Swedish Beers–Barcelona Edition 2011

I can hardly believe it. It’s that time of year again and it’s all systems go for Mobile World Congress. And as part of that, your favourite networking party of the week is back to bring you more beer and more chat. We’re in danger of this year being better than ever thanks to our generous sponsors. I know for a fact there’ll be even more beer for starters. So let me introduce our generous sponsors to you…

Mesaplexx – the spectrum optimisation specialists. You’ll meet the team, including Peter Young and CEO, Mark Bole, who is an old friend of Swedish Beers from his Shozu days, so we’re very pleased to welcome Mesaplexx as sponsors this year. They are doing some very cool things to help MNOs get more out of their network. This is a good thing in my book. You can’t have too many shoes, handbags or bandwidth! When they’re not at Swedish Beers, you’ll find them at Congress in meeting room 4.OEMR07 – ground floor, opposite the VIP area. Contact Peter Young if you’d like a meeting.

Next up is AQL. Headed up by Adam Beaumont, the team will be on fine form and ready to chat to you about all things voice and messaging. Cos, that’s what they do. AQL are specialists in integrating mobile messaging and voice communications into client business processes – in fact they’ve won awards for doing precisely this. So whether you’re a carrier or SME, if you’re interested in messaging, then these are the guys to speak to. Messaging makes the world go round, right?

mxData are our third sponsor. And they’re doing very interesting things with rich and dynamic local content on mobile. Whether it’s adverts with a local angle, localised search, or a travel app – if it has a location data element to it, then this team may just have the right answer for you. I’ve been using one of their travel apps, and it’s really rather impressive. They’re also exhibiting at congress up in App Planet at Stand 7E44 so do go and say hello. And of course you know they’re going to have a stack of beer tokens to give away too.

Adfonic is our fourth sponsor. Europe’s only global advertising marketplace, they enable advertisers to bid for display advertising space on mobile sites and applications to extend their reach and optimise results and publishers to maximise the earning potential of their mobile traffic. Monetising mobile traffic is always a good thing in my book. And this team work with some long-standing Swedish Beers friends too. So if you want to talk advertising and making money, I reckon it’s worth searching the Adfonic team out.

And last, but by no means least we have Amobee. Ben and Harry have been Swedish Beers regulars for many years from their RingRing Media days and before, so it’s great to welcome them as sponsors this year. There’s not much that these guys don’t know when it comes to mobile advertising. Whether it’s planning and buying you need or a platform to manage your advertising, they’ll have something for you. When they say that Amobee powers mobile advertising, they’re not being facetious!

I really can’t thank our sponsors enough for their support, both moral and financial, for Swedish Beers. We couldn’t do this without them so please do make sure you say hello to them at the party. They’ve been really wonderful. So now you’ve met the sponsors, here’s the lowdown for the party…

Our venue for the evening is Dostrece which is a two floor bar and restaurant – a ground floor and a chillout basement.

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.

Doors will be opening at 7pm on Wednesday 16th February and we'll be open until late so there's plenty of time to drop by and enjoy the fun, meet interesting people and soak up the Swedish Beers vibe. There is no need to RSVP, but since there's a bar courtesy of our lovely sponsors, we will be distributing beer tokens on the night so you’ll have to look for the Swedish Beers crew and the lovely folks from Adfonic, Mesaplexx, Amobee, AQL and mxData. If facebook is your thing, then you’ll find us on facebook with a group and an event posting. And we’re on twitter too so do follow us there. The more the merrier I say.

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 – Cait, Anna, myself, Nik, Shafiq - and the friendliest bar staff in town at Dos Trece are all waiting to welcome you.

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.

We don't have a cloakroom so we don't recommend you bring your laptops with you - it's a liability in Barcelona I'm afraid – especially at this time of year. 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 16th February 2011 - 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 wifi if you want to demo your latest phone app.)

See you on Wednesday 16th!

