Mesh :: Esquire Magazine January 2008

Greetings!

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that Mesh was recently covered in Esquire Magazine's January edition (out now at page 124). Mesh was chosen as one of the three finalists for the Esquire / Philips New Business Challenge Award 2007. In particular, Mesh beat a host of online entries to be chosen as the online representation of the final three!



Kay and I are really excited about the future enhancements we're adding to Mesh: Events and Mesh Magazine. Soon our members will be able to promote and publicise their events to the Mesh community and contribute and read content showcasing the talents of the network on Mesh Magazine.

Look out for our next big event at Adam Street private members' club on Friday, 25 January 2008.

Happy Meshing!

There's creative strength in numbers...

I was fortunate to attend the excellent Own It event held at Channel 4 on Tuesday, which was entitled, "Formally known as the audience... the power of collaboration". Of course, any seminar as highly relevant to Mesh as this would have me beating down its door... So, without further ado, here's my round-up of the evening's discussion:

Superb moderator, Paula Le Dieu of Magic Lantern briefly introduced the speakers:

Robert Lands, Head of IP Media, Finers Stephens Innocent LLP covered Creative Commons Licences and provided a brief overview of things to watch for when considering the total or partial relinquishment of rights to original works.

Stefan Magdalinski, CTO, Moo.com, gave a jovial presentation covering Moo's celebration of 'people-powered stores' that encourage people to collaborate and share their images with the aim of "growing a happy community".

Damien Ferrar, Director, Digital Communications, Imagination, gave a keen insight into the cult interactive comedy, Where are the Joneses? as an example of a brand engagement exercise in action.

During the Question and Answer session, Stefan noted that whilst initially the switch in focus to becoming a consumer-centric brand adopted by Moo was down to a lack of marketing and advertising budget, the ongoing value is clearly now the high standards of content created by their patrons.

When pressed on the topic of whether Ford's aim of 'reaching out to a different audience' was met by the Where are the Joneses? campaign, Damien revealed that in the next round, they would be focusing on identifying which target audience would be best suited to such a brand engagement exercise and how to reach out to them. I suppose that means there was no 'giant leap' in sales of Ford cars as a result of the foray into the world of Web 2.0.

The Where are the Joneses? footage makes use of the Creative Commons Licence thereby allowing bedroom-based producers to mix and mash the content before re-uploading it to YouTube. My mind briefly fleets to an ideal world where out-of-work people moonlighting in the tv and film industries have enough cashola behind them to af-Ford to leave their Hackney-based broadband-linked bed-sits, let alone purchase a car. Then I come back to reality.

The next item tackled was whether there is now the beginning of a new approach to constructing contracts for a networked audience. Robert was quick to shoot down the positive vibes from Stefan (who bestowed a rather hippy-esque response, "You just need to focus on the mutual benefit rather than the worst case scenario", which sadly lacked a "share the love" addendum). He warned that you cannot afford to be too cavalier in your approach to Creative Commons. Ultimately, whilst giving away your work for free may seem like a good idea "before you get famous", work donated in this way could affect the overall value of your new work should you actually reach the heady heights of stardom. He also brought the attention of the audience to the Dump Your Pen Friend advertisement by Virgin Mobile which has since provoked a nice juicy lawsuit. Excellent.

Amongst the audience, there were one or two murmurs about the benefits of the Creative Commons Licence, but Robert's message was loud and clear - do not enter into any such Licence without seeking solid legal advice. Your rights are at stake.

Once Mesh launches the Projects feature next year, which will facilitate online collaborations between the arts and business worlds, we will publish a full feature in the Magazine which will detail accessible information on how to approach joint authorship, if artistic collaboration is envisaged. Whether we will be promoting Creative Commons Licences to our audience is not certain at the moment considering the Licences' shortcomings.

Following the event, I was fortunate to meet two very interesting film producers - Andrew Hinton (currently artist in residence at The Southbank Centre for his work with Saint Etienne) and Ajay Rai of Invincible Pictures who is embarking on a politically and socially focused film project. It was a very great honour to meet them, especially considering both of them had heard of Mesh before! It is always good to know that word of mouth seems to be working...

Mesh Your Minds :: PQE magazine Nov/Dec 2007

It gives me great pleasure to share with you our latest press achievement. We were invited to write an article on Mesh for PQE magazine: the main publication of the Young Solicitors Group. The magazine is sent directly to all solicitors less than ten years qualified. It covers career advice, policy issues and points of interest about life as young solicitor. Essential reading for anyone in and contemplating the profession. We hope you enjoy the article, which gives a sneak peak at some of the inspirational people in the Mesh community during this beta phase.

Question time...

A friend of mine recently posed some questions about Mesh in relation to its brand and values... I thought I would share these with you...

…where would Mesh go on holiday?

Culture-based city breaks - Rome, Prague, Paris, Tokyo - those with a focus on art, fashion, or music. Mesh would stay in the hippest design hotels.

…what car would Mesh drive?

Something exclusive - a limited edition of an established or new brand - perhaps the Aero 8 GT Coupé aimed at "connoisseurs of fine driving".

…would Mesh go clubbing?

Yes -
To underground events with edgy undertones
To elite venues with restricted lists

…would Mesh be your older sibling, younger sibling, or your twin?

It would be your older sibling - educating you in the ways of "le cool".

…where would Mesh go shopping?

It would never go to shopping malls. Instead, it would trawl the markets of the corners of the worlds' cities, finding hidden gems and feeling rewarded for rooting out things that not many others have.

…what would Mesh wear?

It would never buy sweatshop brands. It would enjoy wearing original threads by either famous or lesser-known designers - much like the clothing trends in Japan.

Rock on!

Japanorama...

Greetings!

Fresh back from seeing old friends in Japan and it's all go at Mesh HQ. This week, we were super-excited to see that Mesh made it into the pages of the ultra-trendy, hip and cool Urban Junkies e-magazine.

Urban Junkies is made up of a team of experienced freelancers, trend forecasters, marketing experts, art directors and graphic designers who come together to provide the ultimate insiders' guide to urban gems and new openings in London. The Mesh Heads have long been subscribers to this essential underground journal - relying on it for notably cool places and events to add to our social to-do lists, so we feel very honoured to have been featured. Huzzah!

