Nantucket 2010: Your ideas?

We usually build most of the agenda for the Nantucket Conference in January and early February, leaving a few slots open for ideas that occur to us closer to the event (or speakers that prove tough to nail down.)

Here are three themes we're going to focus on for the 11th edition.

- Growing great companies. Hiring superstars, managing product development, low-friction sales models, fund-raising: what strategies work best to turn small companies into big companies? What problems emerge when you grow too fast, or your success suddenly awakens a giant competitor? We especially like CEOs who can serve as role models on these issues and share the straight scoop.

- Reports from afar. What's happening in other innovative parts of the world, whether China, India, Brazil, Israel or beyond? How are companies there setting up presences in New England or collaborating with companies here? What can we learn from these innovation clusters?

- Understanding consumers. Developing products for 'em, marketing to 'em, serving 'em, listening to 'em.

Who'd be great as a speaker to help explore those themes?

As always, we're open to other ideas (either post a comment or e-mail me at scott - at - nantucketconference dot com.) We especially like to create panels and fireside chats around emerging technology trends (last year, energy innovation) and companies everyone is talking about (last year, Skype.)

(As background, here's a post about how we select speakers for the conference.)