Reflections on InnoVenture and BMW ProAm

I’ve been a busy girl! Two weeks ago I went to the two day event, InnoVenture, in Greenville at the TD Convention center, and last week I attended the BMW ProAm for the first time in my 20+ years of living in Greenville.

InnoVenture was really fascinating.  It was set up with half of it in a trade show format, and then an area for the lectures to the side.  That was one of the things that I appreciated the most—sitting through a marathon lecture is hard, even if it’s your favorite topic in the world.  But, John Warner set InnoVenture up in a way that the lectures were each 10 minutes.  There was a keynote speaker in the morning, followed by lectures all morning, a break for lunch, and then a keynote speaker followed by more lectures all afternoon.  The topics ranged from Sealed Air’s new eco-packaging and bullet proof vests, to WiProwess’s software meant to reduce surgical error’s by ‘speaking’ on behalf of the patient when the patient cannot.

John Warner and InnoVenture realized that not everyone would be interested in every topic, so it was set up in a way that listeners could come and go.  If you weren’t interested in that topic, or you just needed to stretch your legs, you could go walk around the trade show component of the event for a bit.  At the end of many of the speaker’s 10 minutes many of them asked the audience to become involved, saying they needed new business, new partners, investors and more.  This was extremely interesting to me, because both big and small companies had the same goals—and those were the same goals ProActive has.  It felt really nice to be surrounded by so many like-minded people, and I made many good business connections over those two days.  I also ‘live-tweeted’ for our followers’ benefit!

The BMW ProAm was a really exciting event for me.  Growing up in Greenville, I felt like just about everyone and their grandmother had attended the ProAm, except for me.  So, when the Upstate SC Alliance offered SkyBox tickets to their investors, I was really excited.  Adam, Bradley and I walked the front 9 of the course at Thornblade backwards, which allowed us to see more players rather than staying with the same group the whole time.  (See that picture of Adam and me in front of the 2nd hole to the left) After that, we hung out in the Upstate Alliance’s SkyBox.  Thursday it wasn’t so crowded, which was nice, but Friday was a little more packed.  I met many interesting people, but the most exciting thing to me was simply getting to attend the ProAm!