The Conference Board rejected Dr. Geist’s characterization of the Digital Economy report, and says it stands by it.

At mesh we’re deeply interested in the role of intellectual property laws in the development of the Web and the role it plays in our society. Several keynotes and panels in past meshes have studied these and related issues, and we’re committed to supporting a healthy and vigorous public discussion about the proper role of intellectual property laws in Canadian society. We think this situation presents a great opportunity for furthering that discussion by studying the two core propositions of the Digital Economy report:

1. Canada’s copyright laws are lax, making it a haven of unauthorized file sharing

2. Strengthening copyright law is necessary for the development of a vigorous digital economy

To encourage a healthy, spirited and constructive dialogue, mesh is offering to host a debate on this issue. We’re asking the Conference Board to send two of the report’s authors to join in that debate – one to take the affirmative side of each of those two propositions. Representing the “No” side of these propositions will be Dr. Geist, and Mike Masnick, the founder of Floor64 and the Techdirt blog. Both are long-standing friends of mesh and well respected for their valuable contributions to public discussion of these issues.

This debate will be held in Ottawa, at a time and place to be determined after consultation with the participants. We’ll be announcing further details of the debate as we have them. If you’d like to be notified as news is released, please subscribe to the mesh blog, or give us your email address and we’ll contact you.

We think these are profoundly important issues, and hope you will help us get the word out by forwarding this link to anyone you know who might be interested. Please stay tuned for more news, and join us if you can!

meshmarketing is a one-day event focused on insights, tools and tactics to help you win customers’ hearts and minds online — through a combination of great keynotes, “show and tell” presentations and in-depth workshops.

General admission is C$489 + GST. Get your ticket here.

At meshmarketing, you will interact with digital marketing thought leaders, connect with peers and prospects, and get a better understanding of the impact that new developments online will have on your strategy and your job. Together, we’ll discuss best practices and the successful use of social media, online marketing, mobile marketing, search, video and word-of-mouth.

meshmarketing brings together people who are passionate about the potential of the Web to change how we live, work and play. This day is not just about presentations from the stage. Like our other events, meshmarketing will be a highly interactive experience where we will continue the dialogue and explore the next generation of ideas, leaders and companies.

Who should attend? Marketers, digital agencies, PR practitioners, communication professionals and anyone passionate about marketing and the web.

You’re spending more and more of your budget building your business using the Web. But are you making the right calls? Is display the way to go? What about search? Social media? Community? Video?

You know that word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful tools you and your company can use to spread the word about your product(s) or service(s), and the Web is like word-of-mouth on steroids. What’s working and why?

Within minutes, fans can spread the news of a new service or feature across thousands of blogs, Facebook groups, Twitter updates and Web forums. What people think about your brand or company is influenced in a split-second. Unfortunately for some companies, that same power can spread bad news just as widely and just as quickly.

Come to meshmarketing to sort through the noise so that you can benefit from the former and handle the latter.

meshmarketing is where you get ahead.

If you’re interested in participating in this event as a sponsor, please contact sponsors@meshconference.com.

The mesh/ITAC Digital Commerce Forum is designed to provide a gathering place for this community of innovators and entrepreneurs, something that we believe passionately in at mesh.

The success of the mesh conference and meshUniversity indicates there is a strong appetite for networking, inspiration and business and professional development in the Web-centric business community.

The mesh/ITAC Digital Business Forum is designed to extend these opportunities throughout the year. The Forum will meet regularly in the Toronto area (with occasional forays into other locales) to share best practices and to keep up to date with emerging ideas and technologies.

Future events include the following:

The Stratford Institute: Digital Cultural Innovation on a $10 Million Scale
Date: May 14, 2009 - 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: The Spoke Club, 600 King Street West, 4th Floor, Toronto

In May 2008, the University of Waterloo, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and Open Text Corporation, along with a number of other stakeholders, announced the creation of the Stratford Institute. The institute will be a major research and commercialization force in at the global forefront in digital media technology, bringing together leading researchers, businesses and entrepreneurs to create, examine and
commercialize opportunities in digital media and create jobs of the future.

Open Text has been a driving force behind this initiative and believes there is an enormous opportunity for Ontario to play a leading role in the development of business, government and cultural applications of digital media. No one is more excited about the innovative potential of this new venture than Open Text Chief Information Officer Eugene Roman.

Eugene will present an overview of the Stratford Institute, how the institute was conceived, and how it will function and engage students, innovators, corporate participants, government, and what its role will be in the community. His presentation will detail how the Stratford Institute can serve as a resource for digital technology companies of all sizes
throughout Ontario.

Please go to http://www.itac.ca/digitalbusiness for more information about this free
event.

