The Rise of Innovation in the Hub

I've worked in technology in Silicon Valley and Boston and the environments are pretty different.  In Boston you often get the inferiority vibe...I guess now that our sports teams have won their share of national titles we have to keep the inferiority complex going somewhere.  From my perspective, having worked in both places, Bostonian technology people are simply less social.  In Silicon Valley, whether you are an engineer starting out or a tech executive who has been in the business 20 years, the weeks are filled with happy hours, launch parties, breakfast meetings, impromptu office parties and the like. In Boston you tend to go to work and go home. Breakfast meetings and launch parties happen occasionally but more often than not, they are intra-company affairs.  Networks in Boston take a long time to develop and are based primarily on who you have worked with in the past.  This may be partly geography - there are a few more logical hubs of activity in Silicon Valley, San Francisco's SOMA district, Palo Alto, & San Jose but that seems like a poor excuse since Waltham, Burlington, & Kendall Square in Cambridge now have significant critical mass.

Now that I am back in Boston and working in the social media world things seem to have changed and I wonder if we are at a tipping point - as least in this market.  The community has leaders - Chris Brogan, Laura Fitton, Doug Haslam, Todd Van Hoosear, Adam Zand, Maria Thurell, Alexa Scordato, Amanda Gravel, Aaron Strout, Jim Storer,  Steve Garfield, Beth Kanter, Adam Cohen,  Mike Langford, C.C. Chapman, and many others who are very active and instigate tweet-ups, conferences, rock climbing get togethers, dinners, apple picking trips, etc. sometimes formal and sometimes spontaneous. This is critical because while this crowd knows each other pretty well, they are also adept at pulling others into their vortex making new people feel welcome and growing the community - and they do not represent just one company or one discipline.  There are also enough local technology companies in this space. Mzinga, Communispace, Awareness, Lotus, Cymphony, MoCo Space, Sermo, ChoiceStream, Trip Advisor, and MatchMine are all local software companies working in the social media space in some capacity. Topaz Partners and Perkett PR also participate extensively from the marketing side of things.  This all rolls up to make Boston a real Hub in this particular market and to me, feels a lot more like what makes Silicon Valley so powerful - a critical mass of technology, business, and marketing professionals dedicated to the same vision.  To investors and potential employees who are interested in this market, it makes Boston the place to be.

Like the Red Sox, and the Patriots, Boston seems to be coming into its own in the software industry and taking a leading role in pushing innovation and adoption. Our challenge now - convincing all of those talented kids coming out of MIT, Harvard, BU, BC, Wellseley, Tufts, etc. to stick around and play. That, and we need some better cafes and restaurants to hang out at on the 128 loop so I encourage any of you who are thinking of starting your own business - we need a couple of cool, hip, unique places to hang out somewhere between Waltham and Burlington - essentially we need a Buck's of our own.

Comments

[Rachel Happe]

Doug - of course you are a leader - and sorry for missing SHIFT...inevitably when you post lists you miss people and companies so apologies!

Christine - thanks for stopping by, and for helping Boston come out of its shell, there is indeed a lot of interesting stuff going on :)

[Todd Van Hoosear]

Thanks for including me on the list, Rachel!

I think Joe hit the New England psyche right on the head.

Boston is obviously not new to the technology craze. Many moons ago, we arguably were the hub, or at least one of the major hubs, of the technology universe. That's changed a bit, but what we see today is more than the mere ghost of greatness past.

What we see today is simply the mashup (sorry) of the puritan work ethic, New England sensibilities and Web 2.x. It's the difference between Web 2.0 (the primary conference of which is held on the Left Coast) and Enterprise 2.0 (held in Boston).

Not that there aren't a lot of pie-in-the-sky enterprise 2.0 ideas--it's just that we tend to be a little more grounded, practical, business-like. And not that Web 2.0 is all about crazy, way-out-there ideas.

Just that we are the yin to the West Coast's yang. We need each other to keep in balance.

[Moly Yim]

Mmm, yes, to expand on Todd's "yin & yang" comment — I spent my early childhood in Northern California but have spent more years growing up in New England. However, I still can't say with a straight face "I feel like a New Englander."

As an adult, I have been fortunate to have opportunities to spend time back in NorCal and this is what I have observed: Boston/New England and San Francisco/Silicon Valley are like twin cities to me: big enough to have the vibrancy of a major metropolis but still small enough to forgo the insanities of megacities like NYC or Milan. And beyond that (and above all), there's this intangible, indescribable similarity between the two cities' "vibage" — if you've been to both, I'm sure you may know what I mean.

But specifically regarding the history and community of technology in both cities/regions: while there's no dispute that both are major players in the tech game — I feel like Boston tends to be the "theorist" while SF is the "practitioner" — what is researched, discovered, and pontificated upon in Boston tends to get implemented and and executed in SF. We've all heard the many stories of geeks who have gone to Harvard and MIT and subsequently moved West to strike gold. A lot of VCs who are based on the West Coast also actively recruit from the best schools in Boston.

If you look at the social history of both regions, it starts to make sense: the socially conservative yet intellect-valuing Puritans settled New England whereas California (specifically Northern California) was settled (partly) by none other than the crazy, wide-eyed, dreaming Gold Rushers. Yet whoddathunk that both groups would end up giving birth to two major tech hubs?

I do feel like things are changing and that we are seeing more "practice" happening in Boston — reaching that critical mass, which certainly makes me proud to be a part of this community, but we've still got a bit of catching up to do. But who knows? Maybe it *is* better this way: two hands may both look and act alike, but one must be the left and the other, the right. Like Todd said: the yin and the yang.

[kare Anderson]

Re East vs West coach psyche - agreed & that may be why it is easier to move west than vice versa... yet most of my friends over here on the W. coast were raised in N.Y., Boston or Chicago area... appreciate deepening roots of friendship plus besotted by curiosity and innovation.

Fun & helpful posts, here - thanks!

From the many firms you know - including your own, have you seen one with the capacity to create a member-based contest where members could vote on top ten - choosing from a multitude of options - and able to see the choices they have already made as they view others and can change votes over the course of a contest period?

I have two clients seeking this capacity

Found you via Aaron, fyi?

[Beth Kanter]

Thanks for including me in the post ... although I have to admit that I might be moving west!

[Adam Cohen]

Hi Rachel,
Wow, I need to do a better job at listening in social media - thank you so much for including me in this list. I can speak first hand to how welcoming the Boston area social media community is, with my experience dating back to the EMC blogger dinner at the Rattlesnake a year ago. This is a fun and passionate community and I'm proud to be a part of it. Now if we can only keep members from moving to Austin, TX.

Thanks again and see you soon.

[steve Garfield]

Hi,

Anyone who is reading this is welcome to the Boston Media Makers meetings. They are on the first Sunday of each month at Doyle's in Jamaica Plain.

We mingle, then sit around a large group of tables and introduce ourselves and what we are doing, present a show and tell, or ask a question...

Here's the website:

http://bostonmediamakers.wordpress.com/

--Steve