MANIFEST MORNINGS

What if you had a dedicated time each week for connection and inspiration? A time to build community, engage, and help one another from your homes. Meet Manifest Mornings.

Join us every Thursday at 8AM for 45 minutes of virtual conversation. You'll:

We'll get your input on what’s important and bring in experts accordingly. Content will be intentionally designed to keep you in-the-know and energized, and focused on things like entrepreneurship, innovation, design, tech, and art. After, you'll stay connected with other attendees through a dedicated Slack workspace.

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NOV 4

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tune in LIVE

Creating Wonder in Our Every Day

Daedelus
Thurs, April 30 at 8:00 AM ET

As a prolific electronic musician, Daedelus has been creating unique pieces rooted in innovation and emotion for decades.

Creating a sense of wonder is a central theme in everything he does. How can we take that same approach in our day to day lives? How can sound enhance our daily practice?

Under the alias Daedelus, Alfred Darlington has been active in electronic music for the past 20 years, releasing on labels like Ninja Tune, Brainfeeder, Dome of Doom, and many more. As a performer Alfred has played over 1,000 live shows on 6 continents, at venues ranging from underground events like the seminal Low End Theory to festival mainstages such as Coachella.

As of 2019, he is an assistant professor for the Berklee College of Music in Boston as a founding faculty member of their new EDI (Electronic Digital Instrument) program and artist in residence at SETI.

Feeding Families, One Table at a Time

Jen Faigel
Thurs, May 7 at 8:00 AM ET

For years, Jen Faigel and the team at Commonwealth Kitchen have been championing those who want to pursue a better life. Their mission to build a new food economy grounded in racial, social, and economic justice has been an example to us all. But what happens when a pandemic hits and you have to pivot your mission?

Join us to hear the story of Common Table, a relief program manifested in less than 3 weeks to provide support and meals to those who need it most in our region.

Jen Faigel is Executive Director of CommonWealth Kitchen, Greater Boston’s non-profit food business incubator and development center. CWK is on a mission to build to a new food economy grounded in racial, social and economic justice. To accomplish its mission, CWK takes a comprehensive, systems-based approach, providing a mix of shared-use kitchens, combined with wrap-around business and technical support, and coordinated market access to more than 80 diverse food companies annually. CWK also operates its own small-batch manufacturing operation, working with emerging brands to help scale production, providing on-demand processing for local farms, and producing a range of custom products for institutional customers.

Under Jen’s leadership, CWK was named Best Incubator by Boston Magazine, and a Game-Changer by The Boston Globe. Jen was recognized by The Globe as a nonprofit leader to watch, and is a 2019 Barr Foundation Fellow.

Before joining CWK, Jen worked for 20 years developing affordable housing and commercial real estate. In her tenure, Jen helped develop or stabilize nearly 1,000 homes, and developed over 250,000 SF of commercial space. Jen’s motto in life is that it’s not about how high you climb or how fast you run, but how well you bounce!

State of Play: Fostering Mindfulness with Lego

Ross Cidlowski
Thurs, May 14 at 8:00 AM ET

For the past 6 weeks we have all looked for ways to cope in crisis — reading, music, cooking, walking, connecting. But what about play? How do we inject play into our lives to release tension? Lower anxiety?

Join Ross Cidlowski, Director of Strategy at Lego, to hear about how people are turning to "building" to find calm and space amidst the chaos.

Ross Cidlowski is a seasoned strategic marketer and brand innovator, creating value at the intersections of culture, consumption, and content. With 17+ years of experience he's an expert at identifying and constructing strategies rooted in rich human insights.

In the name of good work he's driven a coffee truck across New England, flown at trapeze school for qualitative research on emotion of wonder, constructed a sensory lab for beverage ideation, been attacked by a kung fu master for a cardio project, and sampled hundreds of prototypes to build the ultimate candy bar.

The Power of Listening: Creating Community Through a Simple Act

Diane Hessan
Thurs, May 21 at 8:00 AM ET

It has been said that the ability to hear is one of the greatest forms of communication we are given. This innate gift is the foundation for creating community, building a thriving business, and forming connections.

Join us to hear from one of Boston’s best listeners, as she shares how listening has been an inspiration and a cornerstone of her career and life, and how you can be a better listener for the people in your life too.

Diane Hessan is a successful entrepreneur, marketer and author. She is currently CEO of Salient Ventures (www.salientventures.co), an active board member and angel investor, and is engaged in a wide-ranging longitudinal study of the American voter as a columnist for The Boston Globe.

She is also Chairman of C Space (formerly Communispace), where she was CEO and founder. C Space, “with a Blue Chip client list that would make a Madison Avenue giant jealous," according to Advertising Age, is the leader in helping companies get insight and inspiration from their customers. Diane led Communispace to 13 years of exponential growth, and it now has over 500 employees, and offices in over a dozen countries.

Formerly CEO of Startup Institute, Diane helped build the company into a force for building great talent in the innovation economy.

