Skip Newberry 5:35

Yes, we’ve shifted a bit, I mentioned a couple of our events and programs folks getting new certifications and getting familiar with new delivery mechanisms online. few others on the team, we’ve really shifted to more content creation and looking at different ways to kind of suss out subject matter expertise from within our network, and then sharing that and connecting in real time member to member. And we do that through online platforms. The other thing is, is that for me personally, as of March, my days shifted to a lot of 15 to 20 minute phone calls with executive teams, doing more consulting type work, where it was assessing, what are the key challenges or opportunities that companies are facing in the moment? What information do they need to be successful, and, and then either connecting them to a resource or looking at collective opportunities and developing new programs based on those so there’s myself, our new our COO, as well as new hire we made for the Southern Willamette Valley, all three of us found that we were doing a lot more day to day member touchpoints through video calls, and traditional phone calls. And, and that really helped. There were a number of members that said, Well, if we just do this, like every other month, or even quarterly, tremendous value, and you know that that justifies membership, and in my mind, and so, we found that we were doing some more work programmatically, and it looked more like consulting even, as opposed to just straight professional development and events. So that was a good thing. It means that we as an organization, I think are emerging from this more resilient than when we went in.

Carl J. Cox 7:11

That’s really interesting. I wasn’t aware of all the personal parts, and if Forgive me wrong, but it probably wouldn’t have been possible. If it wasn’t for Zoom, to be able to so quickly get on people’s calendars just have to really short meanings. Is that true? Or not? Sure? What’s your feelings on that?

Skip Newberry 7:29

It is true to some of the drivers like we’ve been piloting some online engagement tools and online event delivery, but it never really took off. Of course, March forced everyone to go all in. And some people have been skeptical. They’re like, actually, this kind of works. And then with the online member engagement platforms, we were able to facilitate real time connections, where we found that 50% of all activity was member to members connecting to members one to one is sort of a virtual directory. So it took us out of this equation all together, we can see it and track it from an engagement standpoint, we can intervene where necessary, but it allowed us to effectively to double our, our capabilities without having to hire more people through technology. So we’re kind of eating our own dog food in a sense, you know, we’re a tech association, we should be highly efficient than automated, where it makes sense. And it’s a great example of how technology was able to make us better as a team, and allow us to deliver higher value inputs when we were connecting with our members.

Carl J. Cox 8:31

It’s so interesting that you talked about that Skip on, when COVID hit for me and 40 Strategy had gotten off the ground. Things are going really well. And but none of my clients were actually in the Portland area i’d collected Chicago and Boston area, Virginia, Seattle, Long Beach, California. They’re all over the board. And then all of a sudden it couldn’t travel. And and of course there was this I don’t remember there was kind of this like 45 day to 60 day of Oh crap, what do we do next? You know, type event that happened with a lot of different organizations. For me, it was I know what I’m doing. But can I connect in one of the things I was grateful for? Is prac. I’ve been using Zoom for a long time, way before they were a publicly traded company. I’ve always loved the tool. The problem was other people didn’t know how to use it. Yep. And and all of a sudden, now it took it took probably 90 days, honestly, before everyone got good at but now it’s not even a consideration. It’s like, Oh, of course, of course we’re gonna hop on Zoom. And I was just talking the other day withthe city of shirt. It was Joe Gall, who’s the City Manager for Sherwood. And, you know, in the past, I would have drove out there which would have taken about an hour, had a meeting with him and then drove back which would take another hour. I’m now saving that two hours I found for myself, I can actually increase same thing, increase my my client connections by like 50% to 100% compared to what is beforehand and so I’m with I found this to be in many ways great. I’m still actually physically seeing some people, you know, some of my clients, but it’s under appropriate conditions and where the right things are there. But as I said that, in many ways turned into a blessing in disguise for what I found, you know, things that I just never anticipated. You know, it’s like, oh, wow, it skipped everything 10 years ahead, you know, from where we probably thought it was going to be.

So you mentioned beef prior to prepping the call, you said there’s, there’s kind of three main areas that TAO was looking at some of the challenges. Tell me about what’s going on there.

