Swedish Beers Barcelona #15 - The Reunion Edition Wednesday 1 March 2023

Yes, that's right, we're back! Fighting fit and raring to go.

Despite having had to take an enforced break due to the pandemic and family responsibilities, and despite thinking I was done with the whole mobile networking event thing, and despite not deciding to go to Barcelona until a week ago, here I am, hosting another Swedish Beers party for you all during the week of Mobile World Congress. 

I'm both thrilled to bits and a little bit scared at the same time as I'm a bit out of practice. But with the outpouring of Swedish Beers love from so many people and amazingly supportive sponsors and friends, I'm delighted to tell you that we're back one more time. This one will be my 15th Swedish Beers party in Barcelona!

As usual, we'll be expecting a down-to-earth crowd of mobile execs from all areas of the industry keen to chew the fat about all things mobile over a drink or three. 

Our lead sponsor is World Mobile who have found an innovative way to connect the last mile for the half the planet who are currently unconnected. 

You do need to register to come and we reserve the right to ask for ID on the door. And if it's busy, there may be a short wait to get in. Please be patient with us if that happens. We will do our best to get everyone in.

What: Swedish Beers BCN #15 - The Reunion Edition

Where: Space Cowboy, Carrer dels Carders, 31, Barcelona 08003. 

Nearest metro: Jaume 1 / Urquinaona / Arc de Triomf

Time: 19.00 until late. Last entry 01:00

RSVP: Required - no entry without RSVP. ID may be required.

Food will be available to buy on the night.

Skal and see you there!

Helen and the Swedish Beers crew.

Swedish Beers celebrates 11 years of parties for mobilists!

I know, I can’t believe it either. Eleven years ago in October 2001, Swedish Beers started to bring together people who had an interest in mobile technology in an informal, friendly way. Well, we must be doing something right as we’re still here and plan to celebrate our birthday in style with a little help from our friends.

The party is AKA The 'I'm not at Dublin Web Summit' Edition or the 'I'm not in SF for TwilioCon' or even 'The 11th Birthday Bash' Edition as October is a busy month when it comes to mobile events.The nights are drawing in, there's a chill in the air and the leaves are falling from the trees. But fear not, Swedish Beers is 11 years young and celebrating its birthday in the usual format in London - no presentations, no formalities, no sales pitches, no ties - just friendly people chatting about mobile over a beer or three. Doors will be open from 6.30pm onwards at our regular haunt, The Nordic Bar.

Our lead sponsor once again is Millennial Media. And if you haven't met them already, they're specialists in premium mobile advertising and have a mobile advertising and data platform. They’ve recently been doing some very successful work in rich media advertising too so can tell you what works and what doesn’t in this burgeoning area of mobile advertising. They're a super-friendly bunch and are very knowledgeable too. And as lead sponsor (again! We’re very grateful), they'll have the most beer tokens ;) Look out for Gavin, Stephen and the rest of the team. http://millennialmedia.com/

They'll be ably supported by...

LoopMe was founded to solve the problem of making advertising less intrusive, more enjoyable, valuable and relevant for mobile consumers. At the right time and place, great advertising and offers can be great content. LoopMe puts consumers first, allowing them to be in control of their own advertising preferences and experiences. Rather than giving the game away here about how it actually works, I’ll leave mobile advertising veteran, Stephen Upstone and his LoopMe partners in crime to give you the low-down whether you’re an advertiser, publisher or developer. I’ve seen the app in action and it definitely has legs and is one of the few innovations I’ve seen in mobile advertising in some time. http://loopmemedia.com

Inspiring Interns - they're a recruitment company specialising in helping companies recruit interns and helping set-up and manage intern programmes. They also have years of experience in the world of mobile and are possibly the loveliest recruitment people out there. Yes, I'm biased, their founder, Ben, is a close friend of the Swedish Beers family. But they really do know their onions. Look out for Ben, Benedict, Sam, Charlie and Andrew for beer tokens. http://inspiringinterns.com/

