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.

Today we are thrilled to announce the (nearly) final locations for the next edition of Social Media Week (SMW) this September 19-23, 2011 and, most importantly, details on how you or your company can Get Involved in the global event.The initial lineup of seven confirmed locations announced in April included returning cities Milan, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and São Paulo, plus new entrants from Rio de Janeiro and Moscow.  Today we are adding four additional cities, beginning with returning city Los Angeles, and new cities Vancouver, Beirut, and Glasgow.

With these additions, SMW September 2011 will take part in eleven cities across four continents, offering a great diversity in both geographic and cultural locations.  There is still a possibility that one or two more cities may be confirmed, but as of today we are not accepting any new city applications for September.  If you wish to apply to host in February 2012, you can do so here.

Social Media Week Timetable
Following on from today’s announcement, here’s an overview of some important dates and milestones between now and the September conference:

• May 11: Get Involved Announcement - “Get Involved” in SMW September 2011 (sponsors, media partners, speakers, event hosts, venue providers, etc.)
• June 14: Event Submission – Local Event Proposal Submission Opens (submit an event idea, or theme or topic that you would like to see covered)
• July 6: City Agendas Announced – Initial Programs in Each City To Be Shared (early look at the agenda’s and program outline in each city)

Note: These dates and milestones are subject to change.  We will provide more detail in the coming weeks/months.

Over the next two and a half months each of our Social Media Week cities will begin activating their communities and kicking off the ideation process around the events, themes and topics that they want to cover during the week.

In the past, our partners around the world have brought incredible creativity to their events and helped to shape programs that are both diverse from a content standpoint and also exciting from an experiential perspective.  Some of the most exciting and fulfilling of these collaborations include: SMW Rome kicking off with a commandeered train ride and event from Milan to Rome train sponsored by Ferrovie della Stato (the Italian Railways); the Ogilvy-hosted Ideas Pop-up Shop at SMW London; the virtual/global Nokia Connects web application; the SMW New York Business, Media & Communications Hub at JWT; Bonin Bough of PepsiCo’s three city SMW tour of London, Sao Paulo, and New York; and SMW Bogota’s Open Day at the Casa de Editorial at El Tiempo.

PepsiCo’s Bonin Bough speaks to Shelly Palmer about Social Media Week

As an open and collaborative platform, Social Media Week provides many additional ways to participate, including curating and hosting events, speaking and presenting, designing workshops, sponsoring campaigns, parties and mixers, facilitating interviews, providing editorial coverage, providing custom design and web development, volunteering staff and participating on the local committees and city advisory boards.

Wrap-up overview of Social Media Week Rome

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of some of the ways you and your organization can participate:

• Host an event: Join the ranks of Google, the BBC, New York Times, MTV, JWT, MoMA, Edelman, and others who have all hosted events at their space during previous conferences.
• Volunteer: Join the host committee in your city, work at the events, support the communications team, help with outreach.  There are many ways to get involved individually.
• Provide in-kind products/services to attendees: Much like Foursquare, Livestream and Mobile Roadie, your company could provide services to SMW attendees that enhance and improve their experience.
• Speaking opportunities: Do you have domain specialism?  Do you want to share your ideas with a broader audience?
• Sponsor an event: While many events will place throughout each city during the week, sponsored events receive additional promotion and curatorial assistance from the local and global SMW teams, giving your brand or organization even more opportunities to connect and engage with an audience of hyper-social influencers.
• Sponsor SMW Globally or Regionally: Want to reach an even broader or global audience? Unveil a campaign or series of events across multiple destinations? Get the highest level of visibility and dedicated support from SMW with a global sponsorship.

Of Social Media Week, Bonin Bough, Global Director of Social and Digital Media for PepsiCo, has said, “Social Media Week is a truly global phenomenon—showcasing borderless brands and communications, via the power of social media. We are proud to have been an integral partner—with PepsiCo employees contributing to discussions and idea exchanges on three continents and there, demonstrating the depth and breadth to which digital media is permeating our company.”

