New Media Age Award Nomination

I’m absolutely thrilled to bits to be nominated for a New Media Age Award for The Greatest Contribution to New Media by an individual. Swedish Beers and the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival gets a mention in the write-up. I'm in such good company too, I'm not sure how I managed to sneak my way on to the list, but I’m very pleased I did.

Anyway, if you feel so inclined, and you have a UK mobile, you can vote for me by SMS until 27 April 2012. Text NMA3 to 82100 if you'd like to vote for me and it's a standard rate text. The text service is provided by Sponge so you know you’ll be in good hands. More details about the awards, the other nominees and how to vote for them here http://www.nmaawards.co.uk/GIC2012.aspx. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on 28 June 2012.

Thank you to the NMA editorial team for including me in this year’s nominations and thanks to everyone voting for me. You’ve made this technokitten very happy.

Swedish Beers–the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival edition

I can hardly believe it. It’s that time of year again and it’s all systems go for Mobile World Congress and the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival. Thank goodness we have an extra couple of weeks before it all kicks off. anyway, as part of the annual road trip, your favourite networking party of the week is back to bring you more beer, more cheer and more chat. We’re in danger of this year being better than ever thanks to our very generous sponsors. I know for a fact there’ll be even more beer for starters. So let me introduce them to you…

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Our lead sponsor this time around is Millennial Media. They're big fans of Swedish Beers and sponsored our London come back party in the summer. And in return, we’re big fans of theirs too. The company is really going places and the team will be on hand to chew the fat about mobile advertising and will have a bountiful supply of free beer tokens. As lead sponsors, it really will be a bountiful supply! You couldn't be in better hands with Gavin, Stephen, Mack and the crew. They definitely know how to have a good time. http://millennialmedia.com/

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Next up is AQL. So good they had to sponsor us twice. And we're very glad they did. Adam Beaumont and his fine team will be there to talk all things mobile messaging and voice communications with you . There's not much he doesn't know or can't do with mobile messaging. Oh, and yeah, he'll have one or two beer tokens in hand too. http://aql.com/

Newcomers to Swedish Beers are Pearson. Yes, that's right, the parent company of FT.com, Penguin books and much more besides. They're exhibiting this year at Congress and are particularly interested to talk about mobile technology in emerging markets as well as innovations in ebooks and the like. The FT.com team will also be on hand to tell you about their adventures in HTML5 and their dealings with the behemoth that is Apple. http://pearson.com/. We're also very pleased that they're sponsoring the overall festival too.

Up next is Apadmi. Fans of Swedish Beers for many years and now it's their turn to join the party as a sponsor. Garry and the team build mobile apps and solutions and very experienced at it they are too. They're also great fun and have kick-started the mobile networking scene in Manchester by taking the lead in setting up Mobile Monday Manchester. http://apadmi.com/

Madmaker is launching very soon and is a do-it-yourself mobile ad maker - you see what they did there with the name? I've seen the system in action and it's really very neat. Oystein, Andy and the team from Boost are behind this new product and will be at Swedish Beers to give it a proper Nordic vibe as they hail from Norway. Oh, and they know a thing or two about mobile marketing as well so will be happy to chat away about that with you until the wee hours about what's hot and what's not in the sector. You'll also find them at 2F33 in the MWC exhibition too.

Like our previous events, this is a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations, no business cards thrust in your face as soon as you arrive. Just come with an open mind, be prepared to see friends old and new, talk nonsense, enjoy a drink or five and have yourself a good time. Oh, and leave the ties, the corporate personas and the sales spiel at the door please.

The Swedish Beers crew will be on hand – Helen, Jenny, Gabriel, Shafiq, Cat, Sarah, Russell - and the friendliest bar staff in town at our regular haunt, Dos Trece, are all waiting to welcome you. The venue holds about 300 or so folks at any one time so there’s plenty space for everyone. There will be bars upstairs and downstairs so please make full use of both floors so that more people can enjoy the fun.

