Sam Michel

After five thrilling years, it's time for Social Media Week London’s (SMWLDN) next step and after much consideration it’s time for me and the Chinwag team to pass the baton.

The next edition taking place this September in London will be run by CrowdCentric, founders of Social Media Week and the team that runs the event in New York. It's a massive undertaking and we wish the NYC team all the best.

The speed of your website is critical. According to one report for every second that a page takes to load, wave goodbye to 7% of sales and who can afford that? Visa Europe estimating £450m will be spent on Cyber Monday alone.

There's all sorts of clever tech solutions: cloud-based servers, cacheing, content delivery networks to name but a few. Surely good old-fashioned comments don't represent a website glue trap?

Social Media Week 2013 is produced by Chinwag and powered by Nokia. One of the ways it is able to happen so fluidly is the team that makes up Chinwag.

This year there have been old and new faces added to the team.

Keep reading to learn about each individual team member...

The afternoon of Tuesday 25th at the Sport, Culture & Entertainment Hub saw Eventbrite's How Social Media Powered the Pop-Up. From boutiques to burger bars, cinemas to spas - pop-ups are delighting curious Londoners all over the city.

But how do these one-off ventures create lasting buzz? And what makes some pop-ups mythical, and others missable? Most work without the luxury of big brand marketing budgets.

This panel discussion brought in the experts behind the pop-ups, including Andrew Swain (Boxpark), Alice Hodge (Art of Dining), Max Bergius (Art Wednesday), Sam Michel (Chinwag) and Dan Young (Young & Foodish). Check out the livestream below and get in on the pop-up discussion.

A couple of weeks back I was asked to speak at TechWorld, a conference and expo organised by UK Trade & Investment. This year's event included the addition of the first TechCity Entrepreneur's Festival.

The week-long festival incorporated a bootcamp, access to investors, a giant get-together with Silicon Valley Comes to the UK, pitch training and a pitch competition. In the light of so many overseas companies heading in to London, I thought a whistlestop tour of the UK's digital sector, location of clusters and London, in particular might be handy.