FEED Issue 26 Web

45 HAPPENING Soho Media Club

company DNA). Digital communications tools will always be indispensable for networking – especially as the climate emergency forces everyone to ramp down our air miles. But Soho Media Club is built on the principle that there is nothing like face-to-face communication and that unexpected opportunities can pop up when people are occupying the same room. “Physically talking to people and making connections was always a key ingredient of Soho Media Club and we agreed that rather than one big event, regular, informal meetups would help build a community.” Lapsiwala when asked about Soho Media Club’s upcoming big event. “We don’t use that word.” The group has just announced a festival (not a conference) for the end of July. The event will feature conference strands for pre-production, production and post, and interwoven between these will be discussion about deeper industry issues around culture, inclusion and purpose. The festival will, of course, include lots of opportunity for networking, and will conclude – like a good 1980s movie – NOT A CONFERENCE “It’s definitely not a conference!” says

POWER WITHOUT POWERPOINT Soho Media Club events involve panel discussions, as well as the all-important networking drinks before and after

Rather than putting ROI as the promise to members, the Club instead sets a stage for openness and knowledge sharing – and the possibility for something new and unexpected to come out of it. The events are a kind of deconstructed conference, where participants are encouraged to offer something, rather than only looking to see what they can get. This tenet of collaboration is underlined by the Club’s stated goal: “Our aim is to create a community where your ideas become reality through the people you meet”. Lapsiwala says: “Part of our DNA at Soho Media Club is that we exist to create diversity of thought, drive horizontal thinking and encourage people to take a collaborative approach to tackling problems in our industry through the connections they make.”

Though the events themselves are open to members only, the content that comes out of them, in keeping with the Soho Media Club ethos, is widely shared, with still photos, video, a podcast and a blog summary made available to all. The summary of each month’s event is also made available in a (well-designed) PDF which is essentially a white paper outlining the evening’s main points. Lapsiwala has a long history working in events, primarily as the conference manager and head of content for broadcast industry mega-tradeshow IBC. Witkowski comes from the technology side of the business as a senior workflow engineer at media processing platform Sundog Media Toolkit (Sundog’s CEO Richard Welsh is also a frequent participant at media industry events – perhaps it’s in the

with a big dance party. A great big, collaborative, inclusive dance party. FEED will be there.

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