After Barcamp Singapore (Asia) 3
March 6, 2009 by SGEntrepreneurs
Filed under Events
Our very own Bernard was one of the first presenters of the full-day event while his two counterparts, Gwen and Ian Timothy were in the audience skipping around from room to room. Here, we hear from both Gwen and Ian Timothy on their thoughts on various presentations.
Thoughts by Gwen
Barcamp Singapore 3 was one of the best ever – there were many different interesting personalities, speakers and presentations and the crowd was very varied. We saw many new faces this time compared to other social media events (you know how it is, always the same crowd hopping from event to event, making each event a standard gathering of friends).
Virtual Participation
At any one time, there were 4-5 speakers giving presentations in the 5 different rooms. All the while many members of the audience and fellow speakers constantly tweeted or live blogged. As a result, as increasingly with the social media events in Singapore and Asia these days, events extend their presence and participation online. There was even a live video presentation by Kevin over Skype.
On Optimizing Google Ads – Chandra
Some of the statistics that Chandra presented on his team’s study on Google Ads were interesting. They analyzed 10 million ads and these are some of what they found:
“www.sgentrepreneurs.com” will get us more clicks than “sgentrepreneurs.com”
- The “www.” gives users an extra sense of security compared to without.
- But something that wasn’t discussed is that perhaps the “www.” subtly emphasizes that it’s a webpage that users can click through to.
“www.sgentrepreneurs.com” will get us more clicks than “http://www.sgentrepreneurs.com”
- “http://www.” takes the reader too much time to read from left to right.
An ad with more than two symbols (eg. $@!#&) decreases click-through rate.
- Maybe users can turned off by the symbols (akin to virtual swearing).
If your sentence is “Buy flowers and gift cards here.”, keep it as ‘and’ and not use ‘&’.
- “Buy flowers and gift cards here.” is better than “Buy flowers & gift cards here.”
- My guess is that this subtle difference between using an ampersand versus spelling out ‘and’ has to do with the way we humans process language. I might be inviting severe criticism from expert linguists here, but language started off as a purely symbolic language (how one pronounces the word has nothing to do with how it looks, look at Egyptian hieroglyphics or Chinese, for one current example). Languages like English and Spanish are evolved languages and their script have come to signal certain sounds (aka pronunciations) and thus meaning in humans. Thus, when we see “and”, there is an automatic trigger of the pronunciation of the word which then also signals its corresponding associated meaning.
So putting an ampersand in place of ‘and’ effectively moves away from our (now) normal way of processing the English language (in this example, this could very well be applied to other languages). Readers now have to decode ‘&’ before going on to the next word. The delay could be extremely miniscule but nevertheless counts against your ad. Most of the decision-making process is too much too subtle and quick for us to perceive. You might like to argue that ‘&’ saves you space and gives your ad more ‘variety’, but you got to think from how your (human) reader will take it in consciously, and even more importantly, subconsciously.
Conclusions:
- All text might be good. Save for a last exclamation mark at the end. Like this!
- Always include “www.” in your web address.
- Make sure to do your own test of various versions of your ad, and don’t just rely on the above statistics alone.
Why Facebook Communities Can Work For Your Brand – Claudia Lim
Prior to Barcamp, Claudia did an informal survey of how people on Facebook interact with Groups and Pages – the two main types of accounts companies can utilize. Some of the key results that she presented in her slides:
Why do people join groups or pages?
- 71% wants to be updated of the group’s or page’s activities and events
- 58% join because they’re interested in the content
- 57% wants to find out more about the subject matter
- 11% check their groups or pages daily
- 60% check when updates are received (unfortunately, she didn’t have stats on how often users read their messages when they come from a group – this would be extremely useful in comparing the reach of both)
The statistics themselves were pretty interesting but not as exciting to a potential brand or company who wishes to construct a Facebook strategy to engage users. It is pertinent to understand the implications behind the statistics and use this understanding to better serve your user.
Also, any decent company seeking to construct a Facebook marketing strategy should always know the differences (both big and small) between Groups and Pages. Some examples include:
- The ability for Groups to send a direct message to all users into their Inboxes whereas for Pages, you’re not allowed to do so. The mechanism is to send an Update to users, which currently will appear on the top right-hand corner to the user.
- The direct messaging facility only works if you have <5000 members, thereafter, Facebook will only send to a random list of 5000 members from your total list.
- But, you can target your Updates to certain users (say limited to a geographical region) in Pages.
