Day 1 of Mesh 2007 is complete and I think my overall impression is that Mesh continues to be a great conference to network but the sessions were fairly weak.

Many of the sessions are panelist based and lacked diversity. For example the new vs old media lacked anyone from the old media. This made for a fairly repetitive and dull session. I’m not sure the selection of panelists was ideal either, many didn’t have a lot to offer. I felt that many sessions were too long, often running close to a hour. So I’d like to see shorter sessions, maybe even more tracks so the sessions can be smaller and more intimate.

There seems to be a strong shift to professionals from last year. I don’t know if the student numbers were reduced or if less showed up. I haven’t met many students yet and the number of startups, hard core geeks also seems to be down. Many of the people I’ve met have been ad agencies…

The after Mesh social event was kinda disappointing too with the group fragmenting around the distillery district. The speakers were no where to be found ( atleast till 11pm when I left ) and the boiler room was difficult to get seated where service was available.

I’m excited about Day 2, the line-up is much more solid and if all else fails there is lots of breaks for meshing.