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Using Twitter & Community to get the most of your SXSW, GDC, Web2Expo

Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Community

With conference season upon us the Montreal technology community is preparing to descend on a number of very large industry events.

Our community has a number of speakers, attendees & company presentations occurring at:

Conferences give us a great chance to network with many of our industry counterparts from around the world. They also provide us a chance to meet members of our local community that we may not have connected with while in Montreal. Meeting your local counterparts at these events allow us to help support each other in many ways while we are stateside. Whether you are looking for a job, trying to recruit for a position, inviting people to listen to your session talk or need help trying to meet that critical investor/partner/speaker or guru your local community might be able to help you get more out of your conference experience.

If you are planning on attending any of these conferences this year please send a tweet using the conference hash tag & #MTL to introduce yourselves including who you are, which company you are with (if any) and any information about meetups, promotions, presentations or help you need to get the most out of your trips.

This will allow other Canadian & Montreal tech community members to reach out, introduce themselves and hopefully lend a helping hand to each other for any specific things you are trying to get done. It also allows those of us not attending events to keep an eye on your tweets from Montreal.

If this picks with with other cities such as #Tdot (Toronto), #Van (Vancouver), #Cal (Calgary), #Ott (Ottawa) or #CAN (Canada) you can use these links to track the Canadian tech community at these conferences. Expat Canadians are also welcome to grab the #CAN tag to join in on the fun.

Update: As Boris Mann suggests in the comment below, there are more often used Twitter hash tags for other cities.  The tags he suggests are YVR (Vancouver), YYZ (Toronto).  The round up links haven’t been updated for this, but if you are using Tweetdeck you should find it easy to create a search that includes a number of the variants on city hash tags.

At the very least we can co-ordinate meeting up for drinks to showcase our drinking prowess to our industry counterparts around the world :)

On Thu 12 Mar 2009. [4] Comments

 

TED2009 Twitter Guide

Posted by austin under Community, Conference

Last year at TED I posted a small list of TEDsters who were Twittering the conference.

I hadn’t planned on posting an updated guide of TEDsters & Twitter this year since I assumed that most people would be using http://search.twitter.com to track #TED, TED or TED2009 keywords to track the conversation.

After seeing the recent spike in search traffic to last years Twitter TED guide, I’ve decided to update the list of people I know are Twittering the TED conference this year. Some of these people are posting more often then others and many are not including the #TED hashtag.

I hope this will also allow TEDsters to connect with each other, since many of us may not have had the chance to exchange Twitter names. It might help us know who are the Tweeters in our neighborhood.

If you’ve been left of the list and are Twittering at the TED conference, leave a comment with your Twitter username or just @austinhill me on Twitter.

TED Twitter Accounts & TED Staff

Great live TED Twitter Coverage

  • Tara Hunt (Author, Community & Whuffie junkie, Akoha power player :)
  • Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly Media founder, blogger, Web rationalist & futurists)
  • Rod Beckstrom (Author, CEO, Starfish & Spider, Director of Homeland Security National Cyber Security Center)

TED attendees twittering about the conference
In no particular order

  • Steven Levy (Author, Reporter, Person who found Einstein’s brain)
  • Sarah Jones (TED 2009 Speaker, Tony winning performer)
  • Josh Spear (Digital Marketing, Blogger, New Media)
  • Sean Gourley (TEDfellow, Analysis of the Mathematics of Wars)
  • Daniel Kraft (Inventor, Doctor, Scientist, TED2009 speaker)
  • Kluster (Crowdsourcing team, TED contributors)
  • Kyra Guant (Speaker, Songwriter, Merriam Prize Winner)
  • Al Gore (Former VP, Current.TV, former TED Speaker, Nobel Prize Winner)
  • Chris Sacca (Angel Investor, Startup Coach, ex.Google)
  • DK Matai (Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Engineer)

New Additions Feb 6th 1:52pm PST

  • Peter Diamandis (X-Prize founder, ZeroGravity Flights, Singularity University, former TED speaker)

TED PalmSpings Attendees & Coverage

Great Blog Coverage

On Fri 6 Feb 2009. [5] Comments

 

Founders & Funders 2 Montreal set for May 14

Posted by austin under Community, Entrepreneurs, Montreal, Montreal Startup Fund

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Last summer my friend Patrick Lauzon and I spoke about the need to create a new type of networking event that would bring together founders of technology firms, angel investors and venture capitalists.

