UK’s Top Female Social Media Guru & Speaker 2009
February 27, 2009
Lisa Devany contacted me through the P2P Community I admin on Ning and asked if I could suggest some top notch female speakers in social media for an upcoming conference being planned on behalf of Brand Republic here in the UK.
Well I didn’t know too many. In fact I am ashamed to say none. Having just put on a social media event of my own with what was later pointed out as an all male cast I felt like some girl power. I reached out to my network across Twitter etc only to be inundated with recommendations within minutes. I’ve listed them below but if I’m honest the only reason why I can be sure they are any good is because in most cases they have come through people I trust some of whom are gurus and great speakers in their own right.
@suw (Suw Charman-Anderson)
@aleksk (Aleks Krotoski)
@lauraoliver (Laura Oliver) of Journalism.co.uk
Emily Dent from St Lukes @emilydent
@mseaons Melanie Seasons
@katyhowell Katy Howell of Immediate Future
@Laurajohnson from Pegasus PR
Addtions:
Helen Aspell @hel_razor
Fleur Hicks of Pass it on Media @PassItOnMedia
Amanda Rose @amanda
Laura Whitehead @littlelaura
Amy Sample Ward of NpTech Comm@amyrsward
Joanna Shields from Bebo
Katie Lee of Shiny Media @shinykatie
Helen Nowicka from Shiny Red @helennow
Judith Lewis @judithlewis
Alex Goldstein @dogstrust
Helen Keegan @technokitten
The shame of not knowing any of these women has led me to take this one step further and offer up a quest to find the…
UK’S TOP FEMALE SOCIAL MEDIA GURU & SPEAKER!
So 1st phase is taking recommendations for entrants (this can be self nominated if you’re that shameless) over the next 2 weeks starting from today 27.02.09. Simply post the full name, twitter / blog URL and link to a profile.
Then at the end of the two weeks 12.03.09 we can start voting over who folk think should go through to the final round.
The final round will see 5 women selected to each provide a 20min presentation (Additon: at an event to raise money for Macmillans) whihc is recorded and uploaded to Vimeo to a set social media theme. You the community get to decide those themes.
In the mean time we are looing for brands to sponsor the day and a prize. Oh yeh and you get to say you’re the…
UK’S TOP FEMALE SOCIAL MEDIA GURU & SPEAKER 2009
FINALISTS ANNOUNCED @ www.femalesocialmediaguru.com
February 27, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Wow! What a nice surprise to be on that list!
There are a ton of top notch social media savvy women out there. I have no doubt you’ll be able to find an amazing speaker.
Cheers,
Melanie
February 27, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Oh – I’m afraid I don’t have any footage of me speaking, but if you’d like to meet in person some time, I’d be happy to take you for coffee.
February 28, 2009 at 11:34 am
Some additions courtesy of @davidcushman & @aleksk (on Twitter)..
@jemimakiss http://www.JEMIMAKISS.com Guardian writer
@technokitten HELEN KEEGAN http://www.technokitten.blogspot.com
February 28, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Is this women who work in the UK, or British Women? I assume, because of Aleks and Melanie on the list it’s the first option? If so, I’d suggest Joanna Shields from Bebo (if she’s still in London?), Katie Lee (@shinykatie) and my own Shiny Red MD, Helen Nowicka (@helennow)
March 1, 2009 at 9:07 am
Hi Lewis,
Yes thats right referring to people who are based in the UK. Thanks for the recommendations.
Some more..
farhan@jamie247 can’t believe you dont have @amanda on your list? for UK’s Top Female Social Media Guru (Twestival rocks!) and @vikkichowney
WomenWhoTech@jamie247 – @littlelaura is one of my favorite UK tech peeps. @amyrsward who works with nptech comm in the UK would be great to talk with 2.
March 1, 2009 at 9:23 am
ALSO I AM LOOKING TO TURN THE FINAL ROUND INTO AN EVENT TO RAISE MONEY FOR CHARITY.
NEED SOME SPONSORS TO PAY FOR VENUE & FOR IT ALL TO BE PUT ONLINE AND FILMED.
RECKON SELLING THE TICKETS AT £25 A POP (100% OF WHICH GOES TO A WOMENS CHARITY).
March 2, 2009 at 10:45 am
Look into our site, we are profiling women in the internet industry, leading, founding and investing, all the time, happy to be media sponsor of event, know also a venue that can be used.. DM us via twitter @thenextwomen
March 2, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Hi Jamie,
The whole idea sounds great. I’m sure that there are some great female speakers out there who we just don’t get to hear from. I saw Kathy Sierra at FOWA London 08 and remember thinking then that she was one of a few female speakers that I’d heard of.
