More jobs here than those with degrees in tech, engineering and math: Campus Philly annual meeting

Addressing the group's annual meeting at WHYY is Campus Philly board chairwoman Joan McDonald, who is Drexel University's Senior Vice President of Enrollment.

Better tying employer needs with degrees conferred at regional universities is a major next step in a broad, years-long effort to bolster retention at and broaden awareness of higher learning opportunities in and around Philadelphia.

That was a primary claim from Deborah Diamond, the president of regional brain drain combatant Campus Philly, at the nonprofit’s annual meeting held at WHYY Thursday morning. Diamond was joined in Old City by Mayor Nutter, CEO for Cities President Lee Fisher and others in trumpeting the successes of the region and calling for greater heights.

“Education is economic development,” said Nutter in his address, calling for regional universities to do more outreach in the city’s poorer communities, offering summer programs and campus awareness seminars for city neighborhoods. “It will benefit us all.”

[Full Disclosure: This news site's parent company led the new redesign of Campus Philly's website, and this reporter was involved in the effort.]

In backing her claim, Diamond used three data points showing differences in the region between where the jobs are and where the job candidates are:

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Joanne Cheng Exit Interview: “I wasn’t satisfied with the direction the city was heading”

How do we retain technology startups in Philadelphia? [VIDEO]

Strangers become coworkers at Indy Hall, a coworking space located in Old City. Co-founder Alex Hillman says building community is the best way to retain talent and business. Photo by Sarah Schu.

The argument of whether Philadelphia’s technology community is growing doesn’t seem to be the live one much anymore. The collection of 65 events celebrating Philly Tech Week last month was surely a small answer to that.

Rather, the questions left seem to revolve around the magnitude of that growth and if Philly, like other hopeful regions across the country, can have a significant share of the investment, jobs, revenue, reputation and cache that often follow leaders in that space. Philadelphia missed it’s shot 50 years ago at being Silicon Valley but is there room to be a serious player?

A Philly startup can get investment, something seen weekly. A Philly company can become a top-dollar acquisition, like the $2.4 billion eBay buyout of GSI Commerce, Dell taking Boomi or Eli Lilly snatching Avid Radiopharmaceuticals. Those examples from the last year can help shape the narrative around entrepreneurship and technology in Philadelphia, but, in the end, that just creates a lot more middle managers, not c-level leaders — see Tastykake’s submission to Flower Foods. Recent reports show brain drain here has largely been stemmed, but the tech community has still lost its fair share of stars who could be building the job drivers of the future.

So what’s next for retaining startup talent, sustaining their growth and, dare we suggest, keeping them around long into their future?

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Colin Weir: “there’s no startup culture around video” in Philly

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In a few weeks, Colin Weir will be gone.

The Toms River, N.J. native video producer is leaving April 19 to work for TWiT.tv in Petaluma, Calif. A Rowan University alumnus, Weir, 25, is leaving a job as a video production specialist for a Center City hospital to chase dreams westward.

Though he wants to stay in Philly, he says there just isn’t a culture around video like Philly is developing in other creative fields. Below, Weir talks about how he sees Philly on his way to the airport.

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Wil Reynolds: Turn city entrepreneurs into a Philly cheerleading army

Another in the Entrance Exam series, as part of the Why I Love Philly campaign from Young Involved Philadelphia and Indy Hall. Tell the world why you love where you live by tweeting #whyilovephilly.

Wil Reynolds, The founder of SEO shop SEER Interactive, is passionate about growing the Philly tech community (read: Philadelphia the city first, and then the region.)

Reynolds, 34, who was leading the now deceased Phillyblog at its time of closure and launched its successor Philadelphia Speaks, grew up in Willingboro, N.J. but moved for a spell in Connecticut. Reynolds came back to his roots in the region, moving to Northern Liberties. In the process, he has developed a perspective to be sure. Like how we need to create a Philly cheerleading army out of local entrepreneurs.

