Equanimity, Part 3

So last Thursday was a real doozy of a day. Started early with CFED's first Innovation Summit. We put on this daylong conference that was very nontraditional, at least as conferences go. We had a comedian open things up, who was pretty damn funny. She's won Best College Comic in DC by the DC Improv and City Paper the last two years, and since she is the friend of our president's daughter, we got her to do a 10-minute bit to liven up the crowd. Problem is, sometimes nonprofits and their partners are serious people who don't quite get that a comic is supposed to challenge your perceptions and make you sometimes laugh at things you may not think are that funny. Well, whatever, screm em, she was funny even if half the room didn't get the jokes (of course, maybe throwing a comic out on stage at 9 a.m. was maybe a bit jarring for people also).

Wow, that went on for a bit. Maybe I should take a few moments to compose myself.

OK, back to the Summit. Like I said, it was nontraditional. Beyond the comic, there were lots of video presentations and instead of everyone having hour-long meetings in crappy hotel conference spaces, we held the event at Sidney Harman Hall, which is this swanky theater space. So all the meetings were held at stations around the Hall, and everyone really seemed to dig it. Made the proceedings much more interactive and free-flowing. I hope you all will take a few minutes to watch our introductory video, which highlighted our Innovators-in-Residence and Innovative Champions. The image at the top goes to the video.

We got a lot of positive feedback from the event and I think we will be incorporating elements of this event into our future convenings. I didn't get to stay at the Summit for the whole thing, though, because I was busy helping Kristin get everything ready for that evening's 30th Anniversary Gala. Oh yeah, we started early and we went late into the night.