I get asked this question a lot. On the eve of the 4th Lake Nona Impact Forum on February 24-26, 2016 it's worth remembering how it began. Several Tavistock leaders including Gloria Caulfield, Doug McMahon, Rob Adams, Andy Odenbach, Mark Hayes and Ron Domingue were key to shaping what was launched in October of 2012. Many others did the heavy lifting to make the first one a success. But it wasn't an easy or obvious path.

As Lake Nona Medical City was still in its early years, with some of the partner organizations not yet up and operating, the world wasn't aware of what was happening at Lake Nona. We would work hard to bring distinguished guests to visit, and they came...but only one at a time. To a person, somewhere during a driving tour of Lake Nona the words "I had no idea" were uttered. It was so predictable. And understandable. We were the world's best kept secret. It was clear that we needed a different way to get the word out.

Soon after I joined the Tavistock Group in 2008 I expanded my involvement in BioOrlando, our Central Florida Chapter of BioFlorida. As chair of the recruitment committee I advocated for a business development strategy that would target the top 100 most influential life sciences leaders in the U.S. to let them know what was happening in Orlando as our life sciences cluster quickly emerged. We didn't make a lot of headway with the strategy at BioOrlando, but I knew it had potential.

A couple of years later, as several of us worked on the "I had no idea" problem, I drew on the BioOrlando experience, and we combined it with Tavistock's success in hosting an international golf tournament called the Tavistock Cup. It was a high quality, invitation-only event that was supported by sponsors and attracted the best professional golfers anywhere. Worldwide media coverage on the Golf Channel and through other outlets helped put Tavistock and its two golf clubs on the map.

Could we create the "Tavistock Cup of Ideas?"

So, we thought, why not create the "Tavistock Cup of Ideas" and target health and life sciences leaders and influencers who would come to Lake Nona for an exchange of high quality insights and a memorable experience? It had potential. But we needed to figure out a way for it to make economic sense, which meant enlisting sponsors to join Tavistock in taking the risk to create the first one.

So in the fall of 2011, with my Lake Nona Impact Forum co-founder and partner in crime Gloria Caulfield, we approached the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation for a grant. To his eternal credit, CEO David Odahowski had faith enough to join the Tavistock Foundation in providing the seed sponsorship. Between the time he committed and the actual event, the concept morphed through several iterations, but David's confidence never wavered.

Early in 2012 we picked a date (October 23-25) and then started making things up. We had never done anything like this before, but Doug McMahon and Rob Adams and their teams added energy and great ideas, and Gloria and I went to work curating themes, topics and speakers. And after developing a budget we realized we needed to find more sponsors in order to give it a full green light. New partners GE, Johnson & Johnson, Cisco and Florida Blue were intrigued by the idea and came aboard, and soon others followed. Having secured enough commitments by April, Tavistock Senior Managing Director Rasesh Thakkar and Lake Nona President Jim Zboril gave final approval to proceed, and then it all shifted into even higher gear. We didn't have much time.

There's a whole other story worth writing about how that first event came together in just a few short months, but in the end, our inaugural Impact Forum exceeded all expectations. Because we weren't sure enough about how it would go, we didn't even commit to doing another one until after it was over. But we did it again the following October and then shifted to better Florida weather in February 2015 for our third.

J&J CEO Alex Gorsky speaking at the 2012 Lake Nona Impact Forum

And now 2016 is #4, and better than ever. How satisfying to work with a team that saw opportunities not obstacles as we built on the belief that we had something to contribute to health innovation that no one else was offering in the same way. Most gratifying have been the hundreds of new relationships and collaborations that have emerged, and that will make a difference to the health of our population in the years ahead.

And all because we were tired of hearing "I had no idea."