- You can customize Pages with various different applications, you can't do that with Groups.
- Analysis of your Page is possible with "Insights": see how many people viewed it etc.
There are definitely more to explore and companies and brands should play around with the two.
SGE also has a Facebook Page and Group.
The Audience MAKES The Event
For an collaborative event like Barcamp, nevermind the excellent speakers or presentation, ultimately, what makes such an event truly memorable are the conversations one has with fellow participants.
Be it asking questions during a presentation, chipping in with a point or two (speakers are not the only experts in the room, the audience also contains many people with valuable points worthy of sharing) or simply chatting with the person behind you in the queue for food during break time, you will already find yourself getting more involved and engaged.
As more people follow this personal engagement guideline, the event becomes richer with more interesting conversations either happening in public (speaker presentations or small groups) or in private (one on one).
Thoughts by Ian Timothy
BarcampSG3 was the best barcamp I’ve attended in Singapore. There was something about this mix of individuals who started gathering together on an early Saturday morning that was different from the other events. Maybe it was because this event had a lesser percentage of people who were wannabe startup founders. Maybe it was because this didn’t feel like an event about how you can use some latest technology to create some hot new startup but how technology could fit into your everyday life. Or maybe this event had more talks so I had a chance to attend different kind of talks which weren’t just about Web2.0 high-fiving, backslapping and regurgitation of what can be found on Techmeme.
Bloggers From Cambodia – Cloggers
One of the most enjoyable talks I attended was the one given by the Cambodian blogger Kalyan. She shared about the grass-root level activities that were being done by bloggers from Cambodia ( rather affectionately called ‘Cloggers’ ) and the way they were organizing themselves online and offline. They ( the Cambodian bloggers ) really do seem like people that Singaporean bloggers can learn from with regards to social activism offline.
An interesting thought that came about from listening to her was how bloggers could really be effective ambassadors to promote tourism for their home country just by doing what they do which is really about sharing their lives and thoughts both online and offline. I’m pretty sure that Kalyan isn’t sponsored by her country’s tourism board, but after listening to her share during the session, I really felt like Cambodia was the next destination I should travel to.
Information Architecture – Coleman Yee
This was, perhaps, the most educational session I ever experienced at any of such events. Coleman isn’t just knowledgeable, he is charming and a great presenter with the right amount of humor. If there was a way to attach an affiliate link to the polar bear book and for the audience to purchase the book on the spot, Coleman would have cleared a fair amount of commission that day.
Yes, he was that good.
Producing & Publishing Music Online – Ivan Chew
Rambling Librarian’s session was a great showcase of how Creative Common and the new tools to collaborate easier online could open a floodgate of personal creativity. He also share a good way to get known online – be shameless. Of course, he already had some quite decent music to share. Check out his music here.
Last Word – Those Malaysian Folks
The Malaysian contingent that came down to join us for the event was amazing – both fun and intelligent. There was even a story that will one day be legendary. Ask Daniel CerVentus from Malaysian Entrepreneurs to share the story about a certain individual who made a monumental effort to join us for Barcamp Singapore. Because of these individuals, I think I’m heading north for Barcamp Malaysia.
Last thought – maybe it is time to stop thinking about Barcamps at a national level. The second part of the event name like ‘Barcamp Singapore’ could, and maybe should, be switched mentally to just be a reference to the city and not the country.
More Thoughts And Conversations About Barcamp Singapore 3
[1] Chin Yong aka Thinking Nectar, Barcamp at Singapore – Part I and II.
[2] Coleman Yee, Barcamp Singapore 3.
[3] Kevin Lim, BarCamp Singapore 3: a truly socially constructed experience
[4] Rachel, Barcamp Singapore 3.
[5] Claudia Lim, Barcamp Singapore Experience as Planner, Participant and Speaker.
[6] Mohd Hisham, #BarCampSg3 Was Highly Invigorating for the Mind
[7] Ivan Chew, BarcampSG 3 – “How to produce & publish your music album online, practically free, without a music production company or distributor”
[8] Farnelli, Live Blogging from Barcamp Singapore 3.
[9] The Spirits Soaring, Barcamp Singapore 3.
[10] Aaron Koh, Cool Qik videos with Barcamp Singapore 3.
[11] Vietnam, Barcamp Singapore.
[12] BL, The Undercover Technologist at Barcamp Singapore 3
[13] Flickr Photos from: (1) SGE, (2) Preetam Rai, (3) Claudia and (4) Visual Dimensions. My photos are in Facebook.
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