We're building the airplane mid-flight.

And that's the nature of this particular enterprise. The 12th annual MIMA Summit, like all Summits before it, will be assembled more or less in public up until we're live on Tuesday, October 15. What's intriguing is seeing the idea evolve as it grows. So many products, brands and campaigns evolve in secret. This one has too many moving parts to stay hidden.

Eight tracks of programming, each containing four sessions, some of which are panels. Which translates into more than 32 speakers, contracts, bios, descriptions. One top of which we've also booked three amazing keynotes from Sarah Lacy, Nate Silver and Bob Lefsetz. Never mind the marketing efforts. Or the sponsorship adventures. Or the venue logistics.

But it's the insanity of it all that fuels me.

This is my fourth (and final) year as volunteer President of the Minnesota Interactive marketing Association. So it's my last official year helping to sweat these many details of our annual conference. Granted, and to be very clear — I'm not the only one sweating those details. Nor am I working the longest hours. Lauren, Beth, Derrick, Jeff, Kat, Nate, Amanda, Mary Lou, Danny, Chris and the rest of our board of directors (16 awesome people) and all the track captains (more than eight) are neck deep as well. I have this image in my head of the 35+ people making this event happen massed in the air around an invisible object; an assembly line floating through space. And soon what we've been assembling will contain over 1,000 people.

Last night I was editing speaker bios and collaborating with Derrick the site developer. We launched the 2013 Summit back in March with some boilerplate lingo. But it mutates. That, to me, is the essence and joy of creating a tangible thing — the small freedoms to enhance and grow meaning of an idea. State of Change. That's where we started. It had promise and now we're beginning to see how and why that idea connects with current culture, how various speakers illuminate its intent. Who knew?

And in a few short weeks we'll be fully assembled. We'll land the plane. A thousand people will have an incredible experience in the 10 hours of the event. And those of us behind the scenes will have this keen resonance that comes from being there when it was only a few scraps of paper, some code and our intent.