Wednesday, July 1, 2009

July 1st: You May Now Stop Innovating


First, thanks to everyone who helped out with New England Innovation Month in June...

We started the grassroots project as a way to reboot the conversation, moving it away from the lousy economy and toward the things we can control: new ideas and new ventures and new connections. There were about 25 events on the official calendar, and those I went to were really well-attended and had great energy.

What was especially cool was to have two Left Coast publications take note of what we were doing out here in the colonies: VentureBeat and the San Jose Mercury News, which ran a piece headlined 'Boston tech scene on the rebound.'

I am *sure* this is only the beginning of some great new thinking about how to turbo-charge innovation around our region...

...And there are already some great signs that good things will continue in July:

- The Secretary of Housing & Economic Development in Massachusetts, Greg Bialecki, has just launched his blog with a great "Declaration of Innovation."

- TechStars Boston is going strong, and will present a whole crop of new companies to investors in early September.

- There's been some really constructive talk around how we can connect students to cool companies in our region.

- There are some great events happening in July and August, including WebInno, PodCamp Boston, Mass Innovation Night (hoping to finally get to that next week), CloudCamp, and a Forrester Tweetup (expecting to see Tweeter-in-Chief George Colony there, who purports to be a CEO who understands social technologies)...

Again, big thanks to all of you who supported this idea and came out to the events.

(And yes, I'm joking with the headline of this post. Please continue your innovating -- though feel free to take a short vacation in July or August.)

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4 Comments:

Blogger Erin said...

This was a cool idea and I'm glad it got the recognition it deserved. Congrats.

July 1, 2009 10:28 PM  
OpenID bussgang said...

Congrats to all of New England's innovators! And well done, Scott, to inspire the activity in this important area.

July 1, 2009 10:56 PM  
Anonymous Andy Tarsy said...

Congratulations Scott on sparking the "great leap forward" in June. The innovation community can be a catalyst for fresh thinking across many sectors of life in Boston. I hope we are seeing the beginning of a sustained higher profile in the civic life. I love the traditional Bostonian culture but I often say to people that "Boston is not Boston" meaning that the old self-image of who's here and how they think is really out of date. The city of insiders we imagine is not really where our true strength lies. To make that real, our innovators, newcomers, and immigrants need to take a seat at the broadly defined economic, civic, political table without waiting for an invitation. Wouldn't it be great if instead of always being asked,"where are you from" you were asked "where are you going?"

July 2, 2009 9:46 AM  
Blogger Janice Brown said...

Congratulations to you for jump-starting this idea and to New England's innovation economy for rising to the challenge with ideas, involvement and enthusiasm. It's incredibly encouraging. We all need to ignore (to the extent we can) the bad news and negativity emanating from Washington and the establishment, and not be constrained by what we are being told is impossible. Little bits of innovation can lead to big social and economic changes, and we do have some terrifically bright minds here in New England.

July 3, 2009 7:52 AM  

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