Great event combines my passion for social media and motorcycles

I’m pleased to say that I’ll be one of the speakers at Torque Social, which is a new social media event dedicated to the motorcycle industry. It runs from Thursday 9th February until Friday 10th February 2012 at The Manor House Hotel in Gloucestershire, and should be a fantastic event as it combines two of the biggest passions in my life – using new technology to benefit businesses and their customers, and motorcycles.

Incidentally, if you book before December 16th, 2011, you can save up to £124 on tickets. And in addition to the focus of the event on explaining how to get real returns on using social media and technology, there’s also a networking dinner and the chance to grab 1-to-1 sessions with the speakers, meaning you can come away with really specific advice and actions for your business.

Social Media is perfect for motorcycling:

Without wanting to give too many spoilers as to what I’ll be running a seminar on, it’s great to see the motorcycle industry starting to embrace social media as a way to engage with their customers. Motorcyclists are some of the most passionate, knowledgable, and enthusiastic people on the planet when it comes to spending time and money on their hobby, but also sharing their love with other people.

And there’s always been a social aspect, whether it’s ride-outs, bike meets, or the experience of being part of a convoy of hundreds of bikers heading to an event. And along with the usual age, location and other social strata, there’s the fact that motorcyclists handily tend to divide themselves into groups by the type of bike they ride, and often the make and model.

Add the fact that most bikers are also keen on gadgets and technology, hence the huge number of forums and messageboards that have been around for many years, and the fact biking often becomes part of life rather than a hobby, and you can see the massive opportunities, especially as motorcycling is often under pressure from outside forces, such as Government legislation.

Plus, bikes are cool.

 

RIP #58

The motorcycling world lost an extremely talented and charismatic racer today when 24-year-old Marco Simoncelli died following a tragic accident at the Sepang round of the MotoGP championship.
Simoncelli 4490

Having watched Senna recently, I wrote about the weird feeling of seeing the events again after watching them live so many years ago. But in that situation, it was the culmination of a documentary which followed the career of one of the greatest drivers in history.

Whereas most media channels have pulled any replays of the events today, as you’d expect, Youtube is full of clips of the frankly horrific accident, which involved two other riders colliding with Simoncelli. And there’s the occasional website which has decided to post the footage, such as Jalopnik, who claim they are doing it to show the risks of motorsport – despite the fact they’re a car website which has written about MotoGP racing roughly twice this year.

I’m torn between valuing the benefits of self-publishing, and the despairing at the people who abuse that opportunity for the sake of page views and noteriety.

And I’m torn within myself – when writing about Senna, I did look at footage on Youtube of the Ratzenberger crash earlier the same weekend, and also the footage of the accidents which claimed the lives of Shoya Tomizawa in Moto2 in 2010, and Daijiro Kato in MotpGP in 2003.

So should I be decrying the actions of others? Or accepting that a televised sport in which risk plays a large part of the attraction for both competitors and audiences will be instantly reproduced?

Perhaps my distaste comes from the fact that Simoncelli was easily my favourite rider from the current season, showing the same kind of talent and attitude that people like Kevin Schwantz displayed – winning or crashing with barely anything in between, and providing some interest in a year utterly dominated by the Repsol Honda team. It’s compounded by the fact that I was a huge fan of Kato, who had looked likely to become the first Japanese MotoGP champion prior to his death.

About the only certainties are that what appears to have been a freak accident has claimed a very talented individual. And that racers will still be competing against each other, and themselves next weekend and on into the future.

Senna

I watched Senna tonight – the first DVD I’ve bought in a while, and certainly the first I can remember buying on release day for a long, long time.

Watching the final seconds of onboard footage brought a lump to my throat, a feeling in the pit of my stomache and transported me back to being 17 and sat in the living room of the family house, watching the race live with my father.

It also brought home the fact that whereas the loss of Steve Jobs or Princess Diana etc were tragic events, the live nature of it made it akin to the JFK shooting for me personally. Even down to the search for the cause, whether on a grassy knoll or in the design of the Williams he was driving.

It’s weird, watching it now, as I’m close to turning 34 – the same age as Senna when he died. I’d known motor racing was dangerous long before when one of my first F1 heroes, Elio De Angelis, died in far more horrific circumstances, but that was during a testing session, so was far removed. And the death of Roland Ratzenberger just the day before had been tragic, but as a relatively new driver to F1, I hadn’t got the same longstanding fan relationship with him (even if patriotism often had me cheering for Mansell versus Senna, for example).

It also brought to mind racers since, on two and four wheels, from talented amateurs and those at the start of their career, to those competing at the highest level, and some of which I had the honour of meeting or occasionally actually chatting with. I’m not a talented enough writer to be able to justice to the passing of any of them, but  maybe someone else has;

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.