By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Angel of the Year: Andy Palmer of Koa Labs

Rising Star VC (Tie): Rob Go of NextView Ventures and Stephen Kraus of Bessemer Venture Partners

Rising Star Entrepreneur: Sravish Sridhar of Kinvey

Deal of the Year (Tech): Actifio

Deal of the Year (Healthcare): Moderna Therapuetics

Entrepreneur of the Year (Tech): Andy Ory of Acme Packet

Entrepreneur of the Year (Healthcare): Katrine Bosley of Avila Therapeutics

VC of the Year (Tech) : Spark Capital

VC of the Year (Healthcare) : Third Rock Ventures

Exit of the Year (Tech) Acme Packet, acquired by Oracle

Exit of the Year (Healthcare): Avila Therapeutics, acquired by Celgene

Best New Startup: Jounce Therapeutics

Hottest Startup: Wayfair

Photos from the event are on NEVCA's Facebook page, and the complete list of nominees is here.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

To remember those killed and injured... To express our gratitude to the first responders and the healthcare professionals who helped the city get through a pretty horrific week... To reclaim one of our favorite neighborhoods, Back Bay...And to help the businesses there get back on their feet.

Katie Burke of HubSpot and Kate Castle of Flybridge Capital took that idea and ran with it, and Tuesday night (April 30th), there's a pub crawl they organized that starts at 6 PM. Eleven startups, tech giants, accelerators, and venture capital firms are hosting gatherings at seven Back Bay bars. They'll be buying a few rounds, and inviting attendees to donate generously to the city's OneFund, which helps victims of the bombings.

You don't need to work at the host companies to come, or even know anyone who works there. Everyone's invited, whether you work in the startup world or not. If you're planning to go, send out a tweet or Facebook update with the #BackToBackBay hashtag, to let your friends know what bar you'll be at, at what time, so they can join you.

Here's who is hosting at each venue.

• Globe Bar and Café – PromoBoxx and DataXu
• Lir – Wayfair
• Lolita Cocina – Flybridge and BzzAgent
• McGreevey’s – Digital Lumens, Flybridge and HubSpot
• Solas – Kibits and Plastiq
• Towne – HubSpot
• Whiskey's – Microsoft and MassChallenge

The map for the event is here.

I'm planning to hit Towne at 6:30 and Lolita around 7:30. Hope to see you there...

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Snooki's potential successor is Gui Cavalcanti, one of ten contestants on the new show "The Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius," which debuts May 1st at 10 p.m. on the Discovery Channel. Cavalcanti, right, is best-known locally as the co-founder of Artisan's Asylum, a "maker space" in Somerville that provides artists and entrepreneurs with access to a wood shop, metal shop, 3-D printers, and other tools, as well as classes in how to use them. Cavalcanti also led a successful effort last year to raise money online to build a giant, rideable six-legged robot named Stompy, pulling in almost $100,000. (I wrote about the Asylum last May, and included Cavalcanti on my 2012 list of "Innovation Amplifiers.")

"Big Brain Theory" challenges its contestants each week to come up with a solution to "a seemingly impossible engineering challenge," according to its website. Contestants on the losing team are subject to elimination. The eventual winner gets $50,000, and a one-year contract to work at WET, a Los Angeles design firm best known for the fountain show outside the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. (I guess every talented engineer dreams of one day designing water features for hotels?)

Cavalcanti says he spent about seven weeks shooting the show, in and around Los Angeles. In the first episode, airing Wednesday, he plays a major role as the teams try to stop an explosives-laden package in the bed of a pickup truck from exploding. "Big Brain Theory" feels like a blend of "Mythbusters" and "Project Runway," and it's a lot of fun to watch if you're at all interested in how design, math, and engineering can be applied in real-world scenarios.

What inspired Cavalcanti to audition for the show? He explains via e-mail, "I was an avid fan of 'Battlebots' and 'Junkyard Wars' growing up, and watching the shows got me even more interested in engineering than I was before. When I heard there was a new kind of design/build show coming up that was looking to feature real design and engineering skills (as opposed to the hacking skills that were prominent in 'Junkyard Wars'), I really wanted to participate, if only to inspire a new generation of kids to get interested in engineering like I had been. On top of that, it was an opportunity to just get away and make stuff for once, which I ironically hadn't been able to do nearly as much as I wanted while running Artisan's Asylum."

Last spring, he says, the show's producer put out a call for contestants. "After seeing it the second or third time, I decided to apply, and got a call back within a half-hour or so," Cavalcanti says. As a result of being chosen for the show, Cavalcanti handed over the reins at Artisan's Asylum to Molly Rubenstein, who had been the director of operations. He says he is now "doing half-time development work at the Asylum," and Rubenstein is serving as the new executive director.

A teaser video for the show is below:

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The overarching theme: promoting new ideas inside a large, established organization can be pretty darn hard. Resources are often scarce. Business unit leaders can be hostile. Top executives may want to talk about innovation during earnings calls, but often don't make enough of a commitment to actually rolling out the best ideas. And innovation leaders constantly worry that if they can't move the needle on revenues or costs, they may find themselves looking for their next job.

Amidst that anxiety, there were some interesting insights about how large companies approach innovation. Here are ten comments that stood out. The last one is my favorite.

• "You need to create a sense of urgency [around innovation] at a gut level, not just a PR level." — Jim Euchner, vice president of global innovation at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. (He's pictured on the left, with Moises Norena of Whirlpool.)

• Phil Swisher, chief innovation officer at the private bank Brown Brothers Harriman, said that often, HIPPOs tend to dominate discussions about innovation (HIPPO being an initialism for the "highest-paid person with an opinion.") Running experiments is much better than simply taking direction from a HIPPO, as politically difficult as that may be. "Hypothesis testing is better than hunches," Swisher said.

• "Visuals are really powerful. We try to make the invisible visible," said Lorna Ross of the Mayo Clinic's Center for Innovation. That could mean studying and mapping communication patterns in the operating room during bypass surgery. "When you can show somebody where the problems are, it can be easier to get people to change," she said.

• Whirlpool Corp. chief innovation officer Moises Norena talked about "growing the core" (the company's major appliance business), "extending the core" (offering new products and services related to that core business), and "expanding beyond the core" (new, high-margin stand-alone businesses).

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

I recorded two of the kick-off talks: one from Fred Destin of Atlas Venture, who offered a real inside glimpse at how venture capitalists typically work, and how entrepreneurs can best work the system; and one from Rob Go of NextView Ventures, who talked about resources and events in Boston that entrepreneurs should know about, based on his excellent blog post "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Boston Tech Community." (Go is pictured at right.) They run back-to-back in the player below.

Enjoy...

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

We talked about the history of the company...the site's design... raising venture capital... how they obtain merchandise and fulfill orders... the strategy of creating ancillary brands like PLNDR and MissKL... customer service... Boston as a major center of the sneaker business.... his collection of 500 pairs of sneakers... and Future Boston Alliance, the non-profit Selkoe created to help make Boston a more welcoming city for entrepreneurs and creatives of all stripes.

The audio runs 30 minutes. It's one of the funniest and most unpredictable interviews I've ever done with a CEO in public. But beware: Selkoe drops a few f-bombs during the course of the talk.

I last wrote about Karmaloop in 2011: "Up-and-coming sites may make Boston a leader in e-commerce."

(The photo above was taken by Debi Kleiman of MITX.)

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The concept is pretty simple: instead of sitting with your co-workers and griping about office politics, you spend an hour dancing to a DJ set. Sandwiches are available to eat during a break from the dancefloor, or take back to your desk.

The Lunch Beat Manifesto decrees that everyone must dance. "At Lunch Beat, everyone present is your dance partner." And also, "You don't talk about your job at Lunch Beat."

The first Lunch Beat happens March 6th at the Hack/Reduce shared space in East Cambridge. It sounds like the event will be held every month, and that it'll also take place at a Boston venue on occasion. (Likely at the Boston Innovation Center on Northern Ave., once construction is finished.) The organizers include startup advisor Dmitri Gunn, Rebecca Corliss of HubSpot, and Fred Destin of Atlas Venture, well known for his enthusiastic rug-cutting. No website yet with info about the first event, but you can either watch this page on the Lunch Beat site, or follow @DmitriGunn to stay in the loop. (I should note that I heard about the launch of Lunch Beat from three different women last week, so clearly the organizers are trying to get the male-female ratio right.)

Here's a video that gives you a taste of what Lunch Beat is about:

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Details: Friday, December 21st, 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM. Voltage Coffee, 295 Third Street, Cambridge.

Each time, we invite a few special guests, just to ensure that the schmoozing is top notch.

