CULTURE CLASH
“WE CAME UP WITH THE SOCIAL MEDIA AWARDS (SMA) BECAUSE WE FOUND THAT THERE IS A NEED TO RECOGNIZE THE OUTSTANDING MEMBERS FROM THE ONLINE COMMUNITY IN LEBANON ON THEIR GREAT EFFORTS OF MAKING THIS COMMUNITY SO ENGAGING AND ACTIVE. THERE IS CURRENTLY NO OBJECTIVE ORGANIZATION THAT IS EVALUATING AND IDENTIFYING THE SOCIAL MEDIA SCENE IN LEBANON” WHAT HAS THE ONLINE COMMUNITY’S RESPONSE BEEN? We are overwhelmed by the great support from the online community. It is the driving force of this event and we are glad to have received so much positive feedback and engagement. Ultimately, this event is for them and we are glad that they are pleased with where it is going.
HOW DID YOU DETERMINE WHICH CATEGORIES WERE RELEVANT FOR THE SMA? Our team brainstormed over several sessions and came up with a long list of categories. Then we worked really hard to narrow them down to the 33 existing categories. However, due to feedback from the public, we might be splitting some of the categories that are broad to ensure that more people are represented. One example is the Lifestyle Blog category.
WHO IS SUPPORTING THE SMA? The main organizer of the SMAs is the Online Collaborative. However, it is being supported by the amazing RAGMAG team, our strategic partner for the event, and a big number of sponsors, community partners and media partners that can be found on our website. WHAT KIND OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT DO YOU HOPE FOR? We hope that the community finds our event interesting and engaging and we invite them to actively nominate their favorite people and campaigns on social media as well as participate in the final voting stage to ensure that their voices are heard.
“WE WORKED REALLY HARD TO NARROW THEM DOWN TO THE 33 EXISTING CATEGORIES” 32 | R A G M A G | www.ragmag.co
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE ONLINE COLLABORATIVE AND HOW IT WORKS WITH UNIVERSITIES? The Online Collaborative is an initiative that I started back when I was a student at AUB. My initial aim was to gather bloggers and users of social media under one organization in order to unify and maximize their online social effort. In 2010, our journey began with “Blogging Lebanon,” a conference that shed the light on the then upcoming blogging scene in Lebanon. Since then, we have held numerous workshops for students from schools and universities to teach them the proper usage of social media. We have also held entertaining events such as GeekFest Beirut 5.0 in 2012 and several tweetups, and informative conferences such as “Social Media Changing Lives” in 2011. In addition, we are currently instructing five technology related courses for senior citizens at AUB as part of the University for Seniors. Our main mission now is to promote the proper usage and utilization of technology and social media across Lebanon. We are currently actively seeking to expand into different universities and schools and we have started with Haigazian University and in the process of engaging students in LAU, AUST, UOB, NDU, AOU and LIU.
THE LUMINANCE ISSUE