meshmarketing

Ramon De Leon Rocks meshmarketing

By Mark Evans in Social Media No Comments Tags: , , ,

When we decided to see if Ramon De Leon would come to meshmarketing, it was seen as a bit of long shot. After all, De Leon is social media star who’s in demand to speak around the world.

For those of you not familiar with De Leon, he owns six Domino’s Pizza franchises in downtown Chicago, and has leveraged social media, particularly videos, to build a huge personal brand, as well as transform his business into something more than stores selling pizza.

Nevertheless, we thought he would be perfect for a panel looking at how companies have built brands using social media. To our surprise, De Leon accepted our invitation, and it would be fair to say he rocked the meshmarketing house, not only during his panel but throughout the day as he talked with pretty much anyone who wanted to talk to him.

The biggest reason why De Leon is so good is he’s genuine: a real person with real passion and enthusiasm for his business and using social business to connect with customers, potential customers and non-customers. He brings real-world perspective to social media that many people and companies now need.

We’ve gone through the “hey, social media is really cool and look at all these shiny toys” stage. Now, the focus is on providing real-world examples and case studies of how companies are using social media and what they are getting from their investments. In De Leon, you have a living, breathing social media machine that doesn’t stop.

During his panel, De Leon was checking his Twitter stream, while entertaining and engaging the audience with stories of how social media has impacted his business. During the conference, he was shooting videos and being videoed by a steady stream of people. Given where we are at with social media, De Leon is talking the talk and walking the walk.

His stature within the social media landscape is impressive given De Leon is a small business owner running six pizza stores. But the reason De Leon connects with so many people and his stories resonate so well is how he demonstrates that social media can be an effective vehicle for any business if it’s done with passion, energy and creativity.

Social media doesn’t have to involved expensive campaigns, bells and whistles and high-cost social media consultants. All you need is a plan, a goal and a commitment to learn and make it happen.

Ramon De Leon at meshmarketing from Mark Evans on Vimeo.

meshmarketing #2 – Bring it On!

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing No Comments Tags: , , ,

After months of planning, the second edition of meshmarketing happens tomorrow. While I was excited about the initial meshmarketing last year, I’m particularly stoked about this year’s conference.

First and foremost, I think the content is top-notch. We’ve got excellent speakers, great keynotes (Michael Slaby and Marian Salzman) and workshops and a new venue, the Allstream Centre.

Getting back to the content, which has been a pillar of mesh and meshmarketing, we have been fortunate to have reaped the benefits of a beautiful partnership with Trina Boos, who runs the successful AdLounge events. Trina has quarterbacked the programming for meshmarketing with enthusiasm, energy and determination. While last year’s programming was pretty good, Trina has raised the bar in a major way.

So why it meshmarketing different from other digital marketing conferences?

First, we’ve brought in speakers – many of whom have never been to Toronto – to offer real-world insight into creating and running digital marketing campaigns. And while we have two terrific keynotes that will get meshmarketing off to an inspiring and thought-provoking start, the “meat” of meshmarketing is the afternoon of interactive workshops that will provide people not only food for thought but lots of ideas to make things happen.

Personally, I’m really looking forward to a fireside chat with Lee LeFever, who, along with his wife, Sachi, creates the popular CommonCraft videos. Lee and Sachi have made the many of the Web’s new and cool technologies such as social media, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook easily understandable.

As someone who spends a lot of time creating stories and helping companies clearly articulate what they do and why people should care, I have a huge amount of respect for people such as Lee, who can cut to the chase in a user-friendly way.

My thanks to everyone who has purchased tickets at a time when there are lots of different marketing conferences to attend. We hope you enjoy the programming, speakers and, of course, the networking opportunities – something that makes mesh and meshmarketing that much more interesting and valuable.

If you’d like to buy tickets, you can do so here.

One last thing: A big thank you as well to our event planner, Sheri Moore, and her MCC Planners team. mesh and meshmarketing wouldn’t be able to happen without them.

Five Reasons Why You Should Attend meshmarketing ’10

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing 1 Comment Tags: , , , ,

In addition to running ME Consulting, I’m also one of the co-organizers of the mesh, meshU and meshmarketing conferences.

Today, we’re excited to announce that meshmarketing ’10 will be happening on Nov. 17 in Toronto. Here’s the details: tickets are $489 (plus HST) before Sept. 17, and $539 afterwards. There are also 50 student tickets for $99 each (plus HST).

There’s no lack of conferences happening in Toronto but here’s why I think you should come to meshmarketing.

1. meshmarketing is about providing insight and information about how to take advantage of digital marketing. While we have some great keynote speakers, Marian Salzman and Michael Slaby, the real focus on meshmarketing is giving you the opportunity to get involved in interactive, hands-on workshops and panel so you can go back to work armed with new ideas, tips and tools. We want meshmarketing to be an event that jump starts your digital marketing knowledge and activities.

2. Great speakers. Led by our programming director, Trina Boos, meshmarketing features a line-up of top-notch speakers from across Canada and the U.S. Many of our speakers have never appeared in Toronto so we’re excited about the opportunity to feature some fresh and fantastic voices. You can check out our programming here.

