1000heads: The Social Media Week Digest

This week, believe it or not, is Social Media Week.

As the website says:

“Social Media Week conferences take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance the use and understanding of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors.”

From New York to Berlin, San Francisco to São Paulo and Toronto to London, across the globe people are coming together to ‘explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large’.

Here in London, the home of 1000heads, there are events happening all week and – hashtag tracking aside – some might find it quite difficult to try and get to everything on the rather packed out event schedule. To aid those in their quest to consume as much knowledge as possible, 1000heads is hosting the official ‘Social Media Week Digest’, this Friday, from 10am at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts.

There are a couple of other events going on Friday morning, including Reputation Online’s ‘Crisis Management‘ session as well as a special Social Media Week Tuttle Club. However, having seen how quickly the tickets for these events have been snapped up, we think there might be scope for one more thing..

So if you’re free and fancy joining us – you’ll be made to feel very welcome indeed.

As our sign up page says:

The Social Media Week Digest does exactly what it says on the tin; by Friday morning at least some of you would have all had the chance to catch one of the aforementioned fantastic events and this end-of-the-week gathering is your opportunity to come together and share stories, anecdotes and generally catch up on some of the interesting things you’ve seen and done.

Come drink some coffee (on us) and have a chat about where we’re all headed next.

Tickets aren’t mandatory (get yours here), they just help us keep an eye on numbers etc…

See you Friday! 🙂

Thanks to ICA London for the super last minute providing of the venue, I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of the place very soon.

1000heads: A charitable thank you to those that Tuttle

Tuttle last week was so much fun, this week we wanted to find a way to say thank you to everyone that came along and made our office such a bubbly place to be on a Friday morning.

Earlier today, we dispatched a crack team of commando 1000heads girls to go out and find the two most cutest and fluffiest fluffy toys they could find.

This is what they came back with…

We’re going to be running a raffle tomorrow morning so you can maybe, just maybe win ONE of the two fluffy things above. I have no preference, well.. I do. The Monkey. But that’s just me…

The other one, the one that the winner decides he or she doesn’t want, will be put into our offline raffle run through our JustGiving page.

Any and all money donated will go straight to the Haiti Hospital Appeal.

If you want to tweet and help spread the word, copy and past the below 🙂

Thank you #Tuttle – Help for Haiti – http://bit.ly/bdVEzE

See you tomorrow! 🙂

Friday, oh Friday!

‘Out of service’ the machine stares silently… ‘The other side!’ he thinks, knowing there is only minutes to spare.

It’s 07:26:54.

Can he make it to platform 2, use the (seemingly empty) machine over there and then get back in time for departure at 07:29:00?

Too late, his legs are already moving; two, five, eight steps up. Rucksack strapped tight he bounds over the footbridge… ‘Must be quick, must be quick!’.

These ticket machines are not new to him, in fact he knows exactly what parts of their screens to touch and when: Mid-bottom left, Zones 1-6 travel card. Confirm selection, bottom right. Card in, PIN number, payment and Print! The whole process should take no more than fifteen seconds. He notes (as he dashes past fellow commuters, oblivious to his challenge), the merits of majoring in something so seemingly minor could be a point of amusement later today, but this is lost on him now, all he can hear is the train, there,  already arrived on the now opposite platform.

‘Must be quick, must be quick’, he repeats his speedy refrain, ‘I must be quick, I must be fast. I mustn’t miss my train!’

Button, confirm, card. It’s so simple, he simply can’t complain.

‘I must be quick, I must be fast. I mustn’t miss my train!’

Alas, he can. ‘Coins and notes only’ the wretched contraption says ‘No payment cards today’. He has the cash, there’s a twenty in his wallet, he saw it there this morning. ‘£14.80’ the machine says, ‘Coins only, no payment cards today’. Time creeps forward, slowly ticking by. The purple note, it shines and glistens in this early morning Sun. Cash in, ticket out – ching ching sounds his change, now go – GO GO! You’re going to miss your train!