Without attempting to bore you with a seemingly endless slideshow of holiday snaps, I thought I would share with you one that nicely reminded me of the Mesh concept. The idea of second lives is very prevalent in Japan - a myriad of customised human beings emerges every weekend outside Yoyogi Park in Harajuku, Tokyo to celebrate their style, commitment and showmanship. One such group is the Tokyo Rockabillies - the legendary Elvis wannabes who strut and twist their way through varying decades of "rock" through portable boom boxes, complete with awe-inpsiring quiffs held up by some form of non-permanent hairspray glue.


[Note: That is not a wig]

Before your minds flick away to the thoughts of a Covent Garden-esque crowdpleaser, I will inform you that this rocking display is not for any financial gain, but for the pure love of the publicly shared music and dancing. It is very inspiring to see all of the "performers" at Yoyogi Park just enjoying themselves and showcasing their talents.

Creativity is contagious - don't be afraid to catch the Mesh virus...

Making Mesh Beta

Greetings!

It's been awhile since either Kay or I posted, but rest assured things are very busy at Mesh HQ. We have now launched our private beta phase of Mesh and 150 Founding Members are testing it as we speak. Here's a quick picture of a Founding Member's profile:



We've also been occupied with finalising the next phase of the website. The next phase will be built around our cornerstone concepts: showcase, support, share and socialise.

Showcase

Mesh Showcase will allow members to showcase their creative life to the community. For example, a DJ can upload music or an artist can upload a photograph of their artwork.

Support

Mesh is a trusted community and supporting one another is vital. Members will have exclusive access to interviews from our Mesh Mentors and will have the opportunity to connect with them for advice and support.

Share

Mesh Groups and Mesh Projects will allow our members to share information and skills amongst specific creative interest groups which will promote collaboration quickly and easily.

Socialise

Our events feature will allow members to promote their (and their friends')underground creative events to our exclusive community.

Mesh ya later!

We dare you to imPRESS us...

Just a quick update to say we were pretty blown away to have received our second bit of press from the Times. Yesterday, our viral, featuring the multi-talented Alex Liang, who also recently posted a piece on his experiences traversing the arts and business worlds, was mentioned in the City Diary:



Although the mention appears to question Alex's true identity, we can only think that it is really because some people have a hard time trying to accept that a financial consultant by day can actually be THAT cool. And as for the "read Facebook for the achingly trendy in the City" comment, well, as much as Jonny and I like to think we're cutting edge, to be honest, there's more chance of us getting debilitating paper cuts at work. All we're trying to do is to provide a trusted space for business professionals to express their creativity. When once a job was for life, now a job is maybe only until Christmas... and in the mean time, if a creative pursuit can bring happiness and a brighter side to the work-life balance conundrum, then so much the better.

We're here to revolutionise the suited stereotype, a point which is echoed by Alex in his blog: "I am so sick and tired of hearing about talented actors and dancers who have to make ends meet by working in Starbucks and it is so nice to finally meet other talented creative people who have managed to strike the balance of having a professional career that does pay the bills and pursuing one's artistic ambitions. It is a balance that one can strike and that is what Mesh is all about." Here here.

Another bit of coolio press we received recently was the shout out from our friends at Zubka: we thought their rundown of our launch was spot-on and superbly well written. We are tremendously pleased that people appear to "get" Mesh very easily - something that can be quite hard for some businesses. It makes us feel like we are well on the way to communicating the concept effectively, rather than being so far into the concept, we can't see the wood for the trees. We very much look forward to rolling out the beta phase in earnest next week and to the light at the end of the tunnel of this year, when we aim to have completed the initial Mesh online offering. Watch this space!

get Meshed Launch Party

Well, what can we say... Kay and I were blown away by the success of the get Meshed Launch Party. We met some great people in the 200-strong crowd and we hope everyone had a fabulous time, meeting interesting people, browsing the art and haute couture and, of course, sinking a few drinks and nibbles. When we launch the next phase, we will endeavour to grab a larger venue so that even more wonderfully interesting and creative people can attend.

The evening began at 7 p.m. with drinks and a slide show of screenshots of the beta website playing in the background. We deliberately strayed away from telling people too much about the website because we feel that, for now, the secrets that lie beyond our static site should be for the eyes of our special Founding Members only. Feel free to ask one of them what it's like inside!

At 9 p.m. we gave a short presentation. Unfortunately, our microphone died on us so we had to shout our way through it. However, we think we got our message across loud and clear: professionals are more than just the sum of their suit. In fact, we were bowled over by the number of people who kept coming up to us to tell us what a cool business professional they had just met.


We also showcased our viral video which is now available on our YouTube channel and Google Video. You can also watch it here:



A huge thanks to our sponsors (in no particular order): Moomu Records, Zubka, A Suit That Fits, Andy Lopata and Andy Sloan.

Next Event: Secret World of Haute Couture

At Mesh we like to strike while the iron's hot. So, whilst you're sunning yourself over the Bank Holiday weekend, stop and think about our next event which will be taking place at the new and exclusive City studio of the international fashion designer, Roubi L'Roubi.

Roubi is one of the fastest rising stars of haute couture having launched his label in London in 2003 and in Tokyo last year. His breathtaking collections have been worn at the Oscars, Royal Ascot and the Baftas. At our event, Roubi will take you through the design process from conceptualisation to finished product, showcase the new autumn/winter collection and provide a unique insight into the world of haute couture. Illi Adato will showcase a selection of sumptuous fine wines and snacks will also be provided.

When: Tuesday, 4 September 2007 (6.30pm - 10pm)
Where: 1st floor, 13 Norton Folgate, London E1 6DB
Cost: £15

Numbers are very limited so please book your places as soon as possible: roubi@meshminds.com

Ideas for future events?

We're also looking for ideas for future Mesh Events. If you have any interesting events in mind or experience in event organising and would like to bounce them off the Mesh Heads...feel free to contact us at events@meshminds.com.

Ideas Kay and I have in mind include events that allow our members to showcase their musical talents or a film masterclass from one of our resident Mesh Gurus on how to make a short feature film.

We're also looking for more Mesh Gurus - people who work full time in creative professions who are willing to mentor our members in exchange for business advice and the opportunity to work on unique underground creative projects.

Enjoy the weekend. get Meshed!

Mesh Core, Mesh Mover, Mesh Guru...

Hello!

Not long to go to the launch. We have over 250 confirmations from a wide range of people: Founding Members, journalists, Special Guests and friends. Kay and I are really excited!

Following the launch, the select 150 Founding Members will be given access to the beta phase of the Mesh website. I don't want to go into too much detail about what you will see on the beta phase because that information is only privy to the selected Founding Members and it's all part of the Mesh secret! However, there will be three types of status:

Mesh Core - You are a business professional with a creative second life. In your creative second life, you are either an active, aspirer or associator. An active might be looking for someone to collaborate with; an aspirer might be looking for advice or inspiration from a fellow active; and an associator might want to meet dynamic people or shout about a creative friend.

