Well! If we’d known what we know today on Wednesday, I’m sure there’d have been a much different conversation between me and Ash Choudhury from Nokia as we waited for the social media for big brands panel to start.

You’d have had to have been in a bunker this week to not realise it was Social Media Week around the world.

In the spirit of sharing and link lovage I’m amplifying some of the coverage I’ve seen about the sesh I participated on with Aleks Krotoski, Ash and Wendy Tan White from Moonfruit.

The feedback was great, thanks to everyone who came and I hope to see some fruits of our collective wisdom applied very soon.

Top 10 Social Media Tips to Build International Brands from Social Media Week London

Social Media Week: From Digital Champions To Silicon Roundabouts

From Silicon Roundabouts to a Silicon World: it’s Social Media Week in London

‘From Silicon Roundabouts to a Silicon World’ #smwldn

Includes the bit at the start we he said he wasn’t getting paid!

Check out this link for all the UK Windows Phones

Re-posting this video seeing as I’m down in Singapore right now.

I’m en route to Hong Kong to see the Microsoft Advertising Asia team there and speak at SES Hong Kong.

I’ll be on the B2B ROI and Social Media panel with Eddie Choi at the helm.

Lots to come from this part of the world. I met a lot of agency and brand execs while I was in Cannes.

Check out these video interviews from our Microsoft Advertising YouTube Channel from the advertising festival in the South of France

Trying to keep Tiger Beer in business until Lee Odden and others get here

It’s all about the cloud and ‘we’re all in!’

Impressive list of companies we’ve helped embrace cloud computing in a speech where Steve talks passionately about the opportunities and responsibilities of this new era of information technology.

Setting off for Cannes via a weekend in Nice with my aunt and uncle which is handy.

It’s been a long week, hammering down the filming schedule which I hope will be as engaging as last year – check out the below interview with Biz Stone from Twitter.

To see what we’re up to, check out our dedicated Cannes Lions site, follow us on Twitter and fan us on our Facebook page.

Monday will be very cool as we’re hosting the TED @ Cannes conference. Looking forward to meeting those guys!

That’s it for now, gotta get to T5…

Video of my presentation yesterday at the Dell B2B Social Media Huddle

Based on our white paper Learning & Earning

Check out all the videos from the day here: http://www.ustream.tv/user/Dell_Inc/videos

Enjoy…

Digital Hollywood is going great here on Santa Monica beach in Los Angeles. The Loews Hotel is excellent and the digital discussion has been fast and furious.

I’ve cranked out about 5 posts so far.

Here are the top 3:

Multi-Screen Advertising Gets Upfront at Digital Hollywood

Video: Talking Advertising Accountability at Digital Hollywood 2010

Video: Xbox LIVE and Branded Entertainment at Digital Hollywood

The huge news from yesterday is that we’re hosting TED at Cannes this summer.

For anyone who doesn’t know about them, they run these talks where people from all walks of life come and share ideas to an live audience and the videos get seen my thousands across the web.

I download them to my Zune HD and watch them on the train.

One of my favourites is Blaise Aguera y Arcas from Microsoft (who I met a few years ago to discuss how best to demo Photosynth) talking about Bing Maps.

We are very excited about the TED event. We’ll have access to the speakers and will be interviewing and blogging from the venue too so check out our Cannes Lions 2010 page for updates.

Went out last night with my mate David McKimmie who was regaling stories of his latest movie exploits. He’s a post production supervisor for FOX and has just finished Wall Street 2 with Oliver Stone.

While were in Sushi Roku on Ocean, I spotted Peter Gabriel about 4 feet away.

I’m a huge fan, but reminded myself of how embarrassed I felt for interrupting Ian Botham’s dinner a few years ago in London.

I didn’t bother him.

But if I had, just think of what he could do with a Surface table at one of his live shows?!

The lovely Jackie Ortez, who helps organise the Search Engine Strategies conferences around the world, has sent me this tiny button to stick on my site.

I will indeed be speaking/moderating a couple of panels – mainly social media – both here in London in February, and in NYC in March.

Bing & Microsoft Advertising will be out in force at both events as well, and I’ll be on Twitter, our Facebook Page  and blogging on the adCenter Blog to bring you all the news and views.

Nice to see the latest comScore 2009 Search Growth numbers look very good, not just for adCenter and Bing, but for the industry as a whole!

Hope to see you all on either side of the pond!

A very Greg Jarboe looking Santa, quizzes the searcherati at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago about what they want for Christmas.

Jim Sterne, Matt McGowan, Motoko Hunt, David Szetela, Dave Naylor, Anne Kennedy, Bryan Eisenberg and Li Evans all feature.

Bill Hunt gets the festive link lovage though – watch till the end to see why!

Wish I’d gone now!!!

I’ve been doing search for 9 years. Except for 10 months in 2001 when I was a display advertising traffic manager for BTLooksmart, search engine marketing has been what I do.

From “Submit-a-Site” and BidSmart to managing blue chips at 24/7 and being part of the team that launched Microsoft adCenter in the UK, the keyword has been “search” and I’ve loved every minute of it.

But more recently I’ve been focused on the social media aspect of what our Microsoft Advertising Community team does. We were originally set up in 2006 to help and support advertisers as they signed up to adCenter. We were also on the frontline at events for answering questions about the platform and dealing with all the suggestions on how we might improve.

As the months have gone on, the way we’ve done business – via blogs and forums – has become more and more important. Social Media Marketing is now almost a given where 3 years ago it was seen as a luxury or nice-to-have.

Last October, when our team moved under Mark Young in Global Trade Marketing, he asked why were only doing this kind of work for adCenter? Why not work towards helping our other audiences in research, mobile and display have a direct feedback mechanism to the product & marketing teams that build the tools they use every day?

So in June we launched the Microsoft Advertising Community site! It’s a vibrant hub of social activity in the forums but also on the different blogs and this is where my “role tweak” comes in!

My area of focus is now the Microsoft Advertising Blog – this is where we’ve already on-boarded Young-bean Song and the Institute guys, we’re also talking about in-game advertising, mobile advertising and display.

This will grow, as will our social media foray. We now have @MSAdvertising @adCenterBlog and @adCenterRep and our Facebook Page cranking out tips, tricks and announcements and I’ll be looking to build our following globally to help continue our support of an industry we’re so passionate about.

So it’s not huge news, it’s not a new job, it’s just a change of direction for me from search and PPC to other forms of digital that need the same love, the same explanation/education, the same feedback and evangelism channels that we’ve been giving to adCenter for the past 3 years.

We’re also going great guns on events too – Cannes Lions and Advertising Week were very exciting and successful for our team with tens of thousands of interactions with our Tweets, posts, photos and videos, so it’s not like I’m chained to my desk either!

And it’s also not like I’m not keeping my hand in with search either. With all advertising becoming digital in the next 5 to 10 years, having an understanding of all marketing in the mix is crucial for anyone’s success in this space so Bing it on!!!

Any feedback, and ideas then shoot them through. I’m always listening!