Monday, November 28, 2011

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

happy_birthday_candles-2011Rather 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 The Mobile Marketing Agency - Orange

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 logo

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.

solo heroNot 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*