Ping.sg 1st Anniversary Party - DK's self debrief
OK, the big event is finally over. I guess we can finally sit back and relax a bit. The past few days were hectic. I must agree that the planning wasn't really good for some part.
But allow me to defend ourselves a bit. Ping.sg not an event organizing group like TDM. We are just a blogger community who likes to meet up and have fun. We have no experience in organizing events. This is our first time and we choose to take up such a big event. We make mistakes, we learn from mistakes. Thank you for being with us while we are learning from our mistakes.
And so while everyone is sleeping or busy chatting at the ping.sg shoutbox, I did some debrief myself which I would like to share with everyone. These are just my personal opinions. They are not official replies from ping.sg, its community and/or owner. It is just my thoughts at 4:30am after 3 glasses of beer.
The awards
Why some nominations are rejected.
After the nominations, the committees met up one saturday night and spend hours looking thru all the nominations. We rejected some nominations because either the blog is not in ping.sg or it doesn't fit into the category. Every single nomination was looked thru and voted by the committees. Some of the nominations are just totally out of the category that we have to drop them.
Why are the nominated entries mostly the active members?
The nomination for the blog award was open to all ping.sg members. The reason why most of the nominated entries are from active members is because, well….. they are very active in the community. When you are active, you get fans, supporters and friends. And these people will naturally nominate you for the award.
Why the winners are mostly the active members?
Same for the previous question. If you are more active, you get more fans, supporters and friends.
I do wish to see more blogs being nominated. But we need your help to nominate more blogs from those not so active members. I did tried my best to surf around and nominate a few less active members. But I can only do that much. I hope we will see more nominations next time round.
The event
Why the event started late.
We Singaporeans are known to be late. I wish we could start on time. But the place is only half filled. If we start on time, a lot of people will miss the front segment. And people entering the place late will disturb the audience and MC.
MC wasn’t well prepared.
Yes, we could have done better at the MC part. There wasn’t enough rehearsal. But as I said earlier, this is our first time organizing such events. Please bare with us. Both Rinaz and Brennan have their own job and commitments too. It’s really hard to do a proper rehearsal. Perhaps they could do better with more rehearsal and scripts.
Everyone is too quiet, no interaction.
OK, I admit I’m at fault for creating this “too quiet” environment. I’m not sure how many people attended blogout which was also held in Geek Terminal. What happen at blogout was, there are not many seats around and most people are standing in groups and chatting. The MC and panel are having a hard time presenting their stuff. It is too noisy and everyone is more interested in their own conversations. So for the award presentation, I suggested having seats in straight rows for this event so that people will not make too much noise during the event. And I think I over did it and now everyone is too quiet. But I personally feel that there is a time for everything. During the award, we need the audience to be quiet and pay attention. After the awards, we moved the chairs away so that people can stand around and interact with each other.
Time slot for sponsors are arranged wrongly.
I don’t know leh. Is it wrong? We wanted to give the sponsors some time to talk about their product and also give out an award. So naturally we would put both items side by side. It would create a sense of a “commercial break”. Is the time slot wrongly arranged? I personally feel that its ok. Maybe I’ll have to speak to Josh and Paddy to get their feedback.
There are still many areas for improvements. This is our first time but it will not be the last. It’s a good lesson for everyone of us. We took home something at the end of the day. Ping.sg, like I mentioned, is not an event organizing group. We are a blogger community.
Thank you everyone for coming for today's event. Do join us for the next gathering if you can. We will have more fun this time round. I hope. Cheers :D
But allow me to defend ourselves a bit. Ping.sg not an event organizing group like TDM. We are just a blogger community who likes to meet up and have fun. We have no experience in organizing events. This is our first time and we choose to take up such a big event. We make mistakes, we learn from mistakes. Thank you for being with us while we are learning from our mistakes.
And so while everyone is sleeping or busy chatting at the ping.sg shoutbox, I did some debrief myself which I would like to share with everyone. These are just my personal opinions. They are not official replies from ping.sg, its community and/or owner. It is just my thoughts at 4:30am after 3 glasses of beer.
The awards
Why some nominations are rejected.
After the nominations, the committees met up one saturday night and spend hours looking thru all the nominations. We rejected some nominations because either the blog is not in ping.sg or it doesn't fit into the category. Every single nomination was looked thru and voted by the committees. Some of the nominations are just totally out of the category that we have to drop them.
Why are the nominated entries mostly the active members?
The nomination for the blog award was open to all ping.sg members. The reason why most of the nominated entries are from active members is because, well….. they are very active in the community. When you are active, you get fans, supporters and friends. And these people will naturally nominate you for the award.
Why the winners are mostly the active members?