Skip Newberry 10:33

Yeah, so we, we did a little bit of a refinement of our strategic plan this past year, and looking at how do we really kind of adjust to, again, reflect reality, but also think about recovery from COVID. And so we started to look at where activities were kind of like flowing. And we found that, of course, you know, delivering extraordinary value is like our North Star, right, we’re a member based organization, in terms of where the revenue comes from, we got to keep our members happy and coming back every year. And if we’re able to deliver value through programs and initiatives and impact in the community, great, we’re doing our job. And so we’ve been looking like we just talked about it different ways to automate and track and also measure the type of impact we’re having the types of engagement that we’re having. And so that that’s a big focus of what we’re paying attention to right now. Because we’re also trying to be very mindful of kind of where we are operationally and as a team, and we don’t want to get too big, or try and grow in sort of a new direction without looking at the fact that things are very uncertain right now. So we want to be a little bit more cautious in that respect. So having really great data, and being able to look at, okay, what’s worth measuring what’s not, that’s where we are now in the member engagement side of things. And then if we look at one level of abstraction higher, because we work with member companies, our mission is strengthening those companies by all the professional development and work we’re doing to connect them to the community and to resources. And so really looking at how do you characterize that work? Well, fundamentally, it’s about digital transformation and innovation. We do work with early stage startups on up to some of the biggest employers in the state, some of whom are not tech companies, pure tech companies, they have large IT teams, product teams, innovation teams, and those are the folks that we typically work with. So as these large organizations are seeking to digitally transform private sector, even government education, organizations, were increasingly doing work in helping them use technology to become more competitive. And then with startups, as well, in pure tech companies were of course, that’s our bread and butter, we’re going to continue to do work there and helping them to scale get the systems they want, hire the right people get the access to capital they need, etc. And then one level of abstraction higher is economic competitiveness. So one thing that’s top of mind for folks right now, everywhere, but especially here, in the Greater Portland area in Oregon and Southwest Washington, is really how do we recover, to recover stronger and more resilient than we went in, and that goes for the sector. But it also goes for the state, because technology is increasingly a horizontal layer, as I just mentioned, in a lot of organizations and sort of their overall health and competitiveness. And so if we can be helpful in aligning our education and academic institutions, our public sector and the regulatory environment in such a way that we’re bringing all those resources to bear to really focus around what a world class inclusive innovation economy looks like, that’s exciting. And so it’s really the systemic, or the system’s level work that we’re thinking of when it comes to that third level of our strategic initiatives.

Carl J. Cox 13:45

So as we know, on a local level, like a lot of cities have had a lot of challenges. What’s happening with your members? What do you you know, like, I’ll just do a practical example. You know, I was extraordinarily fortunate a couple years ago to actually host a global conference, downtown Portland, and it was one of those Chamber of Commerce days, you know, Mt. Hood was showing knives, they Mt. Saint Helens was showing, and it was gorgeous, clear days when I was lucky, clear kind of April weeks, where it’s just beautiful. And now Portland looks a lot different. And there’s a lot of challenges. We know a lot of stuff in the news. What’s hap, what is your member organizations? What is their concerns? What’s the concerns of having meetings downtown in the future? What’s going on in the minds of you and the member organizations? And what do you think’s going to happen? Maybe