Mesh Mover - You were a full time business professional but now have made the leap to a more creative job that fulfills your passions. Perhaps you still work in the City on a consultancy basis to supplement your income.

Mesh Guru - This applies to full time creatives. In return for business advice, Mesh Gurus can use their skills to mentor Mesh Cores or Mesh Movers and manage interesting new projects on the Mesh website.

A to Z...ubka...

Our friends at Zubka have offered five free job postings to all Hirers who attend the Mesh launch party. Simply sign up, type 'meshminds' into the 'how did you hear about us' box, and on account activation, Zubka will deposit your free job posting credits into your account.

Zubka also offers a brand new way for you to introduce and recommend your friends and professional contacts to great jobs all over the world and throughout the UK when you sign up as a Referrer.

Zubka’s website includes vacancies at every level in every industry. It has taken current, real-world activity normally conducted over coffee or on the phone and formalised it into an innovative web 2.0 platform to build a fair reward structure for those involved.

We like the Zubka concept because it is a true and fair reflection of the offline world, online. That's what we are trying to do at Mesh - in the real world, creative projects are started by incredibly passionate business professionals and they seek out creative and business mentors and collaborators to help them along the way. Mesh will simply be a place to locate those helpers with greater ease, so that less time is spent on the search and more time to spent on the creative project itself.

Whilst you'll get a wonderful feeling from helping someone you know get the job they deserve, there are also lucrative financial rewards on offer ranging from £1,200 to £12,000 for each successful match you make! We're not offering cash-in-your-pocket rewards at Mesh - instead, we're offering opportunities to express your creative self within a passionate and sympathetic community. Who knows... maybe, just maybe, one of the creative projects started on Mesh might, one day, be the next big thing...

Faithbuk Debellypur Garah..? Huh?

Huge thanks to Toby Beresford and Techlightenment for organising and sponsoring the Facebook Developer Garage at the T Bar tonight, at which Jonny and I gave a five minute presentation.

Despite the tremendously bad acoustics, we were very grateful for the chance to get in front of a fairly large audience and holler about Mesh! It also gave us an opportunity to discuss potential Facebook applications which we hope to be able to employ to drive traffic to our site and spark interest in non-members. One very interesting guy mentioned an idea involving the sale of unique art on Facebook, or the rating of art amongst the Facebook audience. Both are ideas we will be looking into further when we come out of beta.

We were also fortunate to see the showcase of a new application built for Facebook called, "Socialistics". Developed initially by Ankur Shah of Techlightenment, it is currently a little ropey round the edges, but it promises great things in the realm of social analysis.

The My Stats link basically breaks down a user's core information as available on Facebook and displays it in a very accessible fashion. The developers, however, think that the real potential is in its predictive quality, in others words that by combining various bits of data you can start really understanding people and their relationships.



The My Clouds link shows your friends' relationships to you - their level of connectivity to you within your network or how many people they know that you also know, so in essence their popularity within the network. The Proximity Cloud takes that a step further and starts to assess your relationship in terms of events and groups shared.



The next Facebook Developer Garage is on 12 September 2007 and Toby promises that the Facebook team (who we linked to by live video conference - albeit again through muffled acoustics) will be flying over the pond to come and see us in the flesh. Next time, we're sure a better venue and the actual presence of real human beings from the Facebook Enterprise will stun attendees into a respectful and humble silence, so that everyone will be able to benefit from messages from the mother ship.

The sound of the underground...

Another of our superbly talented Founding Members, Jas Bhangu, has kindly donated vinyl copies of two new tracks due out soon on Moomu, where he is a label associate, and Hyperdub: Accident Causer and Globetrotting.

As an Investment Banker by day and writer and film maker by night, Jas is one of the Founding Members we are keen to celebrate and promote on Mesh. His keen passion for creativity is truly inspiring and we hope to secure an interview with him to publish on Mesh in October.

In other news, we have been busy with party preparations and meeting more intriguing and amazing people. We are now building our wealth of creative entrepreneurs who will act as mentors within the Mesh community to guide and assist on creative projects. If you know or are a creative professional, please get in touch and become a Mesh Guru to get involved in the some of the best underground creative projects that are in the making now.

A leap of faith...

Just thought it would be cool to share a great shot of Alex Liang, our dancer in the Mesh viral video and Founding Member. Having worked for four years in the City, Alex gave it all up at the age of 28 to pursue his dream of being an actor and a dancer. So enamoured with the Mesh concept, he decided to do a little turn for us...



Lovely.

What don't you do on the way to work that you could? Break down the suited stereotype and set your creative spirit free. Go on. You know you want to. On that note, we'll be looking into shooting some more viral videos after the launch. If you have a good idea to help us to convey our message, please feel free to holler.

Launch Party update...

Ben Jones is listening...



We have another great offer for the launch on Thursday 23rd August - record producer Ben Jones, who has worked with the likes of Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, will be accepting guests' original mp3s so that he can provide a free consultation on the night! If you are keen to speak to Ben about music and send in your mp3s, please email him at ben[at]meshminds[dot]com.

Andy Lopata is coaching...

Andy Lopata is kindly offering a signed copy of the Amazon bestseller book he co-authored, '...and Death Came Third! The Definitive Guide to Networking and Speaking in Public' along with a one hour networking coaching session. We're sure he'll also be keen to talk about his new venture - Word of Mouse - a business network to provide connections, learning, knowledge and expertise.



Andy Sloan is writing...

Former Lovells lawyer and Mesh Founding Member, Andy Sloan, has generously donated a signed copy of his book, 23 Sweet FA's, which charts his adventures whilst hauling a table-football table overland from London to Japan in time for the 2002 World Cup involving various weird and wonderful meetings along the way. Now preparing to start a diploma in newspaper journalism in September 2007 at Cardiff University, we hope that his current story will provide real inspiration to the Mesh community.

Launch Party preparations are in full swing and if anyone else has a prize to donate for the night, please feel free to holler. The Mesh viral is almost off the cutting room floor and Jonny and I are just about keeping it all together attending meetings every night of the week to ride the crest of the Mesh wave. Watch this space...!

