What Next?

For the past week, much of the con­ver­sa­tion around Day­ton has been about NCR and their depar­ture from the com­mu­nity.  NCR was founded by John H. Pat­ter­son over 100 years ago.  Pat­ter­son was an inno­va­tor, a com­mu­nity leader, and one of the pio­neers of mod­ern sales tech­niques.  One need not look very far to find reminders of his influ­ence here in Day­ton.  Like the Wright Broth­ers, Pat­ter­son is one of the iconic fig­ures of Dayton’s his­tory of innovators.

The loss of NCR is only the lat­est punch in the face to a city that has been dealt with a steady stream of hay­mak­ers for what seems like years now.  It cre­ates some big tax prob­lems for the city of Day­ton and the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties, and short term it is tough.  Yet, I am oddly opti­mistic about what it means to Day­ton.  Why?

Well NCR was Dayton’s last For­tune 500 com­pany.  Its depar­ture sig­nals that we are no longer a city that can rely giant cor­po­rate enti­ties for sur­vival.  This city has so many tal­ented peo­ple, many of them seek­ing their next oppor­tu­nity.  It may well be that the next oppor­tu­nity does not come in the form of a fancy, big cor­po­rate gig, but rather in the form of a start up or an inno­v­a­tive small busi­ness.  The tal­ent pool is deep, the time is right, and the cost of liv­ing in Day­ton is low — mak­ing it pos­si­ble to live a com­fort­able life with­out hav­ing to make redicu­lous sums of money.  It is a great place for inno­va­tors to deliver inno­va­tion — for cre­ators to cre­ate.  It also appears that the tim­ing to be this kind of place might be per­fect.  Why?

Well, on the same day that I was read­ing about NCR leav­ing Day­ton, I also read a great arti­cle by Chris Ander­son in Wired Mag­a­zine. The New New Econ­omy: More Star­tups, Fewer Giants, Infi­nite Opportunity

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Big­ger firms are harder to run on cash flow alone, so they need more debt (oops!). Big­ger com­pa­nies have to place big­ger bets but have less and less con­trol over dis­tri­b­u­tion and com­pe­ti­tion in an increas­ingly diverse mar­ket­place. Those bets get riskier and the pay­offs lower. And as Wall Street firms are learn­ing, big­ger com­pa­nies are going to get more reg­u­lated, lim­it­ing their flex­i­bil­ity. The stars of finance are flee­ing for smaller firms; it’s the only place they can imag­ine get­ting any­thing inter­est­ing done.

As ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist Paul Gra­ham put it, “It turns out the rule ‘large and dis­ci­plined orga­ni­za­tions win’ needs to have a qual­i­fi­ca­tion appended: ‘at games that change slowly.’ No one knew till change reached a suf­fi­cient speed.”

The result is that the next new econ­omy, the one ris­ing from the ashes of this lat­est melt­down, will favor the small.

If what Ander­son asserts about the future is true, than Day­ton has been forced into what might be a good place.  The future is not about huge For­tune 500 com­pa­nies, it is about small, nim­ble, inno­v­a­tive col­lab­o­ra­tors who are will­ing to make change hap­pen.  Our lack of big cor­po­rate influ­ence may well prove to be an oppor­tu­nity that cre­ates a com­pet­i­tive strength.

We are being pushed invol­un­tar­ily into life with­out big cor­po­ra­tions and we are going to have to fig­ure out how to sur­vive, right now.  Other cities are going be forced to fig­ure this out more slowly, and yes prob­a­bly less painfully in the short term.  If we get it right, we will be well posi­tioned for a sus­tain­able and pros­per­ous future.  It is this type of dis­rup­tive change that dri­ves inno­va­tion, and as other cities cling to pro­tect the model of the last cen­tury, Day­ton has an oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate the model for the next cen­tury.  We have lit­tle to lose, and a lot to gain by doing so.

The resources are here — low cost of liv­ing, ample enter­tain­ment options, nice sur­round­ings, nat­ural resources, a solid trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture, inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions, an abun­dance of dis­placed tal­ent.  Com­bine that with a lack of options (no safety net) and you have the key ingre­di­ents for future growth. It is up to us to make it hap­pen — each in our own ways.  It starts by believ­ing it is so, chang­ing out par­a­digm, and then day by day tak­ing action to cre­ate pos­i­tive change.

Of course, it is quite pos­si­ble that we will waste this oppor­tu­nity by wal­low­ing in self pity, or try­ing to woo some new unnamed giant cor­po­rate sav­ior to invest in the city, or lay­ing blame on indi­vid­u­als for the loss of the “glory days” of our com­mu­nity, but I hope we choose a dif­fer­ent path.  The same path the inno­va­tors of our past chose.  The path that was yet to be created.

Orville and Wilbur, the hal­lowed Wright Broth­ers, were 2 guys with a bike shop and a dream.  They changed the world.  John H. Pat­ter­son did the same.  We need to invest in the next Orville and Wilbur.  Help them stay here, dream, inno­vate, cre­ate, and change the world.  It can be done, if we decide it is to be so.

So to NCR, thank you for 100+ years of employ­ing peo­ple in Day­ton.  Good luck in Geor­gia.  We wish you the best.  Now it is time for us to get busy cre­at­ing a future that does not include you, but is bright none the less — per­haps more bright than the glory days of John H. Pat­ter­son himself.

I encour­age you to read Anderson’s arti­cle and give it some thought.

The New New Econ­omy: More Star­tups, Fewer Giants, Infi­nite Opportunity