I don’t want to get all mushy or anything, but I would just like to echo what my fellow mesh 2007 organizer Stuart MacDonald said in one of his speeches to the crowd — either at the end of the second day or after the speakers’ dinner on Wednesday, I can’t remember which: We could not have done this without you. And that’s not just a nice thing to say — it’s true.
And by “you,” I mean all the attendees, all the speakers, all the people who asked questions and made great comments, and all the people who have since said so many great things about the conference (Tony Hung has some links here, and there are more on the mesh blog) that it’s hard to keep up with them all. As Stuart said, we just created the structure that made it possible for something wonderful to happen — you are the ones who ensured that it did happen.
I have so many personal highlights from mesh that it’s difficult to list them all. Doing the keynote interview with Mike Arrington (and hanging out with him after the keynote and at the after-party) was obviously a big highlight, and the keynote that Mark Evans did with craigslist CEO was also hugely entertaining — as I mentioned in a post below. But there were tons of other moments too, like chatting with Mike Masnick of Techdirt (I am a huge fan) at the speakers’ dinner, as well as Lionel Menchaca, Dell’s head blogger, who is a great guy and has done some amazing things at that company with social media.
Talking about crowdsourcing and newspapers with Jeff Howe of Wired magazine was also a highlight, since it’s an area I am keenly interested in, and so was talking with the lovely and talented Christine Herron, ex of the Omidyar Network. And Toronto-born Rachel Sklar of Huffington Post’s Eat The Press is about as fantastic as a person can get — she lit up both the panel she was on as well as the speakers’ dinner and after-party, and pretty much any room she was in or table she was at throughout the conference.
Loren Feldman of 1938media is not only hilarious — and clearly a workaholic, since he had already done two videos before even arriving at the pre-mesh cocktail party, one from the hotel bathtub — but also a stand-up guy. And so is Ethan Kaplan, the head of technology at Warner Brothers Records, who is so smart that at times he made my head hurt.
In other words, just an incomparable couple of days — right off the charts. And all because of you (and of course my partners Rob and Mike and Stuart and Mark). If you have any links, or pictures, or a blog post, or even just thoughts, please send or post them and tell us where they are. I’ve included some below. (photo by Pema Hagen)
mesh links:
— Flickr photos here
— Technorati tag: mesh07
— mDialogue video (thanks a lot to Greg and his team)
— Tony Hung live-blogged a whole pile of sessions
— Mark Dowds
— Mike Arrington and his underwear (courtesy of Loren Feldman)
— Cynthia Brumfield on the underwear (I’m sensing a theme here)
— PayPerPost CEO Ted Murphy’s thoughts
— some thoughts from panelist Christine Herron on Mike Arrington’s media keynote
— Tom Williams (whose keynote with Austin Hill was mentioned by many as a highlight)
— Rachel’s post at Eat The Press (I have expressed my apologies for what is referred to later on in the post)
— the Arrington/Ted Murphy “most evil man in the room” comment makes Wired’s blog
— Dell head blogger Lionel Menchaca.
— podcaster and workshopper extraordinaire, Leesa Barnes
— Richard Edelman, keynote and an extremely nice guy
— ProductWiki
— Global Nerdy
— Technosailor (thanks, Aaron — and I think you are right)
— Webslinger
— Digital Word (good point, Kristina)
— Adam MacIsaac, a panelist and my dinner partner
— a couple of posts from volunteer Kyra Aylesworth of PrGirlz
— Chris Clarke of ThornleyFallis
— Julie Rusciolelli
— notes from Joi