by Jason Holman – YPAL Director of Technology

This post comes long overdue, as we wind down the YPAL Develop Louisville Tech series in partnership with TALK and Bingham Greenebaum Doll, LLC.  It’s been a great experience to learn from the local leaders and stakeholders of Louisville.  We’ve had a great blend of civic leadership, leading technology providers and ‘tech-heavy’ companies of all stages of growth from startup to mature.

Staying & Growing

Wrapping up this year’s ‘Develop Louisville’ series, we’ll hear from those who have elected to ‘stay and grow’ their businesses in Louisville (and are succeeding!). Our final session, ‘Develop Louisville: Staying and Growing’ will be on Monday, October 28 at i-Hub. We’re excited to hear ‘what makes Louisville  a great place for success from tech-heavy organizations like Humana, GlowTouch, Mirazon, Capture Higher Ed, Metro Louisville and entrepreneurs who continue to innovate by ‘Staying and Growing’ under conditions of extreme uncertainty.  We’re also very excited to have Metro Louisville once again on the panel with Theresa Reno-Weber as the Chief of Performance Improvement

Through the generous donation by Bingham, Greenebaum Doll, LLC, all young professionals (we call ourselves YP’s) get a FULL year of YPAL membership FREE ($50 value) just for coming to the final session so be sure to register now!

What we’ve Learned…

Our previous panelists have provided us great ‘nuggets of insight’ into how we can be better prepared by developing our collective and individual talents through product development or refining and maintaining our own skill-sets through continued education and /or certification. We’ve aggregated these ideas here: see Develop Louisville Survey.  I’m sure the CodeLouisville project will agree: we’ve found great insight and opportunities to improve outcomes for our local technology talent pool.  If you haven’t had a chance to enter your thoughts, please do!  

We’ve also tested new interesting media products and services like Twitter, Twubs, Google Analytics, SoundCloud (Thanks Rudy!) and ‘Livestream‘ for audio and video delivery, mobile app development for engagement, member coupons and loyalty discount programs for retainment.  Last but not least, we’ve put our recently implemented CMS Content Management System to the test while forging great relationships with our valuable local partners, vendors and mentors.

We’ve developed our individual and collective skill-sets as we’ve come together as a team.  We’ve been given a great opportunity to engage with local community government and business leaders to hear and understand the challenges they face, better. Most importantly, we’ve learn to grow from within YPAL to provide better, more meaningful programming and opportunities to engage with our future members!

Thank you, Louisville. – For participating and providing the mechanisms of/for our growth. We’re excited to implement our new found knowledge.   

How can you help?

The best way to support us is to do what you’re already doing: stay engaged with us!

Even though this is the final curtain call on ‘Develop Louisville’ we’re already preparing for a new series beginning early next year called, ‘Innovate Louisville’. With your support, we’ll continue “to stand on the shoulders of giants” and develop our collective talents together.  Would you be interested in participating in an early Spring Golf Scramble at Cardinal Club Golf Course to kick-off this new series for ‘Innovate Louisville’?  Are you interested in meeting our YP’s, or maybe you have another idea?  If so, let us know as we’re getting things in order now!  YPAL is listening.

Just as Mayor Fischer described in Session I (full audio here), I’m paraphrasing “the City is going through a transformative time and there is ‘GREAT capacity’ in this room to solve the problems we face” (related to) developing, attracting and retaining talent to support a sustainable technology eco-system.”

You’ve given us a great start Louisville, now please take a bow on Act I and let’s prepare for Act II!

Don’t forget, if you’re interested in being a part of this regional experiment in innovation, please come out to one of our Tech Committee meetings.

If you’re on the fence, don’t be. Make your future opportunities happen by ‘connecting’ with us,  here

About Jason

Jason Holman is the YPAL Directory of Technology and currently runs the Lean Startup Circle “Meetup” group for Louisville which uses a collection of techniques built around maximizing validated customer learning. See his full profile.