Lean Startup Conference 2014: Wrap and Thanks
by KG Charles-Harris
KG Charles-Harris is once again attending the Lean Startup Conference and sharing his impressions and what he’s learning with you.
Once again the team of Sarah Millstein & Eric Ries has created a weeklong conference – the Lean Startup Conference – that hits it out of the ballpark!
If you didn’t see my updates from last year’s conference, I must reiterate that this is the most useful of all the tech/business conferences I have attended. And this year they took it to a new level of excellence in several different areas.
There were two very notable differences from previous years, firstly, the larger contingent and programming for enterprise organizations and government (intrapreneurship), and secondly, the significant inclusion of women and minorities in the speaker and mentor lineup.
One would think that for a startup conference, having a large portion of programming dedicated to mature and large organizations would be a distraction or departure from the core values and intent of the conference.
However, the way in which they developed the programming, it became a learning experience for aspiring entrepreneurs of how to not only grow their companies, but also for how to keep their companies vital and vibrant as they became larger.
Several of my conversations with people who came from large organizations and governments, both nationally and from far flung destinations like Norway and Portugal, displayed a tremendous optimism that the Lean Startup methodology had potential to revitalize their organizations and how they serve their customers/constituents.
The second important difference from previous years is that the conference was characterized by the diversity of speakers and mentors.
In terms of gender, age, racial background and experience, the conference was replete with different perspectives that give us the knowledge that Lean Startup is good execution regardless of whether I am a diminutive woman from India or a large, bearded white male.
This made the conference much more interesting than any other I’ve attended and the networking was exceptional as a result.
Clearly the conference organizers thought carefully of how they could provide both a learning experience in business and a culturally expanding perspective.
Thank you Sarah and Eric for both a superb learning experience, as well as a personally expanding event – truly exceptional!
