[ad#ad-2]I was invited last May 23, Saturday to spend the whole afternoon and evening meeting the members of Cebu Bloggers. My first meet-up with them was way back October last year in Digital Filipino Club event. I can only managed to see the new CBS members in pictures uploaded online and these people make great offline. Yeah!

CBS at BigBy's

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I actually came late to the ASUS Overclocking show, so I had no time to meet them orderly but its been a fascinating to see them. After the show, we headed straight to Bigby’s Cafe & Restaurant to dine in and the buffet of meal was great! We took some pictures also and got a P500 worth of gift certificate. At that moment also, Bert and I were introducing ourselves to them.

After the great meal, few of the CBS departed early and some stayed for awhile in SM NorthWing Atrium to have some chitchats and camwhoring moments. Next stop, was overnight at McBilly’s house. Actually, I’m having second thoughts at that time because I’ll be taking an exam the day after. But, no regrets since I really really enjoyed my time spending with the CBS than reviewing my notes. hehehe…

But perhaps even more informative that time was to watch the CBS members talk to each other. Listen to what they discussed and what their common areas of interest and opinion were. This kind of insight is priceless when you are building, growing and managing an online community. The more you can understand about your community members, the better you can make the community for them.

After all, this is Cebu. We are some of the friendliest most generous people on the earth. For some reason many people have forgotten that these are the same people that wept along with us during national and local tragedies. I love my fellow CBS and I’d love to hear their story and share an in depth conversation with them. That conversation and friendship will never have a chance if I was both to shy or scared to meet-up with them.

It always amazes me to see the increase of motivation showing their blog posts, plurks  and comments. I can definitely agree that something rather magical happens when you get community members in the same place and speaking face-to-face.

There is often a misconception about online communities – that they are exclusively online. This just isn’t true, and indeed shouldn’t be true. They meet online but this does not need to be at the exclusion of them meeting offline.

And of course there is a real benefit to members meeting each other. They share a common interest and that’s why they get together online. Providing a way for them to get together offline too just enhances their experience. Which has to be a good thing.

OVERCLOCK + OVERNIGHT = OVERFUN!

So if you can find a way for your online community to meet offline, and go along to meet them too. You’ll be surprised what you learn and the benefit it brings to everybody.

Photo credit to VanJhnn.

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