Several days ago, I had a nice chat with a friend via Facebook, this friend happened to be a photographer who live in Bandung. My friend Fred is expecting his first child and he told me about his dream to move to Jakarta because he thinks that his career as a photographer has a more better future in Jakarta rather than in Bandung.
My conversation with Fred reminds me of another conversation months ago. There’s a friend – let’s say his name is Bram, who lives in Bali and has been wanting to move to Jakarta. He told me that the business climate in Bali was not that supportive. Bram wanted to build an apparel business in Bali.
Fred and Bram have similarity of pattern of view which geographically trapped them inside the location where they live. I don’t know about you but for me who have been practically breathing in the online world, it feels a bit weird if we are still trapped like my friends. Current condition of the internet is far better than when the first time I decided to jump into the online world (around early 2000), connection fee becomes more affordable, which means easiness to be globally connected is determined simply by will and a little effort.
I gave two ultimate questions to my friends:
- If log in to the internet is easy, why you have to move to Jakarta? Doesn’t internet make your business more visible all the way to Jakarta (maybe even beyond) without you having to move?
- If log in to the internet is so easy, why Jakarta? Considering the internet is a borderless world.
What do you think?
Abang Edwin is a practitioner of online community management since 1998 long before the term social media/social networks become popular. He began his journey by experimenting with several online communities which eventually successful at that, to this day he still gives consultations about knowing character and foster online communities for brands / agencies and individuals.
He was at Yahoo! for over 4 years as a community manager and also formerly Country Manager – Indonesia for Thoughtbuzz.net, a social media monitoring company.
Keep up with him on Twitter @bangwinissimo or his blog on bangwinissimo.com.
[Gambar]