Simon Mainwaring

We First provides consulting and training to help companies tell the story of their good work in ways that build their business

Simon Mainwaring

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SXSW was a blur of friends, seminars, free TONE bars, dropped phone calls, late night drinks and music, and a gazillion smart people sharing interesting ideas. Now that the dust has settled, I thought I’d share the top ten things I took away from the week. You know, the broad stroke stuff that stick in […]

SXSW was a blur of friends, seminars, free TONE bars, dropped phone calls, late night drinks and music, and a gazillion smart people sharing interesting ideas. Now that the dust has settled, I thought I’d share the top ten things I took away from the week. You know, the broad stroke stuff that stick in …

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One of the highlights of my recent trip to Doha was the chance to work with people like Lawrence Chickering and Safeena Husain, the founder and Executive Director (respectively) of Educate Girl Globally (EGG) that is revolutionizing schooling and the opportunities for young women in India. Here Lawrence and Safeena take us through the exciting …

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This week’s book review features Adland by James Othmer. It’s a memoir of the life of an advertising executive who started out working for a small ad agency and made his way to the top only to find this traditional agency was failing in the face of new age of digital and social marketing. By watching …

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Today’s keynote by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams was much anticipated. Even though the fireside chat approach was too quiet for some, I found Evan Williams to be incredibly succinct and articulate. Prompted by questions from Harvard Business Review’s Umair Haque, Evan Williams distilled large changes in the branding and social media space into accessible, bite …

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Well, this is my first year at SXSW and so far it’s been very encouraging. The seminars, by and large, have been great. @briansolis (above), @bethkanter and @danahboyd were great. What’s more all these thought leaders are incredibly accessible and fun. No one takes themselves too seriously and as long as you can survive on …

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Thanks to the Brookings Institute I recently had to privilege of attending the U.S./ Islamic World Forum in Qatar participating in the working group, ‘New Media in the Era of Globalization’. One of the other members of my group was Riyaad Minty, who as Head of Social Media for Al Jazeera, has been at the …

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