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.
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!
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Mesh is a personal blog of mine discussing and reporting all things related to web start-ups in London. Jonny Emmanuel, my fellow Director, is also a contributor. Hopefully, it can also be a base for my own professional online and offline networking. The opinions expressed by me here on this blog are mine alone and not those of my employer or Mesh.