Joining us this time are:

• Leland Cheung, Cambridge City Council
• Nicole Fichera, Innovation District manager at Boston Redevelopment Authority
• Abby Fichtner, Hacker Chick
• Matt Lauzon, Gemvara
• Tim Loew, Massachusetts Digital Games Institute
• Marissa Lowman, LearnLaunch
• Lucy McQuilken, Intel Capital
• Rich Miner, Google Ventures
• Rudina Seseri, Fairhaven Capital
• Sravish Sridhar, Kinvey
• Reed Sturtevant, Project 11 Ventures & TechStars Boston
• Allan Tear and Melissa Withers, Betaspring
• C.A. Webb, New England Venture Capital Association

If you can make it, there's no RSVPing. Just tweet (or mention in a Facebook or LinkedIn status update) that you'll be there. Use the hash tag #cfnr, and link to this post. Feel free to bring something to demo, or schwag to give away.

Here are some pics from the last Coffee for No Reason, back in August.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The investor group included Jean Hammond and Joe Caruso, right, along with Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot, Dave Balter of BzzAgent, Rob Go of NextView Ventures, and Fred Destin of Atlas Venture.

Shah offered to invest $29,000 in digital marketing startup Jebbit, which had pegged its pre-money valuation at $5 million, and $28,000 in CoachUp, a marketplace for private sports coaches that hadn't yet established its valuation. (CommonAngels, NextView, and Jean Hammond also expressed interest in meeting with CoachUp founder Jordan Fliegel.) Gus Weber of Polaris Ventures (who wasn't actually present) offered $10,000 to Sidewalk, which helps startups sell to local businesses, at a $3 million pre-money valuation. Balter, a partner in Boston Seed Capital, said the firm would invest $150,000 in Timbre, a music app developed by Intrepid Pursuits, and Destin offered to put in $200,000. (The company asked for a $1.5 million pre-money valuation.) Balter offered $25,000 to water startup NBD Nanotechnologies on behalf of Boston Seed, at a $4 million pre-money valuation. Arcbazar, focused on connecting consumers with architects, piqued the interest of Destin at Atlas, Google Ventures, and Lucy McQuilken of Intel Capital, but didn't actually get an investment offer.

Each entrepreneur had four minutes to pitch to the investors, followed by a few minutes of Q&A. Here's a run-down of the companies that presented:

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

"We wanted to celebrate Boston's amazing evolution into one of the strongest startup scenes in the world," says organizer Dave Balter, founder of the Boston word-of-mouth marketing firm bzzagent. The "sharks," who'll be committing their own money, are Nicole Stata of Boston Seed Capital; Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot; Katie Rae of TechStars Boston; Joe Caruso of Bantam Group; Fred Destin of Atlas Venture; and Balter. Lucy McQuilken of Intel Capital will be on-stage representing a school of smaller investors that Balter has dubbed "the piranha pool."

As with the TV show, "each company has the right to ask for the terms they want, to properly mimic the standard investment process," says Balter, right. "Part of the process will be for the Sharks to determine if they'll accept the terms offered, or will try to negotiate for their own terms." As for what due diligence may take place after Thursday afternoon's presentations, Balter explains via e-mail, "The goal is to make this as real a process as possible. The agreement to invest at an angel level often doesn't include significant due diligence, so it's not expected [for] that to occur. ...An investor's reputation is based on trust, among other things, and the goal is that once they say they're doing the deal, they're doing it. Of course, there are always things in the final contract process that need to be agreed upon, so both parties will need to align on that."

Seventy startups applied; last Friday afternoon, the investors selected the six that'll have a chance to present later this week. They are:

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

VCs Rob Go of NextView Ventures and Eric Hjerpe of Kepha Partners were there schmoozing... as were Sarah Hodges of Intelligent.ly, Blank Label's Ryan Dawidjan and Brent Grinna of EverTrue. I caught up with Ben Saren of Litle & Co., Keith Cline of Dissero and Tom Summit of Catalyst Recruiting. Northeastern student Drew d'Agostino told me about his bedbug-related startup Unbugged, spawned by a close encounter with the critters, and HubSpot's David Gallant shared the latest on his shadow career as a DJ. Matthew Albrecht filled me in on BrightDriver, a startup developing audio-based games for people to play to combat boredom in the car. Grasshopper's Taylor Aldredge was in line to talk with HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, as was Satish Boppana of TouchVu, one of the participants in this fall's Betaspring accelerator program in Providence.

A few pics:

Jeremy Levine of Star Street Sports with Cheryl Morris of Nanigans.

Bobbie Carlton and Tim Stansky of Mass Innovation Nights, with Marsh Sutherland of ReferralBonus.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The first, this coming Monday, features Jack Dorsey, a co-founder and chairman of Twitter and CEO of Square, a San Francisco mobile payments company that just raised $200 million in funding. (The company has raised $341 million in total, from investors like Starbucks and Citi Ventures.) Dorsey's talk Monday evening at the Stata Center is for MIT students only — basically, a recruiting event — though he'll also be holding court with local media.

The second event, Startup Bootcamp, is free and open to anyone, on October 8th at Kresge Auditorium. In addition to local lights like Crashlytics co-founder Jeff Seibert and Paula Long of DataGravity, the speaker roster includes Dave Morin, founder of the mobile social network Path; Digg and Milk founder Kevin Rose; and Leah Busque, above, the founder of TaskRabbit, a micro-labor startup that was born in Cambridge, but is now headquartered in San Francisco.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

TEDx conferences are independently-organized gatherings loosely based on the model of the TED "mothership" event in California, which has a $7500 price tag, attendees like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, speakers like Malcolm Gladwell — and a waiting list to get in. The Boston area has already hosted several TEDx events, including TEDxBoston, TEDxNewEngland, TEDxCambridge, TEDxBU, and TEDxMassCollegeOfArtAndDesign. Most are free, but getting a seat can be challenging.

John Werner, a managing director of the Boston non-profit Citizen Schools, is assembling the team that will put on TEDxBeaconStreet on November 17th and 18th. The event will take place at the Lincoln School in Brookline, and be simulcast at Google's Cambridge office. (Werner, pictured at right, points out that while Beacon Street is one of Boston's major thoroughfares, running from Beacon Hill down into the Back Bay, Brookline, and Newton, not everything associated with the new TEDx event will happen on Beacon Street.)

Unlike other TEDx events in Boston so far, TEDxBeaconStreet will include a significant number of elementary, middle, and high school kids in the audience, Werner says. And in addition to featuring speakers like Boston Scientific co-founder John Abele and David Page of the Whitehead Institute, TEDxBeaconStreet will serve up "adventures" before and after the conference itself. Adventures offer a chance to visit interesting places around town and meet the people who run them. Werner had introduced the idea of adventures as a feature of TEDxBoston, but that event no longer puts them on.

Werner says that TEDxBeaconStreet's adventures this year will include a visit to the medical simulation lab at UMass Medical School; a walking tour of Boston's Innovation District with city planner Kairos Shen; and a conversation with screenwriter Aaron Stockard, who wrote "The Town" and "Gone Baby Gone." MassChallenge and the MIT Museum will also be hosting TEDxBeaconStreet-related parties. Sounds like fun..

(Three other TEDx events to put on your calendar: TEDxNewBedford on September 5th, TEDxNewEngland on October 24th and TEDxFenway on April 13, 2013.)

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Details: Thursday, August 2nd, 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM. Voltage Coffee, 295 Third Street, Cambridge.

Update: A few pics from the event are below.

Each time, we invite a few special guests. Here's who'll be there on Thursday (though not everyone sticks around for the full two hours...)

- Joe Chung, Redstar (@joechung)
- Mike Dornbrook, angel investor and former COO, Harmonix Music Systems
- Laura Fitton, HubSpot (@pistachio)
- Marina Hatsopoulos, Director, Tea Forte & Cynosure; founding CEO, Z Corp.
- Jennifer Lum, Adelphic Mobile (@jenniferlum)
- Rich Miner, Google Ventures (@richminer)
- Fareed Mosavat, Zynga Boston (@far33d)
- Sara Spalding, Microsoft (@saraspalding)
- Reed Sturtevant, Project 11 Ventures & TechStars Boston (@reedsturtevant)

If you can make it, there's no RSVPing. Just tweet (or mention in a Facebook or LinkedIn status update) that you'll be there. Use the hash tag #cfnr, and link to this post.

Pics below...

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

You can see the Twitter traffic from the conference here. And there's a "tag cloud" of the topics discussed on Twitter here, courtesy of Infomous.

Audio is below. Click play, or "mp3" to download for later listening.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Here's who I saw:

Ben Einstein, founder of the new accelerator program Bolt... Fareed Mosavat, the new head of Zynga Boston... Jennifer Lum of Apricot Capital... Brian Shin of Visible Measures... Michael Pao of Uber Boston... Alex Pearlman of The Next Great Generation... and Mario Ricciardelli of HipHost.

Outside the club, party hosts Patrick Campbell and Matt Lauzon of Gemvara and Cort Johnson of Terrible Labs.

Waiting in line: Tom Summit of Wayfair, Paul Blumenfeld of Genero Search Group, John Landry of Lead Dog Ventures, and HR consultant Jennifer Neves.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

If I've missed an event you consider unmissable, feel free to post a comment.

- January 27: MITX's E-Commerce Summit

Boston's e-commerce community must finally be hitting an inflection point, since it now has its own one-day gathering. Agenda features speakers from Staples, Wayfair, Gemvara, and Shoebuy.com.

