How do you spend a beautiful Saturday in Boston's Innovation District?  If you are like 100 participants and 40 advisors/mentors, you are participating in CityStart Boston today (Saturday May 30), (or as my iPhone has been correcting it for months during the planning process – City Stars). And anyone who would get up ridiculously early and devote their Saturday to helping their city deserves a big gold star.  You can follow along over today and the next three weeks via #citystartboston.

Think of CityStartBoston as an invitation to "hack your city."  Create real ventures to solve real problems.  Gather a room full of interesting and innovative people to attack problems. And how do you do that? 

At CityStartBoston, the process starts with team formation.  While the traditional route for a hack-a-thon starts with the idea, this time the team is central. The morning kicked off with a quick introduction and a method for getting to know the others in the room.  "Look for people different than yourself." (A system of colored dots denotes the operational roles — product,  sales, operations and marketing, and entrepreneurial roles — visionary, builder, architect and cultivator.) 

There's a dull roar in the room and lots of laughter as the participants look for "chemistry".  Who do I want to hang out with for the next three weeks?  Or beyond.