The IT Sector Dialogue — the mood

Believe it or not, we actually had time for something else last Wednesday.  The IT Sector Dialogue event gathered the leaders in the Massachusetts high tech community to discuss how we can make a difference in the state’s economy and the IT sector’s competitiveness.  Held at the Cambridge Microsoft offices (beautiful space), the event gathered a veritable who’s who in Massachusetts-based technology, government and academia.  (I’ve worked in the industry for more than 20 years and spent the day recognizing names and faces.)

As tech events so — it was the bomb.  The event consisted of a series of speakers, panels and breakout sessions.  There was plenty of time for networking and connecting with the other members of the audience and the speakers.  There was plentiful wireless and power — extension cords plugged into floor sockets scattered thoughout the room.  (Hey, it’s the little things that make me and my laptop happy.)  The keynote address was from Rodney Brooks, founder, chairman and CTO of Heartland Robotics, and a founder of iRobot.  Governor Patrick spoke.  A team from UMass Donahue Institute spoke to results of their study on the sector.  (Although it seemed odd that most of the results just seemed to be testing attitudes of Massachusetts IT sector executives.)  There was a very interesting panel with top folks from Sycamore Networks, Advanced Technology Ventures, Akamai, Shoebuy.com and Visible Measures.

There has already been quite a bit written on other peoples’ impressions of the day.  Scott Kirsner, Cesar Brea, and the “official” site, the Innovate Mass Tech site.  There were also dozens of tweets and the media was out in force too.  At one point we were sitting between @digiphile and Wade Roush (Xconomy, check out their upcoming event, XSite) with Scott (Mr. #NEInno) two rows back and Doug Banks at the other end of the room.  The mood was upbeat and, well, earnest.  Ideas flew.  For the most part, the skeptics took a back seat — even when tough questions were being asked (see any tweet that contains the word “non-compete”.)

So, how do you affect mood?  How do you have an event that feels a certain way?  The introductions and day’s questions were focused on what we can DO as a group.  That certainly helped set the overall expectations.

The keynote is an important part of the mood setting too.  Brooks comes from a well-known Massachusetts success story and is currently involved with a new venture — a mark of confidence and an upbeat move if I ever saw one.  Brooks talked about how IT is under-estimated and showed he knew his audience by using a Star Trek example.  (Look at the classic Star Trek communicator, supposedly a tool common 300 years in the future, and compare it to today’s iPhone, common 43 years after the first airing of Star Trek: TOS and tell me someone didn’t underestimate the progress we would make in handheld telecommunications.)

If you were there, do you agree with my “mood assessment”?  Or, was I just sitting with the happy people and reading the happy tweets?  What do you think was done to help maintain that mood?

And before anyone scoffs at this blog post, remember, consumer confidence is a major economic indicator.  Events like the IT Sector Dialogue could help shape the confidence of innovators across the state.

P.S. And, for feel good events, hard to beat this week’s MITX annual Technology awards.  (Thanks for the invite, gang!)  In addition to lots of the usual suspects among the finalists, there were lots of young up-and-comers with neat new stuff.  Check out Wade’s article on the event.  Oh, yeah, and note the survey on the economic impact of the New England Internet and marketing industry.  Repeat after me, $28 billion.  I feel better already.