An Interview with Scott Kirsner about New England Innovation Month

June 2009 is New England Innovation Month

With June being New England Innovation Month, we decided to dedicate the Mass Innovation Nights blog to helping out the cause.  The biggest part of what we do is highlight new and innovative products, services, ideas and people, so we’re kicking things off with a short interview with Scott Kirsner, author of the new book Friends, Fans And Followers, the Innovation Economy blog and Boston Globe column, and New England’s Chief Innovation Officer (thanks to Jeff Bennett for the title.)  Scott and others got together one night to bring New England Innovation Month to life.

MassInno: Was the initial planning meeting itself the result of long planning, a specific impetus, or a group of people from a certain event?

Scott: It was a bit of an off-shoot from this year’s Nantucket Conference (the 10th edition), and how much good energy there was about new  ventures and entrepreneurship at that event. Then I noticed that  there were a lot of things happening in June, including “What’s Next  in Tech,” an event that I’m moderating at Boston University, along  with an Xconomy event, and stuff organized by MITX, Mass TLC,  MassNetComms, and of course, MassInno.

MassInno:  Did you go into this meeting thinking, we’re going to create a month-long celebration of Innovation in New England?

Scott: Not really. In talking with a group of people about how we can foster  more inventiveness and creativity and start-up activity in New  England, the idea for an Innovation Month just sort of emerged. Fresh  Tilled Soil built the site in a couple days, a few people created  logos, and then a bunch of folks on Twitter started using the tag  #neinno to let people know about it. The unfortunate thing about  artificially-created months (like National Rabies Prevention Month,  for instance) is that they’re nothing more than a press release. We  decided to skip the press release and just get people involved  through the social Web.

MassInno:  When you put out the call for ideas, what did you get?

Scott: Well, the central idea is that to jump-start the regional economy, we  should do more connecting and communicating — so we’re trying to  encourage everyone involved in New England’s innovation economy to  participate in at least one event in June. Beyond that, there has  been some talk about a “Daily Candy of New England Innovation” –  though I’m not sure exactly what that would entail… databases of  companies, people, and investors… new ways to connect students with  local companies… and, one of my favorite ideas, a collection of  digital baseball cards of New England geeks. Hopefully, what happens  in June will spawn lots of ideas that take shape throughout the rest  of 2009.

MassInno: Thanks, Scott!  Of course we’re loving the idea of more connecting and communicating, especially at live events.  But digital baseball cards sound like fun too!  Collect all of them!