We recently concluded our recent RainMakers Live event, NUSEA’s biannual mixer. However, with so many mixers and panel discussions in the valley, it’s difficult for our event to stand out. We wanted to do something more than organizing an event and getting speakers. Already, NUSEA had our fair share of learning from experience of others - What we really need to do is not to just engage in passive learning - But to be involved in active learning and creativity. (Check out Mohan’s interview with Folksonomy) Therefore the main considerations we had when organizing this year’s event is:

“How can we come up with an event where participants themselves were an integral part of the show? How can we encourage active learning, rather that simply sitting down and listening to people who have “been there and done that?”

NUSEA members put their thinking caps on and came up with the idea of having an entrepreneurial game. Participants got a chance to be part of the event by actively getting involved in forming teams, brainstorming ideas and pitching ideas to other teams at the event. We further refined it by inviting a cool new startup, MINT to deliver a challenge to the participants at the event. We deliberately did not inform the participants about the challenge before the event and we wanted them to think on the spot. Participants had just over half an hour to come up with a plan for MINT. The top 3 teams will then pitch their ideas to the judges from MINT. The winning team will walk away with a $500 cash prize sponsored by MINT.

It was interesting seeing the different mixes of the teams and their dynamics. Most teams came up with elaborate sketches of their ideas, along with funky team names. The best part was that participants were actively engaged to think on the spot and interact with people they met at the event itself. We were really privileged to have Justin Ricaurte who flew down all the way from Seattle to join us!

The event was not big scale. No famous panelists. Nothing ordinary. Nothing fantastic. However, all of us had a great time at the event and we achieved what we set out to do, or more likely what we set out not to do and that is to not do “yet another panel discussion”.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Mixers, Events Coverage, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.