A Happy Union Brewed Over Coffee
By Trina Boos, Founder, Ad Lounge
When Mark Evans (one of the guys behind the mesh group – mesh conference, meshmarketing and meshU) and I had coffee last Spring, I was seven months pregnant and thinking of giving the Ad Lounge team a little hiatus from its events – until at least the fall, if not the winter.
The conversation, however, evolved from a “Here’s what we do at mesh” and “Here’s what we do at Ad Lounge” to a mutual “WOW! Love what you do. It’s innovative, fresh, and so perfect for our audience. How can we figure out a way to work together?”
That’s when the collaboration began.
As it turned out, the mesh team was looking for ways to connect with the advertising and marketing industry more intimately, while Ad Lounge was looking for a way to expand its event offerings to perhaps include a day-long conference. Ad Lounge has been asked to collaborate on many industry events, but this one just seemed right. The team behind the mesh group had a collaborative culture that Ad Lounge stands behind in every project we get involved with. The idea about being innovative and unique really resonated with the Ad Lounge objectives so we went for it.
And that brought us to now – where we are co-producing meshmarketing ‘10. Ad Lounge was asked to handle the programming and agenda for the conference, and with that we went on a hunt to seek out the most relevant and current to marketers in 2010. So that’s what we are doing. The mesh group is handling the event production and all the fine details that go along with planning events.
It has proved to be an incredibly successful partnership – actually, one that should have happened a long time ago. To top it off, I had my baby, a beautiful girl, and managed to get accustomed to moomyhood AND help to produce this incredible event simultaneously.
Add meshmarketing (Nov. 17, 2010) to your calendars, everyone. We’re bringing you some very topical sessions, including “The Digitization of Retail”, “The Emerging Social TV”, and “The ROI of Social Media Customer Service”.
And we’ve been very careful to select speakers who are fresh and new to the conference circuit… thus giving you content that original, thought-provoking, current and new, delivered by people who are at the eye of the storm (people living and doing the work, who can give us tangible insight and stories about their firsthand experiences).
It’s exciting times for both Ad Lounge and the mesh team – and we hope to see you at meshmarketing! Tickets, by the way, can be purchased here.
Tags: adlounge, mesh, meshmarketing, trina boos
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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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Share Your Photos/Videos 101
Given the whole “sharing” nature of the social media world in which we live, we’re excited about the new and improved meshMedia.
It’s the place within mesh where mesh attendees (and non-attendees) can share their photos and videos. There are two parts of meshMedia: you can create a profile that includes your photos, videos and comments. There’s also meshLive, which is a general pool where everyone’s photos and videos exist.
Here are three ways you can share photos and videos:
1. Send your photos and videos as an attachment via upload@meshconference.com. This can be done using a laptop or wireless device, and the photos and videos will become part of the meshLive stream.
2. After logging into your meshMedia profile, you upload photos and videos.
3. Using the mesh iPhone app, you can upload photos and videos to meshLive. Keep in mind that videos should be uploaded using Wi-Fi because they may consume a lot of 3G bandwidth.
Tags: mesh, meshlive, meshmedia, Photos, videos
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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 Workshop, Anyone? (Part 2)
In the previous post, we talked about how the workshops at mesh are extremely popular with standing room-only attendance. This is probably because they are hands-on, interactive sessions led by people in the trenches. As a result, they deliver tangible, real-world lessons that people can quickly take from workshop to workplace.
Here’s an overview of the the other workshops on the schedule.:
“Building a B2B Community”: High Road Communications’ Eden Spodek will talk about that while building a personal online community is relatively easy, building an online business community for existing and prospective clients can be more challenging. Eden will highlight real-life examples of companies (primarily Canadian) leading the way in B2B community building along with tips, challenges and success stories of those who do it well.”
“Getting Your Start-Up Ready for Investment”: Mark MacLeod (aka @startupcfo) will lead an interactive workshop that explores the key questions around startups and fundraising such as The pros and cons of getting outside capital? If yes, how much do you need? Angels vs. VCs – who, how, where, when, why? What do you need in order to raise money? How does the money-raising process work? Who’s got money? Who doesn’t?
