Mulat Pinoy Social Networth Workshop part 1

I was one of 25 lucky students selected to attend #SocialNetworth; a New/Social Media Workshop fine tuned for young adults like most of my fellow attendees – and me, of course. I still can’t seem to find the right words to describe the workshop, and I’m still not quite over it yet — rest assured I’ve only got positive things to say. I had a lot of fun with all the other participants, there’s no activity were our colleague January Cutin didn’t crack a joke and made all of us laugh.

The best thing about it was, that all of us managed to balance when it was time for laughter and when we had to take our activities more seriously. Of course, hindi naman agad agad ang tawanan namin, there was still this awkward feeling that roamed the atmosphere during the first day of the workshop.

It was truly a one of a kind experience with a set of people whose characters seem to complement each other. Before I get ahead of myself though and start summing up the whole ocassion, let’s take a closer look at the workshop from my point of view.

Social Networth begins

I arrived at the hotel as pretty much the first participant of all; that’s 12:30PM of February 23, 2012. Our venue for the workshop and our accommodation was the Astoria Plaza Suites located at #15 J. Escriva Drive, Ortigas Business District, Pasig City. I was hesitant at first to check in. Most specially when I learned that none of the facilitators was going to be around that afternoon. However, the overwhelming replies that I’ve got from them when I inquired about our accommodation and whether it’s okay to check in already made me, well, check in.

There was this uneasy feeling inside of me, telling me that I’ve gotten the wrong room. It was beyond what I expected, (sorry naman, di ko pa alam ang Astoria before this, okay? 😀) I really thought it would be a simple hotel accommodation, considering there are 25 of us they (Probe Media) have to host. The front desk assured me though, that it was no mistake, that I was indeed set to spend my next couple of days at one of their Two Bedroom Suite rooms – along with 4 other participants from Mindanao. Cool!

The next 4-5 hours of that day were pretty boring, tulog lang ako ng tulog, considering nga, na ako lang nagiisa doon until my fellow Mindanaoan Kirk Nerona arrived in the evening, followed by the other Davao-based delegates. You don’t want me to bore you to death with whatever boring get to know each other happened that evening, do you? So, what about we head straight to day 1 of the #SocialNetworth Workshop?

#SocialNetworth really begins!

I arrived at the venue pretty early. I thought I was the first one to make it nanaman, but no, this time I wasn’t. There were a few delegates from Luzon who arrived at our venue already. At first, I thought all of the people around were facilitators of the workshop.

One person I can remember who made it ahead of me was Shane, well, she was sharing the table with the facilitators, so I didn’t realize that it was Shane – one of my fellow participants.

Once everyone arrived and settled down, we started our journey into the world of Population Development and Social Media.

The first thing that I can remember about the first day was this awkward introduction game. We had to mimic the introductory actions of all persons before us, and introduce ourselves with an action as well. I was quite lucky, because I stood pretty close to the facilitator’s left. The game was played counter clockwise so I only had to mimic 2 person. The downside was that I had little time to think about an action. I ended up with the Facebook “like” thumbs up. Why? I don’t know why too.

The least fortunate of the pack was my Davao based colleague, Kenneth who was last in line, thus had to mimic all of our introductory actions. Along the way of the game, there were some very awkward actions that made me feel good about standing so close to the facilitator’s left. It was right here when I realized that I was in very good company and that all these guys and gals can be easy to be with for the days to come. Laughtrip na kung laughtrip!

The introductory portion was swiftly followed by tasks in which we’d have to first, organize ourselves by birthday, second by nickname, and lastly by place of origin. It was during the last portion when I realized that I was accompanied by 5 other Davao based participants. Of course, we didn’t end the activity without another roar of laughter! Aidx, my fellow Davao Blogger Member returned to the venue while the others started citing from where they came from; QC, Bacolod, Davao so on and so forth. Aidx made it just in time when almost everyone was done citing their hometown city. He was asked by the facilitator from where came from. Aidx took it quite literal, not knowing the instructions of the game and answered “CR”. *insert roar of laughter here*. He managed to immediately correct himself though and reassured everyone that he is from Davao City, and not from the comfort room.

There was much more going on that day aside from the very entertaining introduction session that we had. I’ll continue to blog about Day 1 of the Workshop in my second post of this 3-4 post long series about #SocialNetworth!

Thanks for reading!

Pictures are courtesy of fellow attendee, Patricia Angelu Meneses