Answers to the question “connect to whom?”
With whom should we connect?
- Investors: not just for money but for other things they bring to the table
- Cofounders & collaborators & employees
- “aspirational peers”
- “Powers that be”
- Different kinds of people
- Potential customers
- Talent: students, freelancers
- Professional services (accountants/marketeers/lawyers etc)
- Innovative thinkers
- People who support and challenge our ideas
- Let’s connect students with the workforce
- Advisors/mentors
- People with connections to markets in other regions
- Leaders of the “feds, meds, eds, and beds” institutions
Why are we not doing this?
- Baltimore culture may not lend itself to connecting behavior (as compared to places like Silicon Valley)
- Baltimore can be cliquey
- Not enough people serving as connectors
How can we do this?
- Reward this behavior - make it someone’s job to be a connector
- Encourage events that bring arts & tech communities together a la Ignite
- Relaxed environment with 24/7 availability
- Happy hours
- Flexible space to accomodate small and large meetings
Other ideas:
- Let’s import ideas and people from outside of Baltimore (permanently and temporarily) as a physical or virtual guest (e.g. have a speaker at General Assembly addressing a crowd in Baltimore via Skype, or vice versa)
- Bring arts into STEM aka STEAM
