Social Media Week has reached an important milestone today for the September 19-23 conference, as we are proud now to reveal the first wave of confirmed events taking part in this simultaneous worldwide event.
This September’s event–powered by global headline sponsor Nokia–is the largest yet, taking place in twelve cities on four continents.
“Social Media Week is more than an event, it’s a movement. Such an innovative event that taps into the human networks of people across the world and encourages sharing and best practice will move us forward faster and more effectively than traditional event silos. Nokia is proud to be powering such an innovative movement through our #NokiaConnects solutions and helping people join the conversations and participate from every walk of life” says Craig Hepburn, Global Director, Social Media, Nokia
Learn how to get involved and take part in the global dialogue this September:
- Join The Community
- See What’s Happening
- Submit An Event
- Spark the Conversation
- Share Share Share!
Join The Community
Become a part of community by joining the Social Media Week network–go to socialmediaweek.org and sign up for a Social Media Week account. Signing up is an important step because it will allow you to:
a) Submit an SMW event
b) Save interesting events on the schedule to your personal “Favorites” list
c) Register to attend events when registration opens worldwide September 6 (it’s not open yet, sorry!)
d) Receive weekly updates from us on progress worldwide to make sure you know what’s going on and don’t miss any key updates
Signing up for an account is easy–just visit socialmediaweek.org and click “Login/Register” in the upper right hand corner. And if your name is already in the upper right hand corner, it means you’ve already signed up!

See What’s Happening
It’s still early and only the first wave of events have been made public today, but already there are a lot of great ideas confirmed for September and we’re excited to share them with you.
To see the entire global schedule for Social Media Week this September, go to socialmediaweek.org and click the “Schedule” button to see what’s confirmed so far, or else go to http://socialmediaweek.org/schedule/. To see city-specific lists, choose your preferred location from the drop down menu.
Registration to attend events begins on September 6, but as stated above, for now you can choose events you are interested in and “Save to Favorites”
Here’s a handful of our favorites so far from the early confirmations:
Social Buzz Awards (SMW Glasgow)
Social Buzz Awards are launching to celebrate and reward the best in social media communications in the UK and will recognise the individuals, companies and organisations who are transforming the use of online to communicate with people in new and innovative ways. The judging is set to take place in Glasgow as part of Social Media Week Glasgow. The list of judges includes well known names from Google, Tesco, and BBC.
Improvised Innovation: The Second City and The Chicago Tribune (SMW Chicago)
A 150 plus year old powerhouse newspaper and a 50 plus year old legendary comedy institution wouldn’t seem to have much in common, but a closer look at the two companies and their unique partnership provide a fascinating look at how the landscape of new media has fostered unprecedented collaborations and innovation.
Berlin Election: Who won the social media election? (SMW Berlin)
The Berlin city-state elections will be held on September 18. On September 19 Social Media Week will assemble a panel of experts to analyze the impact of social media on the vote. Did any issues arise via social media? Did any candidate use it well, or badly? Was it an influence at all, and if not, why not? What does the pattern of social media use in the Berlin election tell us about the forthcoming federal election in 2012? Supported by Projekt Zukunft.
Travelling Inside of Innovation (SMW Milan)
A whole train (11 couches, 600 people) will go from Rome to Milan as a traveling “innovation lab”, a unique experience at 300 km per hour. Attendees will have a chance to meet experts, investors and digital media with the Speed Business formula (15 min turnover). Upon arriving at the Press Conference in the Royal Room at the Central Station in Milan and the first Italian Digital Mission. Sponsored by Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (national railway company). See the Milan team’s last SMW train voyage here.
Tim Wright of Twintangibles and city partner lead for Glasgow said, “We are getting really excited about what is happening for Social Media Week in Glasgow because already we seem to be well on course to hit one of our key targets – diversity. We want Glasgow to demonstrate the breadth of impact social media and mobile communications is having through diversity of topic, venue, participants, hosts and event types and we are getting bowled over on every one of those fronts. We will have tweetups, flashmobs, workshops, seminars and speaker-led events to really cover the map.”
Submit An Event
Join Google, Ford, BBC, Financial Times, and more to get involved and position your organization at the center of the conversations impacting your industry. Give your organization the opportunity to facilitate dialogue around a pressing theme or topic by hosting an event in your city.
If you’re looking for inspiration on planning your event, go here and here to get some ideas from us on how to put together something new and fresh and outside of the traditional event framework.
Spark The Conversation
The power of Social Media Week is driven by the way you (the SMW community) participates with your ideas, knowledge and creativity. Help to shape the conversation and define the experience in your city by nominating yourself or someone else as a speaker.
How else can you get involved? As an open and collaborative platform, Social Media Week provides many other ways to join the dialogue by providing in-kind service, sponsoring events, joining the editorial team, or volunteering to help out local city organizers.
Visit the global Get Involved to learn more.
Share Share Share!
We would love it if you can continue spreading the word to help galvanize your local Social Media Week community to take part and get involved today. Use the links at the top of this post to share with your communities on Facebook and Twitter!
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Thanks for again for your interest and support. The next major milestone takes place September 6, when people around the world will be able to start registering for events. Look for more updates on this milestone in the weeks to come.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook for real-time updates.






Beginning September 13th, people from all corners of the social media landscape – celebrities, activists, bloggers, artists and more – will be invited to record and submit their personal interpretations of the Twelethon’s tagline, ‘Express Yourself: Creativity Matters.’ Submitted videos can be up to three minutes in length and will display the variety of ways people express themselves creatively; from a tap dance to a short film to a few jokes…even finger painting with their kids. Amateurs and professionals alike will commingle on Twelethon.com with both recorded content, livestreamed performances and an ongoing live feed from the event’s Creativity Room in Hollywood.

