Thursday, May 11, 2006

Mash-Up Follow-Up

Last Tuesday's entrepreneurs "mash-up" was indeed a success, and congrats to Gary Rosensteel for pushing this inaugural version over the finish line. Some follow-up thoughts:

1. Relatively few of the "usual suspects" were at the event. I overheard some criticism on this point: No one from the investor community was there, apparently, and relatively few of the well-known heads of Pittsbugh's intermediary organizations. Personally, I took their absence as a good sign: there's a big demand out there for connectedness among people who are interested in the entrpreneurial economy, even working in it, and who need and want each other much more than they need or want help from above. Do this again and again, and keep expanding the pool. Also, venture capitalists don't go to this sort of thing, so don't be disappointed that they don't show up.

2. Because PUMP supplied volunteers, PUMP speakers pumped PUMP. Not good. This event wasn't about PUMP, and future events shouldn't be about PUMP. The point of the mash-up isn't to consolidate activity in one organization, or any handful of them. The point is to energize everyone to go out and do their thing, knowing that there is a network of like-minded people accessible to them.

3. The location and venue weren't great. In fact, they were downright dull. Can we get out of Downtown? Can we get out of an office tower? And the acoustics of the facility were so bad that it was difficult to hear the person next to you. Hearing any of the speakers at the microphone was just about impossible.

1 comment:

Harold D. Miller said...

I was disappointed that there were almost no representatives of the economic development organizations at the Mashup. Not so much because the entrepreneurs missed out on something, but because the economic development organizations did. The enthusiasm in the room for Pittsburgh was inspiring, and these are the customers that many of the agencies need to better understand and try to serve.