Photo by LittleMissSilly

I’m on a panel next Thursday 1st May, at All Together Now - Social Media and the Future of Community Sport, a joint Sport England and Channel 4 event at the Channel 4 building.

This is what it’s about:

Over the course of the past three years the emergence of blogging, social networking services and platforms which showcase and share user generated content have transformed the possibilities of how we connect, converse and collaborate with one another.

’In the 20th Century, we were defined by what we owned, in the 21st Century we will be defined by what share and give away’ Charles Leadbeater, author of We Think

The potential for organisations and brands to harness these technologies and tools to engage with users, customers and their communities in radically new ways is becoming clear.

How can all those organisations working to promote active participation in sports and the brands that wish to sponsor their activates and campaigns work together to make the most of the unrivalled viral power and network effects of the web in the run up to 2012?

Other speakers will include Thomas Godfrey, Commercial Director of Sport England, Jon Gisby, Director of Technology and New Media at Channel 4, Rebecca Caroe, Gi Fernando of Technlightenment, Antony Mayfield and Ed Mitchell.

I’ll be there as an ambassador for social media, to share my experience of blogging, social networking, Twitter, etc. and give the representatives of sports organisations some idea of the possibilities and pitfalls of engaging with people via the web.

After receiving the invitation I was struck by two thoughts: 1. How much time I spend on football messageboards when I should probably be doing something else, and following on from that, 2. that sport may be the ultimate social object [WARNING: cartoon with rude word] i.e. conversation starter and social catalyst. If I meet a stranger and they let slip they’re interested in football, I know we’ll have plenty to talk about and there will be no awkward silences (well not unless they turn out to be a Rangers fan).

So it looks to me as though sports organisations have an open goal in front of them - they have something that most people love to talk about and nearly anyone has an opinion on. But will they slot the ball calmly home or sky it over the bar? Or will they be fatally distracted by the animated advertising board behind the goal?

There are still a few free tickets left, so if you’re interested in any combination of social media, sport and marketing, then register for the event, ask me some easy questions during the debate, and come and say hello afterwards.

If you can’t make it on the day but you’ve got any thoughts on how sports or other organisations should engage with people via social marketing, please leave a comment below. I don’t think I’ll be able to link to you from the stage but I’ll certainly Twitter my thanks if I use any ideas from the comments.

Thanks to Steve Moore of Policy Unplugged for inviting me to join the panel and giving me an excuse to post a photo of Celtic.

EDIT: I’ve posted my presentation slides to Slideshare. You can probably tell I was trying to keep things as simple as possible.

Today’s the day to get your copy of The Age of Conversation.

What?

The Age of Conversation is a book co-authored by over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators. Each of them wrote 400 words on the theme of ‘conversation’. If the names David Armano, Roger von Oech, Tony D. Clark and Mark Earls ring any bells, you’ll have an idea of the standard of writing you can expect.

Why?

Not only is the book a cracking read, but all the profits go to help children’s charity Variety achieve its mission of improving the lives of children around the world.

Why today?

Because Today (Sat 29th March) is the day that Drew McLellan and Chris Wilson are orchestrating a campaign to drive sales and push The Age of Conversation up the Amazon bestseller charts. They’re doing this via blogs and social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Stumbleupon.

What else can I do to help?

Very nice of you to ask. After you buy your copy of the book, go to Chris Wilson’s post and Digg it. Then have a read through his list of easy ways to help and do whichever ones you can.

What’s a bum rush?

I’ve no idea, but it’s for charity so let’s do it!

Kay Vasey of Meshminds has asked me to pass on an invitation to the Mesh Release Party at the Adam Street club in London on 25 January. The event is free, with an option to buy a £5 ticket for a draw to win a trip to Paris for you and your friends. Sign up here if you’d like to come.

Meshminds is a new creative network for London - I recently joined the Meshminds site and haven’t had much chance to explore it yet but it looks very nice. A kind of Facebook with better graphic design, for creative types. I’ve also been very impressed by the enthusiasm and imagination shown by Kay Vasey and Jonny Emmanuel in setting it up.

Here’s the basic idea, from the Meshminds site:

Mesh seeks to promote collaborative creativity by providing a unique forum where business and creative professionals can share ideas with like-minded people, invest in the arts, and showcase emerging talent.

Hope to see you at the party - let me know if you’re going and want to meet up.

