May and June are busy months. There are a few friends and colleagues that continue to leverage the DemoCamp brand to help engage entrepreneurs, developers, code monkeys, hackers, marketers and others. We borrowed the 6 minute format from Demo. Rather than a chinwag about new technology or industry happenings, what better way than to spend 6 minutes and have someone show you want they’ve built. It forces way from the keyboards and out into the real world. It is a strange mix of presentations, improv and being social. It’s about being connected, being proud of what you’ve been working, and having the opportunity to meet others in the community with similar interests.

The focus in Toronto has been on startups. Because this is my interest. Others are free to shape event and the format to their locale. The question of “what is your business model?” is such a silly question. Because some of the coolest presentations – hacking digital cameras – are closer to hobbies or performance art. I love the mix of new businesses, emerging technology explorations, and something closer to Maker Faire demos.

My advice, is if you are interested in seeing the great startups, hackers and makers in your city are doing you should make sure you check out a DemoCamp. And encourage Brydon and Kevin to keep doing this for their own entertainment and connection. Maybe you might want to help out

• May 27, 2011 – DemoCampHamilton2
• June 8, 2011 – DemoCampGuelph17
• June 9, 2011 – DemoCampToronto29 – details pending

Hamilton

DemoCampHamilton2 will feature a keynote presentation by Mic Berman, acting COO at FreshBooks and Founder at Embarkonit, as well as demos by FluidMedia, Dan Zen, Indellient, Open Hamilton and MealDeck. It is happening in conjunction with Apps For Health 2011 conference at Mohawk College. You can show up around 5:00pm for a drink and some additional networking before heading over for DemoCamp at 7:00pm.

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Guelph

The invited speaker is Mike McDerment, CEO and co-founder ofFreshbooks in Toronto. Mike’s a serial entrepreneur who spends a lot of time giving back to the wider community by speaking at various tech conferences as well as lecturing at Humber College. He is also a founder of Toronto based Mesh Conference. After the keynote there are 4-6 demos followed by a live band. This is a completely open event, however, there is a donation ticket to help out starving musicians and the cost of providing entertainment.

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Toronto

The invited speaker is Howard Lindzon, CEO and cofounder of StockTwits in San Diego.  He was one of my favourite speakers at StartupEmpire back in 2008. Howard is sharing his love of startups and early stage entrepreneurs across Canada this summer. If you miss him at DemoCamp, make sure you catch him at StartupFestival in Montreal or Grow Conference in Vancouver. The demo lineup and tickets are being finalized this week.

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I’m heading back to Guelph on February 9, 2011 to speak at DemoCampGuelph. I will be spending the day at Guelph Coworking talking startups, hiring and other things. I am still trying to figure out what to speak about in my 20 minute session at DemoCampGuelph. I had been thinking about the following things:

• Why startups shouldn’t hire a marketer from Microsoft (and I promise not to read April’s brillant post aloud, well at least not word for word)
• Press, PR and story telling – What you can learn from how we pick stories at StartupNorth

I’m happy to regale folks with the story about DemoCamp, or about how I ended up at Microsoft or why I left, or about anything.

Add a comment below with suggestions.

It looks like Brydon and the gang in Guelph is kicking asses and taking names. They are hosting their fifteenth DemoCamp. This is fantastic. The line up is great. You can hear one of Canada’s most relentless Internet CEO’s, Mike McDerment, talk about his experiences in building FreshBooks. (Make sure that you check out the redesigned DemoCampGuelph web presence).

Did you know that the next DemoCampGuelph is happening Wednesday July 21, 2010 at the The Ebar (41 Quebec St., Guelph, ON)?

It’s a chance to see April Dunford talk about Startup Marketing. April brings a unique enterprise focused view of product development and marketing. She is a world-class speaker talking about product marketing, product development and go-to-market strategies for emerging companies. April provided the keynote in Toronto in March 2010.

Sign up to attend on Guestlistapp

Brydon and the gang in Guelph are hosting the next DemoCamp Guelph on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at the The Ebar (41 Quebec St., Guelph, ON). They are hosting our good friend Rob Hyndman who is a co-organizer of #HoHoTO, MeshU, and Mesh Conference. He’s also startup lawyer to the high tech stars. You can follow Rob on Twitter.

It’s great to see the efforts to connect the community in Guelph.

Brydon has a great summary of DemoCampGuelph11. Bummed I missed it.

I’d write a summary of the night but luckily it’s done. The quick bits: Mathew Ingram spoke about how the Globe tries to run like a startup. Then we had demos from TribeHR, Declan Whelan, Steve Hanov, Don Walsh, Arni Mikelsons, and the audience favourite this time around Harry Scanlan.

Get your demo ready for #12 coming in December or January. Sign up to our google group linked off DCG site to stay up to date. My tip for demos? Treat them the same as pitches. I believe it was Austin Hill who summed it up best, hearts, minds, wallets.

Hearts: Tell me a story so I feel the pain you’re going to solve. Even in a technical demo you can pull this off. “So you’re up until 2am once again trying to cobble together yet another build by hand”. All you want is to get to the question “ok, I know what you’re talking about, but how are you going to solve that for me?”

Minds: Get into the techie bits of how you’re going to solve the problem you’ve now got me feeling, “my build tool will manage all your builds by…..”. The goal here is to get me to think “ok, I like that solution, how much?”

Wallets: How much, pricing model etc? Or if you’re raising money from me, how much and what are the details?

Mess up that order and you likely won’t get through it all or I’ll tune out. Most demos start with minds, then the crowd pushes them through questions to wallets and they never get to the hearts. Go for the heart first, make me cry first and then you’ll have my attention!!

DemoCampGuelph

The Waterloo region gang is hard at work. First on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 there is StartupDrinks Waterloo. And the following night, September 30, there is StartupDrinks happening in Toronto, Montreal and  Ottawa. But if you live in Waterloo Region do not fret. You don’t have to make the precarious drive to downtown Toronto. You can go to Guelph, for DemoCamp.

Anyone in and around Guelph interested in software, the web and technology! Startup junkies, wage slaves, consultants, students, indie professionals, engineers, designers, money and marketing guys. If you want to see and talk about some interesting things, and get to know other people in the Guelph tech community, come on out! You don’t have to demo to attend.

Make sure you register to help the organizers know how much free beer to buy!

Invited Speaker

Mathew Ingram will be talking with us about how the Globe is trying to think more like a startup. Mathew is the Communities Editor of the Globe and Mail, a technology blogger and co-founder of the annual mesh conference in Toronto

Details

• Wednesday, September 30 starting 6:30pm
• The eBar, 41 Quebec St., Guelph [map]
• Register

DemoCampGuelph9 is happening on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at a new venue. It’s happening upstairs at the eBar, 41 Quebec St, Guelph, ON. I’m hoping that Alistair Croll has returned the now infamous “Crow-ie” for most awesomeness demo of the evening so that someone else has a chance to bask in the glow (I blame Ali Asaria for the horrible naming of this award).

Anyone in and around Guelph interested in software, the web and technology! Startup junkies, wage slaves, consultants, students, indie professionals, engineers, designers, money and marketing guys. If you want to see and talk about some interesting things, and get to know other people in the Guelph tech community, come on out! You don’t have to demo to attend.

The Guelph crowd is very different than Toronto. It is aimed to help connect people in the local community with interesting folks in town, out of town, and just passing through. It is really about a social evening to see interesting things.

If you’re planning on showing up and you want to demo, contact Brydon.