Colin Charles Agenda

I’m fielding thoughts/comments. What do you think if we had events like Social Media Breakfast in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia? Would you go? How would you contribute? What do you think you will get out of it?

Our neighbours down in Singapore have their own SMB.sg, and they seem to have a very rah rah styled event, that includes sponsors, venues, and when things start involving money/expenses, it takes a little more time for something like this to be organised (especially, in this dud economy). Just take a look at their public ledger.

Not far off, there is the Social Media Coffee Mornings in Sydney, and Melbourne. These happen on a Friday morning, which probably won’t fly in Malaysia, as people need to go to work :-)

My proposal
We have a similar event, held once every two weeks initially, on a Saturday morning, at a coffee joint that we wish to take over. There is potential for fun at Starbucks, in the Gardens, but better yet, you’ll find that the Coffee Bean in Mont Kiara has got a lot more space, parking, and is a bit more secluded (so its easy to move tables around, et al).

No projector/screen, bring your own laptops. There should be WiFi, which makes having it at a Starbucks better than a Coffee Bean, as the WiFi would then be free (and not provided via Airzed). One would need plenty of power sockets too, but if we keep it breakfast styled, let the event fizzle out in 2-3 hours, so that you can go and get lunch with your loved ones (or hook up the next great business with someone you met!).

Would you find value, talking to Web-types, into social media, entrepreneurship, technology, or even just making extra income via the Internet, every fortnight, all for the price of a coffee? Is 9am on a Saturday, too early for this sort of thing?

I envision this being a mashup of Social Media Breakfast, Social Media Coffee Mornings, and even OpenCoffee Club.

If you’re into Twitter, Facebook, blogging, building up web services that benefit others, and create a conversation, FriendFeed, community, entrepreneurship, making money via the online world, new media, advertising, and more, this is the kind of event for you. Field thoughts via comments, or a Twitter message :-)

Today I found Must Go Lah, a portal for events happening around Malaysia. Its a WordPress-based site (still 2.5), run gratis, by Orangedot Technologies.

I even disabled AdBlock Plus to look at the site and found no monetary business model (read: ads). I’m impressed – I wonder how long it will last. Do we really need another site for events listings, considering there already is Upcoming? Turns out of course that there are more events listed on MustgoLah, then there is on Upcoming. I’ve added it to my RSS reader.

Are there more event portals in Malaysia that you know of?

Daniel (aka Mr. Messina of Malaysia) is organising a bunch of events, and since they’re on weekends, I’m going to gladly participate, without seeking approval from the overlords.

First up is Startup Camp KL, on 22-23 November 2008, in MidValley. On Sunday, I’m going to lead a session titled “Using Free Software to bootstrap your startup”. Check out the agenda. It should be fun, especially in today’s market to ensure there are no software licensing costs, especially if you’re a startup.

Then there’s BarCampJB, 6-7 December 2008, in Johor Bahru. I haven’t been there in…. ages :) I’ll be talking about “MySQL Best Practices for Developers”, where we’ll go through good schema practice, understanding different engines (and their uses), and probably a lot more. If there’s enough interest, a similar discussion on free software in business, will be there (AMP stacks, ftw!).

Last week I found out about the Open Source Economy Conference 2008 held in Putrajaya, Malaysia on the 19th of November 2008. Its co-organised by Sun and the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC). Its also the “launch” of MySQL in Malaysia.

I only mention this because I’m speaking – check the agenda out. Don’t hesitate to register now.

Busy next few days: Sun Systems Tour in Jakarta, Indonesia on November 5, then MyGOSSCON 2008 on November 6.

For the Sun event, there’s a corporate slide deck – MySQL from Sun: The Platform for the Web Economy. For the MyGOSSCON event I’ll be speaking about MySQL Best Practices.

If you’re in Jakarta and free on November 5, don’t hesitate to say hi. Similar invite for MyGOSSCON, though I don’t actually know if its open to all.

One of the interesting things about conferences is the fact that there are usually parties associated with the conference. This usually means free food and drink. Sometimes, it usually means free t-shirts[1].

Anyway, its a great way to mingle and network, share and learn new things. So come to the OpenSolaris-MySQL-Zend OSCON Bash located at the DoubleTree Hotel (Lloyd Centre), on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 from 8pm-midnight.

Jesse Silver (excellent party planner – I found his skills amazing at the OpenSolaris Developer Summit earlier this year, in Santa Cruz, back in May), has assured us that it will be “carnivalesque”. Boxing, tricycle races, shooting galleries, pool, and an open bar :)

[1] – Good, since I’ve had to visit Target to buy some yesterday – thanks to United’s great efforts of leaving my bag in LAX and for some reason not getting it to me. Apparently, I’m not the only one in the MySQL Community lacking clothing – JetBlue has played a number on Sheeri, too.

In addition to having the Malaysia University Days, there’s something brewing in Singapore too.

First up, there is the Singapore MySQL Meetup Group, having a meeting in July, at a new location (Sun Solutions Centre, Central Mall). Confirm your attendance for a meetup at 7pm on Monday, July 14 2008.

And the other reason to be in Singapore, is the Sun Developer Days 2008 Singapore, happening on Tuesday, July 15, 2008. This is an all-day long event, held at the Hilton Hotel – register now! The agenda is packed, and there is a big web focus: profile applications using the NetBeans IDE, MySQL, and using DTrace on Web applications (from JavaScript to the database).

So there, two events next week, in Singapore: MySQL Meetup and Sun Developer Days. See you there.

In what I think must be MySQL’s first time in the Philippines, there will be a presence there next week. Well, its not the first time, but in terms of a community/developer event, I think it might be. The Sun Tech Days is happening from 17-19 June 2008, in the Shangri-La Makati.

Besides MySQL, expect great talks on NetBeans, GlassFish, OpenSolaris, and so much more. I’ll be the guy walking around in the MySQL shirt, so feel free to stop me and ask questions. Its exciting for me, as we’ve not really paid much attention to the Philippines, in terms of community growth (and the Philippines is in the APAC region!).

This isn’t a free event (its 1,000 PHP = ~USD23), and registration should still be available. If you’d like to meet up, and talk MySQL, shoot me an email at colinATmysqlDOTcom or reach me via mobile at +6-012-204-3201. If you’d like to help organise a MySQL Meetup in Manila, do ping me too.