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.
