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Kiki Mills, executive director of MITX
Friday, January 9, 2009
Inside New York/New England connections
Mass.-N.Y. connection fosters new media funding, talent
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Even if you believe that investment dollars are flowing from Massachusetts to New York when they could be going to local startups, that may not be a bad thing. In fact, some see the connection between the two regions not as a competition but as a synergistic relationship, and one that is growing stronger.
One group offering that view is the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange, commonly known as MITX. The Cambridge-based industry association for digital marketing, media and technology companies, has been reaching out to New York itself, providing management support for its New York counterpart, an advertising club known as 212.
“Our cluster in Massachusetts is technology. What has happened over time is that more of the media and advertising has gone digital. So there has been more synergy between Massachusetts tech companies and New York media. Massachusetts is powering a lot of Madison Avenue. We are providing the technology and the infrastructure to power it,” said Kiki Mills, executive director of MITX.
One of the Massachusetts tech sector’s strengths in terms of new media is on the infrastructure and delivery side of the business, which means they need to work closely with the media and advertising firms on Madison Avenue. Mills points to the growth of Cambridge video delivery company Brightcove Inc., founded by Jeremy Allaire. “Jeremy has to have connections with Madison Avenue because the advertising companies will use Brightcove as a delivery vehicle,” said Mills.
Those infrastructure companies are being driven by a combination of young talent coming out of area colleges and established technologists whose roots go back to the age of New England minicomputers.
Those companies, like their partners in New York, benefit from the numerous venture capital firms based in Boston and its suburbs.
Mills also points to the example of Boston-based mobile advertising platform vendors, Enpocket Inc., which was acquired by Nokia in 2007, and Third Screen Media. “They had to have relationships with all of the agencies on the media buying side. They need something to deliver. That’s why the relationship with advertising agencies and media in New York is so critical,” she said.
MITX counts 250 companies, mostly inside Route 495, and 7,500 individuals as active members. Mills predicts that in the next few years, Massachusetts will retain its edge in terms of new-media technology. But she also notes that while Massachusetts venture capitalists are channeling investment dollars to New York content companies, some investment is coming back to Massachusetts with big media players such as Google Inc. and ESPN supporting Boston-area media startups and working with New England ad agencies.
Massachusetts is also making a mark as a leader in a sector that is increasingly associated with new media: the game industry. “Massachusetts has become known as the gaming corridor,” said Mills.
One challenge that Mills sees in Massachusetts is keeping young talent in the state. Noting that Facebook — which was co-founded by Harvard University undergrad Mark Zuckerberg — could have been kept in the Bay State, she said, “We have to make sure we don’t have a braindrain of entrepreneurial talent. There are some simple things we could do. For example, we need to have venues that bring VCs together with students to talk about opportunities. Our college students have grown up with the Internet but they don’t necessarily think about the Internet as a business or a place to go to work.”
“We have 250 member companies that we know look for entry-level talent. They just need some conversation to understand what our companies do. They see TripAdvisor (LLC), but they don’t think about the fact that TripAdvisor employs 250 or 300 people,” she said.
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