Skål

Helen and the SB crew

More Swedish Beers Love to go around from acrossair

I do like it when a plan comes together. There is more beer to go around thanks to the lovely folk at acrossair. Yes, that’s right folks, we have another sponsor to join our merry throng! Chetan and his team from acrossair will be on hand with a bunch of beer tokens for you all and some chat and banter about things mobile.

acrossair are creators of the Augmented Reality Browser on iPhone. The browser uses amazing 3D navigation which you can see as you spin round. There is local data from property companies and big name brands which is represented in an augmented reality view. If you hold it flat, it jumps to a Google maps view and when you spin around, so does the browser to make sure you know where everything is.

It’s free to download from iTunes and works on iPhone 3GS. And, if you have an iPhone 3GS, rather usefully, one of their services is to find your nearest Metro station in Barcelona. That could come in handy. Hint, the nearest one to Swedish Beers is Liceu. Make sure you have that one saved ;)

Oh, and if Augmented Reality is your thing, then you might want to check out the AR showcase that acrossair is participating in that my pals Dan and Christine are organising on Wednesday afternoon at Mobile World Congress in the Courtyard, just before Swedish Beers.

Technorati Tags: swedish beers,mwc10,barcelona,party,mobile networking,acrossair,augmented reality,iphone

So good, Silverstreet had to sponsor it twice!

Yes, that’s right, the super team at Silverstreet had such a good time at Swedish Beers in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress last year that they’re sponsoring it again this year! And I’m thrilled to be welcoming them back to join us :)

So who are the folks at Silverstreet then and what do they do? Well they’re a specialist in messaging (SMS) offering global reach with MT termination options covering more than 700 networks worldwide (that’s going some). They have a focus on mission critical traffic (so making sure your message gets to the right place at the right time) and high volume (wholesale) clients. On top of this, they also maintain coverage for Premium Rate SMS in 32 countries and continue to expand their portfolio.

New to the Silverstreet suite of services is the introduction of its AirTime Transfer services which are geared towards Mobile Operators around the world who are interested in offering their subscribers a service where they can send airtime credits to their friends and family overseas.

Silverstreet has grown *a lot* since they were with us last year and now has local offices in Europe (where they started), the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia and most recently opened an office in the Philippines. With 10 years under their belt in the Mobile Industry, and members of the MEF, you’ll find the team a fun bunch and very happy to talk messaging and other mobile stuff until the cows come home. Much like the rest of us really!

Eric, Timo, Mitch and Mil will be there from Silverstreet so be sure to look out for them to say hello, chat about mobile stuff – messaging, airtime, PSMS or whatever. And if you ask nicely, I expect they’ll be more than happy to share their very generous amount of beer tokens with you.

Skål

Technorati Tags: silverstreet,swedish beers,barcelona,mobile world congress,mwc10

I’m really pleased to announce Monotype Imaging as a sponsor for Swedish Beers…

Yes, it’s true. I can confirm that the lovely people at Monotype Imaging will also be sponsoring Swedish Beers goes to Barcelona!

So you’ll be able to enjoy a beer with Monotype Imaging, the company that combines design with technology to help the world communicate consistently beautifully everywhere. Come and meet their team, a bold bunch of characters who have worked with all the leading players in the mobile world simply making text work. And I quote Julie Strawson, (who you might know already from speaking at Heroes of the Mobile Screen and being a regular at the Women in Mobile Data Association meet-ups), she says, ‘We’re proud to be sponsoring this great event.’ Hurrah!

You might want to take a look at the Monotype Imaging website before you search them out for beer tokens on the night and also download and try out their lovely little font app FlipFont. I’ve downloaded it myself and use it on my Nokia N95 and very nice it is too.

You can follow FlipFont on twitter as well if you like.

Shaping up to be a good one folks!

Skål

Technorati Tags: mwc10,swedish beers,sponsor,monotype imaging

I want, you want, we all want Swedish Beers… again!

Yes, it’s that time of year. It’s all about Barcelona and it’s as hectic as ever. But hey, I wouldn’t like it if it was any different.

Jenny Hiley has been keeping the Swedish Beers love going Down Under in Sydney for the last year (thank you Jenny!) and I’m pleased to announce that I will be spreading some more Swedish Beers love by running Swedish Beers in Barcelona again this year with a little help from my friends.

