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# Social Media Forums, Linguistics and Communities
- URL: https://onemanandhisblog.com/2010/03/social_media_forums_linguistics_and_comm/
- Published: 2010-03-25T18:53:20.000Z
- Updated: 2015-04-28T13:06:24.000Z
- Author: Adam Tinworth
- Tags: B2B, community, conferences, events, germany, Social Media

![Social Media Forum Hamburg notes](https://i1.wp.com/www.onemanandhisblog.com/content/images/2010/03/4461390413_0ef1fb991f.jpg?resize=500%2C333)

Those who know me well will be aware that I can ricochet from overly-conservative and cautious to stupidly feet-first. Thus it was with a conference I attended yesterday. When asked if I wanted to speak at a conference in \[Hamburg\](http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.5652777778,10.0013888889&spn=1.0,1.0&q=53.5652777778,10.0013888889 (Hamburg)&t=h "Hamburg"), I agreed without bothering to check in great detail what the conference was. 

And thus, I found myself doing the opening keynote at the \[Social Media Forum special B2B media day in Hamburg\](http://www.socialmediaforum.de/programm/special-fachmedien.html), a conference otherwise conducted entirely in German. And how much German do I speak? Err. None. 

And you know what? I had a \*great \*time. But a busy one. I couldn’t liveblog it because the sessions were being live translated for me by the speedy \[Stefanie Kleebauer\](http://twitter.com/steffi\_k) of organisers \[Kongress Media\](http://www.kongressmedia.de/). So I listened, I looked at the slides and I picked up the core information through Skype chat. And I expanded on those ideas in conversation with people over coffee and lunch. And nearly everyone I talked to spoke excellent English, putting me to shame.

But I learnt a surprising amount, and I hope to go into that in more depth in a later post (and yes, I am aware I still owe some Social Business Summit posts. They will get done…). But my main lesson, I suppose, was that there is still plenty to be learnt about community-building and development, even in people from a different language and national culture from your own. And, at a point where I’m figuring out that our own strategic view of some forms of community is way too shallow, that was a very useful revelation indeed…

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