- February 18: Venture Capital & Private Equity Conference at Harvard Business School

What better spot than Mitt Romney's alma mater to chew over the latest trends in the VC and PE industries?

- February 21: Ruby Riot

Just a big party, aimed at making new connections between entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, and techies.

- February 22-24: Offshore Wind Power USA

Regulators and developers get together at the Hynes to talk about the wind turbines they're trying to plant in the ocean floor.

- March 2-3: MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

Economists, team owners, managers, journos, and agents — plus the Godfather of analytics, Bill James — get together to talk about the role data plays in sports.

- April 6-8: Penny Arcade East / PAX East

Gamers (and game makers) from up and down the east coast converge on Boston for panels, demos, and concerts.

- May 3: TechStars Boston Demo Day

A new crop of 13 start-ups present their business ideas to investors and the media; there's also usually a section of seats for "community members," as well as an after-party open to all.

- May 21-23: The Cable Show

The cable television industry tries to figure out its place in a multi-screen, on-demand world. Last year's event attracted more than 12,000 attendees.

- June 3-8: Display Week 2012

The Society for Information Display brings more than 6,000 people to town for some show-and-tell about those things we spend all day staring at: digital displays.

- June 18-21: BIO International Convention

Biotech and pharma executives fill the Boston Convention Center to talk about products in development, hunt for financing, and hope to find distribution partners.

- June 26-29: Red Hat Summit and JBoss World

If open source, middleware, and virtualization get your blood pumping, you'll want to cancel your summer vacation plans and get to the Back Bay this week.

- June 22: TEDxBoston

A cavalcade of short talks by big thinkers trying to change the world, in science, technology, the arts, and the public realm.

- August 13-16: eTail East

Internet retailers talk about how they're using search engine optimization, mobile commerce, and flash sales to sell us more stuff.

- October 24-25: Inbound Marketing Summit

Conference focuses on acquiring and keeping customers using social media.

- October 24: IDEAS Boston

UMass Boston again hosts a day of presentations by provocative personalities, ranging from chefs to surgeons to museum curators.

- October 23-26: Future M Week

A week of events and parties, focusing on what's new and what's next in the field of marketing.

- October (Dates TBA): BREW Boston

Several weeks of panels, workshops, and parties for Boston entrepreneurs.

- October 25-26: Emtech at MIT

Annual conference on emerging technologies, organized by MIT's Technology Review magazine.

- November 16: Mass TLC's Innovation Unconference

The biggest tech gathering of the year, where the agenda is created by the participants on the morning of the event. Also features one-on-one advice sessions for entrepreneurs.

- November (Date TBA): Eighth Conference on Clean Energy

A two-day event that features panels on funding dynamics, start-up pitches, and discussions of new technologies.

(Note: I've left off several events that I'm involved with organizing, like the Nantucket Conference and Convergence Forum, since obviously I'm biased.)

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

There's really no reason to go, hence the name. But you'll probably expand your network And sometimes there's some surplus swag being given away. (Often, it's new business books that Jimmy and I have received as "review copies.") There are no sponsors or speeches. The only cost is whatever beverages or baked goods you'd like to buy.

Our special guests at this edition of CFNR will include:

- Steven Kane, LuckyLabs
- Adam Medros, TripAdvisor
- Niraj Shah, Wayfair
- Victoria Song, Flybridge Capital Partners
- Nicole Stata, Boston Seed Capital
- Bill Warner, Co-Flow Investing

If you can make it, there's no RSVPing. Just tweet (or mention in a Facebook or LinkedIn status update) that you'll be there. Use the hash tag #cfnr, and link to this post.

See you there!

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

And DeFelipo tells me he probably wouldn't have discovered entrepreneurship if not for a course offered at his high school, Providence's MET Center. "I wasn't doing good. I got Ds and Fs. I had problems with showing up late," DeFelipo says. But ever since taking a course designed by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, DeFelipo says, "I found a passion in entrepreneurship. I carry a notebook with me, and whenever I see a problem, I try to think of a solution." (DeFelipo is pictured at right, holding a prototype piece of jewelry from Earth Custom Designs.)

DeFelipo is one of the speakers at Wednesday's nights "Friends of NFTE Showcase" in Cambridge. The event, intended to help NFTE expand to more schools, is expected to bring out techies, investors, and company founders such as David Fialkow of General Catalyst Partners, Len Schlesinger of Babson College, Mary Mazzio of 50 Eggs Films, and Doug Hunt of IBM.

Two decades after its launch, NFTE New England reaches 1000 students in 16 high schools with an elective course that is taught as part of the normal school day. (Thirteen of those schools are in eastern Massachusetts, including places like Chelsea, Lynn, Malden, and New Bedford.) That sounds like a tiny number to me — so why not get involved in helping NFTE grow? Executive director Jennifer Green says there are four ways that entrepreneurs can get involved: "We can always use guest speakers to inspire the students; professionals who can coach and mentor the students as they develop their business plans; judges for the business plan competitions we have; and people who can bring students out to visit local companies." Today, there are about 100 volunteer entrepreneurs working with the students. Again, that number should be a lot higher.

DeFelipo, now a junior at the MET Center, is a great voice for the organization. "Everybody has a spark inside of them that's just waiting to be lit," he says. "They just have to find something they're good at, and that they love. Entrepreneurship was my spark."

Tomorrow night's event, at Microsoft NERD in Kendall Square, is free to attend.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The speakers were (from left):

- Michael Simon, CEO and co-founder, LogMeIn
- Scott Griffith, CEO, Zipcar
- Gail Goodman, CEO, Constant Contact
- Niraj Shah, CEO and co-founder, WayFair (formerly CSN Stores)
- Colin Angle, CEO and co-founder, iRobot
- Paul English, CTO and co-founder, Kayak.com
- Matt Lauzon, CEO and co-founder, Gemvara

My opening request to the speakers: tell us about one decision you made that you think was crucial in helping your company evolve from a small start-up into a major player. The audio was recorded on my iPhone, so you may need to adjust the volume here and there. Photo at right is from Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital, who was in the front row.

Bussgang posted about the top five "scaling lessons" that the speakers shared, and Xconomy covered the session here.

Secrets of Scaling session, from the 2011 Innovation Unconference

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The unconference format means the agenda for the day is set in the morning, when participants have a chance to stand up and announce sessions they'd like to run. Last year, with some other journalists, PR professionals, and entrepreneurs, I ran a session called "Generating Buzz for Your Venture," during which we compiled a list of 43 pieces of advice.

This year, jumping off a column I wrote earlier this month, I'm planning to propose a session on how start-ups get big — the secrets to scaling a business. Joining me will be founders and CEOs like Scott Griffith of Zipcar, Paul English of Kayak, Colin Angle of iRobot, Gail Goodman of Constant Contact, Matt Lauzon of Gemvara, Michael Simon of LogMeIn, and Niraj Shah of WayFair. Update: This will happen in Room 312 at the Hynes, from 2:30 - 3:30 PM.

My plan is to ask them for one example of a key decision they made that helped the company scale — whether related to marketing, hiring, product development, sales, fundraising, or something else.

And then I'm hoping that we can work with the audience a bit, picking 3 or 4 entrepreneurs and talking about some of the challenges they're dealing with. What better sounding board could you ask for than four public company CEOs... one CTO whose company has filed to go public (Kayak)... one founder of an 800-person private company that just raised $165 million (WayFair)... and one twenty-something CEO of a venture-backed start-up (Gemvara) on its way to 100 employees?

Hope to see you there...

If your life could benefit from a day of mingling with some Big Thinkers, you're in luck: the organizers of the annual IDEAS Boston conference have given me three passes to the upcoming event to give away to Innovation Economy readers.

IDEAS Boston started in 2004, with a goal of highlighting leading-edge thinkers across all disciplines, and this year it is being held at UMass-Boston for the first time. Speakers include documentary filmmaker Chico Colvard, entrepreneur Nathan Ball of Atlas Devices, Museum of Fine Arts curator Elliot Davis, Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, and education economist Bridget Terry Long. It takes place on October 20th, and individual tickets cost $250. (Student tickets, and tickets for people who work for non-profits, can be had for $100.)

If you'd like to win one of three passes, just e-mail me or tweet me with the speaker you're most eager to hear from, and why. To e-mail me, just click my name in the column at right ("About the blogger"), or send a Twitter message to @ScottKirsner. I'll choose the three most thoughtful, funny, or passionate messages I receive by Monday, October 3rd at noon.

Good luck, and I hope to see you there...

(In the interest of full disclosure, the Boston Globe is a media partner for the event, and I serve on the IDEAS Boston advisory board. The Globe created the event in 2004, but no longer manages it.)

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

This year's conference featured public company CEOs talking about the process of going public...entrepreneurs talking about what happens after you get acquired... sessions on information security, social gaming, and seed investing... and a wrap-up session from "Crossing the Chasm" author Geoffrey Moore, one of Silicon Valley's top thinkers on how new technologies permeate society (or don't).

