Today I attended day one of iSummit, the Toronto conference about ‘Content That Pays is a high-level conference dedicated the business of content on interactive platforms.’ See Gagglespace for some live blogging of the event.

It was the MARS building at College and University. The same location as this weeks DemoCamp that I also attended, but about as different as you could get in terms of attendees and focus. Hacking just for the fun of it DemoCamp Vs. where’s my ROI iSummit (I generalise).

Still, despite the corporate heavy attendance (it costs $375 for two days after all) I was really impressed by the lineup of panels. In the morning I caught the keynote by Alexander Manu and was really impressed.

Alex was super enthusiastic and talked a lot about play, and how it is central to human being but so often marginalised in our society. He spoke about the fact that work or play were seen as either/or, when really we can and should combine the two. I can really see the truth in that, having gone from working for the Provincial government and (shuffling pointless paper) to working for myself where one of the big problems is telling myself I need to stop and go do something else every once in a while, because I really enjoy the stuff I’m working with. You can probably guess which role I was more engaged and effective in. (hint: it’s not the soul numbing one).

Later in the day I caught Jim Munroe’s panel on Machinima. Jim does some very cool stuff in DIY media and publishing, as well as being an author, and the panel was fairly indy. I don’t know how much the panel meant to the ROI-focused in the audience but I liked it.

Now I have some work to finish and then I’m off to the party tonight. I’m tired from working late last night, but there are free drinks and some cool people there.