Thanks to all of you who ventured out to Concord for our July Innovation Night event! Special thanks to Isabella Products and the Wheelhouse for hosting us. We’ll be posting links to your #MIN28 Tweets, blog posts, and pictures soon.  Meanwhile, can you find yourself in the crowd here?  We’ll be contacting the winner of the Edible Arrangements New England gift certificate and announcing that in Monday’s newsletter. (You need to be following @DoFruitNE so we can DM you.)  Thanks for tweeting, blogging, posting pictures of all the cool new products from local companies!

Here are some videos of the event:

Experts Corner:

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Antiques Near Me:

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ePowerhouse:

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FamilyID:

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SymTrendADL:

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The Wheelhouse:

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It’s summertime and the Innovation never stops!  Our hosts for our July 13 event (#MIN28) will be Isabella Products and the Wheelhouse at the Bradford Mill in Concord, MA.  We’ve got a great line up too  — products and experts both!  Remember, we’re here to help launch new local products, so here’s what you need to do:

Check out the cool new products (below).  See their websites for more info.

• Vote for the four companies you’d like to see present (below).
• RSVP (easy to do here!)
• Come to our live event on July 13, 6-8:30 pm and blog, tweet, post pictures or videos!

Check out these great new products: and vote (BELOW) for your FOUR favorites to present live: Want to see more about these great products? See our new Innovation Nights website.

• Abroad101
• Antiques Near Me
• ChatTrack from Allfocus
• ePowerhouse – Making Entrepreneurship Better
• FamilyID
• ParkingApp from ParkMe
• SymTrend ADL
• The Sharing Authority SDK
• WASP Audio Technologies
• WHAT NOW??? Evacuation Training Aid

For our 27th Mass Innovation Nights event on June 8, 2011 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm, we are delighted to accept the invitations to head west — to Westborough that is!

CCR LLP, Certified Public Accountants & Business Advisors
1400 Computer Drive, 2nd Floor Training Room
Westborough, MA  01581

Our hosts will be CCR LLP and our sponsor is Hyperion Law (welcome back and thanks for the contribution to the development fund!)  The #min27 event will be held at a convenient location (with easy highway access and parking) at the intersection of Route 9 and 495, bringing Mass Innovation Nights out to a whole new crowd!  We’ve got a great line up — products and experts and some special surprises too!  Remember, we’re here to help launch new local products, so here’s what you need to do:

• Check out the cool new products (below).  See their websites for more info.
• Vote for the four companies you’d like to see present (below). VOTING CLOSED.
• RSVP (easy to do here!)
• Come to our live event on June 8, 6-8:30 pm and blog, tweet, post pictures or videos!

Check out these great new products: and vote (BELOW) for your FOUR favorites to present live: Want to see more about these great products? See our new Innovation Nights website.

• Bedford Stem Cell Research Foundation – PVSA, certified laboratory results from a mail-in kit
• Betterscape – Online Facebook application that promotes positive offline behavior
• BrandYourself – Easily improve your online reputation
• iPresent Online – Social eLearning and training software
• LikeJournal – Social bookmarking for the Facebook Like button
• Ms. Informed – A book that builds women’s confidence
• PostPost – Search results from the people you follow on Twitter
• RGB Daily – A social newsstand
• Social Page Builder from TemplateZone — Create professional Facebook pages in minutes.
• Toursphere – Mobile tour generator
• Villa Lusso – Candles and body products

After each Mass Innovation Nights event, we try to connect to some of the great comments and posts generated during the night.  (If you missed it, you can always come here to see what you missed!)

Once again, we were part of another great event that occurred before the opening of Mass Innovation Nights — the third in the Connecting Companies with Capital series created by Accounting Management Solutions, IBM and MassEcon.  This quarterly event was created with the express intent of helping more companies get the funding they need in order to grow and create more local jobs.  More than 200 registered attendees attended an array of panel discussions, networked like crazy and dozens of entrepreneurs had five minute “mini-pitches” with VCs, angels and other sources of capital during the speed dating — more than 150 meetings were held in one hour.