Finding Members

Something’s happening in the City. A new generation of suits are breaking down the City stereotype. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of them to pick the best 150 to become Founding Members of Mesh (professionals working in the City who have creative second lives). So, for the past four weeks, every lunch break and evening has been taken up talking to them. I think my record was meeting six people in one day at the lovely Flat White. By the time I left I was buzzing!

Kay and I think it’s really important that we meet our Founding Members, or at least talk to them over the phone, because it shows them we’re taking this concept seriously and deeply care about it. It also gives us an opportunity to select the most committed members.

Throughout my meetings, I was struck by the diversity of the "candidates" both in terms of their professional and creative status: from trainee bankers to senior partners; from musicians who have appeared on Top of The Pops to published playwrights. One common thread that bound them was their feeling that they were alone and odd. Hopefully, they now realise that they are neither because Kay and I know of thousands of City professionals who are actively involved in creative projects of all shapes and sizes. Mesh aims to find a home and community for them. Here are a few I’ve picked at random:

Judy Ramjeet is a partner at a West End law firm. Judy has a fascinating life: she has recently set up a new department within her firm but still manages to find time to present a radio show, write a children's book, produce a short film and try to stage a play in the West End. Phew!

Then there’s Stephen Morris a solicitor who has just published his second book. What’s more fascinating is his recent publication is one of the first books to be published online. It’s called The Golden Generation and will be released online in five sections. The first section is available from 6 August 2007. I can’t wait!

Moving away from law, I met a very busy man who works as an Investment Banker but also finds the time to be involved in an enormous array of creative projects. As we sat drinking coffee in a City restaurant, I wondered whether he actually had time to sleep. He looked healthy enough. He explained to me that he was primarily a writer. In particular, he has written a few short stories and screenplays and is currently working on a novel. But, he is also a DJ and associate for a niche record label and a mentor to a Classical music label. This, I assure you, is merely the tip of the iceberg.

I also spoke to a very enthusiastic vice president of a top investment bank. She has a very interesting creative second life. In particular, she runs graduate fashion parties and band launches and also finds the time to write articles for magazines.

Finally, there is Tina "B" Baker. Tina started her career formally as a member of Rockers Revenge (remember their smash UK hit- a remake of Eddy Grant’s “Walking on Sunshine”?). Tina B has also provided supportive vocals for artists as diverse as Madonna, Al Green, U2 and Bruce Springsteen. After “retiring” from the pop world in the mid-90’s, Tina started her opera studies in New York City with Maestro Vincent La Selva of the New York Grand Opera Company. Since making London her homebase several years ago, Ms. B has had a residency at Bartok, a Mean Fiddler venue in Camden that features an eclectic mix of classical and modern music. And...she's a lawyer!

Mesh is not just interested in attracting members like Judy or Stephen who have active creative second lives. We're also interested in aspirers (members who would like to get involved in creative projects, but up until now didn't think they could) and associators (members who would like to associate with our demographic and may be get involved in projects in the future and who know loads of creative people who they can contact to help Mesh).

So to all the non-believers out there…it can be done! You can work in the City and find time to get involved in creative projects that inspire you. As one Founding Member said, “if you’re really passionate about something, you make the time to do it. Simple. You only live once.” Damn right.

get Meshed :: Mesh beta Launch Party

Party plans a-bound! We have been busy at Mesh HQ making plans for the launch party and will be sending out our "Save the Date" invites shortly.

Where: The Spitz, 109 Commercial Street, London E1 6BG.
When: Thursday, 23 August 2007 from 7 p.m.
What: You will experience a showcase of the private beta phase of the website, meet the exceptionally special 150 Founding Members and be the first to see the exclusive Mesh viral video. To top it all off, our friends at a Suit That Fits will be taking down your vital statistics for the prize draw to win a bespoke suit!



A Suit That Fits opened in 2006 as the world's first online tailor-made suit company. It was started with a vision to offer great quality, individually hand-tailored suits at a price that also fits. With over one billion possible styles, design, fabrics and colour permutations, a Suit That Fits offers the largest range of high quality suits catering to all tastes from the discerning City Gent right through to the latest celebrity look. Prices start from £110 for an EasyCare suit and £150 for a 100% wool 2-piece suit.

If you're on Facebook (who isn't nowadays?!), David and Warren have also set up a group to keep you updated with the latest news from a Suit That Fits' HQ: join here.

Last Sunday morning was spent shooting the Mesh viral video, a photo of which Jonny will be uploading soon. The video was shot by Dagmar Scheibenreif and featured one of the Founding Members of Mesh, Alex Liang. Alex used to work in finance in the City but gave it all up to become an actor and dancer. You can read all about his successes on screen here.

That's all for now! Enjoy the (intermittent) sunshine.

Hot and Sticky all over...

A superb evening was hosted at The Ambassador by the delightful team at Moo this evening to celebrate the launch of their funksome stickers. The miserable and unpredictable British weather held off so that a large 200+ strong crowd could gather on the terrace and spill out onto Exmouth Market, much to the disdain of certain car drivers who had chosen that route out onto Farringdon Road. At one stage, it felt a bit like mob rule as the Moo crowd booed and jeered at a car making a rather large racket, in a vain attempt to proceed along Exmouth Market at more than a snail's pace.

We initially made ourselves feel part of the Moo crowd by filling in our name-badge stickers and proudly adorning our chests with a little pink sticker neatly saying, "Yay!" Off we went to mingle and who should we meet but the man who seems to be everyone's friend, Mr. Sam Sethi. We enjoyed a very interesting chat with him about monetisation and also about the business model employed by A Swarm of Angels - the "Cinema 2.0" project and M1NT - the world's first shareholders club. It's certainly worth reading up more about the idea and perhaps offering our Founding Members the opportunity actively to own a share of Mesh.

It was also good to meet Sutha Kamal to whom we explained the concept of Mesh. Of course, the monetisation issue reared its head again and it was good to gauge his interest in our ideas. It's something we are currently working on - brainstorming revenue-making ideas and getting feedback and comments from a variety of people. As Sam correctly pointed out, it may be that you have good ideas for future monetisation, but only when you have got a fair amount of traction. VC's just aren't interested in anything but the rates of return on their investment, so we feel good to have made the decision not to spend our precious time on barking up the wrong VC tree for now. We plan to wait for at least six months and in that time, to really work hard on building a great product. Only then will people invite their friends thereby enabling the community to grow into successful venture.

We also bumped into the Trusted Places crew again and were fortunate to see the most excellent chaps, Raj and Jack from Kwiqq. We plan to share our template designs which are hot off the Zerofee press to gain their feedback and any ideas they may have. We love this way of working - it feels almost as if Mesh is being shaped and moulded by a cross-section of the London Web 2.0 scene. Huzzah!

