Our February Innovation Breakfast speaker was Shawn Broderick from TechStars. Based in Boulder, TechStars came to Boston last year and Shawn has been a fixture in the Boston Innovation Economy scene ever since. TechStars provides seed capital and mentors for a class of startups every summer. The TechStars decision makers look for companies they think they can help get off the ground and onto the next level.
For #InnoB4 (our February Innovation Breakfast), Shawn trekked out to Waltham and sat down for a good old conversation about TechStars, entrepreneurship and innovation.
One story Shawn shared led to his sharing the website StartUpVisa.com. Evidently, more than one entrepreneur accepted into the TechStars program from overseas has had issues getting here. Humph.
Check out our Innovation Nights video channel on YouTube for comments from Shawn’s session and our other events!
While Mass Innovation Nights is unabashedly pro-all-things-MA, we took a more global approach, at least this month with Innovation Breakfast. Our “conversation leader” was Lucian Wagner, general partner from Eurous Ventures, and one of the go-to folks involved with Launch in US, an organization devoted to helping European companies launch in the US and find local partners.
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It’s a conspiracy. At least it seems like it. Another speaker change for our January event. Ah, well. But you roll with it and everything turns out great in the end. Our Innovation Breakfast series is still pretty new but we’ve already had two great conversations and networking get-togethers. And, January looks to be another good one, even if we have had to change our speaker a couple of times. So, third time’s the charm.
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Unfortunately, Shawn Broderick from TechStars has a conflict so Stephan Dietrich, President, Neolane, has kindly stepped in for our January event. Shawn will be making it up to us at a future event — just building up the excitement a bit, right, Shawn?
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When we asked Branko Gerovac to share some of his research into the data behind the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, we knew what we were getting into. Discussions with Branko and a look at Empirical Reality, his innovation blog that takes a hard look at the numbers can sometimes come off as depressing to Massachusetts innovation cheerleaders, and he freely admits it. But to move ahead, we need to understand where we’ve been.
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The Future of MA High Tech Conference (download video here or check out the #MATechHub tweet stream), or MA Tech Hub for short, was held December 7th at the offices of Communispace in Watertown. (For those of you who have never been there, their conference space/lunchroom is decorated like Fenway park, complete with Green Monster in the back).
Communispace CEO Diane Hessan kicked off the festivities by noting that her company has hired 40 new employees this year, showing that the tech industry has been quicker to recover from the economic downturn than other sectors.
She was followed by Donna Cupelo, New England Regional President of Verizon, who echoed Diane’s assessment, and noted that tech growth can fuel growth overall, or as she put it, “Innovation has an agnostic impact.” (An interesting turn of phrase; I would have said “a rising tide lifts all boats”, but that’s just me).
Jack Wilson, President of UMass, discussed the Government/Business/Academe collaboration that brought about this conference, while taking the opportunity to show off his new Droid.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick delivered the keynote address, noting that the staff at Communispace had provided him with a new avatar for his Twitter account (not Denzel Washington, as he had hoped, but ex-SNL cast member Tim Meadows). His speech focused on the importance of the tech industry in Massachusetts, noting that it is made up of 10,000 firms employing 178,000 people, and makes up 18% of the state’s GDP.
During a brief Q & A after the speech, one of the audience noted that Apple marks its products with a “Designed in California” label, and suggested that Massachusetts firms do likewise. The Governor agreed, citing Harmonix’s “Rock Band” as an example, but noting that New Englanders tend to be more reticent about such things, saying “We don’t like to brag” (Red Sox and Pats fans, fee free to disagree with the Guv). When another questioner asked Patrick to sum up his view of the MA tech industry in one word, he responded, “I’ll give you three: We invent things.”
Professor Michael Goodman from UMass Dartmouth followed Patrick with his summary of the report prepared by the UMass Donahue Institute Economic & Policy Research (you can download your own copy here ). Some highlights of the study:
Following Professor Goodman’s presentation, there was a roundtable discussion with Gregory Bialecki of the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, Colin Angle from iRobot, Dave Balter of BzzAgent, John Halamka from Beth Israel and Harvard Medical School, Rich Miner from Google, and Jeff Nick from EMC.
The discussion began by noting some of the major changes in everyday life in the past 10 years due to IT (in 1999, there were no smart phones, YouTube, or social media). Boston’s legacy as a center for higher education was cited as both a benefit and a drawback; Balter said that marketing degree programs have not kept up to date with advances in IT, and he prefers that employee candidates show their skills in “connectivity, not creativity,” and “if he hires one more person who can’t convert PowerPoint to a PDF, he’ll kill himself.”
Angle said that the state needs to create more incentives for the students who come to Boston to study to stay here after they finish their education. Miner’s recommendation was more “anchor companies”, like Wang and DEC of years past, to attract entrepreneurs. During the Q & A, after the roundtable, Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner stirred the pot by raising the issue of non-competes; would eliminating them spur innovation in the state?
Jeff Nick’s response was that there are good and bad non-competes, and cited numerous companies started by ex-EMC employees, though when pressed by Kirsner, he declined (or refused?) to name any, and bristled at the suggestion that these companies were started by “disgruntled” former employees. Miner countered by saying “Any non-compete is a bad non-compete,” though this is a moot point for Google, as non-competes are not enforceable in California.
One suggestion from Balter: rebranding the term “IT”, as he feels it is outdated (Innovation Technology? Business Technology?)
A final thought: driving home from the event, a radio commercial from Foxwoods Resort & Casino asked musicians to submit their entries to a contest to remake John Pizzarelli’s ubiquitous “The Wonder Of It All” jingle. Could MA tech firms do something similar, jointly sponsoring a local songwriter to come up with a “MA Tech Inside” jingle for all the Roombas, Bose headphones, and Boston Scientific stents?
Some other posts, stories, etc.:
Nat Hefferman, Mass Innovation Nights MIN-ion
There has been a lot of discussion about the state of innovation in Boston and Massachusetts. The expressed concern is that Boston is losing its innovative edge compared to other innovation centers, such as Silicon Valley, Seattle, and others. Branko Gerovac will lead our next Innovation Breakfast,Friday, December 18.
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What a great group we had! A big thanks to everyone who helped to promote it beforehand here, (and here), and those who attended and contributed to a great conversation on “Entrepreneurship and Innovation in 2009 and Beyond: Massachusetts vs. Silicon Valley”, lead by Ron Croen. Thanks so much, Ron. It was an informative and enjoyable conversation, and a great way to kick-off our new monthly event.
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Eric Ries of The Lean Startup fame spoke at MIT last night. (Kudos to Tom Summit from Genotrope, and others, who brought him to town.)
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We’re kicking off the Innovation Breakfast series with a terrific presentation from Ronald Croen, entrepreneur, leader and business adviser based in Silicon Valley who has been named the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Tufts University for the 2009-2010 academic year.
Innovation Breakfast will be reviewing innovative products and company concepts, and we want you to help. Tell us what you think! Where does each product/company/inventor fall on the Genius or Kook scale?