No need to RSVP unless you want to. There's no guest list, no tickets and there's no guaranteed entry. Just come and go as you please. But if you would like to RSVP, you can over here on Facebook. You'll see some familiar faces there I'm sure.

It is likely to get a bit busy at times. But don't worry, people will be coming in and out all evening. That’s kind of the point as we know there’s always a lot going on and you might want to check out more than one party. If it's very busy, there's no need to queue to get in. Just check out one of the other bars nearby and come back a little later when it's a bit less frantic. Dos Trece is where the action will be. We'll be open from 7pm until the wee hours so there'll be plenty time for you to drop in and say skål.

We don't have a cloakroom so we don't recommend you bring your laptops or briefcases with you - it's a liability in Barcelona I'm afraid – especially at this time of year and they’ll just get in the way of your enjoyment of the evening. Drop them at your hotel or apartment first. You won't need them anyway what with this new fangled thing called the mobile phone ;)

So just to recap:

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking
When: Wednesday 29th February 2012 - 7pm until we run out of steam
Where: DosTrece, Calle Carme 40, 08001 Barcelona
DosTrece is behind La Boqueria market and the nearest metro station is Liceu. Just walk up La Rambla, walk past La Boqueria and Teatro Grec, then take a left at Calle Carme (or Carrer del Carme) and DosTrece is at number 40 (Google map here). (They also have free Wi-Fi if you want to demo your latest phone app.)

**********Keep in touch***********
Email: Just add your email address to the Feedblitz box at the top left and you’ll get our blog posts (and therefore event notices) to your inbox.
Twitter: Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/swedishbeers
Facebook: Like us http://www.facebook.com/SwedishBeers or join the group

Swedish Beers is a Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival event.

Heroes of the Mobile Fringe–will you be there?

Sign up now to find out about the first unofficial fringe festival being held in Barcelona the same week as Mobile World Congress in February 2012!

Some of you will already know that Helen Keegan, the brains behind Swedish Beers, has also been working on the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival. The plan is to let visitors know about the interesting side events that are on during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona - both on and off site: to help you find the stuff that's relevant to you; to help you make the most of your visit; to help more people get their events, happenings and initiatives seen and talked about during one of the most hectic weeks in the mobile industry calendar.

The festival will start on Sunday 26 February and finish on Friday 2 March 2012. It will include a variety of events, large and small - meet-ups, discussion panels, barcamp, demos, investor & start-up lunch, half-day conference and more, including a bunch of great parties for you to mingle with mobilists from far and wide. Most events are free to attend thanks to generous sponsors, for some there will be a charge payable to the event organiser direct to cover costs.

GET INVOLVED - Add your event

Our website is nearly ready to launch. If you're running an event in Barcelona and would like to include it in the festival, please add your details here. There is no charge to add your event, all we ask is that you link back to us and tell people that your event is part of the festival. We'll give you a logo and a URL to do that. It doesn’t matter what type of event it is or how large or small it is. All welcome. Whether it’s a geek meet-up for 10 people, a big party, a panel session, a round-table discussion, a half-day conference, a barcamp, a developer jam session or something else, we don’t mind. We just want to include the most interesting and relevant events that add to the festival vibe – and not just the parties (although they’re very important too, as Swedish Beers fans will no doubt tell you and which is why it is forming a key part of the festival – announcement coming soon about our party in Barcelona this year).

GET INVOLVED - As a helper

There are other ways to get involved too. We need more venues to run events (this could be part of your MWC stand for example), we also need helpers at each event for things like manning the registration desk or handing out badges, or looking after special guests. And any help with marketing is also much appreciated. No offer of help is too small! If that sounds like you, please tell us here. Also, if we’ve already talked about you getting involved as a helper, I may have forgotten. It’s useful for me to see who’s on board to have all the names and contact details in one place.

