Toronto

Should We Drink the Local Kool-Aid?

By Mark Evans in Startups 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

In the post I wrote earlier this week about the demise of Thoora, there was a comment suggesting that “Toronto failed Thoora” due to a lack of community support to make it a “winning formula”.

It was a puzzling comment because it suggests a community has an obligation to support a startup so it can thrive. This strikes me as an absurd idea because startups should succeed or fail on their own merits, and the ability to attract an audience near and close.

Sure, it’s good to drink the local flavour of “Kool-Aid” but only if a startup is offering a product or service that meets a need or interest. There are lots of local startups, including some that pitch me directly, that don’t resonate because nothing something interests me or the product/service doesn’t resonate enough to warrant further exploration.

It doesn’t mean I’m not supporting the local community; it just means a startup has a service that didn’t pass the sniff test.

At the same time, I do think Toronto’s startup community is extremely supportive. There’s no lack of enthusiasm, energy and a willingness to share ideas, feedback, resources, real estate and time to provide startups with a boost.

This has been a fact of life for the past five years, even before we started to see a flurry of startups appear on the scene. There has always been a strong, support community that has pulled together in different ways. A great example is tonight’s HoHoTo party, which has become a major fund-raising machine due to tremendous support from the community.

The bottom line is if a startup needs to rely on the community to make it, it also suggests what it’s offering can’t survive  without artificial support.

For startups, the market has to be bigger than its own backyard. It needs people to support it or not based on what’s being sold as opposed to a sense of duty or obligation.

Some People Should Be Twitter-Free

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

No twitterJust because Twitter has more than 200 million users doesn’t mean it’s a tool for everyone.

In fact, there are some people who just shouldn’t use Twitter because it gets them in hot water more than it helps them build a personal brand, promote a business, or provide valuable or interesting content.

A case in point is Toronto councillor John Parker, who seems to think Twitter is a platform to opine about “hot chicks”. Not that there is anything wrong with hot chicks or using Twitter to talk about hot chicks but not when you’re an elected official with a high profile.

Parker’s stumbles and bumbles on Twitter may be light-hearted but it clearly shows he has no clue about the inappropriateness of “hot chicks” tweets or the downside of Twitter given what gets said on Twitter goes way beyond Twitter.

Parker joins a long list of politicians, athletes and celebrities who should be told “Sorry, no Twitter for you”. It’s like giving the car keys to a teenager who proceeds to drive recklessly. At some point, you have to ask for the keys back.

The problem with Twitter it requires little or no thought to tweet. It plays right into our multi-tasking, impulse-purchase world. You think or do something, you instantly tweet it – damn the consequences, implications or fallout.

It explains why most tweets are value-less, inane or digital flotsam that would be left untweeted. I suggest there be a tweet-meter that measures the goofiness of tweets. If tweets fall before a certain level, you’re on probation. If the bad behaviour contents, you’re banned from Twitter.

Some people should stay away or walk away from Twitter to save themselves and protect the rest of us from their digital noise.

mesh was marvelous

By Mark Evans in Advertising/Marketing, Media, Social Media 2 Comments Tags: , ,

Mesh bean bagsmesh is like a good house party. Afterward, you’re exhausted but happy that everything worked so well. After seven months of preparation, the two days of mesh were over before you knew it, and now we’re on to the next thing – meshwest in Calgary on June 8.

So what were the highlights of mesh ’11? Without going into too much detail, here’s a personal list:

1. The venue – the Allstream Centre – was a major move for mesh because it’s much bigger than MaRS, which hosted the first five mesh events. Like any new home, there were a few kinks but, for the most part, it worked really well. It was great to have more meeting rooms and more space to mingle and eat.

2. The sponsors village – However you want to cut it, sponsors need to be part of the mix for a good conference. They provide the support needed to put on a good show. At the same time, sponsors want to be more than just a logo on the Web site and swag. At mesh, the village was part of the landscape so that they had great exposure that seemed natural and non-obtrusive.

3. The keynotes, particularly Gabe Zichermann’s talk with Stuart MacDonald about gameification. There are speakers who have a gift for entertaining, educating and engaging, and Gabe is a perfect example of someone who delivers all three. It was a keynote that delivered endless pearls of wisdom, and I found myself scribbling lots of notes.

A great example was Gabe’s contention that Web sites need to be simple rather than offer a lot of options, which is something that I constantly advocate when doing Web site projects for clients. Gabe also talked about the importance of rewarding users when they do what they you want. This can even message message such as “You’re amazing” after they register.

4. The porn panel – With a great lineup of speakers that included Pink Visual CEO Alison Vivas, who runs an adult entertainment company, it epitomized a mesh panel at its best. The panelists were engaged with each other, they had different perspectives to offer, they were entertaining and educational, and the audience was into it. Here’s the Huffington Post Canada story on the panel.

5. The bean bag chairs from FatBoy, which were a hit of the conference. Imagine walking into a large conference ballroom to discover there are 20 different coloured bean bag chairs to sit in. Now, a few people may have gone too far when they decided to take a nap but they were one of the small touches that made mesh really work. (Note: The photo above is the mesh gang post-mesh.)

