Providing innovators with a place to connect with the media, influential bloggers, the marketplace and each other.
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Last year Scott Kirsner gathered together a group of folks to declare June Innovation Month in New England. It was nice to see the attention being paid to local innovation and maybe Scott’s columns, the mentions in numerous blogs and the consolidated calendar helped to encourage a few more people to get out and see what others were doing.
Based on the success of that effort, it was a no-brainer to make it happen again – Scott called together a group of folks and we discussed ideas for how we could make Innovation Month 2.0 better, faster, stronger…
Today we’re kicking off the second New England Innovation month – look for events and blog posts marked with #NEInno. (MassInno expects to see even more blogs contributing to the effort this year and we will do our level best to Tweet about them, link to them and other help promote them as they promote New England Innovation. Drop us a line if we’re slow to link.)
We’re excited to be involved in New England Innovation Month. We’ll do anything we can to encourage people to leave their desk, get out of the office and do something a little out of the ordinary. You never know when inspiration may hit. You never know what may inspire you.
And here’s where we depart from the usual Mass Innovation Nights script. (BTW, if you didn’t already know this, we’ll lay it out for you. Mass Innovation Nights is a super-friendly networking event – we encourage all and try to make sure we have something good to say about everyone. We’re the nicey-nice event in town.)
Forget inspiration. Forget networking. Forget about “working together because when one of us wins we all win”. Do this for you. When was the last time you looked at what the competition was doing? Maybe with an eye toward one-upping them? When did you last sit in on a demo from one of those super-hot startups who will be competing with you for investor dollars? How long has it been since you really took a look at what is going on in your own back yard? And looked at what your own firm is doing with a critical eye?
How long have you been working on your current project? For your current company? Is your knowledge about the rest of the industry really up-to-date? Competitors. Potential partners. Parallel industries. What do you really know about them?
You need to get out more. Seriously. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your company. If you are an entrepreneur, you owe it to your investors or potential investors. Get serious about educating yourself about what else is happening in the marketplace. And the best way to do that is not by sitting at your desk.
Consider your ass kicked…
But in a loving supportive manner.
Some of the blog posts already out there:
Computer Science Teacher thoughts
Greenhorn Top 10 Events in June
MassChallenge will also be important to Innovation Month. We are a global startup competition, inviting anyone, anywhere, with any idea to enter by JUNE 11. Entrepreneurs receive free resources including networking opportunities, mentoring, and workshops, and at the end of the competition we are giving away $1 million in awards! Enter at http://www.masschallenge.org.