BIMA ThirstDay and Social Media Week special… the lowdown

After a brief hiatus, BIMA ThirstDay made a triumphant return to London, partnering with Social Media Week London to bring one lucky BIMA member the opportunity to win a speaking slot on the official schedule.

Tasked with pitching their proposed talk, our shortlistees took the mic and had 3 minutes to convince our judges and the ThirstDay crowd that their talk was fit to make the main stage.

This year’s Social Media Week theme was “The Invisible Hand: Hidden Forces of Technology (and How We Can Harness it for Good)” – which will look at how the attributes of smart technologies, networked connectivity, data and machine learning have created in a new paradigm in how we connect, consume and communicate.

When combined these attributes change everything. Whether it’s the way we consume media, engage with brands, access health-care, vote, travel, choose restaurants, commute to work, collaborate on projects, or how we go about choosing a date, technology’s invisible hand plays a crucial role in our decision-making.
Our SMW hopefuls:

• Mark Sherwin from Accenture with his talk “Last year I became an accidental chicken farmer!”
• Claire Woodcock from Razorfish with her talk “Echo Chambers: Healing Our Social Media Algorithms.”
• Euan Plater from Cult LDN with his talk “What happened to Marina Joyce?”
• Jenny House from This is Crowd with her talk “Stranger Danger: putting strangers opinions before those of our friends”
• Adam Stamper from Hashtag’d with his talk “Your Audience vs Your Agency: Will Smartphones & Advanced AI Eliminate The Need For Creatives?”
• Gareth James from Aqueduct with his talk “Delivering Olympic Golds – real-time data and the art of suspense”
• Ben Doran from Mullen Lowe Profero with his talk “Whats-a-bot?”
• Ryan Curtis-Johnson from drp with his talk “Anti-Social Media Live”

The evening was chaired by BIMA Executive Tarek Nseir, and our SMW hopefuls were judged by BIMA’s MD Bridget Beale and Stephane Monier, Vice President of Business Development at Jahia.

After 8 pitches, a lot of cheering from the ThirstDay crowd and a tense deliberation period our judges announced their winner… Ben Doran, Head of Technology at MullenLowe Profero! Congratulations Ben!

Following the evening festivities, we moved into our regular BIMA ThirstDay drinks – Grade A networking for everyone working in digital.

Huge thanks to Social Media Week London for offering up such a fantastic speaking opportunity, and to our wonderful sponsors Jahia.

Thank you to all of our awesome members who braved the ThirstDay crowd and pitched their talk ideas. Everyone did a superb job – we just wish we had more speaking slots to give away!

We’re looking forward to seeing Ben’s talk at SMW LDN, 13-16 September. You can book your tickets to the festival here >>

BIMA Members get an exclusive discount on tickets. Keep your eyes pealed for the BIMA newsletter or email info@bima.co.uk to get a 25% discount.