360DigitalInfluence

One finding from my visit last week to Kuala Lumpur was how skewed toward politics many perceive the Internet to be in Malaysia.

Everyone in Malaysia recognizes the undeniable impact Social Media has had on national politics, but because of that the entire Internet is now perceived as a political zone. In many countries the Internet is considered a zone of entertainment and in some countries it is specifically not a political zone.

The upshot of the situation in Malaysia, however, is that some companies now express reluctance to get involved in Social Media because they perceive the Internet to be a sphere focused purely on politics.

Fortunately, that is not the case for everyone in Malaysia! In addition to speaking at the World Association of Newspapers/IFRA conference, the Ogilvy office in Kuala Lumpur organized a fantastic Tweet-up.

Carol Wong (@bsignificant), Nabila Adnan (@Mobzilla), Rajan Moses and I all tweeted, emailed and contacted anyone who would be interested (and interesting) for a dinner focused on the power of social media.

The result was 30 great people turning up for a wonderful evening of discussion about Social Media in a fascinating round-table discussion.

Before the discussions began, everyone introduced themselves in this video that will give you a good flavor for this slice of KL’s digerati and the fun we had last Tuesday. I look forward to the next KL Tweetup!