mesh: The 3 Threes

I had a phenomenal time at mesh in Toronto last week, and instead of the day off afterward that I thought I was going to get, I wound up in meetings, lunches and cocktail parties, so I didn't post my concluding thoughts until now.

Three People

Turns out to be much harder than usual, actually. I will leave out the usual suspects: Steve Rubel was there; my doppelganger, Greg Narain, attended; Michael O'Connor Clark, an old friend lives there; caught up with Leila Boujnane, CEO of Idée, who is becoming an old friend very quickly; and various pals, like the founders of the conference, who I had expected to see. But I met a bunch of great, new folks there.

1. Michal (Mic) Berman -- Mic is a recovering Yahoo.ca exec, and when I bumped into her after a session she exclaimed, "Oh! I was supposed to meet you last time you were in town," which was the Michael O'Connor Clark inspired cocktail party a few months back. We chatted for a few minutes, and after I had responded to the requisite "what do you do?" by talking about my advisory capital practice, she exclaimed "That's what I want to do!" The few minutes became a few hours, which led to a meeting the next day. We are pretty far along with collaborating on a number of fronts, about which more later.
2. Paul Kedrosky -- Paul was beyond entertaining and insightful. Falls into the extreme short list of great presentations this year, along with Kathy Sierra at ETech and Peter Hirshberg at OnHollywood.
3. Sacha Chua -- Sacha is technology evangelist at the IBM Center for Advanced Studies, Toronto, and a graduate student at the University of Toronto. She is so organized in her outreach to learn everything she can from the bright people she comes in contact with that it is almost (but not quite) frightening. I think she should write a book about her techniques, and what she has uncovered using them.

Three Companies

1. Idée -- Although I had met Leila Boujnane before, I had not really learned much about her company. On this trip I went to her offices, and got the whole tour. Idée is involved in image search, and in a very, very large scale fashion. Among other services, Idée has hundreds of photo services who rely on the company's ability to search through thousands of print magazines and newspapers to identify use of their stock photos. Idée's technology can identify fragments of photos, photos that have been cropped, photos with significant filtering and colorizing. Truly amazing. She showed me the server farm in the basement, which they are doubling again -- to 300 or 400 hundred machines -- in the next few weeks. Idée also licenses image search to various online and desktop tools, like Adobe. And Leila has more plans for Idée, to proceed in other ambitious directions.
2. ConceptShare -- I met Bernie Aho and Scott Brooks of ConceptShare, a new startup working on a collaborative platform to make sharing and discussing images -- screen mockups, designs, diagrams, whatever -- easier and more natural. Very cool, and I hope to have some screen shots and a first look in a few weeks or so. Sign up for the beta!
3. 15 Minutes of Fame -- A truly amazing series of small startups presented in several so-called "15 minutes of fame" sessions at the conference. I am listing all the members of the Winner's Circle.

   [from Mesh's 15 Minutes Of Fame Winners]

   Presenting, in no particular order, the mesh 15 Minutes of Fame Winners Circle, 2006:
   

   • TakingITGlobal.org / Nick Moraitis

     "...the premier online community for youth interested in global issues...Uniquely, a majority of our audience is in developing countries...Our membership tend to be social entrepreneurs who use TIG tools to coordinate social projects."
     

   • areyoufrank.com / Elissa Gjertson
     'We're bringing authentic branding + organizational courage to companies and non-profits around the world...all through the power of social media."
     
   • Favorville.com / Parveen Sangha and Daniel Salas

     "Ever needed a helping hand? Not sure where to turn? Favorville.com is quickly emerging as an essential resource for people looking to network and exchange favors and advice with others. It's a simple concept of facilitation: Favorville helps people help one another.'
     

   • Pixpo.com / Colin How"

     "PiXPO lets people broadcast video, audio and photo web sites online with no uploads!...Our peer2web technology allows users to avoid all the hassles around uploading."
     

   • Devshop.com / Craig Fitzpatrick

     "Devshop.com has a new approach to managing software projects that is so much more than just a task list with time estimates. Devshop can help software teams manage the top 5 risks that throw software projects off the rails constantly. ...make it work, make it easy, and make it available to everyone, not just the enterprise."
     

   • Gary King

     Gary is our Special Case winner. A high school student doing some neat things online, Gary turned our communal heads with pure tenacity in getting us to sell him an already-sold-out mesh Student's ticket. Yes, we got many, MANY requests for these once they went, but Gary approached The Ask with military precision and a No-is-Not-an-Option attitude that had we mesh-ies talking about (our nickname) Gary the Kid. We all ended up saying that we wanted to meet this guy. So, for pure Eye on the Prize go-get-'em-ness - which bodes very well for his future - Gary gets our final 15 Minutes slot.
     

Three Ideas

1. Michael Geist's presentation opened my US eyes to the Canadian push to define Canadian-appropriate copyright and digital rights management policies.
2. Toronto is an exploding zone of tech innovation, much more so than I htought, and it seems to have many of the pieces in place that make certain areas hot, like Silicon Valley, and the Boston Beltway. But there is a cautionary tone to the risk-aversion of Canadian investors, so much so that at various points people were talking about making the trek to Boston and New York to get funding.
3. The world is flat, and all sorts of work could be traveling to Toronto. There is an interesting subsidy that the Canadian government underwrites that could be exploited by US development firms: recent graduates' first year salaries are underwritten by the Government. Why aren't more US firms opening development groups in Toronto?

tags: toronto, canada, mesh, 3+threes, michae+geist, leila+boujnane, michael+oconnor+clark, , mic+berman, paul+kedrosky, steve+rubel, sacha+chua, conceptshare, Idée, greg+narain, TakingITGlobal.org, Nick+Moraitis, areyoufrank.com, Elissa+Gjertson, Favorville.com, Parveen+Sangha, Daniel+Salas, Pixpo.com, Colin+How, Devshop.com, Craig+Fitzpatrick, Gary+King

Comments

[Constance Reader]

Thank you for the mention of Favorville! I have never heard of it, but I have just registered and both requested and offered favors. This is a wonderful way for people to lend a hand to others. Especially for us Austin hippies, it's better than Craigslist!

[Markus]

There is also the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Tax Incentive Program:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/taxcredit/sred/menu-e.html

You can claim up to 35% of a persons salary up to $200,000 per person as a tax credit.

Now that makes a big difference.

[Mathew Ingram]

Glad you got so much out of mesh, Stowe. Come on up and see us any time :-)

[Sacha Chua]

Not quite a book, but a long blog post about networking and my little black book. =) It was such a pleasure meeting you at Mesh, Stowe. I'm looking for role models - connectors, tech evangelists, people into sales and marketing, and you're a Connector with the capital C. You're awesome!

(And yes, I still owe you pictures...)