6. The influencer panel with David Armano and Valeria Maltoni – With so much interest in the role of influencers within social media, the room was packed. As some of the leading thinkers about digital marketing, Armano and Maltoni were well-armed to provide perspective. If I had to moderate the panel over again, I would have pressed them into talking more about the tools – PeerIndex, Klout, mPact, etc. – because everyone gets that influence is an important thing but a lot of people are struggling with how to identify and successfully engage with influencers.

7. The TVO panel with host Steve Paikin, Micah Sifry, Jesse Brown, the NDP’s Charlie Angus and Tony Clement, the new Treasury Minister. It was a wonderful panel, highlighted by Angus proclaiming Twitter had little value – something that didn’t go over while in a room in which Twitter has enthusiastic support, including Clement.

There are lots of other highlights but these are some that jumped out. I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the other important part of mesh – the people who attended and spoke, and their enthusiasm to network, exchange ideas and engage. It’s something that makes mesh different and wonderful.

Now, it’s on to Calgary for meshwest, and pretty soon, we’ll be getting the programming machine going for meshmarketing in November…and then it’ll be time for mesh ’12 in May 2012!

Links: It was great to see so much coverage of mesh. One of the blog posts that caught my attention was Louise Armstrong’s post on conference etiquette, which captures the essence of mesh. As well, Micah Sifry (aka TechPresident) did a wonderful post about Canada’s Internet landscape.

More: Here are the “official” mesh photos.

The Nuts and Bolts of mesh

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

Mesh logoWith mesh kicking off tonight with a pre-party the Drake Hotel, it feels like the calm before the storm.

In many ways, mesh feels like a giant party rather than a Web conference. It’s a lot of fun, you get to invite cool people and it’s immensely satisfying to see everyone enjoy themselves. But it’s an awful lot of work that consumes hundreds of hours.

The preparations for mesh start, in earnest, about October (or eight months before the conference) when the six of us (Mike MacDerment, Mathew Ingram, Stuart MacDonald, Rob Hyndman, Sheri Moore and myself) start to brainstorm about potential speakers for the keynotes, panels and workshops.

We get together on Wednesday nights, which usually involves at least 30 minutes of updates, gossip and bad jokes before we get to the serious part of the evening: food, which tends to have a strong carnivore component.

Then, we get into lengthy and often animated discussions about speakers and content. At times, it’s a thing of beauty to see how collectively we can come up with ideas and great speakers.

But it’s not always peaches and cream. We’ve got different interests and agendas that sometimes cause some friction when a great idea is shot down. At the same time, we’ve all got demanding day jobs so there can be times when you don’t have the energy or patience to play nice. But much like brothers and sisters scrap, no one takes it personally because we’ve all got the best of intentions.

In an ideal world, we’ve lined up keynotes by late-January. The process is fascinating because we start with a list of 30 to 40 potential speakers, which is boiled down to 15 or so invitations. After dealing with polite rejections because people don’t want to travel, have conflicts, etc., we eventually arrive at the four keynotes.

At the same time, we’re coming up with ideas for panels. Some panels happen with little effort, some take a lot of time and work to emerge. The advantage of having six people involved in putting mesh together is there are lots of ideas and different perspectives.

That’s the programming side of the house. The event planning is another huge piece of work handled by the super-energetic Sheri Moore and her team at MCC Planners. They’re the ones who secure the venue, deal with the caterers, audio/visual people, accommodations and flights for speakers, social events, and all the small details that collectively add up to a lot of work.

And then you’ve got sponsorships, which is handled by Alicia Kalozdi-MacMillan. Without the support of sponsors, mesh would be difficult to make happen. It may come across as pandering but it’s truth because conference economics only work with sponsors involved – unless you’re willing (and able) to sell expensive tickets.

mesh is a lot of work that happens because a group of people pour a lot of blood, sweat, tear, energy, time and passion into it. To us, mesh is more than just a conference, it’s something we love doing because we think we’re doing something good and right for the community.

It also provides all of us with tremendous personal satisfaction. Personally, the best part is when the lights go out just before the first day of mesh begins when you can feel the excitement in the room – excitement that has been created after months of preparations.

So, let’s bring on mesh ’11!

More: David Crow wrote a really nice blog post, which captures the essence of what we do.

Pulling the Covers Off mesh ’11 (aka mesh 6.0)

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

After months of work and sushi-powered meetings, we’re finally ready to unveil mesh ’11.

To paraphrase Ed Sullivan, we’ve got a “really big show” with terrific keynotes and a line-up of excellent panels and workshops. Before getting into the details, there a few new wrinkles for mesh ’11. They include:

- More workshops. Given the popularity of workshops, we have decided to offer six per stream. Yup, there will be 24 workshops in total, which will provide lots of opportunities for hands-on, interactive learnings.

- Moving to the Allstream Centre at Exhibition Place. After getting a feet wet by moving meshMarketing to the AllStream Centre last November, we decided to take the plunge with mesh as well. With more room and lots of parking, we think it’s an excellent venue that will make it possible to let more people come.

- A “Sponsors Village” in which the companies that support mesh will be able to strut their stuff.

So what about the programming? For starters, here’s the line-up of keynote speakers.

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.

You’re probably wondering about tickets. Until April 20, you can buy 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.

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.

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