What is mesh?

mesh is Canada's Web conference, being held in Toronto on May 30th & 31st, 2007. You will hear from thought leaders, connect with peers, and get a better understanding of the impact of new developments online. mesh brings together people who are passionate about the potential of the Web to change how we live, work and play. Meet the next generation of Web ideas, leaders and companies at mesh.

Instead of waiting until May, the organizers arranged for a very informal meetup at the Irish Embassy Pub, and I think nealry a hundred people showed up.

I always suspected there was some very serious thinking going on in the field of "social media" but to see the sheer number of passionate developers looking at Web 2.0 was sobering.

One of the first people I met was Maggie Fox of Social Media Group. Vastly experienced in just about every realm of media (except radio, she says), she is helping firms understand what social media is and how it can be used to enhance communications, especially across an enterprise. You can read her impressions of the party -- for certain the acoustics made conversation a challenge.

After flitting from group to group, I ended up with, of all people, Andrew Coyne! At first, I thought he just saw a party and decided to jump in, but he's quite the mesh-head (I just made up that word), with a lot to say about the evolution of the web as a means of communication and information distribution. Of course, with his blog into it's third iteration, the should have been obvious.

Andrew took the time to introduce me to some of the biggest names in the Web 2.0 world -- Rob Hyndman and Mathew Ingram. Andrew was kind enough to give Angry in the Great White North far more credit than it deserved as a blog of note, but in any case, it got the conversation rolling, and I got to listen to some very informed opinions and musings about the state of the Web today, where it's going, how to make money off of it, the state of the technology, and so on.

All in all, a very enjoyable evening. Even if it was hard to hear a quarter of what was being said.