Fortunately, the last time I was asked "what's a blog?" whilst presenting at a social media conference was 2008. Thank gawd for that. But too many social media conferences continue to labour the basics whilst the majority of practitioners have moved themselves way up the learning curve.

So I thought I'd invest this Friday Roundup in identifying three initiatives in London that should tickle your advanced social fancy.

The first is the CIPR's Digital Impact conference. For an institute that didn't lead in the social media world back when I was being asked "what's a refback?", the CIPR has jumped three gears and is heading straight into the thick of things in 2010. The content looks fab. The speakers are great and the venue, for those who haven't yet been to the CIPR's new home, is lovely.

I'm going particularly for the First Direct and Vodafone sessions. (And don't worry about the CIPR's website, yes it is awful, and yes they do know it, and yes a new one will debut in just a couple of weeks!)

The second is Social Media Marketing 2010 from the same guys that brought us the successful Monitoring Social Media 2009 and Social Media Monitoring Bootcamp 2010 conferences. And with Chris Brogan and Brian Solis making rare appearances in the UK, it's shaping up to be another "I like" feather in the Luke Brynley-Jones' social hat.

Lastly, and another CIPR first, the CIPR Social Summer is the first event series organised by the CIPR's newly formed Social Media panel, and a series that's being developed openly on a wiki. Seriously, if you want to change it, you can. Read more

Last week's Friday Roundup focused on the ramifications of the Semantic Web, so-called Web 3.0, on the marketing and PR professions. So perhaps you'll forgive me if I push my luck by talking tech two weeks running.

The Internet of Things changes many aspects of our lives, including the possibilities and practice of the influence professions; marketing and PR. What is it? Well, you can think of it as a network of objects beyond the usual computers and smartphones, for example:

• The device containing electronics in order to fulfil its primary function (eg, washing machine, car, aircon unit)
• The electrical device traditionally absent of sophisticated electronics (eg, lighting, heating, power distribution)
• Non-electrical objects (eg, food and drink packages, animals, clothing); and
• Environmental sensors (eg, for variables such as temperature, heat and moisture).

And just like the Semantic Web, the Internet of Things isn't just some futurologist's dreamscape. It is here, now. Read more

Do you recall the pre-Web days of PR and marketing? The time before The Cluetrain Manifesto signalled that everything had changed and that the social media train was about to leave the station whether you were on it or not.

If stretching out that train doesn't stretch the metaphor too much, you could say that a very long train left the station from 1999 to 2009 with people jumping on board as and when they and/or their organisation felt ready. But undoubtedly, those who "got it" earlier than later have been best positioned to reap the benefits for their organisation and for their personal career.

Well, marketing and PR is about to change. Again. It's 2010.

If Web 2.0 could be summed up as content and community, then Web 3.0 is about the Web itself understanding the meaning of that content and community. Web 3.0 is more accurately known as the Semantic Web, and as the name implies it gives us the opportunity to have software applications connect the dots and spot patterns and coalesce information and reach conclusions on our behalf. Read more

It's just coming up to ten years since I participated in the first UK workshop on this new thing called blogging. During the ensuing decade I have formed a number of social media tenets that have so far stood the tests of time.

One of these is simply that social networks work best when they span the on- and off-line worlds; when face-to-face leads to 'linking-in', and when 'friending' leads to meet and greet.

Of course, another tenet was that at some juncture we'd stop differentiating between on- and off-line in the same way we don't feel the need to qualify whether a conversation was held in person or over the phone, but what's a contradiction between friends?

And the combination of on- and off- has worked in my favour recently. I had the benefit of a highly receptive audience at Monitoring Social Media Bootcamp 2010 who went on to view and tweet and my presentation about influence on slideshare.net, which then helped catapult it to slideshare's homepage as their most discussed document of the day.

So how can you start making the combination of on- and off- work to your advantage?

Lots of great posts for you this week. Enjoy! Read more