GET INVOLVED - Sponsor us

There is still time to join the festival as a sponsor. And as part of that, we can help with organising your event. Why not join confirmed sponsors, Pearson, Oracle and others? Get yourself more coverage at Congress and be part of this innovative festival. Please get in touch with Helen Keegan to discuss. Options available for all budgets.

GET INVOLVED - Be a media or community partner

We are also putting together our media and community partnerships right now. Perhaps you'd like to be a media partner alongside GoMoNews, Mobile Groove, GrowVC, MEF, Mobile Monday Global, TheFonecast.com, Mobile Marketing Magazine and many more. That way we can help each other engage with the mobile community and help them get even more out of being in Barcelona at this very busy time. Please get in touch with Helen Keegan to discuss.

Keep in touch

Follow the festival action on twitter. We have a Facebook page too (all 'likes' are much appreciated and it means we show up in your feed) and you can RSVP for the festival here (which means we can alert you as new events get announced). And our newsletter based on the email addresses we're collecting here will be out soon and will include details of events, sponsors and partners.

Thank you for your support so far. It hasn't gone unnoticed. We're very excited about the festival and hope you are too and will join in the fun next month.

p.s. Still after a free pass for Mobile World Congress, then have a read of this with links to apply for one.

Disclaimer: This initiative is not officially sponsored by, supported by or associated with GSMA Ltd or with Mobile World Congress.

BlackBerry DevCon–Special Swedish Beers Offer

In case you needed something to do before Mobile World Congress next year, I thought I’d let you know that I have a discount code for the upcoming BlackBerry DevCon Europe happening on 7/8 February 2012 in Amsterdam http://www.blackberrydevcon.com/europe for Swedish Beers regulars. It’s the first time they’ve brought their popular DevCon to Europe (previously, it has only run in Asia and USA) and it promises to be a great event.

Aimed at the more technical people in our community, the BlackBerry® Developer Conference is the showcase for the latest innovations and breakthroughs with the BlackBerry® Development Platform. Thousands of BlackBerry enthusiasts come together to collaborate with platform experts from the community and attend sessions, demonstrations, hands-on labs and keynotes — all focused on developing leading mobile applications, no matter your skill level.

It's an amazing opportunity to connect with BlackBerry experts, get tips and discover ways to build for the BlackBerry platform whether in native or using web standards that allows you to extend your work onto other platforms. You'll walk away ready to reach a community of 70 million subscribers.

There’s an early bird rate (Euro 250) available until Friday 23 December and you can get 50% off that using this blog’s special offer code DSTNS0. And after that, you’ll get 50% off the standard rate (Euro 350) with the same code up until 18 January 2012. In addition, all delegates will receive a BlackBerry Playbook Tablet. Now that’s not too shabby a deal.

You need reasons to go? Well, here’s a few for you

• Train on the latest developer tools first hand, like BlackBerry WebWorks, APIs, BlackBerry Messenger SDK, BlackBerry 7, and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet
• See best practices that will ensure a better understanding of the options for connecting to back end infrastructure, deploying apps, and how to use web services to our advantage
• Get up to speed on not just developing apps, but how to come up with multi-endpoint strategies using web technologies
• Be inspired by looking at what other companies are doing and how their approaches could benefit your company
• Learn how to develop Super Apps that do more for staff while they work away from the office
• Connect with the best of the best in the industry — from Research In Motion (RIM) leaders to partners and colleagues — ask questions and see if they've solved challenges you face

Hope to see some of you there. And failing that, see you at Swedish Beers in Barcelona… news on that coming very soon.

Skål

Happy 10th Birthday to Us!

What a lovely time we all had last week, celebrating Swedish Beers 10th anniversary – yes, that’s right, 10 whole years of mobile networking events in London, Barcelona and Sydney. We celebrated in style with a little help from our lovely friends and supporters at Somo and Inspiring Interns, who generously bought all the beers, my friends and cohorts, Jenny, Gabriel, James (who took all the photos) and Catherine, the Nordic Bar for looking after us, and of course to everyone who came.