We held the first Founders & Founders dinner last November with a private group of 75 people.   With the help of our sponsors, iNovia Capital, Neotech Capital and Montreal Startup the event raised $1,000 for the Montreal Barcamp community.

The event was a great success, and was quickly replicated in Toronto by our friends David Crow and Jevon MacDonald.

2nd Founders & Funders Montreal Announced

We are pleased to announce that we are going to be holding the second Montreal Founders and Funders dinner this coming May 14th in Montreal.

To help expand the community of people we invite to the event, we are opening up a registration form for invites allowing anyone who is a founder, angel investor or VC investor to request an invite. 

We are limited to 100 seats for the dinner.   The fee for the dinner will be $100 which will include drinks and dinner.

Given the interest we received after the first event and the fact that we won’t be able to invite everyone who has expressed interest to the dinner.  As a result we are also going to be hosting an after dinner open cocktail networking (A nice roof top terrace party).  The networking event will cost $20 and include two drink tickets.

Attendees to the dinner will be able to attend the networking event.  The networking party afterwards is open to anyone interested in the technology community in Montreal (not just Founders & Funders).

All profits from the event will go to support Barcamp events in Montreal.

How to Get An Invite

If you would like to attend the dinner, or the networking event after the dinner please fill out the following form and let us know who you are.

We will be contacting everyone with details on the location & registration for the dinner in the coming weeks.  We will also be announcing the great sponsors who are supporting us throw the event.

You can keep track of the event on the Founders and Funders blog.

If you would like to sponsor the event please feel free to contact me.

On Fri 18 Apr 2008. [3] Comments

 

The Social Economy is a Gift Economy

Posted by austin under Akoha, Community, Grass Root Conversations, Social Web

Whenever I get into a new business I study it pretty extensively. I read everything I can get my hands on and spend time with a lot of experts to be able to make new connections, form my own opinions and re-think how and why things might work once a new product or service is introduced. A lot of my opinions of the social media industry is based on my research of community, economics and anthropology.

My study of gift economies started with the work of Marcel Mauss and formed a lot of my thinking of how our social economies work. The participatory nature of our social playgrounds are powered by reciprocity. By social playgrounds I refer to places such as Flickr, Facebook, blogs, Digg, MySpace, Last.Fm, Twitter, Wikipedia, Second Life which are just a few places people gather to express themselves and interact. Reciprocal exchange power each of these communities. This act of reciprocal exchange is described in a concept called ‘total prestation’. This is from the Wikipedia entry on Mauss theories.

In his classic work The Gift, Mauss argued that gifts are never “free”. Rather, human history is full of examples that gifts give rise to reciprocal exchange. The famous question that drove his inquiry into the anthropology of the gift was: “What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?” (1990:3). The answer is simple: the gift is a “total prestation”, imbued with “spiritual mechanisms”, engaging the honour of both giver and receiver (the term “total prestation” or “total social fact” (fait social total) was coined by his student Maurice Leenhardt after Durkheim’s social fact). Such transactions transcend the divisions between the spiritual and the material in a way that according to Mauss is almost “magical”. The giver does not merely give an object but also part of himself, for the object is indissolubly tied to the giver: “the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them” (1990:31). Because of this bond between giver and gift, the act of giving creates a social bond with an obligation to reciprocate on part of the recipient. To not reciprocate means to lose honour and status, but the spiritual implications can be even worse: in Polynesia, failure to reciprocate means to lose mana, one’s spiritual source of authority and wealth. Mauss distinguished between three obligations: giving - the necessary initial step for the creation and maintenance of social relationships; receiving, for to refuse to receive is to reject the social bond; and reciprocating in order to demonstrate one’s own liberality, honour and wealth.

