During my 10 years covering Maine’s innovation community, I’ve observed the enduring reality that people create and grow businesses – not government.
I remember when any conversation about Maine’s economy was permeated with pessimism and negativity, and a lackluster expectation that Augusta could do anything about it. A 2005 survey of Maine business leaders found that 94 percent of respondents believed the state’s business climate was worse than other states’, according to a 2006 article from Mainebiz. The survey’s researcher told Mainebiz Staff Writer Chris Churchill that, “Business leaders in Maine were more pessimistic than in any state I have ever surveyed.”
Pessimism still exists here, especially when Forbes releases its annual list of the worst states for business. However, the paradigm has shifted and I’ve observed a powerful we-can-do attitude building steam over the past several years. As a result, pessimism is no longer the dominant voice.
That change in paradigm is embodied in Maine’s startup and innovation community, which champions entrepreneurship and embraces responsibility for growing Maine’s economy. Former Gov. John Baldacci convened the Blaine House Conference on Maine’s Creative Economy in 2004, but the major efforts continuing in that vein have been led by the private sector.
Evidence? Ten years ago, there were no Startup Weekends in Maine, there was no Maine Startup and Create Week, no Juice conference in the midcoast, no LaunchPad business plan competition, no Top Gun program, no Startup Portland, Hack Portland, Casco Bay Pub Hub or Startup Bangor. The variety of events and initiatives all intended to foster entrepreneurship and innovation is daunting.
Here’s a sample of the lineup:
• Portland now has three Startup Weekends – gatherings of like-minded individuals who want to build a business in 48 hours – under its belt. Bangor is due to launch its first Startup Weekend on Friday, and another is planned in Auburn in November.
• The Maine Technology Institute has its TechWalk on Oct. 2.
• PopTech is planned for Oct. 23-24 in Camden, and TEDxDirigo is on Nov. 9. The Juice conference is Nov. 13-14 in Rockland.
• The eight-day Maine Startup & Create Week in June drew 3,000 people; now plans for the 2015 event are underway, pegged for the week of June 22.
In addition to events, there are co-working spaces like ThinkTank and Casco Bay Tech Hub that cater to creative professionals and act as petri dishes for collaboration and innovation.
When I speak with people today, I’m more apt to hear about the great work being done by innovators than I am to hear griping about how hard it is to do business in Maine. No one is being naive. Challenges – demographic and wage-related – still exist, but the can-do attitude has replaced woe-is-us.
Saying the Internet has changed our daily lives and disrupted industries is a humdrum observation by this point. But there’s an aspect of the Internet’s revolutionary nature that gets less attention – it has made entrepreneurship more accessible.
Technology allows anyone with the necessary knowledge and a relatively fast broadband Internet connection to form their own business, while a changing workplace culture and advances in conferencing technology mean people don’t need to move to the Silicon Valley to work for a high-tech company. In many cases, people are allowed to live where they want. For many people, that could be Maine.
Whit Richardson, who also writes The Startup Line, a blog covering innovation in Maine, can be reached at 791-6463 or at:
wrichardson@pressherald.com
Twitter: @whit_richardson
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