We had such a great time last year – about 800 of you turned up throughout the night and you didn’t want to leave when it was closing time. We had folks there from as far afield as New Zealand and Brazil. We have global reach people! We also had people there from network operators, mobile marketing agencies, brands, analysts, journalists, entrepreneurs, developers of all flavours of mobile, aggregators, content creators, messaging specialists, media owners and lots more besides. You want it, you got it at Swedish Beers.

And by all accounts it was an epic night for some last year. People are still telling their ‘Swedish Beers’ tales, and not just from last year, from previous years to that too! I guess we’re doing something right then…

Anyway, we have the lovely Admob confirmed as our lead sponsor – third year running in Barcelona and I think the 5th time they’ve sponsored Swedish Beers since we started back in October 2001 in London.

We are still on the lookout for more sponsors though to help the party really go with a swing. Like last year, we can provide the atmosphere, warm bodies, great banter, friendly welcome and a good time if you can contribute towards the beer fund. Another £4,000 and I’d be *really* happy and not only would I be happy, but a lot of other people would be very happy too! Do get in touch if you’d like to make that happen :)

Anyway, the important bit…

Our venue for the evening is Dostrece which is a two floor bar and restaurant – a ground floor and a chillout basement. Yes, that's right, a restaurant too! This means that they will be serving food from their normal menu until about 9pm so you'll get a chance to eat too if you want to. Prices are reasonable and it's a mix of Mexican, Spanish and Turkish flavours. @BCN_unlike reviews it here. We ate there last year and it was very tasty.

The venue holds about 300 or so folks at any one time so there’s plenty space for everyone. 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 wifi if you want to demo your latest iphone app.)

Doors will be opening at 6.30pm on Wednesday 17th February and we'll be open until late so there's plenty of time to drop by and enjoy the fun, meet interesting people and soak up the Swedish Beers vibe. There is no need to RSVP, but since there's a bar courtesy of our lovely sponsors, we will be distributing beer tokens on the night so you’ll have to look for the Swedish Beers crew and the lovely folks from Admob.

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 talk nonsense to strangers, enjoy a drink or five and have yourself a good time. Oh, and leave the ties at the door please.

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. 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.

We don't have a cloakroom so I don't recommend you bring your laptops with you - it's a liability in Barcelona I'm afraid. 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 17th February 2010, 6.30pm until we run out of steam
Where: Dostrece, Calle Carme 40, 08001 Barcelona

And of course, it couldn't happen at all without the generous support of our lovely sponsors, the first of which is Admob.

*Admob* Founded in 2006 (on my birthday as it happens!), AdMob is AdMob is one of the world's largest mobile advertising networks, offering solutions for discovery, branding and monetization on the mobile web, serving more than a gazillion mobile banner and text ads per month.

Their growing client list includes a diverse range of Fortune 500 brands like Ford, Coca-Cola, EA, P&G, Land Rover, MTV Europe, Adidas, and Paramount Pictures, as well as publishers that are pushing the boundaries of the mobile web like AccuWeather, BluePulse, CBS Mobile, EA, Flirtomatic, Hollywood.com, Peperonity, and TinyTube. Admob are the primary monetization and acquisition partner for thousands of companies.

Widely recognized as the world’s leading mobile advertising networks, Admob has won accolades from the Mobile Marketing Association, Ad Age, Business Week, Wired Magazine, and the World Economic Forum. Not bad eh!

Russell (genuine old skool mobilist and blogger), Andy, Jonathan and I suspect a few more from their crew will be around to hand out beer tokens and generally chew the mobile fat.