Last, but by no means least, it was very interesting to meet Brian Murphy from Moo who shared with us plans to launch a Moo API. Now THAT'S something Mesh would love to support. We went along today with the aim of explaining how we want to collaborate with Moo for our launch party:

The way we see it is that our Founding Members would love to have 15 Moo cards with the Mesh logo and their unique access code and name on the reverse. That way, when they are considering who to invite to Mesh, they can physically give out one of their Moo cards rather than just having to send out an email. If they like the product (and we are sure they will), we envisage a large number of the active creative business professionals using Moo cards for their own use (e.g. to promote their work as a DJ or their new book). It has to be said that once you have something in your hand, it's far easier to remember what it is that someone has told you about. I cannot recall the number of times someone has told me something interesting and then I have totally forgotten it later due to a mixture of having several other conversations in an evening and the wicked effects of accidentally falling into an alky-hole. So there you have it... Alicia Zur-Szpiro, if you're reading, I'm coming to beat down your door until you say "YES!" to helping to sponsor the launch party Moo cards! Mesh has got a community of Moo-lovers - they just don't know it yet.

As soon as Jonny can locate a small sliver of time in his hugely hectic schedule of meeting potential Founding Members and directing the development of the website, he's going to do a short piece introducing some of the truly amazing people who are going to become the foundations and cornerstones of Mesh. From lawyers who have published books and released albums to bankers who have made films and showcased their paintings, we have them all... and their numbers are growing by the day. We think we're busy... You should hear about how theses guys manage their time. On that note, it's time for me to get some shut-eye. No sleep makes me into an irrational, irritated and idiotic person... What can I say, perhaps it just brings out the "creative" in me... Goodnight.

Secrets and Dreams

What a brilliant few days. The pace is fast at Mesh HQ. Since I last tapped out some words here, Mesh has had three very cool things happen.

First, last Saturday morning, as I opened up my email whilst sitting by the pool opposite Tracey Emin, I almost fell off my chair when I discovered that Doug Richard had written to express his interest in Mesh. We're hoping to strike up a great conversation with the man who brought us Library House - the essential source of comprehensive information on the fastest growing, most innovative ventures around Europe - and entertained us on the second series of Dragons' Den. In the mean time, I shall mostly be reading up on some relevant history.

Second, last week, I was contacted by none other than the editor and genuinely superb editor of le cool London, Mr Mathew Osman. After connecting on various levels, sharing ideas, chats and smiles, I was fortunate enough to be published in this week's edition of the newsletter! The newsletter changes week to week, so I'll put it up on the press section of Mesh so that it will live on ad infinitum.

I was first introduced to le cool by my brother who bought me the le cool Guide to Barcelona. I was due to return to my beloved Barcelona, where I had spent one year living back in 2000 and I found the Guide invaluable in showcasing some of the best kept secrets and hidden gems in one of the world's most wonderful of cities. After a prolonged absence from Barcelona, it was brilliant to feel as if I had only left the day before. The Guide allowed me to wander as the local I had once been and for that, I was very grateful. I thoroughly recommend the le cool book for an alternative travel guide that looks similar to someone's lovingly compiled scrapbook. Mat is working on the London Guide now, which should hopefully be out some time next year. Watch this le cool space.

Finally, Jonny and I had a most productive and excellent meeting with Sophie Gaskill and Peter Tullin of Arts & Business on Monday. It is always such a good feeling to speak to people who just understand Mesh 110% (the extra 10% being all the new ideas they bring to the table!). Both Arts & Business and Mesh are working towards similar goals in an arena where the arts and business worlds collide. We are now working hard on putting a collaboration proposal together that we hope will knock their socks off. It could just be the start of something very beautiful, indeed.

Next week, we've got meetings set up with the most personable and gregarious Steve Moore, Founder and Director of Policy Unplugged, which exists to help promote social networking, knowledge generation and sharing, co-creation and the harnessing of collective intelligence within organisations and communities. In addition, we'll be meeting Bernard Howard who is a good friend of the Mesh Heads. Finally, we'll also be meeting with Oli Watts and Jo Hill of The Connectors. It's just non-stop, but all good fun. Week two of my new job is going well too - I just wish there were more hours in the day, sometimes.

However, before all that, I am off for a big uni mates reunion at Ashton Court Festival, Bristol where the BBC has promised 21 degrees and a full sun. Rare.

For now, I invite you to post here a continuance of my le cool interview... What are your secrets and dreams? Go on, I dare you...

Chinwag Summer Party :: 5 July 2007

What a beautiful setting. Hats off to the Chinwag Big Summer '07 crew for choosing Imperial College for the setting of its big bash. After a fairly swift entry to Beit Quad (despite queue rumours that it was imminently to be a one-in one-out affair), Jonny and I headed straight to the bar.

Unfortunately, it took us twenty minutes of queuing at the bar to obtain our liquid refreshment and yet another fifteen minutes to get access to the BBQ. However, lamenting the size of the queues made for a good base for striking up a conversation. It was great to meet Steve Simmonds of RARE Design Associates who gave us some good tips on the viral campaign Mesh is planning in time for the Founding Members' launch at the end of August. He also commented that it was the first time he had been to a party where there was a queue in the men's toilets! The venue was rammed and the queues were quite tedious, but in true British "everyone in it together" style, we all managed to get on with the "Network Q" approach to the evening.

Jonny and I were also fortunate enough to hook up with Matt O'Neill from Cordovan who is an extremely friendly guy with a wealth of great contacts in the Web 2.0 scene. We look forward to developing a great friendship with him and to welcoming him to the launch party. He struck me as a guy who likes a beverage or two and, Matt, if you're reading, Spitz has an outdoor area where you can puff to your heart's content!

Once we had digested the delectable BBQ delights, we were also lucky to meet both Raj Anand and Jack Fairhall from Kwiqq - the social website builders from Brighton. Their tale is a most inspiring one and we really like what they have set out to do - it lends an enormous amount of strength to the Mesh concept - niche social networking is here to stay, it seems. We look forward to setting up a meeting with Raj and Jack to discuss developments in the scene and potentially collaborate in the future. These guys are ones to watch in the London Web 2.0 arena.

Another Brighton boy was checking out the London scene that evening - Alan Newman of Sensible Development who was keen to learn more about Mesh and was very positive about our future success. We look forward to bouncing some ideas off him.