“The Olympics as a Case Study”: Alon Marcovici, VP, Digital Media and Research of Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, will about what it’s like to put together a major multimedia online campaign for a national and international event, and Kim is talking about what is involved in being a “user-generated content editor” and social-media co-ordinator for a major media website.
“Social Media and User-Generated Content in the Newsroom”: Kim Fox, CBC News’s senior producer of social media, will do a workshop looking at what’s involved in being a “user-generated content editor” and social-media co-ordinator for a major media website.
If you haven’t purchased your tickets to mesh, I would encourage you to get them soon because there are only a handful left. You can purchase them here:
Tags: conference, mesh, Toronto, workshops
mesh Workshop, Anyone? (Part 1)
When mesh was started in 2006, we decided to add some workshops but didn’t expect they would attract a lot of attention because they were scheduled at the same time as two panels.
Much to our surprise, the workshops were jam-packed, which made it abundantly clear there was demand for hands-on sessions that provided people with tangible insight, case studies and information that people could implement when they got back to the office.
Over the past four years, the workshops have become a core part of mesh even though they probably don’t get as much and attention as they deserve. We’ve got a great workshop line-up for mesh ‘10. Here’s a sneak peek of some panels – with some previews coming in a subsequent blog post.
- Death and Digital Legacy: Adele McAlear will examine the intersection of death, social media and technology and look at the ripples that are created with loss. This workshop explores the chasm between online communities and families; legal, privacy and security issues; policies of online services; the impact on businesses; and what each of us should do today to prepare our digital assets.
- The Art & Science of Scaling Social Media: Bringing together earned, paid and owned social media, when done correctly, can generate a perfect storm of credibility and reach – in many ways, the Holy Grail of the social web. Earned is highly credible, but expensive to generate, paid has mass reach, but do users really pay attention? Maggie Fox will lead a discussion on how companies can scale their social media efforts.
- How Small Businesses Can Survive and Thrive by Being Creative with Social Media: RightSleeve’s Mark Graham will offers tips, recommendations and real-world examples of how his promotional marketing merchandising company has thrived in a competitive marketplace by leveraging social media.
- Managing the Transformation to a Social Business: David Bradfield will explore how global organizations and Canadian innovators manage the transition from control to collaboration. Bradfield will talk about how many companies are grappling with the impact of social media on traditional business and marketing models.
To purchase tickets for mesh10, here’s how you can register.
Tags: conference, mesh, Toronto, workshops
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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The mesh Rainbow – Green, Blue, Red and Orange
Thanks to the work of Jeff Sarmiento and Seth Singer, the mesh Web site is a thing of beauty – terrific design and lots of colours.
What you might not realize is there is a method to the madness of the colours – in addition to the fact we think it makes the Web site look purdy. Here’s a break-down on the mesh rainbow.
Red – Red is media, which covers our keynote (Chris Thorpe), panels and workshop about things such as real-time content, user-generated media, the battle between machine-generated and human-generated media, and a case study on the Vancouver Olympics.
Orange – Orange is our society stream in which you will learn more about hackers from keynote speaker Joesph Menn, how Médecins Sans Frontières is using social media, and panels about the growing issue of online privacy and what’s going on with open government.
Blue – For the marketers in the crowd, blue is your colour. Blue covers our keynote speaker, Arvind Rajan, from LinkedIn, as well as panels on real-time and how it forces marketers to be real, what businesses should really do with Facebook, and workshops on how to scale social media, and 10 no-nonsense ways social media can be applied to your business.
Green – Like the colour of money, green is our business stream, led by keynote speaker Scott Thompson, who is president with Paypal. Green also accounts for panels on the state of Canada’s seed and start-up landscape, mobile as a way to drive business, and why real-time matters.
So, there you have it – the mesh rainbow explained.
To purchase tickets to mesh, head on over this way.
Tickets for meshU, our hands-on workshop event for people who design and development online services, and people who manage designers and developers, can be purchased here.
Tags: conference, mesh, social media, streams, Toronto
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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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