With nine cities and 30,000 worldwide attendees participating in February 2011’s Social Media Week, it seems almost hard to believe that Social Media Week can continue to grow with each successive outing; but with eleven cities on-board for September 2011 and a global community that grows larger by the day, all signs indicate the next edition will be the biggest Social Media Week yet.

Social Media Week Global Wrap Up Video (February 2011)

If you have any questions about Social Media Week or getting involved, please contact Ben Scheim at ben@crowdcentric.net for more information.

To register, simply visit socialmediaweek.org, pick a city and click on schedule.

There are nine cities participating in Social Media Week–powered by global headline sponsor Nokia–this February. Registration will be going live over the course of today in New York, London, Paris, Rome, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and São Paulo. Please note that Toronto and San Francisco will be going live with registration later in the week and in each city, more events will be added over the coming weeks.

The initial agendas began to take shape in December, and anticipation has grown as each city’s continues to share more of their program. Now, with four weeks to go before Social Media Week begins, we are proud to begin our pre-release of a limited batch of tickets for the events that have been confirmed so far.  For all of you early adopters out there chomping at the bit to secure your opportunity to participate in the largest, most inclusive and unique event of its kind in 2011, now is the time to choose which events you will be attending.

Learn More About Registering For Events

So, to cut to the chase, you might be asking now: How do I find out what events I can register for today? To see what is going on in your city and to sign up to reserve your place, simply choose your local SMW city from the banner at the top of this page and then click on your city’s “Schedule” tab below (or it might say “Agenda” or “Programme” if you are in Rome, Paris, or São Paulo).

From here, you will see a display of all the events currently confirmed on that city’s Social Media Week calendar. Then just find the event you want to register for, click through, and Voila!, you will be signed up and registered for the event thanks to the power of Amiando, official SMW Scheduling and Event Management Partner. You’ll note that some of these events are still not open for registration, but the rest of the schedule will follow within the next two weeks.

A sampling of some of the exciting activities taking place around the world include:

• WikiLeaks on Online Civil Disobedience, presented by Personal Democracy Forum (New York)
• Tips to Build Brand Relationships Amidst the Social Media Clutter, presented by MTV & Text 100 (New York)
• Idea Shop Social, hosted by Ogilvy Group UK: free 90 minute sessions at a secret location to be announced this week (London)
• Internet, Attack to the Power: The World after Wikileaks, featuring Pirate Bay Cofounder Peter Sunde (Rome)
• Navigating China’s Online Space, hosted by impactasia (Hong Kong)
• Direct Channel: Company vs Consumers, featuring Fiat and other brands (São Paulo)
• User Experience (UX) in Mobile Social Networking, hosted by Galatarasary University (Istanbul)
• Gamify Me: How Game Mechanics are Infiltrating Brand Marketing, hosted by JWT (New York)

Check out each city’s schedule to learn more!

Why do I have to register for each event individually?

We get asked this question a lot.  As you will notice when looking over the schedules each event is unique in its own right and focuses on a specific topic or theme.  We believe that by encouraging people to register for specific events, we will attract a more committed, engaged and targeted audience.  Also, it’s worth noting that more than 95% of Social Media Week events are completely free to attend and while we do not charge, we do expect our attendees to think carefully about which events they wish to attend and register accordingly.

How Do I Add MY Event To Social Media Week?

It’s important to keep in mind that while a huge amount of programming in each city is now confirmed and scheduled, there are still opportunities to add events and get involved in other ways everywhere.

As an open and collaborative platform, Social Media Week provides many ways to ‘Get Involved’ including curating and hosting events, speaking and presenting, designing workshops, facilitating interviews, sponsoring events, providing editorial coverage, and volunteering to participate on the local host committees.

