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Social Networking World Forum LONDON - A revolution

Revenues from social networking, dating and personal content delivery services will increase from $572m in 2007 to more than $5.7bn in 2012, with social networking accounting for 50% of the total by the end of the forecast period.” Juniper Research.

Industry leaders, social networking, technology brands and media gathered at the two day event held at Olympia London and organized by Mark Johnstone and his team at Six Degrees.com. The gold sponsors were Xing, Reality Digital, Buongiorno, Blinko and Social go, but everyone who was anyone was there.

There were excellent speakers from every sector of business and every continent from Ogilvy PR to Cadburys, BMW, Sapient,Tempero, Endemol UK, Colibria, WebJam, Adknowledge, Vodacom, Proctor and Gamble Qube, Cisco Media, Linkedin, MTV, CocaCola, MySpace, Nixon McInnes, Ecademy, INSEAD, Omnifuse, Lithium. The list is long and the presentations are now online at the link above. WileyBooks (who were promoting “throwing sheep in the boardroom” among other books).

This was the conference not to be missed, and the press were out in force. The evening networking Reception in association with Mashable, was held at Sugar Reef.
Next year’s date has been set for 15th-16th March 2010, so mark it down.
I attended at Olympia London and brought back a taste of the conference for you to enjoy. Leave us a comment or tag yourself in the photos.
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO VIEW

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist

4th Spoiled Milk Party in Zurich

Last night a large group of friends and collaborators came together at Salento Gourmet (an Italian Deli packed to the rafters with delectable Italian treats and oozing with character), near Technopark in Zurich to party. Wisequeen attended and had a great time, the band “palkomuski” was awesome and the party, wine and the multi-national guests memorable.
Here’s a picture of what a time we had. Good networking, with fun thrown in.
Gustavo Salami and Russell Quinn who represented Spoiled Milk’s Zurich Branch, were right when they said it was not to be missed. I’m glad I didn’t miss it and will be back for more at the next one. click on pics to enlarge

TWESTIVAL success 250,000 dollars so far

200 cities and towns around the world took part in this initative to raise money for those in the developing world to have access to clean water due to the work of CharityWater
Throughout the day of the 12th Events large and small kicked off. Celebs and twitteratti put them selves up for auction to raise money with great success and fun. Big Shaq o Neal donated one of his sneakers.
Media all over the world reported on the TWESTIVAL with an interview on SKY news and the Guardian UK mentioned the Cape Town Event .

I got involved, at the request of Dorette @metameerKat @capetown, the cape organizer, at the 11th hr, for a city very dear to my heart, CapeTown and assisted in raising the profile of their event on the twitterverse by tweeting my followers 155 times about the event CAPETWESTIVAL. They had a good evening at Doppio Zero Cape Town with local perfomers who put on a great show. South African startup Zoopy has recently lit up the start up scene with their innovative site where video clips and photos can be shared.
I really enjoyed tweeting up a storm and look forward to the next CapeTwestival.
The twestival was a resounding success worldwide and is testament to the fact that Twitter can motivate and bring together people in a cause globally quickly and very effectively. Thanks to @amanda for her innitative in raising the bar high at a $million plus. The events were put together in a mere 2 weeks.

Dorette - metaMeerkat (online) says: it was a good experience… all in all.. and many of the who’s who in social media in Cape Town was there, even though it was not a big crowd - I think it was important that we did it! sleep well!!!
[13/02/2009 00:08:06] Dorette - metaMeerkat (online) says: i look at the map of the twestivals and i am glad Cape Town is on it.
Me too, glad I could help and that I could make a donation via tipjoy.
Today on Valentines day its not too late to support Water the charity that gives life. Donate in the name of your lover.
Keep donating
Donna Jackson,
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

Fun Webmonday in Zurich

Last night Techies,developers and startups came together at the 5th webmonday held in Zurich to listen to two informal presentations. One given by Hannes Gassert of LIIP, who hosted the evening, with snacks beer and wine, and another by Jani Penttinen on his Finish start up -XIHA Life a mutilingual lifestyle site. Great exchange of ideas took place among the forty or so people there.
Ideas take wings at events like these, so thanks to Amazee for arranging the webmonday nights in Zurich.
The photos above show my journey to #webmonday from arrival in Zurich to departure by train into big snow at St Gottard.

