Averaging the Five* People You Spend Time with at DEF

*And We Will Have More Than 140 Great Minds in Chicago This Weekend

As the saying goes from Jim Rohn, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. One of the many great things about the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF) is that it will bring together far more than five of the best entrepreneurial minds across the Department of Defense and other organizations. DEF will supercharge those five people around you with those dedicated to innovation. And we are just a couple days away from the second iteration of DEF, DEF 2.0, taking place from Friday, 24 October 2014 to Sunday, 26 October 2014 in Chicago, IL that will feature talks, discussions, case studies, and pitches on innovation.

My personal interest in the DEF movement, as I imagine is the case with many other participants, began with Ben Kohlmann’s inspiring article “The Military Needs More Disruptive Thinkers.” As someone who works to improve operations with innovative ideas while having to overcome the ever-present bureaucratic inertia, I found that the discovery of others fighting the same battle immediately energized my focus. A slew of articles from other similar-minded innovators followed in the trail blazed by Ben and this culminated with the bold decision to hold a conference in Chicago in October 2013 at the University of Chicago’s campus—a conference that would take place during the height of sequestration budget impacts where the vast majority, if not all, of the participants would pay their own way to be there. While I couldn’t convince anyone I knew to attend with me, I decided it was a good time to take some leave and see on my own what this conference was all about. In hindsight, registering for DEF2013 is likely the best investment I have ever made.

I don’t pretend to be an expert entrepreneur or innovator with a far-ranging idea that cuts across the Department of Defense such as a suicide prevention app, a suite of military travel apps, or a forthcoming book on a defense innovator from a previous generation. Instead, I view myself as an “intrepreneur” working within whatever system I find myself in and, for now, I’m perfectly fine with that. In the wake of the first DEF, fresh off the inspiration of being around such innovative people, I wrote about my efforts to ask for innovation as the leader of a weather data ingest team. More recently, I wrote about getting your idea to the point of execution through a sometimes brutal, but necessary staffing process required to effect change across a larger organization that was based on my time working with wing-level processes as a deployed executive officer. DEF2013 not only motivated me to continue to innovate, but it armed me with a wealth of contacts who are fellow innovators that continue to inspire me with the challenges that they conquer.

Last year, I had the pleasure of meeting USAF Col Michael Bob Starr, one of the senior leaders present at DEF2013 and the current wing commander at Dyess AFB, TX. In a “small world” moment, we found ourselves on the phone with each other nine months later while I was deployed and setting up a phone call between him and my wing commander—we briefly chatted about our shared experience at the first DEF. He will return this year to lead a case study on the second day of DEF 2.0 about integrating new media tools in command to bridge multiple generations. In another example of the power of DEF, leading up to DEF2013, I stumbled across an interesting blog by an at-the-time anonymous Army officer that I immediately added to my RSS feed. I found From The Green Notebook to be well-written and down-to-Earth and thanks to DEF, I found myself sitting at a table next to its author, Joe Byerly. And I cannot overlook the insightful tweets and other content that I continue to follow from other DEF2013 participants such as, among others, The Bridge by Nate Finney, Building Peace by Mark Jacobsen, and the podcasts and blogs on CIMSEC regarding leadership and innovation that Matt Hipple has a huge hand in putting together.

This year, I’m looking forward to USAF Brig Gen John Michel’s case study on his experience leading the NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan, as well as USAF Lt Col Dan Ward’s case study on fast, inexpensive, restrained, and elegant weapons development. And no, I’m not just excited about the USAF presenters because I’m especially looking forward to USN LCDR BJ Armstrong kick-off the festivities Friday morning with a follow-up to his “Gun Doctor” talk last year about Admiral Sims—this year’s talk rumored on Twitter to be called “The Nuclear Option.”

For three days this weekend, more than 140 entrepreneurial minds will converge in Chicago to pick up where we left off last year. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take this incredible average to be around any day. If you’re going to be in Chicago for DEF 2.0, I look forward to meeting you, discussing innovation, and walking away dedicated to implementing game-changing ideas.

And if you are not able join us in Chicago, I encourage you to follow along with the action online at #DEF2014 on Twitter and Facebook.