Roland Tanglao's Weblog

I'd really like to go to BarCamp TDot and the Mesh Conference in Toronto since I could slip in a visit to my brother and his family as well as learn lots and meet some very smart people from the rest of Canada (since most of the people I know in Web 2.0 are on the West Coast of North America) who get things done in the Web 2.0 space.

BarCamp TDot is more my style (and the organizers think :-) I am coming because I sort of suggested it in my CanadaCamp post) so I am trying to see if I can find a way for me to go to BarCAmp TDot (and money permitting the Mesh Conference) that makes sense to my family and Bryght.

While I love "normal" conferences (and Gnomedex is definitely one of the best and hopefully I will be there this year again as well!), I personally get more out of unconferences like Northern Voice Moosecamp and BarCamp Amsterdam (to gratuitously name drop the unconferences I have helped organize).

Net net as they say, Mesh has lots of great people so I am sure it will turn out great regardless of what myself and Boris pontificate online about it :-) !

Lee's pre Gnomedex BBQ was one of the highlights of the conferences I went to in 2005. For me, it brought together lots of cool people in Seattle as well as the technical creatives who happened to be in town and was magic (magic for informal networking (I loved the videos of me and others by Peter Grondal) and magic because it helped me to get to know Lee and his wife Sachi better).

Kind of what TechCrunch's Mike Arrington started doing shortly afterwards: an informal gathering of technical creatives. More like that please when you get back, Lee! The Seattle (and Vancouver) communities could use regular BBQs like this during our ever so brief non rainy season. Anybody got a nice place in Vancouver (preferably with a backyard plus a basement or somewhere decent to hang should it rain!) where we can do this? I'll organize if you provide the venue! I'd offer our place but we don't have a backyard!

From Common Craft - Social Design for the Web: What I Would Have Written in 2006 (A Goodbye For Now).:

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Seattle - I would have continued to document the growth of Seattle as one of the global centers of Web innovation and growth.

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