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist

#scs09 Swiss startup camp Basel

I promised to take you to the Swiss startup camp in Basel this weekend.
The day kicked off with a really excellent keynote talk/interview of Suhas Gopinath CEO and president of Globals Inc a multi-million dollar international company that he started at the age of fourteen without any money in India and took global.
His truly inspirational story of how he used his pocket money to fund his first proposals in business at his local internet cafe because did not even have access to a computer had everyone enthralled.
Suhas Gopinath born in Bangalore, started his company at 14yrs old in 2000. He founded in San Jose California as the law did not allow him to set up in India. His story was trully inspirational. I asked him in question time where he got the guts from to approach and even take on big business at that young age, and he answered he had the courage of a young man who took the chance because no wasn’t an option.
Mr Gopinath was announced as the Young Global Leader for 2008-2009 by the World Economic Forum Davos. In this position he would be involved in development programs around the world, and would be studying leadership at Harvard University. He is the youngest Young Global leader in WEF history.

WATCH THE VIDEO OF HIS INTERVIEW at #scs09.

Watch FB video Startups networking at the event

Startups then gave their pitches and then presented in sessions on different subjects of which I was one, and I presented on “Personal Branding The face of your company”.
Successful Start-ups from 2008 were present Wuala, Poken and Amazee all of whom I wrote about as startups here, attended the event. Poken did great business selling their poken for eveyone to connect with. Tech Bloggers were in attendance and will no doubt blog on the event. Many Tweets were sent from the event #scs09 on Twitter.

It was a productive day with Nicolas Berg of Red Alpine who I interviewed here on wisequeen.com and other startup Angel investors presenting on what angel investors want from startups. Many meetings and much networking took place. The food and facilities were great, as was the wifi. People came from all over Switzerland, myself from Italy and some from nereby Germany. Thanks to all the sponsors and to Amazee, Sun microsystems and Amiando for the organization.
Leave a comment or ask a question.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

Marketing and networking web 2.0 to club or not to club

Last night when I was thinking about a Christmas party. I got to thinking about my days as a marketing manager and how events would be mailed out months in advance and posters put up. Then the long slow process of tickets being paid for and then nagging the lagging majority who had to be emailed for the tenth time to remind them.
I remember how the benefits of the Chamber of Commerce and businessmen’s clubs were so essential to businesses then. Things like tenders, medical aid, membership lists. These have all become seperate services online now and you can tender for a job as a freelancer or business and be paid online in minutes on twenty different sites. Through linkedin you can send them your resume, your client list your references in minutes.
You can register, pay for and print your ticket to any conference or event anywhere in the world within minutes. You can even check out the speakers and watch videos of them in advance.
Linkedin have just launched an events application.
Then there’s the launch of Zoopy - a social media community that makes the world a smaller place.

So where does this leave those networking clubs like Rotary (who do admitedly also have charity, polio eradication and education exchange programmes to manage too) Chambers of Commerce, Businesswomen’s clubs, Toastmasters etc. Who all now have websites sure. Will they be forced to adopt and join social media sites like twitter and facebook to keep up?
I noticed Rotary already has a twitter account.
I keep saying this because it’s my job as a new media and web 2.0 evangelist, that companies and organizations will have to adopt or die, and I’m saying it again. Facebook has within it’s millions of members clubs of every imaginable kind, and even those unimaginable.
The news is reported and discussed in a moment now. Any disaster or travel advice is circulated between Twitter and Facebook users within seconds. So does this put people who sell this information out of business? Will people still read sector newsletters and look for recommendations from infomation services?
Will marketing and PR managers be replaced by new media wizzes?
Will there be no end to Facebook and Twitter growth?
Hey even the WSJ newspaper had an article on twitter
Want to tell us what you think, Have a burning question, or want to strongly disagree? You can do all that by sending us a comment.
Wisequeen
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.