Three, six, nine steps up – swiftly swerving the elderly woman, as he reaches the top – race fast, quick now –

….

He laughs, loudly when at the start of his descent he hears the high pitch beep of the doors. Still grinning when he reaches the bottom, the train pulls away.

07:28:47

Damn thing left early.

______________________

Today is Friday August 21st, it’s now 12:59 and I’m sat at The Tuttle Club typing this all up. This morning I was a brief guest at Likemind, good chat and new people too. Then I was a guest of my new best friend, Dan Light at London’s IMAX for the ‘experiment in social marketing’ known as ‘Avatar Day’, (more on this later).

The footage was saw was simply stunning and, thanks to the really nice guys at Vue Cinemas, I’m going to see it again later on this evening.

I can’t wait.

As I said – More, later… I promise 🙂

Today I missed The Tuttle: Take Two

Today is Friday.

And every Friday there is a little thing that happens in London, that used to be held just around the corner from Soho, above The Coach & Horses Pub on Greek Street.

It’s official name of this thing is The Social Media Cafe…. We’ve been here before.

…but, the important thing is, it’s not there anymore.
Oh no. The SMC or ‘Tuttle Club‘ as it is fondly referred to by it’s regulars, has since moved since it’s days down in Soho and is now held just as regularly at The ICA (The Institute of Contemporary Arts) on The Mall.

– a bit swish huh? –

Notionally referred to as ‘Phase II‘ – this next evolutionary step of Tuttle has been running at The ICA for just over a month now and well, I love it… I’m gutted to be missing out on it again. I’m in Madrid at the moment, waiting to meet some cool Spanish Bloggers that are attending EventoBlog. No doubt I’ll be waxing lyrical about the Social Media Cafe (and it’s new home) as soon as I get the chance!

Thing is, I was part of the the team that championed the move from the C&H in Soho see and it irks me that I’ve only actually managed to make it along a handful of times since the big day. The interest and attendance levels have upped dramatically thanks to the support of the ICA; and the breadth and diversity of those that have discovered the Social Media Cafe through said institution has also increased.

One thing I can share with you today however is a little video that my good friend Steve Lawson took last time I was there. Steve took it upon himself to ask me exactly why I go and why I like it so much…

Nice one Steve 🙂

What do you think of the Tuttle Club?
Have you been? What do you like about it?
If you’ve never been, why not?

Come on down!

😀

They said what?

In this quite frankly, awesome industry that I find myself working in – I get to meet some really, really interesting folk. People from all over the world who share a zest for life, a passion for creativity and more often than not, a love of technology too.

Parking the latter of the three for a moment, let me tell you about something cool that’s been on my radar
recently.

Y’see a while back a good friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a website called ‘Someone Once Told Me‘. Along with a note along the lines of “Dude, you have to get involved with this!”

SOTM

The gem of a human being behind this site is a man named Mario Cacciottolo who, as well as being an all round lovely chap, is an excellent photogrpaher. His idea for the site is simple:

…an attempt to gather and chronicle some of the things that people have heard in their lives, the messages and expressions that have stuck in people’s head, for reasons both obvious and odd.

What SOTM actually means is that people are asked, sometimes by appointment and sometimes randomly, to hold up a large piece of paper, upon which they write something that someone once told them. Or emailed. Or texted. Basically something that’s been communicated to them. But told, preferably.

A black and white photograph is then taken of them, and one new picture goes on the site every day…

You with me yet?
Got it?
No?

Well how about I show you the one that Mario took of me at the London Social Media Cafe recently?

– Yes, fairies do live at the bottom of my Mum’s garden –

Lovely huh?
The idea – not the picture of me… well, that ain’t bad either 😉

All of the photos are different in each way and every time Mario posts ones up he accompanies it with a small story detailing the context of the SOTM.

