Maximizing Your Professional Development Dollars

Travel and training dollars are limited for most tech-based economic development programs. For many states, these are the first budget items frozen in a cutback. As a result, you need to get the most bang for each dollar spent on professional development for each staff member.

Fortunately, SSTI thinks this way too when planning its annual conference, Building Tech-based Economies: Preparing for Tomorrow's Challenges. In addition to 30 top-of-the-line breakout sessions during the main conference -- a full slate for your full staff -- we are offering three intensive pre-conference workshops and a behind-the-scenes tour to use your limited training dollars to their fullest potential.

Each pre-conference offering could stand on its own as a great learning opportunity on issues critical to successful technology-based economic development. Couple any one of them with SSTI's 8th annual conference and you have the nation's most complete one-stop professional development experience!

This year's pre-conference offerings are:

• Marketing Success: Telling the TBED Story
  
  Successful tech-based economic development organizations (TBED) have three things in common: they do good work, they know they're doing good work through program evaluation and impact assessments, and they make people aware of the good work they’re doing. Sharing their experiences and offering advice on what to do and pitfalls to avoid, our panels of national leaders have expertise in all aspects of tech-based economic development marketing, including developing a tech image for your community, building support for investing in science and technology in your legislature, and promoting your TBED program.

• University City Science Center: An Insider's Tour
  
  SSTI is pleased to offer an intimate look into the first and one of the largest urban science and technology parks in the world — Philadelphia's University City Science Center. The half-day tour will allow you access to some of the most technologically-advanced office and lab space in the world, including fully-equipped wet labs and a technology incubator. You will learn best practices on developing a science and technology park as well as a technology incubator from some of the world's leading authorities. They will share their expertise on how to plan for and respond to the ever-changing demands of small and medium-sized technology companies in all industries, from life sciences to nanotechnology.

• Developing Angel Organizations: A Practical Guide
  
  Access to capital sources is an essential element for building a tech-based economy and growing thriving businesses. Angels are financing start-up and early-stage businesses, filling a void left by VCs. Angels can be found or nurtured anywhere. Or can they? How does a tech start-up find a good angel? How does an angel find a good start-up? How do angels find each other for financing larger opportunities?

  Presented by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Angel Capital Association, this full-day workshop will focus on the development of angel organizations, including a step-by-step process for determining whether or not your community can support an angel organization and, if it can, the type and structure that is right for the involved investors and your community.

• An Introduction to Tech-based Economic Development
  
  Gaining a good understanding of tech-based economic development — the approaches, vital elements, effective strategies, successful programs, proven policies, and important lessons learned from failures — will make your efforts in the field more rewarding. This full-day interactive workshop is tailored to those professionals new to tech-based economic development. Attendance is always limited to a small group to ensure each participant benefits from the personalized session — walking away afterward with a firm foundation for SSTI's full conference and for their tech-based economic development responsibilities back home.

Registration for the full conference is not mandatory to participate in one of the preconference workshops/tour, but individuals registering for both the annual conference and a workshop receive a $50 discount on their preconference selection (tour excluded from this special offer.)

More information on the full event, to be held in Philadelphia on Oct. 13-15, is available at: http://www.ssti.org/conference04.htm [expired]