Wayne D's Blog

updated April 14th with a link to the Rabble TV coverage of Mesh. other additions are marked

MeshU and Mesh are history for another year and I survived both. Fueled by coffee, Redbull and lots of yummy snacks I spent three days at Canada's web conference.

I met so many great new people and heard so many interesting speakers I can't recommend enough that you go if and when you get the chance. Both conferences sold out this year so for those who didn't get a chance to go I thought I'd do the elevator pitch version of MeshU and Mesh.

I will attempt to sum up in one sentence what I took away from the panels and keynotes I attended over the two conferences. These will not be the next best thing to being there. The presentations and presenters were dynamic, nuanced, thoughtful and my short description will attempt to encapsulate what I took away from their talks, not necessarily their main point or theme. You can find video of some of the keynotes and sessions at media.meshconference.com and Mesh TV. Here is a link to Rabble.tv coverage of Mesh. What you don't get from my comments and the videos is the wonderful food, great socializing and all the great interesting new people you will meet.

So we begin with MeshU. The format, first presenter, then the name of the seminar and then my take away.

Ryan Singer - Value Judgments in Interface Design - Designers need to be able to quickly and easily modify the user experience, the MVC methodology still rules

Brydon Gillis - Building Software the Obama Way - Lead with action and change, not policy.

Leigh Honeywell - Break it to make it: writing (more) secure software - Security is very important but we are doomed anyways, but try to be as secure as practical.

April Dunford - Segmentation, Positioning and Storytelling: How a Smart Market Strategy Can Drive Growth - Pick a target market and tell your stories, spread yourself too thin and you are history.

Now on to Mesh
Mike Masnick Keynote - Dinosaurs you need to change your paradigm or my paradigm will eat your lunch.

Jessica Jackley Keynote - Helping other to do good is a wonderful way to live.

Tyler Crowley - Professionalizing Pro-video content - Making great video can be done really inexpensively but making money is very difficult.

Hyper-local media: Does It Work? Panel - Yes it does but don't expect to get rich doing it.

The Future of News Panel - The business of news is in flux, there are many people trying to figure where it is going.

VC Keynote with Howard Lindzon and Paul Kedrosky - Canada's VC system is broken, go south young person.

Bonin Bough Keynote - Pepsico is very bullish on social media and you should be too.

David Miller Keynote, Open government data is important and improved transit is the future hope for Toronto.

Phil Gomes - Managing Personas Online - Don't switch off your brain when you go online, think twice, type once.

Jeff Quipp - Search Engine Optimization 101 - Build lots of pages with great content and search engines will beat a path to your door.

Mark Evans - How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Marketing Plan - You haven't missed the boat, everyone is still experimenting but don't piss off the Mommy bloggers.