It was also good to bump into Huw Leslie of Blognation UK who mentioned that he'd like to grab an interview with us some time. That would be a great opportunity and we would relish any chance to get a mention on a Sam Sethi creation.

In all, a great evening was had - it is always a good feeling when you meet people you want to meet again. We continue to mellow in the magic of Mesh and we feel very fortunate to have received such resoundingly superb feedback from everyone we speak to about Mesh.

Our next task is to set about consolidating all the contacts we have made over the last few weeks. The last thing we want to do is have a stack of business cards without nurturing the relationships we have started. We have met some really amazing people at the cutting edge of new media in London. Next up is meetings ahoy - left, right and centre - every spare moment not spent in our legal jobs is 100% dedicated to Mesh. Rock 'n' Roll.

Mesh would like to take this opportunity to thank Chinwag and the kind sponsors - Adobe, Agency.com, Channel 4, Neutralize and Purple for an great evening bringing together unique people in a unique venue. Well done.

Summer Party 2007, Soho

Yesterday I was invited by Oli Barrett to attend the Summer Party 2007 at the Chapel of the House of St Barnabas in Soho. The Party was hosted by seven like minded companies: Cognac, Cominded, Policy Unplugged, Connected Capital, Ian Moncrieff Macmillan, Freshminds and i-genius and was buzzing from the moment I arrived. The fact that there were free cocktails throughout the night wasn't bad either!

Oli fits the Malcolm Gladwell connector mould perfectly: he seems to know everyone and is a genuinely nice guy. In fact, he kindly introduced me to Jonathan Moules. Jonathan has been writing about UK business life for the Financial Times since October 2003 and edits the newspaper's Your Business page. I spoke to Jonathan about Mesh and our ambitions and he seemed genuinely interested. Unfortunately for me the heat emanating from the room (there were hundreds of people at this event) caused me to start perspiring so I was forced to make my excuses and move to the terrace area outside (obviously leaving with his contact details!).

On my way out in search of fresh air, I bumped into Freshminds Managing Director, Charlie Osmond. Charlie is an exceptionally talented entrepreneur. He co-founded Freshminds in August 2000 and in June 2003 Charlie was named the Business Link For London Entrepreneur of the Year. I managed to chat to him for awhile before he was whisked away by a sea of admirers.

Towards, the end of the night I met Andy Lopata, the former Managing Director of Business Referral Exchange, one of the UK's leading referral-focused networking groups. Andy and I had met previously at a Make Your Mark Connectors evening. He is a seriously busy guy and in addition to his numerous speaking engagements and work as a consultant has set up an online network, Word of Mouse, that aims to become the pre-eminent platform for online business referrals. Andy and I are meeting for lunch later this month. At the very least, I'm looking forward to picking his experienced brain about Mesh.

I always leave these networking events completely shattered, but buzzing from all the great connections I've managed to make. I think there is often a temptation to run around and try to collect as many business cards as possible. That's wrong. The key, in my opinion, is to make a couple of really good connections and then spend time consolidating them afterwards. Now it's time to consolidate.

Static Page Launch

Greetings.

It's been a while in the making, but I'm very pleased to say that the Mesh static pages are now live.

Mesh is an invite only network for creative young business professionals. We are currently in pre-beta phase; if you're interested please subscribe to our newsletter via the website.

All Work and No Play...

Mesh was built to provide a portal for young professionals who are loathe to abandon their creative pursuits on accepting a job amongst the City elite. In today's fiercely competitive recruitment market it's ironic that many feel they have to. They study so hard to get to the City and sell themselves as well-rounded individuals, but when they are accepted they wrongly believe they have to relinquish all these interests to focus on their jobs.

In fact, creativity and commercial awareness often dove-tail: arts inspire business and businesses support the arts. The skills and connections that can be built through creative projects can only help bolster an employee's commercial acumen. Many firms are becoming aware of this and are keen to partner with the arts to highlight the City as a cultural hub to attract the best talent. For example, the Tate Gallery's online arm, Tate Online, has been working with BT to create a series of interactive video installations. In particular, Arts and Business is a network that helps foster partnerships between arts and business.

Currently, Mesh is busy collating a list of Founding Members who will help provide feedback and direction to our network. We're looking for dynamic young professionals who have a flair for the creative: a lawyer, banker or consultant by day; a DJ, writer or musician by night. If you are interested in being selected for our beta phase, please drop us an email at join@meshminds.com.

Mesh: Connecting Young Business Professionals.

Essential Web 07

Coming to you live and direct from the immensely comfortable sofas of Shoreditch House where I have been sat for the best part of the day with my developer, Lee, fleshing out some new functionality for phase 1. All this after a hard morning's networking at OpenCoffee where I was fortunate to meet (among others) Conrad Poulson, UK Head of Start-up Business Development, Orange. Conrad is researching new start-up ideas that plan to incorporate mobile application elements. I explained the future mobile organisational tools that we intend to offer Mesh members to assist them to work on projects with greater ease and he seemed keen on where the initiative is going. I very much hope to hear from him in the future.

Thanks to the joys of Facebook, Sam Sethi alerted me last night to the Essential Web 07 after-party held in the foyer of the bfi IMAX cinema. A very enjoyable evening was had by all, although I was far too busy networking every time the tasty morsels of seared beef came round, so had to keep myself from being a drunken idiot whilst my tummy grumbled about the liquid dinner.

It was a great pleasure to meet Mr Sethi of Vecosys fame and one of his new editors of blognation UK, Huw Leslie. Blognation is launching on Monday. In addition, I was very lucky to chat to Nic Brisbourne of Espirit Capital Partners who were one of the first investors in our friends at WAYN.com. At the same time, we talked to Eugene Kouumdjieff of e-man, a strategy consultancy.

After my (slightly inebriated) introduction to Mesh, both agreed that we have a "viable business model", which to us, is a very great accolade indeed. Being completely new to this game and only knowing in great depth the problems facing our target audience, it is always excellent to hear some praise and acknowledgment for what we have set out to do. It makes all the time I spend doing Mesh extra worthwhile and calms my occasional desires to sit and veg out in front of Big Brother.

It was also rather hilarious to step in on the beasting that Stowe Boyd was giving to David of Zubka about the awful name of his website. I didn't know, at points, whether to laugh along or simply make my excuses. David took it all on the chin, like a good British gentleman.