There are opportunities for every organization and individual to get involved this February, on both a global and local level:

• Host an event: You could join the ranks of Sony, New York Times, MTV, Drop.io, JWT, Razorfish, MoMA, Porter Novelli, and others who have all hosted events at their space during previous conferences
• Volunteer: Join the host committee in your city, work at the events, support the communications team, help with outreach.  There are many ways to get involved individually
• Provide in-kind products/services to attendees: Much like Foursquare, Livestream, Pegshot, Mobile Roadie, your company could provide services to SMW attendees that enhance and improve their experience
• Sponsor an event: There will be at least 500 events taking place across the all the participating cities.  Through these events, your brand can connect and engage an audience of hyper-social influencers
• Speaking Opportunities: Do you have domain specialism?  Do you want to share your ideas with a broader audience?

Follow the links below to learn more (event teams in parantheses):

Get Involved: Globally

Or Get Involved Locally! (city organizer in parantheses)

• Get Involved: New York (Crowdcentric)
• Get Involved: London (Chinwag)
• Get Involved: San Francisco (FutureWorks)
• Get Involved: Paris (La Netscouade)
• Get Involved: Rome (Augmendy)
• Get Involved: Toronto (Entrinsic)
• Get Involved: São Paulo (SixPix Content)
• Get Involved: Hong Kong (Impactasia)
• Get Involved: Istanbul (McCann Istanbul)

Support from corporate partnerships, both globally and locally, allows Social Media Week to provide hundreds of free events worldwide for its audience of hyper-social influencers. In addition to global headline sponsor NOKIA, other global supporting sponsors of Social Media Week including PepsiCo, JWT and Meebo.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.  For real-time updates follow @socialmediaweek on Twitter and get notified when new events are added to the schedule by signing up to our mailing list here.

The Official Must-Have App Of Social Media Week: The Mobile Roadie Social Media Week App!

DOWNLOAD THE APP HERE FOR IPHONE AND ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEMS: http://mobileroadie.com/apps/smw

The Social Media Week App powered by Mobile Roadie will allow you to navigate through through the September 2010 experience right from your mobile phone! Through the power one app, explore and connect with all five SMW cities: Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Mexico City and Milan.

With the Mobile Roadie Official Social Media Week app, you can:
-Via the EVENTS tab: Review the schedule for each city and see details about events
-Via the FAN WALL tab:

• Post pictures and see photos and comments posted from all around the world (let’s blown this one out!)
• Post on the SMW app global wall
• See SMW app users from around the world and find users near you

-Read NEWS via the SMW BLOG
-Follow tweets across each cities via RECENT ACTIVITY.
-Receive real-time updates on events and Social Media Week related news via push notifications.
-Via PHOTOS tab, check out the most recently posted SMW Flickr photos.
-Via UStream tab, watch streams events via Ustream.
-And much more!

We are really excited about the great power of this app and implore you all to make sure to download it and use throughout the week to stay connected to everything Social Media Week taking place around you. Find it here or by searching “mobile social media week” in the iTunes App Store.

Mobile Roadie is a turn-key platform to quickly and inexpensively build and manage mobile apps. They have built apps for Madonna, Taylor Swift, the Miami Dolphins and many more. Check them out at mobileroadie.com.

The Paley Center for Media–formerly the Museum of Television & Radio–with locations in New York and Los Angeles, is a leader in discussions about the cultural, creative, and social significance of television, radio, and emerging platforms for the professional community and media-interested public. Through their host of public programs, including PaleyFest, InsideMedia and DocFest, offer fans and enthusiasts of media the chance to see screenings of their favorite programs and listen to in-depth discussions explaining on what goes on behind the scenes. On the other side, their Industry Programs provide the opportunity for media business executives to get together to debate and discuss pressing issues facing all spectrums of media, communications and technology, through over forty annual events in their Media Council and International Council series.

