Part I of III (New Blood, New Ideas, New Perspectives)
As promised, I am sharing my thoughts on TiE CON East 2008 as a three part series. I was in TiE Boston on the 29th and 30th of May and what a fantastic experience it was. As should always be the case, I will highlight the positives of the conference - together with the experiences gained and the lessons learned - before I devout the concluding part of my third and final post towards discussing what could have (potentially) been done better. Neverthless, it was a great personal experience.
Not only was it a great conference to attend, but what made it even more meaningful was the fact that I travelled with the wonderful troika of three of the top proponents of entrepreneurship in Ottawa; Bharat Rudra, Bruce Jones and Rick Norland. Their company, and the constant flow of thoughts in the form of discussions around entrepreneurship, business development and the state of affairs in Canada in general and Ottawa in particular contributed immensely to my successful experience. As also, it validated that “there is no substitute for storytelling” and “it is great to have someone experienced to share thoughts with when they are still warm and fresh”.
“New Blood, New Ideas and New Perspectives”, is the theme of this post and I will concentrate on the same. We have, regularly, in our interactions in Ottawa discussed the need for infusion of new ideas and exposure to new perspectives. TiE CON did it for me - and in a big way. The diversity of the crowd was amazing, and their openess to talk and share was worth celebrating. For once, I found myself in an event, where folks did not vanish after a session and the crowd actually had to be asked repeatedly to make way for other people to come and get their food from the tables outside the venues. It was “Networking 101″ …. if you did not reach out, people reached out to you. And frankly, there were new stories to hear, new best practises to discover and new faces to recognize. I think all of that makes a fundamental difference, especially when you can for once not put words in someones mouth while listening to them speak from a podium. It was a long one half days (almost three with the drive to Boston and back), but I feel rejuvenated. And Craig Newmark was a breath of fresh air.
To anyone interested in grassroot entrepreneurship and plugged into this conversation, I have three core things to say.
1) Dont miss an opportunity to interact (and share your experiences) with anyone - even better if that person is not colocated within a 50 km radius.
2) Avail any opportunity to travel with any other entrepreneurs. I learnt immensely from my three travel companions. The (almost) 16 hours spend driving to Boston and back were invaluable.
3) Never stop believing in story telling.
On a different note, it was quiet amusing when quiet a few of the people I interacted with expressed surprise that there was representation from Ottawa (I really think that they do not realize down South that the snow in Canada thaws at some point of time in the year) …. and the fact that a good percentage of folks I talked to did not realize the importance of Ottawa (from an ICT/entrepreneurship perspective) is a topic for another day. I wanted to get it off my chest, so that I could concentrate on the event itself in my next two posts.
Please stay plugged in.
Manu
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