Five years ago, five guys walked into a bar….

It may sound like the beginning of a good joke but the punchline is the five guys decided to create a conference so people could talk about all the exciting things happening on the Web. The conference, mesh, has become a lot bigger, and we’ve branched out by adding more events (meshmarketing and meshU) but the core of what we set out to do in 2006 still holds true today.

As much as mesh has turned into a business, what motivates the five of us is being able to feed off our enthusiasm about new trends, development, start-ups and interesting people to put on conferences. These events are a lot of work but terribly satisfying.

We always thought about mesh as being something for Canada, even though none of us imagined holding events in other cities. After all, we were five guys with no conference experience. Tomorrow, however, mesh takes a big step forward with the launch of meshwest in Calgary. It’s a one-day event that we hope will help us establish a presence in Western Canada and, as important, make mesh truly national.

In some ways, it feels daunting to being adding more events given we all have full-time jobs. On the other hand, it’s exciting to watch something grow and evolve into something you never imagined.

We’ve got a great line-up of speakers at meshwest, headed by a keynote conversation with Shopify.com co-founder Tobias Lutke. What’s nice about meshwest is there’s a good balance of speakers coming in from out of town, along with local talent such as Greg Hounslow, Doug Lacombe, Tony Rino, Allyson Simpson and William Bakker.

We’re looking forward to a great day of conversations and new connections tomorrow. If you’d like to join us, tickets can be purchased here.