Speaking

I like talking to people about things I care about.

I regularly talk at conferences and events both large and small, in the UK and elsewhere, relating to social media and online community, or consumer experience.

As part of my consultancy work, I also run workshops and internal sessions for companies, organisations or other groups of people who want to understand more about the social web.

I’ve been a specialist guest on a number of local, national and international radio programmes, too, both in the UK and elsewhere, talking about everything from list-making to love, and from censorship to Second Life.

Some recent speaking engagements include:

  • New Media Knowledge Beers & Innovation Event: Social By Design speaker & panelist
  • NESTA Connect: Collaborate to Innovate - the rise of social networks. Speaker.
  • Women, Business & Blogging Conference Keynote: Whose Web is it Anyway? From reader comments on blogs to user-submitted photos illustrating news events via attention data and folksonomy, the distinction between users and publishers is getting fuzzier every day. As media owners, businesses of all sizes and individuals alike recognise the potential and the power of the web as a platform to publish and communicate - with other users, with customers, with the world - we are all creators and consumers of the web, now. Drawing on her background in anthropology, plus experience as one of the UK’s longest-running bloggers and ten years of working with businesses to understand and improve the experiences of internet users, Meg Pickard takes a tour of today’s web-publishing landscape, covering issues of control, commerce, copyright, and community, to understand how the new citizens of the web can respond to and embrace some exciting opportunities and challenges.
  • NMKForum 07 panel: MEDIA, PUBLISHING & ADVERTISING: Old guard, new tricks. How is so-called MSM (Mainstream Media) facing up to the new wave of interest in social media? Is it absorbing social media strategies or ignoring it? What does social media mean for the bottom line of big media? And how do the social media startups view their efforts?
  • Innovation Forum: Soapboxes in cyberspace panel, London, May 2007
  • Oxfam Media Training day keynote: The Social Internet Revolution, Oxford, May 2007
  • NGOs Digital Awareness Training day, London, September 2007
  • AOP Online Publishing Conference, London, October 2007
  • The Media Guardian Changing Advertising Summit, London, October 2007
  • Virtual Worlds Forum, London, October 2007
  • XMediaLab (Mentor), London, October 2007
  • UNICEF Fundraisers Forum, Istanbul, March 2008

Upcoming engagements include:

If you are looking for someone to come and present at your conference or event, about digital community, cultural and/or social media topics, please get in touch.

I’m happy to give presentations, or participate in/moderate panels, as well as facilitate workshops.

I’m based in London, but I’m happy to travel.