Martin MALii-Karlsson has put together a great list of creative networking events in London. I met Martin at the CIDA Creative Business Club (link in his post) a few months ago and we’ve kept in touch. He’s a charming guy with a really interesting take on creative business and he’s really getting into his stride with his blog - you should have a look at it.

And check out his events list - ‘networking’ is an awful word, conjuring up images of people in shiny suits pushing business cards at you - but having been to several of the events on his list, I can assure you they are usually a lot of fun and you can make some good contacts. The fact I know Martin is proof that they work!

Tonight is the launch reading for Magma Poetry issue 39, at The Troubadour near Earls Court.

If you love poetry, you’ll love it - and if you’ve never been to a contemporary poetry reading, it’s a great place to start. We have excellent headline poets in George Szirtes and Anna Woodford, and the reading will feature lots of other poets from the magazine - so with a wide range of readers there should be something to appeal to you. And The Troubadour is a great venue, invariably packed for Magma readings.

Magma is one of the best poetry magazines in the UK, always featuring major contemporary poets alongside new and up-and-coming writers. We take it in turns to edit the magazine (I edited Magma 34) - David Morphet has done a terrific job with this issue, which you can sample on the Magma website for free.

Let me know if you’re coming tonight, I’ll wear a red carnation or something so we can say hello.

If you’re involved with pitches and new business for your agency, you may like to come along to a free breakfast event I’m running with Rebecca Caroe in central London at 8am on Thursday 22nd November.

I’ll be talking to Rebecca and taking questions from the audience about the Enneagram system of personality types, and how it can help agencies in a pitch situation, where the personal chemistry between agency and client team can be crucial to success.

If you followed my series on the Enneagram series of personality types for Successful Blog, then you’ll know I’ve been using the Enneagram for around 10 years, helping understand themselves and others better, and achieve their goals in sales, management, training, teamwork, negotiation and their personal and professional development.

Rebecca is a consultant specialising in business development, marketing and sales for PR, advertising, airect mail, and digital agencies. She’s very creative, focused and practical. We’ve had a lot of fun knocking ideas around between us and finding points of common interest. So I’m looking forward to a stimulating and enjoyable conversation on the 22nd - if you’re interested in joining us, please send me an e-mail.

Click this link to download more details of the event.

If you’re in London you may like to bookmark the latest Creative Business Club event from CIDA, on 14th November. I’ve blogged about the Creative Business Club before - I’ve always found it an inspiring evening and a good opportunity to meet interesting creative professionals.

This time the theme is Making Workspace Work, looking at the effect of your physical environment on your business and your creativity. This is a topic I’ve previously looked at on this blog, when I considered The Thinkubator and Other Creative Environments. I’ve also written about the Creative Space Agency who are among the speakers, and who are building their business on a brilliantly simple idea about creative use of space in London.

Making Workspace Work

The Creative Business Club offers knowledge through networking and the perfect opportunity to get together with other creative professionals. Each event features lively panel discussions with leading experts followed by networking and drinks.

When: Wednesday 14 Nov, 6 – 9pm

Where: Barbican Centre (Barbican)

Who: Freelancers, businesses and cultural organisations

Cost: FREE to all (supported by Creative London – London Development Agency and Arts Council England)

Facilitator: Lucy Kyle, CIDA’s Creative Industries Business Adviser

Has your business outgrown your home, or are you renting a space that just isn’t working for you? The next Creative Business Club – Making Workspace Work – explores how to find a space that will help your business grow. Having a professional address and a meeting room for clients are just some of the benefits, but the right space can also help you build a profitable referral network and inspire creativity.

The expert panel including Cani Ash - Founding Partner Ash Sakula Architects, John Burton - Director of the Creative Space Agency, Paul Allen, journalist and author of the Ethical Business Book and Helen Johannessen of Yoyo Ceramics will discuss what to consider when selecting a workspace, where to look and how your physical environment can affect your profile, productivity and creativity.

Join us afterwards for drinks and a chance to chat to exhibitors who will be on hand to provide expert advice on finding the right creative space for you.

Making Workspace Work is supported by the Creative Space Agency

Excellent panel presentations/discussion at last week’s Wired and Ready event at Channel 4.

