Wanna Be Practically meshU Family?
We created meshU in 2008 because the community told us they wanted an event that offered hands-on workshops about Web design, development and team management.
The past two years have been terrific with great speakers and an enthusiastic reception from attendees. We’ve also had some great support from sponsors – without which meshU and mesh couldn’t happen.
To support meshU, we’re rolling out a new sponsorship package called “practically meshU family”.
What you get when you join the family is five regular tickets to meshU, your logo on the Web site and at MaRS, and a table-top for your use during the event.
More important, a “practically meshU family” will let us open the student tickets category by 10 more tickets. In essence, you will be sponsoring 10 students who wanted to attend meshU but couldn’t.
This year more than ever before, we’ve received a lot of requests for additional student tickets, but the event can not sustain itself if we open up additional tickets in this substantially discounted category.
That left us thinking that maybe there may be folks in the community that believe in meshU and thought that they could help others so they could benefit from these tickets. Hence, this category was created.
If you’d like to become “practically meshU family”, please contact info@meshconference.com.
Tags: conference, mesh, meshU, sponsorships, students
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Spotlight on mesh Keynotes
With mesh just about two weeks away, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about the keynotes that we’ve lined up.
In many respects, this year’s keynotes offer a fascinating mix of people who will be talking about a variety of topics – everything from how a newspaper is using APIs to grow its business, and the troubling world of cyber-hackers, to online payments and social networking.
The keynotes include:
Chris Thorpe, the Developer Advocate for the Open Platform with The Guardian, will talk about the newspaper is working on ways to integrate its content, data and APIs with other people’s technology and businesses.
Joseph Menn will provide insight how cyber-criminals are hacking to major government and corporate computer systems, and how governments of Russia and China are protecting and directing their behaviour.
Scott Thompson, the president of PayPal will provide his take on how the company has maintained its status as the world’s leading online payment system, and where e-commerce and online payments as heading.
Given LinkedIn’s rapid growth over the past year and its decision to add more feature, Arvind Rajan, LinkedIn’s Vice President of International, will talk about what’s driving the company’s growth and where it sees the social network marketing going.
Tickets to mesh can be purchased here, while tickets to meshU, the one-day event featuring hands-on workshops about Web design and development, can be purchased here.
Tags: conference, keynotes, mesh, Toronto
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What’s meshU? Who Should Go?
I had coffee earlier today who someone who told me that she thought the difference between mesh and meshU was that mesh is for adults while meshU is for young’uns looking to learn about technology.
It’s not an accurate description but I embraced it as much-needed constructive criticism given we haven’t done a great job of really explaining meshU and why people should attend. So, here’s meshU in a nutshell:
We started meshU in 2008 after getting a lot of requests from mesh attendees to create an event that would deliver hands-on workshops about new ways to design and develop Web sites, as well as insight into how to manage teams developing and designing these services and applications.
The workshops at meshU are led by some of the Web’s best and brightest people. These are people who are talking the talk and walking the walk. They are people starting and building leading-edge Web sites and online businesses, which means they bring real-world insight and experience to the table.
This makes meshU is a place where attendees can walk away with new insight, knowledge and information about how to do their jobs better, more efficiently and more successfully.
If you’ve been to meshU before, there’s a lot of discussion happening and a healthy amount of note-taking.
Here are the top reasons to attend meshU:
1. Gain insight and knowledge from people such as Bill Buxton (our keynote speaker) Joe Stump, Dan Martell, Sean Ellis and Isaac Garcia – knowledge that you can bring back to the office and put into action right away.
2. Build new relationships with people within Toronto’s Web community who are developing and designing services and applications, or managing teams making it happen.
3. Support meshU, and its role in providing workshops that provide a different and unique perspective.
Here’s where you can buy meshU tickets. If you’d like to support meshU by sponsoring, you can contact Stuart MacDonald at info@meshconference.com.
Tags: bill buxton, conference, meshU, Toronto, workshops
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meshU Speaker Spotlight: Dan Martell
At the meshmarketing conference last October, Dan Martell rocked the house with a presentation on how to build Web sites that convert into business. We were so impressed that we asked him back for meshU, a one-day event for Web designer, developers and entrepreneurs that happens on May 17 in Toronto.
Dan, a Canadian living in Silicon Valley who co-founded Flowtown.com, will be doing a workshop on “Lean Lean Product Development: Learning is the Killer Feature”.
Here’s a summary of what he’s going to cover:
“In todays world of open source, cheap computing power and APIs, it’s not if you can build it, but should you build it. The #1 startup killer is running out of time to “figure it out” before you get traction. Lean product development is the methodology that allowed companies like PayPal, Yelp, Ardvark and up and coming Flowtown.com (profitable in two months) to pivot into their market to become a dominate player.
There is a science behind the approach and in this talk I’ll go over customer development, feature prioritization, split testing, product metrics and agile development as approaches to increase your probabilities of succeeding as a startup.”
Dan is just one of the great speakers we’ve lined up for meshU, including our keynote speaker, Bill Buxton. For more information about the event, visit meshu.ca. Here’s where you can buy tickets.
Tags: conference, dan martell, flowtown, mesh, meshU
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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Bill Buxton to Keynote meshU
For the last couple of years, meshU has been a well-kept secret – a one-day event featuring hands-on workshop about Web design, development and team management.
We hope to change meshU’s low profile by introducing meshU’s inaugural keynote speaker, Bill Buxton.
One of the world’s most influential designers, Bill is currently a Principal researcher at Microsoft Research and the author of “Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design”.
His experience also includes time as a researcher at Xerox PARC, a professor at the University of Toronto, and Chief Scientist of Alias Research and SGI Inc.
