mesh conference, Author at mesh

Mar 26

Spotlight – Mona Seif

By mesh conference mesh11

“She doesn’t have some new sentiment-analysis app. She doesn’t consult on finding influencers. She doesn’t claim to know the secrets of viral earned media. And I’m pretty sure she isn’t on a panel at SXSW. All she’s done is put her life, and the future of her country, in the hands of the internet. Mona Seif is a democracy protester in Cairo. Over the past three weeks — with her cellphone, with her Twitter account, with her Facebook social graph — she mobilized compatriots and informed the world about peaceful revolution in Egypt.”

Egyptian Activists Understood Key to Social Media: It’s the ‘Social’
Mona Seif on How Tweeting About Cats Can Later Engage People in Geopolitics
By: Bob Garfield. See the entire article From Ad Age

Mona Seif is an Egyptian pro-democracy demonstrator, who on February 11, 2011, was at the heart of the revolution on the 18th day of protesting. She was a central figure as Egyptian revolutionaries forced their dictator to stand down, after 30 years of oppressive rule.

The daughter of a political activist who was imprisoned at the time of her birth and the sister of a blogger who was jailed by the Mubarak regime, Mona Seif says nothing could have prepared her for the scale and intensity of the protests.

She explains to Al Jazeera, “I didn’t think it was going to be a revolution. I thought if we could [mobilise] a couple of thousand people then that would be great.

I was angry about the corruption in the country, [about the death of] Khaled Said and the torture of those suspected but never convicted [of being behind] the Alexandria Coptic church [bombing].

I realised this was going to be bigger than we had anticipated when 20,000 people marched towards Tahrir Square on January 25. That is when we saw a shift; it was not about the minimum wage or emergency law anymore. It became much bigger than this, it turned into a protest against the regime, demanding that Mubarak step down and that parliament be dissolved.

On the night later dubbed ‘the battle of the camels’ when pro-Mubarak thugs attacked us, I was terrified. I thought they were going to shoot us all and get it over with. The turning point for me was when I saw the number of people ready to face death for their beliefs.

“The turning point for me was when I saw the number of people ready to die for their beliefs”

Mona will be joining us for two mesh sessions: a panel with Mary Joyce, Jillian York and Sarah Abdurrahman titled “Digital Activism in an Age of Unrest”, and a one-on-one session on how digital activism played a key role in a political uprising that ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak.

Learn more about her here…

on Twitter

on asafeworldforwomen.org

on YouTube

Mar 22

Love0

Welcome to mesh ’11

By mesh conference mesh11

And we’re back….

Yup, it’s time to pull the covers off mesh ’11, which also happens to be the sixth edition of an event that was created because five people with absolutely no conference experience decided Canada needed a place to talk about all the great things happening on the Web.

What makes organizing mesh so exciting to put together is how the online landscape continues to evolve and change. When we did the first mesh in 2006, social media was nowhere in site and Facebook was four months away from opening up to the non-university crowd.

So what’s up for mesh ’11? To start, we have a terrific roster of keynote speakers. They include:

Society: Ron Deibert of the Citizen Lab will provide insight about state control of the internet, efforts in the Arab world to shut down the internet, and efforts taken to circumvent that.

Marketing: After wowing the crowd at meshMarketing, we felt compelled to bring back Gabe Zichermann, who will talk the online psychology, behaviour and motivation of online users, including the growing role of gamification.

Business: With the Web having a major impact on the work landscape, Mark Surman of the Mozilla Foundation will get into how companies can be social and motivate and keep younger, Web-savvy employees, who are used to moving around and doing things that motivate them intrinsically instead of extrinsically.

Media: Jeff Jarvis, a popular blogger and former journalist, will talk about how the media is changing, the rise of WikiLeaks as a press entity, crowdsourcing, transparency and other factors and where the future of journalism is headed.

As a bonus, we also have a “Super Panel” featuring Mona Seif, an Egyptian activist who will give us some insight into how digital activism played a key role in the political uprising ended the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak.

You can get more information on the mesh Web site about the rest of the speakers who will be appearing on panels and workshops within the media, society, marketing and business streams.

So, what’s the deal with tickets? Until April 20, you can purchase early-bird tickets for $539 + HST. (After that, tickets will be $639 + HST). There are also 50 student tickets available for $99 each. You can buy tickets here.

Nov 16

Love0

Lessons from Building a Brand via Social Media

By mesh conference meshmarketing

One of the biggest benefits of social media is the opportunity to build or enhance a brand to consumers in a new and different way. Of course, this is easier said than done given the rules of engagement are different, along with the expectations of consumers. Even strong brands are challenging to establish a solid social media presence.

The opportunities and challenges were one of the reasons we wanted to bring together a panel featuring companies attempting to leverage social media to build and grow their brands. We wanted to learn about what has worked for these companies, what they have done to capture the attention of consumers, and the techniques and tools that have been effective. As important, we wanted to get their perspective on the lessons learned along the way.

The panel includes:

– Elizabeth Margles, vice-president of marketing with Porter Airlines. Armed with a strong brand and customer loyalty, Porter launched itself into social media earlier this year with a Facebook Page and Twitter. The company was looking to achieve three objectives: drive sales and promotion, customer service and handle crisis situations.
– Ramon De Leon (aka @Ramon_DeLeon), who owns several Domino’s Pizza stores in Chicago. De Leon’s creative and active use of social media has made him one of the leading voices within the social media marketing landscape. This include a popular video in which De Leon publicly reached out to a customer who had an unhappy experience.
– Graeme Menzies (aka @graememenzies), ex-Social Media Director, Vancouver Olympic Committee and President, MenziesOnline Communications. During the Vancouver Olympics, social media was effectively used to provide insight into the competition, as well as provide insight behind the scenes.