Bottoms up!

[photo credit: green st. by lastexit]

It's awesome to see the organizers of Mesh getting so excited about 'Web 2.0' coming to town. Personally, I'm excited to be back in Toronto and, between a crazy schedule of trying to get my interactive keynote together and getting the new round of UI done at Riya, I've been busily touching base with some of the good people I know in Tdot. Oh...and there is that getting the BarCampTdot thing put together (which has been a breeze with Jay Goldman and David Crow at the healm).

The Mesh Conference really seems to 'get it' - complete with a wiki, a blog, an unconference room, a 15 minutes of fame track, etc. But what I love most is their infectious enthusiasm for it. I feel it catching on. Just over 7 months ago, I arrived here in the valley with wide eyes. I was like a kid in a candy store. Every time I turned around, there was something else mind-blowing that was happening.

I kept thinking, "Man, I've come home." and "If only the people back home could see this." But it hasn't taken very long for everything to catch on 'back home' or everywhere else for that matter. Take a look at the internationally spreading Barcamp. Even my ideas are being picked up in business schools in Asia and Europe. How does this happen? Well, the net has made it so easy to connect across geography.

Screw the whole, "don't drink your own koolaid" stuff...I think we should all enjoy this exciting age unfolding in front of us. Kudos to Michael, Stuart, Matthew, Rob and Mark for infecting Toronto with the Web 2.0 spirit (and with an impressively Pinko marketing effort...;)). I look forward to being part of it.

Bottoms up, indeed!

[tags: meshconference, unconference, toronto, geekconference, Web2.0]