Last Thursday evening, our friend and Microsoft developer evangelist, David Crow personally donated $500 to the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation through our SpinTO project. With that donation, he issued a challenge via Twitter.

We saw that challenge, and wanted to offer our support to spinTO and David’s effort. Soon, Idée Inc. CEO and long-time HIV/AIDS advocate Leila Boujnane, David Suydam of Architech Solutions and Jaimie MacPherson of Mischief Media joined in on the effort.

All told, within a few hours in one evening we raised over $3,000 to help men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS through the work of the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation.

The challenge still stands, but we also encourage you to join the community at an event that will make a difference for others. On May 15, join us at the spinTO at Mod Club. It is sure to be a great night for a great cause.

Learn more here.

We want to thank attendees for their enthusiasm, energy, curiosity and willingness to participate. As much as we spend a lot of time trying to come up with great content, it’s what our attendees bring to the table that makes mesh so amazing.

We want to thank all of our speakers for their time and effort. From top to bottom, we were impressed with your enthusiasm and generosity in spending so much time engaging with everyone.

A big thank you to all of our sponsors such as Microsoft, Edelman, CIRA and CNW. mesh couldn’t happen without you. Thanks to Sandra MacDonald for all your work with our sponsors.

Thanks to our volunteers for helping make everything run so smoothly.

Thanks to everyone at MCC Planners, particularly the amazing and tireless Sheri Moore, for making mesh and meshU run so seamlessly.

Thanks to our technology partners - mDialog, FileMobile, Sweet Caesar, Viigo, Rypple and Flip - for delivering tools and services that made the mesh experience that much better.

Thanks to Roz Allen and Mark McKay (and Stuart Macdonald!) for doing such an amazing job filming, editing and posting so much video.

Thanks to MaRS and Allen Gelberg for being such a great hosts.

Last, but not least, thanks to our wives, partners and children for being so supportive, patient and understanding!

If you have feedback on what you liked about mesh, what could be improved and new things you would like to see, you can do it here.

If you haven’t left feedback, it’s easy. All you do is click on one of the links below. You’ll then see a page where you can leave your thoughts about a particular speaker. The feedback gives us a better idea of what you liked, what you didn’t like, what worked, what needs to be improved, etc. All this information will help us make mesh better.

Keynotes
Paul Kedrosky/Howard Lindzon
Bonin Bough
David Miller

Panels
Managing Your Ad Buy
Managing Your Online Persona
The Benefits and Risks of Building for a Platform
Boostrapping a Startup
Managing a Community
Using Online Word of Mouth

Workshops
Social Media Analytics
Legal Bootcamp for Web Startups
Search Engine Marketing
How to Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Plan

We’re using Rypple, a cool local start-up that has a user-friendly service that makes leaving feedback a snap. To provide feedback, we’ve created a different URL for each keynote, speaker and workshop. All you need to do is visit one of the URLs below:

Keynotes
Mike Masnick
Jessica Jackley

Panels
David Usher
Hyper-Local Media
Future of the News
Using the Web for Good

Workshops
Professionalizing Pro-Video
The Nuts & Bolts of iTunes
Social Media for Non-Profits
Monetizing Media
Social Media 101
Using Social Media for Social Good

The application just got listed on iTunes, and you can download it here. You can also get the high-def mesh video podcast here.

War Child Canada is 10 years old this year. But this is no reason for
celebration.

For a child in sub-Saharan Africa to make it to 10 years old is a major achievement. 1 in 6 die before they’re half that age. And in the 10 years that we’ve been open, over 30 wars have been raging, while man’s brutality towards children has, if anything, intensified. From rape as a weapon of war ­ against girls well under 10 years old -to the almost commonplace use of children as front-line ’soldiers,’ to the targeting of children and their communities as a matter of course, the threats to children’s lives and well-being only increase as we develop more lethal and immoral ways of waging war.

War Child Canada works in some of the most violent and terrifying places for a child to grow up. In countries such as the Congo, northern Uganda, Afghanistan and the Darfur region of Sudan, we work with local people to restore a sense of security to children’s lives. Our efforts are focused on three building blocks: rights protection, education and poverty reduction, all of which are fundamental to this next generation’s ability to lead their communities out of darkness and towards a more peaceful and hopeful future.

Vital to our continued success is a network of like-minded people across North America, whose generosity with their time, talents and donations allow our work to continue and grow.

That is why we are so delighted to be associated with Mesh ‘09, a conference
celebrating the power of interconnectivity. You can join our network at
warchildheroes.net or by following us on Twitter. And you can donate through the chip-in jar or at warchild.ca/Mesh09.