What a wonderful day we all had at the MassTLC Innovation 2009 unConference! It was a celebration of innovation, and working meeting to move ideas forward. The event was held yesterday, October 1, at the beautiful Network Drive facility of hosts Sun Microsystems and Nordbloom Company. I had the great honor and privilege to design the event, along with Tom Hopcroft, Heather Johnson, and James Geshwiler.
A central goal was to provide tangible help to early stage entrepreneurs by inviting experts to volunteer their time to help in small settings - one on one's and small table meetings. A total of 81 experts answered the call, and we chose 70 early stage companies from a wide range of industries. This group of expert volunteers and entrepreneurs formed the core of the event and set the tone for the day. It was about listening, advising, helping and encouraging. And wow, did that happen! I spoke to as many entrepreneurs and volunteer experts as I could, and the reports were amazing. Hundreds of real connections were being made. That made me feel so good. Check out the twitter traffic about the event here. Mass High Tech wrote a very nice article, and Scott Kirsner blogged about the event, and NECN ran a TV news piece.
Around the core of 150 people selected in advance, we had over 250 conference attendees, bringing the total for the day to over 400.
Yes, we really did have a flying car on our front lawn. I asked Carl Dietrich and his team at Terrafugia to bring their "Roadable Aircraft" to the event to inspire people to see what is possible. And boy, did it deliver!
This aircraft folds its wings and can drive right on the road, and even into typical parking garages. Here it's used for the news report about the event that ran on NECN.
The day began at 7:30. We asked our volunteer experts to post their names for one on one meetings with entrepreneurs. Then the entrepreneurs chose two one on ones that they felt would work best for them. I can't tell you how happy I feel about what resulted. When you look at the photo above, imagine how much "helping horsepower" is available to the entrepreneur looking to make a choice.
The full conference began at 8:30 with the opening session. Here, Kaliya Hamlin, our expert facilitator, explains how it all works. Unlike a regular conference where everything is planned in advance, and speakers are on podiums, this is a "hands on" event, and it starts with all the attendees proposing sessions.
Kaliya used handwritten signs to tune people into the idea that the day is all about letting thing flow and unfold they way they want to.
The "Law of Two Feet" says that you should feel free to move about between sessions. And people did. The result was that everyone felt free and energized. The were always where they wanted to be. Never stuck and looking at their watch. The underlying approach of this unConfernce is called "open space technology" and was invented by Harrison Owen I looked him up today, and ended up having a wonderful phone conversation with him. He has a new book, called Wave Rider, which shows how to apply the self-organizing principals to all kinds of endeavors, including high tech companies and products.
The resulting agenda wall was impressive. Meetings were held in conference rooms, on couches, in the cafeteria, and even outside.
The one-on-one sessions were held in the round tables outside the cafeteria. Each table was numbered so it was easy for experts and entrepreneurs to find each other, even though they had never met. By the way, Harrison Owen chided me on our phone call today for doing too much advance work in pre-arranging the experts and volunteers. Goes against the spirt of "self organizing." Hmmm. It sure was a ton of work, but it did work really well. On the other hand, is there a self organizing way to do this for next year that would be less work? My August and September could be transformed. Let's see what the open space technology experts say.
That's me in the middle, with Tom Hopcroft and Heather Johnson. The orange shirts say "ask me" in huge letters on the back. We had a great crew of volunteers who wore the orange shirt, and really helped make everything run smoothly. The time is 11:30 am, the day is going so well, we are just beaming.
The beautiful open space of Network Drive was the perfect venue for the unConference. Check out this detailed view of the entire venue.
I end this post with this photo of Bob Metcalfe, because it portrays the relaxed, engaging energy that was flowing throughout the day. Wow is all I can say. In my blog post before the event, I asked people to build a conference on four words: "How can I help?" Everyone did just that.