Phoenix Needs A Different Default Mode

Or we will never be a great tech ecosystem

I have made several public comments stating that Phoenix doesn’t innovate enough. That we don’t think big enough. That we don’t do enough to foster a great tech ecosystem. Many times, I am met with comments like:

“Well, look how far we’ve come”

“Look how strong our community is”

“Look at our great startups”

We have come a long way. I know we have. I have only been around for two years. I know lot’s of work has been put in before me. But I need to bring to light something I have noticed in the past two years.

Many new community building ideas for #yesphx are met with the response of “we have a facebook page and slack channel for that”, instead of embracing a potential new way to build the ecosystem.

When investors from SV tell us that we haven’t come very far, we criticize them instead of trying to understand.

When I say we need to pay bigger and get more innovative, i’m met with a list of companies built here that are doing innovative things.

Our default mode is “look at what we’ve done”, instead of “look at what we could be”

This needs to change. New ideas should be welcomed, hard questions should be answered honestly and not brushed off, and we need to be foster a true culture of never needing to ask for permission to change the ecosystem.

Have an idea to improve Phoenix? Do it. Build it. Tell someone about it. Hell, tell me about it and i’ll make sure, if it’s useful, the word gets out about it. If it’s not useful, i’ll make sure to tell you why and point you in the right direction. At the end of the day, if we are always looking back at what we’ve done, we’re going to crash into a tree.

Look forward, always challenge this ecosystem, even the highest leaders, and let’s change Phoenix’s default mode.