Digital Marketing Predictions 2015

Mark your diaries for our 93rd social mixer on 28th January, 2015 from 6:30pm - 9:30pm at Club 18, 18-20 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong.

We’ve lined up a fine selection of industry luminaries to kick off an unpredictable evening of forecasting digital marketing trends in 2015.

Our guest futurists for the evening are:

• Dominic Allon, Managing Director of Google Hong Kong
• Vincent Lau, eCommerce Director for Deckers (Asia Pacific)
• Winnie Cheng, Assistant eBusiness Manager for Colgate Palmolive (Asia)
• David Ketchum, Chairman of the Digital + Direct Marketing Association of Asia

Sign up via Facebook or MeetUp. (We charge HK$100 at the door to cover the venue and soothe your palate with one complimentary drink). Our events have a reputation for a good night of learning, networking and the best of British wit!

To whet everyone’s appetite, here are my predictions for the year:

• Online advertising will become programatic and personal, but only a handful of brands and agencies will understand how to leverage it.
• Social media will find a way to convert buzz into bucks, led by the Asian networks.
• Mobile payment will become the norm in China, the USA will seek desperately to catch up.
• Fashion brands will realise that shoppers are ready for omni-channel retail.
• The media houses will take back content and find new ways to monetise it.
• Big data will become big insights but humans will remain unpredictable!

This event is presented in association with the Digital + Direct Marketing Association Asia, a renewed and revamped industry association that brings together the best of the Asia Digital Marketing Association, the Hong Kong Direct Marketing Association, HK Social and other affiliate digital, mobile and marketing industry groups from around the region.

Lolita Taub at Web Wednesday Hong Kong (V92)

Join us on Wednesday 3rd December for an impromptu gathering with Lolita Taub, who left her cushy software sales job at IBM USA, to travel the world in search of fellow female entrepreneurs.

By the time that Lolita reaches our shores, she will have interviewed 20 female entrepreneurs in 7 countries for her YouTube channel, "The #F Show". We're looking forward to hearing the inside story of a new tribe that she calls, "female millennial future entrepreneurs", or "femfupreneurs" for short! You can find Lolita on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Doors open at 6:30pm on Wednesday 3rd December at Club 18, 18 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central. All types welcome, especially those who fancy themselves as female entrepreneurs or eager mentors.

You can turn up on the night or, if you want to see who else is coming...sign up via Facebook or MeetUp.

The entrance fee of HK$100 includes a complimentary drink and the chance to rub shoulders with the future (and current) moves and groovers in the tech start-up and digital media industries in Hong Kong.

Who knows? If you're a true "go-getter", Lolita might even want to interview you for her show.

Come disrupt and release your inner geek!

BarcampHK is back!

Hong Kong's biggest user-generated unconference is back on 15th November at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shatin, New Territories.

Started back in December 2007 by Angus Lau, Steve Fleischer, Napoleon Biggs, Aaron Farr, Marcel Ekkel, Mikael Öhrén and Ben Lee with the first gathering in the Yahoo! offices in Causeway Bay, the event has now grown to over 600 local geeks, entrepreneurs, activists, artists, social commentators and thinkers who come together for one day to share their passion and tech knowledge in a relaxed, multi-lingual atmosphere.

Find info about past BarcampHK events on this blog (not all, unfortunately), the Wiki page and Flickr (2007 and 2008 and others). Find barcamp on Facebook and Twitter.

A GIANT SHOUT-OUT to Ben Lee and Belle Liu who make this event such as success every year.

If you're curious to learn more about the grass-roots of tech creativity in Hong Kong, put aside all your weekend obligations and head over to the Esther Lee Building at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on Saturday 15th November, 2014.

Register only at barcamp.hk and get your hands on a free lunch, stickers, freebies, beer and more!!

The agenda is loose, like all good "un-conferences" but here is a structure that you can work to.

Youbibi at Web Wednesday Hong Kong (V91)

Mark your diaries for our next social mixer on 12th November at Club 18, 18 Lyndhurst Terrace.

