I spent the past few days in Toronto, attending the Mesh conference for the first time. Yesterday I moderated a panel entitled, rather cheerily, “Using the Web for Good”. I had the pleasure of cross-examining Gavin, Duarte and Sarah (here are a couplephotos). Marc live-blogged, and Jeremy, uh, live-tweeted the discussion.
The conference was exceptionally well-run, both totally professional and very personable. The highlight for me was an informal keynote (live-bloggage) by Jessica Jackley, the co-founder of Kiva. She’s a good speaker, but her wisest choice was not to over-sell the story of Kiva. She doesn’t have to, because it sells itself so well. It was also a little brave to start off by quoting Jesus. During her talk, an ad hoc Mesh ‘team’ (an associated group of lenders) was formed on Kiva, and raised $250.
I was curious to check out Mesh in the context of comparing it to Northern Voice. In terms of structure and size, they’re actually quite similar. They’re even held in similar spaces. The MaRS building is a little institutional, and has a large, vaulted atrium, much like UBC’s Forest Sciences Centre. Mesh is simply business-oriented, while Northern Voice is not. There were a lot more business suits at Mesh than fleece jackets.
I had lunch in Kensington Market, and was immediately reminded of a TV show that I never watched when I was a kid, but, for some reason, I can clearly recall the opening credits:
UPDATE: A bunch of videos from Mesh 2009, including Jessica’s keynote, are available here. Click the Browse videos button at the bottom of the first embedded video to navigate through sundry videos to find what interests.
This year’s Northern Voice conference–the fifth one–pretty much sold out in three days. Tickets for Friday’s unconference lasted longer than Saturday, but certainly not much longer. And the wait list for each day is, by my guess, nearing fifty people. That happened with no marketing at all, besides blog posts and tweets from the organizers.
I have mixed feelings about that result. It’s terrific that the conference is so popular–it’s an affirmation that people really dig the event. But by virtue of that popularity (and despite its $60 price tag), the event has become kind of exclusive. If you’re not on Twitter or jacked in to the local blogosphere, you probably missed the boat on registering.
In years past, we’ve tried, when possible, to encourage noobies to attend the event. Last year (and I gather something similar is happening this year) there was a kind of Social Media 101 series on the Friday specifically for those who are new to this world. However, when the conference sells out so quickly, a bunch of those folks (and a bunch of connected, bloggy people too) can’t come. And that kind of sucks.
What To Do?
I’ve said for the past couple of years that we could double the capacity–from about 350 to 700–and still sell out. That’s never appealed, though, because an event that size would be pretty unwieldy. There would have to be huge or many rooms, more sponsors and considerably more infrastructure.
Organizer James and I were chatting last night, and discussed the possibility of making the event biannual. It happens during the spring reading break out at UBC, and could also easily happen during the fall one. If we did that, the association (Northern Voice went non-profit last year) would probably have to hire an event manager, because the volunteer organizers are all busy people stretched too thin as it is.
But I’m not sure that would actually solve the problem. I think most of the attendees who came to ‘Northern Voice Spring’ would also register for a ‘Northern Voice Fall’.
Or maybe not. Maybe doubling the number of conferences would, say, bring 250 people to each and normalize, at least in the short to medium term, the supply-demand imbalance.
It’s a nice problem to have, but one that becomes more pressing each year. Then again, maybe this social media stuff will die off in the next year or two, and Northern Voice 2012 will only have 59 attendees.
What do you think? Should we worry about too much demand and not enough supply of the moose?
UPDATE: Frequent Northern Voice attendee Mack posted his thoughts on the same topic.
Just a quick note to say that this year’s Northern Voice organizers have kicked the doors open for registration. The conference has sold out for the past three years, and we’ve had to turn away disappointed people, so act now. Or, you know, forever hold your peace. And don’t forget to buy a t-shirt. They’re reportedly a lovely claret red.
If you’ve never been to Northern Voice before, you should go. I’m biased, but it’s one of my favourite conferences of the year. I’m fond of its laid back mood and non-corporate focus, and we’ve been lucky to have really terrific speakers over the years. If you don’t believe me, just ask Google.
UPDATE: 126 people signed up on the first day of registration. That’s more than a third of the way to capacity, so if you’re interested in going, register sooner rather than later.
The Northern Voice 2009 website has been launched. And, thanks to Alexa Booth, it is a serious improvement on previous years. Additionally, the committee is now accepting speaker submissions. The deadline for submissions is December 19, 2008.
Given my relocation to Victoria and busyness, I’m taking a year off from the organizing committee. We’ve got a schwack of great new organizers this year though, with fresh blood and ideas. I’m planning on attending the conference and volunteering on the day. I may try to organize a panel or something, time-permitting. I’ve been kicking around some ideas about the social media sphere and maturity.
It is thrilling to see how our little conference has grown since its humble origins in 2005 (website only sort of works).
I’m going to be in Chicago for a speaking gig in June. We’re adding a couple of days on either side to have a little working holiday.
I’ve never been to the Windy City before. For those who have (and especially those who live there), where would you recommend we stay? I’m not looking for specific hotel recommendations (though I’ll take those). I’m more interested to know what part of town we should stay in.
