By Richard Baker
Ande Gregson
Ande Gregson can come across as an unassuming and softly spoken man. He’s one of those rare people who have a quiet charisma and the ability to draw the attention of a room of people.
I first met him in November 2009 after I was asked by Kate Pickering to appear at the media 140 event covering brands in London. I was using social media to build relationships with customers for the company I was working for and people were keen to learn from my experience.
The event, like many that have followed (and the one before) was a first in the UK; it brought together people using the real time web to connect with customers. I’ve written about the events I’ve appeared at on this site and you can read about them here.
To be honest, I’m not even sure I spoke to Ande at the media140/brands event; it was my first time speaking on a panel and I was pretty nervous. Ande was busy working with the rest of the team to deliver the days agenda.
It wasn’t until January that we got to know each other – meeting for a coffee in Soho and sharing ideas. I remember he carried his little notebook everywhere with him, and scribbled furiously as I threw out ideas and observations.
It’s fascinating watching the journey Ande is on – from an idea last year to raise funds for MENCAP, to leaving his full time career to focus on building a global brand. I talk to him one year on about the challenges, the learning and how he almost had Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder at an event..
Ande – how has the last year been?
A rollercoaster of a year! The 20th May for me was a milestone in it’s own right in that we launched an event into London under the banner of realtime news. It trended on Twitter at #1 and raised the £7000 I needed to raise for Mencap for a mad race across the Sahara, known as the Marathon Des Sables, which was of course the primary reason media140 came about.
What countries have you had media140 events in?
Countries include Australia, UK and Italy – I think from memory it’s around 12 events in Sydney, Perth, Perugia, London, Oxford, Glasgow, Bristol with plans afoot for Spain, India, North America and a few other places we are considering – it’s exciting stuff!
What’s changed in the industry since you began?
There has been a massive explosion in social media events and conferences all over the place, each month a new event or conference is announced looking as aspects of social media. It has become difficult to see the differentiators across some of these brands.
What’s a typical day like for you these days?
Busy. Everyday is different – whether it’s speaking to sponsors, sourcing content, finding venues, running logistics for future events, catching up on emails – which seem to never go away. Everyday is fabulous and it’s all part of growing a small business.
What’s the best piece of advice you have had in the last 12 months?
Focus. Don’t try to do everything at once – there is a huge amount of opportunity in this industry and you need to focus on the bits that create the most value not only for the community we are developing but also the people that are part of the media140 global team.
What’s been your worst moment?
There are no such moments, there are just challenges. The biggest one I suspect was dealing with a volcano and disrupted flights during the Italian project in Perugia. We lost a number of international speakers including Julian Assange of Wikileaks, and I had to motorcycle across Europe to re-jig the event.
Claire Wardle, our lead editorial producer, had to contend with being stuck in the London after planning most of the Italian event, which was very stressful, as she had committed a tremendous amount of effort to try to make it happen. However, as usual the media140 team pulled a rabbit out of the hat and with the help of Claire, Kate Pickering, Christian Payne and others; they produced a live TV show that ran concurrently to supplement the agenda in Perugia – now that was amazing!
What would you do differently in the last year if you could go back in time?
Generally? I guess learn how to speak Spanish and Italian 
In relation to media140 I think I would have started in earnest sooner and done more events in Europe. But that’s all I guess; the team we have working on media140 is amazing. All committed, passionate and determined to make it a great success. Over the past year Dee Jackson, Kate Pickering, George Nimeh, Petra Johansson, Sejal Parekh, Lisa Zilberpriver, Julie Posetti, Sarah Allen, Rebecca Cole, Bree Mitchelson, Lechelle Gerrard, Brad Keeling, Graham Langer, Glenn Lesanto, Chris Hall, Mark Jennings, James Griffiths, Nick Hazel, Monica Garriga, Gemma Urgell and Maria Ripoll have all contributed to make #media140 what it is.
What do you think is your greatest strength?
Motivation, commitment and inspiration coupled with a creative mind. So spending 3 years studying a design degree has helped tremendously.
If you could change one thing about yourself what would you change?
Hmmm I would probably try to change the workaholic in me and spend a little less time focused on working and more on relaxing.
What are you most excited about this year?
The prospect of what’s coming next year: growing the brand into new markets, developing the new ideas we have and building our global community.
Media140 now offers events, training and consultancy at their new site at http://media140.com. They are always looking to build connections with interested people and organisations. Go take a look or connect with media140 on Twitter!
I’m probably in the majority when I say I like a glass of wine. After a busy day – or any day for that matter – it’s often rather satisfying to settle down with a glass of red or white and unwind.
