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Seoul LG Blogger Forum 2010 Video – Amazing Race Event

Posted By: Mr.Gadget Published in Events

Feb

My buddy Beatrice Tan, who I met along with many others at the Seoul LG Blogger Forum last month, just tagged me in a YouTube Video that shows some of the awesome fun we had on the day we did an Amazing Race type event.

Each team had a dedicated professional video and camera man assigned to capture the major highlights of each team’s adventure for the day!

For those who want to skip to the parts where I’m running around like a crazy lunatic, singing Karaoke or playing my role as Sneezy Dwarf (Our team was called SW7 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and I actually had a cold too) – jump to 2:49 and then to 7:03.

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Seoul LG Blogger Forum – Day 3 – Designing Our Own Mobile Phone!

Posted By: Mr.Gadget Published in Events, Life

Feb

Here is the second last post on my trip to Seoul, Korea courtesy of LG Electronics.

LG Blogger Forum Day 3 Schedule
On this day, we were shepherded into the LG GW620 bus, bound for LG Offices in Seoul.

Our schedule for the day included:

discussing LG’s first Android phone
designing our own LG dream device
Q&A time with LG tech heads
cultural show in the city (Nanta)
some good ol’ fashion Korean BBQ for dinner
then late night shopping.

Yes all of the above in one day. Amazingly, some of the guys went out for Karaoke afterwards too. Not me. I hit the sack to catch up on some much needed rest – maybe I’m just getting old…

If you haven’t had the chance to read the others you can find them here:

- Seoul LG Blogger Forum – Day 1
- Seoul LG Blogger Forum – Day 2 – N Seoul Tower
- Seoul LG Blogger Forum – Day 2 – Amazing Race

Singaporean Bloggers ready for a big day at LG Offices

Bottom perspective of LG Electronics building in Seoul

Bottom perspective of one of the LG Office Buildings

This is Mr.Chang Moon from LG Electronics Korea who was the co-ordinator of all our activities. He did an awesome job of making us feel welcome to the country and to the company.

This is Mr.Chang Moon who was the one who made sure we felt welcome in Seoul and to the LG company. Superb work sir!

This was a inground plaque at LG Headquarters. If anyone can translate I would be highly appreciative. Maybe it's a mini grave for a the LG Mascot?

Would be grateful if someone could translate this for me. As far as I know it's the mini-graveyard of the LG guinea pig mascot...

I had to include this girlie image amidst all the tech / gadgetie photo montage.

Had to include this girlie girlie pic amongst all the tech / serious shots. Soooo purple!

Yes yes, we had our own LG GW620 Blogger Bus! :)

Yes yes, we had our own LG GW620 Bus to make sure all onlookers knew were here in Seoul for some serious business! Eat your heart out Partridge Family!

This is Rannie aka @photojunkie on Twitter. A famous Canadian Photography / lifestyle blogger with attitude!

Never underestimate Wooly-capped Canadian photography bloggers...

Yannick - the cool french tech blogger from France - Bonjour Monsieur! :)

Yannick who is a tech blogger from France - Bonjour Monsieur!

The United Nations room at LG Headquarters (not the real name just looks like it eh?)

The United Nations Conference Room at LG - not the real name but you get my drift...

Invading the R&D Campus section of LG Headquarters.

Invading LG R&D Campus section at LG Headquarters

The LG GW620 forum was about to commence followed by workshops where we would work in teams to create our dream LG device.

Commencing the LG GW620 Discussion Forum where we would give our feedback on LG's first Android phone. I was impressed at how open LG was to our feedback - signs of a company that will succeed.

Beatrice, capturing the moment on her Canon

This was the Confidentiality Agreement that we were all "supposed" to sign. Evidently, many didn't as we saw many pieces of news float onto the web minutes later...poor form from some of the bloggers considering the hospitality that was shown us.

This was supposed to be the Confidentiality Agreement that we were ALL supposed to sign. It was obvious that some didn't with secret LG news hitting the web later that afternoon. Pretty poor form considering the hospitality that LG gave all of us.

Considering that I left my glasses in the hotel, these mini screens were very helpful!

These little screens were really useful considering that I left my glasses in the hotel room.

I loved this! Two huge Starbucks Coffee containers positioned strategically outside the LG Meeting rooms :) We were all very happy to oblige!

I like how these Starbucks Thermoses were strategically stationed outside the meeting rooms. We were all very grateful for their presence

Here's Mr.Chang Moon explaining what our task for the afternoon was. Basically to create a dream mobile device! I was going to draw an iPhone but I thought it'd be too cheeky...

Here's Mr.Chang Moon giving us an overview of what to expect for the day.

Here's a matrix showing the different attributes of a device to consider when creating from scratch.

