Swedish Beers Down Under (#2) – drink beer, talk mobile, drink more beer, talk nonsense…

Good news for all you mobilists Down Under. The last event was so good that the fabulous Jen² team have pulled it out of the bag again and have organised the second Swedish Beers Down Under.

Well, mark your diaries for Wednesday, 27^th August 2008 at the Redoak Boutique Beer Café, Clarence Street – same venue as last time. Once again, drinking commences @ 5.30pm. This month, Swedish Beers is being sponsored by the lovely people at BlueCentral, so when you have a drink, you’ve got them to thank!

A lot has happened in the mobile industry Down Under since the last bash – 3G iphones launched in Australia to people queuing round the block in freezing temperatures, BlueCentral is launching a mobility solutions arm, NZ’s Hyperfactory is setting up shop in Oz, Telstra is embracing QR Codes in their new Olympics advertising campaign, Xumii is launching, Mega is pitching, Big Brother has finally died a death and there is a new AIMIA Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index Survey about to launch. In addition, we’re all wondering if it's winter or the economic downturn that has us all shivering a little.

At our inaugural event, the place was packed with over 80 people coming and drinking beer. There was a lot of mobile talk going around, a few job offers here and there, some quiet business pitches being made and, later in the evening, a lot of nonsense being talked. Come and meet your competitors, friends, colleagues, clients and suppliers in a not-so-chilly environment and get talking over a not-so-Swedish beer.As one of the attendees at the first Swedish Beers (held just after Mobile Content World Australasia) said ”I really enjoyed the last one. To be honest the networking was more useful than it had been sitting through those seminars all day at MCW.” Praise indeed.

Please feel free to invite anyone else who you find interesting enough to attend!

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Swedish Beers Sydney event is brought to you by Sydney mobilists, Jen², who are Jennifer Hiley of 5^th Finger & Jennifer Wilson of Lean Forward


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ABOUT OUR LOVELY SPONSOR without whom the night would just not be as much fun:

BlueCentral is a hosting and mobility solutions provider. At BlueCentral we provide all of your hosting needs, from domain names to dedicated hosting. We have recently expanded our product portfolio to offer mobile messaging aggregation, mobile billing and delivery.

BlueCentral provides a platform to enable your company to achieve future growth, our mobile gateway provides your company with international reach. BlueCentral mobility allows its clients to add mobile messaging to their business without incurring large infrastructure setup costs. We take care of all the complexities involved with these solutions to make it easier for you to manage.

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ABOUT SWEDISH BEERS

Swedish Beers www.swedishbeers.co.uk is an ad-hoc mobile networking event (run roughly quarterly) by British mobilists, Helen Keegan (aka technokitten) and Steve Flaherty of RespondMobile . It has been running in London since 2001 and Barcelona since 2006. Nothing formal, no speakers, no powerpoint, just turn up and mingle and hang out with folks from the mobile, marketing and media worlds.

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CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK TOO

Join the group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2456995682- you'll be in good company and get more details about this and other events, check out some photos and meet some of your fellow Swedish Beer lovers.

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Swedish Beers is launching Down Under

Not content with London and Barcelona, we're very excited to announce that Swedish Beers is launching Down Under with its inaugural event next week in Sydney.

The team behind the launch is Jen² (Jennifer Hiley of 5th Finger and Jennifer Wilson of Lean Forward) and they've booked the charming Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe for your pleasure.

We all know Aussies love their beer and with mobile penetration at more than 100%, it looks like we also love our mobiles so we reckon you'll also love Swedish Beers Mobile Networking. Come along and join us for a beer or three and plenty of chat at The Redoak Boutique Beer Café. Drinking commences @ 5.30pm. Nothing formal, no speakers, no powerpoint, nothing flashy, just turn up and mingle and hang out with folks from the mobile, marketing and media worlds. So if you're friendly, enjoy mixing and have a passing interest in mobile, then come and hang out with the nice Swedish Beers folks Down Under. No need to RSVP unless you'd really like to but do spread the word to your colleagues and friends.

If the London and Barcelona events are anything to go by, this promises to be a good 'un so you'd better be there to check out the action!

What: Swedish Beers launches Down Under

When: Wednesday 28th May from 5.30pm

Where: The Redoak Boutique Beer Café, 201 Clarence Street, Sydney, Australia. (Here's a map)

Unfortunately the London crew won't be there to enjoy the first event Down Under, but we've left you in the capable hands of Jen² in our absence.

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What is Swedish Beers?
Swedish Beers www.swedishbeers.co.uk is an ad-hoc mobile networking event (run roughly quarterly) by British mobilists, Helen Keegan (aka technokitten) and Steve Flaherty of RespondMobile. It has been running in London since October 2001 and in Barcelona for the last 3 years. Find us on facebook too.

