We’re now in week 4 of our Mash Conference campaign and things are in full swing  at Mediacontact.ie HQ.

We’re particularly proud of this year’s line-up and from the feedback we’re getting you lot are very impressed too. We’ve announced eleven great speakers so far, and three great workshops that are filling up really fast.  And the scramble is now on for the last batch of Early Bird tickets – so book your ticket here or contact Evelyn on 01 473 2050.

Here are five cool things about this year’s Mash Conference:

1. It’s way ahead of the game
The theme this year is ‘Exploding Media’ – have you heard this term yet?  It describes how traditional ideas about media are exploding all around us due to developments in social media. Everywhere you look the traditional ways of printing, broadcasting, publishing, and communicating are being challenged by new technologies. A couple of the speakers who will be addressing this topic are Mark Rock, CEO of Audioboo (a mobile & web platform that allows you to record and upload audio for your friends, family or the rest of the world), Burt Herman, Founder and CEO of Storify.com, (Storify.com is an online platform for creating stories using social media) and Christian Payne aka @Documentally, who is not only giving a keynote presentation entitled ‘Extreme Geek – Understanding things to come’, but is also giving a dramatically entitled workshop ‘The Death of the Press Release’ on 9th May, which will be about digital storytelling and public relationships.

2. Norah Casey – the Den’s fierce new female Dragon
Did you see Norah Casey’s inaugural performance on the new series of Dragon’s Den two weeks back? She got heaveyweight Dragon Gavin Duffy on the ropes over an investment that they were both vying for, and she floored him fair and square. It was great tv and she’s going to be exciting to watch.
We’re certainly excited about having her at Mash where she will be talking about how the magazine industry can survive the digital age. As CEO and owner of Harmonia, Ireland’s largest magazine publishing company, she publishes a range of market leading magazines including strong women’s brands, Irish Tatler, Woman’s Way, U and specialist titles Food&Wine, Auto Ireland and Ireland of the Welcomes (aimed at the Irish Diaspora with over 80,000 USA-based subscribers). Harmonia prints over four million magazines annually for the Irish, British and US market.

3. Great Workshops
We really value the feedback we get from you about our events and at last year’s conference a lot of you suggested that a couple of smaller scale workshops around the conferecence would be helpful. So we took it all on board and now bring you three great workshops on 9th May that are already selling out really fast, as they have a smaller capacity.

The Death Of The Press Release – Digital Storytelling and Public Relationships with Christian Payne (@Documentally)
15 Mins One Change – Online Marketing Masterclass with Damien Mulley, Mulley Communications
Design Thinking – Unleash your Creative Potential with Ciaran O’Gaora, Founder, Zero G

Get more info on each of the workshops at www.mashmedia.ie.

4. What next after Wikileaks?
Wikileaks has been on the scene for almost a year now and with its’ radical premise of aiming to provide ‘a secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information and reveal censored injustices’, it is an organisation poised to turn the media on its head.
On Sunday 28th November 2010, WikiLeaks began publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents give people around the world an unprecedented insight into the US Government’s foreign activities.

Time Magazine has that Wikileaks ‘Could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act.”

How has Wikileaks changed the media landscape and what is next?

A panel discussion at Mash will address this question. Fintan O’Toole is one panelist and there are two more top journalists to be announced. Stay tuned…

5. Mash…of the spuds variety
King Edwards, Marfonas, Nadines, Wilja, Roosters,…what’s this list a list of? Types of potatoes of course – and you thought it was as simple as boiled or baked. Since starting this blog post I’ve found out a lot I didn’t know about potatoes, for instance King Edward potatoes are a ‘floury’ potato and good all-rounders, suitable for chipping, baking, roasting and mashing, but they are no good for boiling as they fall apart during cooking.

In my opinion you can’t beat bangers and mash with baked beans for a bit of cosy home-made goodness.

I may be getting off the point a little – it being that in keeping with the name of the conference there’s a bowl of creamy mash for everyone in the audience.

Early Bird Tickets available here