Welcome to meshmarketing ‘10!
Last year, we took a major step forward with the launch of meshmarketing, a one-day event focused on providing engaging, hands-on and stuff-you-can-use sessions about the fast-changing digital marketing landscape. It was a major success with lots of terrific feedback about the workshops and panels.
So, we’re really excited to pull the covers of meshmarketing ‘10. meshmarketing is happening on November 17, 2010 in downtown Toronto. (We’ll announce the location soon.) Tickets are $489 (plus HST) before Sept. 17, and $539 afterwards. There are also 50 student tickets for $99 each (plus HST). And, of course, we’ll have a social afterwards. Tickets can be purchased here.
While we’re keeping the same focus and approach, there are some wrinkles that we think are going to make meshmarketing even better.
First, we’ve partnered with Trina Boos, who has been running the successful Ad Lounge events. Trina delivers terrific insight into the advertising and marketing worlds, as well as a huge community that she has nurtured and built over the past nine years. As meshmarketing’s programming director, Trina is the driving force behind the event’s sessions and and speakers, and we’re overjoyed about her key role within meshmarketing.
Second, we’ve tweaked the programming format. Rather than have a single keynote, we will kick off meshmarketing with two keynotes – Michael Slaby and Marian Salzman – along with a super-presentation by Lee LeFever. Part of the change in format was our excitement about several speakers. Rather than pick only one, we decided to go with a three-pack.
Michael Slaby is executive vice-president and global practice chair of Edelman’s digital practice. Before joining Edelman, he was a technology and new media advisor to the Obama administration where he led operational and long-term planning for technology including web strategy and utilization, and data integration opportunities.
Marian Salzman, one of the world’s top five trend spotters, will offer insights into the future of digital marketing and communications. As a leading communications professional, digital marketer and author, Marian will provide her insight on what’s on the horizon and what we need to know now to prepare.
And for those not familar with Lee LeFever, he (along with his partner and wife, Sachi) are the brains behind the popular Common Craft video series that provides user-friendly insight into technology and technology trends that everyone can understand.
As for the rest of the programming, we’ve got a great line-up of speakers, panels and workshops – everything from the ROI of social media customer and trans-media storytelling to how retailers are using location-based services, and future of social TV. For more details, visit the speaker and schedule page.
meshmarketing tickets can be purchased here. Don’t forget to take advantage of the early-bird special until Sept. 17.
Tags: conference, marketing, mesh, meshmarketing, social media, Toronto
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The Evolution of Online Privacy on The Agenda
TVO has now posted the video for The Agenda’s session at mesh10 on online privacy:
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mesh 2010 – Day Two Roundup!
The second and last day of #mesh10 has come and gone, and only tweets and photos remain! Hope everyone had a great time at Spice Route last night!
Business Keynote – Scott Thompson
Day Two began with a discussion of the future of money with the President of PayPal, Scott Thompson. Formerly a CTO at Visa, Thompson sees the value in having tech businesses actually be run by people who have hands-on experience in technology. Thompson also stresses the importance of consumer and business partner feedback, saying “if you can measure something, you can improve it.” This seems to have paid off – PayPal serving 84 million consumers internationally in 190 countries!
Scott Thompson with Mike McDerment
Photo Credit: Mike McNulty, as uploaded to media.meshconference.com
Marketing/Communications Keynote – Arvind Rajan
{Disclosure: LinkedIn is an Edelman client}
Up next was Arvind Rajan from LinkedIn to talk about making lasting connections in the professional online space. Rajan gave mesh attendees a crash course in LinkedIn job hunting, saying that a filled-out profile, listing interests, and regular updating are the best ways to attract recruiters. Rajan also piqued the crowd’s interest when he said, “It’s fair to say that we’re looking at ways for users to leverage their LinkedIn network further online.” Looks like there’s much more to come from LinkedIn, especially with the opening of a Canadian office!
Top tweet: @erin_bury: Best quote of #mesh10 from @stuartma while interviewing LinkedIn’s @arajan: “I joined LinkedIn on Monday.”
Check out this video of Arvind Rajan speaking with mesh co-founder Stuart MacDonald
What Businesses Should Really Do with Facebook – Janice Diner
Janice Diner took the stage to talk about how businesses should be using Facebook to engage with their communities. Since Canadians spend an average of 429 minutes on Facebook per month, it’s important for brands to optimize their Facebook utilization. Diner suggests following Facebook’s guiding principles: make it social, keep it simple, optimize for speed and be sure to integrate.
Real-Time and How it Forces Marketers to be Real – David Carroll, Salima Valji and Leigh Himel
Next up was a great panel discussion about real-time marketing that included David Carroll, known for his viral smash hit “United Breaks Guitars” YouTube video. Over eight million views later, he believes that companies should implement a holistic and integrated marketing approach; an approach also mirrored by Valji and Himel. The key take away from the panel is that real-time is about authentic relationship building and transparency.
Photo: http://twitpic.com/1p73gg | Photo Credit: Rob Hyndman, as uploaded to twitpic.
