By Doug Poretz
Here’s another perspective on the issues of how to invigorate the technology community of greater Miami and South Florida, discussed here by Juan Pablo Cappello and Auston Bunsen. I am 66, with more than four decades in the communications business. Two years ago, I sold my interests in a Washington, DC-based communications firm I co-founded 9 years earlier that became the largest independent such firm in the DC area and one of the 10 largest in the nation. In addition to experience with my own start-ups, I’ve worked with many start-ups as clients and have been part of the senior management team with three public companies.
Most relevant to this discussion is experience I gained helping to build the successful technology community of Greater Washington, DC, especially Northern Virginia, through leadership and business roles with various organizations including the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC), which became the largest technology council in the country. I have client experience with the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority and the economic development campaigns for Montgomery County (MD), and the entire region through the Greater Washington Board of Trade. Here’s my perspective on the issues Mr. Cappello itemized – plus one important addition:
- Leadership. I agree that there needs to be a shared vision. But shared visions don’t just appear out of nowhere; they are created. The first communications target must be the internal audience of community and business leaders -- to define the vision for them and turn them on to actually achieving it. In South Florida, there are several different organizations with overlapping goals and audiences promulgating similar but nevertheless different visions at the cost of weakening the impact of the individual messages and making it more difficult to promote a singular shared vision. Until all the organizations with shared interests develop a shared vision articulated through a shared messaging strategy, any and all economic development efforts are going to be less effective and less efficient than is needed.
Here is another leadership issue: businesses that have no nexus at all with tech businesses have to get more involved with the growth of the region’s tech community because that growth will translate into new tenants for their commercial real estate and new employees to buy their residential real estate. For law firms it will translate into new IPOs and other transactions to handle. There will be similar benefits for banks, accounting firms, executive search firms, et al. Until the South Florida business community that has nothing whatsoever to do with tech businesses gets behind the growth of the tech community in a very vigorous way, they aren’t going to see the type of serious growth that will ultimately serve their vested interests.
2. Coordination. The efforts of several diverse organizations that were critical to the growth of the tech community in Northern Virginia were coordinated, but not through some central organization. Instead, a pervasive spirit of collaboration became an integral part of the community’s culture. As mentioned above, the first requirement in changing the culture is a credible, strong, exciting, shared aspirational vision, the bolder the better.
3. Funding. I find it hard to accept Mr. Bunsen’s view that the lack of venture capital is somehow an asset because it results in a stronger “entrepreneurial backbone.” It only results in one thing: fewer start-ups. More money is needed – preferably from local investors who can also assume roles as mentors. There is a critical need to attract more investment capital to South Florida and get those investors to establish strong local presences.
4. Positioning. Manufacturing Economy businesses consider hard assets (property, plant and equipment) as their most important assets whereas the most important assets for Knowledge Economy businesses are their human assets – their employees. South Florida isn’t going to build a Knowledge Economy until it builds a constantly growing Knowledge-based labor pool. Any economic development campaign must be robust enough to change the image of South Florida from a place for the old and retired to a place for the young, hip and aspirational.
5. Marketing. I’ve spent more than four decades conducting marketing communications campaigns. This is an a priori truth in my opinion.
6. Here is my addition to Mr. Cappello’s list of critical factors: South Florida leadership needs to get past denial. About half the homes are under-water. Unemployment is too high, and the trend, especially with the poor and near-poor, is not encouraging. Real estate still is the major component of the state’s economy. Tourism is “back” but generates average annual salaries of $19,000. Universities are having their budgets cut dramatically. The image of the K-12 public school community mitigates the ability to attract tech employees who have deep concerns about their kids’ futures. Jurisdictions are taxing on the basis of out-of-date too high assessments and/or raising tax rates while cutting services and undermining the infrastructure needed to attract Knowledge Economy businesses.
Although there are some exciting “green shoots,” none offer the prospect for reversing the current economic situation in the near- to mid-term. If this community were not in denial, wouldn’t there be a lot more being done and wouldn’t it have started long ago?
Doug Poretz of Palm Beach Gardens has been a communications advisor to senior executives for more than four decades. He has extensive experience in community-building and played a leading role in making Northern Virginia a center of excellence for the global IT industry.