Skip Newberry 14:38

this could be like an hour long discussion alone, but there’s some great stuff here. I think a lot about it. And, you know, I think there’s a few things at play. One is talent is more mobile than ever, especially in tech. And that’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing and that we have been a place has benefited from that in migration because relatively high quality of life relatively of Living compared to other major metros on the west coast. And also that sort of vibrant aspect of Portland’s neighborhood business districts and restaurants and culture and all of that, well, that latter part that I just mentioned, is kind of invisible right now, or it’s suffering, right. And so without that, adding to the mix, we’re competing on quality of life with like Denver, Boulder, and Austin, and, you know, places like salt lake, even Nashville, South Florida, these are all areas that have relatively low cost, great quality of life in some respects, and also really friendly business environments when it comes to personal and business taxes. Now, we’re not particularly strong on that last point. And companies are increasingly paying close attention to what their costs are both at the individual level, in terms of individual employees and income taxes, fordable housing, etc. Is there enough. And, and so we’ve had some companies over the last year shift workers elsewhere. So there was one, Silicon Valley based company had almost 400 employees in downtown Portland, they shifted the bulk of them to Montreal. And there was, you know, another couple of examples, I won’t cite specific company names, but, you know, move divisions out of Portland, others are remote right now. And they’re growing, a lot of our member companies are growing, many of them are growing, where people are located. And with remote work, they’re just onboarding them and saying, No, you don’t have to relocate to the area, you just continue to live in work where you are part of the company. So they’re the companies are able to benefit from access to greater talent, and more diverse talent, which is great. So the companies are becoming more diverse and stronger. Now medium term, that could mean that there’s a draw to Portland, if we’re able to keep an Oregon if we’re able to keep those companies headquartered here. Because if they want to grow their careers, there’s still a draw to be part of the headquarters. That’s one thing we’re paying attention to. And then another is as we look at sort of the cost of doing business, yes, we have relatively high taxes, but are there ways that government can deliver more value for that investment? And more and more people, residents and businesses that I’m talking to, are increasingly looking for that ROI and saying, Where is it? So there’s a lot more pressure and higher expectations on government, state local to deliver. And if we, if they can, you know, if we can, you know, reduce transactional friction for companies and for residents trying to get access to critical services, maybe it works out. So there’s this little bit of a level set that needs to happen, I think. And then finally, I’ll say that people are really looking at ways they can help both those who need help right now. You know, so parts of the community where they’re like, raising their hand, hey, you know, I’m not doing so well, companies, individuals are like, hey, I want to get involved, they want to help right now, there’s no clear vision, as I can tell if the state and local levels when it comes to here is aspirationally, where we’re headed, and it’s broad enough to include a variety of different businesses and sectors traded sector service sector. Instead, it’s there’s a lot of paying attention to here are the problems that basis? Well, yes, you got to recognize the problems. But then you need to also say, and here’s this vision, here’s where we’re all going towards, there’s hope, you know, down the road, we all get behind this idea. And then the third part is, and here’s the plan. In the short term, this is what you can expect from you know, these players, and this is how you get involved. And then beyond that we’re gonna build to this next stage. And it’s those last two pieces that are kind of absent. So people are kind of struggling a little bit. They’re like, Okay, what comes next? We get their problems. But so

Carl J. Cox 18:56

you’re right, we can talk about this a long time ago, we will have a whole nother section just about this. Thank you. Thanks for your insight in that though. I did not I learned definitely some elements or you said about how people are hiring and just due to the flexibility of working remotely, people are able to take advantage of that. And they’re not even necessarily moving or they necessarily move away, right adjoining areas. But that long term strategic planning at a vision and government level and actually seeing action. Wow. So that’s so that’s that’s an interesting conversation. I know. I was involved in a Legislative Review you had with the state and I’m, anyway, super curious. So we will we will touch more on that later. Let’s flip this a little bit. And you’ve had some really interesting career elements. Tell me about your working with startups. You’ve you’ve been involved to startups on a personal basis. How does that help you out with working with your member? You know, companies that you have? Just give me some example of where that that elements and doesn’t help does not help. But you know, do you have better empathy, sympathies for what they’re going through and share how you can help give them advices that is really interesting that you’re talking with a lot of different leaders and 15 20 minute pops. Give me some insights behind how that works.

Skip Newberry 20:25

Yeah, so it definitely helps. And this is something I saw when I was working in the public sector doing economic development, as well as that, looking at different economic development agencies around the Us some of the more successful ones like NYC EDC, it’s kind of equivalent to prosper Portland, in New York City, they have this like culture, it’s a flywheel, right, where you have people coming in and out of the private sector, public sector, etc, throughout their career, and, and that they bring with them networks and connections and the ability to, you know, get stuff done faster, and also bring in leverage, right. So, you know, if you as a an elected officials trying to say, Okay, I have this vision for what we want to do, we can’t do it alone in the public sector, you know, how do we inspire others and, and kind of connect the dots and get other people involved. That’s where an economic development agency that understands how businesses work and operate, how they’re incentivized to participate in things. And, and sort of the nuts and bolts of it is helpful. And so I would say that having been in the trenches, and experienced a lot of what startups go through is definitely helpful. And I find it’s true in this work as well, of course, and it also builds an element of trust. Like some of the is involved in a total of probably four different startups. And over the years, and some were successful, some are not. And, you know, being able to connect with someone who’s going through similar things on a certain level is important. And then, of course, since I worked with the city, and then today, you know, the the deal flow, if you will, the number of companies that I’m talking to the problems that I see on a daily and weekly basis, there’s a depth of knowledge and experience, not necessarily for me personally, but that I’ve kind of seen secondhand, in this work with a lot of people who are constantly going through the same issues.

Carl J. Cox 22:15

Seems like you got a good book ahead of you Skip to work on all the experiences that you’ve seen. And then especially, you know, with a local angle, I think I think you have some incredible stories. So on a, we talked about how you’ve managed access TAO how about in your personal life, how do you measure success? What what are the things that you’re doing to? So you know, you’re at your all and you’re doing your best?