There has been a steady increase in the amount of wine drunk at home over the last twenty years in the UK and now you can get decent wine at a decent price in most supermarkets.
If you are anything like me, you will rarely spend over fiver on a bottle, unless it is for a special occasion. Most of the time I will look for a wine on offer.
I tend to know what grapes I like, although that does shift over time. I don’t tend to read about wine because generally the write-ups are all about expensive wine you might buy from a merchant.
However, there are a couple of new sites launched here in the UK that promise to offer something different. Red wine and white wine are two sites set up by Fraser Edwards. He has written a really interesting post about how he began in affiliate marketing and the lessons learned along the way, including the influence Google had over his business. You can read that here.
If you take a look at the sites you’ll notice they are written in a user friendly way. There isn’t a lot of winespeak which makes it quick and easy reading – perfect for those of us with an ever decreasing attention span! Fraser also reviews wine that costs £5 as well as the more expensive stuff. There is a good article on grape varieties too.
Fraser has started reaching out to people using twitter. In fact, that’s how we found each other. His twitter account at twitter.com/whiteandred offers updates and links to articles and ideas of red and white wine.
By Rich Baker
As expected, a General Election has been announced and suddenly the political parties are rushing around to convince us to vote for them. I said on Twitter that it’s a bit like a mate you haven’t seen for ages suddenly ask to borrow some money, but maybe that’s the point of the push for greater Digital Engagement by the Government.
Problem is, the electorate seems more disillusioned than ever about our political system. People have said to me on Twitter that it has always been that way, but I’m not not sure. I remember clearly when Labour won the election in 1997 and there was a real tangible feeling of hope by Blair’s supporters, and a real feeling of disappointment by his opposers. Of course, that’s all changed now. I can’t help feeling that when the results do come in, most people won’t care, or will simply shrug and wait for the next round of sleaze. People are turned off by politics and feel powerless to be able to change things.
Take the Digital Economy Bill for example. I looked at the stream on Twitter when it was being debated and it was the most I had ever seen a trending topic take over. You’d think with so many people taking a keen interest in it that their MP’s would see this a a great opportunity to win votes. Take a look at the turnout below;
Hardly packed to the rafters is it? Are we now in a time when our MP’s don’t even feel they need to represent us anymore?
People will undoubtedly blame Blair and New Labour for the cynicism and mistrust in our system and whilst I think it’s partly the cause, I also think there have been significant changes in technology and the media that has led to a much more enlightened voting public. It’s more difficult to pull the wool over people’s eyes. Which, I think, is a good thing.
I also wonder if we all are looking for a perfect answer in an imperfect system. People talk about communism and say ‘it just doesn’t work in practice’. Have we now proved the same of capitalism? The worldwide economic crash (caused by US sub-prime lending) demonstrates that decisions made in other countries can have devasting effects on our economy. Has globalisation delivered a society that is too tightly linked to be stable?
Which brings me back to the UK political scene. With so much of the global decision making being affected by global business, is there really any point in us voting anymore? Why should we vote labour/conversative/lib dem when they can’t seem to give us any hope that they will be different.
So, I extend an offer to the UK’s MP’s to explain to the Twitterati why we should still believe in our system and why we should vote for them. In a word, why are they different.
If you know of a parliamentary candidate who has embraced social media and would be interested in being asked questions via Twitter get in touch. I’m pretty sure the people in my social network would be able to provide some great observations and questions.
The reward for the MP? Exposure on the hottest social network in the UK by some of it’s most influential users at a time when you really need it.
As ever, share your thoughts below.
By Rich Baker
Lot’s of people talk about serendipity (the effect by which one accidentally stumbles upon something fortunate, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated) on social networks. In my experience, it’s more about synchronicity.
Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance.
Take this evening for example. I happened to look at Twitter and saw a tweet from the asute (and worth a follow) @darenbbc taking about how his twitter ‘stream’ seemed to be all broadcast.
It’s something I had noticed recently too; as my network of followers (and followees) has grown, it seems the amount of interraction has reduced.
I’m wondering whether that is partly due to the number of people we follow now but also to do with the fact that for many in our network, the novelty is wearing off. As a result, people tweet less, and when they do it’s more to tell people what they are doing, and less to ask others what they are doing.
Over recent weeks, I have been investing more time in unfollowing people I don’t have conversations with and seeking out new people to follow. My network is taking more and more maintenance to keep it relevant.
In a post later this week, I will talk about how this ‘network maintenance’ is vital for individuals, and businesses, to ensure growth.
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