Words from Skip: Oregon’s Tech Hubs

Words from Skip: 

Oregon’s Tech Hubs  

During the past eight months I have been spending time meeting with technology industry execs, entrepreneurs, and economic development and university officials from several tech communities around the state, including Corvallis, Bend, Eugene, and the Gorge.  I thought it would be interesting to share my thoughts from these interactions as there are important initiatives underway in each of these communities.

In some ways, each community is different.  Bend, Corvallis, and Eugene offer a compelling quality of life for their residents, and these communities all have airports nearby.  These areas attract large contingents of software professionals who work remotely from home for major tech companies headquartered elsewhere.  These three communities also boast dozens of successful, home-grown technology companies ranging in size from sole-proprietors to hundreds of employees.  

The Gorge, which also offers a great quality of life, has the benefit of the Gorge Tech Alliance, which helps to organize meetups and facilitate economic development in support of the local tech community.  The GTA also has considerable support from large anchor institutions such as Google’s datacenter operations in The Dalles and Insitu.  These companies provide support for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) initiatives in local schools and to programs that support smaller tech companies based in the Gorge.

EDCO in Bend and the Corvallis Chamber of Commerce work to support a number of key industries, and they are increasingly interested in doing more to support software and tech.  EDCO has been working with larger companies such as Bend Research, Bend Broadband, Tech Soft 3D and G5 Search Marketing and a host of smaller companies to organize Bend’s community of tech user groups and incubator and co-working spaces.  The Eugene Chamber has also been reaching out to the local tech community, which includes some large companies like Zynga and Symantec, and to the University of Oregon to discuss needs and gaps in the local ecosystem.  

The Corvallis tech community has a number of large anchor institutions, including HP and Oregon State University, which have provided support to the tech community over the years, as well as a host of innovative smaller companies and startups.  In the past 8 years or so, the Willamette Innovators’ Network (WiN) and the SAO (now TAO) Corvallis Chapter have been central to organizing events for the local tech community.  Both of these groups are in the process of re-imagining and redefining their purpose and structure, as well as their relationship to stakeholders, like OSU. 

And in other ways, every community is the same—specifically as it relates to key challenges facing the region’s tech industry.  These challenges can be organized into three areas: 1) community; 2) promotion/visibility; and 3) networks.     

Community

Each of these communities is in a different stage of organizing their respective tech communities, and the resources and supporting organizations vary.  In some communities, the private sector is supported by a mix of public, nonprofit, and university resources.  Regardless of what organizations the volunteers represent, sustained activity usually requires at least one institution to assume responsibility for encouraging participation and fostering collaboration among different stakeholders.  It also helps to have an institution that can organize community events and manage volunteers.  

Promotion/Visibility

When we conducted a survey of the Greater Portland tech community in October, 94% of respondents said the number one thing they needed help with was visibility for their company and their industry.  This holds true in smaller tech hubs around the state, as well.  Promotion/visibility is an essential ingredient in attracting the right talent, investors, and clients.  The Techlandia.org website was designed with this objective in mind, to serve as a platform for local companies around the state to tell their stories and provide a snapshot of the industry to key audiences located elsewhere.  Recently, Concentric Sky, a TAO member company located in Eugene, launched a website called Silicon Shire, which provides an elegant directory of technology companies located in the Eugene-Springfield region.  We will be linking to and promoting the Silicon Shire site on Techlandia as part of the Phase II build-out, which will include an interactive map and jobs board/database for Oregon and SW Washington.  

Networks

Whether organizing a panel on the State’s technology industry for EDCO’s Annual Meeting, or speaking at tech meetups hosted by the Corvallis Chapter of TAO or by the Eugene Chamber of Commerce, or attending a GTA meeting, the greatest common denominator for me has been the importance of networks.  Put simply, we can learn a lot from one another.  I have yet to attend a tech-related event in a community around the state where I did not learn something that could be applied in another part of the state.  That’s the challenge for TAO: We do not have enough resources to staff offices in tech hubs around the state, so we need to be creative in how we connect and support the efforts already underway in these communities. 

Whether it’s sharing best practices for planning programs and events, engaging in statewide advocacy efforts, building talent pipelines in the state and in key markets, or helping to promote the local tech industry, there are a number of ways that TAO is an important hub in a network that is bigger than any single organization.  I have really enjoyed getting to know these communities and their supporters over the past eight months, and I am looking forward to continuing to strengthen these relationships now that we are the Technology Association of Oregon.  

Skip Newberry 
President 
TAO