Friday, October 3, 2008

MassTLC bridges generations with crowded UnConference

By Rodney Brown

The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council held an unconventional conference yesterday at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Burlington that drew together some of the most accomplished individuals in the New England technology landscape, along with dozens of entrepreneurs with nascent tech businesses.

According to Heather Johnson, vice president of strategic relations at MassTLC, the conference had 280 attendees — with 40 people on the waiting list — in a space that was supposed to hold 220.

The unconference was opened by Tom Hopcroft, MassTLC executive director, who introduced the two co-chairs of the event — Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology Inc. and Mass High Tech All-Star in 2007, and James Geshwiler of Common Angels, a Mass High Tech 2004 All-Star.

As an unconference, the event had almost no real structured agenda, and after the process was explained to the crowd, any of the various attendees designated as “experts” were invited to come up to the front of the main hall, grab a sheet of paper and write down a topic on which they wanted to lead a discussion. After shouting it out over the din of the crowd, the expert — including such names as Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com Corp. — stuck the paper to the wall under one of the available time slots and conference rooms. Anyone wishing to attend simply walked up and noted the time and place.

According to Hopcroft, the conference generated a great deal of buzz. “The blogosphere is really heating up.”

“Now the key is how we keep the momentum moving forward,” said Johnson.

While there will likely be another unconference in MassTLC’s future, Hopcroft wants to use all of the industry organization’s tools to move that momentum.

“I think the unconference format is a great format, and you will probably see that again in this area, but I think what we saw yesterday was a need for fostering innovation and mentorship, so we will continue that in this format and other formats,” Hopcroft said. That would include MassTLC’s awards programs, panel discussions and various other mechanisms it uses to connect with the community, he said.

The entrepreneurs who attended to learn from the experts and share their experiences were sponsored by a number of corporate sponsors, Johnson said. Among those were Levine Katz Nannis + Solomon PC, Microsoft Corp., Phase Forward Inc., Sun Microsystems and Wilmer Hale. In addition, various MassTLC council trustees also sponsored entrepreneurs.

“The council is very appreciative of the sponsors that took the risk with us,” she said.

One standout from the event for Johnson was the multiple generations in attendance. “That is something that doesn’t get done around here very much,” she said.