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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Thanks!
With a few days of sleep under our collective belts, we – Mark, Rob, Stuart, Mathew and Mike – would like to thank everyone for making mesh ‘09 and meshU ‘09 such great events.
We want to thank attendees for their enthusiasm, energy, curiosity and willingness to participate. As much as we spend a lot of time trying to come up with great content, it’s what our attendees bring to the table that makes mesh so amazing.
We want to thank all of our speakers for their time and effort. From top to bottom, we were impressed with your enthusiasm and generosity in spending so much time engaging with everyone.
A big thank you to all of our sponsors such as Microsoft, Edelman, CIRA and CNW. mesh couldn’t happen without you. Thanks to Sandra MacDonald for all your work with our sponsors.
Thanks to our volunteers for helping make everything run so smoothly.
Thanks to everyone at MCC Planners, particularly the amazing and tireless Sheri Moore, for making mesh and meshU run so seamlessly.
Thanks to our technology partners – mDialog, FileMobile, Sweet Caesar, Viigo, Rypple and Flip – for delivering tools and services that made the mesh experience that much better.
Thanks to Roz Allen and Mark McKay (and Stuart Macdonald!) for doing such an amazing job filming, editing and posting so much video.
Thanks to MaRS and Allen Gelberg for being such a great hosts.
Last, but not least, thanks to our wives, partners and children for being so supportive, patient and understanding!
If you have feedback on what you liked about mesh, what could be improved and new things you would like to see, you can do it here.
Day 2 Feedback Links
We received some great feedback yesterday (via Rypple) during and after the first day of mesh.
If you haven’t left feedback, it’s easy. All you do is click on one of the links below. You’ll then see a page where you can leave your thoughts about a particular speaker. The feedback gives us a better idea of what you liked, what you didn’t like, what worked, what needs to be improved, etc. All this information will help us make mesh better.
Keynotes
Paul Kedrosky/Howard Lindzon
Bonin Bough
David Miller
Panels
Managing Your Ad Buy
Managing Your Online Persona
The Benefits and Risks of Building for a Platform
Boostrapping a Startup
Managing a Community
Using Online Word of Mouth
Workshops
Social Media Analytics
Legal Bootcamp for Web Startups
Search Engine Marketing
How to Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Plan
Tags: feedback, mesh, meshU, rypple
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We’d Love Some Feedback
We’d love to get your feedback about the keynotes, panels and workshops – what you liked, what you would have wanted to see more of/less of, what worked, what didn’t, etc.
We’re using Rypple, a cool local start-up that has a user-friendly service that makes leaving feedback a snap. To provide feedback, we’ve created a different URL for each keynote, speaker and workshop. All you need to do is visit one of the URLs below:
Keynotes
Mike Masnick
Jessica Jackley
Panels
David Usher
Hyper-Local Media
Future of the News
Using the Web for Good
Workshops
Professionalizing Pro-Video
The Nuts & Bolts of iTunes
Social Media for Non-Profits
Monetizing Media
Social Media 101
Using Social Media for Social Good
mesh on iTunes
Behind the scenes, mDialog has been working on a cool service that will let you watch mesh videos on your iPod, iPod Touch and iPhone.
The application just got listed on iTunes, and you can download it here. You can also get the high-def mesh video podcast here.
Tags: itunes, mdialog, mesh, meshU
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mesh’s Technology Partners
While programming is a huge priority when it comes to putting on mesh and meshU, an important and exciting part of putting on the two conferences is working with a variety of technology partners to enhance the overall experience.
In the past couple of years, we’ve really focused on teaming up with companies looking to showcase their services, and provide mesh attendees with interesting tools they can use during and after mesh.
A lot of work goes on behind the scenes as our partners create customized versions of their products for mesh. So, it’s really exciting to pull the covers off our technology partners for mesh ‘09.
FileMobile: A Toronto-based company, which develops on-demand social media platform, has created a media portal where you can upload and share your photos and videos from mesh and meshU.
To create a profile, go to the mesh site, and click on the “MyMedia” tab at the top of the page. After completing your profile, you can share photos and video by using the “upload” tool or sending them via upload@meshconference.com.
Viigo: For Blackberry users, Viigo offers access to a wide variety of information, ranging from blogs written by mesh speakers, mesh sites, news, weather and information about what’s happening in Toronto.
Sweet Caesar: Just as they did last year, Sweet Caesar has put together a sweet wireless application that offers the schedules for mesh and meshU, the ability to rate the keynotes, panels and workshops, information about MaRS, and details about where the mesh/meshU socials are happening. You can download the Sweet Caesar application for the BlackBerry Bold, Curve, 8800, and Pearl.
mDialog: A cool service that lets you watch mesh videos on an iPhone, via a widget, on mDialog.com and meshTV.
ScribbleLive: A live-blogging tool that lets several writers capture what’s happening at mesh in real time. Use Twitter, Facebook, MSN Live, or OpenID account to login. It’s easy to start your own liveblog of a session or join-in with others. You can try it at mesh.scribblelive.com!
Flip: If you’re into digital cameras, you’ve probably heard about the user-friendly Flip cameras that have been taking the world by storm. We’re arming our volunteers and ace videographer Mark McKay with Flips so they roam meshU and mesh to capture what’s happening.
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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
1K mesh Tickets and Counting…
Four years ago, five of us – Stuart MacDonald, Rob Hyndman, Mike McDerment, Mathew Ingram and myself – got together on a cold winter night at the Paddock Tavern to talk about what was happening on the Web and what we could do to help get more conversations happening in Canada.
After a few beverages, the idea of putting on a conference materialized – something none of us had ever done.
Needless to say, mesh has come a long way, and become one of Canada’s leading Web conferences. We’ve attracted amazing speakers, great sponsors such as Microsoft, Edelman and the CNW Group, and been fueled by the tremendous energy and enthusiasm that mesh attendees have brought to the fray.
mesh recently reached a major milestone with the sale of ticket #1,000, purchased by Allan Isfan, CEO with Favequest.
Thanks Allan for coming to mesh – along with other 999 attendees who have played a huge part in making mesh so successful.
To get your ticket for mesh ‘09, register here.
Tags: conference, mesh, meshU
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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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