As ever, there was an eclectic mix of people covering everything from Art to Science with some marketing, brands, media and entrepreneurship in between. For me, it was particularly fun to hear stories about Swedish Beers past where friendships, business partnerships, sales, and investments have been made. It warms the cockles of my heart to hear these and to know that networking at Swedish Beers works! And it wasn’t just the old-timers who turned up in force, there were lots of lovely new faces too to welcome to the Swedish Beers family proving that we’re in a vibrant, growing sector.

Well, not much more for me to say, except thank you to everyone and hope to see a lot of you in Barcelona on Wednesday 29 February for our annual Barcelona bash (get in touch if you’d like to be a co-sponsor – two spots left at the time of writing). In the meantime, enjoy the photos from the party last week.




Created with flickr slideshow.




Skål
Helen, Jenny, Gabriel, James and Catherine

Swedish Beers–The 10th Birthday Edition–7 Dec 2011

Rather amazingly, Swedish Beers is 10 years old. I can’t quite believe it. I can’t quite believe that I’ve been in one industry that long. The first Swedish Beers event was in the back of the Nordic Bar (our natural home) and was the brainchild of friend and colleague, Steve Flaherty. He got some of his mates together under the guise of a networking event about technology, put a bit of money behind the bar, courtesy of BT, and a royally good time was had by all and it turned into a regular thing. From the 25 or so people at the first event, we’ve grown somewhat and seen 1000s through the doors and have had parties in London, Sydney and the big one every year – Barcelona during Mobile World Congress. But for our birthday party and a bit of a pre-Christmas bash, we’re back to our old favourite, The Nordic Bar. James and his team will be looking after us.

But of course, it couldn’t happen without the financial support of our lovely sponsors, Somo, and Inspiring Interns and of course, the friendship and support of our friends and regular attendees. It’s all of you who make Swedish Beers what it is today. And for that, I really am grateful.

So back to the birthday bash. It’s the same formula as before – mingle, make friends, talk of mobiles, marketing, life in general, drink beer, talk some more, rinse and repeat. There’s no PowerPoint, no formal speeches, and no agenda. Just come with a smile on your face and be prepared to hang out with everyone from mobilists to marketers, brands, agencies, creatives, media owners, journalists, pundits and more. We hope there’ll be a good mix and friendly faces for you to chew the fat with.

We will have free* house beer, house wine and soft drinks for you courtesy of our lovely sponsors Somo Agency and Inspiring Interns. You’ll have to look for them to get your free beer tokens. There are plenty to go around. *While the bar tab lasts. If we run out of beer tokens and/or the bar tab is spent, then we’ll revert to a pay bar.

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking Party – The 10th Birthday Edition

When: Wednesday 7 December 2011 from 6.30pm until 11pm

Where: You'll find us at the Nordic Bar on Newman Street which is the North side of Oxford Street, nearest tube Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Circus or Goodge Street. We’ll be taking over the whole bar and there’s outside space with heaters for those who like to stand outside in the Winter. There’s no need to RSVP, just turn up. If you’re really feeling the need to RSVP somewhere, then you can do that over here https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=265361270178751

Skål

Helen, & the Swedish Beers crew

About the sponsors

Somo

Somo is the leading independent mobile marketing agency. Our mission is to help our clients benefit from the rapidly evolving developments in the mobile market. We do this by identifying the potential that mobile marketing can bring to a client’s business, then designing, building and delivering first class campaigns across all mobile platforms. We use sophisticated reporting and tracking tools to measure the success of campaigns to ensure that, whatever the objectives, they are achieved. Head honcho and very knowledgeable, Carl, and his growing team of experienced mobilistas will be on hand to chew the mobile fat with you and to hand out beer tokens.

