I just got back from SharePoint Saturday Sri Lanka and had a great time. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the local SharePoint community and I must say the food is awesome! I’ll be posting all my presentations in a separate blog post – in the meantime, here’s a very interesting experience both Michael Noel, a fellow SharePoint MVP who presented as well, and I experienced the day after SharePoint Saturday
Bob Marley is More Popular Than @aplusk
On June 12, Sunday, Michael Noel and I hired a car to take us to Kandy, Sri Lanka to visit an elephant orphanage, a tea plantation and the Temple of The Tooth. During the 1st hour of the 3 hour trip, Michael and I saw a tuktuk paying homage to Bob Marley.
We got into a conversation on how we think social media has permeated every aspect of society – but in places like countryside Sri Lanka, we concluded that Bob Marley is still more popular than social media celebrities like @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher). I even sent a tweet about it:
SharePoint is More Popular Than Bob Marley
About 2 hours into our trip, our car overheated. Apparently the radiator hose broke down and we had to stop at a local car shop to have it fixed.
While waiting, Michael checked-in on Foursquare (which also sent a tweet) and mentioned that our vehicle broke down.
15 mins later, the car was fixed and we were about to pull out of the car shop, a guy comes running shouting ‘I saw your tweet’ and asks us if everything is ok.
We were initially confused but it dawned on us that Indika attended SharePoint Saturday the day before and started following Michael on Twitter.
We were floored.
I’m glad that I was proven wrong. I cannot discount the power of social media regardless of where I’m at.
Still floored at that experience…really was eye-opening in terms of the impact that social media can have. Was great to be able to travel with you Dux, catch you around soon!
It is Sri Lanka.:-)