I was happy to host Day Two of the Social Media World Forum Asia in Singapore last week. Overall we don’t spend much time at conferences – preferring to do the work that will be talked about in future. But some great contacts were made and some interesting (young) companies are out there doing interesting things. More about the conference here.

My preview to Day 2.

Social Networking World Forum Asia Day Two

To be part of an event like this is to be part of something that could potentially make a serious difference to your point of view. Whether it be the connections you make, the lessons you learn, or the ideas that are sparked. I hope we can help make that sort of difference to you today.

There is one thing for sure about the digital marketing and technology world – it is brimming with buzz words, catch phrases and over-hype. I am a cynic (but like to think an early adopter too) and we are right to be cynical about anything that is over-hyped. We are right to be cautious when easy solutions are presented.

But behind every bit of ‘buzz’ and every ‘irrational exuberance’ is a clear fact. That things are changing and what is behind that change is significant. Social Media is significant. An in a long line of fads it will certainly make its mark on business, on marketing and on people (or is that because of people?)

In Day One you looked at where we are today and where it could go in the future. We talked about how it fits within the mix and how to build communities which are at the core of social networking. Today our speakers want to extend this to the area of Public Relations and also how it will affect TV or TV 2.0. And then in the afternoon we will have two sessions on Mobile Social Networks.

So while I very much hope that these talks are informative and the discussions help bring understanding and insight – what I hope the most is that they spark ideas, that they help create new thinking in how you can approach your business or customers.

Ultimately I hope that they lead to Action – so that the buzz, no matter how irrational, has lead to change which is the one common denominator behind the world we are dealing with today.

It’s this time of the year in Singapore again. Time when people working with Flash platform gather and spend few great days together. Last year it was first TAC, and it was great. This year, in it’s 2nd edition speaker list got impressive, conference expanded from one day to two days so it’s guaranteed there will be double fun.

The Upper Storey like last year decided to be a Bronze sponsor. We love Flash and we like supporting the community. Let’s meet at the conference and talk about things that keep us going further, like wonderful web technologies.

List of speakers should get you interested to come, even if you need to travel to Singapore specially for this occasion:  Ryan Stewart, Andre Michelle,  Mark Barcinski, Peter Elst, Marco Casario, Leif Wells, Stefan Wessels, Michael Plank, Mohammed Khan and local talents Alvin Zhang, Stefano Virgilli and Hu Shunjie. Topic covered are wide ranging from Audio processing in Flash, Papervision 3D, AIR, Flash Platform, Flex integration to even Multi-touch in Flash.

The Upper Storey will be presenting too. A ten minute walk through one of our latest projects.

See you all at The Actionscript Conference.