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Jesse Middleton: “The best thing about Philadelphia is the closeness of the whole community”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Jesse Middleton tells his story like small town boy makes good.

He went a small high school — graduating class of about 70 people — an hour north of Philly and got his first taste of city life when he attended Drexel University and then stayed a half dozen years.

“I found an amazing co-op job, traveled a lot and went on to do network security consulting, technology writing, SaaS implementations for enterprise companies,” Middleton says, “and finally moved to New York City.”

It was strictly about a job, he says, traveling where the money was good at the time but still harboring all the intentions to come back to the place he first made his home.

Below we talk to him more about what pushed him to leave and why he is so sure he’ll come back.

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Michael McLarnon ‘hit the limit’ with his development in Philly

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Michael McLarnon says he just needed to try some place out to grow.

The Media native graduated from Drexel in 2005 and worked with GIS firm Azavea from then until this past July. That month, after living in Philly permanently since 2006 (and living carless since 2007) he took the familiar trip north to the 67th ward.

McLarnon says he’ll be back, and we wanted to know why.

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Jobs shift to NJ with consolidation of Comcast, NBCU affiliates: Roundup

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get ane-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Exclusive: Comcast, NBCU Net Affiliate Units Merging [Multichannel News] — “Comcast and NBC Universal programming-network distribution teams are combining in NBCU’s Englewood Cliffs, N.J., base, phasing jobs out of Comcast Center in Philadelphia”
• More Devices, Netflix Mean More Traffic for Comcast [gigaom] — Doubling in average usage from 2008, consumers use between 4-6GB of data monthly, Comcast says.
• Comcast’s Next Big Battle May Be in Its Backyard [Daily Finance] — Suggests the NBC deal forces Comcast to give Comcast SportsNet up to satellite competitors like Dish Network, a point that isn’t so clear Philly Tech News suggests.

GIVE A GLANCE

• Regulators take wrong path on Comcast-NBC [Financial Times] — Arguing that essential details were ignored in approving the deal for NBC control
• Zucker: NBC tried to buy Huffington Post for 18 months, couldn’t agree on price [Poynter] — Jeff Zucker, ousted as NBC head after Comcast took over, said while still in charge, NBC tried to buy the blog that was recently purchased by Aol for $315M. H/T PTN
• Looks like no ESPN for NHL [Community Voice: Pittsburgh Post Gazette] — The Comcast deal for NBC will bring more weight and hold onto the NHL
• Margate eyes 25-year cable deal with Comcast []Shore News Today] — Gettin’ Comcast downtheshore.
• Comcast Deploys 100 Mbps High-Speed Internet to Colorado Businesses [IP communications]

Jonny Goldstein: Philly “oozes with character”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

People leave and come to cities all the time. That’s just part of their natural ebb and flow.

And, Exit Interview was never meant to be exclusively about community members leaving in a huff, it was meant to get a pulse on the various reasons why different people have left. Sometimes those reasons are purely circumstance.

Jonny Goldstein didn’t leave in a huff when he moved in mid-August 2010. His wife got a job in Pittsburgh, and the pair still loves this city. But the graphic artist’s new perspective is helpful in garnering insight on the perception of our city’s tax structure, its place in this part of the country and, heck, even how the Steel Town sees us.

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Ben Kessler: Philly has “a lack of leaders looking to take the risk to start a company”

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In September 2009, Ben Kessler was having trouble getting work.

After a Drexel co-op in San Francisco the summer before, the new graduate and Unbreaded co-founder was living with his parents in Yardley, waiting for what was next. The Great Recession was hot then, but even still, Kessler, now 25, was getting bites in the 67th ward. By that October, he had moved up the Jersey Turnpike to New York City.

Philly has an ugly reputation for retaining its college graduate, but that trend is moving dramatically the other way. Still, we asked Kessler for perspective from  a college graduate who loves this city but hightails it for one with a job for him.

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