I'm posting some of the conference audio below (you can either play it here, or download the MP3 files for later listening). You can also see what people were saying about the event on Twitter. Here's coverage of the event from Mass High Tech, Jason Evanish of Greenhorn Connect, and speaker Mike Troiano of Holland-Mark. And if you've ever wanted to see your favorite tech CEO wearing a lobster bib, the conference photo montage will more than satisfy you.

Audio from the 2011 Nantucket Conference

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The event opened with a "fireside chat" with Biogen Idec chief executive George Scangos (interviewed by Fran Heller, a former colleague of his at Exelixis), and wrapped up with sessions on digitizing medical records and cultivating social networks of patients online, featuring athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush and PatientsLikeMe co-founder James Heywood.

Disclosure: I serve on the conference's advisory board, and also moderated one of the sessions.

Here are the Twitter posts related to the conference, and here's a photo montage. Mass High Tech's coverage of the event focused on big pharma's growing hunger for new products.

Audio from the 2011 Convergence Forum

I should know better, by now, than to ever suggest that there's anything students can't learn at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now marking its 150th birthday.

But when I wrote about an MIT spin-out, Altaeros Energies, earlier this month, I did just that, beginning the story thusly:

Graduates of MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics learn lots about lift, aerodynamics, and rocket engines. But they don’t learn how to launch and fly a blimp.

A few days later, we received an e-mail from William Litant at MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, explaining that that wasn't the case:

Freshman who take Introduction to Aerospace Engineering and Design use the knowledge they gain in the class to design, build, and race small blimps in our annual Lighter Than Air Design Competition. In fact, visitors, to MIT’s April 30 campus-wide open house will have a chance to see these blimps compete between 11 a.m. and noon in the Johnson Athletic Center.

I stand corrected (though the course Litant mentions is optional, and Altaeros' founders didn't take it.) And I suggest that you not miss MIT's open house this weekend, which includes dozens of different demonstrations and events. (The last campus-wide open house was held in 1980, so this isn't an annual kind of thing.)

Coinciding with MIT's open house is the Cambridge Science Festival, which runs from April 30th through May 8th.

Maybe we need to promote May as Nerd Mardi Gras here in Massachusetts, and start attracting brainy tourists from around the world?

Each year, the organizers of MIT's CIO Symposium select a set of fledgling companies to demo their wares for the IT execs in attendance. The companies must be start-ups with less than $10 million in 2010 revenues, focused on selling to corporate customers.

The ten companies selected this year include a bunch from New England. (The company descriptions below were provided by the event organizers.)

- Apperian / Boston, MA
Apperian, the leading Mobile Application Management (MAM) company, takes enterprise apps to a new level of productivity

- CloudBees / Lewes, DE
CloudBees is the first Platform as a Service that lets companies build, test and deploy Java web applications in the cloud. (Waltham-based Matrix Partners led a funding round last November for CloudBees.)

- Hadapt / New Haven, CT
Hadapt offers an adaptive analytical platform for performing complex analytics on structured and unstructured data, all in one cloud-optimized system

- Modo Labs / Cambridge, MA
Modo Labs makes class leading mobile software and empowers others to do the same

- Opscode / Cambridge, MA
Opscode, the leader in cloud infrastructure automation through the Opscode Platform, is a widely used hosted service for configuration management and infrastructure automation

- Performable / Cambridge, MA
Performable, a marketing software provider, is ideal for professional marketers who need to measure activity across all channels, take action based on real behavior, and optimize for the entire customer lifecycle

- Rypple / Toronto, ON
Rypple, a web-based software company, provides a social interface for employees to ask for feedback, set goals, meet one-on-one and share thanks

- Unidesk / Marlborough, MA
Unidesk is a new software that creates user-customizable, easy-to-update, and storage- efficient virtual desktops

- Virtual Bridges / Austin, TX
Virtual Bridges combines online, offline and remote branch VDI solutions to offer anytime, anywhere access to virtual desktops

- xPeerient / Natick, MA
xPeerient is changing the way enterprise technology is bought and sold to make it more efficient, more trust-based, and more effective for all the parties involved

The event takes place May 18th.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

You can find audio from each session, below.

Here's some other coverage of the event:

• Live Blog of the Momentum Summit, from Greenhorn Connect founder Jason Evanish
• Top 10 Things to Consider in a Business Development Deal, from Punchbowl founder Matt Douglas
• Five Things I Learned at the Momentum Summit, from Jean Terranova
• Blog post with video from Scratch Media + Marketing
• Tweets from the event

Here are a few pics I shot:

And here's the audio from the event (you can download each file for later listening by clicking the "mp3" link.) As always, some questioners started talking before the microphone could get to them; in most cases, the questions were repeated.

Talk about the need for calendar coordination...

Three events in Boston next week all focus on women in business and technology.

Monday, there's the Women in Leadership Forum, organized by the Ad Club. Your host is WBUR's Tom Ashbrook (not a woman), and I'm moderating a panel (also not a woman), but I think we're the only two gents on the agenda. Female speakers include Emily Green, CEO of the Yankee Group; Pam Hamlin, president of Arnold Worldwide; and Maya Luz, a contestant from "Project Runway."

Wednesday, there's Mass High Tech's Women to Watch breakfast event, which hands out awards to people like Oneforty CEO Laura Fitton; Seeding Labs founder Nina Dudnik; and Sharon Donald, a division leader at Draper Laboratory.

Thursday morning there is the Advancing Women breakfast, organized by the Boston Business Journal (oddly, they are Mass High Tech's parent). Susan Windham-Bannister, CEO of the Mass Life Sciences Center, keynotes.

Friday, I am hoping someone will organize a symposium on whether attending too many events is productive or deleterious to womens' career trajectories.

Update: A couple more events are happening this week, including DigiGirlzDay (for high school students) on Thursday... Coffee hour with MITX president Debi Kleiman on Friday...and Geek Girl Boot Camp on Cape Cod, for women of all ages, on Saturday.

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

Among the topics we discussed:

- The moment when you thought your company might go under.

- The dumbest thing a prospective investor ever said about your business

- Biggest challenge to your company's growth right now

- How much hiring are you doing in 2011, and in what roles?

- Tough interview questions you ask, or challenges you present to candidates

- How you encourage innovation in small companies you acquire, or in far flung offices that you operate

We wrapped up by talking about marketing... including why Carbonite CEO David Friend grudgingly wrote a $1 million check to radio host Rush Limbaugh, and how comedian Dave Chapelle contributed to the success of iRobot's Roomba vaccuum cleaner — for free.

Secrets to Success: Inside Stories on Growth

It was great fun to show up at the Empty Tallboy (a/k/a Fan Pier) yesterday for the team presentations that wrapped up the Boston Hack Day Challenge. Twenty-six teams had been working since Friday night on Web sites and mobile apps geared to making life better in Boston. The judges (including this blogger) got to show up at the very end, eat mini-Snickers and swill bottled water, and act all judgmental. The event was sponsored by the Boston Globe and Boston.com.

The projects were each impressive in their own way, but we were asked to evaluate how much the teams had actually gotten done over the weekend; how much of a Boston focus there was to the app; and whether the app would somehow improve life for city-dwellers. We didn't have a chance to get hands-on time with the apps, but instead had to judge them based on five-minute presentations, which I'm sure short-changed some teams. The grand prize was an invitation to use Paul Pierce's private box for an upcoming Celtics game, but the judges decided to award a second grand prize, and Globe publisher Chris Mayer was kind enough to spontaneously offer a handful of Sox tickets to that team. (That's Mike Schneider of Allen & Gerritsen, at right, working the whiteboard in the judges' conference room.)

* Note: some of the sites below work...and some don't, since these are all relatively-fragile demos.

We awarded one grand prize to Boston Green (@BosGreenSpace on Twitter), which had built a simple, elegant iPhone app to help urbanites find green spaces in the city, regardless of whether a park is run by the Department of Conservation & Recreation or the City of Cambridge, for instance. The app supplies info about which parks are dog-friendly, which host concerts and events, and which ones sport great playgrounds for the kids. The other grand prize went to KnowEssentials (@KnowEssentials on Twitter), a text-message-based service aimed at providing information about food pantries, shelters, and social services to those who need them. The team also talked about making it easy for non-profits and government agencies to publish information about new services or offerings through their platform.

Best news-oriented project went to BigNewsBoston, which displays the hottest stories right now on Boston.com, across a number of categories like sports, business, and opinion.

Best mobile app went to Drunken Stumble, created to help you plan a pub crawl, invite friends, track how many places you've been, and call a taxi at the end of the night to get home safely. (Not surprisingly, Drunken Stumble also won the "audience favorite" award.)

CanHazParking nabbed the "best Boston-centric" prize for an app that informs you, based on your location, whether it's OK to park on the street. Is there a snow emergency? Street cleaning? The app lets you know whether you "CanHaz" a spot without fear of getting a ticket, or "NoCanHaz."

Best use of geo-location went to Accessible Places, a mobile-friendly Web site that aims to collect information from its users about handicapped accessibility around the city, and then make it available to people planning trips.