More Excitement!
Speaking of David Carroll – he’s playing “United Breaks Guitars” and other songs from his latest album at Edelman’s mesh10 Wrap Party. For those who miss Dave’s performance tonight, he’ll be at the Duke of Westminster tomorrow night and Edelman Digital invites you to join us for a very sociable evening.
See you at meshMarketing and #mesh11!
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Edelman is a founding sponsor of mesh and proud supporter of Canada’s premier web 2.0 conference. Blog posts and Twitter updates are brought to you by @lauraroni and @melissaretty from Toronto’s @edelmandigital team. Edelman is the largest independently-owned communications firm in the world. For more information, check out Edelman.com
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mesh 2010 – Day One Roundup!
Hello meshies! mesh is back for its fifth exciting year and it’s bigger than ever!
Stuart MacDonald kicked off the first day of #mesh10 with a huge thank you to all of the sponsors, volunteers, and fellow organizers – without you, this conference could not be possible!
Media Keynote: Chris Thorpe
Chris Thorpe, Developer Advocate for the Open Platform at The Guardian, took the stage for the first keynote of the day. Thorpe described the “mutualization” of news as the guiding principle of the Guardian’s work in extending their open API to build businesses with the people who use their content.
Top Tweet: mesh Presenter @JayRosen_nyu provided context and tweeted- “#mesh10 The Guardian’s “mutualization of news” http://jr.ly/3t8f is explicated by @jaggeree: Means putting the “co” in, as in co-reporting.”
Chris Thorpe talking with Mathew Ingram
Photo Credit: Mike McNaulty, as uploaded to media.meshconference.com
Society Keynote: Joseph Menn
Next up was Joseph Menn, author of “Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet”, who entertained mesh attendees with his incredible stories of espionage and internet security. Even though some attendees thought Menn’s talk had “idea density too rich with awesomeness to extract nuggets”, here are our top three favourite Menn quotes:
“I don’t think I’ve met a top computer security guy yet that hasn’t done something bad as a teenager”
“…it’s not like the mob’s saying ‘We gotta open an online division’”
[On his own personal security] “In the unlikely event I get wacked, it’ll at least raise awareness”
Joseph Menn talking with Rob Hyndman
Photo Credit: Mike McNaulty, as uploaded to media.meshconference.com
The afternoon was packed with workshops and panel sessions that allowed attendees to ask questions and engage with our speakers. Here are some highlights:
Special Session: TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin on “Our Digital Future”
As TVO’s The Agenda continued their series on the future of digital, their session discussed one of the top themes of the day at mesh: the evolution of online privacy. @TheAgenda examined this issue looking at Facebook privacy questions and the growing concern amongst parents on how to monitor their children’s online activity. Click here to watch past videos from the Our Digital Future series. The session aired tonight at 8 p.m. on TVO!
Privacy in the Age of Facebook with Dr. Ann Cavoukian, David Fraser and David Fewer
This panel tackled the growing debate over Facebook privacy settings and featured Dr. Ann Cavoukian from the Office of the Commissioner of Privacy for Ontario (@embedprivacy). Key takeaways from the panel included the importance of opt-in versus an opt-out policy for privacy settings and that the power for change lies within the hands of the 500 million users of Facebook.
Top Tweet: @michaelocc: Worth re-posting: http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/ – will auto-audit your Facebook privacy sessions for you and highlight issues. #mesh10
Dr. Ann Cavoukian, David Fraser & David Fewer
Photo Credit: mesh Live iPhone App, as uploaded on media.meshconference.com
More Excitement: The mesh Prize
mesh had an exciting first today – Teehan + Lax announced the recipient of the first ever mesh Prize of $40,000 to Pixels to Products, who announced plans to conduct research and develop reports and a database about the size and scope of the Canadian digital community! Congratulations to Justin Kozuch, and we look forward to seeing your results at mesh11!
That’s it for day one! See you all tomorrow!!
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Edelman is a founding sponsor of mesh and a proud supporter of Canada’s largest web 2.0 conference. Blog posts and Twitter updates are brought to you by @lauraroni and @melissaretty from Toronto’s @edelmandigital team. Edelman is the largest independently-owned communications firm in the world. For more information, check out Edelman.com
“Lessons from the Trenches”: post-mesh Enterprise Toronto Event
In addition to the post-mesh Edelman wrap event, the City of Toronto, via Enterprise Toronto, is hosting “Lessons From The Trenches,” with a number of esteemed entrepreneurs telling their stories. All are welcome. More details here.
Tags: mesh10 Toronto
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Share Your mesh Photos & Videos
One of the best things about mesh is how attendees enthusiastically share their thoughts, photos and videos – whether it’s on Twitter, blogs, YouTube or Facebook.
To encourage even more sharing, we’ve got two exciting announcements:
The first is a new and improved meshMedia community in which mesh attendees (and non-attendees) can create a profile where they can share information about themselves, as well as their photos and videos.
You can register for meshMedia here. meshMedia is powered by FileMobile.
