Unspun

Rocky, the blogger who was/was no/and now is the Malay Mail editor has made some interesting observations about Pesta Blogger 2009.

To set the record straight, Pesta Blogger has enjoyed strong branding from its inception in 2007. Each year, Indonesian bloggers are asked to submit a logo for Pesta Blogger and the winning entry is adopted for the event. Curious then that Rocky says that the debate over the logo is “nowhere near the 1Malaysia concept that the Prime Minister is trying to push through.”

Whatever could he mean?

Rocky might also want know that the Pesta Blogger also comes with a theme every year and last year, for instance, it was “Blogging for Society.” This year the organizing committee decided to adopt the theme of “One Spirit. One Nation” because the Pesta Blogger comes after the Indonesian presidential elections. One of the reasons for the theme is that politicians tend to be a divisive lot in their quest to acquire and retain power. This year’s theme then can be viewed as what the politicos rend asunder the blogger will help put together.

Below is an extract from Rocky’s posting on Pesta Blogger.

The logo and tagline for Indonesia’s Pesta Blogger 2009 is very interesting, indeed. It’s an attempt to brand the growing annual event and Indonesian bloggers as a unifying tool for theIndonesian people. The logo is not without its detractors, as blogger Ong in Jakarta points out here, but nowhere near the 1Malaysia concept that the Prime Minister is trying to push through.

Najib is beginning to get a pep talk from some bloggers about One Nation. Check out malaysiafriday at wordpress, for eg. In his Challenges of building the Malaysian brand, the blogger discusses the challenges facing 1Malaysia, including the need to get the private sector to take part

In the debate in the blogs about 1 Malaysia, perhaps Malaysian bloggers might want to reference a posting by Iman Brotoseno, Pesta Blogger 2009’s chairman, about bloggers who turn out to be the calo (middleman) for politicians?