Global innovation ecosystem hub. Takeaways from a European’s 5 year exploratory journey on both coasts of the U.S. Pt.1. Generalization & biases.
I will start with a couple of disclaimers.
First, I have not explored all the innovation ecosystems in the U.S., just some of them, and reflect on these only. I acknowledge there are many more, especially the upcoming ones.
Second, my takeaways have not been impacted by any external party, sponsor, or stakeholder, apart from myself, my connections, business partners, clients, endeavours and my close-ones.
And, finally, here is why. Why this story?
I want more smart, capable and honest personalities and organizations to succeed. Less time burned on b*it. United States is a place of opportunities. But, to succeed, you need to know what you want to achieve, then figure out how, and then get to the action. And be brave.
I want to help you escape some biases, marketing traps or old truth which might not be true anymore. When working with or hearing about non-American individuals, organizations and companies wishing to innovate in or develop their operations in the U.S., I see too many unreasonable and ungrounded activities driven by misinformation or wrong information (I intentionally avoid the term disinformation here as it has too bad touch nowadays), leading to wasted resources and unrealized possibilities. The same applies to the U.S. individuals and organizations, too, when biases kick in or someone has zoomed-in too much. I will appreciate if the both Americans and non-Americans read my story and comment, as that will widen and deepen the image. Let’s begin!
West coast vs. East coast
My image of the West coast vs East coast was generally limited to the popular culture’s impact on me, same as with most people across the globe. Yes, I had a light blue Backstreet Boys t-shirt and Britney Spears’ poster on when I was a child.
Yet I had dealt with both coasts — New York and Los Angeles respectively — in my previous ventures, especially when booking international acts for the live entertainment company I was running before. But that was a very limited, niche look at the both coasts. Another outlook to the West coast, Bay Area specifically, was provided to me through the lens of Stanford University.
The limited and fragmented image of the both coasts took more understandable shapes when I started more frequent travels to the U.S., which grew into longer stays, and finally swung from visiting the U.S. from Europe, to vice-versa in the past year. That provided an opportunity to get to know the United States during different times, starting from the optimistic Barack Obama era, all the way through pandemic, complex geopolitical trembles, and the country’s economic, social and political challenges.
Whenever anyone talks about or refers to the United States as one experience, by generalizing very limited observations, I want to remind that the size of the United States is over 2x the size of the European Union. If you are from, in or have had enough contact with Europe, you will know that different parts of it provide very diverse experience, starting from culture and food to safety, wealth and values. The U.S. is even more stretched than the whole Europe, as it is 5h difference between the main hubs of the West & East coasts, or 7h with Hawaii and Alaska stretching far in the West. So different parts of the U.S. can be literally as different as day and night.
Americans have their biases about the country’s states or cities. While Florida is a home to the bursting Miami and upcoming innovation hotspots as Orlando or Fort Lauderdale, for many Americans, it is still a place to retire. Detroit? Crime, shooting! And cars. And Eminem. Houston? NASA — National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“Houston, we have a problem!”). San Francisco? Hippies and tech billions.
Not having these biases has helped me before when exploring the United Kingdom and developing, first, my clients’ businesses and partnerships, and later on the operations of the group of companies I manage. It has been sometimes funny, sometimes annoying to learn and repeatedly listen to people sharing their biases of different parts of the country.
Hey, but let’s focus back to the United States and the innovation ecosystem hotspots from a European’s lens. I was actually planning to write one article about this, but learned in the process that this is becoming too long and exhaustive, so ended up deciding on series of articles.
On the next article, I will start exploring the West coast. Subscribe to my articles if you have not yet.
Here is the first one: Los Angeles.
