Not to be missed: Social Media Week begins February 13th this year around the world. You’re in luck to attend if you live in or close by Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Miami, New York, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto, or Washington DC. If you don’t live in these cities, you will have to travel to any one of them to experience one of the best international events in the social media world. Your other options, of course, are to connect through mobile and the Social Media Week’s conferences online.

The mission of Social Media Week is to “ … explore how local and regional societies, cultures, and economies are becoming more integrated and empowered through a global network of communication.”

If you still doubt the strength and power of social media throughout the world and its effects on our society and economy, then you must have been living under a rock for about the last two years. Social media has fueled revolutionary movements in the Middle East that had the power to bring on regime change. Businesses live and die by the power of social media. Ignoring the power of social media is like being an ostrich who buries its head in the sand and hopes that everything will just… go away.

It’s not going to happen.

Social Media Week aims to explore trends and create discussion, debate and conversations around the world in this phenomena that has and is: changing the world we live in. 60,000 people are expected to actually attend the organized events and another half a million will connect through mobile and the Social Media Weeks conferences online.

Each city will host special events and speakers with insights, ideas and strategies with the goal to open up discussion and perhaps change your world.

Join in the conversations. Social Media Week runs til February 17th. Visit the Social Media Week website at http://socialmediaweek.org/