mesh is billed as a conference “where people with an enthusiasm for the Web talk about how it is affecting the media, marketing, business and society as a whole,” as its website explains. Taking place at the MaRS Centre in downtown Toronto, the sold-out mesh conference invites well-known entrepreneurs, media experts, investment leaders and marketing executives to outline their visions of how Web trends “impacts how you live and work,” says Stuart MacDonald, one of mesh’s co-founders, in an interview with DigitalJournal.com.
MacDonald points out mesh will continue to highlight sessions relating to its “four pillars” or streams – society, marketing, media, and start-up financing. He points out this year’s mesh will also showcase a few talks relating to topics such as wireless media, real-time content and convergence.
“For years, people have been talking about convergence but it’s here, it’s happening,” MacDonald notes. “And we’ll find out at mesh what publishing across multiple platforms actually means for us.”
This year, mesh organizers invited prominent executives such as Scott Thompson, president of online payment service PayPal; Arvind Rajan, LinkedIn’s Vice President of International; Chris Thorpe, the Developer Advocate for the Open Platform at The Guardian; Kim Fox, CBC News¹s senior producer of social media; Alon Marcovici, Vice-President, Digital Media and Research of Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium; and many more.
The Web conference is known for its panel discussions and workshop sessions, each tailored for a specific topic of interest to digital media entrepreneurs. For instance, on May 18 attendees can check out a panel discussion titled The Battle Between Crafted and Machine-Driven Content, where panelists will discuss the role of media companies such as Seed.com and Demand Media.
In another workshop session, Fox will talk about the importance of user-generated content and social media in the newsroom. An hour later, Avril Benoît, director of communications for the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), will discuss how her non-profit takes advantage of social media tools.
A unique feature of this year’s mesh is the presence of the TV show The Agenda with Steve Paikin. The TVO show will film the May 18 session on “the evolution and changing face of privacy in the digital age.” The session will be broadcast on the show on May 19 at 8 p.m. ET.
MacDonald said he expects around 400 people to attend mesh over the next two days. Around 40 speakers have been invited to present at keynotes, panels and workshop events.
Those who can’t attend mesh in person can still stay updated on the sessions. Via its main website, mesh will post videos of sessions after they have ended (translation: no live streaming). Photos and other media will be posted on media.meshconference.com as well as on its Facebook Page.
Twitter follows can find mesh commentary by searching for the hashtag #mesh10.
Another option? Check out DigitalJournal.com (and our Twitter feed @digitaljournal) on May 18 and 19 to keep updated on some of the mesh sessions we check out. You can review our coverage of previous mesh conferences here, here and here.