The second part of the “sharing” news is a mesh conference iPhone application developed by Spreed that lets iPhone users share their photos and (for those of you with an iPhone 3GS), videos. After taking a photo and video, they can be uploaded via the iPhone app to your meshMedia profile.
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mesh’s Marketing Keynote: LinkedIn VP International Arvind Rajan
There’s little doubt that marketing is a dramatically changing landscape these days. But among shifting audience loyalties, the relentless growth of digital, the true emergence of wireless, and the always-connected generation, one thing remains constant: marketing today is all about connecting.
Be it connecting with an audience, connecting via technology, connecting with like-minded others or connecting with a feeling, connecting is becoming the overarching theme of marketing in the 21st century.
Given this, who better than Arvind Rajan, VP International of LinkedIn, to be the keynote conversation of the marketing stream at mesh10? Arvind has been in the world of grassroots or connection marketing for many years, and through his role leading LinkedIn’s International efforts is – literally – at the hub of their growing ecosystem which makes personal and business connections possible.
A very engaging and knowledgeable speaker, Arvind will kick-off the marketing stream on Day Two of mesh10 on May 19th. Don’t miss it.
Tickets for mesh can be purchased here.
Tags: arvind rajan, keynote, linkined, mesh
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meshU Speaker Spotlight: Sean Ellis
When the opportunity to have Sean Ellis do a workshop at meshu presented itself, let’s just say we were stoked.
Sean is extremely well-respected within the start-up community and his blog, Startup Marketing Blog, has a large following.
Ellis just doesn’t talk the talk; he also walks the walk. His resume includes leading the marketing from launch to IPO at LogMeIn and Uproar. He also helped bring the popular Xobni service to market as its interim VP, Marketing.
Sean is now founder and principal at 12in6 Inc., which has helped startups such as Dropbox, Eventbrite and Lookout (Khosla Ventures) transition to high growth companies.
Sean is one of the four people doing workshops within the meshU management stream. If you’re a startup, and looking for insight and advice on how to go from zero to 60, you’ll definitely want to catch Sean’s workshop.
Here’s where you can purchase tickets to meshU.
Sean Ellis at Lean Startup Circle Meeting from David Binetti on Vimeo.
Tags: mesh, meshU, sean ellis, startups
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mesh media keynote: Chris Thorpe
We’re pretty excited about having Chris Thorpe do the media keynote for mesh 2010. Chris comes to us from The Guardian, one of Britain’s leading newspapers, where he is the Developer Advocate in charge of the paper’s Open Platform. This puts him at the forefront of one of the most fascinating frontiers in the media industry: namely, the transformation of traditional media entities such as newspapers into digital-information services that distribute their content in a variety of different ways online. And sometimes that involves experimenting too: an offhand remark during a lunch presentation by Clay Shirky, for example, recently led to the creation of a “ChatRoulette for news” called Guardian Roulette.
The Guardian’s Open Platform is based on an open API (i.e, application programming interface) similar to that provided by Google, Twitter, Facebook and other companies provide, which allows developers and programmers to use The Guardian’s content in a variety of ways, and build it into third-party services at no cost. The New York Times also has an open API, but it only provides access to a small part of the text in each story, whereas The Guardian’s provides the full text of every story.
In a blog post last year, British MP Tom Watson wrote:
I’m not bowled over much these days. But Guardian Open Platform is a chasmic leap into the future. It is a work of simplistic beauty that I’m sure will have a dramatic impact in the news market. The Guardian is already a market leader in the online space but Open Platform is revolutionary. It makes all of their major competitors look timid. Governments should be doing this. Governments will be doing it. The question is how long will it take us to catch up. (British MP Tom Watson)
Chris gave a presentation last year at the Future of Web Apps conference, which is embedded below, in which he talked about how The Guardian’s use of an open platform is “building the stacks of a mutualised newspaper.”
There’s also an interview with Chris here:
Interview with Chris Thorpe (The Guardian) from Publishr on Vimeo.
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Help us program a panel at mesh10
We’ve just announced mesh10 (details here and tickets here) and over the next few weeks more information will appear on the site about our keynotes, panels and workshops. This year we’d like to include a panel in our Society stream that focuses on how the always-on, real-time Web is changing the way we learn, think, grow and relate to one another other – essentially, the impact it’s having on the very fabric of society.
And so we’re looking for introductions to interesting people who think about these issues, and are now reaching out to people in our community who might have great ideas about moderators and panelists for such a panel, or thoughts about aspects of this topic that ought to be discussed. Perhaps you know of a neuroscientist who’s doing interesting research on how brain pathways are remapped under intensive internet usage. Or perhaps you know of someone who’s studying the way children learn when they have the web as a research tool.
Whatever your ideas are we’re interested! We’re looking for smart, dedicated and provocative big-thinkers and interesting perspectives on this larger topic to help us make the most out of this opportunity. We do have one request though – please help us to manage the inflow of suggestions by making serious suggestions only.
You can enter your suggestions here or below. Thanks for helping out!
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