Tech leaders hope 'unConference' will inspire entrepreneurs

Technology entrepreneurs, weary of structure but hungry for connections, are getting ready for the unConference.

While the fall calendar is traditionally loaded with high-tech conferences in the Boston area, none of them has inspired anyone to grow a local version of Google Inc. or anything like it for many years.

So the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council will try another tack. The group is hosting an Innovation unConference Oct. 2 at the Sun Microsystems Inc. campus in Burlington in an effort to spark dialogue between young and veteran entrepreneurs.

"Different generations have different wisdom," said Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology Inc. in Tewksbury, who is organizing the event. "We're trying to bring all that together. We need to reinvent how we work around here and how we think. We were number two to Silicon Valley. Now we're still number two, but Silicon Valley's grown and we've stayed the same. We need to change how we play the game."

Step one may be the unConference itself.

Unlike the technology group's usual meetings, where big name speakers address an audience, or its fall investor conferences, where start-up captains pitch to venture capitalists, the unConference is billed as a series of eight to 12 interactive discussions running in parallel around common interests. The agenda of the sessions will be set by participants collectively on the morning of the event.

Warner said the design of the conference will be modeled on the Internet, with roaming participants "surfing sessions." He cited the "rule of two feet," which allows people to move on when they're bored. Four generations of technology figures will take part, he said.

There will also be back-to-back lunch and dessert sessions in which 45 "experts," serial entrepreneurs or venture backers, huddle at small tables with three or four others.

The council is giving discounts to 60 entrepreneurs. About 100 other businesspeople, investors, service providers, and students are expected to attend at a price of $295 for the public, $195 for council members.

"This is a new approach," said Tom Hopcroft, executive director of the technology leadership council. "We're looking at innovative ways that the council can achieve its mission, which is to foster entrepreneurship and drive innovation in the region. And we're hoping it will help us create the next billion-dollar company here."

For the unConference, the Massachusetts technology group has tapped a Berkeley, Calif.-based professional facilitator, Kaliya Hamlin, who has run about 50 similar events worldwide, mostly on the West Coast. Hamlin, known as "Identity Woman" for her work in the movement to enable a single log-on for all websites, promotes gatherings based around "open space technology" with no preset agendas.

"Whoever comes are the right people," she said, summarizing her philosophy. "Whatever happens is the only thing that could have. Whenever it starts is the right time. And whenever it's over, it's over."

Whether such a free-flowing approach can work in tradition-bound Massachusetts remains to be seen. But interest is heavy. Hopcroft said the council is "oversubscribed" on experts and already has fielded 85 applications from entrepreneurs for scholarships.

"I think it's really cool," said Bill Clerico, chief executive at WePay.com, a website based in Revere that lets college fraternities or families planning reunions store money in joint accounts. "We have some un-traditional needs for advice on the best ways to approach the [venture capitalists]. So I'm kind of excited about going in and finding some people who will talk about what we're interested in."

Don Dodge, director of business development at Microsoft Corp. in Waltham, said he's looking forward to participating as an unConference expert. "We're all entrepreneurs," he said. "Microsoft started with Bill Gates and Paul Allen, two guys and an idea. We're here to help the Massachusetts start-up ecosystem."

For more information about the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council's unConference on Oct. 2, go to www.masstechleaders.org.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.