Inspiring Interns

Inspiring Interns is today's intern recruitment solution, connecting businesses with fresh graduate talent. We search for talented, intelligent, and motivated young interns who want to learn, grow and importantly make a positive contribution through their skill sets and attitude. Any team, whether it is finance, administration, sales, marketing, HR, design or otherwise will benefit from having an intern as an additional team member.

We screen and interview every potential intern that we put forward for a position. We psychometric test them and ensure that we are dealing with highly motivated as well as talented people. If you want to meet any of our interns now you can perform a search or view via the player on our website. Search out the founders and long time friends of Swedish Beers and technokitten, Ben, Benedict, Sam and Charlie who will be on hand for fun, frolics and beer tokens.

**********Keep in touch***********

Email: Just add your email address to the Feedblitz box at the top left and you’ll get our blog posts (and therefore event notices) to your inbox.

Twitter: Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/swedishbeers

Facebook: Like us http://www.facebook.com/SwedishBeers (we’re phasing out the Swedish Beers FB group)

Heroes of the Mobile Fringe (working title)

Cross posted from http://technokitten.com.

Not content with just running Swedish Beers…. my new thing, or at least one of my new things is the very unofficial fringe festival happening in Barcelona at the same time as Mobile World Congress. You’ll find a landing page at http://mwcfringe.com where you can add your email address to be updated, there’s a group on facebook (likes are always much appreciated and if FB is your thing, then you’ll see the updates in your stream too) and you can follow proceedings on twitter and Lanyrd.

So what’s this all about then?

The unofficial fringe festival during Mobile World Congress is down to me. I've been attending the show for many years now and the events on the side (discussion sessions, parties, lunches, roundtables) that have proved at least as valuable and interesting to me as the main event. I've been running the Swedish Beers party and a ladies lunch at MWC for the last 7 years already, and I've also organised panel sessions, dinners, discussion groups and formal lunches. Back in London, I ran Mobile Monday London for the last 4 years or so, Swedish Beers for the last 10 years, and have run my own conferences and workshops in between the day job as a mobile media consultant.

The concept for the fringe festival is pretty simple... inspired by The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the aim is to bring the grass roots mobile community together.

- The website (and hopefully mobile friendly version – funds and resources permitting), will help you find events and happenings that interest you and add them to your diary.

- If you're an event organiser, then you can apply to include your event as part of the festival (and unless it's really dull, we’d love to include it and the more grass roots it is, the better). That way, we share the marketing effort through co-branding and make the pie bigger for everyone to share. If you wish to charge for your event, or you have a sponsor for your event, that's ok with us too.

- If you've not run an event at MWC before, we will try to make it a bit easier for you...I'm currently in the process of blagging cheap/free space so that small companies and communities of interest can apply to hold an event in that space so we'll act as a bit of a matchmaker. We don't mind whether your event is for five people or for 500 or anything in between.

- There'll be an email newsletter and we'll have editor's picks - a bit like The Time Out Guide to Congress if you like. On top of that, I hope to have a roving fringe reporter sharing what's going on under the radar during the festival at Barcelona.

- And if you sign up to our service, there’ll be fringe benefits too, ranging from the big stuff – free tickets to access the exhibition to the smaller stuff – free mobile apps and services to make your week easier to who knows yet – it’s all still in negotiation.

There is no fee to include your event for the fringe festival in February 2012. The business model is sponsorship and advertising. There is also scope for media, community and association partnerships.
The festival will start the weekend before Congress (I'm just negotiating an event for the Sunday, but others may have something up their sleeve for the Saturday too) and we hope to finish a day or two afterwards. Like all good festivals, it is open to all – individuals, big companies, small companies and everything in between.

Get in touch

If you'd like to get involved or would like to discuss further (e.g. sponsorship opportunities, volunteering, media partnerships etc.), please get in touch.

*Please note that the festival is not connected to or endorsed by the GSMA*