I’ve lost a good couple of hours going back through that site and there really is so much stuff in there, it’s quite astounding. The site itself, is now over a year old with a back catalogue of nearly 400 photographs that cross Continents, Languages and Religions. Happy, Sad, Sexy and Fun – SOTM really is an amazing project.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, I was pointed towards this site ages ago but only met Mario in person very recently at London’s Social Media Cafe, aka The Tuttle Club. It was the last event to be held at the Coach & Horses on Greek St and there was a real buzz in the air and everyone was smiling.

Mario chose a good day to visit! 🙂

One of the best things about the project is that it’s not exclusive to Mario to taking your photo. Literally, ANYONE can get involved, there is a page on the website that explains how you can send in your own SOTM images and mark your place on the site for all eternity.

I’m yet to properly sit down and talk to Mario about the future hopes for SOTM, but I know he’s recently started collecting audio clips from his participants to further enrich the pages of the site. One hopes that all of this creative output will one day lead to an exhibition of some sort and, having just spent the best part of two hours putting this post together (I got lost in the site – AGAIN), you can count that I’ll be first in line for a ticket when if and when it opens.

So come on, what did someone once tell you?

Today I missed The Tuttle

Today is Friday.

Every Friday there is a little thing that happens in London, just round the corner from Soho (here we go again), above The Coach & Horses Pub on Greek Street
Over there look ———————->

It’s official name of this thing is The Social Media Cafe, but – to it’s regulars – it’s fondly referred to as The Tuttle Club.

It’s a lovely place. Everyone is welcome. People come, people go, and the great thing is everyone is so, for want of a better descriptor, nice .
🙂

It’s great – You turn up, have coffee and occasional croissants, chat to like-minded folk, meet interesting people and generally have a bloody good time.

Lloyd Davis, Chief Proprietor and all round nice chap, set the place up as a prototype with a genuine vision to one day soon have a proper space, coffee an’ all, set up and running like a Cafe should. For us geeks innit.

So far it, in my opinion, has been a resounding success. I went along and met OH so many folk that I had been chatting to over Twitter/Seesmic and also a whole bunch of new people too. All of them lovely. I loved it so much that I took my friends along.

I even managed to get SpinVox along one day to sponsor the coffees et al in exchange for a discussion about The Future of Voice (but you can read about that elsewhere)

Anywhoo – The thing is, I’ve been a regular at the SMC now for a good 6-8 weeks – would that be fair to say? Has it been that long? Probably. Time goes so fast these days. Yes. Well. Today I had to miss it and miss it I did.
I’m pretty sure it looked something like this:

Lots of folk chatting around – having a good time – learning from each other – making contacts – developing new ideas� – sharing stories – catching up etc…all of that kind of thing – Top stuff.

Don’t get me wrong – it was good that I spent today in the office. Can’t go into it. I’m just happy I was there.

On the flip side however I really missed the hustle and bustle of my friends at the Coach & Horses.

Boo.

I’ll be back next week, that’s for certain.

And hopefully that will stop Lloyd looking so glum –>

Hehehe…

In the meanwhile however? What else has been going on? Well – I’m still making inroads to getting off my backside and moving this here blog you’re reading.
Got some lovely folk to help me out with the techie stuff. Just waiting for the go ahead and I can start the big move.

Everso excited.

What else?

I think I’ve managed to get through the last list that I wrote – oop, no. Tell a lie.
Still need to cover – SF, T-Shirts , 6mths with SpinVox aaaaaaaaand The BBC. Balls.

Ok – Parking all that for now. First, something MUCH more exciting…

This Sunday I’m taking part in a Blogger Cook-off aka Food 2.0 aka Nom Nom Nom.

Can’t wait.

More to follow very soon – but I did a post about it over here along with a fun slide show, (just go for the pictures)…

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Bye for now…

PS – My friend Roger got an Xbox 360, for free and I am NOT a Happy Bunny.