Last but not least, it was brilliant to meet the highly inspirational Errol Damelin of Wonga. Now on his third start-up, Errol's advice was not to approach venture capitalists too early and to remember that a majority of businesses are not built on such funds. He said that if Mesh does well, we could easily rely on debt funding via a sweet-talking of the good old bank manager at the same time as retaining all the shares in Mesh. However, we are still keen to explore venture capital because Mesh is still lacking in the "general commercial advice" field - we could really do with some guidance from someone older and more experienced in the land of Web 2.0 start-ups. At the very least, we would welcome a Non-Executive Director onto the Board to assist us, if we didn't go the whole hog and get VC funding plus a new Director.

In all, I had a superb time at the party and it was a real coup to meet the people I did. I very much look forward to meeting them again or at the very least sharing ideas and suggestion in the virtual manner to which we have all become accustomed. In the mean time, if anyone reading has any contacts for people who may be interested in becoming a Non-Exec of Mesh, please feel free to holler.

I feel Glastonburied...

Afternoon all.

In my muddy-field absence, Zerofee has completed the first draft of the profile template only to be seen by our exclusive community of creative young business professionals. In order to hit the ground running, we have decided to cut back on functionality at this pre-launch stage and follow in Google's footsteps - "to do one thing really well".

It has been an eye-opening trip since last July when we incorporated Mesh and the idea has morphed into an initiative worthy of press coverage. Now, we have decided simply to focus on providing our members tools for managing their contacts and creative lifestyles online. We will be allowing members to promote their own creative projects, those of their friends, and also suggesting new contacts to members who are looking for similar things.

Our motivation behind this is that we want to tackle the problems facing our target audience one by one - the first being that they need contacts and quick reference resources to help their creative projects. Let me give you an example:

Tom is a banker by day and a DJ by night. At the moment, he plays random friend's house parties occasionally. What he wants to do is find a regular monthly gig so that he can start to build a name for himself. He doesn't have the time to approach lots of different venues himself, but he does have the money to host or contribute to a monthly gig.

Dave is a lawyer. His friend, Adam, is an events manager at a small bar with a DJ booth in Islington. Keen to draw in a larger Thursday night crowd, he has started up an amateur DJ gig, but needs DJs. Adam needs DJs who are able to contribute to the cost of the night, either with cash or with equipment.

Both Dave and Tom will be able to post their or their friends' needs and wants on Mesh and Mesh will use profile-matching technology to suggest that they be friends and collaborate on a monthly gig together.

Mesh will use the collective intelligence of a time-deprived, cash-rich community to enhance the opportunities on collaborative projects. And that's just phase 1. Rock on.

Coming up in the next few weeks are the Connected Capital event and on the same night, . Both events should be excellent - a full rundown will be provided here in due course.

That's all for now. Back to nursing my Glastonbury hangover and determining the difference between left and right.

What's going on?

Greetings! Kay's away at Glastonbury so I thought I'd chip in with my first post...

It's been a busy month. You know things are going well when you're booked up on Mesh meetings for the forthcoming month! On Monday, 25 June our static pages will go live. In addition, our developer, Lee, is working really hard on finalising phase 1. Phase 1 will consist of the profile and network pages and the newsletter. In particular, the network page will provide creative young business professionals with an area to showcase their talents and connect with like minded individuals.

We hope to launch a private beta phase to 150 founding members in August 2007 and are organising a launch party in their honour. If you are a young business professional with a creative second life (or aspires to have one) and would like to become a founding member, please email join@meshminds.com.

The founding members are going to be the grassroots of the community. They will have access to phase 1 of the website and we will be actively canvassing them for ideas for phase 2 and feedback on what they like or dislike about phase 1. I'm really looking forward to meeting them all and getting their feedback on the concept as it develops.

Whilst all this is going on, we're actively looking for investment. We've had a couple of meetings with VCs and are awaiting feedback. To that end, Kay, Lee and myself will be at OpenCoffee Club on Thursday, 28 June.

OK, I'm nursing a monumental hangover...off to the water cooler.

A seminar 4Talent...

Salutations from my budda bag.

A very interesting afternoon was had by all. Martha Lane Fox was unfortunately taken ill but Adam Gee (Commissioning Editor, New Media Factual of Channel Four) stepped in to chair the panel made up of: Emily Renshaw-Smith (Manager of Development and Production, Current TV), James Kirkham (Director of digital strategy agency Holler) and James Fabricant (Head of Marketing and Content for MySpace UK & Ireland).

The seminar kicked off with a short film directed and produced by Nic Stacey and Rob Marchant, which showcased the cutting edge of the internet revolution. The film is now used by the President of Linden Labs in his corporate presentations.

Adam then delved into his thoughts on the impact of digital technology on new media, noting 3 key points:

1. We are in an "on demand" age;
2. We operate in a networked environment; and
3. We expect a two-way conversation with our media.

What Adam now wants to see are sites that:

1. Clearly explain what the key concepts are - he cited Flikr as an example: you can use the site to: (i) store, (ii) search for, (iii) sort, and (iv) share photos. This is immediately visible to any user.
2. Answer the question, "What's in it for me?" - again, Flikr will allow a user to review photos and read others' reviews.

He then gave a brief rundown of some of the current projects that C4 are collaborating on:

1. Moblog (a TV series showcasing the mobile blogging site started by some guys in a bedroom in the UK);
2. A "top secret" project with Flikr based around the development of digital photography skills;
3. Big Dig (an archeology-based show);
4. 121 (a site providing co-authored blogs;
5. Four docs (documentaries made by the community);
6. Lost Generation (a site helping to map the lives of the 800,000 people on war memorials in the UK)
7. Breaking the News (a site providing tools for the community to cut their own news items)

Adam also mentioned that they are working with MySpace to create projects with more reach and impact by tapping into the two "modes" of MySpace - (i) marketing (due to the high volume of people) and (ii) communication (due to the sharing of information on the network).

Rather poignantly for Mesh, Adam advised, "do it, do it", to all the new media publishers out there, but warned that we should take care to spend time researching what will give sites their "stickiness". That is exactly what we plan to do with Mesh and why we value so very much our Founding Members - the ones who will transform our seed concepts into key functions on Mesh.

Emily then stepped up to the discussion and explained what is being developed at Current TV headquarters. Current TV was the brainchild of Al Gore and Joel Hyatt with the aim of giving a voice to the younger generation of media "transumers".

She explained the presence of the "global conversation" promoted by the web and the emergence of "VC squared" - viewer created content in the new media arena. She also shared the advertising revenue model which is keeping the channel alive - entities like Sky TV will pay to host the channel and advertisers like L'Oreal will buy space in relevant sections of the channel, for example, "Current Style". In the future, they are looking into ways to monetise the website and have not ruled out the revenue sharing model. Watch this space!

