Rachel Sklar, Rachelle Hruska and Anastasia Liapis at last February's Social Media Week.

SF, London, Berlin to be part of wide-ranging global teach-in

Spent an hour on a conference call this morning where it was announced that Social Media Week, inaugurated last February in New York, will expand to include San Francisco, London, Berlin, Toronto and São Paulo, Brazil.

The weeklong event will take place Feb. 1-5, 2010. The goal is to "explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large ... and to create a global platform for conversation, connectivity and learning," said event organizer Toby Daniels, who was on the call.

While the Socialmediaweekny.com site talks about a five-day conference, it's less a conference than a sprawling series of loosely connected events all related to the theme of social media. (I like to think of it as a "teach-in," though perhaps that's too retro a term.) Events will span a variety of formats, ranging from talks, presentations and panel discussions, to interactive workshops, seminars, networking events and drinks receptions. Some will be free, others will have an admission charge. Some will be put on by marketing groups, others by nonprofits and social change organizations. They'll all be listed in a public calendar.

In San Francisco, Chris Heuer of the Social Media Club will be the local organizer, natch, and there will be a daylong jobs retraining summit as part of the event. Chris is setting up a Basecamp site for volunteers to help organize the events.

The full program of events for each city will be published in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Social Media Week organizers are inviting the business communities in each city to get involved by registering events, submitting speaker proposals and by registering space that can be used to host events.

You can get involved here. Or if you'd like to help out with SF-related events, contact Chris directly.

Cross-posted to Socialbrite.org.

JD Lasica is founder of Socialmedia.biz. We work with large companies and nonprofits on social media strategies and campaigns. See JD's business profile, contact him or leave a comment.