*We need your help in assessing how we have been doing, and what we should be doing in the months ahead! Comments will be much appreciated.
It had been an immensely gratifying few months for us at TDM. We finished several major projects, including Nexus2007, Blogout, iX conference. We made a lot of new friends, both locally, and overseas. We have consolidated our goal and internal mantra, which is really (and simply) to continue to build and add value to the budding 2.0 and social media community in Singapore (and beyond.. :P ). Perhaps Jeremiah summarized it best here.
We still have several problems that we are looking to resolve:
- the team needs additional strengthening, and you can look forward to having many exciting additions into the team very soon! (If you wanna get involved, you can let us know here… )
- our presence on the web is strong thanks to the many references we have, but highly fragmented due to lack of discipline in documenting, tagging, and not having an unique identifier (e.g. sparklette, clappingtrees, e27)
- we need more shared values, processes to be able to maintain the kind of flatness that characterizes us, but yet be able to move forward with speed. We are known for pissing off partners occasionally due to our multiple points of contacts for a single project. haha
- the team is kinda shack after so many projects in a row - so we gonna take it slower for a couple of months
So here is for looking ahead a year into the future!
- Nexus 2008! WOAH! We took your feedback for Nexus 2007 very seriously, and now we are contemplating what we should do. A wiki will be up soon.
- New Media Plan - Suyuen of the infamous I-hate-MingYeow post will be leading the efforts on this front. Goal is to establish a highly agnostic web resource for to keep track of the cool 2.0 stuff happening in Singapore.
- Cooler and more innovative events: Top Secret. Goal is to extend the informal culture of no-barriers, and sharing to the next level.
- Extended Partnerships: Several partnerships are in the pipeline, and we will continue to bring partners in whom we think can help to bring together the various silos that currently characterizes the landscape.
- Highlighting YOU! Our local members of the community have seen elevated levels of exposure recently, the most obvious of which has to be Kevin Lim, who was featured on Jeremiah, Valleywag, Microsoft SEA Remix, and of course, on Sparklette!
Ok, that is all for now folks… as per mentioned, we will be taking it slow for the next 2 months, doing mini projects that we will be announcing on this blog. We will also be doing mini-polls, RFC (request for comments), etc.
If you have any feedback for us, positive or negative, please feel free to leave it in the comments below, we will LOVE to hear what you think of us so far, and what you think we should be doing for the future. :)
July 5th, 2007 at 12:13 am
All thanks to the TDM!
I still remember the day when I said Nexus-wha? and TD-who? Ming Yeow chased after me and convinced me to check out Nexus. It was only when I saw everyone in the team working so passionately and generously on NEXUS that I said, “Damn, I’d help out too”. I think one thing the TDM team and I share in common is humility. In this new space we live in, most of us are really feeling around, and those of us who have experienced more, are able to share more. Ultimately, out of all the perspectives out there, someone might finally make the most sense out of everything, and that person could be anyone of us!
July 5th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Flat organisation structure does not mean there is no single point of contact. Having a good blog, wiki, or group collaboration tool does not mean there is no website, and no accessible description of the organisation.
My first piece of advice to TDM is to align itself somewhat to the way that 95% of the world works, and try to leverage change by being ‘with it’ for those folks. Put up some kind of comprehensible website with a good sensible description of the organisation. Put forward a first point of contact such as ‘connect@thedigitalmovement.org’ and respond to messages with the name and role of the person who is most appropriate for each inquiry. Ideally, all ‘official contacts’ should use a TDM email address (rather than Gmail).
For the networking to work effectively, TDM should polish it’s ability to take leads given by folks like me. When someone says to me, put me in touch with TDM, my goal is to make the introduction and get out of the way as soon as possible. TDM can easily do this by putting forward the appropriate contact person, and then thanking me for the introduction, which signals my exit.
While on the subject of accessibility, I think you might want to rethink the size of your business cards. These teensy cards are cute, but get lost in the filing system used by 95% of the folks in business. What you’re really saying when you hand someone this card is “I don’t think business cards matter, so I’m passing you this disposable paper in hopes that you remember me for being a contrarian.” Fine, but business cards do work if I can’t remember your web URL, your email address, or even your most-recently adopted name (eg- Dionis).
My second point is to avoid taking government funding unless it is either an arms-length contract or a committed sponsorship. Never take a grant unless you are prepared to endure the inevitable challenges.
I am a huge fan of TDM, and I applaud that it is established as an association. I will continue to do my best to help TDM bridge with SiTF and the larger IT community in Singapore and the region.
July 10th, 2007 at 4:15 am
To TDM,
It’s a sad fact that even to this day, nothing has really change in gov.
The gov that put so many initiatives to promote entrepreneurial activity and innovation is just ineffective because they are not willing to fork out expense and cost, but more willingly to claim credit and pay themselves handsomely. Unless the gov start giving accountability and responsibility of what they say and do, the country will soon face shortage of passionate and committed people like TDM. It’s great that TDM expose IDA’s dubious crap. It really make me believe if the money given to IDA to promote development of Singapore end up paying as bonus and perk to top management of IDA instead of directing to improve Singapore. Without TDM to expose IDA, majority still believe those crap that gov support in improving innovation as always indicated in their crappy Strait Time and media.
No wonder money always not enough, and no wonder Singaporean sick of country that goes nowhere thank to the gov’s doing.
You have ministers easily talk about building the next Youtube, Google etc and all these innovative craps when they don’t willing to spend money and cost to encourage and help out people like TDM ?
What we have in gov is just NATO (No Action Talking Only).
Isn’t that pathetic that foreign companies like Microsoft etc care more and passionate towards helping the local community than our own so-called first class and world-class gov ?
July 18th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Hey David! Wow, that’s a really interesting comment you got there for discussion. Care to elaborate a little more?