For Social Media Week last February in New York, the Paley Center served host to the SMW Global Press Conference as well two panels on branding and social CSR (click for links to videos of each session). Thanks to the great generosity of the Paley Center in Los Angeles and its Executive Director Craig Hitchcock, this September they will again host three events, detailed below:

Monday, September 20, 9-11am
Social Media Week Global Press Conference

RSVP here: http://smwopeningpress.eventbrite.com/

Join Toby Daniels, Founder and Executive Director of Social Media Week; Erick Brownstein, Lead Organizer for Social Media Week LA,  and the other four Social Media Week city partners; along with Pip Marquez de la Plata, SVP of Marketing for Meebo, and other Social Media Week partners and advisory board members for a press briefing to kick off the global conference.

In addition to providing highlights for the week and showcasing what is happening in each of the participating cities, the organizers will also be making a number of very important announcements.

Wednesday, September 22, 8:30-10:30am
Hollywood Gets a Social Makeover, sponsored by the Financial Times

RSVP here: http://smwfinancialtimes.eventbrite.com/

The new ages of digital and social platforms have brought exciting changes in the way audiences interact and connect with their entertainment.  This conversation will explore how Hollywood studios and other global media companies are using digital and social media to advance their businesses and reach new audiences, seizing on opportunities and managing challenges posed by new platforms.

Matthew Garrahan, Los Angeles Correspondent for the FT, will moderate the discussion, and panelists include:

• Tom Lesinski, President, Paramount Digital Entertainment
• Jake Zim, Vice President of Digital Marketing, 20th Century Fox
• Courtney Holt, President, MySpace Music
• Ross Levinsohn, Managing Partner, Fuse Capital

Wednesday, September 22, 7:00-9:00pm
Social Entertainment Platforms, featuring FunnyOrDie.com

RSVP here: http://smwfunnyordie.eventbrite.com/

Funny-or-Die CEO Dick Glover will lead this evening event that will explore the creative, monetization and audience building strategies required to build successful social entertainment platforms.

In what will be a highly charged, fun and creatively fueled debate, Dick and five other speakers will participate in a head-to-head debate over the course of three 15-minute rounds.  Each speaker will have a chance to ask their counterpart three pre-prepared questions.  A moderator will be on hand to judge the fairness of the questions and directness of each speakers responses.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Dick Glover, CEO, Funny-Or-Die
• Seth Sternberg, CEO and Cofounder, Meebo
• Scott Ehrlich, CEO, Agility Studios
• Larry Tanz, President, Vuguru Media
• And more to come!

Please check out these events as each–especially the two panels–should be truly fantastic. And thanks to The Paley Center for Media for once again partnering with us on Social Media Week this year!

Consisting of one part talent show, one part non-profit and many parts social media, Twelethon.com will wrap the mission of raising funds for a downtown Los Angeles Inner-City Arts organization around the dynamic concept of a creative content hub throughout Social Media Week this September 20-24. Inner-City Arts, site of the SMW Opening Party on Monday evening, has been an oasis of creativity and learning in the heart of LA’s Skid Row since 1989, and Social Media Week LA is very enthusiastic about working with them on this project.

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.

“Creativity inspires creativity and we’re hoping for a snowball effect of creative expression, ultimately inspiring people to support Inner-City Arts with a financial donation,” explains Erick Brownstein, founder of The New Agency and lead organizer of Social Media Week Los Angeles. “The beauty of the Twelethon and social media in general is that it can provide an open platform inviting participation from the young and the old, the famous and the aspiring, the talented and the…inspired.”

Adds Inner-City Arts President and CEO Cynthia Harnisch: “We are thrilled to be working with Social Media Week Los Angeles on Twelethon.com. Our organization was founded on a belief in the power of creativity and innovation and the Twelethon beautifully captures that spirit.”

‘The Twelethon site is produced and powered by the generous efforts of LA city partner Simian/Volta Media. You can check Simian out at gosimian.com.

Please take the time to find out more about this project at Twelethon.com and we encourage you to contribute in whatever way you are able. For more information, please contact SMW LA coordinator Dawn Sinko at Dawn@TheNewAgency.com.

Ben Scheim is vice president of partnerships and communications for Crowdcentric and a director of Social Media Week. Please reach out to him if you are interested in discussing brand partnerships or sponsorships for Social Media Week. He can be reached at ben@crowdcentric.net.

