all about #MIN27

this way

Westward ho! This month's Mass Innovation Night was at CCR LLP in Westborough, easy to find, plenty of parking, and a huge training room set up for us. 

the check-in desk

BetterScape  snagged the best location for getting attention right as people entered the training room. I totally love the concept: a Facebook game to reward your friends for good deeds in real life -- making the world a better place. An idea whose time has come.  I chatted with the guys about how in the late Jurassic when I was a young programmer, people gave each other rides to work when their cars were in the shop and fed their cats when they had to be away on business trips. Using the ginormous amount of time people spend on Facebook to bring back that kind of behavior can payoff in a better world for everybody, even if it isn't much of a business model.

Aris in his innovative hat talking with Casey from BetterScape

Aris made sure I took a picture of the wonderful food. Folks should give Aris a BetterScape badge for wearing his chef hat to the event. The food spread in the Experts Corner had loads of fruit, vegetables, and cheeses. Just the thing for a hot summer night.


innovators like fruit

Bedford Stem Cell Research had the most attention-getting graphic display for their PVSA  Post-Vasectomy Semen Analysis mail in test kit.  They have a solution for a problem I did not know existed.


Bedford Stem Cell Research - PVSA


I checked out PostPost. They were wearing matching red t-shirts and talking about social search -- explaining how to filter the Twitter stream.  I award them second prize for costume (Aris gets first prize for his hat.) This is a great idea! There are so many times when I want to go back in time to find something I saw in my Twitter stream or catch up on what everybody has been saying about a particular topic. It's "content curation" for the Twitter stream.  Even if you think that Twitter is only about what your friends had for breakfast, PostPost can help you find historical content about those breakfasts. I have already started using it.


PostPost

On the other side of the room, I chatted with iPresentOnline  about their cool tool for adding social aspects to elearning and online training courses. I think the #techcomm crowd might find this useful.

iPresentOnline

I chatted with Rob from TourSphere about his extremely cool mobile app generator for museums and cultural attractions. It makes it really easy for institutions to develop platform-independent mobile tours. This seems like an opportunity for cooperation and mutual benefit for our New England Day Trips At Hand app. I gave Rob a brief demo of our app on my iTouch. We could get people to the attractions and the apps they build with TourSphere could take people around the attractions. By the way, the nearest attraction to CCR is Ashland State Park. Wish I'd brought a fishing pole and a picnic.

Rob from TourSphere presenting

I was impressed with the turnout in way out in I-495 land, especially on a night with the Bruins in the fight for the Stanley Cup and the Red Sox playing the Yankees.  The Bruins game did give the presenters a strong incentive for keeping to their 5 minute times slots so everybody could catch the puck drop. BetterScape badges to all for that!

the crowd is building

I saw people tweeting up a storm fast and furious, though it was hard to tweet at the speed of the presenters.

standing room

 TemplateZone's Facebook page builder demo was the hit of the night. He created, edited, and posted a professional-looking Facebook page with 12 seconds to spare on his 5 minute presentation. Spontaneous applause broke out!

TemplateZone building a Facebook page in less than 5 minutes

The Experts Corner was well-stocked with experts. Jeff from CCR LLP took a break from giving accounting expertise to pose for the traditional "experts looking expert" shot.

expert looking expert