I attended my very first Mesh Conference today in Toronto… It was very exciting and money well spent. I did walk away however feeling a bit like the Village Idiot. I have loads to learn in the Social Media space, but at least I was there soaking it all in …. Here’s what I learned today:
Mark Evans of b5 Media is still a consummate professional and has the most awesome cheek bones a girl would kill for!
Jack Kapica of the Globe & Mail is less of a curmudgeon in person than in his emails – he wanted to know why I don’t email him anymore.. basically because he stopped answering me back!
I was probably the only person in the audience who didn’t know who Michael Arrington was … he’s the guy you read like gospel every morning, noon and night on TechCrunch …. Sorry Mr. Arrington, I still tune into Perez Hilton on the breaking news front …
The WIKI session I attended should have been given by a woman … she would have used more colourful slides and less jargon … I’m still confused …
I sat at lunch next to the guy who founded and sold Bubbleshare to Kaboose … Amazing fellow, millionaire before he was 20 ... but he still looked 20 so later that afternoon I booked a Botox appointment for myself.
Sitting next to Joe Thornley of Thornely Fallis was just a pleasure … he put things in layman’s terms for me through the entire opening keynote (he’ll no doubt be avoiding me tomorrow morning). At least I know what Twitter is now.
Content is KING! No question, this conference was yet another reminder that no matter what the social medium – Podcasts, Blogs, YouTube, WIKIs … content is paramount – throw in a good dose of credibility and pedigree, you’ve got yourself an audience … and some advertisers to boot.
Two guys named Hill and Williams made millions before they turned 30 and now are devoting their lives to self actualization in the charity arena in the Web 2.0 space. I felt like a complete amoeba at that point and walked away from that session with a renewed sense of purpose.
Traditional media is still here to stay … a number of presenters including Rachel Sklar of the Huffington Post, made it loud and clear, newspapers, magazines and traditional broadcast media aren’t going anywhere and that’s good news for us PR folks … whew … we’re still alive …
Last but not least, I learned that that PR professionals are some of the nicest and down to earth people I know … Joe, Julia, Michael, Chris, Donna (she’s not really PR per se … but that I still like her tons), Elynn, Andrew … great to have run into you all … see you tomorrow, save me a seat next to Joe!
3 comments:
Great post Julie,
A nice personal perspective on mesh. The kind of perspective that requires a few hours of reflection.
When you sing up for twitter, add me as a friend. I'm "thornley."
sign, not sing. drat... Proof read young skywalker. Proof read!
Julie, it's always a pleasure to see you at events. I somehow feel that I pick up 1,000 watts of energy just standing next to you!
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