Same for the previous question. If you are more active, you get more fans, supporters and friends.
I do wish to see more blogs being nominated. But we need your help to nominate more blogs from those not so active members. I did tried my best to surf around and nominate a few less active members. But I can only do that much. I hope we will see more nominations next time round.
The event
Why the event started late.
We Singaporeans are known to be late. I wish we could start on time. But the place is only half filled. If we start on time, a lot of people will miss the front segment. And people entering the place late will disturb the audience and MC.
MC wasn’t well prepared.
Yes, we could have done better at the MC part. There wasn’t enough rehearsal. But as I said earlier, this is our first time organizing such events. Please bare with us. Both Rinaz and Brennan have their own job and commitments too. It’s really hard to do a proper rehearsal. Perhaps they could do better with more rehearsal and scripts.
Everyone is too quiet, no interaction.
OK, I admit I’m at fault for creating this “too quiet” environment. I’m not sure how many people attended blogout which was also held in Geek Terminal. What happen at blogout was, there are not many seats around and most people are standing in groups and chatting. The MC and panel are having a hard time presenting their stuff. It is too noisy and everyone is more interested in their own conversations. So for the award presentation, I suggested having seats in straight rows for this event so that people will not make too much noise during the event. And I think I over did it and now everyone is too quiet. But I personally feel that there is a time for everything. During the award, we need the audience to be quiet and pay attention. After the awards, we moved the chairs away so that people can stand around and interact with each other.
Time slot for sponsors are arranged wrongly.
I don’t know leh. Is it wrong? We wanted to give the sponsors some time to talk about their product and also give out an award. So naturally we would put both items side by side. It would create a sense of a “commercial break”. Is the time slot wrongly arranged? I personally feel that its ok. Maybe I’ll have to speak to Josh and Paddy to get their feedback.
There are still many areas for improvements. This is our first time but it will not be the last. It’s a good lesson for everyone of us. We took home something at the end of the day. Ping.sg, like I mentioned, is not an event organizing group. We are a blogger community.
Thank you everyone for coming for today's event. Do join us for the next gathering if you can. We will have more fun this time round. I hope. Cheers :D
Labels: ping.sg
great AAR, dk.
you can never please Everyone. :)
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 05:06:00 AM
Don't worry about it, I'm sure the event went well nonetheless from the reactions on the different pingsters' blogs :) Great job!
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 05:25:00 AM
Hi DK, nah I am okay with the speech. Nothing biggie at all.
It was all good and fun :)
Posted by
Details: |
7/08/2007 06:19:00 AM
DK-san, ditto what Malique said - you can't please everyone in a public event like this.
Maybe your pre-event buzz was too happening (e.g. something about Uzyn dancing) that led to many going there with unrealistic expectations?
BTW where can I find the full list of all the winners?
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 08:27:00 AM
Very well said.. Thanks. :P
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 08:55:00 AM
It's the first community driven event, so don't be too hard on yourselves. :)
On active members: It's the reciprocal effect. The more a community member spends time with others, the more he/she gets back in kind. It's deservedly so.
Posted by
Kevin |
7/08/2007 10:14:00 AM
guess those who aren't regular or are new to ping (like myself) needed a little more help getting started mixing around... just a suggestion, maybe the next time, the regulars who recognises any newbies/not so regulars around at an event, can start a conversation of break the ice alittle?
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 11:41:00 AM
shouldn't be too hard on yourself... these things come with experience!
and congrats on winning!
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 12:46:00 PM
Clarifications:
Why are the nominated entries mostly the active members?
Because that's all we got! The other members being non-active in the community, did not submit many entries as expected.
We did not pick the nominations from active members because they are active. We only debated on the suitability of each submissions.
---------
DK, don't be too hard on yourself. I'm glad you came up with the row-style arrangements of chair. Otherwise we would never have gone through the award presentation smoothly.
But as the arrangements create an extreme end of the quietness (as compared to another extreme end of interaction which doesn't allow any programmes to take place as witnessed in 2 other events held at the same venue by myself), we can experiment on the arrangements further to strike a balance next time.
Posted by
Unknown |
7/08/2007 01:04:00 PM
malique: Yeap. Can't please everyone. Maybe I just hope we could please most of us.
HighwayBlogger: Too bad you aren't here. So you coming for the next gathering? :P
Paddy: Thx for your support. Glad to hear that you are fine with the time slot of the speech. Will check with Josh and get his feedback.