We’re really excited that Bill will be meshU’s first keynote, and that he will set the stage for an amazing day.
If you’re looking buy meshU tickets, you can register here.
Tags: bill buxton, keynote, mesh, meshU
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Why Mike McDerment’s Stoked About meshU
I’m excited – let me just put that out there.
I’ve spent the past seven years building FreshBooks (a Web business), and the past five years involved as one of the organizers of the mesh conference series. Over the past three years, I have also played a key part in organizing mesh University (or meshU, a one-day conference for people who want to learn more about building online businesses.
So why am I excited? Let me tell you about this year’s meshU line-up.
First, there are three important component you have to get right when building an online business: the design, development and management (of things like sales and marketing). This year, meshU will be hosting top-notch talent – people have helped build kick-ass Web apps. You may not have heard of them all but you don’t want to miss out on what they have to say.
Building a dev team? Who better to learn from than the chief architect who took Digg from nothing to something – Joe Stump, who just struck out on this own.
What about low cost marketing activities to acquire users? Have you heard of services such as Box.net, Xobni, or logmein? These services are all known for having touch-less sales cycles, and many are using freemium products. As well, they are among the most successful products that aren’t called Google, Yahoo!, Facebook or Twitter.
I’ll bet you didn’t know that one person had key role in making all these products viral by helping to design their registration processes: Sean Ellis. Don’t miss your chance to learn from Sean.
While we’re on the topic of sales, let me tell you about one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He’s hugely successful and you’ve probably never heard of him. He’s Isaac Garcia, the founder and CEO of Central Desktop, a massively successful online project management service. You may not know about Central Desktop but Isaac has built one hellevua business that’s based on profitable high growth. He’s going to teach you how to run an inside sales team. For any venture capitalists out there, get your portfolio companies to this one.
This is the first installment of the meshU lineup. It’s just the tip of the iceberg as we haven’t put the spotlight on the designers coming. Please pass along this post along to anyone you know who wants to build a Web business. At $289, meshU is a steal for this kind of high-quality content – get your ticket now.
Tags: isaac garcia, joe stump, meshU, sean ellis, Toronto
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The meshU/mesh Party Plan
As much as meshU and mesh are about the great speakers, thought-provoking keynotes, panels and workshops, and opportunity to mesh and network, it’s also important to celebrate and socialize.
On that note, here’s the “Party Plan” for meshU and mesh:
April 6
meshUp
The beer o’clock at the Drake Hotel brought to you by meshU and StartupNorth
Time: 6 p.m. to close
Where: The Lounge & Dining Room
Drake Hotel, 1150 Queen St. West (Click for map)
Everyone is welcome. Space is limited. There is no charge for this event.
Please note: As a participant in meshU, your package includes a complimentary drink ticket that you can redeem at the Drake Hotel.
Thanks to our hospitality sponsor and host: Drake Hotel
April 7, 2009
The Social
Hosted by: Hyndman | Law
Time: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Where: The Atrium, MaRS (private function for mesh09 participants)
mesh after-party at The Mod Club
Thank you to our sponsor Social Media Group
Time: 8 PM – close
Where: The Mod Club (Map)
722 College St.
College & Crawford
http://www.themodclub.com/
mesh09 participant: included in registration price (present your name badge at door to access event free of charge)
Transportation to The Mod Club will be provided by Expedia.ca.
Ticket Price (at door): $15 (Net proceeds to benefit a local charity)
We’d like your input. Please vote on your charity of choice from the list below. We’ll name the charity selected by you next week. Submit your vote by April 1 by sending an e-mail to info@meshconference.com
Daily Bread Food Bank http://www.dailybread.ca/
Habitat for Humanity
Little Geeks
Love of Reading
War Child
April 8, 2009
mesh09 wrap party
Sponsored by Edelman Digital
Time: 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Location: TBA
Transportation will be provided by Expedia.ca.
To purchase tickets for meshU, register here. For mesh, register here.
Posted in mesh news, mesh09, meshU | 17 Comments
meshU Management Magic
While there’s a strong focus at meshU about the design and development of online applications, the third stream – management – is also important element as a part of corporate ecosystems. You can have the best players in the world but if the manager or coach doesn’t do a good job, it can be difficult to be successful.
This year, our management line-up is looking really good with speakers offering some different perspective on the key to success. Whether it ’s being able to implement agile development projects, bootstrap a start-up, or find and keep the right people, you’ll get the insight you need to do business better.
Our speakers include:
- Dominic Bortolussi from The Working Group, who will speak about “Experiments on selling agile development projects. Are Estimates the new ‘Spec’?”
- Carl Mercier from Defensio on “Lessons learned: How I founded, bootstrapped, grew and sold my Web start-up”
- Daniel Debow from Rypple on “Finding and Keeping Great Start-Up People”
You can purchase meshU tickets here, and check out the speaker line-up.
Tags: management, meshU
The Developers…at meshU
From the outside looking in, it has never been easier, quicker or cheaper to develop software applications.
Of course, developing high-quality applications that meet the high expectations of users, provide great functionality and, in many cases, scale is another story altogether. That’s why top-notch developers are just as valuable as ever.
At meshU, we’ve put together an excellent development stream that will provide fellow developers – and those just interested in the development process – with some great insight and perspective. The line-up includes:
- Chris Wanstrath, GitHub, who will talk about “Building a Business with Open Source”
- Ilya Grigorik, AideRSS, on “Event-Driven Architectures”
- Pete Forde, Unspace. on “Is that an iPhone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
- Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Engine Yard, on “Building Scalable/Decoupled Web Architecture”
Tickets for meshU can be purchased here. meshU is happening on April 6 at the MaRS Collaboration Centre.
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