This week, I watched one of the world’s great conductors return to Denver. Marin Alsop was the first principle conductor of the Colorado Symphony for twelve years starting three decades ago. I was most entranced by cellist Inbal Segev performing Anna Cline’s ‘Dance for Cello’, as Marin conducted:
The next day, I attended a reading for a new play by a Colorado-based Pulitzer-prize finalist as part of Colorado’s 17 year-old New Play Summit. Denver’s extraordinary Center for the Performing Arts won the Tony for best regional theater in 1998. The Center launched its Colorado New Play Summit in 2006. This year’s featured a reading of the new play by Vauhini Vara , who is a CSU visiting prof and last year was a Pulitzer finalist for her (first!) novel);
The play, Ghost Variations, is about grief, and process, and technology and anomie. An early version of ChatGPT is a character. See it when you can!
These reminders of the development of Colorado’s vibrant cultural innovation ecosystem over the last decades were timely for me, as we wrap up the region’s Tech Hub application to fund the 200-organization-strong Elevate Quantum Consortium. WPI President Chang has a great reminder about what — and how long — it takes to build innovation ecosystems :
A lesson from the last 40 years is that successful efforts take deliberate actions. Regions that can master the art of cultivating partnerships and nucleating place-based innovation will be well positioned for the future.
(Reader alert; Fed Policy wonky paragraph)Which is also a timely reminder that one of the best possible incremental investment for U.S.’ competitiveness is to fully fund CHIPS, including Tech Hubs. Regions throughout the U.S. have moved fast and invested aggressively to support home-grown world-class innovation hubs. Those investments will either be supported and leveraged — or will need to be made all over again. Keeping America’s national security momentum going should be an easy bi-partisan priority. Let’s launch a TechHubsJobs! grant competition patterned after Tech Hubs, and catalyze employers as the center of the new world of workforce in new regions across the U.S.. Capital’s the constraint on this goal in most parts of the country. (End of reader alert)
Colorado’s innovation momentum has taken decades to develop, too. It’s been ground-up, pay-it-forward, and nimble. Now, folks worry that Colorado’s innovation era is over. TechStars is leaving, and Foundry is closing up shop. There are other concerns. The state has been a talent magnet — but isn’t great at providing opportunity for its own.
Closing that Colorado opportunity gap is even more critical as Denver’s magnetism fades — its 25% office vacancy (doubled since pre-pandemic) is among the hightest in the U.S. Denver isn’t unique — good to see Washington DC making moves.
Yet, an accelerating pace of change means openings for collaborative and nimble places like Colorado to close opportunity gaps faster. (Reader alert; higher ed wonky stuff paragraph) Community colleges, widely distributed and relatively nimble, are durable pathways that foster inclusive growth to close those gaps in their regions. They deserve much more attention. AI will insure that skills trump credentials for hiring and advancement. Last week I reported that vocational community colleges are working — and this week we learned that more than half all college grads 10 years out learn less than those with only a high school degree. Degree choice, internships, and the first job out of school … matter. Last week I reported that vertical, stackable certifications work, and this week we learned that community colleges are not successful transfer pathways to four year degrees. (There are exceptions — Colorado has had success providing a pathway to four year institutions for concurrent enrollees in the community college system). Colorado’s community college system has a moment in time to seize these changes, and lead the nation. Rooting for the system and its four new Board members! (End of reader alert).
Building sustainable, inclusive growth ecosystems takes .. time. It’s generally not linear. Distributing that success geographically , as Colorado works to do, is particularly challenging. Consider all the pivots in this great coal-to-pot-to-outdoor industry-and-remote work story of $150 million invested over the years in Trinidad, Colorado:
Since its formal founding in 1876, a few months before Colorado became a state, it’s been a classic boom-and-bust town, anchored economically first by coal, then by natural gas.
Then came cannabis.
New Mexico legalized pot, and that business went south. Remote and hybrid wokers have been buying up housing. The region has scrambled to find what’s next. Gender-affirming care and solar farms have provided jobs. EVs and rail may be next. Small-scale manufacturing. Tofu.
Throughout, Trinidad State College, the 100 year-young regional community college, has been a critical and consistent employer. Coloradans recognize it’s also a vital platform for inclusive growth in the region:
At Trinidad State College Valley Campus in Alamosa, a nearly $20 million project will insure the community college can have more room to prepare students to become nurses, EMTs, dental assistants and medical assistants
As with TechStars and Foundry and as in Trinidad, entrepreneurial generations change as innovation ecosystems endure. New industries develop; Colorado’s $14 billion outdoor recreation industry is growing at over 20% per year. Founders move on in that field, too. New entrepreneurs enter with new ideas, like heli-skiing over old lifts…
Colorado continues to collaborate and innovate … and embrace opportunity. The ElevateQuantum intiative started less than a year ago, and already financial commitments to unlock over $1 billion in new investment. Over 50 organizations are now part of Colorado’s new Mass Timber Coalition, dedicated to healthy forests and watersheds through capturing carbon in the built environment rather than turning it to smoke. The Colorado Media Project started as a community design sprint in 2018 to accelerate alternatives to hedge-fund control of local journalism — and spawned a collective $1 billion national commitment for independent local journalism.
In his most recent observation on OpenAI Sora , Alberto Romero says:
In the post-Sora world, here’s what we will have lost that we will promptly forget: The calmness of being able to outsource our trust.
But I think trust is built and can endure across people and places that work together — and across generations — toward a common future. Marin Alsop conducted a few steps away from Ghost Variations and its ChatGPT actor. TechStars is evolving, and it and Foundry have both been critical to ElevateQuantum. Timber Age Systems, a mass timber affordable housing start-up, was just awarded a catalytic state loan to build a factory in Mancos, Colorado. I extensively quoted the Colorado Sun here, one of the country’s most promising non-hedge-fund local journalism projects (you should subscribe immediately!) The Colorado Media Project is launching a statewide community engagement initiative on behalf of democracy…
Marin Alsop was asked during the post-performance talk-back about the future of symphonies. She shrugged and said, ‘We all want to be together, more than ever’.
Culture, innovation, and entrepreneurship —together , more than ever — ahead for Colorado.