while I am still typing away. You see, this is my first actual blogging attempt though I’ve manage to live happily through my micro-blogging and facebook-ing ways knowing I had to get into proper blogging sooner or later and tumblr is such a God-sent solution.
This story was originally shared on Daniel’s tumblr page which can be found here.
To learn more about Social Media Club Kuala Lumpur visit, smckl.org