As for supporting a charity, I’d like to suggest Macmillan Cancer Support as a partner. I’m pretty sure most people have been touched by cancer (whether themselves or their family or friends)and there are plenty of services we provide that help women (from support groups, to the forum as well as the Nurses).
Thinking off the top of my head, it could be that the winner could specify what kind of service the money raised goes to.
March 2, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I nominate Fleur Hicks-Duarte – she is the MD of a Social Media Agency called Pass it On Media. ex 1000 Heads and Geronimo. She has the brain the size of a planet with her feet firmly on the ground.
http://www.passitonmedia.co.uk
http://www.twitter.com/passitonmedia
March 2, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Can I nominate Helen Aspell @hel_razor, she’s a brilliant guru and speaker and continues to impress any SM savvy audience as well as blowing away the minds of the not so educated!
She is now Head of Digital at the Equality and Human Rights Commission and before that did some excellent work when she was Head of Digital Marketing for University of Southampton. I run a digital agency and I have worked with Helen for many years, I’ve never known any in-house person as knowledgeable as her!
We asked her to be a guest speaker at a recent event of ours last month, so if you need any other feedback from the audience I have those feedback forms, just get in touch with me.
Cheers, Vicky Reeves, Chameleon Net
March 2, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Our existence of our business magazine, thenextwomen.com was a direct result of my conversation with the guys on thenextweb.com of the lack of female speakers.
http://thenextwomen.com/2008/06/23/search-for-female-internet-heroes/
At t5his very moment, also Chris Messina is now talking about this topic
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/02/27/future-of-white-boys-clubs-redux-fowaspeak/
We started the concept of female internet heroes and compiled a list of women founding, investing or leading in the internet industry, just to make women more visible, for their own benefit and the benefit of the community. More women speakers will also attract more women in the audience.
Positive discrimination, whether it is on the board of companies or as judge in a panel, or as a speaker on conferences, will bring about more quantity of women, buying tickets to be in the audience, submitting their startups for a competition, and according to many studies, also more quality, as diverse teams are more innovative than all male or all female teams.
Personally, I am involved in a lot of initiatives, like the jury of the Dutch Accenture Innovation Awards, and the UK Board of Astia.org and our own The NextWomen events, all with the aim to stimulate female led companies to go ahead, come forward, present your self, pitch your company, or get funding.
Leadership issues of women themselves play a big role in why women do not submit speaker proposals, ask to be in the jury and wait to get properly funded etc. So we profile them, push them and show that the are plenty of women in the internet industry worth inviting.
That’s why I am in support of this initiative.
March 3, 2009 at 11:36 am
Wow, what a surprise to find myself on this list! I did a talk last week on social media for the IAB. I don’t know if anyone filmed it…
There’s loads of really great women in this industry – perhaps we should get in touch with http://www.shesays.org.uk/.
Really looking forward to hearing more about this event.
March 4, 2009 at 10:10 am
Hi,
If you’re looking for a tv production outfit to film your gig, then I’d be more than happy to offer up the Wordia.com production services (we’re a bunch of tv producers and software engineers…).
We’d be happy to come down and film the event for you free of charge.
We’d also love to vox-pop some opinion at the event for Wordia.com (for those that don’t know, we’re a ‘visual dictionary’)… I’m thinking a page take over on words like ‘equality’, ‘role-model’ etc. Could make it interactive?
Please contact me if we can help.
Ed
C.E.O
Wordia.com
March 4, 2009 at 10:22 am
Great news! Thanks Ed. I will fire over some dates when we get to that juncture.
March 6, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Hi, I just wanted to nominate Judith Lewis as I found her to be very articulate on social media when I interviewed her at the London Twestival for the BBC in February 2009.
I also happen to know that she would be very keen to be involved with this event, as she’s been talking about Social media since before Yahoo bought Onelist, and has already “done the rounds” on the speaking circuit – have a look at her previous engagements on her website at http://www.decabbit.com.
Judith has far too many links, so here are just a few to get you started.
Tweet: http://www.twitter.com/JudithLewis
Blog: http://decabbit.livejournal.com
Good luck with the event, I shall be following with interest.
All the best,
L J Rich
http://www.twitter.com/ljrich
March 9, 2009 at 12:32 pm
[...] vote or pitch in your tips for who the top female social media experts are this week here, or on Jamie's blog post. Jamie is also the creator of an a social media networking forum for PR professionals called [...]
March 10, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I nominate Alex Goldstein @dogstrust as she has helped our charity populate the web ina way that is rarely seen.
See her work here http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/topnavigation/ontheweb/
Jacqui D
March 10, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Alex Goldstein at Dogs Trust is somebody who really knows about social media from client-side. She (via the Dogs Trust Twitter a/c) has a big following on Twitter, blogs regularly, and controls their Facebook etc pages. I believe they have some good stats about how social media is working for them. I would def recommend her!