Skip Newberry 22:43

Yeah, that’s a good question. I would say that I’ve been looking at things like overall health and wellness. And I think COVID is for those who weren’t looking at those metrics before is really kind of shone a spotlight on it for some, it’s not something that I pay attention to. I’ve been looking at, like energy levels during the day, and what are the things over the years that impact that? Well, I find that exercise daily, it really helps. And then also, you know, I’ve been looking at things like, from a success standpoint, the amount of time I spend with the family. And so, you know, am I present, that’s kind of my latest slicer layer that I’m focused on in southern as of this year, starting to do a journal, five minutes in the morning, five minutes at night, series of questions. You know, what would make today great? You know, what, what’s one thing I could have changed at the end of the day that I could have done better? And also, what am I grateful for? And then like a little affirmation type thing. And what I’m trying to do is then look monthly at different trends, like what are the things that made me happiest was the most grateful for at the end of the day, are there trends that emerge? And, and that’s allowing me to, I think, focus on small stuff and be present for it more celebrated in a lot of cases. So that’s been something I’ve been working on more recently. And then the other thing that I look at from a personal standpoint is the impact that can have and this has been a driver of mine over the last two decades. People are like, Why do you do what you do? Like so I can have the biggest possible impact on people’s lives? And I’ve thought for a long time that you know, working with entrepreneurs and people who are building organizations, there’s no better sort of audience to work with if you truly want to have an impact. So it’s a be the multiplier essentially.

Carl J. Cox 24:29

Yeah. Love it. Yeah. I I first of all, I love those. There’s a great suggestions you have from reading the journal that common of being present, it’s something I struggle with on a regular basis because I could physically be at home with my family and they’ll ask me a question and it didn’t happen. It is completely past me. And I’m not proud of this. By the way, sorry, family. If you’re listening to this, but Yeah, I think being aware, you know, being aware when we’re like that, you know, and, and that’s, that’s getting closer to what real success is, is being, you know, physically not just physically present but mentally present. And, and being engaged, you know, that have constantly been engaged with employees, right? being engaged at home. And so kudos to you for, for caring about that and going through that. So we’re gonna wrap up here. One thing I want you to leave with our guest is, so what what current book are you reading or recently read that you have to share with others that may gotta

Skip Newberry 25:36

read this. So this past weekend, I dove into my latest, which is BE 2.0. It’s the latest version of the Collins book that is kind of a seminal classic. I see Good to Great behind you. Another great one, but this is one that was one of the earlier ones that he did and, and I was not aware of it, it turns out and was just provided a copy. And I was like, Oh, this is this is really awesome. So I’m only a few chapters in but I would highly recommend it just based on those few chapters. It’s gonna be a good book. Awesome. Yeah.

Carl J. Cox 26:12

So now since we’re setting out you’re gonna say that

Skip Newberry 26:14

no, no, that’s it. I also read some fiction. So I’ve also been trying to like go back and in kind of mix it up. And I’ve been trying to like look at what are books that people have talked about that are classics I’ve never read so I read Lonesome Dove in like December finally. So yeah, I’ve missed I’ve gaping holes in my literary knowledge that I’m trying to fill.

Carl J. Cox 26:35

Good for you. Yeah, that it’s, I think it’s always humbling like we in the business section. I’m sure you and I could feel pretty good. You know, like what we’ve read it but then you like, just look up if you’re at a bookstore, you’re like, Oh, my gosh, I haven’t read so much.

Skip Newberry 26:48

So yeah, there’s always if you ever like think you know anything, just walk into a library or bookstore, you know, you realize we know very little.

Carl J. Cox 26:56

This has been awesome. Skip, I was excited to get you on and talk and you exceeded, like always you exceed expectations. Can you just for people who may be interested in learning more about Technology Association of Oregon, can you tell them how to reach out and how to get connected? Certainly.

Skip Newberry 27:13

So we have a website, techoregon.org. We have a lot of our events and programs and initiatives there as well as contact info. Twitter, Skip Newberry, and also LinkedIn. Frequently posting so that’s another great way to get in touch.

Carl J. Cox 27:29

Perfect, Skip. It’s been a pleasure and and you’ll be look forward to sharing stories with you again, in the future as that I think we might have a podcast or two ahead of us that we’re going to tackle some issues. Maybe we’ll have to get a forum and get some more people involved. But thank you so much has been great. And with that this is the Measure Success Podcast. This is Carl J. Cox, interviewing great leaders and hearing their stories to measure success. And with that, have a great day.

Outro 27:59

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