We want to make the conference as accessible as possible in light of recent the weather here. To that end, we’ve set up live streaming for our keynotes, panels, and workshops. Our team will spread out across our events to record and stream as many as possible. You can see the full line-up here. If you’re having trouble seeing/hearing, please leave a comment here and we’ll do our best to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Given the increasing certainty of 2+ feet of snow and hurricane-force winds over Friday and Saturday, we regret to announce that Saturday’s conference events have been cancelled. This decision is in line with the recommendations of MA Governor Patrick and Boston Mayor Menino, who have both strongly advised staying off the roads. Weather reports indicate that the storm will cease on Saturday, and we are planning for a full day of conference events on Sunday. For Saturday attendees, we will send more details regarding our refund policy as soon as we can. In the meantime, please be safe.
SECON2013 is 4 days away, and as the date draws nearer it’s crunch time for the whole leadership team to make sure we have everything lined up for a spectacular weekend. Perhaps more so than for any other role, a lot of the last minute details – and execution over the weekend itself – fall to the Operations team. It’s our job to make sure the rooms are set up, the signs point you in the right direction, there’s food to eat and water to drink, the A/V works…and to make all of that as seamless as possible so that everyone can focus on the inspiring content and conversations that the weekend has to offer. As we double, triple, and quadruple check that we’ve thought of everything, we wanted to share a little bit about why we applied for operations roles with the conference.
At the root, we’re passionate about topics in social enterprise. But we’ve also seen that passion alone isn’t always enough to successfully take on the complex and challenging issues that social enterprises address. Vision, inspirational leadership, strategic thinking – these are all important too. But anyone who has worked in the space knows that it takes a whole lot of elbow grease and time spent on less flashy responsibilities as well. Our professional experiences have shown us how critical well-run operations can be to a successful enterprise – the stuff that’s highly visible when done poorly, but hopefully just blends into the background if done well.
In the context of SECON, this is especially important given how little time we have together for the weekend. In signing up for our roles as co-Directors of Sunday Operations, we hoped to contribute to our time and energy to making the conference planning and logistics run as smoothly as possible. With 1,500 ticketed attendees, 200 speakers, 50 panels and workshops, a social enterprise pitch contest, and a career fair – all during 30 hours spread across two campuses – it’s fulfilled its promise as a challenging undertaking. We’re so excited to see it all come together, and if all goes according to plan we hope you’ll be so focused on the amazing experience put together by our team, speakers, and fellow participants that you won’t even notice we’re there!
Sage and Lauren (Sunday Operations Directors)
Do you like problem solving in teams? Are you creative? Want to help create solutions to our world’s biggest challenges?
If yes, then make sure to sign up for SECON 2013’s structured networking events and tackle the world’s biggest challenges with talented peers from across sectors and the world.
Update on Feb 5: Networking events are now full! Thank you to everyone who has signed up! You will be receiving a confirmation email by Feb 6
The SECON leadership team is proud to present a new series of networking events that will enable participants to forge deeper, more purposeful connections by working on projects together during the conference. Three events over two days will bring participants together in small groups to tackle a challenge in the Social Enterprise space by:
Groups will identify challenges in the following content areas:
By joining with other attendees to create an innovation team, you will have the opportunity to wrestle with challenges in the social sector together and form meaningful bonds.
Sign up here by Friday, February 8th to join us in launching these structured networking events at SECON 2013!
If you missed the Networking webinar, listen to a description of these opportunities and networking best practices here.
Root Causes Session (Saturday, 2:15-4:00)
The Root Causes Session brings cross-sector participants together to work on the audacious challenge of defining the root causes of the world’s largest problems. Using the “5 Whys” question-asking technique from the Toyota Production System, facilitators will work with groups of participants to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying the biggest questions in our content tracks.
Visual scribes will facilitate and record each question chain by creating a mural that represents the key takeaways from the discussion. The results of this brainstorming session will be used during the Crowd Sourced Solutions and Turbo Pitch sessions on Sunday.
Crowd Sourced Solutions Session (Sunday, 9:45-11:00)
Building on the question chains generated in the Root Causes Session on Saturday, the Crowd Sourced Solutions Session is designed to bring together participants to generate proposed solutions to the root causes of the world’s biggest problems.
Turbo Pitch Session (Sunday, 3:15-4:30)
Building off the solutions generated in the Crowd Sourced Solutions Session earlier on Saturday, the Turbo Pitch Session is designed to bring participants together to form a concept for a Social Enterprise to execute on the proposed solutions to the world’s biggest problems.
This year’s Social Enterprise Conference is going to be jam packed with exciting keynotes, panelists, and workshops, not to mention all the passionate social entrepreneurs you’ll be rushing from panel to panel with. Anyone could easily be overwhelmed by all the exciting events going on over the weekend.
That’s why this year’s Social Enterprise ConferenceApp is essential to making the most out of your 2013 Social Enterprise Conference experience. You’ll be able to find other conference-goers who share your passions and connect with them.
ConferenceApp will help you organize information overload from all the amazing events at this year’s conference. Use it to create a profile, connect to other attendees and panelists, and commit to bringing the energy and ideas from the conference out into the world.
Here are some quick tips on how to get the most out of ConferenceApp and your Social Enterprise Conference experience:
Once the conference starts you’ll also start getting daily digest emails that bring all the highlights of the conference right to you. You won’t have to worry about missing a thing.
And if you’re not sure who to connect with, we can help you out with that, too. Your daily digest email will have a few suggestions of people with shared interests who you may enjoy getting to know. You’ll be able to connect with those folks right through the email using ConferenceApp’s messaging feature. Introduce yourself and schedule a conversation over a cup of coffee.
You don’t have to wait until next week to start making the most of your experience. Set up a profile and start using ConferenceApp today to connect with other social entrepreneurs, and get the conversation going.