As C3 was wrapping up, we started setting up Mass Innovation Nights 26, #MIN26.  Very quickly 6:00 pm rolled around and we were welcoming our guests, including several real troupers who hadn’t yet had enough of the networking and innovation fun.  As always, a shout out to the companies and people who help publicize each and every Mass Innovation Nights event!  Exhibitors like 77SPARX, experts like Larry Staub, and our calendar friends at GreenhornConnect, VentureFizz and others.

A spread from Peppercorns of Stoughton

We also welcomed a special guest for #MIN26 — the catering team (Lisa and Gary and friends) from Peppercorns decided that they wanted to meet the Innovators and they brought food!  A wonderful sampling of fabulous and beautiful hors d’oeuvres and drinks to set the tone for the evening.  (We love friends who love to cook, and share!  Don’t forget, we’re looking for foodie-related innovations for our August Innovation Nights!)  This isn’t the first time we’ve had the donation of goodies for Mass Innovation Nights — it’s a wonderful way to introduce your products to a big group of “chatty” people — but I can’t say we’ve ever had a display as elegant as this one.  Wow!  Big thanks to Peppercorns!

On the product side:  let’s start things off with a quick recap of the presentations from CustomBuds, RippleFunction, ViaCLIX and GaggleAMP from our new friend Farrah.  CustomBuds also shared a nice special offer for our FOM (Friends of MassInno.)  Top tweeters Eric, Fiona and Cummingsdotcom (and many others) tweeted up a storm all evening.  Our most prolific and regular blogger, The Darn Good Tech Writer, Janet, again offered a wonderful overview, and pictures!  And, can you find yourself in the pictures Dan loaded on Flickr?  And we’ll be adding links to other write ups and our video as they come in.

Here are videos of the event:

Experts Corner:

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Joe Perry of IBM Innovation Center:

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Peppercorns:

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RippleFunction:

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GaggleAMP:

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ViaCLIX:

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Our 26th Mass Innovation Nights event is May 11, 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm, and #MIN26  will be back in Waltham, at the IBM Innovation Center, right off Route 128/95, with a plethora of new and innovative new products to help launch! Won’t you join us?  Here’s what you need to do:

1. Check out the cool new products (below).  See their websites for more info.
2. Vote for the four companies you’d like to see present (below) VOTING CLOSED
3. RSVP (easy to do here!)
4. Come to our live event on May 11
5. Make some noise to support local innovation – blog, tweet, post pictures or videos!

Check out these great new products: and vote (BELOW) for your FOUR favorites to present live on May 11: Want to see more about these great products — see our new Innovation Nights website, now in BETA!

• 77Sparx – educational mobile games for young children and toddlers
• Biba Beverages – ultra hydration soft drink
• Community Works – social justice payroll deduction program
• CustomBuds – Customizable headphones up 425,000,000 combinations
• Divoty – daily deals exclusively for golfers
• Easy Unsubscriber – unsubscribe you from email newsletters
• ItsmyURLs – online presence in a barcode
• GaggleAMP – social media amplification
• Grinnit – self-organizing photos and collaborative albums
• RippleFunction – incentivised social media promotion
• ViaClix – monetize internet delivery to any device

Wow.  Just wow.

