There's certainly enough been written on this, and by people far better informed than me (check out Rob's great post, or Mathew's, for more on that) but for the record, I certainly get why O'Reilly's management company would try to protect their mark and agree with the logic of Battelle's response.

Was the way it was handled silly? Yup, a PR disaster waiting to happen. And happen it did. Do they really have a right to these words as they relate to a conference? Heck, I don't know. Didn't we fight this battle years ago with "Xerox"? I mean, these types of things get fought about all the time. That's for the lawyers (and depending what they say, we will likely change how we describe mesh in future).

But in principle, I'm with the theory of protecting the mark, in the context given, if it's theirs. If not, why ever invest in creating something that develops meaning, which is in and of itself valuable?

Tags: web20, oreilly, trademark, bunfight

I'm on with Leo and Amber doing "Inside the Net" tonight. It was great. Thanks, you two.

Tags: mesh06

I'm still both tired and buzzed from mesh, but I wanted to put some cogent thoughts out there, while they're still fresh, before coming with a bigger, deeper thing.

I think that the key take away for me is in those four words inside the logo up there. When we sat down and came up with the idea for this thing, and then went through the whole process of deciding what we wanted to "be," those four words best summed it up: mesh, connect, share and inspire. Help shine a light towards the future, and begin to create a platform to showcase the best ideas.And here in Canada, Toronto specifically.

Take a look at that logo and let the words rattle around inside you a bit. Then,  imagine what an event represented by that would look like. Got that picture?

Well, I think if you were there on Monday and Tuesday of this week, you'd say that's what we did. It feels damn good.

Tags: mesh06

Posting via 'berry, but just had a Queen's student, Alexandra Skey, say "thanks" for the fact that we did a student deal. She is having a wonderful time and getting a lot out of it.

That really means a lot.

Maybe next time, we can offer more student tix (heyyyyy, sponsors :-)).

It's today. Rock 'n' roll :-)

Thanks for your continued interest in snagging a ducat, but we are really, really done. No spots remain, no tickets at the door, no, uh, nothing.

Thanks to all for your incredible support. See those of you who are registered tomorrow.

Tags: mesh06tags, web2.0, conference, toronto

We are done, as of a few minutes ago. Thanks to all - sponsors, speakers, suppliers and participants.

I just posted a whack of niggly details about mesh, this coming Monday and Tuesday at MaRS in Toronto. Check it out, and if you haven't done so, register now.

The old "book early to avoid disappointment" adage actually applies here. It's selling very quickly, with just a handful of spots remaining - don't miss out.

Tags: mesh06tags, web2.0, conference, toronto

For the past 50 or more years, advertising has been based on one basic concept: yelling at people via the television, works. You could get enough of them in one place, nice and passive, and if you delivered the right message enough times you could create awareness. From that (and I simplify) awareness led to trial, trial led to preference, preference led to loyalty. At the heart of this process were the assumptions that (a) you could get enough people in one place to allow for scale and (b) the message was for the marketer to control.

Fast forward to 2006, and that past starts to feel like a trip to Never-never Land. Companies are spending 50% or more of their ad dollars on things like paid search, the money that's left is being cast across extremely fragmented markets, PVRs and Tivo are at long last making commercial-skipping "Me TV" a reality in a way that VCRs never really did.

Clearly, for marketers with a job to do and agencies and networks who would like to keep their jobs, this is a challenge of the first order. So what is the answer?

As we sit here today, I don't think anybody knows. People talk about micro-tactics and multiple small efforts, but how does that work when you need to reach tens-of-millions of people? This is not clear. You hear about "conversations" being important, but how do you control your message in that environment? Feels to me that you just don't. And on top of that, you have an agency and broadcast community that seems to want to wish these changes away and keep doing what they have always done. I've seen *that* movie: travel industry in around 1998, anyone?

At mesh we are tackling these topics with some of the smartest people in the field, and today Mathew, Rob, Mark are joining the discussion, too. I have a bit of a different take on the mesh blog, and Mike has a good post about how we are putting these principles to work promoting the conference.

If you care about this topic, you can't afford not to be at mesh. Register today.

Tags: marketing, media, mesh06tags, web2.0