3. Terrific keynotes: We’re really excited about having Michael Slaby and Marian Salzman as our keynote speakers. Slaby is EVP and Global Practice Chair for Digital with Edelman. His experience includes serving as technology and new media advisor to the Obama administration. Salzman is one of the leading trendspotters, and the author or co-author of 15 books, including Next Now and The Future of Men. As well, Lee LeFever (who I’m particularly excited about) will give a super-presentation. For anyone not familiar with Lee, he and his wife and partner, Sachi, are the brains behind the popular Common Craft videos.

4. Engaging panels and workshops. For anyone who attended the first meshmarketing last year, you know that the action happens on the stage AND in the seats. As much as our speakers bring their insight to meshmarketing, we want attendees to be engaged and excited too. meshmarketing isn’t an event where speakers speak and attendees politely listen until a Q&A at the end; meshmarketing is about get involved and participating in a discussion.

5. Networking. One of the more interesting aspects of last year’s meshmarketing was the diversity of people who attended – everyone from entrepreneurs and small business owners to public relations and advertising executive, government officials and people from non-profits. An important part of mesh and meshmarketing is the opportunity to meet different kinds of people in a setting that’s comfortable, open and engaging.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at meshmarketing!

A Marvelous meshmarketing!

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing No Comments Tags: , , , , ,

There’s an element of risk when you do something new – be it start a business, launch a blog, go back to school, buy a house…or create a new conference.

This is probably why the mesh gang spent a long time thinking about whether we wanted to create a marketing conference. In theory, it made a lot of sense because people attending mesh made it clear they wanted an event that would give them insight into the tactics and tools to do marketing online.

In practice, however, running a conference is a lot of work, especially for people like us who have full-time jobs and family commitments. At the end of the day, we decided a marketing conference was a natural extension of mesh, which we started in 2006 simply because we wanted to have a place to talk about all the exciting things happening on the Web.

With the first meshmarketing conference now in the books, I can honestly say it was well worth the effort. The speakers were terrific, the venue (CiRCA) worked, and the more than 200 attendees were engaged and enthusiastic. Having spent the summer working away on getting everything organized with the amazing help of our event planner, Sheri Moore, it was an exciting and gratifying day.

For me, the highlight of meshmarketing were the eight workshops that happened in the afternoon. In many ways, the workshops were the reason we started meshmarketing. We wanted to have speakers who could give attendees valuable insight and, as important, a tangible list of things to do when they got back to the office.

From what I heard, the biggest challenge facing many people was deciding which workshop to attend, which is a great thing to hear about you’ve creating content for a conference. We filmed some of the workshops, and they will be posted online soon.

We were also very pleased with Hugh MacLeod’s keynote. It was one of the most cerebral and thought provoking keynotes we’ve had at a mesh conference. To me, it was one of those presentations that you think about afterwards, and then start to realize all the great ideas that Hugh offered in his own unique way. The two panels also worked well, and helped set the stage for the workshops later in the day.

In many respects, meshmarketing felt a lot like the first mesh because it was new and no one knew quite what to expect. In the end, the speakers and the mesh-like enthusiasm of the attendees played key roles in making meshmarketing so exciting and personally rewarding.

See you at meshmarketing ’10!


What I Did For My Summer Vacation

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing, Social Media No Comments Tags: , , , ,

meshmarketing badgeDo you remember those mini-essays that teachers made you write on the first day of school in which you had to write about what you did for my summer vacation? This blog post is sort of like that but rather than going away to summer camp, I spent a good part of the summer organizing the first meshmarketing conference.

While co-organizing the mesh conference with the mesh gang has given me some valuable insight into what goes on, trying to put together a conference over the summer is a different kind of proposition.

For one, many people take these things called vacations, often for several weeks in which they sometimes let their in-boxes collect dust. As well, people get into summer mode, so the last thing they want to think about is stuff happening after summer is over.

Still, these are the kind of obstacles that any conference organizer faces when you do an event in the autumn. And in the end, everything has really worked out. We’ve got a line-up of terrific speakers, led by keynote Hugh MacLeod, and some great social events.

As important, people are enthusiastic about meshmarketing, which is gratifying because it means that we’re doing something that people want or need – something we picked up on during the last mesh conference.

As we head into tonight’s pre-conference party at the Drake Hotel, I want to thank everyone who bought a ticket at a time when everyone is still watching their pennies pretty closely. I want to thank our sponsors for their support, including Seth Singer who stepped in at the last minute to tweak and update the Web site.

Finally, I want to thank Sheri Moore and the team from MCC Planners. Without their crucial behind-the-scenes help and enthusiasm, we couldn’t pull off meshU, mesh or meshmarketing.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone over the next couple of days!

The Road to meshmarketing

By Mark Evans in Uncategorized 5 Comments Tags: , , , ,

One of the lessons we learned from the last mesh conference is how many people within the public relations, advertising marketing sectors want and need more insight into the right approach, techniques and tools to attack the fast-growing online advertising/marketing marketplace.

As a result, we decided to create meshmarketing, a one-day event on Oct. 22 in downtown Toronto that will, hopefully, provide attendees with a fresh perspective on what’s happening and what they need to do, and how to do it.

We’ve got a great keynote speaker, Hugh MacLeod, two great food-for-thought panels, and eight hands-on, interactive workshops. It should make for a day full of insight, information, perspective and learning.

For more details, check out the mesh blog, as well as the meshmarketing site.

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