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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Event Highlights for April 12-18, 2010

For those of you that follow along with our events highlights, you know we like to pick the top three goings-on to share.

But this week, there’s so many great, free technology happenings that we can’t pick just three. Wednesday alone has—count ‘em—seven events that all seem promising. That’s half of the 15 organized events this week. On a single day. Better take off Thursday while you can and see our breakdown after the jump.

Thursday, Verizon Wireless hosts a free, all-day wireless industry conference that looks put together. Sunday, we at Technically Philly will be in Cherry Hill to talk tech. Come on out if you’d like to heckle us, represent Philly’s vibrant tech community or talk shop with us after the event. And now, for the marathon…

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

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Ten Philadelphia competitors and their January Web traffic

Click to enlarge.

Perhaps one of the most influential realities of the Web is metrics. The details of traffic and audience online have so rapidly become expansive that they have likely not yet been entirely harnessed.

Arguments still rage around the accuracy and importance of a myriad of Web analytics, but, away from page views, an increasing standard is to compare sites by their monthly unique visitors, though that number’s efficacy has no doubt come into question.

Until now, very little attention has been paid publicly to comparing Philadelphia’s many competitors by way of traffic comparison. With the first numbers for 2010 released this month by public Web analytics company Compete, Technically Philly decided to compile the first such digest.

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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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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 Tech Links: Eric Smith, Philly Turkey and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

• Innovation Philadelphia reports that our local BlobLive was featured by Time magazine.
• Plan Philly profiles popular transit blog SEPTA Watch and its writer Michael Froelich, who also does other fun stuff like the West Philly Tool Library.
• The Philadelphia Examiner has an interview with Eric Smith, the bubbly editor of uwishunu and co-founder of Geekadelphia.
• The Infrastructurist has a very interesting interview with IBM’s new chief of railroad innovation. Fast Eddie Rendell is mentioned, so we had to share.
• Satirical news site Philly Turkey is dead.
• Innovation Philadelphia previews the third annual Success in the City event to be held Aug. 26 by Empowerment Group’s Women’s Business Center.

• Our Most Trafficked Story of the Week: Philadelphia Zoo and Laurel Hill Cemetery get tech exhibits

Every Friday morning we make sure you didn’t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

Friday Tech Links: SEO with Duck Duck Go, 8-bit music and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

The blog from incubator DreamIt Ventures features some knowledge spilled at a lecture on search engine optimization by Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of Duck Duck Go, the Valley Forge search engine we’ve covered.

After the jump, business leaders playing squash, video from the Philly Startup Leaders barbecue and six other tech stories, including our best read story of the week.

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