I was recommended by a couple of people to facilitate a workshop hosted by the New Straits Times, titled ‘Writing Blogs’. The reason I didn’t mention this before is because I didn’t want any of you there. Well, I wasn’t sure what kind of image you guys and girls have of me, and I certainly didn’t want to ruin whatever (il- or de-)lusion you have in your mind. Selfish reasons definitely, but it’s over now so I can gladly talk about it 😀

In my world, I know anything and everything there is to know. Outside my warped sense of reality, other people are masters in their field of expertise. Hence I asked a few friends if they could spare an hour of their time to share their knowledge. They did, and I am most grateful and indebted to them. More on this later.

Timothy, Cheng Leong, me and Audrey

So how did I do? In both my own world and reality, I sucked. Nerves + lack of sleep + ill-prepared + side effect from Reductil + sore throat + assuming too much = participants’ WTF look. Trust me, I’m not being hard on myself.

To begin with, I had to devise an outline for the workshop. It was a 2-day over the weekend thingy with 10 hours to fill. Since I’d allocated a few hours to my friends, I had effectively 5 hours to cover the basics of blogging and what-not. Sounds easy right? That was what I thought. I haven’t been on-line, blogging and reading thousands of blogs and articles for years not to learn, understand and implement some tips and tricks. Assuming one is a newbie to blogs and blogging, oh boy you wouldn’t believe the information I have to share!

One problem was compiling everything into a comprehensible structure and module. Being ignorant of the participants’ level of knowledge and understanding was a bit of a concern. I made the mistake of assuming too much or too little, of which I won’t go into details. Another problem was my (lack of) presentation skills. It is just something that I have to work on if I want people to understand what the heck I’m trying to say.

At the end of the first day, I went home feeling miserable and soundly deflated because (1) I did a piss poor job; and (2) I haven’t covered as much as I’d like to. Some food and sleep helped, then I got working on my presentation and notes to be printed out for the participants for the next day. I’d like to think that I somewhat redeemed myself the second day, but that’s not for me to judge 😛

Re: my friends who contributed to the workshop. David Lian came in to talk about blogs and media from a communications person POV. Timothy Tiah talked about blogs and advertising + blogging community. Cheng Leong covered blogging and Malaysian law. Peter Tan talked about blogging for advocacy, and shared some basic SEO tips. Yvonne Foong shared her experience of raising funds for her surgeries and her life with Neurofibromatosis.

Well my friends, thank you again for giving up some precious weekend time to share your knowledge and views. Also, thanks to your respective partners for not having my head for taking away that precious weekend time. Much humbled, touched and appreciated 😀

Group photo on the second day

After the workshop, I went through the feedback forms. The glaring dissatisfaction was about my poor presentation skills and maybe some bits on the organisation of information. That I very well know, have accepted and will strive to improve. Apart from that, the feedback was pretty encouraging, really. So that was a bit of a pleasant surprise.

Well, that was an experience. Here’s my list of thank-yous, ala an Oscar acceptance speech. To the five guest speakers listed above, thanks for sharing. To the workshop participants, thank you for being kind and responsive. I learned a lot from the workshop and from you, and I hope that you went home with useful information and knowledge. To ShaolinTiger, thanks for your input. To Gier, thanks for the reassurance and for allowing me to work on my presso the working day before 😛 To T and JS, thanks for your votes of confidence.

Last but not least, thank you to Kulwant of NST NIE. You are amazing, and definitely a ‘Cool One’ 😉 By the way the ayam masak merah served for lunch on the second day was fanfuckingtastic.