Last Friday and Saturday I joined more than 500 other business-people and “local” activists from around the country for BALLE’s 6th Annual Conference in Boston, entitled Grow Deep. BALLE (the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) is a nationwide organization that provides resources to local and regional networks of local and independent businesses working towards a sustainable, prosperous, more “local” economy. Portland Buy Local and the Portland Independent Business Alliance are members of a similar organization the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA).

Highlights included a panel on localized economic development, moderated by Micheal Shuman, a customer service “training” from Paul Saginaw of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, and some really exciting conversations with some other great folks working in New England about how we can work together to have a bigger impact and create a new vision for the New England economy.

This was my fourth BALLE conference, so it was great to see some familiar faces, including Keith Lasoya, Teddy Rouse and the gang from the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance, Chris Lindstrom from EF Schumacher and BerkSHARES, and some of the folks from New England whom I had just had the opportunity to meet a few weeks ago at a regional leadership gathering.

Peter joined me on Saturday and took some pictures- I hope to write a more complete description of a few of the more exciting panels and speakers. Here is the post we wrote last year about the conference in Berkeley.

This afternoon, in case I haven’t gotten enough BALLE yet this week, I am going to a presentation in New Hampshire by Michelle Long of Sustainable Connections at WREN (the Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network). I met a few folks from WREN at lunch on Saturday and am really looking forward to learning more about this exciting organization.