What is mesh?

Canada’s leading online conference, mesh explores how the Internet is changing how we live, work and play. mesh is divided into four streams – media, society, business and marketing – to provide an overall of the key trends, issues, companies and tools. mesh is designed to be interactive and engaging with attendees being as much of the programming as speakers. With a few exceptions, mesh is a slide deck free event that encourages people to get involved, network and, well, mesh.

Where and why is it happening?

mesh is taking place on May 25 an 26, 2011 at the Allstream Centre in Toronto. It was started six years ago because the five founders (see below) thought Toronto deserved to have a world-class conference where people with an enthusiasm for the Web could get together to discuss its impact. Join us at mesh 2011 and help us connect, share and inspire.

Who is running it?

Mark Evans

Mark runs his own digital marketing, content and social media strategic consultancy, ME Consulting, that works with startups and fast-growing companies to create and deliver compelling stories to a variety of audiences. This ranges from core messaging and Web site content to corporate videos and social media strategy and tactics. He blogs at Mark Evans Tech and Twitterrati, and writes an online column on startups and entrepreneurs for the Globe & Mail. Before starting ME Consulting, Mark was as a high-tech reporter with the National Post, Globe & Mail and Bloomberg News. He has also worked with four startups – Blanketware, b5media, PlanetEye and Sysomos. When not working or writing, Mark stays busy with family and playing hockey.

Mathew Ingram

I’m a senior writer with GigaOm, one of the leading technology blog networks. Prior to 2010, I was a journalist with The Globe and Mail, where I wrote a column and a blog about technology both for the newspaper and the website. In 2008, I became the Globe’s first online “communities editor,” a job that involved thinking about all the ways in which the paper interacts with readers — blogs, comments, wikis, Facebook, Twitter, etc. — and developing new and better ways of doing that. I’ve been working online for the Globe since the site was re-launched as a breaking news site in 2000, and been living and writing online since the early 1990s when a 9600-baud dial-up modem was the hot-rod of the Internet. I have a personal blog at mathewingram.com/work where I write about Web 2.0 ideas and the intersection of the media and the Internet. I think that the kind of interactivity and dialogue that blogs and other Web 2.0 tools provide is already having — and will continue to have — a profound effect on the media industry and many other industries, and that’s why I wanted to be part of this conference.

Mike McDerment

I’m an entrepreneur, I guess. You can find my infrequent postings at michaelmcderment.com and on FreshThinking. I’m currently running FreshBooks, a rapidly growing online invoicing, time and expense tracking application. It’s a business that grew out of work we did for ourselves at a web design agency I used to run, and now over 600,000 people use FreshBooks for their own businesses. Organizing this conference was something I couldn’t pass up. It’s been a treat to work with these guys over the years and share our enthusiasm for the issues mesh addresses. Looking forward to seeing you all in May.

Rob Hyndman

I’m a Toronto technology business lawyer – my clients are technology companies and their customers. My firm is Hyndman | Law, a boutique law practice that provides legal counsel to technology businesses on a wide variety of business law needs. I’m an unabashed life-long geek who got his start more than 30 years ago as the vice-president of a two-member computer club in high school. I’m passionate about helping grow the Toronto Web 2.0 community and evangelizing the opportunities for connection, sharing and inspiration that the Web has given us. I blog at robhyndman.com, and have been described by Canadian Lawyer magazine as “one of Canada’s most prolific blawggers”. I wish that were cooler than it sounds.

Stuart MacDonald

I’m the CEO and Founder of Tripharbour Limited, operator of Tripharbor.com and Tripharbour.ca, two new, online cruise vacation ecommerce and community sites. We are making it easier for North Americans to find the perfect cruise holiday. As for me, I’m your basic online business geek. My fate was sealed way back when I sat in my apartment marveling at the glory that was eAAsy SABRE on 2400 baud dial-up. I remember watching as flight details, obtuse airport codes and impossible-to-understand pricing come up on my screen one character at a time. I felt like I had just landed on this big secret. I thought “This is going to be big.” Several years later, I brought Expedia to Canada and started Expedia.ca in my spare room. I ended up moving to Seattle as SVP/chief marketing officer for Expedia.com, as well as running the US packages business. Now back in Toronto, I’m a blogger, passionate about what Web 2.0 means for business and society, and very proud to be part of creating mesh.