I have touched on it before, but in planning mesh we have been working hard to create what we believe to be the ideal conference. There is always a wide spectrum of paths you can choose when you are designing something. In conferences, there is the traditional conference, with power point slides, sponsor keynotes and fancy name tags. There is also the unconference and increasingly it is getting a lot of attention.
In planning mesh we have tried to take what we believe to be the best parts of each path and make our own kind of event. Today Mark exposed many of the elements of a great conference from our point of view. We are trying to build something special with mesh. These are things that we feel other people will appreciate as we do. Mathew drives home the importance of speakers providing thought as opposed to pushing product. Stuart talks about our struggle to find the third way here and here.
The blogosphere got in a tizzy about this today thanks to this post.