Recently I attended BizTechDay in New York where I met my new friend Matthew Leskow. You may remember him from late night TV, he wears the question mark suit jacket and promotes tactics to secure government programs. Anyway Matthew has a newsletter and he wrote a summary of the event and provided this commentary in his remarks:
"Of all the speakers I listened to, there was barely a mention of the government, even though they are missing out on 33% of the economy, which can help them be a success. I wondered if most of these people were initially excited about an Obama presidency, and are now as frustrated as the Tea Party people, but they should take out there frustrations by starting a business instead of protesting."
I found it interesting that Matthew -- a successful small business owner -- found it peculiar that there was no significant focus on getting government business by many small firms. I agree, as an occupant of smAlbany in the larger Tech Valley, I'm surrounded by clients and vendors who make their living directly or indirectly servicing the public sector.
While I am not a fan of big government and big government spending whether on the federal level or here in New York State, it only makes good business sense to avail oneself of public contracts if the money is available. For good or bad too, the smAlbany region benefits to great extent from state spending. Besides, money is fungible, and a public dollar is as green as a private dollar.
So I feel that a dialog with Matthew and myself may help reveal how the culture of small business growing on the edge of social media technology and public funding when available may appear as Matthew described. It's a very astute point he makes and I feel it's worthy of repetition.
Please contact me to discuss or for more information. I'd like to hear your opinion.
