Living and working in Seattle these past 10 years, I have come to appreciate some of the unique aspects of this part of the country. The benefits of living here, both as an active pursuer of new cultural and outdoor experiences *and* as a dad of 3 young girls, are myriad. I often describe this area to friends as being full of “cheap thrills”… in the sense that it’s a place that, despite the cloudy skies, offers amazing livability value. Almost all of my personal passions — music and visual arts, rock climbing, snowshoeing, trail running, cycling (for fun and, when possible, as a commute), kayaking, local food and drinks — are available to be explored in abundance here in the Pacific Northwest at amazingly low cost. Most cost very little or nothing at all… and those that do entail money out of pocket come attached to active, vibrant communities of people who love to do the same thing. It’s these communities that enable amazing value — if you can find a sport-climbing partner to hit the rock wall with in the wintertime, vs having to pay for expensive trips to sunny places like Smith Rock or having to pay for private climbing lessons with a belay partner, then you can get in a lot more frequent indoor climbs in the wintertime for the cost of a membership to Vertical World. With greater size, activity, and commitment of an inate community comes network effects, lowering the personal cost to all participants.
The same network effects are happening (by my observation at least) within the King County Public School District in Seattle proper. This isn’t true at all school locations, or necessarily at all levels, but within my small scope of visibility there are numerous thriving public elementary schools which deliver amazing value to both young learners *and* to their parents. When I try to assess the drivers of this value, it keeps coming back to the network effects of having a large, committed, active community of stakeholders in the particular schools that are thriving. So it’s not *just* great educators committed to their classroom’s success, or *just* active and involved parents who are willing to fund the long-term outcomes of the schools by the contributions of both their time and their money (when needed to make up shortfalls in funding which inevitably occur in certain areas of a diverse public school curriculum), or *just* the kind of accountability and support system that comes from parents, educators, and volunteers all knowing each other and saying “Hi” and chatting each other up via coffee socials and on the sidewalks before and after the school day. It’s the combination of all 3 of these factors — the nexus of individual families and administrators and teachers coming together and forming a tightly nit community of people with shared focus on mutual outcomes.
Which brings me to my experience as a business professional and leader of a company operating here in the Pacific Northwest with my company Spring Creek Group these past 5 years. Ordinary companies – those with a clear mission, value proposition, and profitability goal – can thrive in most geographic locations these days, with the efficiencies that the Internet and SAAS software and mobile productivity devices have introduced in recent years. True, specialized skills are available in greater density in certain cities or regions — so starting particular types of businesses can look more appealing ‘a priori’ in certain locations, versus others. But with the benefit of some hindsight and momentum, I’ve come to realize that once you’ve assembled a small critical mass of talent around almost any particular area of focus as a business enterprise, you can make almost any type of business thrive in almost any location across the U.S., if you have the strategic vision and the operational discipline.
Extraordinary businesses, however — the kinds of businesses that seek to *not only* be profitable and sustained, but which *also* seek to deliver a culture of learning and growth and respect for its employees *and* to deliver above-average community and social impact as a corporate citizen of its place and culture — these businesses require something more. Increasingly I’ve come to believe that what extraordinary businesses require, in order to realize their potential, is a community. The kind of business community I’m describing is one that first of all respects and rewards experimentation — through informal industry associations, meetups, ‘beer-storming’ social sessions, and a willingness on the part of business leaders to share contacts, networks, and introductions to other leaders who can support or assist a colleague when needed (and not necessarily because it will benefit themselves or their businesses directly to do so…). The kind of business community which seeks different models of supporting entrepreneurship and experimentation — like what Founders Coop and TechStars is doing here in Seattle under Chris Devore and Andy Sack’s leadership, or what organizations like the Technology Access Foundation are doing to prepare youths from underserved communities with vocational and technical skills which prepare them for placed summer internships with innovative companies which provide the start of a resume on which they can build their careers later as young adults. And the kind of business community in which energetic leaders spontaneously create social outings and ‘chat and chew’ events which incorporate seeming competitors, who agree under ‘FrieNDA’ to share unvarnished war stories, learnings, and advice with each other after hours, even though they may be directly competitive with each other during their workaday lives.
It takes a special sort of leap of faith to agree to lay down your competitive swords and shields and to engage in respectful conversation over local micro-brews… the sort of leap of faith which is based upon a commitment to the health of the larger business community and region, at a level at least commensurate with your commitment to the viability and success of your own business venture. I am presently participating in several of these informal business-community meetups, and I consistently marvel at how much richer my own perspective on the larger business environment and how much more nuanced my own view of my company’s strategic strengths and weaknesses has become as a result of these private and unvarnished conversations. These informal meetups remind me of a term I heard in b-school: “co-opetition”. Finding the productive middle-ground wherein ordinarily competitive business professionals can get together and agree to cooperate by sharing personal learnings, insights, and opinions with each other is not a simple task… because our livelihoods – money – are on the line. However, the essence of any vibrant healthy community is in the ways that costs fall and value increases when all the actors agree to occasionally set aside personal ambition and to instead focus collectively on communal ambitions, goals, and ideals.
It’s such a pleasure to strive to build an extraordinary – rather than a merely ordinary – business in this city, and in this part of the world. The network effects of a rich community of people who share a similar passion accrue here to rock climbers and fly fishers and parents and cyclocross racers and ultra-marathon runners and jazz musicians and single-moms and community organizers and so many other groups here in Seattle… but they are in full effect for many different business verticals here as well. And I think that these small but committed business community assemblies, where collective learning is exchanged and many Manny’s Pale Ales are drank, are an important part of what compels entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest to focus on what might make their companies something more than just successful by ‘ordinary’ measures.
The pride of place I’ve developed in Seattle during the past decade is in large part connected to the vitality that emerges from a shared set of community values. In my estimation, it’s not just some arbitrary result of a cloudy place somehow making people more personally and professionally altruistic. Instead, I think that more of the innovative minds who have established their place in the Pacific Northwest have chosen to cement in their foundation here because its Values help make it such a great value. The business community here actually feels like, and operates like, one. I couldn’t have anticipated, but I also couldn’t have asked, for anything more when I decided to take my own leap of entrepreneurial faith here in Seattle more than 5 years ago.
Warm autumn regards as the cool cloudy skies return again to all of us here in Seattle… and to anyone else who may have stumbled across this post from elsewhere, come out to Jet City sometime soon and we’ll pull together a few folks over beers who love to do whatever combination of things you love to do with your own personal and professional time. I’d be happy to add you to a few of my favorite communities here, too…