Gift economies typically manifest in cultures that enjoy economics of abundance and who have rapidly climbed Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. If you are looking into the future, our technological advancements will add more power to these changes and will start to affect more industries.

Tara Hunt who stopped by Akoha for a recent visit while she was in Montreal, wrote a great post on how gift economies are helping her build Citizen Agency.

These are interesting times and we have only just begun to see what kind of services and new opportunities will be created, as old economic models based on scarcity are replaced.

On Wed 18 Jul 2007. [13] Comments

 

What a Mesh of a Week

Posted by austin under Akoha, Canada Tech Scene, Community, Conference

I spent last week in Toronto where I had the incredible pleasure of doing a keynote discussion at the Mesh Conference with Tom Williams of GiveMeaning and our great friend and Mesh organizer Rob Hyndman.

Our panel was on social change and charity online, and I was a little nervous when I accepted the invitation because Akoha, my main project and current startup, is still under development and has yet to launch anything.

I had plenty of ideas to talk about. I’ve spent the last three years studying and thinking about ideas on how the Internet can be leveraged for social change, and how the emerging gift economy of social media creates new structures for collective action.

Tom was incredible telling his story of how he came to be working on social change & philanthropy and the great work he is doing at GiveMeaning. Someone later that evening would tell me they felt awful for me after Tom spoke first because they felt that no one could follow such a great opening. (He did go on to say that we complimented each other incredibly well and loved our panel)

I also spoke publicly for the first time about how the loss of my brother Morgan after his battle with cancer and my attendance at the TED conference a week after his funeral was a turning point in my life.

Tom’s write up of the panel say’s it all when he mentions we were both grounded and authentic and I think the fact that neither of us were selling anything, just sharing our experiences that shaped our careers and how we are choosing to be entrepreneurs is what resonated with people.

The panel was an incredible discussion that Tom and I continued throughout the next two days with the attendees and other speakers. Tom and I are kindred souls and I think out shared passion for these issues came through on the panel.

There were a number of people who wrote about our panel, including some liveblogging that gives you some feel for how the discussion went. Here is a round up of some of the posts about the panel from Google Blog Search & Technorati. Here are some photo’s I showed up in from the conference. (Yes I am going bald - blame genetics & 15 years of startups :)

I have tons of other Mesh stories that are deserving blog posts, including some thoughts on the incredible number of young entrepreneurs I had a chance to meet. There was an incredible energy in the hallways where I found myself hanging with old friends and new.

The conference was different from many I attend in that there was a large diversity in the types of attendees with entrepreneurs, social media experts, investors and venture capitalists, technologists, programmers and corporate representatives from large and small companies. This created some unique conversations, as people were sharing lessons and ideas in a very co-operative discussion that wasn’t just focused on who acquired who that day.

I want to thank my friends and Mesh organizers, Mathew Ingram, Mark Evans, Stuart McDonald, Mike McDerment and Rob Hyndman.

They did an incredible job hosting a great conference. Thank you all for inviting me to be a part of this fun event.

On Mon 4 Jun 2007. [3] Comments

 

DarkGreenPC is looking for an open source project leader

Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Community, Standout Jobs

I’m announcing today at the Mesh 07 conference a small initiative that I am helping Zerofootprint co-ordinate.

DarkGreenPC is a non-profit, community organized open source project inspired by Seti@Home and Distributed.net where we are going enable people to optimize the power usage of their computers collectively and turn energy saving into a social activity.

I’m an advisor to Zerofootprint and my friend Ron Dembo and I presented this idea at an meeting on initiatives to combat climate collapse organized by John Doerr at the TED conference and got incredible support for the project.

We are now looking to hire an open source product leader.

Here is a small Standout Job advertisement for the position.

We’ll be posting more details on an upcoming project blog at DarkGreenPC.org. For more information on the project you can see this information at Zerofootprint.

