The Amazee Blog

(An alternative take at the logo.)

Michael and I just got back from the first Social Media Gipfel (Social Media Summit), organized by Marcel Bernet of Bernet PR and Peter Hogenkamp of Blogwerk. The short résumé: It was time well spent, despite having to get up even earlier than we already do.

The long résumé: The Social Media Gipfel has a lot of potential. Zurich has witnessed the rise of a lot of Web-related events lately, from the well-established Web Monday to the Internet-Briefing to the Web Tuesday, to the various Chuchis and the Politforelle; however, a meetup with presentations revolving around the hardly fathomable topic of Social Media was still missing from the Web afficionado’s agenda.

So, Marcel and Peter stepped to the plate and delivered well. The first meeting took place at the NZZ bistro, and despite the early time (7:30), well over fifty people attended. Interestingly those there were not the same as those you might encounter at other meetups. Two presentations were held, the first by David Schärer of ROD Communications AG. He talked about their “Slow down – Take it easy” campaign which aims at reducing traffic accidents by promoting a chill way of driving. Quite a laid-back campaign with a lot of drive: an artificial character called Franky Slowdown is the face of “Slow Down” and stirs the masses on Facebook and is now entering the Swiss charts with the band Da Sign & The Opposite. According to David Schärer it takes a face and some earnest activity on a site like Facebook (and, of course, some freshness) to make a successful campaign. All in all, pretty common sense, but nicely condensed by David.

Second up was Chris Leduc, who, together with two colleagues, started the Twitter account @railservice, which is growing wildly popular in Switzerland. It provides valuable information to public transportation travellers in a fresh, friendly, and occasionally funny way. The special twist here: It is not (yet) backed by the Swiss Rail, SBB. All three initiators are working in public transport themselves and were just fascinated with Twitter, as Chris told. At the Social Media Gipfel, he met with a representative of SBB for the first time to talk about their initiative. Patrick Comboeuf, Director of e-business at SBB, showed a lot of understanding (bordering on well-contained enthusiasm) for @railservice and hinted at the problems of just making this an official service (Will it be a competition to the pay-per-call service of the same name by SBB, for example?). It quite quickly became clear that the attendees were with the young Chris, and Michael and I decided to support @railservice in the best way we can. More on this soon to come.

For those who have missed the first Social Media Gipfel: You better come next time! The next dates are set for Feb., 3rd, April, 04th and June, 6th. Marcel and Peter are always glad for input and volunteers to present. Feel free to contact them, you’ll find all details on the Social Media Gipfel website.

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This post was written by Mathias Möller