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Oct 11

Pulling the Covers Off meshmarketing ’11

By mesh conference meshmarketing

Coming off a successful meshwest in Edmonton last week, it’s time to pull the covers of meshmarketing ’11, a one-day event that combines a morning of insightful keynotes and presentations and an afternoon of workshops and panels focused on helping you do things better or differently within the fast-moving digital marketing world.

Then, there’s the other valuable part of any mesh event – the opportunity to network with not only people who work in the same field but attendees from other sectors (entrepreneurs, public relations, government, non-profits, academia, corporate communications, digital and advertising agencies) who can offer a new perspective or approach to digital marketing. Networking is one of mesh’s pillars, which is why we build in healthy breaks between sessions.

So let’s talk about our great line-up of speakers. Kicking things off in the morning in Klout.com founder Joe Fernandez, whose company has captured the spotlight as one of the leading ways to measure influence. In a digital world with content being created than ever, tools to identify the key influencers and thought leaders have become increasingly important.

Next up is Greg Hounslow, one of the key strategists for WestJet’s emerging media team. Greg has played a hands-on role in building WestJet’s strong social media presence and a vibrant online community.

Finally, we’ll wrap up the morning with a presentation looking at Facebook vs. Google+ featuring Edelman’s Steve Rubel, who’s a keen Google+ user.

In the afternoon, we’ve got a full slate of panels and presentations that features probably the strong line-up of speakers we’ve had since meshmarketing was started in 2009.

Eight Afternoon Panels & Workshops

The afternoon features sessions on:

– Luxury brands and digital marketing

– Life beyond the search box amid the rise of social media and the real-time Web

– The magic of metrics, featuring KissMetrics’ Hiten Shah

– How to leverage “Big Data”, which looks at how to use all the data being gathered by online companies.

– Life in a post-desktop world in which mobile devices rule the roost.

– How to get intelligence and insight from social media monitoring.

Here’s the meshmarketing schedule, which will be updated soon.

Buy Early-Bird Tickets Now

Early-bird tickets for meshmarketing can be purchased here for $489, a $100 discount off the regular $589 price. We also have some student tickets for $99, which is great bang for the buck.

If you’re in Western Canada but can’t make it to meshmarketing, no worries because meshwest in Vancouver is happening on Dec. 5 with a terrific line-up of speakers, including a keynote conversation with Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield.

Oct 06

Love0

Mesh Edmonton — Thanks to all who came and meshed!

By mesh conference mesh news

After taking mesh on the road for the first time in Calgary in June, we continued our Western swing this week, with a one-day version of mesh at the Shaw conference centre in Edmonton, and it was great to see so many entrepreneurs, startup advocates and others embedded in the web and technology community connecting with each other and “meshing” both during and after the conference.

We led off with a great keynote conversation with Ali Asaria, founder and CEO of Well.ca, who talked with Stuart MacDonald about his vision for the company, and how he sees a bright future for e-commerce in Canada. Some video of the keynote is embedded below (apologies for any shakiness and low audio quality — I took it on my iPhone).

After that, we had a rousing debate about entrepreneurship in Canada, with Maura Rodgers of Strutta, Jevon MacDonald of GoInstant, and Empire Avenue founder and CEO Duleepa “Dups” Wijayawardhana. The panel talked with Mike McDerment (who of course has his own views on the topic, as the co-founder and CEO of FreshBooks) about starting and running companies in smaller centres like Halifax or Edmonton, as well as what the government should be doing to encourage the startup community.

Another panel talked about the value of “open data,” with advocate and Edmonton blogger Mack Male, and Ashley Casovan — who helps to run the city of Edmonton’s open-data initiatives. And then we had Stuart moderating a panel with Allyson Simpson of Osum Oil Sands, Scott Walker of HootSuite and Doug van Spronsen of DDB Canada talking about practical lessons on using social media for communications purposes. I followed that up with a conversation between Boyd Neil of Hill & Knowlton and Christina Rontynen of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers about using social media such as Twitter and Facebook for crisis communications.

And to end the day, we had a quartet of local game developers — including Victor Rubba from Fluik Entertainment, Jason Suriano from Rocketfuel Game, Patrick Weekes from Bioware and Andrew Czarnietzki from 3DI — who talked with Owen Brierly about their favorite games and how the nature of game development is changing thanks to new tools and new game platforms.

Of course, it wouldn’t be mesh without some great food and great conversations between panels, at lunch and afterwards at a social event near the conference center. Most of the people I spoke to said that they felt Edmonton’s startup and web community was on the brink of really exploding, thanks in part to ventures such as Startup Edmonton — a non-profit run by Ken Bautista, Cam Linke, Sam Jenkins and Tiffany Linke-Boyko that provides advice and support for startups, and has just raised a fund that will help provide seed capital.

We’d like to thank Marketwire and the Edmonton Journal and Homestars and all the other sponsors and friends who helped us get the word out about mesh, and helped make the conference such a great experience. Thanks for meshing!

Sep 26

Love0

mesh Edmonton: Ready for Takeoff!

By mesh conference meshwest

In many ways, conferences are a labour of love.

There is an awful lot of work involved, dozens of balls in the air at the same time, speakers to invite, venues to be secured, etc. At the end of the day, it is rewarding to see everything come together, particularly when you’re organizing a first-time event.

This has struck me over the past few weeks as we have put the final touches on mesh Edmonton, which happens on Oct. 4. As the second leg of a three-stop tour in Western Canada (along with Calgary, which happened in June, and Vancouver, which happens Dec. 5), Edmonton is a market with a vibrant digital community that mesh is excited to embrace.

Over the past few months, we’ve reached out to lots of individuals, companies and associations to get a lay of the land, put together programming, identify potential speakers, and establish partnerships. It has taken a lot of time and effort but it is great to see things come together.

While I’m biased, I have to say the speaker line-up for mesh Edmonton looks great. We’ve got Ali Asaria, founder and CEO with Well.ca, kicking things off with a discussion on how Well went from a scrappy startup to Canada’s leading beauty and health e-commerce sites.

There’s a terrific entrepreneurs panel featuring Jevon MacDonald, Duleepa “Dups” Wijayawardhana and Maura Rodgers that will provide real-world insight about how to create, operate, grow and finance a start-up.

For anyone interested in how social media happens tactically on a day-to-day basis, Allyson Simpson (Osum Oil Sands), Scott Walker (HootSuite) and Doug van Spronsen (DDB Canada) will shed light on what happens.

Another panel features Ashley Casovan and Mack Male, who will talk about open data and the impact it is having on how government operates and, as important, how citizens are getting more involved and engaged with government.

There is growing interest in how the real-time digital landscape is affecting crisis communications so there is bound to be great advice from a panel that features Christina Rontynen from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers).

And last – but certainly least – we end the day with a panel about game design featuring Owen Brierley talking with Victor Rubba (Fluik Entertainment), Jason Suriano (Rocketfuel Games) and Patrick Weekes (Bioware)

With a week to go, there are a few things that still need to get done but we’re ready for takeoff!

To purchase tickets for the event, which happens at the Shaw Conference Centre, head on over to our registration site. Early-bird tickets can be purchased for $239.