This evening, I’ll be in London’s Soho taking part in “Chinwag Live: Xmas Futures, Crystal Balls?”, the latest panel discussion session and social get-together organized by Chinwag, the network and community for digital media practitioners in the UK and beyond, presented in conjunction with media partner CBS Interactive, the company behind silicon.com and ZDNet.co.uk.

There’s a terrific panel chaired by Richard Titus, Head of User Experience, BBC Future Media and Technology, which will attempt to gaze into the next five years and produce some credible ideas on what things might look like. Or not, perhaps.

[…] Join us on December 2nd for our lively end of year session as we don our five-years-into-the-future specs and foretell the world of 2013!

Will brands, publishers, marketers and platform providers be recognisable? How will they have changed? With ubiquitous web and mobile access, how will online and offline relate?

As we pit imagination against reason and trend analysis, will the views of our digital experts be planets apart? Take this chance to quiz the panel and share your thoughts on what comes next…

Panel members include Jonathan Mitchener, Futurologist & Principal Research Scientist, Devices, BT; Simon Collister, Head of Digital Consumer Practice, Weber Shandwick (someone I actually know); and Jamie Coomber, Head of Digital Strategy, Profero. Plus me as well.

So if you’re in Soho at around 6pm, why not join in the fun? Sign up here.

The picture above, by the way, is from Chinwag’s PR Unspun set on Flickr. I took part in that event in April 2007, the last Chinwag one I did. The events are great fun, highly sociable and you do learn a thing or two. Even the speakers.