Hope to have more sponsors to announce soon as well! Get in touch if you’re interested

Skål

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CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK & TWITTER TOO
Join the group or follow us on twitter - you'll be in good company and can keep up to date with Swedish Beers events in London, Sydney and Barcelona.
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Technorati Tags: swedish beers,events,mwc,barcelona,party,networking,mobile networking,admob

Heroes of the Mobile Screen – 7 Dec 09 at the BFI Southbank, London

Some of you may be wondering what I’ve been up to of late. Well, if you have, then I can reveal to you that I’ve been working on a new conference, Heroes of the Mobile Screen, which is on next month on 7 December at the rather wonderful BFI on London’s Southbank. And I’d love for you to spread the word (like our wonderful media partners), buy tickets and join the conversation. And I’m afraid this has taken our attention for the last few weeks which means we’ve had to cancel November’s Swedish Beers London event. Hopefully, this will all make up for it as this will be the *must attend* conference followed by the *must attend* after party. Well you know I like a good party!

The team behind the conference, Isabel Fox, Neil Robertson, Carlo Longino, Dominic Travers and yours truly are also involved in running Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest events amongst other things.

The day-long event at BFI Southbank will differ from anything else around (at least that’s what we’re aiming for) and get the stakeholders of mobile involved in discussing the issues affecting them and their customers. Uniquely the event also has teenagers on stage to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen is already attracting a number of high calibre ‘heroes’ with speakers and panellists answering the call from around the world, including Kei Shimada, JP Rangaswami and Kevin Marks, Belinda Parmar, Julia Shalet, Doug Richard and Harald Neidhardt are all confirmed. The speakers are listed here and the agenda can be found here.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen opens with a keynote from Kei Shimada sharing his experience of what’s happening in Japan and what we can learn from that here in the West. And continues with four core pillars supporting discussion throughout the day.

The money
What's making money, who's making money and what's being invested in and where the money's going to be in the future? The answers to all the questions we want to ask of successful mobile service providers and VCs.

The impact of social/location
What is the impact of social media and location technology? What do customers want, what are the business models, what are the solutions to privacy issues. Carriers are placing their bets in this area, but will they pay off?

Teenage heroes
Led by digital youth marketing expert Julia Shalet (pictured left), this is a new format where we invite four companies to pitch their product, service or device live on stage to six teenagers and they tell us what they really think.

Real customers, real applications, real marketing
A double session with the first half covering customers and what they really want on mobile with a focus on women in particular with some new research and insight into what women want from Belinda Parmar of Lady Geek. The second half will cover mobile marketing and advertising, what's working, what's not and what's coming next.

I came up with idea around the event because we realised that most of the events I attend throughout the year all talk around the same subjects, with the same people and bring up the same issues, without resolution. It’s time for us to stop talking to ourselves, look out beyond our industry and make some changes for the better. I believe it’s important to engage our colleagues in marketing, web 2.0 and media as well as more of our mobile colleagues from throughout the value chain. The exciting stuff is going to happen when industries cross over – that’s where the innovation is. In putting the agenda together, we believe we have something that will appeal to a wide audience – whether you’re a director of marketing for an FMCG brand or a web developer toying with the idea of developing apps for android or iphone.  And to do that, we need to share real customer insight that we can use to make ours and others mobile lives better.

Tickets are now available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee) at http://mobileheroes.net . We’ve kept the price deliberately low and it’s subsidised by sponsors who we’ll be able to announce shortly.

If you’re interested in sponsoring the event in some way, please get in touch with me via email.

If you’re interested in pitching your gadget, application or service to our teenagers, please email Dominic Travers to put your name forward.

We are keeping a waiting list for potential speakers and panellists. If you’d like to be considered, please contact me.

So get your tickets now and become a fan on Facebook or follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/hotms too.

Technorati Tags: conference,mobile monday,mobile monday london,events,london,mobile media,mobile marketing,mobile applications,mobile network operators,learning,networking

For the record...

Swedish Beers is *not* at Belchica this year and nor is it on the Tuesday night of MWC. We still love Belchica, it's just not quite right for what we wanted this year.

So instead, we are holding it on Wednesday 18th February 2009 from 6.30pm at Dostrece which is just off La Rambla at C/ Carme 40, nearest Metro: Liceu.

Our sponsors are Admob, Palringo, Silverstreet and dotMobi.

If you spot any blogposts like this one saying otherwise, do tell them they've got it wrong.

Thanks and skål

Update: Very pleased to say that the lovely folks at Mobileslate have updated their party list. Hurrah to the power of the interwebz.