Friday, April 10, 2015

#MIN73 -- Six Years!

Happy Birthday!
Mass Innovation Nights celebrated its 6th birthday on Wednesday with a distributed event hosted at several places in Cambridge -- the hotbed of innovation in Massachusetts.  Big thanks go out to danger!awesome, NGIN Workplace, CIC, and Workbar.

Your correspondent imagined flitting between venues and covering the whole shebang, but instead spent the time helping staff the At-Hand Apps table with our founder, Robert Gray. By the way, if you have an iPhone or iPad and haven't downloaded Massachusetts At-Hand from the app store, what the heck are you waiting for? Get out and explore Massachusetts -- there's way more to do and see than you imagine.

Robert Telling the At-Hand Story

Like other MIN alumni, we were located at NGIN. It was great to see al Freshco again. I love their model of locally sourced food delivered locally by bike. Who needs a "Dash button" when you've got al Freshco?

al Freshco Meal Kits Rule!
Imagine the temptations of having a table situated between al Freshco and Taste of Chocolate. If felt a little like MINFoodie!

Taste of Chocolate
I got a chance to talk to Boston's premier snow as a service innovator, Kyle of  Ship Snow Yo, about shipping the historic Boston snow, about the North Shore's history of shipping ice around the world,  and about why, alas, shipping snow is not a solution to the California drought. Too bad it costs more to clean the snow than to desalinate the ocean. And no, I did not ship Boston to snow to my brother in Dubai, in case you wondered.

Ship Snow Yo!
The guest host at our venue was Dennis Keohane, staff writer for PandoDaily, ably assisted by ace wordsmith Alan Dillingham.

Dennis Keohane Reading the Intro to the Presentations
All the venues were connected in a Google Hangout and each presenter got one minute to tell their story. It was a lot of fun, but the technology really needs to mature some and presenters and hosts need to pay more attention to where the camera is. We got to see lots of presentations by the tops of people's heads.

Top of Ted Chaloner's Head on Screen
Brass  Presenting and Being Visible on Screen
The event was a lot of fun and Founder/Queen/Empress of MIN, BobbieC made it to all the venues.
There were no "experts looking expert" or costumes or props to photograph, so I'll wrap up with the founder herself looking seriously entrepreneurial.

6 Years of MIN is Epic!