B. Mann Consulting

Having just come back from the Founders and Funders Dinner in Toronto, it's time to get ready for the big Launch Party Vancouver 3 event this Friday. Maura and crew have pulled this together in record time, and it looks like Sun is going to be doing a big kickoff. What with the purchase of MySQL and supporting local tech communities like this, I'm getting more and more interested in looking closely at Sun.

Then, in 2 weeks time, we're doing DemoCamp Vancouver 05. I'll get the Facebook event sent out today, so watch for that. We need both battledeck submissions and people to demo...fill out the wiki or get in touch.

Then it's Web Directions North next week, which I'll be speaking at.

Whew! 2008 events are off with a bang. Here's some other stuff I'm tracking -- in no way complete or comprehensive.

• Third Tuesday Vancouver is up on January 29th, starring Brian Oberkirch
• the inaugural NetSquared Net Tuesday on February 5th
• the second Ajax and Beer that krazy koder Brian Leroux is putting on February 6th (yes, that is going to be one crazy week)
• the wonderful Cinci Csere is pulling together CaseCampVancouver3 -- an unconference for marketers (aka "case studies") on February 20th
• don't forget! Northern Voice 2008 is coming at the end of February...I am *so* looking forward to this...
• Duane is thinking we should do a Startup Weekend in Vancouver -- he's thinking early April right now

I'll likely come back and update that event list in a bit...

Sutha Kamal just let me know that his company, Ambient Vector, has been asked to write a blog on the Globe and Mail covering what it means to be a startup in Toronto. Here's a bit from Sutha's first post that tells us what Ambient Vector does:

What does Ambient do?

Great question. Got a cell phone? Does it take pictures? How about videos? Ever tried to get that stuff off your phone and onto the Web…to your blog, or a photo gallery? Ever noticed that it wasn't as easy as you hoped?

Have you ever been bored on a train and wanted to see what your friends were doing?

Ambient makes it easy to create, share and view all those moments that are important to you—from your phone or the Web. Pictures, videos, whatever's important to you, whenever you want to share something with the people you care about, or whenever you want to tune in to see what's going on in their lives.

OK, I'm getting a little preachy…I'm the CEO, what can I say? I love this stuff.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. My last post was from San Francisco, and I haven't even finished posting my notes from the Internet Identity Workshop that I was attending down there.

I'm sitting in the airport waiting to board a flight to Toronto. I'll be there until next Wednesday, attending not one, not two, but three separate conference/events.

They are, in order:

• Drupal Camp Toronto
• Bar Camp Toronto
• Mesh Conference

For some reason, I waited until the last minute to buy a ticket to Mesh. It turns out that Troy will be joining me there, I'll be hanging out in the unconference room (check the wiki for updates around that) and looking to connect with some eastern folks that left nice comments on my first post saying I was coming -- like John Philip Green. See you in a bit, I still need to update my 43 People list. 

And this will be a very Drupal-y time, I think. This post in IT Business.ca says "Everything's coming up Drupal". I probably need to debunk that in more detail -- the summary is that only low budget companies are choosing open source. 

Looks like Mesh Conference was just announced -- a "Web 2.0" conference for Canada. At $350 for 2 days, I have to think about this vs. Gnomedex. Of course, those are Canadian pesos, so lots less. Many interesting faces, but not a lot of details on tracks, conference style, etc. The blurb from one of the first blog posts goes like this:

There is all this buzz around Web 2.0. But what’s really happening, especially around here? Does anybody know? Can anybody help me understand it, and what it means for me? My business? My future? My family? My world?

mesh’s mandate will be to answer this question in as compelling, credible and authentic a way possible. Everything to do with the event will be around furthering that objective, and the content itself will serve to help mesh participants (not attendees :-)) to really start to get it, this year and in years to come. We will create the Canadian forum for next generation Web ideas and leaders.

It's fun when communities start sprouting up all over the place. In Canada, there are 3 Drupal User Groups meeting in the next week or so. For Vancouver locals, the VanDUG, in conjunction with the Vancouver PHP Users Group, is going to be today, Thursday, March 16th, at 6:30pm at Take5 Cafe (RSVP at Upcoming).

Next Tuesday, March 21st, you can fly over to Toronto for TorDUG (also in Upcoming), and then next Thursday, March 23rd, Koumbit is throwing a pizza and beer gathering in Montreal (again with the Upcoming). Note to self: get upcoming.org integration code kickstarted again.

Awesome! Can't wait until http://groups.drupal.org is all up and running...

I just happened to make it to the Yorkdale Apple Store today -- the first of its kind in Canada. I was wearing my Daring Fireball member's t-shirt, but no one was hip enough (Mac geek enough?) to pick up on it. James got a picture of me taking a picture, so hopefully that turned out for proof.

The store (as you can see from the pictures) was crushingly packed. The line up we waited in was because they only let people in as people left -- and it was still hot and sticky from all the people inside. A ton of people were buying iPods of various shapes and sizes and I was tempted.

James ended up getting a blue iPod Mini for his wife, along with the iPod car charger he actually needed. The atmosphere was incredible -- everyone was so hyped up and there were so many purchases going on, there was a feeling you HAD to buy something. So I ended up with an iSight, which will go on the desktop at home, since it doesn't have a microphone built in.