It was a night of bright and shiny new products and lots of bright shiny new faces in amongst our MOB of guests too.  (And let’s not forget the “hot bling” from Heyday…did everyone notice the Swarovski crystals?) Set against the brick backdrop in the lobby (and conference rooms and kitchen and hallways and staircases) at Continuum (with forays…err tours of Continuum and VideoLink) it was a great night.  And, now, on to the wrap up post.  Remember, if you help to spread the word, we’ll link to you!  Let us know when you post pictures, video, blog…

The rain surely didn’t keep our enthusiastic crowd at bay.  Not only did we have lots of our “regular” friends (you know you’re all special, right?) checking in (did you see our new custom tablecloth thanks to Corey from Turner Business Solutions, also an expert this evening) but we also had a wonderful time making new friends.  Everyone came out to help spread the word about Boston region innovation. And marvel at our improvised screen and presentation platform on the staircase.   (We projected the Twitter stream and presentations onto a roll of photographer’s backdrop paper suspended above the lobby’s staircase.)  Our new national sponsor, Turnstone, turned the Experts Corner into the Experts Lounge and waiting area for Memories in an Instant.  Did you get your social media-ready picture taken?

Our QR code experiment worked great a second time — look for those tweets marked #MIN25QR to see the stream we created.  And see #MIN25 for our regular “people generated” stream of tweets.  Plus great tweets (and sometimes photos too!) for our innovative products.

Remember, we’ll be adding to this post over the next few days.  Let us know when you post!  Or check out Tech Writer Janet’s great roundup of the event.  We also got a nice mention in a story from Charley Polachi on VentureBeat.  Watch this space for more!

Below are some videos of the event:

Experts Corner:

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Leveraged Freedom Chair:

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Mouthwatchers:

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New England Bicycle Expo:

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ReadyCam 2.0:

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Turnstone:

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We’re moving again — being a nomad is FUN!  Our April 13 event (#MIN25) will be held at an exciting NEW location!  Continuum and VideoLink are jointly hosting the April event at their super-cool offices at 1220 and 1230 (same building) Washington Street in West Newton.  (You’ve probably passed their building while heading West on the Mass Pike.)

Not only are we going to have totally awesome video of the event but we’ll be hanging out in Continuum’s super-cool “Hall of Products You Wish You Invented”! You’ll get to meet the source of hundreds of cool new products like the Swiffer and the Reebok Pump.  Plus, VideoLink will be offering tours of their TV studios.  (Who knows who we’ll see going in to appear live “via satellite” on CNN and other major networks.)  There’s also plenty of free parking in the garage right behind the building and on-street parking too.

In keeping with the product design theme, we leaned heavily toward the “real” products side and collected a group of really neat new physical products (and other cool stuff too.   Our event opens at 6:00 pm, presentations at 7:00 and we party ’till 8:30 when we head out to an after-party at “The Local” (the bar just down the street).  Join us!  And, speaking of partying,  because you asked, #MIN24 was our second “birth”day but #min25 is the second anniversary of our first event.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Check out the cool new products (below)
2. Vote for the four companies you’d like to see present (VOTING CLOSED)
3. RSVP (easy to do here!)
4. Come to our live event on April 13
5. Make some noise to support local innovation – blog, tweet (#min25), post pictures or videos!

Here are this month’s new products:

• Carpet Workroom – remnants made into finished rugs
• Leveraged freedom chair – Continuum and MIT partner to bring a wheelchair to people with disabilities throughout the world
• MassDevice – News service for medical devices
• Memory on Hand – USB Flash Drive Bracelet
• Mouthwatchers – Antibacterial nano-silver toothbrush with patented flossing bristles
• New England Bike Expo – EVENT, May 7th-8th Arts at the Armory Somerville
• Parachute Dog – Dog Waste Bag Kit
• ReadyCam 2.0 – Remotely-Controlled Broadcast Quality Video Solution
• Skedtime – Social Influence Marketing
• ThunderLily - Crowd-sourcing fashion

Another exciting Innovation Nights event is coming to town, Cambridge that is.  Our March 9 event (#MIN24) will be back at the Microsoft New England Research & Development center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (the NERD, in Kendall Square).  We’ll be conveniently located if you’ll be spending the day with Xconomy at Mobile Madness 2011 (also at the NERD  — use discount code ” if you are going!)  We collected a group of new mobile products (and other cool stuff too — it is our 2nd Birthday!) if you haven’t gotten enough of mobile.   Our event opens at 6:30 pm and we party ’till 8:30 when we head out to an after-party at a nearby bar.  Join us!