The best Swedish Beers event yet

Yes, thats right folks. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, we had our best event in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress.

We had 100s of mobile executives through our doors throughout the evening right through until closing time in the wee hours of the morning. There were free beers galore (we drank the bar dry of draught Stella!) and definitely lots of chatting and mingling going on.

There were too many people there to mention but one of the things I really enjoy about the event in Barcelona is that we attract visitors from all over the world and it really adds to the atmosphere on the evening. I know we had folks there from Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Israel and dear old Blighty of course.

Some of the folks we met there included IPC, Manchester United FC, Yahoo, Google, Peperoni, Mobvision, Perform Group, Fred's, ARN Consulting, Respond Mobile, Acxiom, Medio Systems, Airwide Solutions, Flixwagon, Spinvox, Mobile Monday, Vodafone, Reactor, Aditon, MX Telecom, Ribot, Future Platforms, Mippin, Vertu, Jajah, Betavine, Ionsquare, We Love Mobile, MSN, Sponge, Rok, Truphone, Reuters, m-spatial, Device Management Forum, Moblica, Radius-Ed, Wizzfone, Greenwich Consulting, CScout, RRD.tv, Sofia Digital, Carmunity, Leiki, M:Metrics and a load more besides. If you were there, then add a comment below and tell me!

And if you think it's just me who thought it was a good night, then some folks have said lovely things about us too...

"Cheers for a superb Swedish Beers night in Barcelona! Really good
turnout and good fun of course!"

"Swedish Beers has been the best networking event I’ve been to, and I
don’t just mean Barcelona."

"It was a great event, lots of interesting people having a great time. I even met someone from Sweden - how cool is that!"

"Thanks for a great do in Barcelona, I know everyone said it but it was
the best one! Here’s to the next!!"

And we couldn't have done it without our very generous sponsors - PINoptic, Trutap, MyMart and Admob so a special thank you to them for their generosity with beer tokens. And a huge thank you as well to Belchica and the bar staff there who made it such a fun evening for us.


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Swedish Beers in Barca sponsors announced

Just in case you haven't heard, Swedish Beers is coming to Barcelona for MWC. Yes, it's that time of year again and everyone who is lucky enough to be heading to the sunshine and frolics in Barcelona is organising their MWC social life. The Swedish Beers crew *will* be in town as many of you already know and we'll be living it up at Belchica courtesy of our very generous sponsors Trutap - David and Carl, PINoptic - Colin and Jenny, MyMart - Adam and Ben, and Admob - Russell and Andy. So the first few beers will be on them. The proceedings kick off at 7pm and will go on until late (the bar's open very late so we won't get kicked out) so feel free to drop by and say hello, or should I say hola, during the evening.

Like last year's Swedish Beers in Spain in a Belgian Bar, on the night the very generous sponsors (this year's are David, Carl, Colin, Jenny, Russell, Andy, Adam and Ben) and the Swedish Beers crew (that's me, Steve, Anton and Gillian) will be the ones armed with the beer tokens. So come and search us out to claim your free beers.

It'll be the usual eclectic mix of media, marketing and mobile types but since we're in Barcelona for the night, it's a chance for our friends from outside the UK to join the fun too. There's sure to be lots of familiar faces as many of the London regulars will be there, but we're looking forward to welcoming new folks too. So if you fancy a drink and a chat and a mingle with the nice Swedish Beers folks, then come along and join in. You don't have to talk about mobile and you don't even have to drink beer if you don't want to, but it would be nice if you were friendly and enjoyed hanging out with other friendly folk who happen to have a passing interest in things mobile. There's no RSVP required unless you'd like to. If we're full when you arrive, don't panic, just come back a bit later. Folks will be coming and going all evening I expect.

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THE LOWDOWN:

Where: Belchica, Villarroel 60, 08011 Barcelona. Entrance on Gran Via de Deputacion. Metro L1 Urguell (so very near Congress).

When: Tuesday 12th February 2008 19:00h onwards

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking Drinks

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ABOUT OUR LOVELY SPONSORS without whom the night wouldn't be possible

*Trutap* is an easy-to-use free mobile service that for the first time, globally, combines all the elements of a young person's social life into one application. With trutap users can easily connect and converse with friends and family, wherever they are, whenever they want. trutap currently operates in over 200 countries across the world and will operate in more shortly. Carl and David will be with us and if you want to know what they look like, their pictures can be found here! I'm quite sure David and Carl will keep you amused as well being Swedish Beers old-timers.

*PINoptic* applies its Visual Probabilistic One Time Password (VPOTP) next-generation software to high security authentication applications. This delivers an easy to implement yet innovative, universal security solution with the strength required by even financial institutions. PINoptic maintains user simplicity through the use of pictures and symbols which appeals to a global market with differing literacy levels. Applications range from financial through to internet, mobile telecoms, corporate IT and access control. PINoptic's vision is to become a defacto security standard and replace 99% of existing pin and password systems by 2012. Jenny and Colin will be on hand to explain all and it's pretty cool. Oh, and they'll have tokens for free beer.

