The New Economy Jam

On Saturday, January 26th my FreshTracks colleagues and some of our portfolio companies took part in what I hope will be the first annual Vermont 3.0 Creative Tech Career Jam.  The event was held in the Main Street Landing building on Burlington’s waterfront and was a cross between an educational seminar and a job fair featuring about 30 high-growth Vermont companies, a handful or two of schools, and some governmental organizations.  FreshTracks had rented a booth in order to promote the 29 jobs available at some of our Vermont portfolio companies.* 

I arrived at 9:55 and promptly got distracted talking to Christa Shute of Earth Turbines.  Christa comes from an entrepreneurial Vermont family and had worked for many years in her family business before joining Earth Turbines.  She told me she was looking for several new employees and that she’d recently made offers to 4 others.  I wandered by the Contois Music booth which was demonstrating a new Guitar Hero program.  The average age of those surrounding that booth was just too young for me so I made my way to the central job-posting board.  I started counting but gave up when I reached 200 open positions and realized I was only part way through and more jobs were being posted all the time.  At about 10:15 I finally made it to our booth with a cup of coffee.  Governor Douglas stopped by with his wife and being a wise guy I said that if he was looking for a job we had 29 of them.  Being an affable guy and an expert politician, he chuckled.

Soon after that visit, the onslaught began.  I’ve worked some trade shows and conventions before and there is usually a pattern to include a lull for lunch and a lull for speakers.  There were no lulls at this event. I heard that the event organizers stopped counting after they got to 1,000 people entering the event.  We were swamped.  We quickly figured out that people did not realize what our booth was all about. So we made a poster that said “29 jobs” and listed each of the companies.  That got peoples’ attention.  For most of the event we had at least four people working in our booth, each of them talking to someone.  We realized that we were going to run out of job description copies.  Since there was no copy machine in the building, our office manager Holly ran up to Kinkos.  It was, honestly, an absolute madhouse most of the day.

Looking back on the event from a day’s remove, some patterns strike me.  There were many people (mostly women) gathering information on jobs not for themselves but for their spouses, partners, children and so forth.  One mom told me her kids couldn’t tear themselves away from a Saturday of skiing.  Civility prevented me from saying the obvious: “If they’re not motivated enough to come in here and look for a job themselves then good riddance.”  There were a large number of “old media” graphic designers looking for jobs or new clients. Most admitted to having non-existent or rusty web skills. I doubt they were having much luck, but perhaps they realized the necessity of updating their skills.  Probably 20% of the people I spoke to were college students (both graduate and undergraduate) who would be graduating this spring. Quite a few were majoring in computer science. Happily, many of the people we spoke to were spot-on for the needs of our companies.  We handed out job descriptions and encouraged applications and we collected perhaps 30 resumes.  At the end of the day we felt it was a success, but the ultimate proof will be how many of the jobs will be filled.

There was one theme that emerged time and again.  Namely, sheer amazement at the number of interesting companies exhibiting and the fact that most were not well known.  My job puts me in touch with optimistic entrepreneurs and high-growth Vermont companies every day so its not news to me that there are some fascinating things going on in the state.  Increasingly though, when I read mainstream Vermont media I feel like my daily experience is a parallel universe to a Vermont of failing companies and fleeing young people.

I looked in vain for an article about the Career Jam and the exhibiting companies in the Free Press online on Sunday morning but did not see anything.   

That’s unfortunate … and typical.

* The portfolio companies we were showcasing are: Eating Well Media Group of Charlotte  (food and nutrition media ), Isis, of Burlington (women’s outdoor active wear), Kluster, of Burlington (software for product development), NativeEnergy, of Charlotte (renewal energy credit intermediary) and Brighter Planet, of Middlebury (partner of Bank of America on a carbon offset credit card ).  As an FYI, these businesses collectively generated approximately $15 million in revenue during 2006 and collectively they employ approximately 80 people at present.  If I believe their financial projections these companies will generate close to $30 million of revenue during 2008, hence the expansion of human resources.  Collectively FreshTracks and other investors have invested approximately $20 million in these companies.  We also have two other Vermont portfolio companies, Vermont Teddy Bear and NewEngland High Purity, that chose not to post any jobs at the event, though they have jobs available.

For possible job-seeker, Eating Well needs a PHP programmer and a Website designer as well as some business related positions.  NativeEnergy needs some sales and marketing managers and some energy supply managers.  Brighter Planet has some sales positions, an environmental director position and a staff accountant open. Isis needs product developers and customer service folks.  Kluster has need for an office manager, and some programmers.

Comments

[Julie Lerman]

Cairn
This is such a great write up and perspective. I saw you numerous times in passing but didn't get a chance to say hi. Yep, you looked busy. What a great day! I found you post by way of Cathy Resmer. DIdn't even realize you were blogging.
Julie

[Cairn Cross]

Julie:

I saw you and your Geekette shirt at one point but you looked pretty busy too. Flattered to be quoted by Cathy.

Cairn

[Art Bell]

Cairn
This seems like the first 'objective' review i've read. Thanks for the observations.

Was it Woody Allen who said 95% of life is just showing up?

.../Art