events

My return to public speaking at events

April 7, 2025 By Dan Thornton

I’ve been lucky enough to speak at various events on topics including SEO, marketing and creativity over the years. But it all came to a stop early in 2020, as it did for everyone. And I haven’t really been pursuing opportunities since then for various reasons, but my return to public speaking at events finally happened last week at the April 2025 Digital People in Peterborough meetup.

The talks are normally between 20-40 minutes, but having put together a presentation on ‘The Biggest SEO Myths: Fact or Fiction’, I found out later that I’d been speaking for more than an hour, including some brilliant questions from the DPiP audience.

I couldn’t have asked for a better experience to re-introduce myself to public speaking, and it led to some great conversations about SEO, the growing impact of AI, and why the answer to almost every question will be ‘It depends’.

If you’re interested in speaking at, or attending, a DPiP event, you can find all the details here. It usually takes place on the first Thursday of each month, and everyone is welcome, whether you’re based in Peterborough and the surrounding area, or travelling from further away. And I can highly recommend it if you’re speaking for the first time, challenged by nerves or looking to try out something new, as everyone is incredibly supportive.

I will try and share the presentation itself in the near future, but due to the short notice and some other complications, I need to go back through it to check all the appropriate image attributions and notes are in place. Or it might appear as a series of articles if I can schedule the time to do each myth justice.

Proud Sponsors of DPiP May 2014 event

May 8, 2014 By Dan Thornton

I’m pleased to say that in addition to personally being one of the organisers of local digital gathering ‘Digital People in Peterborough’, TheWayoftheWeb Ltd is also sponsoring the May 2014 event.

It’s a great way to informally meet up with a diverse range of people who share an interest in digital technology, whether it’s a personal interest, a career or their business.

There’s more details on the DPiP website. And although we’re still a small company, it’s great to be able to start supporting initiatives and getting more involved in our local community.

If you’re in Cambridgeshire, we’d definitely recommend checking it out

Ticket discount for Social Media in Business conference in London

September 25, 2009 By Dan Thornton

It’s billed as ‘The Ultimate Conference for all things Social Media’, but although that may go a bit far, it’s certainly looking like one of the best social media conferences currently on the calendar – and as a blog partner, I’m able to offer you a 15% discount on tickets.

It’s a one day conference at the Strand Palace Hotel in London on October 23, 2009, and is very much focused on explaining the potency of social media, how to engage with a meaningful response, the insights you need for real business responses, and how to do it. So you’ll get more actionable insights than theoretical discussion, which is particularly relevant at the moment.

Plus there’s a great line-up of people involved, most of whom I either interact and follow online, or have had the please of spending time or working with, including:

Daren Forsyth, Benjamin Ellis, Ged Carroll, Eaon Pritchard, Charlie Osmand, Peter Crosby, Judith De-Cabbit, Joanne Jacobs, Neville Hobson, Will McInnes, Katy Howell, Jamie Riddell and Robin Grant.

A pretty good line-up, and pretty much all people I’d have no hesitation in recommending you track down to read or talk to, so having them all in one place is going to be good. And the standard price for the event is £161, which is pretty cheap for a London conference these days.

But you can save even more on the bargain price:

If you order now, you can use the discount code MAFIADAN to save 15%, which makes it even more cost effective and easier to justify to your boss/colleagues/accountants.

I’ll be there – so if you’re going let me know, as I’d love to chat.

Speaking to learned professionals…

June 10, 2009 By Dan Thornton

I’m not sure what the exact crossover might be between the wonderful people spending time reading this blog and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, but just in case…

I’ll be speaking as part of a Seminar on July 7, 2009, Online Communities – What can scholarly publishing learn from other industries? The focus of my time is currently titled ‘Building successful communities to support successful media brands’, but that’s likely to be a starting point for showing how successful communities really are the brand.

It’s really interesting for a few reasons: –

Firstly it’s an industry I haven’t worked in, so I’m likely to learn as much from the people attending as they will from me.

Secondly, there’s a fun edge by allowing attendees to invest virtual money in investment opportunities presented by the speakers .

And thirdly, the other speakers are all people I’m going to be interested in meeting – Pam Sutherland from Oxford University Press (also the chair of the event), Alex Evans (CTO and Co-founder of Media Molecule – creators of LittleBigPlanet for the Playstation 3), Ros Lawler from Random House, Phil Archer from W3C Mobile Web Initiative, Steve Paxhia from Beacon Hill Strategic Solutions and Gail Robinson from TSL Education Ltd.

So it’s going to be quite a challenge to claim the virtual money, but it’s one I’m ready for!

Just off to another brilliant example of Twitter for events

April 15, 2009 By Dan Thornton

I’m just about to pack up my laptop and head over to Aperitweat, a cool gathering of Tweeple organised by the inimitable @tojulius.

It’s been publicised via his Twitter friends, registration was via Twtvite, a live Twitterstream will be at the event (hashtags #aptw or #aperitweat), and the whole thing is being streamed live via Ustream.

So in addition to the skills and contacts Julius already has (see the eventmanagerblog for examples), the marketing cost is nothing for a brilliant range of coverage which has packed the place to capacity.

Another example of the ability for self-forming events for little or no cost.

And that’s just a relatively low-profile example in a week when Twitter was used to attempt revoluation in Moldova (see some coverage via Nick Carr and All Things Digital).

And it’s in the week when the first drill has been created with some of the amazing $250,000 raised by the Twestival event in 2020 cities worldwide.

See more of the Twestival videos on Live Earth.