BLOG

BLOG

The London superswarm team

When I started this project I knew I would not be able to do this type of event by myself and that I would meet / pickup / bump into / be approaced by the best people. And I was right. As this is to be a foursquare community driven activity, I did not want to put in place any marketing, public relations, event management or any other specialised support people who will just see this as a job or task. I wanted people who know foursquare and have already been very vocal about the experience an
BLOG

Challenge One - What style of event should we pick.

So let's get this clear, I have never organised a meet up or an event,so this is a challenge for me, but I think what we are trying to achieve is possible. While thinking through my strategy about creating a superswarm I came to the conclusion that there are two completely different approaches to the type of event: 1) Are you going to get people to come to a one off place and get your swarm together a little bit like organising a flashmob? 2) Piggy back on an event with a gathering
BLOG

What got me thinking

I don't really consider myself a geek or anytype of cutting edge guy, but i have enjoyed foursquare from very early on. Back in August 2009, i found myself looking over the apps market at the new stuff coming over from the USA and of course foursquare, gowalla etc. was the buzz. It was 4sqr that caught my eye.  I never really got into the mayor chasing game but did like the idea of seeing where the crowdsourcing data was telling me where people had been or where they are now.  I still envisage i
BLOG

The journey begins - how to get a foursquare superswarm badge

It's easy really, just get 250 people together in the same room with a smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Palm and even web enabled phones); get them all to check in over a three hour period and it's done - you get the happy badge: It's as simple as that. Or is it??? In the USA there have been a number of superswarm badges and the first 20 are listed here. But there has still not been one achieved in the UK. But we have big events. Even if we look at recent big gatherin
BLOG

London Bloggers @meetup #lbm - Are you in?

Are one of those people that is always wondering what blogging is all about?Then get to London Bloggers Meet Up this tonight. This mighty event has everyone in the blogging spectrum from East End Lass to Big Phil in PR.Amazingly it is lots of blogger people talking about blogging, so consider how interesting it is! I am ashamed to admit I had been in that nasty procrastination space that reaks of "I have been meaning to go" or "that looks interesting" for nearly a year (maybe two).What r
BLOG

‘Can you endorse me?’ #LinkedIn - What do you do?

Every so often I get a message in my LinkedIn inbox that that says ‘Can you endorse me?’ – My reaction is often that a little bit of me dies inside, you have spoilt the moment for me.I asked for recommendations at one point and I called or emailed everyone personally it was very important to me to do it that way. If someone calls me up and asks for help, explains the context of what they want I am happy to help, in this way I find I can get an ‘authentic sweet spot’ that I can talk to others abo
BLOG

How does the term 'Community' apply to YOU? Speak your mind here...

So there I was, sitting at the bar getting all excited about 'this community' when my conversation partner says - "you just made me think - it's not a community."   Exsqueeze me?I was so busy 'spilling my candy in the lobby' about community (honestly, if I could have picked up the phone and ordered a punch in the face for myself I would have) I was not really hearing the possibility in the project. To me it HAD to be community before it could function. Maybe it did not? It needed to move, evolve