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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Bill Warner's Outstanding Unconference, 8 Fellows and three Ferraris

It was great to attend my first Unconference today. Every influential and committed individual in the Boston ecosystem was there. Over 500 people. If you haven't been to an Unconference, attend one. The agenda is set in the morning - people simply write on pieces of paper issues they have questions about, then post them on the board, and people end up in rooms talking about the issues. Its a very interesting format. The buzz lasts all day, and the partying continued afterwards. I cannot do justice to the event; guys like Scott Kirsner and Galen Moore will do a far better job covering the highlights tomorrow. But I liked the concept of giving out Ferraris by raffle for day-long and overnight drives. Sadly I didn't win one, but at least I had the best ever odds of getting one today.

Its always great to see familiar faces, SLP Fellows were out there hustling, networking, meeting, and mentoring. Folks I ran into (we almost did an SLP Session....) included

Ariel Assaf, Wishclipper / Founders Institute
Antonio Faillace, FAuthors Globe
Vishy Vishwanathan, Lamhe / Longworth Venture Partners
Punit Shah, Zazu
Krishna Ramachandran, 11 Under
Chase Gabardino, Pinyadda/BostInno
Sidi Gomes, ParallelCities
Vineet Sinha, Architexa

Also ran into Mark Haddad of Foley Hoag, our long-time supporter and counsel, and Shawn Broderick, who'll be moderating "How I got funded" on October 19. I am sure there were others...do let us know if you came. Great conversations, lots of discussion, and a lot of excitement around SLP from several VCs and Serial Entrepreneurs. There is definitely a lot of differing opinions, changing theories and business models up for discusssion today around mobile, healthcare, tech, cleantech and enterprise software

Separately, congrats to a couple of our Fellows - you know who you are. More to come.

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