In the 12 years since Skip Newberry became the Technology Association of Oregon's president and CEO, the group has entirely remade its team during three major inflection points.
One of those inflection points is occurring right now.
“It seems natural with all the changes (coming out of the) pandemic. We are now at a point where trends in 2020 have stuck or not,” said Newberry. Expectations around live events and digital programming have evened out and the tech industry is experiencing dramatic change around funding and new technology like artificial intelligence.
“We are now at the beginning of another 10-year cycle,” Newberry predicts.
We caught up with him to discuss some of the changes at the group and the year ahead.
On elevating member voices
The organization has several lines of work, including advocacy and community building. While TAO tends to be known for its efforts in Salem and the annual Oregon Tech Awards, this year the group will hone its own messaging to spotlight the breadth of its work.
To do so, it will elevate the voices of TAO’s 500-plus members. The group has teamed with member Brandlive on a fireside chat series featuring discussions between industry and nonprofit leaders as well as policy makers. TAO also unveiled a podcast series highlighting industry challenges and wins.
A third piece, a partnership with member company eImpact, will create data visualizations to help share industry insights.
On the advocacy work
Oregon’s workforce development efforts, hampered by different silos within the state's development system, continue to be a major issue. Newberry believes TAO can provide a bridge that connects relevant stakeholders, ensuring programs develop skills that companies require. The efforts are especially critical important as virtual and hybrid work emerge and employees are more spread out. It will also be important for up-skilling and retention as artificial intelligence threatens to displace workers.
“How can we both develop the talent as a community and also look at how we make this accessible,” Newberry said. “What will people need as they grow their careers.”
TAO, he added, is joining the state’s Workforce Talent Development Board and is part of the Future Ready Oregon Technology Industry Consortium.
On boosting startup support
TAO has significantly increased its membership among startups, thanks partly to a 2020 decision to remove membership fees for early stage startups with less than $500,000 annual recurring revenue. The group also streamlined how startups can interact with TAO’s programs and network to make it easy for busy founders to get involved.
“If (a startup’s) customers are tech companies or IT companies, we can be helpful there,” Newberry said. The goal is “how do we make it as easy as possible to take advantage of services but in a way that doesn't create unrealized expectations."
TAO is now home to the work started under the Techtown banner. It has also added programming to connect entrepreneurs to each other with its Founders Investing in Founders events. By allowing free early stage membership, it also eliminates any perceived competition between organizations for membership dollars. That could bring more collaboration between various support organizations, Newberry said.
As a result, the group’s membership is more barbell-shaped, with lots of early stage members, a smaller number of mid-sized members and lots of big companies.
“The challenge for the region and the association is helping those early stage companies sustain and scale,” he said, adding that many of those companies are in the compliance and cybersecurity, AI and digital health categories.
