 |
| The Crowd Waiting for the Doors to Open at Workbar for MIN67 |
Women entrepreneurs, huge crowd, a big announcement, and a live animal! What more could you want in a Mass Innovation Nights event?
 |
| Artistic Rendering of the Crowd before It Got Really Dense |
Workbar was the gracious host for an evening of women founders and Babson's
Center for Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) was a generous sponsor. The Student Startup Spotlight featured startups from the
Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship.
Autodesk was there too, featuring a recruiting table.
 |
| Tables on the Second Floor Too |
From the crowd lined up on the sidewalk waiting for the doors to open to the jam-packed tables throughout the venue, this was one busy, crowded, loud, huge event. Good on women founders for making some noise! Good on Mass Innovation Nights and BobbieC for providing the megaphone for all this great noise.
Tables were spread out over two floors and tucked away in alcoves. I knew from the get go that I wouldn't make it to every table (usually my goal at MIN) so I tried to get the most out of the ones I could get near :-) I think the only creature shorter than me at this thing was Eugene the hedgehog. :-). Did I mention the first ever live animal at MIN? Yup,
Meet Eugene, the purveyor of healthy and affordable hedgehog food, actually had Eugene at the table. Sooooo cute! I learned lots about keeping a pet hedgehog and loved meeting Eugene.
 |
| I Met Eugene! |
I loved
ReFleece's colorful and trendy iPad cases, bags, and other products made from fleece and wool upcycled from your old jacket (recovered garments, collected through Patagonia's Common Threads Program), scraps from the cutting room floor (Woolrich, Polartec), or other odd bits and ends that couldn't be used by one or another of their partners, and, of course, plastic bottles!
 |
| ReFleece |
On the Dot Books got my attention with a table full of well-curated books, and a wildly ambitious and brilliant plan for using books and the arts to connect people all over the world. Passepartout is an airport-to-airport, train station-to-train station rental service for books, magazines, games, and toys - operated by local independent bookstores. From a pop-up bookstore in Dot 2 Dot Cafe to networking the world through books! Using indie bookstores to connect the world! Looking forward to hearing more from them as the network develops.
 |
| Books of Dorchester |
The team from
WeGush was probably the most enthusiastic and assertive group of women in the house. It was impossible to miss them unleashing gratitude all over the place. How do you productize gratitude? Simply put, WeGush makes it easy (and fun) for a group to express their appreciation for someone special -- a retiree, a coach, a teacher, a BobbieC -- by posting messages to virtual appreciation wall boards. Yup, they worked a surprise live appreciation of BobbieC into their presentation (confession, I knew about this in advance).
 |
| WeGush Team Leaning In |
The chosen presenters were
WeGush,
Booze Epoque,
Orora Global, and
Secret Ships Caravan, an impressive lineup. Gratitude, craft cocktails from local produce, electricity for rural communities, and a mobile boutique -- a typical MIN lineup if ever there was one.
Orora Global made the biggest impression on me: renewable, off-the-grid, energy solutions for places with unreliable or no power AND empowering women micro-entrepreneurs in those places. Oh yea, state of the art technology too. It was no surprise that they won the American Airlines Business Extra Points fan favorite voting. They'll be using the points for an upcoming trip to India. You go, girls!
The other Business Extra Points winners were Secret Ships Caravan, ReFleece, and BoozeEpoque. All of them made big impressions with attendees. Booze Epoque served samples of their craft cocktails. Those who partake of such beverages gave good reviews. It is pretty cool that they use beets and other wonderful vegetables from local farms, like my personal favorite
Mill City Grows (speaking of women founders -- Yay Lydia and Francey!), to make party beverages. Secret Ships Caravan added the most color to the presentations with slides of their beautiful textiles from all over the world. They also issued a call to action for the City of Boston to get a permitting process up and running to allow retail trucks. If you want retail trucks like Secret Ships Caravan in Boston, tweet about it with the hashtag
#WeWantRetailTrucks.
 |
| Business Extra Points Winners Posing for Photographer |
But wait, there's more! MIN Founder Bobbie Carlton announced a new initiative called
Innovation Women. It's a much needed solution to the problem of getting more visibility for technical and entrepreneurial women. Innovation Women's speakers bureau will help event managers find awesome panelists and help women entrepreneurs get in front of the right audiences. Follow @WomenInno on Twitter to watch this develop.
 |
| Crowd Listening and Tweeting |
Between the crowd and the noise, I was a little overwhelmed so didn't
take as many interesting photos as I usually do. I have been working on
my crowd photos, but am beginning to think I should get me a drone and a
GoPro for that purpose. I did get a couple of shots that convey the
density and diversity of the crowd. It was quite an intense, lively, and amazing event. Another home run by Mass Innovation Nights.
For the closing shot, here's an attempt to convey how loud and crowded it was:
