A lovely brew of conferences for digital communicators is lining up for 2013 – all listed and updated here. In Firehead’s annual conference calendar, we’ve mainly focused on events within our main digital comms recruitment area of the UK and mainland Europe, but with a nod to some of the bigger events in the US and beyond. Here is our list of picks for 2013 with conference hashtags.
FEBRUARY
Webstock, Wellington, New Zealand, 11-15 February 2013
#webstock
A sort of SXSW (see below) for all things digital down under and with a reputation for drawing the biggest names – this year’s event, for example, features big names such as Jason Kottke, John Gruber and Bruce Sterling. We’ll hopefully be reporting from this in 2014!
SES (Search Engine Strategies) London, 18-21 February 2013
#sesconf
We attended this conference in 2010 and found lots of useful panels on SEO work, email marketing and digital content distribution.
Content Strategy Lightning Talks, London, 26 Feb 2013
#cslondon13
A sort of Pecha Kucha for the London content strategy meetup group with 10 speakers talking over 20 slides at 15 seconds each.
MARCH
SXSW Interactive, Austin, US, 8-12 March 2013
#sxswi
An annual favourite and the biggest web festival in the world covering multiple panels, talks and meetups in the field of digital communications – but with added parties. So good we’ve been twice and highly recommend it if you’re going to pick a US conference to attend. For added fun and geek bonus points, book a Segway tour of Austin.
Cool Content, Cornwall, UK, 22 March 2013Only a half-day event for content producers but it does take place at the bio-futuristic Eden Project in Cornwall so it should live up to its cool moniker either way. Organised by Cool Content Brighton crew Charlie Peverett and Tamsin Bishton Hemingray, this looks to be one of a series of Cool Content events in 2013.
Confab 2013, London, UK, 25-27 March 2013
#confab13
Now in its third year, the big US content strategy conference is taking a side trip to London. Has great reviews, good networking opportunities and is a must for content strategists on this side of the pond.
APRIL
The IA Summit, Baltimore, US, 3-7 April 2013
#iasummit
Covering the disciplines of information architecture and experience design.
Digital Media Europe 2013, London, 15-17 April 2013
#dme13
Discussing digital impacts in mobile, social, paid content, business innovation and advertising.
Internet World 2013, London, 23-25 April 2013
#internetworld
More of an exhibition for digital business but with a free seminar programme attached that covers digital marketing, social, mobile, ecommerce and content management.
Adobe Digital Marketing Summit EMEA, London, 24-25 April 2013
#AdobeSummit
The latest on social, targeting, analytics, ad optimisation and web experience management, says the event blurb. Big name speakers include various digital luminaries, such as the founder of LeWeb Loïc Le Meur, and digital media celebs such as record-breaking skydiver Felix Baumgartner.
Intra.NET Reloaded 2013, Berlin, Germany, 25-26 April 2013
#intra_reloaded
Targeting issues in intranet management, employee platforms, internal communications, digital settings and community building.
MAY
Technical Communication Summit, Atlanta, US, 5-8 May 2013
More than 80 education sessions across seven tracks, with an accompanying expo. Atlanta is lovely, too.
Digital Shoreditch Festival 2013, London, 20-31 May 2013
#ds13
The Tech City community gather to stroke hipster beards, talk tech and network in the vicinity of London’s famous Silicon Roundabout.
JUNE
Confab, Minneapolis, US, 3-5 June 2013
The second of this year’s three Confabs returns to its hometown.
Augmented Reality World Expo aka awe2013, Santa Clara, US, 4-5 June 2013
#awe2013
The world’s largest gathering of augmented reality (AR) professionals features demos, talks and a showcase of the latest augmented reality experiences in entertainment, brand engagement, enterprise, education and more.
Le Web London, London, 5-6 June 2013
LeWeb goes on a summer holiday to London where it will “explore the concept of Digital ‘Hippies’ creating a global sharing marketplace”.
Adobe Day @ UA Europe 2013, Manchester, UK, 12 June
A pre-conference day exploring user assistance trends from separating content from form to improving search to eLearning. Speakers include Colum McAndrew, David Farbey, Ellis Pratt and many more.
UA Europe, 13-14 June 2013, Manchester, UK
Annual conference for technical communicators, user assistance specialists, information architects, technical authors, software developers and documentation managers that focuses on software user assistance and online help. Tom Johnson of I’d Rather Be Writing is one of the presenters.
Congility, 26-27 June 2013, Gatwick, UK
Content Agility brings together content strategy, structured content and component CMS under one roof. The theme for 2013 is: “The next five years: mastering communications in a multi-device world.”
SEPTEMBER
Webdagene, Oslo, Norway, 9-11 September 2013
#webdagene
Norway’s biggest conference for web communicators, organised by a user experience consultancy but covering many topics from interface design to content strategy and web marketing.
Content Marketing World, Columbus, US, 9-12 September 2013
#cmworld
The leading content marketing conference, which is organised by the awesome Content Marketing Institute. Rumour has it CM World will also be coming to the UK in the not-too-distant future. We’re just waiting for Joe Pulizzi to confirm!
Technical Communication UK, 24-26 September 2013, Bristol, UK
#tcuk
The annual TCUK conference is the leading event for technical communicators in the UK. The specialist topic stream for this year’s conference is The Management of Technical Communication. Not only has Firehead attended but we’ve also presented a content strategy case study at this event. It’s a good one.
Content Strategy Forum 2013, Helsinki, Finland, 12-13 September 2013#csforum13
The moveable feast of content strategy continues in the European digital hotspot of Helsinki.
EuroIA, Edinburgh, Scotland, 26-28 September 2013
#euroIA
Europe’s ninth annual information architecture summit features presentations, panels and plenty of networking opportunities for IAs. No specific theme but there will be an English-language programme that represents a wide range of subjects – from hard-core search strategies to more general user-experience topics.
OCTOBER
Content Strategy Forum, Helsinki, Finland, 10-11 October 2013
No website yet but they have a Twitter @cs_forum so check there for announcements.
Hartman Event 2013 Content Strategy and Content Governance, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 10 October 2013
#HartmanEVENT
One of the rare content strategy events to be based in mainland Europe.
iStrategy, London, 15-16 October 2013
#iStrategy
Digital and social media conference that focuses heavily on marketing strategies.
LavaCon: The Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies, Portland, US, 21-23 October 2013
#lavoncon
Founded in 2002, LavaCon has grown from its technical communication roots to include sessions on project management, content strategy, social media, mobile devices and more.
NOVEMBER
TC World and Tekom, 6-8 November 2013, Wiesbaden, Germany
The TCWorld conference and the Tekom fair is the largest global event and market place for Technical Communication. Most attendees are from industrial, software and service companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but the event is growing to attract a wider European audience.
Confab, Atlanta, US, 11-12 Nov 2013
The last of the three Confabs follows a higher education strand.
CS Applied, London, UK, 14-15 November 2013
#csapplied13 or #csa13
This annual conference is full of case studies and is ideal for anyone seeking more on the practical side of content strategy. We’ve been twice and we love it.
TechDocs UK, 21 November 2013, Bristol, UK
This third annual TDUK event covers the niche of aerospace and defence technical documentation.
DECEMBER
Le Web, Paris, 10-12 December 2013
#leweb
Europe’s conference for tech start-ups and web entrepreneurs.
We’ll be updating this post throughout the year as more events are logged, and also reporting on some of the conferences for our readers. Please do add your suggestions into the comments, too.
