We're on our way out of Toronto today. I had a really good time at the CC Salon Toronto last night -- lots of good people talking about important legal and creative topics. I think the salon is going to grow.
It was interesting to meet Tara Hunt and Chris Messina. I think I had too many Sleeman's Honey Browns because I remember saying something about a BarcampMontreal... Maj and I have a jam-packed summer, but who's to say we couldn't fit something in in September...? We'll see. I think it would have to be CampeDeBarMontreal though.
I still haven't uploaded our pictures to Flickr... I should get to that RSN.
We're having breakfast in the hotel with friend Lee today, then off again to Montreal. Thankfully the skies have cleared and we're going to have nice weather on the way home. I think we're going to try to take alternate routes -- riding on the 410 all the time is pretty tiresome.
toronto cc salon flickr photos lee roadtrip
Mesh Conference Post-mortem
So, I think overall I give the Mesh Conference a B-. There were some energizing productions (Michael Geist was really good, the discussion of software development in the Web 2.0 world was hot) but there was a lot that I wasn't willing to see. And there was an overall taint of desperation -- there were a lot of people wanting something -- I don't know what it is, but they wanted it hard.
What I didn't get was a lot of the hacker ethic desire to make cool things for the love of it. It popped up in a couple of places -- I liked hearing the director of strategic initiatives for the (American) Library of Congress talk about digitization and archiving -- but in other places the message was, "If I'm not making money from it, who cares?"
I have to admit that the interesting technical issues weren't there, either. Even though I'm interested in social and media issues, I like to get my teeth into some code and such.
Another thing I missed was Canadianism. There was absolutely zero French-language content, speakers, get-togethers, etc. It's hard to see how Mesh is "Canada's Web 2.0 conference" when it shuts out 30% of the Canadian population that speaks French as a first language.
I hope that Toronto can keep its momentum up and have a new Mesh next year. I think that there are some fundamental challenges to deepening the conference, Canadianising it, and attracting a more hackerly audience. But if that can be done, I think it can be a really cool addition to the circuit.