I know chinwag tends to be quite well respected - anyone got any ideas whether this will be halfway decent?

http://oursocialtimes.com/index.php/2012/06/book-your-place-at-facebook-marketing-2012-london-new-york-singapore/

Obviously very hard to guess without knowing speakers etc, but I some of their articles are pretty good, and I want to introduce a culture of people going to outside events a bit more here - we're need to get out more

Ive been on the chinwag email lists for about a decade or so now.

I still read pretty much every one of the mails that come through. I'd go simply knowing they are risking their name (chinwag) on the event.

This is interesting. I've never heard of Chinwag.

Going to search ...

> Going to search ...

I hope this helps - chinwag.com

I've never actually been to their site and it seems Sam and Co do a lot more than just the email lists I know them from. The email list that I think of when I say Chinwag is the UK net Marketing list, although it is much more than just a Brit list nowadays, there is an obvious UK online bias but its quite international ish in nature.

I'm also quite amazed but all the archives from 1998 onwards are online as well!

http://chinwag.com/lists/uk-netmarketing/old-archive/

It seems the list itself is older but Sam explains it well in the very first post archived there.

Quote

Subject:   UKNM: Welcome back...
From:   Sam Michel
Date:   Wed, 11 Feb 1998 01:49:52 GMT

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the delay in getting the UK Net Marketing list back up and
running, there have been a few trials and tribulations getting everything
sorted out. Fingers crossed everything will now work fine - although please
forgive any hitches, weird error messages, freak weather, stomach upsets,
or anything else you could possibly put down to this mailing list.

The list should continue to work exactly as before, except it should be a
good deal quicker, the whole thing being served by a dedicated mail
machine. Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement and cajoling for
getting this back up and running.

I'm still sorting out all the subscription, error messages and everything
else, so please bear with me for the next few days. In the meantime, if you
have any problems with the mailing list please send an email to:
owner@chinwag.com

To send email to the mailing list, send it to:

uk-netmarketing@chinwag.com

Currently the list is in individual mode only, the digest version has been
created and I'm just putting it through it's final paces. More news as it
happens...


Toodle Pip

Sam
-----------------------------------------------------
Webmedia Group, 21 Noel St, London, W1V 3RD
T: 0171 494 0812 F: 0171 434 1304 E: sam@webmedia.com
ICQ Pager: 4561042
Webmedia: http://www.webmedia.com
ShockeR: http://www.shocker.com

I've twice weaned myself off the uk-netmarketing list, and have been clean now for 3 years 

It was generally quite good, though I struggle to justify the time it saps from you daily.

> the time it saps from you daily

yes!

But that's so similar to other amazing and topical content sources. TW, WMW etc immediately come to mind.

well I've booked a couple of tickets, its cheap enough for a punt.

right - would recommend it, with a couple of reservations.

for the price (£200 earlybird) 22 speakers in 1 (long) day of social media was bloody good value for money. All but one speaker were interesting, most were good, and two or three were very good, at least in terms of inspiration and/or ideas to steal.

Sadly the one session I was most interested in was so poor that I genuinely think my junior has explained it better to a client, using far fewer words and much better practical examples, than the speaker did.

The big reservation is that it was weirdly pitched. There were a few people stating the bleeding obvious, in my view, who seemed to be targeting in house just starting out social media people, not anyone who actually does the work, although most off these did say at least one thing which prompted an idea or two.

There were the normal group of presenters talking theoretically about things. These are useful only if you have enough knowledge to fill in the gaps or enough confidence to how to apply it yourself.  There were some clear sales pitches disguised as information (although strangely one of these was hugely useful as it made me realise where we're missing a trick we can implement ourselves) and there were a lot of people bemoaning the fact that their clients aren't terribly 'sexy' so they have to work hard to get these results (clearly these people have never had a bad client in their life - if working with a FMCG client willing to alter their packaging and invest thousands in a campaign is hard work, I'd like to see them try it with some of ours!)

And I don't have the attendee list and didn't hang around for beers but two of the speakers are really useful contacts who I've arranged to talk about some clients with - probably worth the entry fee already

So.... well worth the cash. Decent day.  Lady from Cadbury provided free chocolate.  Recommend