Adam Gee was the chair and kicked off with an overview, from his position as Factual New Media Commissioner at C4, of some of the channel’s current online initiatives, such as the Big Art Mob project to create a user-generated map of public art in the UK, and 121 which features paired blog exchanges between the UK and countries including Iran, Russia and Sierra Leone. He also talked about Four Docs, a space for watching, sharing and making documentaries. This dovetailed with Emily Renshaw’s presentation about Current TV, billed as ‘the TV network created by the people who watch it’. Both sites rely heavily on user-generated content, but it was interesting to hear both Adam and Emily distinguish them from YouTube by describing them as ‘editorialized’ spaces. As an editor myself, I was intrigued by this - it seemed to go against the prevailing ‘wisdom of crowds’ ethos of many of the Web 2.0 success stories. So I asked them how they saw the role of the editor in the brave new internet world. Both acknowledged the value of greater interactivity between the editor and readers/users/creators, and saw this as an opportunity for editors. For Emily, the editor’s role will be to “set the tone, take a lead and curate” content in dialogue with users; while Adam emphasised the importance of the editor as a filter of information in a world of overwhelming data, who can become a trusted source of recommendations.

The second half featured James Kirkham of digital agency Holler and James Fabricant, Head of Marketing and Content for MySpace UK & Ireland. Both were enthusiastic advocates of online communities, exemplified in their recent collaboration on the groundbreaking campaign for Channel 4’s Skins, which fostered a massive community of fans on the Skins MySpace page before a single episode had been broadcast. Though understandably vigorous advocates of the possibilities of technology, they emphasised the primacy of human interaction and creativity. James K summed it up by saying that for all the technological wizardry, you still need a “blinding idea” to cut through. James F provided an example of one such idea, with Foureyedmonsters, who overcame the barriers to distribution of their film by using MySpace to get people to sign petitions to have the film shown in their local cinema, then took the numbers to the cinema owners and arranged the screenings.

Overall, a very stimulating evening that for me reinforced the sense that human creativity and relationships rather than technology per se is the real powerhouse behind the social media revolution. As James K put it, “technology facilitates, the audience creates”.

Thanks to Channel 4 for hosting and to Steve Moore of Policy Unplugged for organising yet another absorbing event.

Technorati Tags: Channel 4, Policy Unplugged

Here’s my contribution to the Interesting2007 presentations - lined up next to Russell and Johnnie as one of Deb Khan’s little helpers. Deb did an excellent session - I won’t call it a ‘talk’ as she involved everyone in the audience, getting us to talk and listen to each other and then notice what we naturally find memorable. She’s blogged it as Why Do We Listen?, a subject near to every coach’s heart.

Elsewhere Andrew has blogged his great presentation on the theme what makes you useless also makes you good. There are also roundups of the day from fellow creative coach Emily, a ‘director’s cut’ version from Ben, and the heavyweight analysis from Grant. And here’s Charles on the moment we both realised Blogging is the New Tamagotchi.

Photo courtesy Mrs WT.

Amazing day yesterday at Interesting2007. It did exactly what it said on the tin: over 20 speakers on a hot stuffy day, yet I don’t recall being bored at any stage. Several talks in I realised why - we were basically being treated to a line-up of people enthusing about their passions and obsessions, and it’s hard not to find that interesting, whatever the subject - enthusiasm is contagious, after all.

Then it struck me that it’s a short step from interesting to inspiration. If you’re interested in something, you want to know more about it, or do more of it. And hearing so many people talk about what they find interesting, you start to feel inspired to go out and do stuff yourself - not necessarily the same as them, but more of the things you find interesting. So if we can persuade Russell to do it next year maybe he should call it Inspiring2008.

I’ll probably blog some of the more (ahem) interesting bits later on, but in the meanwhile here are some of the things I learned yesterday:

• In the 1930’s Superman was accompanied by a flying dog called Krypto
• Lady Patricia was the world’s first beertanker
• Cities are slow computers
• Knots were invented in the 19th century by witches
• Bagpuss was originally pitched to the BBC as ‘a stuffed cat in an antique shop’
• If you want to make a really good erotic film, you need to serve a hot meal
• You can change the world for a fiver
• Kermit the frog began his career as a killer
• Short is hard
• For children, learning styles are less important than ‘playability’
• Geography is the next big thing
• Top class swimmers are like albatrosses - ungainly on the land, but in their element elsewhere

A big thank you to Russell and all the speakers for treating us to such a delightful smorgasbord. My brain is now officially full.

There are already 489 photos on Flickr tagged Interesting2007. This page on the wiki has links to video as well. Here’s the Interesting2007 tag on Technorati so you can follow what other bloggers made of it.

Technorati Tags: interesting2007