Posted by
DK |
7/08/2007 01:09:00 PM
Miss Loi: Oops. My fault. I was just kidding about Uzyn doing bartop dancing. Didn't know that so many people think we are for real. Maybe Uzyn doing bartop dancing really has market value. Will try to talk to him about this business proposal next time. :D
Still waiting for Uzyn to post the list. You can check out kevin's blog for the winner list too. :)
NTT: That the kind of crap you get from me after 3 glasses of beer. :)
Posted by
DK |
7/08/2007 01:13:00 PM
That means we need you to get drunk more often eh?? Hehehehehe..
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 01:23:00 PM
Kevin: Yes, I also think that it is the reciprocal effect. Sometimes, it is not that a blog is not good, but rather we didn't notice it. The blogsphere is just too big.
claudia: Sorry that I missed you yesterday. Actually I feel that both regulars and not so regulars should put in effort to break the ice.
Personally, I wished that yesterday event would help us get to know the not so regular members more. But so many things are happening at a short time until we have no time to mingle with others.
Perhaps it would be easier for us to break the ice during the usual gathering where we have no schedule and agenda to follow.
Do join us for the next gathering. ok? :)
Posted by
DK |
7/08/2007 01:25:00 PM
Missy: Yes. We need more experience. And more support from everyone. Come come see us make more mistakes. Thx. :D
Uzyn: Next time we try other positions lah. (This sound so wrong) Hahaha....
NTT: Anytime. You pay for the beer lah. :D
Posted by
DK |
7/08/2007 01:32:00 PM
When I heard about 90 members sign up, after attending the previous function at GT, I was prepared for the same lowdy atmosphere.
I was surprise when I entered GT, as I was late. I find it very well organised.
Except, I did believed the contest for the Best Blogger for the year should be between you and ECL. Well need to be more transparent in the next such event.
Congratulations to u and the organising committee, for great job, considering it is 1st events.
Posted by
Christopher |
7/08/2007 01:33:00 PM
hey dk, just wanna say that the event is great, and yes, i do agree with what you have posted...
we will organise better events as the time goes by. give yourself a pat on the back, u did well :)
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 02:11:00 PM
just want to add on, perhaps ice breaker games next time? so that everyone will get to know each other :)
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 02:39:00 PM
Hey, DK. Looks like you've got the makings of a great event organizer. After all these critical self-reflections, I'm sure your next events can only get better and better.
Posted by
ClappingTrees |
7/08/2007 02:47:00 PM
Remember to save this somewhere, we will be needing this for next year's event
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 02:59:00 PM
the part on why some nominations are rejected hor, I heard I almost got rejected for the Most Entertaining Blog category, and I ended up getting the award
=P
c'mon people, don't be so dead-serious about this stuff.
Posted by
chillycraps |
7/08/2007 03:19:00 PM
I only want to know... Did Veron win?
Posted by
Princessa |
7/08/2007 03:44:00 PM
Christopher: I couldn't have won the best blog award because I didn't win any blog category award. I think veron should win.
nicole: Ice breaker games? Errr.... don't know leh. Sound abit weird. We'll see how we can do better next time. :)
clapping tree: Thx for the compliement. No lah, I think we still got a lot to learn.
Posted by
DK |
7/08/2007 04:35:00 PM
arzhou: It's always on my blog. We can come here next year to read back again. :D
chillicrap: Ya lor. There is a difference between crappy and entertaining. No doubt your blog is crappy, but i don't think crap is considered entertaining. Hahahaha.... kidding. :P
Anyway, congrats for winning the most entertaining blog.
princess: Yes, veron won the best design blog and blog of the year award.
Posted by
DK |
7/08/2007 04:37:00 PM
haha, yeah, sounded a bit weird... and yup, we'll work and improve things as we move along :)
Posted by
Anonymous |
7/08/2007 05:24:00 PM
Hey DK,
The events were great. Though there is rooms to improve they were better than i expected. Proposal i can give, instead of having the sponsors up in person to speak about their product, screen their product video. I'm sure they have their video for presentation.. The response for video is much better than face to face talk. and then ask people to talk to the sponsors in person during the makan time. As for the results, being singaporean, no matter what's the results, kelong will be heard. so no need to be upset over such comment. Anyway it's a voting system.. when it comes to vote, its sensative like GE. haha..see the aftermath of our GE? Anyway things will only be better haha..
Posted by
Defector |
7/08/2007 11:34:00 PM
i am sure when ping.sg reach 2, it would be much better.
errr. having a 1.5 years old celebration as well? use it as 'rehearsal'. ;-P
Posted by
Keropokman |
7/08/2007 11:34:00 PM
defector: Thx for the suggestions. I think we can suggest to sponsors to do video clip. But that is provided they have one.
But personally, I think a talk would be better. More human touch and interaction.
KM: Wah piang. Don't make this like a NDP where every weekend got rehearsal leh.
Posted by
DK |
7/09/2007 11:35:00 AM