For an American city like this, we’re your typical cultural tourists–museums, galleries, walking around cool neighbourhoods and the like. Any suggestions?
I promise not to say “da Bears” or “da Bulls” when I’m there.
We were actually going to be on the backs of camels in the Sahara Desert during the conference this weekend, but it got pushed back a few days. So CamelCamp will follow MooseCamp by about a week.
Have fun at this year’s conference, which promises to be bigger and better than ever. Be sure to thank the organizers, volunteers, speakers and sponsors when you see them. It’s a non-profit conference and nobody gets paid. So what you see is the sum of a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
If you want to drop by and say Hi, I believe I’ll virtually be an expert in our ‘Ask an Expert’ booth on Saturday morning. More details to follow.
Rebecca just posted about Beyond Pink, a conference for female entrepeneurs in Vancouver in March:
Beyond Pink is the first conference of its kind in Western Canada, and will act as the launch event for the Young Women in Business network (YWiB) in March 2008. The event will feature an interactive workshop series, speaker and panel sessions hosted by individuals with extraordinary backgrounds and experiences, the Connect! Women in Business Tradeshow, a break out luncheon with cross-industry mentors, and a celebratory Gala dinner to wrap up the weekend.
Things I like about this event:
I heartily applaud this kind of conference. Organizations like Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Wired Woman (huh, I always thought it was ‘Women’) demonstrate that there’s an appetite for an event like this. It’s unclear how young they’re aiming at–it may be a Wall Centre full of recent university graduates.
It’s very fairly priced at CAN $235. And that includes two (shared, I think) nights at the Wall Centre. The price isn’t any cheaper for locals, apparently, which is a bit lame.
I like their site design–it’s friendly yet professional, and far superior to the FWE and Wired Woman websites (which, frankly, are a bit desperate).
The name seems like a bad idea. By including ‘Pink’ in the brand, you don’t flout the stereotype, you reinforce it. And if you want to go ‘beyond pink’, then you probably shouldn’t use that colour as part of your logo and website. Alternately, if ‘Beyond Pink’ is just supposed to be playful, it undercuts the professionalism of the conference and will, I think, turn off potential attendees. Maybe I’m missing nuances that, in fact, appeal to female entrepreneurs? What do you think?
The speakers. I don’t want to pre-judge, but of the two speakers they’ve got listed thus far, only half of them are female. And the dude feels obliged to include “MSc., MBA” after his name. I regularly heard complaints about the gender of FWE speakers–that there were too many men. Don’t women out-number men as business owners in Canada? Surely you could stock this event with great female speakers. Why wouldn’t you? Speaking as a, uh, male speaker, I’d take no offense at that.
The copy on the website. As I get older, my tolerance for nonsensical fluff in corporate communications declines. On Saturday, the sessions will focus on “aligning a professional path with one’s aspirations, values, and beliefs.” Elsewhere, they describe YWiB’s goal is for members to “gain the insight, support, and capability necessary to reach their fullest personal and professional potential”. Finally, they describe their organizing team as a “25-person, unconventional team of leaders”. Anybody who self-identifies as “unconventional” probably isn’t.
According to Rebecca registration closes on February 25, so you need to act fast. I guess they’re selling out, because that seems like a very early date to close registration.
I’d want to see who the other speakers were, but it has the makings to be a good event. Plus, if you’re a local, $235 is a pretty low-risk investment.
Just a quick note to say that we’re down to about 45 spots left for Northern Voice, and they’re going fast. The event will definitely sell out. So if you haven’t registered yet, you should go ahead and do so.
As we’re in Morocco, Julie and I are taking a back seat on organization for Northern Voice this year. I’m helping out where I can remotely, and one of the things I’m doing is organizing a new feature of the conference for 2008. This time around we’re adding a little tech non-profits expo
The plan is to provide about a half-dozen tables on the Saturday where tech-oriented organizations can set up a booth and talk to attendees. We’d ask organizations to agree to run their booths from 9:30am to 1:30pm, though they’re welcome to stay longer.
It will be free for the organizations, and they’ll get a chance to engage with 300-350 social media and blogging types.
I’ve sent out some invitations, and we’ve already got a couple of organizations signed up, but I wanted to put the call out for other suggestions. Do you know an organization that fits the bill?
You can attend one day for $40, or come to both days for only $60. That’s an amazing deal: it’s just the price of a single cup of coffee that also costs $60!
I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve been able to keep the conference ridiculously cheap. Four years ago, the one-day conference cost $20 in advance or $30 at the door.
There’s some exciting new stuff planned for this year. I’ll let the other–far more active–organizers announce all of that, and then I’ll post about it here.
I’m also pleased not to be the guy wrangling the registration process this year. Three years of that was enough.
I spent the past few days in Toronto, attending the Mesh conference for the first time. Yesterday I moderated a panel entitled, rather cheerily, “Using the Web for Good”. I had the pleasure of cross-examining Gavin, Duarte and Sarah (here are a couple photos). Marc live-blogged, and Jeremy, uh, live-tweeted the discussion.
