Advisory Dinner Tackles Storytelling
At our recent Alliance advisory board dinner, Larry Sonsini (Advisory Board chair and the evening’s host) asked the group how to best unlock the potential of SoCal’s innovation ecosystem so that it performs in line with its potential (i.e. the mission of the Alliance). The 20 guests tasked with this whopper of a topic included VCs, corporate leaders, and startup CEOs who largely agreed that the ingredients are in place but that we have a problem with our “story”.
This notion of story is nuanced — nobody was suggesting we enlist fictions and special effects to obscure the reality and gloss over our shortcomings. This was a call for a strategy with tactics that employ clear and consistent messaging to dispel the pervasive myths (‘fake news’?) about the region and replace them with authentic narratives.
Clearly, great SoCal startups with traction are not getting enough attention from the media. Even eye-popping funding rounds and exits are largely ignored by the tech and local press. Without a mainstream publication (other than scrappy SoCalTech.com) covering innovation in SoCal, who is telling our story? This reveals that we need to build a much stronger communications channel to get the word out.
Continue reading on the Alliance website.
Steve Gilison is Head of Programs and Operations at the Alliance for SoCal Innovation. You can also find him on Linkedin and the Alliance website.
