It’s inevitable: After COVID, we’ll discover that a number of temporary societal adjustments from this transformative period have stuck around. There will be sweeping, permanent tectonic shifts in the way we treat technology, employment, crisis preparedness, and economic resiliency.
Corporate growth strategy is finally coming around to cluster theory—the general notion that concentrating industries in a region creates powerful advantages. To name just a few, a strong business cluster creates:
At Waymaker Group, we believe an innovation-based approach is the key to stable and sustainable private sector growth—and we’ve seen the proof firsthand.
Okay, this pandemic is a problem.
Waymaker Group was founded 2 years ago on the premise that every company is (or is becoming) a tech company and that every community needs a new playbook to accommodate our new innovation economy. COVID-19, the resulting recession, and the Black Lives Matter movement have further solidified the reality that the formulas for growing innovation economies have changed. Listen to the message below from Julie Huls, Waymaker CEO.
Leaders in economic development can expect to discuss, adopt and deploy changes in the following 8 categories in the coming years. While COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement have unquestionably precipitated accelerated transformation in these categories, the truth is, many of these changes have been a long-time in the making.
Pay attention to the news for any length of time and it’s easy to fall into a negative state. The extremes reported on with such zeal and drama (regardless of outlet) has from time to time left me wondering if we’ll ever make it out. Memes are emerging to reflect our collective mood swings. My favorite thus far, “coronacoaster,” is defined as the swing between the bliss that comes from isolation and being in control of your time, to the fear from fretting over the future including this confusing curiosity: “why am I missing people I don’t even like?”
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz calls on America to reverse the inertia, stop with the excuses, and get to building things again.
Kara Swisher, the doyenne of technology, recently interviewed entrepreneurs in Indiana about what makes the Midwest so special
Waymaker has been hard at work expanding and tweaking services to meet your new, post-COVID-19 realities.
“As an investor, there’s no better group to have in my corner than Waymaker. Their ability to grasp long-range technology trends, along with their uncanny ability to read individual talent makes picking market winners that much easier.”
“Julie Huls is a true transformational leader whose vision and dedication has been instrumental in growing the Austin tech community into what it is today.”