The bubble is back, right? You've got a whack of venture capital flowing into Web 2.0 start-ups - many of them lacking viable business models - while money-losing Vonage is scrambling to cram an IPO down the throats of investors. And then you got Paul Kedrosky tellling everyone (at the folks at the mesh conference) that's alright because "it takes a lot of dead bodies to fill a swamp; you gotta do this stuff. We gotta screw it up and waste money." Not sure this is the kind of statement many LPs would want to hear from a VC but success involves varying degrees of risk, which is something most U.S. VCs understand than their Canadian peers. One thing separating Bubble 2.0 from Bubble 1.0 is the lack of IPOs that warped the investment mentality of entrepreneurs, VCs and retail investors. If anything, this has kept some of the frothiness (but not of all of it!) from happening.

Maybe a sign that I've already become a "seasoned" conference organizer (one event under my belt!) is my interest in how to make the next mesh better. Everything went so well that it's difficult to come up with something obvious we should have done differently. That said, there's always room for improvement so if anyone has suggestions, comments or critiques, let us know. mesh 2006 was an exciting, thrilling and rewarding experience. To see so many enthusiastic people getting together to share ideas, learn about what others are doing and making plans to work and/or work together was exciting to see happen. In many respects, conference have a funny way of becoming whatever the attendees want to make it. At mesh, they connected, engaged themselves with our speakers and participated in conversations during sessions and, I would argue more importantly, during the coffee breaks, lunches and socials.
   For five "middle-aged white guys" guys (Mathew, Michael, Stuart, Rob and myself) who are not conference organizers but simply people who have a strong passion about what's happening within the Web 2.0 world, mesh was everything we hoped it would be. A big thank you to the people who decided to attend; our keynotes, panelists and workshop folks, MCC Planners for their terrific behind-the-scenes work; Encore Catering, MaRS and Allen Gelberg; GWP for the amazing name and log; Edelman for helping create the mesh message; David Crow and Sunir Shah for the mesh wiki; and, of course, our wives encouraging us to make mesh happen.
Update: Here are some post-conference thoughts from Mathew, Rob, and the mesh blog.