Yuilop – their mission is simple: to make communication free, easy and for everybody – to – everybody – to any phone, anywhere in the world. Yuilop offers a free-to-all social communication app for all major mobile platforms integrating free calls (yuilip-to-yuilop) and free unlimited SMS text messaging with Facebook-Messenger. This is ad-supported without interfering with your outgoing messages. A free download on iOS and Android, reach any phone via voice, SMS or rich media in 110 countries and counting. Phil Gontier will be on hand to explain the ad-funded bit to you if you’re interested in understanding that better. Or he’ll be there just to chew the mobile fat with you and share the beer token love. http://yuilop.com

If you’re interested in joining these lovely companies as a fellow sponsor, please get in touch with Helen by email.

So to recap:

What - Swedish Beers Mobile Networking
When – Wednesday 17 October 2012 from 6.30pm
Where - Nordic Bar, Newman Street, London. Nearest tubes are Tottenham Court Road or Goodge Street.

RSVP - (optional but you might want to connect with people you know) over at Facebook and please bring a business card with you to get your first beer token. Sponsors will have the rest of the tokens so you’ll need to get chatting with them to get your hands on more. There are *plenty* to go around!

So spread the word, and come on down for a fun evening with friends old and new. You don’t have to be a mobile expert to join us. All welcome with a passing interest in mobile technology.

Skål
Helen, Jenny and the Swedish Beers crew

**********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 Swedish Beers FB group

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.

Oh what a night! The London Comeback Edition Round-up

Well, it seems to me that London was ready for a Swedish Beers night after all! It was a great night and a big thank you to all of you who joined in the fun. Many beers were supped and much mobile fat was chewed.

Kudos and a big thank you to our generous sponsors Millennial Media and Eagle Eye Solutions for the free drinks. They were joined by folks from all areas of the industry and far too many to name check them all - but included Vodafone, Openmarket, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Google/Android, Motorola, Mippin, BSkyB, We Love Mobile, BD Network, IPC Media, Ixonos, ITV, FT Conferences, Mindings, Digital Youth Project, MEF, Mobile Marketing Magazine, Disruptive Analysis, Brands2Life, IF, Speed Communications, Somo Agency, TeePee Games, BCM Solutions, Inspiring Interns, Propel London, Openfeint, Carrington Knight, Mobext, Telefonica, Clickslide, MePlease, PaperBag, Diary.com, Arcana Solutions, Closertag, Blippar, Zoonou, Dunnhumby, Bossa Studios, Bango, Miyowa, COI, In-Mobi, Longreach Mobile, Nuance and many, many more. It was great to see some familiar faces and to welcome new friends too. And I’m pretty sure there were a few sore heads in the morning.

And a *special* thank you to everyone involved in getting this particular show on the road, especially Jenny Hiley from We Love Mobile for being the catalyst to make the party happen again in London and for her help on the night alongside James Norris from Social Media Strategist, (who took all the photos), Gabriel Ortiz from Clickslide and student, Sofiana Dewi, and all the bar staff who did a great job of looking after us.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

And when’s the next one, I hear you ask…?

It’s our 10th birthday in October, yes TEN YEARS!! And subject to sponsorship, we’ll be doing a birthday bash. And again, subject to sponsorship, the annual party in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress. Get in touch if you’re interested in sponsoring.

And a quick reminder about those generous sponsors on Wednesday night…

Millennial Media

Millennial Media is a a mobile advertising platform whose mission is to cut through the clutter and deliver real results on mobile for clients. And they’re doing pretty well at it with around 142 million global mobile customers in over 250 countries across more than 10,000 sites and applications. Oh, and that covers over 5,500 mobile devices. That’s some reach. Oh, and a bunch of happy clients and partners to boot.

Eagle Eye Solutions

Eagle Eye Solutions is all about mobilising retail. They have a very neat mobile couponing and redemption solution that makes use of existing Credit Card Terminals and EPoS technology so you don’t have to change your systems. Working with the likes of High Street retailers like Oasis and Comet, maybe you could be next.

**********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)

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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

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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Skål

The Swedish Beers crew: Helen, Steve, Anton and Gillian