Twitter and The Black Swan

Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter recently spoke for The London Speaker Bureau, along with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, for our client Sojormedia Capital in Portugal. Biz described how he set up Twitter. The company was actually set up in 2006, but it is only this year that it has entered the global mainstream. He finds the growth of the company "surprising and astounding". Nassim Nicholas Taleb remains gloomy about prospects for the global economy, since "the people who did not see the current crisis coming are still in charge. Not that many people who saw the crisis coming are in government".

Scott Goodstein was the External Online Director for President Obama’s election campaign. TLSB South-East Asia recently organised a tour of six engagements for him in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. In Singapore he spoke at ad:tech, one of the largest digital media summits in Asia, and at Communication and Broadcast Asia 2009 . He described how the latest digital media were used during the presidential campaign.

New Speakers

We are pleased to welcome two new exclusive speakers to The London Speaker Bureau. Andrew Keen is author of Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is killing our culture, and is widely regarded as the leading contemporary critic of the Internet. He writes a regular column and a blog for the Daily Telegraph in the UK on the digital world and social media. He recently spoke at a breakfast for CEO's in Dublin, an event organized by Mary Menton in our Dublin office. Andrew has also agreed a deal for his next book "Digital Vertigo: Anxiety, Loneliness and Inequality in the Social Media Age" to be published next year by St Martin's Press.

Dambisa Moyo was formerly with Goldman Sachs and the World Bank, She is the author of "Dead Aid", described as "an indictment of the `development industry' for creating destructive aid dependency in Africa." She believes that aid has made African governments unresponsive to the real needs of their people and indifferent to the private sector. It props up corrupt governments and, in the worst cases, it has abetted regimes that have destroyed some African countries. In 2009 TIME magazine nominated Dambisa as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Come and hear The Perfect Pitch

There are still a number of places available at the “The Perfect Pitch”, which takes place on Wednesday July 22nd at 12.30 in central London. This event is free to TLSB clients and is your chance to see David Magliano, who led the successful campaign to bring the 2012 Olympics to London, and is now Director of Marketing for the England 2018 World Cup bid. For details Click Here.

Richard Noble, who lead the team that broke the world land-speed record, is one of the high-profile individuals featured in the advertising campaign to launch the Chevrolet Cruze. The campaign will launch the new car throughout Europe and Russia, and we represented Richard in negotiations with Chevrolet. Click here to see the campaign (select "Rule Changers"). The theme of the campaign is "Breaking The Rules" and in it, Richard shares his experiences of challenging accepted wisdom that the feat was technically impossible, while facing competition from teams with much greater funding.

The Commonwealth Women's Antarctic Expedition will see women from the Commonwealth countries of Cyprus, Ghana, India, Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand, Jamaica and the United Kingdom brave rough terrain and temperatures below -30C as they ski over 800 kilometres across Antarctica to the Geographic South Pole. The women from Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana and Jamaica will be the first person from their nation to ski to the South Pole. Those from India, Singapore and New Zealand will be the first women from their country to do so. The expedition, led by Felicity Aston, aims to demonstrate the potential of greater intercultural understanding and exchange, while at the same time highlighting the achievements of women across the world.

Ben Saunders recently competed in the Thames Ring 250 mile race. Sadly, he had put pull out after running a mere 82 miles due to injury, Said Ben, "The Thames Ring 250 was an epic challenge with a peculiarly low-key backdrop - the field of thirty or so started from a tiny village hall in Berkshire. After clocking up 82-and-a- quarter miles (a personal best, and the last quarter was particularly hard-won!) I pulled out of the race at the third checkpoint with an ankle injury. It was a difficult decision - my expeditions have taught me the importance of persevering when all hope seems lost, yet I was keen to avoid ruining my plans for the next twelve months by stubbornly ploughing on through the pain".