So we had our second BLAB night last Thursday with a f**king (his word) fantastic talk by Director Chris Gaffey. He was asking the question, “How should a brand tell a great story online?” raising some interesting points including “websites are rubbish”. Quite brave as he was in a room comprising of around 99% web designers and developers. Funnily enough he had quite a lot of backing on that point.

We also had a briefing from Mario Dubois of the BBC on the @North scheme. Unfortunately the event quick became over subscribed for the venue and some people who came to see Mario’s talk were unable to see it first time round. He was kind enough though to brief these people afterwards.

We also saw a quick round up on BBC 21st Century Classroom from Morgan Makin.

Big thanks to MadLab for our first time at their venue. We’ll defintely be using this space again. We’d also like to thank Northwest Vision and Media for the PA system and Orchard for laying on the beers.

We are planning our next BLAB nights with some great speakers lined up. The next one will probably be in March. More news on this to come.

To prevent the the venue becoming over crowded again our next events will be ticketed with a very small cost.

That’s right, we’ve been talking for a while now about setting up talks by Northern Digitals members and people we love outside of Manchester. We’ve now got around to setting them up. On Thursday 12th as well as the free raffle, creative agency Fudge will be kicking off our BLAB nights. Not sure about what yet, but we’ll let you know as soon we do.

It was Northern Digitals first birthday in October but due to being a couple of days into fatherhood I wasn’t able to make it. I heard it was a great turn out.

The next one should be even better as we are going to be running free raffle like we had a few months ago. The difference now is there are even more great prizes from some very kind people. Here’s what’s in the raffle so far and by who. Keep checking back here to see if more are added.

The prizes…
Computer Arts - A years subscription to the magazine
Computer Arts Projects - A years subscription to the magazine
Fudge - £100 iTunes vouchers
Academy Class - £700 worth of free training
Northwest Vision and Media - 1 £350 day pass to The Media Festival
Code Computerlove - An Apple iPod Nano
Boom! (me) - A couple of t-shirts will be given away.

There are also 3 of the new Apple Magic Mouse which Digital Jobs expert Orchard are giving away details on how these can be won will be posted here soon and announced via twitter.

To enter the raffle all we ask is…
1). You are a Northern Digitals member. If not you can become one here. In the words of an 80’s saying - “If your name’s not down you aint getting in the raffle”, or something like that.

2). You RSVP Yes before Thursday. You can RSVP here.

3). You are there on the night.

It was a really great night and a great turn out to our meetup at The Northern last night. Lots of new face, lots of old all drinking, chatting and drinking.

There was also the small matter of the free event raffle. Everyone who wanted to go to either Flash On The Beach or b.TWEEN conferences got put into a hat, well it was a big glass jug really. We then did the draw.

First out the hat was Adam Palmer of Love, who won the ticket to Flash On The Beach. He already had a ticket so kindly decided to put it back into the hat, sorry, jug. So next to be drawn out was Jon Stutfield from Flame Digital who will be going down to Brighton this September. Then was the draw for b.TWEEN in Liverpool on 11th and 12th June. This went to Jen Williams from Code.

Well, here’s how you can get you hands on a ticket to either Flash On The Beach or b.TWEEN at this Thursdays meetup.

We’re going to keep it simple with a free raffle. To be in with a chance all we ask is:
You are a Northern Digitals member. If you aren’t join up here.
You are there on Thursday at The Northern when we do the draw.
You can/want to go to either of these events if you are lucky to win. These are pretty special prizes and we don’t want them to go to waste. Tickets won’t be able to be sold on.
Oh, and if you are the lucky winner, you take plenty of pics when you are there for us all to share.

That’s it really, good luck and we’ll see you all there.

The prizes for our next meetup on Thursday 4th June at The Northern just keep coming.

I can’t believe it’s been 12 months since I embarrassed myself doing a Pecha Kucha style talk at las years b.TWEEN conference, but it is, and it’s here again.

b.TWEEN is a great 2 day networking event with great talks by industry leaders. It really was worth while for me last year, making some good contacts including Northern Digitals member Warren Slingsby of Make in Huddersfield.

This year it is at FACT in Liverpool on 11-12 June and you have the chance to win a 2 day pass by coming along to our next meetup on Thursday 4th June at The Northern. We’ll let you know how you can get your hands on this prize closer to the time but one things we can say is that you will have to be a Northern Digital member, RSVP’d YES, and be there on the night. In the meantime here’s what the event organisers say about the event:

You may have heard through our twitter that we have a great prize to give away at our next meetup.

Well…

that prize is…

wait for it…

a free ticket to this years Flash On The Beach - www.flashonthebeach.com, which has kindly been donated by the organisers.

For those who don’t know, Flash On The Beach or FOTB is a 3 day creative/flash/film conference in Brighton from 20th - 23rd Sept.

For those who do know, will know how good this prize is.

You simply don’t get the calibre of speaker at an event like this in the UK, with speakers such as Joshua Davis, Hillman Curtis, Rob Chiu, Carlos Ulloa, Keith Peters, to name a fraction of the talent speaking.

I went to the 2007 event and was blown away with what I saw. WARNING! You may decide to give up the day job when you see the work, ideas and general crazy sh*t on show.

Other Northern Digitals members who have been included Stuart Hamilton and Adam Palmer. If you don’t want to take my word for how good FOTB is, give them a shout at the meetup.

So yes, there will only be one lucky winner at the next meetup. We haven’t yet decided how we are going to give this away but you will have to be there on the night. Keep an eye on this site and twitter for more information before the meetup.

If you aren’t the lucky winner and have a healthy interest in anything creative and digital, you must not miss this event.

At writing this there were 102 Double Early Bird tickets left at £239.

See you all there on Thu 4th June at The Northern, Tibb Street, Manchester.

We’re going to give a new venue a try for the next meetup on the 5th March. It’s going to be at The Northern on Tib Street. It will also be at the earlier time 6pm. Here’s how to find it.

See you all there.

It was a great turn out for Feb’s meetup last Thursday.

On the night I found out that Paul Smith had finished his contract at the BBC and is now starting with the guys at Fudge after meeting them at Northern Digitals.

If you’re a regular to our meetups it would be great to hear what you think of the venue, day and time. We want the meetup to be accessible as people as we can.

Send your views to matt@northerndigitals.com