Easy ways to boost Iowa’s high-tech future
Every 40-Under-40 honoree recently received an e-mail or a phone call inviting them to a meeting with some heavy hitters: Marvin Pomerantz, chief executive officer of Mid-America Group Ltd., J. Barry Griswell, CEO of Principal Financial Group Inc., and Doug Reichardt, CEO of Holmes Murphy & Associates.
When we arrived, Reichardt quickly got to the point: we’re the next generation of leaders and we’re not stepping up to the plate. We’re letting the older guys carry the load of building our community, sustaining philanthropic efforts and tackling the tough issues like gambling, diversity, overdependence on government and the exodus of young people from Iowa. Reichardt, obviously motivated by the desire to continue his father’s efforts as a community leader, asked us to join him in becoming “the next generation of guys who get things done.”
So here’s a small contribution from Spindustry Systems Inc. The following items are economic development ideas that Spindustry has promoted to Gov. Tom Vilsack, Department of Economic Development Director Mike Blouin, Congressman Leonard Boswell, State Representative Christopher Rants and others who have asked us what can be done to help grow our technology sector and put Iowa at the top of the list when U.S. companies shop for high-tech goods and services.
In Iowa, 2,987 firms that list software and information technology as their core business. Iowa’s high-tech companies employ more than 44,930 workers and these well-paid jobs contribute nearly $1.8 billion in annual wages to our economy.
With that background in mind, here’s Idea 1: Piggyback “win the work” visits when the governor travels to win back Iowans.
This is the low-cost or no-cost option to help build on what we have. In case you missed the coverage, Governor Vilsack is already traveling quite a bit. He’s already recruiting former Iowans to come back home to raise their families. What if just a little of his time on those trips were spent recruiting work for our existing technology sector rather than recruiting people?
While working to build a bigger work force for Iowa, let’s really market the one we have. For example, in California our competitors charge two and three times the rate for the same work and their work force is very transitory. Here in Iowa the same services are more affordable and the work force is more stable. Let’s sell that! Great people, great work ethic and affordable rates. We’ll pay our way to come along on the trip and promote those qualities — just help us gain the opportunity.
If Iowa technology companies can get more of the sexy contracts, we can keep the kids.
And here’s Idea 2: Provide domestic trade assistance to help market Iowa technology products and services outside the state.
It’s not as direct as the governor opening doors, but the effect could be the same. This assistance would pave the way for Iowa technology companies to succeed when pitching our value outside of our state. If the state wanted to spend a little, this could include cooperative marketing dollars to help subsidize those efforts. Currently, Iowa has programs to help with all aspects of business for international trade. We suggest giving the international trade office a domestic counterpart.
In both scenarios we suggest measuring the initial effectiveness by imported revenue. This new money will help sustain the workforce we already have and over time the effort will increase the number of great paying jobs.
Therese Wielage is a partner in Spindustry Systems Inc., an Iowa-based provider of Internet business strategy services, web design and application development, search engine optimization, outsourced programming and carrier-class web hosting.