Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

Promised at least 5 people I’d stop by “>the event but unfortunately an incipient cough and some last-minute distractions get me away.

hope all in attendance had a cheerful xmas drink! I’ll catch up with you in the new year.

And meanwhile some conversation threads to pick up on

Yes Bryce, an intensely practical Enterprise 2.0 unconference in January sounds like a great idea. I’m in! to help organize how I can. Looking forward to working with some of the usual suspects to flesh this idea out. (and anyone else who’s interested)

Mark, lets pick up that. This idea you sent me has some legs. There really is a great need for great need and potential for 2.0 tech in coalescing social organizations and un-organizations (just as we’ve seen through the amazing self-propagating BarCamp phenomenon). Let’s keep this conversation going. There is good to be done.

# How to do Viral Advertising: Scoble on Will it Blend? Aren’t you dying to know what happens when you put an ipod in a blender? (spoiler warning: the blender wins…)

# How not to do Viral Advertising: Penny Arcade on Sony’s Latest fiasco (how many is that for Sony now just this year?) .

And Tycho’s commentary:

‘The reality is that no agency can create viral marketing, this is the sole domain of the consumer. Viral marketing is what happens when a campaign works – when we allow their message to travel via our own superefficient conduits. Perhaps it is entertaining on its own terms, divorced from the message… What distinguishes this … is that we are aware of the message. When we are not aware of the message, or when the agents of the message misrepresent themselves, we call this “deception.”‘

Just returned from an interesting talk Mark Evans of B5 Media gave at the Toronto Board of Trade this morning. He compared startup environment of the last boom to the current with a few pointed and entertaining examples, though nothing you probably didn’t know already:

• how wasteful of capital the last boom in retrospect overspending on perks, offices and superbowl ads
• how raising 2M dollars really isn’t as much cash as you might think
• how nonetheless the web2.0 boom is so much more about frugality (everything is cheaper to build, and even with funding B5 doesn’t need status-symbol offices they do just fine out of Mark’s garage and Jeremy’s basement)
• And (what I find interesting) how basic office/enterprise2.0 tools gmail, writely, freshbooks etc has let build out out the world’s 3rd largest blog network with hundreds of “staff” with almost no physical infrastructure.

Ultimately though it was just inspiring to see the canadian venture community (Rick Segal, J L Albright, Brightspark ) having the courage to get behind a deal with B5. Sure, B5 is still at the early stages of capitalizes on this new disruptive force in the media world, but they’re a smart bet if you ask me.

As Mark was saying, prior to joining B5 he was writing both for his blog and for the National Post. He felt like he was holding one foot still on the platform and the other on the train that was leaving the station. And for him, it was a no-brainer which way to jump.