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Nov 21

Vancouver, Here We Come!

By mesh conference meshwest

Coming off a successful meshmarketing last week, we’re getting ready to host meshwest in Vancouver on Dec. 5 at the Salt Building.

Vancouver is the third leg of our Western Canadian tour that started in Calgary in June, before hitting Edmonton in early-October. So far, it’s been a great ride with some terrific speakers and, as important, an engaged group of attendees. As much as compelling programming is part of the mesh DNA, it’s the connections and networking that make help make mesh more than just your typical conference.

We’re excited about Vancouver because it not only does it give us a chance to hit the “Left Coast” but we finally get to follow through on the requests we’ve received since mesh started in 2006 to take mesh a cross-Canada affair.

meshwest kicks off with a keynote from Stewart Butterfield, who has moved into the gaming world with Tiny Speck, whose debut title is an ambitious massively multiplayer online game called Glitch.

We’ve got a great “Standup Panel” with Erik Blachford, Carl Schmidt and Jason Bailey. You might be wondering what “Standup” means; it’s a look at companies that have moved beyond being startups but still have to tackle key growth challenges and issues.

Janice Diner is going to deliver valuable insight into what to do with a Facebook Page to make it an effective marketing and sales machine.

We’ve also got Alexandra Samuel, Caroline MacGillvray and Elijah van der Giessen doing a panel on social media and political activism, which will be moderated by Darren Barefoot.

And Zite CEO Mark Johnson is going talk about the fast-moving world of tablet computing and how it’s changing how content is created and consumed.

For anyone interested in how the Web is impacting how we work and live, there’s something for everyone at meshwest. And we’ve got a great end-of-day social to wrap things up.

Tickets for meshwest are now on sale, including a block of tickets for $249 (a $40 discount) available through our friends at CIRA.

Nov 17

Love0

Mesh marketing 11: Klout, WestJet and three guys named Mark

By mesh conference meshmarketing

Well, mesh marketing 2011 is in the can, and it was a pretty fun-filled show — the highlight for many (according to the Twitter stream) was Marcus Sheridan, also known as @thesaleslion, who joined us all the way from Virginia and preached the gospel of selling via the web in a packed presentation room at the end of the day. Marcus was also on a panel in the morning with another Marcus — Marcus Wilson of IdeaPaint — and our own Mark Evans as moderator, talking about the role of content marketing in online sales.

The day kicked off with a keynote chat between Stuart MacDonald and Greg Hounslow, who handles social media for WestJet and told an astonished crowd that he used to single-handedly run the airline’s Twitter account and its Facebook page, although he has help now. And in addition to the Marcus-Marcus-and-Mark panel, we had a one-on-one with the guy everyone loves to hate (but not really) — Klout CEO Joe Fernandez, who made a lot of users mad when the online-influence ranking service changed its algorithm and everyone’s score dropped.

We also had a conversation with Steve Rubel — vice-president of digital strategy for Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations agency — and Dave Kerpen, who runs a social consulting firm called Likeable based in New York (and was also a one-time contestant on a reality show called Paradise Island). That panel talked about the benefits and disadvantages of Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, and whether there is room for another social network in most people’s lives.

Other panels and presentations included one looking practical tips for social media in the trenches — with Gail Gabrielle Ordogh of Real Sports, Sheldon Levine of Sysomos & Dorothy Steel from Invest Ontario, as well as a panel on the future of search with Kunal Das from Microsoft and Krista LaRiviere from gShift. We also had one that talked about how luxury brands are using the web and digital marketing, with Joanna Track from Dealuxe, Felicia Yukich from Four Seasons and Jason Lonsdale from TAXI.

Our keynote speaker Joe Fernandez from Klout was also kind enough to sit in on a panel about “big data” and the potential it has for marketers, along with Rod Smith (one of the original creators of IBM’s Watson supercomputer). And another of the afternoon’s panels looked at what life might be like in a “post-desktop world,” with Benjie Levy of Score Mobile, Nina Sohi from Blu Trumpet and Andrew Osis of Poynt. We also had a conversation with Scott Lake of Swix and Patrick Gladney of Social Media Group about the benefits of social analytics and how to tell what data is important to you and your business.

Thanks again to everyone who came and meshed with us — on to Vancouver!

Nov 17

Love0

The Goodness of .CA and meshwest

By mesh conference mesh news, meshwest

If you want to feel the warm tingles of being a proud Canadian in a digital world, you need only watch the .CA Impact Awards video. I guarantee you will feel the urge to create something with a .CA on the end of it just so you too can be part of this legacy!

The 2012 .CA Impact Awards open for entries January 9, 2012. They are looking for people and organizations that use .CA sites to truly make a difference in the lives of their users and those around them.

There are four categories you can enter:

Public Sector and Not-for-Profit, eLearning, Small Business and Applications (including gaming and mobile).

The honest truth of it all is that, mesh couldn’t be mesh, without great partners like CIRA, the member-driven organization that manages Canada’s .CA domain name registry. It is a pretty cool thing when two entities like mesh and CIRA can come together to promote the same Canadian conversation around what is happening online.

It has been so exciting taking mesh to Western Canada. We’ve already touched down in Calgary and Edmonton, and on Dec. 5, we will be in your backyard Vancouver!

CIRA, in their on-going support of mesh and in celebration of the.CA Impact Awards, is sponsoring a special block of tickets that are being sold at $249. Since it is 55 days to their entry deadline, from the release date of this block, there are 55 tickets available (or there were when I first stated writing this post- so don’t delay in buying quickly!).

I know the folks at CIRA hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to participate in Canada’s Internet conversation through mesh and the .CA Impact Awards.

It is our hope that you will join us in Vancouver on Dec. 5 to connect, share and inspire.

Now go watch that video again – I swear, it gets me every time!

To purchase tickets for meshwest, you can purchase tickets here. Our speakers include Stewart Butterfield, Zite’s Mark Johnson, Janice Diner and Erik Blachford.