Feasting on Social Innovation

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting New York City, where I attended The Feast, an innovation conference held by All Day Buffet. If you've just had to reread that sentence, don't worry, it will make sense in a minute.  All Day Buffet is a group with a simple mission: "[to] change the world through creativity and business." The Feast was a day-long event with 12 entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and world-changers, addressing an audience of 300+. The event was book-ended by some pre-events, post-events, workshops and conversations.

I went down primarily to focus on process, not content. I wanted to see how they ran the event, to see if we could learn anything in terms of creative facilitation or programming techniques. (and by "they", in turns out that it is really run by two young and uber-talented entrepreneurs, Jerri Chou & Michael Karnjanaprakorn.) To that end, I was a bit disappointed. It was "TED-like", with a series of 12 speakers addressing the crowd in a series of 18-minute talks. But I figured a conference on innovation would try some more bottom-up, and side-to-side techniques, rather than a broadcast strategy.  No such luck.

Now, that said, something astonishing happened: I was inspired. The speakers, on the whole, were excellent. And I felt something - y'know, inside. I was amazed by some of the stories, provoked by some of the ideas, and astonished by some of the individuals. You can watch the sessions here: http://alldaybuffet.stream57.com/thefeast/. Stand-outs for me were sessions on the power of empathy, post-Katrina development in New Orleans, an insider's view of the slow food movement,  a peak at CharityWater and a plan to build a sanitary pad (we had to say "menstruation") social enterprise in Africa (awesome).

To be fair, despite a lack of creative structure to the day, there was amazing energy in the room. People were eager to connect, share their ideas and meet new people. It was really something. And while the comparisons to TED are a bit obvious and perhaps unfair, it was a really polished, professional event. The organizers deserve great recognition for pulling of such a great day. I expect this will become one of the premiere social innovation events within a few years.

The Feast moves to New Orleans in 2010... if you're at all intrigued, I'd encourage you to make the trip...