Friday, January 6, 2012

Blog

Mass Innovation Nights goes for themes

By Bobbie Carlton, co-founder, Mass Innovation Nights; founder, Carlton PR and Marketing

Mass Innovation Nights events tend to be messy things — all whim and whimsy, with a surprise around every corner. We frequently get asked about theme nights but we try to avoid them. Yes, yes, looking at the 2012 calendar, we will have a few — a social good and nonprofit event in March (submit your product now), co-hosted by Space with a Soul, our annual Foodie event, plus game night in August. We tend to find that the variety of new products is what makes Mass Innovation Nights different and interesting, and any theme nights also fall into the wild and woolly category.

But sometimes themes, subthemes, groupings or pairings present themselves. (We work through the queue of products submitted through the website, confirming the next ten companies from the list, so any themes are purely accidental). Our December event, held at the IBM Innovation Center, presented a group focused on the job hunt, with Cangrade focused on managing the hiring process and Job Hunt Express helping job hunters manage their own search. BoardProspects helps organizations recruit board members. And MyMentorLink targets high school students and helps them work out their vocational focus.

Over the course of the evening, the most common query we heard was also around hiring — this person is looking for a sales person, someone else is looking for a developer, someone wanted marketing help and someone needed a bookkeeper. Not as many job seekers but there were a few. (We’re seeing fewer job seekers at all the events we attend — are you?)

But not to worry, we still had our wild assortment — food (Budibar), jewelry and recycling were also represented there. Never the same event twice.

And speaking of other events, we need to direct your attention to The Capital Network’s Minute to Win It special pitch event. We were able to give out tickets to a few of our exhibitors, including December exhibitor Mosaic — not a job hunt-themed product but an archive tool for photographers. The MTWI program had the entrepreneurs pitching their companies in, you guessed it, a minute. Mosaic made it to the finals on the strength of their regular pitch but changed things up in front of the larger audience.
 

Editor's Note: Bobbie Carlton’s role in running Mass Innovation Nights gives her a bird’s-eye view of the local tech and innovation scene — at least a nighttime view, and from a perspective that is at times journalistic, at times boosterish, and always entrepreneurial. Frankly, we think it’s a view that this region needs: Someone who asks good questions, hopes for the best in all of the region’s innovations and has some skin in the game. And that’s why we’ve asked her to become a regular contributor to Masshightech.com. Bobbie’s background includes lead public relations roles at large tech ventures (Cognos and PTC), agency work with clients such as the MathWorks, Lexmark and FTP Software, and heading up marketing for the Beacon Street Girls, a brand with a book series, social network for kids, and line of gifts and accessories. She founded Carlton PR & Marketing in 2008. Her weekly Innovation Breakfast series offer entrepreneurs a chance to talk about their startups, particularly their marketing plans and she is a regular mentor at MassChallenge. She is also the head of marketing at Accounting Management Solutions, one of the area’s larger sources of part-time CFOs and controllers. Over the last two years, monthly Mass Innovation Nights events have provided a local venue for new product launches — more than 300 to date. MIN is a monthly product launch party and networking event that mobilizes the local social media community to support new product launches with increased visibility: blogging, tweeting, “liking,” or posting online video and pictures.