James Kirkham then provided a very entertaining whizz through the difficult task of engaging the online generation who have been turned off from their television sets - giving the example of the viral strategy employed for the teenage angst programme, "Skins".

Interestingly, he noted that the notion that "online is magic" is a farce and that technology facilitates but it is the audience that creates. The biggest change, he said, is that the once passive consumer of all types of media is now an active participant who uses a variety of different methods to contribute. It is no longer the marketing department of a brand that pulls the strings, it is the webmasters, forums owners and bloggers, he said.

James shared the E4 brief for Skins in order to demonstrate his point. E4 required Holler to "Turn the Skins launch into an entertainment event for an audience increasingly spending their time away from the television". Holler's advice was: "You are a guest in their attention span - bore them and they will ruthlessly filter you out. The opportunity? Get it right and they will actively market to each other."

The first episode was watched by more than 1 million viewers and they raised awareness to over 80%. Pretty impressive job on engagement of the community before the first episode had even aired.

Last but not least, James Fabricant led the final panel discussion. He started with a well-edited corporate MySpace montage before introducing MySpace as "a lifestyle portal built on a social network." He also sought to impress with the user stats - 180 million members globally, with about 20,000 joining everyday in the UK alone. He continued with a statement that the "value" of a network was the "square of the number of nodes on that network" (each MySpace user being a node).

Personally speaking, I do wonder about the so-called "value" of the simple idea of everyone being in the same place. Surely, the most important factor in "value" nowadays is the standard of the content. For me, the user interface on Facebook beats MySpace hands down. I don't care about how great a new musician might be if I have to wade through thousands of pages flashing at me, adorned with twinkly backgrounds and irritating "Pimp my MySpace" banners. Sit on My Space? [the words I saw tattooed on a building in Barcelona recently] I'd rather not thanks. I have a boyfriend.

I asked James how MySpace feel about the ground being gained on a daily basis by Facebook. He replied that all the newer sites represent "healthy competition" in a trend that's here to stay - long live the online network. Noting the key difference, he said that he believed Facebook to be a "clean tool with a utility base", whereas MySpace had taken a "lifestyle and cultural approach to social networking". I remain unclear as to why the latter approach has to be so ugly by default.

To finish, Adam Gee commented that in a year when Google ad sales will outstrip C4's, there has been a definite "shifting sands" in which media owners are now calling the shots.

In all, it was a solid discussion on a topic that has already been well-documented and that is highly dynamic and fascinating. The Mesh Heads heard nothing, in terms of theory, that we did not already know from the excellent research conducted by Piper Jaffray, "The User Revolution", but it was a very worthwhile event for meeting new people and generating ideas.

Mesh would like to thank Channel Four for the "Making it Multimedia" event and looks forward to enjoying the "Four days in June" party tomorrow evening. Thank goodness I have Friday off. I feel a hangover coming on already.

What

...is the one thing that Mesh will do really well?

Connect young business professionals.

...will be the benefits for members?

1. To harness the collective intelligence of a cohesive community.
2. To utilise mobile organisational tools to re-balance time-deprived lives.
3. To access quick reference resources to facilitate dynamic lifestyles.
4. To participate in a confidential space to share contacts, generate ideas and shape the brand to their needs.

...am I doing up at 00:48 on a Wednesday-morning-feels-like-Tuesday-evening writing about Mesh?

I love the idea and I live it. Having the day job as a lawyer and balancing Mesh is hard damn work and means that I have to make the most of the 24 hour day. My fellow director, Jonny, even dreams about Mesh. We are so exhilarated by Mesh but we do get frustrated by how long it takes to bring a service like this to the web. It does help that "Facebooking", blogging, "TechCrunching" are all part of our ongoing research, which fascinates us. Life could be a lot worse. We could be contestants on this year's Big Brother. Good night.

Funding - Last.fm paving the way for the UK?

Sue Greenwood, Managing Director of startup Sweeble, commented on the lack of funding for internet start-ups in the UK today:

"Five years is a hell of a long time in webland and the fact that the Last.fm guys had to work so hard to attract investors says a lot about the problems we UK web entrepreneurs face compared to our US counterparts. It took four years for the guys to attract significant venture capital to pay for the "bells and whistles" development that would rope in CBS.

Support for web entrepreneurs is abysmal in Britain. Government business funding mostly keeps quangos and consultants in work. It's interesting that investors in the latest venture (MyDeco.com) launched by Lastminute founders Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox are largely the same ones who first backed Lastminute, rather than a posse of new chequebook-wavers.

The Last.fm guys deserve every penny they've earned, not least because their success might now open the door for other embattled UK web businesses. It will be a shame, however, if it's only American firms, like CBS, that come knocking." (Letters to Media Guardian, 11 June 2007)

Mesh is currently attempting to find funding - if you have any contacts who might be interested in receiving a copy of the business plan, please don't hesitate to holler: mesh@meshminds.com

Intro

Welcome.

It's Friday and I'm in a good mood. I suppose the first post must always be one of the hardest. How do I start this blog? What shall I say? Oh well, I guess I just did.

I think the best thing to do is introduce myself and the others: We are three young lawyers working in the City of London. With our hard-earned cash and keen minds, we have decided to build a trusted network of young business professionals with whom we can share contacts, information and lifestyles.

The website is currently being developed by Zerofee (www.zerofee.org) and Firefli Systems (www.fireflisystems.com) and the private beta will be opening at the end of August 2007.

Whilst we wait, it's all about spreading the word. We have been covered in the national press by the Sunday Times Style magazine who focused on the "creative second life" concept within MeshMinds.com, reporting on the fact that there are a great number of business professionals out there who work as hard in their time out of the office as in. Mesh will be providing our creative second lifers with tools to help organise their projects and a network of like-minded people with whom to collaborate. That's just one aspect of the Mesh project... we have a long sleeve and it's jam-packed with ideas. If you would like to cover Mesh, please email us: mesh@meshminds.com and we will send you our press release.

Coming up over the next few weeks will be coverage of the 4Talent seminar - an audience with Martha Lane Fox of LastMinute.com, James Fabricant, Head of Marketing and Content for MySpace UK & Ireland, James Kirkham from digital strategists Holler - developers of the marketing campaign for E4's Skins - and Adam Gee, Channel 4's Commissioning Editor, New Media Factual.

In the mean time, have a superb weekend and thank you for reading.

Kay