Private Social Networking

Date: 23^rd June 2011

Venue:  Innovation Warehouse

Directions: Smithfields - London  

Time: 18.00 - 21.30 (staring about 18.45)

Tickets: £35+VAT

When you observe something once it is an outlier, twice is lucky but the third time it is a trend.

Social networks by their very nature are public and open. Venture money and marketeers like open, big & public as the numbers tend to add up.   With 10% of the world's population now on one big network (and the same 10% on numerous other small ones) where are the other 90%? Do they go for niche private social networks oriented to their specific need?

Here are several that need to be categorized and put into a fancy four quadrant matrix (enterprise, family, collaboration, messaging) Flink12, SocialGo, ChatterTree, Yammer, Beluga (Facebook) and Disco (Google) and we are yet to be convinced whether privacy is the issue that will drive niche or actually a desire to find value for individuals!

An issue for those who join the small ones is that they may miss out on the ease of connection and have their data in a stove pipe that prevents it creating value (but that may be the aim). 

Therefore this mashup* event is going to focus on whether the value for individuals lies in private or public and where public networks are going...

Speakers

Dominic Wheatley, SocialGo 

Dominic founded Bright Things in September 2004. Before starting Bright Things, Dominic had considerable executive management experience in the video games industry. He co-founded Domark in 1984, a video games company that he later reversed into Eidos. In 1992 Dominic established Domark's US subsidiary in California. The company changed its name and Dominic served as CEO of Eidos Interactive until 1997. He then became an investor in various companies, some of which he joined as a Director and helped float on the London Stock Exchange (Statpro plc, Kuju plc, and Telecom Plus plc). He also has commercial interests in France. 

Julian Ranger, DADapp.com

Julian Ranger, a Chartered Engineer (CEng), has been an angel investor since 2007 and an entrepreneur since he formed his first business, STASYS, in 1986. Julian grew STASYS to a £17m+ business with 230 staff with subsidiaries in the US, Australia and Germany before selling it to Lockheed Martin in 2005.
 
Julian has invested in a number of diverse technical and software businesses (see www.jranger.com).  He also continues his entrepreneurial activities with his new business DAD (www.dadapp.com) and also at his innovation hub, iBundle (www.ibundle.co.uk), where he invites start-up entrepreneurs who are looking for backing and advice to contact him.

Steve Dale, The Knowledge Hub

 Most recently, Stephen has been engaged as the lead consultant and product architect for the LG Group’s Knowledge Hub, an innovative product that connects communities of practice with data applications and market intelligence. Knowledge Hub is being built using open source software on an open platform to enable local authorities and their partners to develop their own value added solutions to support greater transparency of information and data that will help strengthen accountability and benefits to citizens. More than just an IT solution, the Knowledge Hub is a far-sighted resource that could lead to a major cultural change in the public sector.

Stephen's current and previous clients include Creative Partnerships, 3i plc, Reuters Ltd, Papillon Technology, East Kent Hospitals University Trust, Kent County Council, East Lindsey District Council, the Department for Works and Pensions, the Cabinet Office, the Home Office, Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the Central Office of Information, the Office for National Statistics, The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Alexis Dormandy, CEO LoveThis

 
Alexis Dormandy is the Founder and CEO of LoveThis. Having originally trained as a doctor, he ran his first business for Richard Branson aged 26 and joined the Virgin Group board before he was 30. He spent three years responsible for all of Virgin’s new business launches and was a founding director of both Virgin Mobile and Virgin Active. He has since been Chief Marketing Officer at Orange; helped raise over $100m for Bono’s charity (Red) as its European Chairman; and been Chairman, investor and advisor to a variety of European businesses. Alexis started his career as a business analyst for McKinsey & Company.
 
Alexis founded LoveThis because he realised that, for all the hours he spent reading reviews on the web, the best advice on everything from restaurants to websites or a decent plumber, was given by his friends. The problem was that he didn’t always know which friend to ask when he needed a view and when a friend did mention a great book or hotel or film worth seeing, he would invariably forget it.   The internet is full of review sites but it is hard to know who to trust and word-of-mouth information is quickly forgotten. LoveThis allows you to preserve recommendations from friends and access them whenever you need them.

Mark Jennings, Fresh Networks

Mark is a highly experienced digital account director, leading social media accounts for several retail and B2B clients including Jimmy Choo, TM Lewin, SPAR and RS Components.

Having held a variety of senior-level roles in the digital industry, Mark has also helped brands such as BBC, RBS, William Hill, Scottish Power and Samsung use social media strategically.

Aside from an interest in all things social, Mark is a PADI qualified scuba diver and a keen skydiver, having recently completed a jump of 13,000 ft.

Mark is a regular speaker and writes on social media, organises #themeet140 tweetups, held regularly in 6 different areas of the UK, and is a frequent blogger.