A LG Product Manager gives us a matrix to consider when creating a new device. Reminds me of university.

Meeting / Workshop Fooooood. I love how Koreans think!

I love how the Korean's think. Every meeting room should have these condiments readily available

Getting our thoughts together - armed with post it notes, Starbucks and above-average intelligence...

Thinking of what to put on the blank piece of paper set before us...once we got going though there was no stopping us!

The post-its slowly find their home on the blank sheet. These represented different features we wanted to see on our dream LG device.

See what I mean.

One of the other groups decided to put their post-its on the glass walls!

Another group decided to put their post-its on the glass wall! Showoffs...

This is our design. We called it the "King Kong" because it was banana-shaped, was powerful and kicked T-Rex's ass.

Voila! This is our device. We named it "King Kong" because it was big, powerful, was banana-shaped and could kick T-Rex's ass.

Sun glistening on an LG building - good omen for future LG devices?

Sun glistening off the LG Building - good omen?

Lush green fake bamboo trees line the LG workshop meeting rooms...

Lush green fake bamboo trees line the outside LG meeting rooms - the analogy of entering a jungle with wild animals applies many times in my meetings...

Danijel, a prominent tech blogger from the Netherlands, provides his thoughts on our gadget and also shared his opinion on the Nokia N900 which he had in his bag :)

Danijel, a prominent tech blogger from the Netherlands, gives us his input.

Here's Karin from Sweden who did the funniest and most engaging presentation of the day. Her team's device incorporated a social-physical-touch concept which meant that the power of devices increased when they touched eachother. Interesting...

Nick from Gizmodo.com.au asking the final question at the LG discussion

Once the workshops were all done we headed into town for some R&R. If you're ever in Seoul you must see NANTA! It's a traditional Korean live show. Awesome beats, dancing and all-round entertainment.

This show is spectacular! They also get the audience involved which makes it doubly fun.

Outside the theatre where Nanta is being shown.

I had some very cool people on my table...

This was the winning team for the day. They all received some LG goodies.

I got an LG 1 Terrabyte Hard Drive!!

Here's the Aussie LG Blogger Team - Me, Tim Scanlon from Gizmag.com and Nick from Gizmodo.com.au.

Then LG give us all a largish LG Photo Frame!

Singing the Russian National anthem!

After dinner it was time to hit the Seoul shopping district. It was very very very cold....my toes were freezing and I couldn't feel my nose...

After dinner we head out to the Dongdaemun Market area for some late night shopping.

This is the market where a guy tried to sell me a Panda hat for 50,000 Won! Ripoff merchant! We saw the same thing at the shopping center for 10,000 Won...

Place where guy tried to sell me kid's Panda cap for 50,000 Won. Inside the shopping centre it sold for 10,000 Won. Beware if you don't look like a local!

No I didn't go in here but I liked the little shop front decore...

Tarot Reading place that I didn't go into because I don't believe in it and always seek future advice from a higher authority.

More buildings around the Dongdaemun Market area.

Back at the hotel after a long long day and we're greeted by the weather board telling us it's going to be another chilly one the following day.

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Seoul LG Blogger Forum – Day 2 – Amazing Race

Posted By: Mr.Gadget Published in Events

Jan

I knew that this was going to be the start of a hectic yet fun day. After an hour or so checking out the N Seoul Tower and having a delicious traditional Korean Ginseng Chicken it was time to head back to the hotel to get our brief for the next part of the day.

We were huddled into the boardroom on level 19 of the Ibis Hotel and given instructions on the Amazing-Race-type event where LG would help us learn about Seoul in a fun and interesting way. It was a day I’ll never forget. Particularly as it involved losing one of our team mates (Arnoud!!!) on the Korean subway line.

As you can imagine, I slept like a little baby that night.

Check out the photos below:

Mr.Chang Moon commencing his presentation on what the rest of the day would entail

Netherland Bloggers and @photojunkie slightly nervous about the Amazing Race!

Canadian bloggers plotting a way to win the challenge.

French tech bloggers already causing trouble

The mission was to locate landmarks, answer questions, interact with eachother with the goal of winning prizes!

Here's one sample question - we needed to find this statue in Seoul...

Although we didn't come first, we were the best team Here's Karin (Sweden), Frank (LG Canada) and Ulrich (France) strategizing.

All five teams had a dedicated Video and Camera man with them. Here's our video guy pestering Ulrich

Not sure what the local Koreans thought of all our running around. But here they seem quite content to carry on as per normal.

Here's my french buddy Ulrich who I got lost with after being distracted with photographing some unique buildings. We eventually found everyone else, after 30 mins or so

Here's Frank from LG Canda, doing what he does best - making friends and getting people to direct us to Seoul landmarks. As you can see they were willing participants albeit shy. Thanks girls!