As the European representative of Social Media Week this September 20-24, Milan represents an exciting piece of the Social Media Week pie. Below is an overview of some of the highlights of Milan’s schedule, which you can see in full here.

Social Media Week Milan launches with more than forty events organized by Augmendy (promoter of the SMW Italian edition) as well as companies, professionals and “social media lovers”.

The Urban Center, located in the very main heart of the city, between the renowned Duomo and the Teatro alla Scala, will be the headquarters of the event. There social breakfasts, presentations, debates and video calls with the other Social Media Weeks around the world will take place alongside “The Future Exhibition”, a permanent exhibition of technology and innovation.

The opening event of Social Media Week Milan will be Città 2.0 (City 2.0), focusing on the contribution that social media can give to make the metropolis of Milan more livable and sustainable.

But Milan is also a city of style, and so on the heels of Fashion Week, Milan’s Social Media Week will present a fashion event as well. Social Fashionista is a happy hour that will put together the most influential fashion bloggers on the Italian web scene, to confront and discuss current trends in the world of fashion social media.

Social Media Week Milan is warming up and many more events are in preparation. Check out the entire schedule at milan.socialmediaweek.org, and more details will be published soon on the official SMW Milan blog, Twitter and Facebook. And if you are interested in getting involved, go here!

Ben Scheim is vice president of partnerships and communications for Crowdcentric and a director of Social Media Week. Please reach out to him if you are interested in discussing brand partnerships or sponsorships for Social Media Week. He can be reached at ben@crowdcentric.net.

Today we will focus on Los Angeles, the largest of the five Social Media Weeks this September, and the global headquarters for the week.

With over fifty events on the schedule already, the only proper word to describe Social Media Week LA would be massive. While there’s no way we can fairly cover everything set to take place during the week, we’d like to offer you a quick overview now of some–but by no means all–of the highlights for the week. Check out the Los Angeles city page and the LA schedule to learn more!

The Inner-City Arts Twelethon
The Inner-City Arts Twelethon is without doubt one of the most significant pieces to the week, and is significant enough that it deserves its own separate post. Serving as a platform to benefit Inner-City Arts (ICA), for over twenty years ICA has been an oasis of learning, achievement and creativity for under-served children in the heart of Skid Row. The “Twelethon” is the fund-raising component running throughout the entire week. From the opening press conference at 9am on Monday morning to the closing party on Friday night and every event in between, we will use the conference as a platform to generate awareness about the crisis of creativity in the educational system and raise funds to support arts and learning.  More to come on this event on the global and LA city SMW blogs, but please contact LA city partner Erick Brownstein to learn more.

Opening Party
At the Inner-City Arts campus, we will be joined by Sir Ken Robinson and others to officially kick-off Social Media Week. We will call attention to the Twelethon, the virtual telethon that will be running all week to raise awareness about the crisis of creativity, to generate support for arts and learning and to raise funds for ICA.

The Future of the Social Web, sponsored by Meebo
In a future where an individual’s social graph will be entirely portable, a future where users can connect to each other from their websites and others, and advertisers can interact with consumers within this environment, what are the new approaches to design, content optimization and advertising experience? Brought to you by Social Media Week Global Gold sponsor Meebo, this session will be presented by their CEO Seth Sternberg and facilitated by top design thinkers, in a highly interactive, experience-based workshop. The workshop will call upon leading figures from the spheres of design, content, and advertising to explore questions for how we can each can contribute to a richer and more connected social web.

Listening & Engaging with the Public: Political Process in Social Media
At City Hall’s prestigious Bradley Hall, this event will focus on how government uses social media to shape policy with their constituencies. Panelists will include city, state and federal government strategists and agency representatives.

Democracy Video Challenge Film Screening
With the US State Department, a screening hosted by the Director’s Guild of America of the six winning Democracy Video Challenge entries.  The Democracy Video Challenge is part of an initiative which empowers a global online audience to share their views on democracy by completing the phrase “Democracy is….”

