Gratitude

Sincere and heartfelt thanks to our speakers and my volunteer event content teammates for key leadership and involvement with the encore sold-out March event for MIT EF Chicago.  As announced in an earlier post, our event “Bootstrappers and Investors Faceoff” took place in the Chicago Loop during the evening of March 16, 2010.  Feel free to see the event page for the speakers’ biographies and photos.

My Welcome to the Audience

Welcome and thank you for coming.  All of us are going to feel our time has been well spent this evening, thanks to our terrific speakers.  Our bootstrappers are Chris Hill and Jeff Judge.  Our investors are Jeff Carter and Laurence (Larry) Hayward.  Our moderator is Linda Darragh.  Soon we will become riveted on their lively discussion.

First, do me a favor and help recognize the talent and dedication of our volunteer team in preparing this event.  With us tonight are Richard Cross, Jessica Lybeck, and Carl Karsten.  Absent but appreciated are Karin Nauth Shelly and Tim Courtney.

I’m happy to see many friends and new faces.  Hope we touch base soon.  Now, let’s turn the floor over to our speakers.

Video

See http://blip.tv/file/3551033/ for an eighty minute video of our “Bootstrappers and Investors Faceoff” event.

Kudos to Our Speakers

The tremendous draw to the event, and accolades after the event expressed to me on your behalf, stem from your willingness to share many of your own experiences, business interests, feelings, and insights for open discussion with each other and the audience.  While your insights build from running your ongoing business interests, I understand and appreciate the advance preparation time you allotted to collecting your thoughts as you readied yourselves for your presentations and dialog in the recorded setting.

The respect and attention you paid to each other and the audience in exchanging views and answering questions created the genuine dialog that takes advantage of your presence with all your talents, for an educational and entertaining discussion of serious business topics.  Thank you also for engaging our audience in individual conversations as your schedules allowed before and after the formal panel discussion.

Coming Attractions

For next year’s March 15, 2011 event of MIT EF Chicago, I am pleased to already have a solid team of volunteers assembled and another set of marquee speakers committed in our follow-on performance.  Sometime down the road, we will undertake further discussions, prepare an announcement, and begin concentrated preparations for the third installment of the March events prepared by my volunteer teams.

Please note that our March 2011 event I plan to be my final time as team leader of MIT EF Chicago’s March event.  Still with the organization, my volunteer efforts are transitioning to the Whiteboard Challenge team for MIT EF Chicago, where I’m slotted to serve as the new co-chair #2 to a friendly business colleague, who will serve as incoming co-chair #1 on the May 2011 Whiteboard Challenge of MIT EF Chicago.

New Client Inquiries

In the video from our successful March 2010 event discussed above, folks may notice a brief discussion of my legal services in patents and trademarks had arisen within the natural flow of the speakers’ presentation.  As a friendly follow-up, I invite folks interested in having me serve as their intellectual property attorney to review my background as well as my post on “New Client Inquiries.”  Following that additional review, I will be pleased to hear from interested folks to outline possible flows and costs.  I aim for projects to benefit both the client’s interests and my own business interests.

Text Copyright © 2010 Bob Brill

Carl Karsten · Chris Hill · Jeff Carter · Jeff Judge · Jessica Lybeck · Karin Nauth Shelley · Larry Hayward · Laurence Hayward · Linda Darragh · Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum of Chicago · MIT EF · MIT EF Chicago · MIT Enterprise Forum · MIT Enterprise Forum of Chicago · MITEF · Richard Cross · Tim Courtney