This past Wednesday was the 1st F5 Expo in Vancouver. The event was billed as a conference for business executives on changing technologies in the online space. In retrospect, I think it’s fair to say the inaugural F5 was as much about finding its own identity as it was about technology.  You can’t grow without growing pains.

Overall, it was a very good event and shows a great deal of potential for the future!

The event was attended by 1000+ enthusiastic area business people.  It was a highly energized crowd and everyone was keen to learn and connect.  The conference really highlighted for me something I’ve noticed the past few years in Vancouver.  There seems to be a… realization, for lack of a better word, that NOW is our time to shine.  I think the organizers very successfully keyed in on this, no pun intended.

The line up of speakers and panelists was fantastic.

Tod Maffin, noted strategist, technologist, author, and speaker opened the show.  Although I missed the talk, based on the tweets I saw, I can only characterize his message as a cautionary tale.  I think Ferris Bueller said it best, “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

And Malcolm Gladwell closed the show.  Another cautionary tale, you can find details of his talk on Techvibes and the Vancouver Sun.  I think he sums up nicely when he says, the internet is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

I managed to make it to 2 panel sessions.

The first was on Cloud Computing where our very own, Mark Cunningham, contributed to a discussion on the technology.  Mark was joined by Howie Wu, CEO of Layerboom and by Ryan Storgaard, Microsoft’s Director of Cloud Services Strategy.  The moderator was Rajan Sodhi, VP of Marketing for the hosting company Peer 1.  Mark commented to me afterward that there probably should have been 2 Cloud sessions.  One that dealt with Cloud for Business Users and one that dealt with Cloud for Techies.  The result would be two very different discussions.  And I think that nicely sums it up.  You can find some of Indicee’s thoughts on cloud here, here, and here.  If I had to pick one thing from that a Business User would be wise to take away from the session, it’s Howie’s explanation that Cloud “turns fixed costs into variable costs”.

The second session I attended was a panel on Avoiding Start-up Pitfalls.  This was a bit self-indulgent on my part seeing as I work for a start-up and have worked for a bunch of start-ups over the past 5 years.  The panel was comprised of Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite - the Twitter client, Danny Robinson, Managing Director of Bootup Labs - the incubator fund, and Michael Fergusson, CEO of Ayogo Games - social and mobile gaming, and moderated by Carisa Miklusak, co-founder of SoMedios - social media consultancy firm.  This panel definitely wins the prize for best soundbites at F5!  Here’s a sampling (I’m paraphrasing a bit, still waiting on my tricked-out recording device):

Danny: Equity is rarely a 50/50 deal with co-founders. Have the conversation early when you have nothing to lose.

Michael: The CEO has to be the top salesperson in a start-up.

Ryan: Kill your customers with a dull pencil (avoid the customization trap).

All: Business plans are dubious at best.

Danny: Take the cheapest money you can get.    

And: It’s not the firm who funds you, it’s the partner at the firm.

Michael: The worse possible outcome is a lingering death.  If your start-up is going to fail, make sure to fail well.

This last point reminds me of a recent Globe and Mail video of Mark Evans interviewing Roger Martin on innovation.  According to Martin, “to innovate you have to court failure”.  Roger Martin is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto.

You know, this may actually sum up the whole conference.  To innovate you have to court failure.

We would like to sincerely thank the organizers of F5 Expo, and all the participants, speakers, sponsors, and everyone who helped make this event possible.  You guys did a great job and have continued to step up and take risk in order to bring out the best in Vancouver!

For more reviews from F5 check out:

Gillian Shaw: iPad apps: Made in BC

Middle Child Marketing: F5 Expo Review

Kiwano Marketing: Best of Social Media Metrics

Flickr: Jeremy Lim

Twitter: #F5Expo and #F5cloud

If you know of other URLs with F5 reviews, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Enjoy!