CleanTech LA and Venture Capital
Industry panel discussing the application of social media platforms in the clean technology field.  Panelists will range from established social media cleantech groups to new clean tech initiatives seeking to capitalize on social media techniques.  This event will provide tremendous exposure to the Los Angeles Clean Technology community.

Location-Based Marketing: To Checkin or not to Checkin
This highly focused event will explore the potential of location-based marketing as a new channel. What’s in it for consumers? What’s in it for marketers? Companies present include DoubleDutch, MyTown, PlacePop, Stickybits and Whrrl.

Startup Demo
Hosted by Schmoozd, TechZulu and AsAble.com, StartupDemo is an opportunity for early stage startups to showcase their new products and/or services.  Founders use StartupDemo as an opportunity to get frank feedback from VCs, angels, peers and the technolust.

Live Nation at the House of Blues presents, “The Next Stage of Engage – Bringing Online Live Music Communities to Life”
A live whiteboard session with industry leaders from multiple touch points to live music fans. We will brainstorm how to connect the dots between: artist-to-fan direct, content sites, interactive platforms, venue operations and more.

Biomimicry: Social Media & Science
- A small group of graduate science students from USC’s Viterbi School pursuing careers in science journalism teleconference with a class at Stony Brook University in New York.  They will use an improvisation ‘game’ based on biomimicry to explore the productive paths for science journalism careers in a networked world.

Brands Engaging on the Social Web
Two panels will explore themes relevant to brands engaging with customers online:

• Brand Assassins: Proactive defense: Social media provides brands with amazing opportunities to connect with consumers outside of traditional advertising. However, the new online landscape also creates additional risk for businesses online.
• Building a Connected Brand: A Case Study in Integrated Marketing: This panel will explore the strategies and results around a very successful and fully integrated online campaign from Avery Office Products. Attendees will learn how Avery has personified the concept of a Connected Brand to bring the strengths of analytics, SEM, social, and display to the forefront of their marketing plan in new and innovative way

And this is just a starting list of the over fifty events taking place during the week. Again, check out the Los Angeles city page and the LA schedule to learn more, and go here if you want to get involved!

Ben Scheim is vice president of partnerships and communications for Crowdcentric and a director of Social Media Week. Please reach out to him if you are interested in discussing brand partnerships or sponsorships for Social Media Week. He can be reached at ben@crowdcentric.net.

Along with Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Bogota complete a trifecta of Latin American cities featured in this edition of Social Media Week, all lead by Andres Barreto and the Socialatom team. City leads for Mexico City are Antonio Salgado Leiner and Fernando Soto, and Rafael Bayona is leading the charge in Bogotá.

About Social Media Week’s involvement in this fertile region of ideas and people, Andres has this to say: “We are very excited to see this event happen in Latin America, as not only brands, but also educational institutions, media outlets, and entrepreneurs come together to share best practices that open up a wave of opportunities for the region as a whole.”

There are still ways to participate in Social Media Week in each of these cities beyond attending events, so make sure to check out the Mexico City and Bogotá pages to learn more, or go here to get involved: Mexico City / Bogota.

There are many more announcements to come in the weeks ahead, so keep checking back to socialmediaweek.org to learn more!

Many thanks to the tireless efforts of Buenos Aires city partner María del Carmen Lara Dillon and the Socialatom team (run by leader Andres Barreto) for pulling everything together. Social Media Week Buenos Aires launches with over twenty events confirmed already and many more in the works–hopefully reaching thirty or more by September 20. Events will be taking place all over Buenos Aires at locations like Universidad de Palermo, Ciudad Cultural Konex, and featuring the contributions of partner organizations like Samsung, and media partner C5N.

Check out the Buenos Aires city page to learn more or go here to get involved. Tomorrow we will release the schedules for our last two cities, Mexico City and Bogota, so check out socialmediaweek.org to hear the announcements as they happen!