It's been a while since I've provided an update here at cybersoc.com – last year was a flurry of major, multi-market digital and social media projects for me, leaving little time to blog or get out in public to talk about the work we are doing here at Edelman Digital, London.
Over the coming months, some of my current line management duties are set to shift to other shoulders, giving me a bit more time to focus more fully on what I love – strategic thinking and delivery. And with that shift, I'm going to have time to start doing something else I find both exhilerating and awkward: getting up on stage and sharing some of my experience with others. Here are the first two dates you can catch me doing that:
VirComm Summit – 07 February, London: I'll be joining a number of past colleagues and industry contacts – many of them going back as far as my first job as a Community Producer at the BBC and the early days of E-mint, the International Association of Online Community Managers – including Tamara Littleton (eModeration), Dominic Sparkes (Tempero), Phil Hall (Elzware) and Rebecca Newton (MindShare). I very much look forward to this one, although I haven't figured out the topic of my presentation just yet.
Marketing Kingdom – 14-15 March, Zagreb: Organised by Kosta Petrov, whose amazing events I've spoken at, in Belgrade and Dubai, in the past, is set to put on another great show, with speakers from the London Olympics, Tumblr, Carlsberg, Nokia, EMI and Salesforce. He's hoping for over 500 attendees for this one and I have no doubt Kosta and his team will achieve that. The title of my presentation is something along the lines of "What have all those friends and followers ever done for your brand?", which I intend to be more of a warning that digital and social media initiatives only have positive impact where they are strategically aligned with, and measured against, overarching business objectives.