Local Social Summit: Connecting with Consumers where Local meets Social

I am one of the creators and thus organizers of what is shaping up to be an awesome conference next month in London at the ICA. For anyone interested in the intersection of local media and social networking this is an event not to be missed. The event microsite has the complete agenda and more details…  Here’s an overview of the event:

Local Social is an invitation-only summit for leading media owners (directories, news, TV, radio and social networking), retailers and advertisers who are driving digital innovation in the local and social media space across Europe.  We think this “local content meets social media” is an important area, and one that is under-explored.  The conference will look to open up debate across multiple industry sectors. With a focus on what works and what trends are emerging as local and social media continue to change how consumers engage with brands, content and each other.

The line up of speaker and panelists is shaping very nicely:

• Andrew Burke, CEO Amino Technologies
• Dr Bernie Hogan, Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute
• Greg Sterling, Internet/Mobile Analyst
• Jonathan Ewert, Co-Founder Skepsis Group
• Seb Provencher, Co-Founder Praized Media
• Sokratis Papafloratos, CEO TrustedPlaces
• Dave Ingram, CEO Brownbook
• Felix Petersen, Founder Plazes.com (Nokia)
• James Brown, CTO Cloudmade
• Paul McCrudden, of the #6weeks project fame
• Simon Greenman MD – Online, European Directories

I am particularly looking forward to Bernie Hogan’s (Oxford Internet Institute) talk on Facebook social networks and how to make sense of  it or now in this era of data feed overload. All the panels will be excellent for sure. There is a Social Media Marketing panel that is being moderated by my pal Mike Weston (Sandline blog). And we have the great blogger/Internet analyst Greg Sterling (Screenwerk) running two panels that will be world class.

At last count there were less than 30 spot left at this invitation only event. As a reader of my blog (all 5 of you) consider this an open invite and if you want to attend please sign-up here on eventbrite (and do it quick).

Here’s a glance of the agenda:

Agenda at a Glance -

Keynotes:

• “The Opportunity of Social Media”
• “Making sense of the networked audience: The case of Facebook”

Panels:

• Local Search & Monetisation – The View from Europe
• Local Gets Social – The Impact of User Generated Content and the Promise of Real-Time Search
• Social Media Marketing – The Rules are Changing
• Mobile – The Future of Apps is Bright

Plus a Lab looking at “What does the Perfect Local Media Company Look Like in 5 Years Time.”

Hope to see you there. It should be awesome. In the meantime if you have any questions or suggestions let me know.