On Wed 30 May 2007. [7] Comments

 

CFP 2007 Panel Discussion & Party

Posted by austin under Community, Internet Freedom, Montreal

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m involved in hosting and welcoming people to Montreal for CFP 2007.

There is a panel & party which is open to anyone who would like to support or learn about Net Freedom. 

Proceeds from the fundraising party after the panel will go to support Creative Commons and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

I’m including a copy of the invitation that will is being handed out at the CFP registration desk for any Montreal locals not attending the conference but who would like to join us for the party & panel discussion.

It should be a good party, as there are about 150+ attendees from CFP and lot’s of local Montreal technology community members invited.

Here are instructions on how to get from the Bonaventure Hotel to the party location.

Music will be by Juno-award winning DJ and product Miguel Graca.

On Mon 30 Apr 2007. 1 Comment

 

BarcampMontreal2 is tomorrow, April 28th.

Posted by austin under Community

One of the unfortunate things about the timing of my vacation was that I’d be missing BarcampMontreal 2 which occurs tomorrow.

BarcampMontreal organizer Fred Ngo has the details up on his blog.

On Fri 27 Apr 2007. No Comments

 

Net Freedom Panel & Fundraising Party, Tuesday May 1st

Posted by austin under Community, Internet Freedom

Next week Computers Freedom and Privacy 2007 is being held in Montreal.

I did the keynote speech for the CFP 2001 in Toronto, and while I’m out of the Security & Privacy business with my new gig at Akoha - these are issues I’m still very passionate about in my personal & professional life.

To welcome the out of town CFP guests, I’ve decided to throw a small party for Creative Commons and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

There will first be a panel on Net Freedom at the Hilton Bonaventure hotel Tuesday May 1st from 6:30 to 8:00pm. This is an open panel to anyone who cares about Net Freedom. I’ll be posting more details on the panel when I’m not in a Mexican internet cafe (i.e. Sunday night).

For now the Upcoming.org listing for the event is here.

Following that I’ll be throwing a fundraising party at my loft for out-of-towners attending CFP and any local Montreal community members who want to come out.

Here is the listing for the fundraising party.

I will be circulating details including address, directions for the party at the Net Freedom panel, or if you wish to contact my assistant Katherine @ - she will be emailing out details on Monday for people who RSVP on upcoming or contact her.

Everyone is welcome to come out. There will be a small door fee, and a cash bar with all proceeds going to support Creative Commons and EPIC (where I’m an advisory board member).

On Fri 27 Apr 2007. 1 Comment

 

DemocampMontreal2 Tonight

Posted by austin under Canada Tech Scene, Community, Conference

DemocampMontreal2 is tonight.  We have some visiting guest in from out of town including some great guest presenters and my friend, angel investor and tech entrepreneur Patrick Lor.

This week at Democamp the following presenters will be demonstrating tonight at 6:30 at the SAT.

It promises to be a great night and the SAT is opening the bar, so come join us for a late cinq-a-sept and see what is occuring in the technology community.

What : DemoCampMontreal2
Where : Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), 1195 Boul. St. Laurent [Google Map]
When : Thursday March 29th, 2007. 6:30pm to 8:30pm.
  • HughMcGuire - Collectik (Local community project leader, Hugh is a good friend and will be presenting one of his many projects)
  • Martin Dufort - Kakiloc : Mobile Social Networking (Kakiloc are a great team of entrepreneurs working on an exciting new mobile social networking technology)
  • iotum Talk Now Alec Saunders, Ottawa (winner of a DEMOGod award at Chris Shipley’s Demo and Ottawa entrepreneur)
  • Brett Gaylor - Open Source Cinema
  • BumpTop – Anand Agarawala, Toronto (I recently met Anand @ the TED conference in Monterey where he wowed the audience with a demo of his project Bumptop.  I’ve asked him to come visit Montreal and present the demo he did that is now among the most popular videos of all time on Youtube. I saw him present at Democamp Toronto last summer. From Democamp to the TED stage in six months. That’s a demo !)

On Thu 29 Mar 2007. [4] Comments

 

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