Finally, the "most socially connected" award went to a team calling itself the Zombie Programmers, who had built a mobile app to estimate when a Green Line trolley will arrive, which would collect information about the trolley's whereabouts from other riders. We liked the reliance on crowd-sourcing to deliver information the MBTA can't yet supply.

We also gave a special commendation to Open Civic Data group, which promotes making information about cities — like the location of T stops or fire hydrants — more standardized and accessible.

We wished that there had been more prizes to dole out, since there were lots more deserving projects.

Here are some videos of the teams talking about their projects, shot on Saturday:

And here's a video wrap-up shot by the Globe's Suzanne Kreiter:

I was speaking earlier this week to a group of people who largely run established institutions in Boston, whether trade associations, think tanks, or non-profits.

My message, as it often is, is that we're in the midst of a cultural revolution: remaking the region's innovation economy, supporting first-time entrepreneurs in new ways, and breaking down barriers between college campuses and the business world.

Here's a list I shared of initiatives that I think are at the heart of this shift, making Boston a more permeable town — a place where connections happen much more spontaneously than they used to.

How many of these have you participated in or contributed to?

- DartBoston
- Stay in MA
- Greenhorn Connect
- OpenCoffee Cambridge
- Venture Cafe
- Startup Weekend
- TechStars Boston
- Mass Innovation Nights
- MassChallenge
- Innovation Open Houses (a series of events for students I was involved with starting)
- Web Innovators Group

(This isn't intended to be a comprehensive list.... but feel free to add others in the comments.)

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

But Peformable co-founders David Cancel, Joshua Porter and Elias Torres — all of whom are well-known on the start-up scene thanks to copious blogging, tweeting, and prior entrepreneurial activity — packed their new high-ceilinged Central Square space with people on a frigid February evening.

Performable, founded in 2009 and previously based in Newburyport, aims to help companies turn more of the visitors to their Web sites into paying customers.

The party featured three elements essential to a great gathering: live music, free-flowing dark beer from a keg, and insufficient food. Here's who I ran into...

MITX board member and poet Don Bulens (who worked with Cancel at Compete) and Shareaholic founder Jay Meattle... Oneforty CEO Laura Fitton... TechStars Boston director Katie Rae... Blueleaf CEO John Prendergast (whose online financial management start-up shares space with Performable)... Tourfilter founder Chris Marstall and Brian Del Vecchio of Digital Lumens (pictured at left)...Svpply founder Ben Pieratt...Greg Raiz of Raizlabs...Chase Garbarino of BostInnovation...Reed Sturtevant of Project 11 Ventures...MassChallenge Chief Mentoring Officer Karl Büttner...Wendy Troupe of Terametric...Tom Summit of TalentGraphz and CSN Stores...Jules and Desmond Pieri...new Performable employee Alex Patriquin...and FitnessKeeper founder Jason Jacobs.

Greg Bialecki, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economy Development, with David Cancel.

Compete president Scott Ernst, Bill Schnoor of Goodwin Procter, and Ted Dintersmith, once a Waltham venture capitalist, now a gentleman farmer residing in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Serial entrepreneur Wayne Chang with Cort Johnson of DartBoston; Johnson recently left SCVGNR and is cooking up something new at the Dogpatch Labs space in Cambridge.

Onetime Harvard roomies Hugo Van Vuuren and Andrew Bialecki of Performable.

CloudSwitch co-founder Ellen Rubin and Izhar Armony of Charles River Ventures...

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Columnist

The museum spent $9 million on the planetarium's overhaul, including $2 million for a new Zeiss Starmaster Projector that's parked on a platform at the auditorium's core. It uses light and fiber optics to splash an array of stars on the planetarium's 57-foot dome, made of perforated aluminum panels. (There's only one other projector like it in the U.S.) Augmenting the Zeiss are two Sony high-resolution digital projectors, tucked away on opposite sides of the dome.

Museum types don't like to brag, but it may be the best-equipped planetarium in the U.S. today. (The seats are comfy, too.) The resolution is so good that you can take a pair of binoculars with you — planetarium director David Rabkin lent me a pair — to bring the finest astronomical details into focus. The museum has also created a brand-new, half hour show, "Undiscovered Worlds," which explores newly-discovered planets that orbit stars similar to our sun.

Tonight, there's a press preview, and tomorrow night, VIPs will fill the planetarium's 209 seats. Among those expected Thursday are Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, New York City Mayor (and Medford native) Michael Bloomberg, and U.S. Senator Scott Brown. Friday, there's a "Tweetup Under the Stars," accessible only to a lucky few folks who are fans of the museum on Facebook or who follow its Twitter account. Saturday, there are shows for museum members, and on Sunday, the planetarium opens to the public (though there have been sporadic test shows inside it since mid-December.)

My take: there's no better mid-winter destination in Boston. (Especially if you play hooky from work...)

Coffee for No Reason is a gathering that fellow journo Jimmy Guterman and I hold very sporadically, and it lives up to its name. It's a deconstructed event: no sponsors, no speakers, no welcome speeches, and (thank heavens) no trade show booths. It's simply an opportunity to descend on a coffee shop, meet some new people who toil in the salt mines of our local innovation economy, and perhaps, if you bring along a laptop, an iPad, or an actual product, to do some show-and-tell and get some feedback. Beware, though: people who are too intensely pitch-y sometimes accidentally get lukewarm latte spilled on them. (Often, there are giveaways, too: new books, stickers, t-shirts, CDs, etc. So feel free to bring schwag with you.)

The next one happens on Friday, December 17th at Voltage Coffee & Art, a new hangout in Kendall Square, founded by noted barista Lucy Valena. It'll run from about 8:30 AM to about 10:30 AM.

We'll be joined by a dozen special guest stars from the innovation economy, including:

- Elon Boms, Launch Capital (one of the investors in Voltage)
- Fred Destin, Atlas Venture
- Laura Fitton, Oneforty
- Ric Fulop, North Bridge Venture Partners
- Jason Jacobs, RunKeeper
- John Landry, Lead Dog Ventures
- Matt Lauzon, Gemvara
- Bob Metcalfe, Polaris Venture Partners
- Eric Paley, Founder Collective
- Steve Papa, Endeca
- Katie Rae, TechStars & Project 11 Ventures
- Tim Rowe, Cambridge Innovation Center

Hope you can join us at Voltage on Friday morning, December 17th from 8:30-ish to 10:30-ish. The hash tag, if you'd like to tweet about the event, is #cfnr.

Next week is the meatiest part of Boston Region Entrepreneurship Week, being held for the first time.

Joe Caruso, an angel investor and start-up advisor, had the idea to create an umbrella atop a few big events happening just after Columbus Day, to highlight entrepreneurial activity around Boston, across all industries. The concept took off quickly over the summer, and what Caruso had dubbed BREW grew into what should more accurately be called BREESAMO: Boston Region Entrepreneurship Events Spread Across the Month of October.

Caruso has been an investor in companies as diverse as Coffee Connection (acquired by Starbucks), Softricity (acquired by Microsoft), and Constant Contact (publicly-traded.) His Web site also candidly lists, with a skull-and-crossbones, those portfolio companies that bit the dust.

Right now there are north of 100 events on the BREW calendar. Here are my picks of the ten that look most promising to me, in chronological order.

1. Entrepreneurship in the Life Sciences, October 12th

UMass Boston's Venture Development Center hosts a schmooze-fest and panel discussion.

2. Take Flight!, October 12th

Fundraiser supports The Engineering School, a Boston public high school. Donate $5, design your own paper airplane, and fly it against others for a chance to win prizes. (I'll be there, flying an airplane along with folks like Avidyne CEO Dan Schwinn, Mass High Tech editor Doug Banks, and Mary Lockshin of Zink Imaging.)

3. Using PR and Social Media to Generate Buzz for Your Startup, October 13th

Free panel discussion at a law firm's downtown offices, featuring local journos and social media guru Paul Gillin, author of "Secrets of Social Media Marketing."

4. MassTLC Innovation UnConference, October 14th

What's an unconference? It's a gathering where the participants create the agenda at the beginning of the day, and where attendees are encouraged to be actively engaged in each session — not just listeners. This one features a roster of industry experts who will sit down throughout the day for one-on-one meetings with the entrepreneurs in attendance, offering advice and guidance.

5. Harvard Business School Entrepreneurship Forum, October 14th

Staples founder Tom Stemberg discusses his career as an entrepreneur, board member, and investor, and a panel of four women founders share their learnings. Free.

6. Powered Up Boston, October 14th and 15th

Boston's videogame community gets together for a conference and expo, featuring speakers from Quick Hit, Linden Lab, Turbine, Harmonix, and Rockstar New England.

7. "How I Got Funded," October 19th

Free eventing panel discussion with the founders of SocialSci, Localytics, Assured Labor, and Retroficiency.

8. Brewing Your Business Dream, October 20th

Excellent: a BREW event at an actual brewery. The Samuel Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain is the site of a free seminar on marketing, PR, managing cash flow, and more, designed specifically for entrepreneurs in the food, beverage, and hospitality industries.

