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.

 

Virtual storytellers conference begins November 11

Whether you’re interested in Transmedia storytelling, content marketing, or just creating compelling content that might engage more of your audience, then there’s an interesting two week virtual conference about to kick off which might be useful.

The Reinvention Summit takes place over two weeks, and as it’s virtual, the costs are low, with basic access at $11.11. And for that you get 30+ hours of content, online collaboration and downloadable material, with a healthy range of speakers contributing, some of whom you may well recognise from some big online sites and projects.

There’s a free ebook available, a Twitter account at @GetStoried, and the #reinvention hashtag to follow.

It’s an area in which I’ve obviously got a big interest, as my specialities are in content creation and marketing. I’m a big believer in your story as your brand – and in that being visible as your brand belief. And in the power of compelling content to drive engagement as well as traffic…

Interested in mobile or internet privacy and security?

If you have any interest in security and privacy on the internet and mobiles (and security is always increasing in importance as more of our lives become so heavily integrated with the digital world), then it’s worth taking a look at what’s coming out of the Black Hat Conference taking place in America at the moment.

There are some really interesting presentations by people looking to raise discussion and awareness on a range of security issues, including being able to eavesdrop on mobile calls with equipment costing $1500, reading RFID tags from over 200 ft away, or hacking ATM machines to let them spit out cash for you. Plus a lot of debate and discussion about how companies and governments can improve security, or nations investing in cyberwarfare.

VentureBeat appears to have just about the most comprehensive and readable coverage, and it’s something we should all be trying to become more aware about. Not only is it important for your personal information and data, and to be aware of what companies and governments are capable of doing – but as we’re the more digitally-aware percentage of the global population, we need to be able to explain these things in simple and accessible ways to those less aware than ourselves…

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Don’t forget Social Media in Business this Friday…

The Social Media in Business conference takes place this Friday in London, and you can still save on the already reasonable price of a ticket to the one day event (£161) , by using the discount code MAFIADAN when you order for 15% off.

There’s a great line-up of people, and I’m still hoping to attend (work schedule permitting!). I wrote more about the line-up in a previous post.