The Value Web responded with lightening speed to a request by Rokk3rLabs and the Knight Foundation to co-design and deliver a session that would get Miami’s startup community working together with clear commitments to grow and strengthen in 2013.

We designed the session around Brad Feld, who is a central player in the Boulder startup scene, and his book and his blog. His Youtube interview is below.

One of the hardest things to get right, as Matt Taylor says, is, creating the conditions for success. This session managed to get them right and I now have a much clearer understand about how having the right sponsors, the right participants and the right design can align to deliver an impactful and amazing event!

A short but targeted session

Though our session was short, around 3-4 hours, it built upon an earlier info-heavy session by Atlantic Cities and the Knight Foundation, which provided the necessary ‘scan.’ A few other factors helped get the conditions right. I interviewed around 10-11 key players before the session to better understand their role in the ecosystem and their thoughts about its future. I scribed these interviews and Alfredo and the Housatonic design team turned them into knowledge objects. I don’t think I’ll ever do another event without spending the up-front time in one-to-one conversation with the key decision makers. It was essential to our success.

We curated the invite list and targeted only the key players– no substitutions. What emerged on a Monday afternoon, was a highly energized group of around 130 people who showed up ready to work! After a level-setting module of ‘history of the future’ we put them in mixed teams, each with its distinct twist on the startup world: early stage investors; mid stage investors; early and second stage entrepreneurs; accelerators; universities; government; branding. We tasked them to turn around the most important actions that they together could deliver in 2013. The Value Web artists captured the actions on a roadmap, that was quickly turned-around for a press conference following the event.

We are working on next-moves with this community. One thing surely resulted because of our session:

Folks know much better what is happening, who is doing what and what their role is in building the kind of startup community that was envisioned.

You’ll want to have a look at the real-time video/scribe capture that Alicia did of the insights, that is, well, WOW! See it here:

The team was first-rate and we not only worked great together, but also we had a lot of fun! Thanks a mil to Alfredo Carlo, Lucia Fabiani, Sita Magnuson, Jeff Shults and Caroline MacDonald for their amazing delivery and energy.

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