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Check out the cool new products (below)
2. Vote for the four companies you’d like to see present (VOTING IS NOW CLOSED)
3. RSVP (easy to do here!)
4. Come to our live event on March 9
5. Make some noise to support local innovation – blog, tweet, post pictures or videos!

Here are this month’s new products. Which ones would you like to hear more about?

• Cauzoom – connecting social projects to investment
• Chipalizer – functional verification software for semiconductors
• Hello Ladies – resource for smart, busy women
• Luminaire Coffee – advanced coffee brewer
• Plug – interactive mobile networking platform
• Promoboxx – social promotions that get more customers
• Red Pint – social craft beer mobile app
• RedWhiteBoston – best wines and partner stores
• TouchBase – family geo-location service
• VoKnow – personalized real-time audio magazine

[Also, you'll get to see RepTivity – live sales leaderboard (from our Feb lineup) and we'll be celebrating our second birthday with mini-Whoopie pies from the Chococoa Baking Company! Whoopie!]

Our February event (#MIN23) promises to be an exciting one! We’re back at the IBM Innovation Center with a slew of great innovative products, plus we’ll have a barrel-full of special guests (some of the companies we missed in January due to the snow) and special activities. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Check out the cool companies (below)


IBM - Our #MIN23 sponsor

2. RSVP (easy to do here!)
3. Come to our live event in Waltham on February 9 and we make some noise to support local innovators!

And, in addition to hosting us, IBM is sponsoring our event AND offering a special pre-event program. (Another ‘clink‘ in the MIN development fund piggy bank!)  Click here to learn more about IBM and Arrow’s Industry Solution Reseller Program – helping to bring your solution to market quickly and minimize costs!

Now, on to the February 9 Innovators! (VOTING IS NOW CLOSED)

Blogcastr – broadcast your blog live
Boston Globe, Your Town and “Forever 128″ column – Redefining coverage of local news
Buzub – Visual URLs
Cloud Jolt – Socially responsible web hosting
Fivespark – SaaS mobile application builder
Gig-FX - Guitar effects pedals & buzz-free cable
Personal Remedies – Personalized nutrition advisor
RepTivity – Live Sales leaderboard (Will be appearing at our March event)
ReferenceRep –     Automated reference checking for hiring pros
WikiSWOT – Free collaborative SWOT analysis reports

We’re kicking off the 2011 Mass Innovation Nights schedule  on January 12 13 (#MIN22) at the IBM Innovation Center in Waltham with a host of cool new products from local companies.  You know the drill, check them out, vote for your four favorites and the companies with the most votes will get presentation slots (but everyone gets a table!)  Then you RSVP, come out to IBM on January 12 and we make some noise to support local innovators!  Easy, right?

We’re also happy to showcase our first 2011 sponsor:  Hyperion Law.  Hyperion Law is a Boston-based law firm specializing in high technology patents founded by Cynthia Gilbert, a passionate technologist and patent attorney.  A few more pesos for the development fund!  Let us know if you are interested in sponsoring a future Mass Innovation Nights or an advertisement in our newsletter.

Now, on to the January 12 13Innovators.  VOTING HAS ENDED. SEE BELOW FOR THE WINNERS.

Heyday Footwear – Design driven fashion footwear
Grembe Apps – Building apps that help those with special needs
JobTacToe.com – Transforming your job search into a motivational game
MiScale - Innovative scale/weight tracking program
My Paperless Bills – Smart online bill storage
PointKnown – Capture buildings digitally for energy modeling, retrofits and reuse
ScreenRetriever – Online monitoring software for parents
UpRace – A social media personal goal building game
WaySavvy – The simple way to book your perfect trip. Try it here.  (Special for #MIN22 friends.)
Wingman University – School for dating and personal development