9. MassChallenge Final Awards Ceremony, October 21st

Which of 111 start-ups will take home the big money in this first-ever entrepreneurship competition? The prize pool is $1 million in cash, divided up however the judges seem fit. Entrants are working on everything from airborne wind turbines to online music education sites to customized women's shoes.

10. MIT Elevator Pitch Contest, October 27th

What better way to hone your own elevator pitch — the way you'd describe your business in 60 seconds or less, with no visual aids — than by watching a dozen entrepreneurs do it on stage? A handful will win cash prizes. Free.

What'd I miss that looks good to you? Comments welcome...

Now that the Clinton nuptials are behind us, we can turn our attention to the wedding that really matters to the Innovation Economy crowd in Boston: that of iRobot CEO Colin Angle to Erika Ebbel. It takes place August 20th at the Kona Village resort on Hawaii's Big Island. I'll be hovering overhead in one the Globe's many helicopters, trying to see if any Roombas roll down the aisle ahead of the bride and groom, or if they've engaged a Packbot to shoot the wedding video.

Angle co-founded iRobot in 1990, not long after earning his master's degree at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, and he had a bit part playing an MIT professor in the 2008 movie "21," about the MIT blackjack team.

Ebbel is also an MIT alum, currently pursuing her PhD in analytical biochemistry at Boston University. Just after graduating from MIT, she was crowned Miss Massachusetts (the first MIT grad to win that crown), and later competed in the Miss America pageant. She is also the founder of the WhizKids Foundation, which dispatches actual scientists to elementary, middle and high schools to get kids interested science by working on fun projects.

Here's Ebbel in a video produced for the PBS Web series "The Secret Life of Scientists & Engineers." She talks about mass spectrometers, learning how to wave in a beauty pageant, and her desire to contribute to a cure of Lou Gehrig's disease.

One of the fastest-growing clusters of companies in Boston right now are diagnostics start-ups: companies like SynapDx, which is working to develop tests for the early detection of autism; T2 Biosystems, trying to pack sophisticated lab tests into portable devices; and Diagnostics for All, a Harvard spin-out that is creating cheap, paper-based tests for use in the developing world.

In the photo, Diagnostics for All chief executive Una Ryan is holding a postage-stamp sized test that changes color, after a drop of blood has been applied to it, to indicate how well a patient's liver is functioning. That's essential information if the patient is taking drugs to treat HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis.

At the Convergence Forum last month, Ryan moderated a panel that included On-Q-ity CEO Mara Aspinall, Seventh Sense Biosystems CEO Doug Levinson, Bill Pignato of Novartis Molecular Diagnostics, Don Pogorzelski of Genzyme Diagnostic Products, and Daktari Diagnostics CEO William Rodriguez. (Disclosure: I serve on the conference's advisory board.)

Here's the audio:

John Harthorne, CEO of the MassChallenge start-up competition, tells me that this week a group of judges are working to winnow 300 teams of entrepreneurs to 100 finalists; they're hearing some company pitches in person; some via Skype from as far off as California, Spain and Argentina; and Harthorne says a Brazilian team even flew to Boston for some face time. Judges include folks like 170 Systems founder Karl Buttner, Raj Melville of nTag Interactive and BeFree, and Micah Rosenbloom from Brontes/3M.

The goal of the competition is to encourage start-ups to come to Boston — or stay here and grow. The hundred finalist companies (finalists will be announced later this month) will be offered several months of free office space at the One Marina Park high-rise on Fan Pier; Harthorne is expecting about 200 people to use the space, noting that each team has 2.7 members on average. (Some entrants already have office space elsewhere.) A few lucky winners will receive either $100,000 or $50,000 at the competition's conclusion this fall. The cash prizes will total $1 million, and all of the prize money, Harthorne explains, comes from private sponsors like Microsoft, Xerox, and the law firm Foley Hoag.

Bill Starr of MyLifeList, who'd been living in Venice, Calif. earlier this year, says the MassChallenge competition — along with a more active early-stage investment community here — persuaded him to move to Swampscott in March. The site, which encourages visitors to list their life goals and then supplies encouragement, was founded in 2008.

You can view other team pitches on the MassChallenge Web site.

July 1st marks the official start of the summer schmoozing slow-down: as everyone heads off on vacation, there are far fewer workshops, conferences, and networking events on the calendar until September arrives.

But a few events worth knowing about in July:

- The monthly Mass Innovation Night gathering on July 14th brings together a hand-chosen group of companies — this time focused on energy and sustainability — to show their stuff at the IBM Innovation Center in Waltham. The presenters will be talking about energy-efficient timber frame homes, "green" house cleaning, hybrid electric bikes, and more.

- On July 20th, Kayak founder and chief technology officer Paul English runs a seminar about recruiting, motivating, and retaining talented employees. It's free, and organized by the MassChallenge start-up competition.

- On July 27th, Boston University hosts a free event called "Tech, Drugs & Rock n' Roll," featuring live music, a keynote from BU president Robert Brown, and a peek at some of the promising scientific and engineering work being done at the school.

- On July 29th, the fourth annual TECH Cocktail mixer takes place at Microsoft NERD in Kendall Square. These attract start-uppers, marketing and PR types, and a few younger investors; it's usually a crowd large enough to arouse the interest of the fire marshal.

And MITX, MassTLC, MassBio, and MassMedic also have good stuff going on in July.

The MassChallenge start-up competition threw a party this evening for all of the entrants — and the wider entrepreneurial community — on the unfinished 13th floor of One Marina Park Drive on Fan Pier. The beer was by Sam Adams, the food by Strega in the North End, the views by developer Joe Fallon, who was mingling in the VIP room.

Among the folks I chatted with: Dave McLaughlin of Boston World Partnerships... Christopher Mirabile of Race Point Capital...Olivier Boss of the Cambridge biotech start-up Energesis Pharmaceuticals, developing drugs for obesity and diabetes...patent attorneys David Feigenbaum of Fish & Richardson and Melissa Hunter-Ensor of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge...Kabir Hemrajani of RiotVine...and Michael Raybman of WaySavvy Travel, a fascinating travel-planning site getting ready to launch its beta this summer.

A few pics...

Andrea Dacayanan of 1Fastbite, an online ordering and reservations management system for restaurants, wanted me to use the more serious photo I took of her. That one was mysteriously erased.

MassChallenge CEO John Harthorne (left) and Fallon Company CEO Joe Fallon (blue shirt with tie.)

Kayvan Zainabadi, founder of Instant Nightlife (left), with Tom Hopcroft of the Mass Tech Leadership Council and Anna Uritsky of Vestify. Instant Nightlife is a Web site and iPhone app that helps clubgoers share information about what's happening at Boston clubs, like how long the line is outside the door, how many people are on the dance floor, and what the male/female ratio is like. It currently covers clubs in the Theater District, but Zainabadi says it'll soon expand to the Faneuil Hall area and Allston-Brighton. Uritsky says that Vestify will help entrepreneurs raise money online from individuals who may not have the net worth to be accredited investors; they're still waiting on SEC approval to launch it.

Angel investor John Landry of Lead Dog Ventures has a look at the Instant Nightlife app.

Joe Caruso of Bantam Group with Amit Kanodia of Lincoln Ventures. Caruso, an angel investor and start-up advisor, is working on a project to designate a week in October as Bostion Region Entrepreneurship Week, or BREW. (Yes, beer will be involved somehow.) You can join a LinkedIn group to keep up with the initiative.

Michael Gaiss of Highland Capital Partners with Landry.

Just sharing some photos and audio from the first-ever Momentum Summit, held last Wednesday at MIT's Sloan School of Management.

The objective was to gather some of the founders, CEOs, and senior execs from the most successful Massachusetts companies of the past decade, and have them talk about how they grew from start-up to major player. (Disclosure: I was involved as an organizer.) Speakers included TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer; Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman; Rue La La/Retail Convergence CEO Ben Fischman; and, surprisingly, Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith, whose company filed for an initial public offering a few weeks before the event — which often means an executive opts not to speak in public until the IPO happens.

Below are slide shows of photos I shot, and photos taken by Kyle Psaty of BostInnovation. BostInnovation also had some coverage of the event. There's audio from three of the sessions, and also this live blog from Greenhorn Connect, which captures much of what went on. (The Twitter stream is here.)

One of my favorite anecdotes of the day, which I'd not heard before, involves Steve Jobs calling Akamai (on April 1st, as it happened), and expressing interest in buying the company. Akamai co-founder Tom Leighton tells that story in his session.

The audio:

Dave Schlafman and Evan Sussman of the Watertown-based digital animation studio CloudKid are in Los Angeles today to attend an Emmy Awards ceremony. It isn't the big prime-time Emmy Awards, but rather the "37th Annual Daytime Creative Arts and Entertainment Emmy Awards," which honor "the craft behind the many shows that grace the Daytime genre," according to the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which puts on the ceremony.

CloudKid won a nomination for Fizzy's Lunch Lab, a nifty PBS-funded Web site that uses videos, games, and simple recipes to encourage kids to eat better.