A premium event during StartMeUpHK Venture Programme, run by InvestHK. Follow @startmeuphk on Twitter or Facebook. Find InvestHK on LinkedIn and Flickr.

Will be talking online travel with Steven Pang, CEO of Youbibi (游比比网), a leading travel comparison website in China, which he built with a foot in Hong Kong and the other in Shenzhen and just sold to SkyScanner from Scotland! Find Youbibi on Weibo.

Doors open at 6:30pm for high quality networking, interview from 7:15pm to 8:30pm, including questions to the floor. Doors close at 9:30pm (for some of us!).

Venue: Club 18, 18 Lyndhurst Terrace, Central, Hong Kong.  HK$100 entrance fee, includes a complimentary drink. (HK$50 for students, without drink sorry).

Sign up on Facebook or MeetUp.

Zendesk at Web Wednesday Hong Kong (V90)

For our 90th social mixer on Wednesday 22nd October 2014, the topic is "excellent customer service" with a pioneer in this space, Zendesk. [Follow them on Twitter, Facebook or Google Plus].

Our guest speaker is Michael Hansen, who came to Hong Kong penniless but passionate in 2007. From here, he evangelised Zendesk, a new venture from Copenhagen that was out to "disrupt" the way companies manage customer service.

Described by his CEO as “the big-hearted, big-mouthed so called king of Denmark”, Michael will talk about his many journeys with Zendesk, from home office in Hong Kong to building global teams with a customer centric culture, and to the recent successful IPO on NYSE.

In the first day of trading, the stock leapt 27% valuing the company at close to USD 1 billion!

Michael is an IT sales veteran with more than 25 years' experience in a variety of sales and marketing roles, spanning the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia. In 2007, Michael became Zendesk's first 'employee', leaving his executive role behind to begin his entrepreneurial journey - working without a salary for his first two years.

NEW VENUE: Orange Peel, Flat A-C, 2/F, Ho Lee Comm Bldg, 38-44 D'Aguilar Street, LKF, Central. Find your way on Google Maps.

On Wednesday 22nd October, the doors open at 6:30pm and close at 9:30pm, with the talk kicking off at 7:15pm. HK$100 entrance fee, includes one complimentary drink and the chance to mix with the Asian Digerati.

Sign up on Facebook or MeetUp. Be a faithful follower and spread the word far and wide!

Podcast: FireChat talks "off-the-grid" messaging with Occupy Central

If you were too busy protesting on the streets of Hong Kong, here is the podcast of our "fireside chat" with Micha Benoliel, Co-founder of Open Garden who created the peer-to-peer messaging app, FireChat, that was downloaded 500,000 times during the first week of "Occupy Central with Love and Peace" (佔領中環 or 佔中), a civil disobedience campaign more recently coined as the "Umbrella Revolution".



Thanks again to the Internet Society of Hong Kong for the introduction to Micha and to Orange Peelfor providing a last-minute venue with a stage and cosy chairs.

FireChat at Web Wednesday Hong Kong (V89)

Venue confirmed for tomorrow's impromptu and highly timely gathering with FireChat co-founder, Micha Benoliel. Follow Micha's recent posts about the Hong Kong protests on Twitter and Instagram, with links to all his social media channels on About.me.

Open Garden is the developer of FireChat, the first off-the-grid messaging app, leveraging peer-to-per mesh networking. News sources state that in a 24-hour period over 100,000 people downloaded FireChat during the Hong Kong #occupycentral #umbrellarevolution demonstrations.

Micha founded Open Garden to make wireless broadband Internet access ubiquitous and deliver a technology for the preservation of Net Neutrality.

Micha also launched Skype In and Skype Out in several European countries so knows his stuff!

NOTE NEW VENUE: Orange Peel, Flat A-C, 2/F, Ho Lee Comm Bldg, 38-44 D'Aguilar Street, Central. Doors open at 6:30pm with the interview at 7:15ish. HK$100 entrance fee, includes one complimentary drink.

Many thanks to Ping Wong and the good folk at Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK) for their introduction.

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Admirality, Occupy Central

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