In October 09, we ran the first Like Minds conference in Exeter. 200 attendees were joined by over 500 online viewers, and thousands of online participants, as international speakers and panelists addressed the subject of ‘Measuring Social Media.’

Of course, the whole conference itself was a proof of concept for Social Media enabling and extending offline events:

• The event was purely marketed with Social Media: email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging.
• It was 6 weeks from concept to delivery. That’s 6 weeks in which 200 attendees signed up, 17 sponsors and partners were sourced, and 12 speakers and panelists were invited – all through Social Media.
• The event was extended beyond those in the room to a reach of over 200,000 through Social Media.
• And of course, the event stood out from among other conferences by being experiential and something to be experienced.

Like Minds has since quickly grown to become an organisation in its own right, based on the success of this first event. Like Minds has become a brand, attracting more world-class speakers to it’s planned events for 2010.