March 10, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I’ll add a vote for Alex Goldstein as well.
March 10, 2009 at 3:22 pm
[...] Anyone can nominate a person to be one of the five speakers at the final event, to be held in April 2009, via a previous posting on this blog. [...]
March 10, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Goodness – thank you very much Jacqui, Kate and Tony. I’m delighted! We’ve done a lot of talks and case studies in the past year, and look forward to speaking (and listening) more in the next year.
March 10, 2009 at 3:43 pm
[...] Well, goodness me, my manager must love me. She’s just nominated me for the above accolade here. What’s even lovelier is that there were people I don’t directly work with nominating [...]
March 10, 2009 at 4:30 pm
i’d definitely recommend alex goldstein, too!
March 10, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for including me in this list, there are some phenomenal nominees so it’s a high bar – and thanks Lewis for putting my name in the frame.
I’d like to recommend Tamar Kasriel from futurealworld.com who is a high-level forward-looking strategist, she impressed me when I saw her speak last year at Internet World.
I’d also mention Judith Clegg from theglasshouse.net who has done a lot to support the UK’s digital entrepreneurs via events like Second Chance Tuesday.
March 11, 2009 at 10:51 am
I nominate Elin Sjursen of Made by Many, the brilliant social media agency that actually lives and breathes social media. An electrifying speaker and digital maven, she gets my vote every time.
Her blog is at http://www.madebymany.co.uk/author/Elin
Check out her new flame haired avatar!
Twitterwise she is at http://twitter.com/elinesca
thanks Laurence of percival-agency.com
March 11, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I want to nominate Heather Gorringe.
Heather Gorringe is both Dell’s Global Small Business champion, the UK’s top female podcaster and runs an amazing company which attributes it’s million pound growth to social media.
http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk
http://twitter.com/wiggled
http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/podcasts/
March 13, 2009 at 11:01 am
Michelle Goodall (@greenwellys) deserves a late entry!
March 13, 2009 at 11:04 am
I think that Michelle Goodall, Online PR Consultant and Trainer at Econsultancy, should be nominated.
She has been doing tremendous work in promoting Online PR and Social Media best practice and is the mastermind behind the Online PR Industry Benchmarking Report which has provided a real focal point for getting to grips with a definition of what Online PR is.
She has also done a lot of work to help push MeasurementCamp, which is making real progress in terms of developing ways to measure social media.
March 13, 2009 at 11:06 am
I’d like to nominate Econsultancy’s Michelle Goodall ( @greenwellies ) who is doing some of the most un-glorious and rarely acknowledged, but absolutely essential work of taking social out to clients and making it MEAN something to them.
Talk to anyone who has been on one of her legendary courses and they can’t say enough good things about her ability to make “social” relevant, digestible and attractive to people who had previously been at best sceptical and at worst hostile.
I’ve worked alongside her this year and been witness to her incredibly creative consultancy skills – she taught us an enormous amount in just a few short weeks and put social relevancy and legitimacy RIGHT AT THE HEART of the campaign. It was not PR. It was not SEO. It was something completely new. It was inspiring to watch. And the client loved it.
She fully deserves to get some kudos for the kick ass work she is doing.
March 13, 2009 at 11:37 am
NB re my comment above: Michelle Goodall is @greenwellys – sorry, my mistake!
March 17, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I had exactly the sam problem regarding an all-male cast at the Wealth of Networks event last July that I helped Imperial College with organising, so when they asked for my help again this year I also polled my network for female recommendations.
The first person I asked was Helen Keegan, who I’m delighted to say will also be speaking on the Panel about ‘Next Generation Internet – the Way Forward’ at this year’s follow up Wealth of Networks event on the 24th of March. It’s too bad that I couldn’t invite the whole list up for election here!
I hope that many of you stunningly talented ladies will join us in the audience as well – the details for the event are here: http://wealthofnetworks2.wordpress.com/
March 19, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I’ve got to nominate Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz.com — she’s got a fresh, honest take on social media that breaks out of all the hype and really helps explain how your business can be successful using these tools.
Plus, she’s an amazing writer and marketing genius! What more could you ask?
March 20, 2009 at 10:34 am
So many terrific nominees!
I’d like to second Richard Millington’s nomination of Heather Gorringe of Wiggly Wigglers. A true early adopter and experimenter of social media that’s paid off with measurement results for her business.
Heather won the Dell Small Business Excellence Award 2008 for her innovation with social media.
In addition to the links in Richard’s comment (#26 above), check out what Heather has to say in this video on the SmallBusinessAdvice.tv website, starting at 5:29 -
http://www.smallbusinessadvice.tv/chat/using_social_networking_for_small_businesses