Schlafman says CloudKid was only formed in May of 2009. Shortly thereafter, the small studio won a $400,000 PBS grant to develop the Lunch Lab site, which went live in November 2009. Schlafman says its attracting 675,000 unique users a month, with new content added each week. PBS just gave CloudKid another grant to produce even more Lunch Lab material. "It could eventually turn into a series on the air," he says.

But right now, Schlafman says, PBS seems especially interested in developing Web content. "The number of kids watching TV is continuing to drop, compared to those consuming online video content," he says. "So many media companies still look at TV as the golden standard, but we're trying to find the sweet spot between TV and social gaming and interactive games."

Schlafman's former employer, Watertown-based Soup2Nuts, is also at the Emmy ceremony tonight, hoping for a win in a different category.

About 700 folks will descend on the Westin Waterfront next week for the fourth annual Enzee Universe conference, put on by Netezza. The publicly-traded Marlborough company sells hardware and software to help big companies run their data warehouses. Netezza's customers buy the technology (average order size is $1.2 million) to crunch large volumes of data in real-time, like figuring out what coupons to give you at CVS based on your purchase, or to calculating the best routes for 18-wheelers delivering goods around the country.

"The over-riding theme of the conference," says Netezza chief executive Jim Baum, "is that you have all these intelligent devices collecting data, and you have social networking and e-commerce, and our customers are looking to get a competitive advantage from analyzing all of that." Netezza's newest product, TwinFin, is five times faster than its older systems, Baum says, and relies on IBM's blade servers, instead of the proprietary blades Netezza sold previously. (Blade servers supply processing power and storage, and like razor blades, they can easily be installed and removed in a large rack containing other blades.) Netezza still makes a special database accelerator card that enables the blade servers to work speedily with large volumes of data.

Speakers at Enzee Universe include Stephen Baker, author of "The Numerati," which looks at how data is changing the way we live and work; analysts from Forrester Research and Gartner; execs from Major League Baseball and Conway Freight; and Gareth Sundem, author of "The Geeks' Guide to World Domination."

The big party Monday night is a "curry banquet" prepared by chef Kuldeep Makhni, who has cooked for Queen Elizabeth, the late Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, Sylvester Stallone, and David Copperfield. That alone should be worth the conference's $475 ticket price.

You can follow tweets related to the conference by watching the hash tag #enzee.

Wednesday is the ribbon-cutting ceremony at IBM's "Mass Lab" campus spanning Littleton and Westford. It's Big Blue's biggest campus in North America devoted to software development, with about 3,400 employees. The company broke ground on the new campus in 2008, and folks started moving in late last year. Parts of the campus were once used by Digital Equipment Corp. and HP.

Among the pooh-bahs who'll be present tomorrow morning are Governor Deval Patrick; Greg Bialecki, the Commonwealth's secretary of housing and economic development; Mass Tech Leadership Council head Tom Hopcroft; MITX director Kiki Mills; and from IBM, Steve Mills, the senior vice president of IBM Software and Alistair Rennie, the general manager of Lotus (who is IBM's top exec in Massachusetts). Apparently, IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano must've had an important tee time tomorrow; he has yet to visit the new facility, I'm told.

IBM spokesperson Karen Lilla says that IBM first came to Massachusetts almost a century ago, opening a sales office here. More recently, the company has acquired more than a dozen Massachusetts companies since 2003, including Ascential Software, Cognos, WebDialogs, BowStreet, and Ounce Labs.

The event tomorrow will also include an announcement about IBM's enterprise mobile strategy, and some demos. Mills is expecting it to bring about 150 non-IBMers, including journos and analysts, to the new campus. IBM's other big facilities in Massachusetts are in Cambridge and Waltham.

Big crowd, as usual, for tonight's Web Innovators Group shindig at the Royal Sonesta... so big that apparently the hotel's parking garage was turning away cars.

The audience favorite among the three presenting companies, both based on applause during the demo and a quick text-message vote that takes place at every WebInno, was DoInk, a Waltham-based start-up that makes it easy to create and share online animations.

In the "side dish" room were six start-ups including RelayRides, a company I've written about here before, and BirchBox, an interesting NYC start-up that sends women samples of beauty products in a small box each month, in the hopes of turning them on to new brands. The service will cost about $10 per month.

Here's who I ran into at the event: 

Husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Jon Radoff and Angela Bull from Disruptor Beam... Nabeel Hyatt from Conduit Labs... Joselin Mane... Gemvara CEO Matt Lauzon... Mass Innovation Nights organizer Bobbie Carlton... Rebecca Xiong from Yana... Tom Summit of Genotrope... Nick MacShane from Progress Partners... Gopal Shenoy from Gazelle... Steve McAveeney from Autotegrity... Catherine Arnston of The Naughty Nutritionist... and Dharmesh Shah from HubSpot.

It felt like there were fewer VCs than usual (has the summer vacation season started already?), but new guy Andrew Parker from Spark Capital was there; it was his first day on the job after moving back to his home state of Massachusetts from New York. He compared WebInno to the NY Tech Meetup event in Manhattan, which apparently attracts a similar crowd. Rich Levandov from Avalon Ventures was there, too; his firm is in the midst of raising a new fund. Levandov is an investor in Zynga, the Silicon Valley "social gaming" start-up that is among the fastest-growing companies ever, and also Cloudant, subscription-based database service headquartered in Somerville that came through the Y Combinator program.

PR/social media gurus Chuck Tanowitz and Doug Haslam were there, checking in on Foursquare. Haslam quipped that he recently realized it was time to get another haircut when he was ousted as the "mayor" of his local barbershop.

Karen Miller, co-founder and president of DoInk, at the start-ups demo table.

Coach Wei, founder and CEO of Yottaa, a Cambridge start-up funded this spring by General Catalyst and Stata Venture Partners.

Allan Tear, one of the managing partners of the Providence-based start-up cultivation program Betaspring, which rented a small bus so that the folks participating in the program could come to WebInno tonight. Only a few extremely busy (and anti-social?) developers remained in Providence, he said.

I'm an unabashed promoter of the Web Innovators Group gatherings — especially to folks who are new to Boston, and even more especially to folks who've been here for eons but believe that we as a community don't know how to network. Just go to WebInno.

The free event brings nearly one thousand people to the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, to see three start-ups show off their products on-stage (the "main dishes"), and another six demo what they've built in a smaller room (the "side dishes.") Monday's event will feature DoInk, a site that aims to make animation as easy as creating a YouTube video; Milabra, an MIT spin-out that can analyze images on Web pages, in part to place relevant ads on those pages; and my favorite, Manpacks, a start-up based in Everglades City, Florida. Manpacks, "an automatic service for busy men," is like Netflix for underwear. You select a subscription level, and they send you a set of underwear, socks, and undershirts every three months. (Unlike Netflix, though, they don't want the goods back once you've used them.) Pay $24, and you get two sets of each, for instance. And it's up to you whether you get boxers or briefs, athletic socks or dress socks.

David Beisel, the Web Innovators Group founder who is planning to leave Venrock soon to form a new early-stage investment group, says that WebInno will go on. Beisel owns the event himself, separate from the venture firms he has worked for (Venrock, and prior to that, Masthead Venture Partners.) The events have had pretty steady sponsorship from law firms, banks, and tech biggies like Microsoft, Beisel says, adding in an e-mail, "WebInno is more than sufficiently well-funded to continue holding the events into the future," presumably with sponsorship from his new, as-yet-unnamed firm. (Beisel isn't officially confirming his plans to depart from Venrock now, or the timing.)

Miss this Monday's WebInno, and the next one doesn't roll around until September 13th.

The annual TechStars Boston investor presentations tonight were a hot ticket: I'm told some people were turned away at the door for fear of violating the fire code, and Boston's digerati filled the 10th and 11th floors of Microsoft's New England Research and Development Center.

TechStars aims to help teams of entrepreneurs build a working product in three months, with as much as $18,000 in seed funding and mentorship from local investors and entrepreneurs.

All ten companies tonight were building Web-based businesses, ranging from online survey tools to social networking apps to customizable Internet radio stations. Two of the start-ups, Sparkcloud and Marginize, had received some sort of funding even before presenting to the audience tonight (Sparkcloud from Avid Technology founder Bill Warner, who helped bring the TechStars program to Boston in 2009, and Marginize from angel investors Joe Caruso, Jean Hammond, and others.)

During the course of the evening, HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah tweeted me to let me know that he'd also decided to invest in Marginize — and the way he chose to let the company's founder know that was by using Marginize, a browser add-on that lets you annotate Web pages and see what comments others have added. "How very meta," wrote Shah. (That's founder Ziad Sultan, a former analyst at Longworth Venture Partners, at right.)

In the audience were folks like Rob Go and Lee Hower, who are working together on a new early-stage investing firm...NeoCarta Ventures managing director Jarrett Collins...Jim Savage of Longworth Venture Partners... Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital...Betahouse co-founder Jon Pierce, who also organized this week's first-ever Angel Boot Camp...Oneforty founder Laura Fitton, part of the 2009 TechStars Boston class...Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki...Google Ventures managing partner Rich Miner...Viximo CTO Sean Lindsay...ex-Microsoftie Reed Sturtevant...FastIgnite's Sim Simeonov...North Bridge's Dayna Grayson...Elliot Katzman from Commonwealth Capital Ventures...Steve Kane, Gamesville founder, angel investor, and master of the Twitter koan...Harmonix co-founder Eran Egozy...and Rich Levandov of Avalon Capital Ventures.