*MyMart* is leading the way in mobile retail by providing mobile shop technology and services for operators, agencies and retailers. Adam and Ben are looking forward to building strategic relationships at the mobile world congress. They're also interested to chat about wheree mobile retail may be heading. Adam and Ben will have beer tokens in hand and are generally fun to hang out with too. And no, they won't try and sell you anything on the spot via one of their mobile shops... Well, I don't think they will anyway ;)

*Admob* Founded in 2006 (on my birthday as it happens! Ed), AdMob is the world's largest and highest quality mobile advertising marketplace, serving more than 2 billion mobile banner and text ads per month. Founded in January 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the mobile web and enables publishers to increase the value of their mobile sites. AdMob offers advertisers the ability to target and personalize advertising to their customers in 160 countries. Sample AdMob customers include Coca Cola, Starbucks, MSN, Paramount Pictures, Reuters, MTV and many more. AdMob serves ads for over 3,000 mobile web sites, including ESPN, CBS, Weather Underground, Maxim and Peperonity. Russell (genunine old skool mobilist and blogger), Andy and I expect a few more from their crew will be around to hand out beer tokens and generally chew the fat.

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CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK TOO
Join the group - you'll be in good company and get more details about this event
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The Swedish Beers crew: Helen, Steve, Anton and Gillian

The Swedish Beers crew are back in Barcelona in February

Yes, it’s that time of year again when the world’s mobilists land in Barcelona to obsess about all things mobile for a few days for the GSMA's Mobile World Congress (the conference formerly known as 3GSM). So of course, the Swedish Beers Posse will be in town too and we're running our Swedish Beers Mobile Networking event too and would love you to join us.

So if you're friendly, enjoy mingling and have a passing interest in mobile, then mingle with the nice Swedish Beers folks. Don't worry, you don't have to talk about mobile technology, handsets or whatever and you don't even have to drink beer if you don't want to but we would like you to be friendly and enjoy mingling with us.

We have some lovely sponsors lined up and the first few beers will be on them - more details as they're confirmed.

Where: Belchica, Villarroel 60, 08011 Barcelona. Entrance on Gran Via de Deputacion. Metro L1 Urguell (so very near Congress and the same place we went to last year).

When: Tuesday 12th February 2008

Time: 7pm onwards

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking drinks

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Helen, Steve, Anton, Seth and the crew who are too numerous to mention!

Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Weds 12 Sept 07

Right, slight change of plan...

We're back to the Nordic Bar, our usual haunt, on Wednesday 12th September. We'll be in the back bar from 6ish for all the usual chat, mingling and talk of mobiles, marketing, media and life in general. And if the last few events are anything to go by, we'll probably overtake the whole bar pretty quickly. You'll find the Nordic Bar on Newman Street which is the North side of Oxford Street, nearest tube Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Circus.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that our sponsor has had to postpone their sponsorship of Swedish Beers as they're not quite ready to shout out about the wonderful things they're up to. So it would be *really* marvellous if another generous sponsor could help us out with the bar. Otherwise, it's buy your own drinks night. And if it's the latter, it will be your challenge to find someone who has a works expense account to buy drinks for you all evening ;)

But seriously folks, the Swedish Beers night goes on and do get in touch with me if you're up for sponsoring the bar. Probably best to call my mobile, +44 794 053 8802, if you're interested as I'm away from the internet until Tuesday afternoon and time is quite short as Swedish Beers night is only two weeks away.

So, the night is definitely on, we're just waiting to see if someone will generously sponsor the bar to help the evening go with a swing and at the same time meet loads of folks who will think lovely things about them *and* benefit from lots of lovely publicity and immense good mobile karma for their efforts.

So see y'all there on the 12th September, from 6pm in the Back Bar at The Nordic Bar.

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p.s. If you plan to use Oxford Circus on the night, please note that the Victoria Line is undergoing maintenance right now and is closed from about 10pm every night. Don't worry, all the other lines are fine and the buses still work, it just might take you a little longer than usual to get home that's all, as you find an alternative route. More info on the TFL website.

A date for the diary - Wednesday 12th September

Our next event Swedish Beers Mobile Networking event will be on Wednesday 12th September 2007 in a new venue and courtesy of a fab new sponsor. Watch this space for more details coming soon.

We've started a group on facebook as well if you're interested. Feel free to join up.

And finally, I'm planning ahead for the two events after the one in September and actively seeking sponsors - I'm currently toying with the idea of doing a bash in the Winter, probably in late November or early December and then our annual jaunt to Barcelona in February for the Mobile World Congress (was 3GSM). Please get in touch with me if you're interested to discuss further.

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