Diane is co-author of the book Customer-Centered Growth: Five Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage. The book, a Business Week best-seller, was published in 11 languages.
Diane has received many honors, including the Most Admired CEO award and Boston Power 50 award from the Boston Business Journal, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, the Northstar Award from Springboard, the Great Boston Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year, and a range of Best Boss citations. She was honored as a Distinguished Entrepreneur at Babson College and received the Asper Award for Global Entrepreneurship from Brandeis. In 2019, the Harvard Business School Association of Boston honored Diane as their Business and Community Leader of the Year. She has received honorary degrees from Bentley University and The New England College of Business.

Diane serves on many boards, including Panera, Eastern Bank, Brightcove, The Schlesinger Group, Tufts University, CoachUp, Mass Challenge, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center & The Boston Globe Editorial Board. She received her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and her B.A. in Economics from Tufts University. She has 2 grown daughters, and is founder of The Sound Bytes, an a cappella group that sings about business.

UP NEXT

NOV 4

Allston

WATCH past Conversations

The Radical Act of a Morning Walk

Libby DeLana on Thurs, April 2

Friedrich Nietzsche memorably said that “only thoughts reached by walking have value”.

Libby DeLana knows a thing or two about the power of a morning walk, having spent the last 8 years walking 8 miles a day — or basically the circumference of the earth.

We learned how to create a daily practice to fuel creativity, foster connections, and nourish your mind.

Libby is a Creative Director and Co-Founder of the creative agency Mechanica. Libby’s work has won many industry awards, has been featured in publications like PRINT Design Annual, Graphis Design & Logo, Fast Company, Communication Arts, and has been profiled by the BBC for the series called The Chain in which, “leading figures name the woman who’s inspired their success for the next interview in this audio chain.”

For the last 8 years, Libby has been taking #thismorningwalk and has been documenting it on instagram as @parkhere (Park is her middle name). The idea came from a simple idea, to relearn how to see and to practice a simple gesture of gratitude each day. (We think we could all use a little more of that right now.)

Libby lives in Newburyport, is a kombucha jedi, type nerd, impatient knitter, aspiring pilot, rookie fly fisherman, advocate for female leadership, and mom to two amazing tall boys.

Empowering Female Founders

Kate Anderson on Thurs, April 9

72% of female founders cite lack of access to capital as the #1 barrier to starting a business. Yet businesses founded by women deliver higher revenue—more than 2x as much per dollar invested—than those founded by men.

Kate Anderson co-founded IFundWomen to change the game for women founders with direct support, networking, and coaching.

Join us for a conversation about finding a disruptive approach to a traditional model and rethinking how to champion women entrepreneurs so that we all benefit.

Kate is a leader in generating change and gender equality within the private fundraising space. As co-founder and Operations Director of iFundWomen, she has driven millions of dollars into the hands of female founders. iFundWomen's flexible crowdfunding platform combines a pay-it-forward model, expert startup coaching, professional video production, and a private community for its entrepreneurs, all with the goal of helping female entrepreneurs launch.

Community Investing in Your Own Backyard

Nick Mathews on Thurs, April 16

Small business. It’s a term that evokes powerful imagery and meaning, especially now. The local coffee shop, your favorite neighborhood restaurant, or the yoga studio you go to each week. What if you could invest in those businesses to keep them thriving and growing?  AND, you could see that investment come back to you over time?

Join us to hear Nick Mathews talk about how investing in local economic development can help us build stronger communities.

Nick is the CEO and Co-founder of Mainvest. An expert in marketing and operational strategy, Nick led the team that launched Uber in Boston back in 2013. While launching Uber in new markets, both suburban and urban, he experienced firsthand local challenges around economic development. He founded Mainvest in 2018 with the goal of empowering communities to determine their own economic development, utilizing new regulations and novel investment vehicles to align incentives between local community members and small businesses. Nick's mission is to revitalize the American Dream, one small business at a time.

Secrets of an Olympic Photographer

John Huet
Thurs, April 23 at 8:00 AM ET

With the Olympics postponed, we wanted to bring the drama and beauty of the games to you over your morning coffee.

John has been covering the Olympics for over 15 years and has seen first hand what it takes to capture athletes at their peak and the intricacies of throwing the world's biggest party.

Come hear what happens behind the scenes to create the magic.

Over a career spanning more than 30 years, John Huet has photographed sports action and portraits for a who’s who of athletic brands, leagues, and magazines: Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, the NBA, the International Olympic Committee, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN the Magazine – to name just a few. He’s published several books of his Olympic photographs, as well as a book of personal work called Soul of the Game. John’s photographs are also part of the permanent collections at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian.

our guiding principles

Our aim with Manifest Mornings is to build community one conversation at a time. We believe:
  • Curiosity is what unites us and shows us what's possible.
  • Experiments lead to growth. Manifest Mornings are a big experiment and you're along for the ride.
  • Opinions encouraged. There is magic in the friction points.
  • Community and connection fuel us all.

CONNECT with us