Katie Rae, formerly of Microsoft, mentioned that she'll be teaching a course with Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee at MIT this fall, along with the aforementioned Sturtevant. And Janet Kraus, founder of Spire and Circles, is joining the faculty of Harvard Business School this fall to teach entrepreneurship. (Rae is at left, Kraus at right.)

Richard Dale of Sigma Partners, who writes the blog Venture Cyclist, with Izhar Armony of Charles River Ventures.

Google developer relations exec Don Dodge, who maintains the blog "The Next Big Thing," with Gus Weber of Microsoft NERD and John Landry of Lead Dog Ventures.

I was somewhat alarmed to learn that Ron Schmelzer, an MIT alum and one of the early Internet entrepreneurs in Boston, has (A) moved to Baltimore, where his wife is teaching at Johns Hopkins, and (B) started a baseball cap company called Zoptopz.

Shawn Broderick oversees the TechStars Boston program. He had a great sticker on his Macbook Air: "Those who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt the people doing it."

OK, on to a few random awards for the entrepreneurs who presented, each of whom was impressive in his or her own way... (As with TechStars 2009, there was just one female CEO in the bunch, Francesca Moyse of Monkey Analytics.)

Most persuasive: Leon Noel of Social Sci, a site that intends to help scientific researchers conduct online surveys efficiently, dangling incentives (a free iPod Touch!) to entice participants. Noel presented first, and by the time he was done, it was easy to imagine every university in America buying a subscription to the service.

The Jerry Lewis Telethon Award: Marginize founder Ziad Sultan, for casually mentioning that he'd already raised $250,000 for the start-up, and just needed $100,000 more to complete his planned $350,000 seed round. (It worked, at least partially.)

Best Acronym Deployed: Appswell founder Daniel Sullivan, building a service that will help companies crowdsource ideas from their customers, talked about "HIPPOS." At big companies, HIPPOS make most of the decisions. Appswell wants to put that power in the hands of the customer. What's a HIPPO? The highest-paid person with an opinion. Love it.

Best Logo: Usermojo, trying to capture the emotions that users feel when they visit Web sites (like confusion) to help site designers improve the status quo. The colorful logo elegantly captures the concept that this is a product about both design and emotion.

Best Multimedia Demo: Brandon Casci of Loudcaster, an Internet broadcasting start-up that lets (paying) users launch their own radio stations. Casci showed some fun examples of how beta testers have been using it to create stations like "Infinite Accordion," a station that plays all accordion music, all the time.

Can't Wait to Use It Award: Jeremy Levine of StarStreet Sports, creating a stock market for trading shares of athletes and sports teams. Levine says it'll be legal for players to trade with real money, though for the World Cup soccer tourney, they're still using play dough. Every sports fan I know will invest at least $100, with StarStreet planning to take 2 percent from the sell side of every transaction. (That's Levine at right, pitching his "Big Vision.")

Appswell founder Sullivan mentioned to me that all of the TechStars Boston start-ups have found office space for the summer in Boston, to "keep the band together," as he put it. Most will wind up at the Cambridge Innovation Center's co-working space (thanks to a sponsorship from Microsoft that will pay the rent); a couple will shack up at Dog Patch Labs Cambridge; and one will share space in Somerville with Viximo. That's good news...and I'll be curious to hear whether some more fundings happen after tonight.

What, exactly, is Innovation Month?

I'm hoping you'll tell me.

Last year, I helped convene a group of people who proclaimed, with absolutely no authority, that the month of June would be Innovation Month in New England. It was a grassroots, totally uncoordinated effort, spread via blogs and Twitter – and we're trying to dial it up this year.

The primary objective in 2009 was to spotlight all of the incredible educational and networking events that take place over a typical month in New England (June is especially busy). We wanted to encourage more people to get out and participate, whether that meant sharing some advice with a first-time entrepreneur, learning about a field adjacent to theirs, or expanding their personal networks.

We're doing that again this June, and you can find a list of all the major Innovation Month events here. (Disclosure: I'm involved in a few as a moderator or organizer.) This year, we're especially cajoling folks who work at the region's bigger companies to join the start-up crowd that typically turns out for these gatherings.

But we're also asking people who power the innovation economy here (and this means you) to help define what Innovation Month 2010 is going to be about.

- If you're a blogger, I'd love it if you'd write a post about some initiative, dynamic or group that you feel is vital to innovation in the region — or something that should be happening here. So either celebrate something that exists, or tell us what more we should be doing to make New England a haven for entrepreneurs and innovators. (And if you don't have a blog, feel free to post a comment here.)

- If you're a designer, perhaps you'd like to design a logo for Innovation Month 2010. (The one on this page was created by Metropolis Creative.) The design is entirely up to you, but the text ought to include some version of the message "June is Innovation Month in New England." People will be free to use these logos (ideally with credit to you) on their blogs, company sites, Facebook pages, etc.

Whether you write a post or design a logo, I'll link to it or include it here. (Logos will ideally be done by June 4th, so that others can use them but blog posts can happen throughout the month. E-mail me by clicking me name in the right-hand column to let me know what you've done, or post a link to it below, as a comment.)

And thanks!

Update:

- GreenHorn Connect counts down the top ten events during Innovation Month.

- Five Ideas for New England's Innovation Economy, from Boston Search Group.

- Jules Pieri of Daily Grommet on Three Must-Haves for Innovation

- Eric Paley of Founder Collective writes, "Thank You MA"

- Point Judith Capital's Sean Marsh on mobile innovation in New England

- Greenhorn Connect's Jason Evanish: "Hire More Students"

- "Boston, the month of June and our tech scene," from Bijan Sabet at Spark Capital

- Rob Go: "We are in the early days of an entrepreneurial renaissance in Boston"

- Alfred Thompson on New England Innovation Month

- Lee Hower on "Innovation Catalysts in New England in the Last Five Years"

- Flybridge Capital's Jeff Bussgang: "Angels Soaring During Innovation Month"

- "You Need to Get Out More," from Mass Innovation Nights

Peeved about events that charge entrepreneurs an entry fee to present their businesses to angel investors, Jason Calacanis decided to create Open Angel Forum earlier this year. The series of events, held so far in places like San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles, is "dedicated to providing entrepreneurs with free and open access to the angel investors that they need," according to the Web site. (Calacanis is the founder of the curated "question-and-answer" site Mahalo and an angel investor himself, in companies like Gowalla and Blippy.)

At each event, Calacanis and his colleagues round up a roomful of angel investors, and select five local start-ups to present their plans. The first local Open Angel Forum will take place June 18th, at the Polaris-run Dogpatch Labs start-up space in East Cambridge, Calacanis tells me. Info about the Cambridge event isn't yet up on the Open Angel Forum site, but will be soon. For now, entrepreneurs can sign up using this form.

Update: Angel investor George McQuilken correctly points out that most (all?) organized angel groups in New England invite entrepreneurs to present to them sans cover charge. But that doesn't prevent other groups from organizing events here, as youngStartup Ventures tried to do this past spring, where entrepreneurs pay a fee for access to investors.

Boston's Progressive Business Leaders Network, a group of CEOs "committed to socially and environmentally responsible economic growth," was down in D.C. for a one-day conference last week, talking with U.S. Senators, Representatives, and White House advisors about topics like school reform, financial markets regulation, and how healthcare reform will actually play out in the market. There's a full set of photos here that includes folks like Jim Matheson from Flagship Ventures; Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge Capital Partners; Akamai CEO Paul Sagan; ex-Vertex Pharmaceuticals CEO Josh Boger; Mitch Tyson of Advanced Electron Beams; and Diane Hessan of Communispace.

I asked Tim Rowe, CEO of Cambridge Innovation Center, what he said to Rep. Barney Frank when he had his ear for a few minutes. (See below.) Rowe said via e-mail that he urged Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, not to let new legislation "screw up angel and venture capital investing. They are tinkering with the most healthy economic engine we have, and I do not think they had much appreciation for the distinctions between what [the Boston private equity firm] TH Lee does and what [Cambridge-based angel investor] Bill Warner does."

Here's CommuniSpace chief executive Diane Hessan introducing a panel with Rep. Frank and Rep. Michael Capuano that talked about "financial market regulation after the financial crisis."

Sidling up to a bar or sitting down at a sidewalk table, your first thought may not be to whip out your mobile phone to let the world know you've arrived at River Gods or Stephanie's on Newbury. If not, you're not yet an obsessive user of Foursquare, the social network/game created by Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley. Hop around to enough places and you can earn a Foursquare badge like "Bender" (going out four nights in a row) or "Pizzaiolo" (grabbing a slice at twenty different pizza joints.) Check in to the same establishment frequently enough, and you may earn the title of "Mayor."