Editorial: Rebooting Innovation Philadelphia

Before its tenth birthday, Innovation Philadelphia will have to decide what it wants to be when it grows up.

The grant-funded economic development group, with a goal of attracting young professionals to the city’s “creative economies,” was formed in 2001 during Mayor Street’s administration with support from economic and academic leaders. More recently, though, the group has been better known for underwriting research to help postulate how the city can attract young professionals. With those ends, it hosts the annual Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit and produces the Entrepreneur’s Resource Guide.

The organization is also broke.

Philadelphia’s creative economy ecosystem is far from reaching its full potential, and we think there is still a role for the organization. But it’s going to take some serious steering.

Read more at Philly Mag’s Philly Post.

Innovation Philadelphia to go back to the drawing board

Founding CEO Richard Bendis will take over Innovation Philadelphia temporarily

Update: clarified Bendis’ title.

Innovation Philadelphia, the economic development group with the mission to “attract and retain young professionals” is starting from scratch.

On April 16th, IP announced that CEO Kelly Lee, organizer of the GCECS conference last October, was stepping down. Three full-time staffers were also let go as the Board of Directors – all unpaid volunteers – will take the next 90 days to assess the future direction of the organization.

“It is not about saving an organization,” board chariman Richard Bendis told Technically Philly in an interview. “It’s about how can value be added to region. If IP can do that in some capacity, great.”

The reason for the reshuffling? Innovation Philadelphia’s funding, which depends largely on grants, has dried up.

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Links: Innovation Philadelphia reflects on GCECS, Hugh Douglas speaks science and More

Updated 11/9/09 @ 10:22 a.m.: Added Innovation Philadelphia link

DEFINITE READS

• Venture Beat reports that New Hope-based teen social network myYearbook is pushing its virtual currency hard toward growth in its fresh profitability.
• Innovation Philadelphia gives its own review of their Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit held early last month. See our interview with Innovation’s chief Kelly Lee here. Read their additional blog post here.
• Keystone Edge has a Q&A with University City Science Center President Steven Tang.

After the jump, Lockheed in space again, Hugh Douglas chats about science and six other tech stories, including our best read piece of the week.

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Was the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit worth it?

There has been a lot of buzz, both positive and negative, around Innovation Philadelphia’s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit.

But now that the last keynote has ended and the folks at the convention center have begun cleaning up, a few questions remain. Was the GCECS event worth the ticket price? Did it attract needed attention to Philadelphia? Could the city have been better served by Innovation Philadelphia in other ways?

Lucky for you, dear reader, Technically Philly was invited to speak at the event’s “Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurial Journalism” session giving us the chance to roam the convention center and speak to attendees and ask: Was it worth it?

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Technically Not Tech: NxtUp Philly celebrates region’s creatives

It’s a time to celebrate Philadelphia’s creative economy. Two weeks of time, to be precise.

That’s the premise of NxtUp Philly, an open calendar of events surrounding technology, design, multimedia, architecture and others, in this early part of October.

NxtUp kicks off today, with the opening of Innovation Philadelphia’s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, ending on October 16th with a conversation with University of the Arts designer and AIGA Fellow Hans Allemann.

Many of the organizations involved have graced this site and our events calendar before, like IgnitePhilly, DesignPhiladelphia, ChefAMe, Philly Startup Leaders and others.

“Great cities are built on collaboration not individual effort,” NxtUp organizer Ian Cross, who is CEO of I-SITE, an Old City-based Web marketing firm.

“Everyone is encouraged to put events in the calendar. NxtUp is not an organization, it’s ideally a marriage of top down experience and bottom up innovation and independence,” Cross wrote Technically Philly in an email.

After the jump, highlights of the technology-related events included in NxtUp Philly.

Monday, October 5th: Refresh Philly reaches out to new members with a happy hour at Jose Pistolas. Grab ‘em up, Refresh. 6:00 p.m. Center City.

Tuesday, October 6th: GCECS hosts a Unconference “Gab-fest,” a free offering at the conference where the public can network with presenters, speakers and conference-goers. 12:00 p.m. Chinatown.

Wednesday, October 7th: Successful innovators will share advice at the Baiada Center at Drexel University, including Theodore Goldman of Goldman Development Group. 5:00 p.m. University City.

Thursday, October 8th: Becky Clawson of Recording Academy Philadelphia Chapter will lead the Recording Academy 101 discussion on using the Web to advance a stronger music community in the region and beyond. 7:00 p.m. Center City.

Friday, October 9th: Stanev Potts Architects and Educated Guesswork will show off their iRUS canopy prototype, a lighting system that responds to its environment, built for urban situations. Damn cool premise. 6:00 p.m. Gayborhood.

Saturday, October 10th: Chiptunes dance party 8Static will celebrate its one-year anniversary with a free workshop and a cheap, good time. 7:00 p.m. West Philadelphia.

Tuesday, October 13th: IgnitePhilly 4 will debut at Johnny Brenda’s. Drew Olanoff of Blame Drew’s Cancer will present along with Brian McTear of Weathervane Music, Alex Mulcahy of Grid Magazine and Anna Goldfarb of Shmitten Kitten and others. 7:00 p.m. Fishtown.

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Every Monday, Technically Not Tech will feature people, projects, and businesses that are involved with Philly’s tech scene, but aren’t necessarily technology focused. See others here.

Event Highlights for October 5-11, 2009

Our events calendar is still free, free free. But you know this, oh Philadelphia tech events wayfarer. You’ve never had to pay for the events that we list, and we like it that way.

The downfall of this philosophy is that when an interesting event pops up that costs cash, we can’t give as much attention to it as we’d like.

Take Innovation Philadelphia‘s Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit or some of the happenings in the two-week NXTUP Philly calendar (Look for our extended preview of NXTUP Philly later today).

But this ain’t the venue for it. Nope. Not our Monday morning highlights. This is here for you, readers. After the jump, dig into free events from Philadelphia Standards Organization, Philly Startup Leaders, PhillyCHI and Tyler School of Art.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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Friday Q&A: Kelly Lee, Innovation Philadelphia President & CEO

Updated 9/11/09, 2:15 p.m.: Clarified summit tracks, noted “no frills” package clarification, and updated Philly panelists.

If it wasn’t for the first Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit in June 2006, Innovation Philadelphia may not have found it’s niche in the creative industries.

President and CEO Kelly Lee says that it was the attendees of the inaugural event, hosted three years ago, who inspired the economic development organization to shift focus from the broad spectrum of technology-based businesses to creative one: art, design, web development, and others, in place of biotech and life sciences.

This year, Lee is spearheading the second of the summits, the well-marketed and polished 2009 Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, which happens next month, October 5 to 6 at the Philadelphia Convention Center. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly is a panelist for GCECS2009, "Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurial Journalism" on Oct. 6]

The summit focuses on economics, entrepreneurship, workforce, technologies and sustainability, five interdependent tracks that Lee says make up the creative economy and that cities and regions need to have a strategy for.

There are dozens of workshops, panels, roundtables and presentations that include innovators and leaders from across the globe and the Philly region, like keynotes from author Elizabeth Gilbert, entrepreneur Peter Shankman, game guru Jane McGonigal and global economic developer Randall Kempner.

From flyer to Web design, packed-schedule to text message update technology, there’s little doubt that the nonprofit has invested quite a bit in this year’s summit. The organization has even launched a series of glossy, high-def videos on the conference website this week that features local entrepreneurs and policy-makers who will attend. It certainly doesn’t appear that Innovation Philadelphia is taking GCECS2009 lightly.

But critics aren’t taking their words lightly, either, including high-profile members of our business and technology communities.

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