IdeaField Coworking hosted a Jelly MeetUp this past week and we want to thank everyone who came out to support us in this, our first community event. Throughout the day, we were joined by a wide range of organizations and individuals including solo freelancers, small startups, local economic development and even one individual from a prominent Fortune 500 software company. A special thanks to goes out to USF SBDC and StarTec for stopping by to discuss how Coworking can contribute to economic development efforts in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The broad mix of coworkers who dropped-in were a pleasant surprise and confirmed our belief that Tampa’s tech community is ready (hungry) for more grass roots programs and collaborative opportunities.

As we have been saying for quite some time, current economic development initiatives are overly focused on the traditional relocation-based model that gets recycled year after year as the area’s primary strategy for local job growth. These programs and economic development organizations do not acknowledge the potential of grass roots innovation or new company creation and instead choose to focus on later stage companies looking for cost cutting and land / tax incentives. Numerous studies indicate that high potential startups are more likely to generate new higher paying jobs and create innovative new products that enable sustainable economic growth. The fact that these studies or other area’s successes didn’t merit discussion during the recent Hillsborough Economic Task Force is a clear indication that the current policy focus is on maintaining the status quo and not looking for new answers to our economic dilemma.

Coworking is just one component for more effective innovation, collaboration and grass roots economic development. But Coworking in Tampa Bay, in addition to other focused programs, broader thinking and updated public policy will help evolve Tampa into a community that is less dependent on economic bubbles and more aligned for sustainable business (& job) growth.

If you care about making Tampa more startup friendly, contact your county’s board of commissioners and let them know that it is time to invest in economic programs and resources that actually work. Point them to the recent work of the Kauffman Foundation, the Global Entrepreneurial Monitor or other entrepreneurial studies that have quantified the positive impact, job creation and high growth potential of startups especially during economic downturns.

In Hillsborough: http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org/bocc/

In Pinellas: http://www.pinellascounty.org/Commission