Speaking to learned professionals…

I’m not sure what the exact crossover might be between the wonderful people spending time reading this blog and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, but just in case…

I’ll be speaking as part of a Seminar on July 7, 2009, Online CommunitiesWhat can scholarly publishing learn from other industries? The focus of my time is currently titled ‘Building successful communities to support successful media brands’, but that’s likely to be a starting point for showing how successful communities really are the brand.

It’s really interesting for a few reasons: -

Firstly it’s an industry I haven’t worked in, so I’m likely to learn as much from the people attending as they will from me.

Secondly, there’s a fun edge by allowing attendees to invest virtual money in investment opportunities presented by the speakers .

And thirdly, the other speakers are all people I’m going to be interested in meeting – Pam Sutherland from Oxford University Press (also the chair of the event), Alex Evans (CTO and Co-founder of Media Molecule – creators of LittleBigPlanet for the Playstation 3), Ros Lawler from Random House,  Phil Archer from W3C Mobile Web Initiative, Steve Paxhia from Beacon Hill Strategic Solutions and Gail Robinson from TSL Education Ltd.

So it’s going to be quite a challenge to claim the virtual money, but it’s one I’m ready for!