Social Media Week: five world communications days dedicated to digital media

An event completely dedicated to social media which presents itself today as “one of a kind” and in a few years won’t make headlines at all for it will certainly be extremely common by then. This unique event took place from September 24-28^th in fourteen different cities spanned across three continents.

Turin, Barcelona, Berlin, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, and Seoul to name a few, were among the main cities hosting the five-day event dedicated to digital communication through meetings, debates, seminars and conferences featuring special guest speakers. Among the other themes touched upon, this 2012 edition of Social Media Week, enriched by experiences and successes from past editions, mainly focused on the “digital thought”, that is, the relationship between technology and socialization.

It’s a delicate and important theme that allows us to pause for a moment and reflect upon the social evolution of the recent years. This evolution has changed and will continue to drastically change our lives. It is enough to think about how the social media, with their strong impact, have revolutionized our daily way of communicating in such a short period of time. Social media are preferred to traditional means, such as the telephone and the fax, and now even to recent media such as email and sms. But it doesn’t stop there. Besides influencing our relationships and social habits, social media have also brought about significant changes in economy, through new ways of doing business and creating value and wealth, and in the culture, through new forms of education and learning models. They have even revolutionized the way of conserving and handing down the memory of our civilization to our descendants. Millions of gigabytes, shared on the web, containing the blueprints of our time, are slowly taking the place of books, paintings, statues, etc.

Among the most interesting and intriguing initiatives was an event that took place in Turin (Italy) called, The Social Mom – Mom’s on the Web. Leading Italian mom bloggers discussed how even maternity has considerably changed, becoming a much more “shared” experience, thanks to the advent of social networks. Testimonies from various mothers have made the experience of maternity an experienced shared among all the “surfer moms”. Through forums, chats, and social networks, mothers have exchanged advice, opinions, fears, and above all, their happy moments by, for example, uploading photos and videos of their little ones online. The event closed with perspectives and curiosities regarding upcoming challenges, giving everyone an invitation to the 2013 edition.