Tech Outposts Expand All Over | Phoenix Has A Long Way To Go [Socially Conservative Politics]

Just about a year ago, John WillIiams, the
President of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, was here in The New Urban Downtown Mesa for a site visit arranged by Terry Benelli, Executive Director of LISC Phoenix. Along with 21 community leaders, your Mesa blogger was invited on the bus-coach tour in numerous postings this blogsite. Months later - April 5, 2016, an article later appeared on the LISC website " The (Re)Making of Mesa " with more details.
Here's a link >>   http://www.lisc.org/our-stories/story/remaking-of-mesa if you missed it.
During a conversation between on-location stops, John Williams mentioned that once his staff in high-cost San Francisco found out how low housing costs are here, they might think about moving here. . . I THOUGHT TO MYSELF Nah. To the most conservative city in the whole country? don't know if that ever happened but the issue of high wages and high real estate prices has come up in another context brought up in this follow-up piece by Toronto-based architect and real estate developer Brandon Donnelly in his daily blog for city builders http://brandondonnelly.com/

"The Bay Area has never been especially cheap, and tech companies have a long history of moving their more expensive and labor-intensive functions to second-tier cities where land and labor are less expensive. Intel, the semiconductor giant, was founded in the Silicon Valley in 1968, and by 1979, it had manufacturing facilities outside Portland, Ore., and Phoenix. . . But while Phoenix is recruiting companies, its technology scene lacks some crucial elements. Mr. Salkin, from Allbound, said he still flies to the Bay Area once a month for networking or other events. “We’re doing amazing things here,” he said, “but we’ve got a way to go.”
Mr. Salkin added that for technology companies, which hire people from all kinds of backgrounds,
Arizona’s socially conservative politics can be a form of cultural baggage.

HERE'S THE KICKER FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
In San Francisco, “you can come from any walk of life and feel pretty much accepted and safe,” Mr. Salkin said. “You struggle to say that here right now. I think that’s changing, but it has not been the case in Arizona, and I think that’s
a big thing.”

The rise of tech outposts
What happens when wages and real estate prices become too high in a city? Companies start growing in lower cost locations. We’ve all seen this before. 
Fred Wilson recently blogged about this “spillover effect”, citing a New York Times article talking about the growth of tech offices in Phoenix. As someone who sits on the board of many technology companies, he was noticing a thematic trend:

“A big theme of board meetings I’ve been in over the past year is the crazy high cost of talent in the big tech centers (SF, NYC, LA, Boston, Seattle) and the need to grow headcount in lower cost locations.”

We talk a lot about housing prices on this blog, and so I think it’s useful to see how this, along with high wages, also impacts companies. The two are interrelated.
Below is a chart from the NY Times article showing the US cities with the highest number of technology jobs and the most growth from 2010 to 2015. 

San Francisco is in a league of its own. But overall, the growth is in tech and many cities are adding lots of technology jobs. Look at Detroit and Boston right beside each other (Detroit obviously has a smaller starting base). And look at how Miami is nowhere to be found.
Of course, one interesting question is whether these new outposts – such as Phoenix – can truly come into their own and carve out a niche:

“We don’t want to be San Francisco’s back office — we need more creators here,” said Scott Salkin, a founder and the chief executive of Allbound, which is based in Phoenix, makes sales software and has offices down the hall from Gainsight’s.

Even with the high cost of living, it’s hard to supplant the coastal hegemony. That’s where people go to chase riches. As comedian Daniel Tosh likes to say, “the middle of the country is for people who gave up on their dreams.. . "

 

Dress Codes for The Cubs + On The Bat Here In Mesa > T Shirts, Anyone?

Gotta admit your MesaZona blogger got stumped recently scanning through feeds about Mesa "news" - write about swarms of bees attacking a hiker? Dogs getting killed by Mesa police in someone's backyard [and they accept responsibility] ? A cancer-stricken student denied appearing at his own graduation? An ambulance crash tying up traffic for hours? Someone 'up-skirting" a woman in Walmart not once but twice? . . . no, TY U very much. 
It's summertime! Two stories up on this blog - one about Mesa pride featuring "a mascot", another from Chicago Cubs
Let's take a shallow dive into an item of basic clothing: the T-shirt and have some fun.

This may seem like a stretch, but let's start off from Main Street. With not just one but two silk-screening businesses here on Main Street  in The New Urban DTMesa [both examples of "adaptive re-use" located in historic buildings harking back to the city's mercantile origins], T-shirts = big business > everyone needs more than a few to wear whether for promotions for one thing or another.
Cross-marketing and Cause-related fund-raising have created demands for creative expression.

Out of Milwaukee, Chicago and here in Mesa we get two stories:
Cubs manager Joe Maddon shows off a new pink fundraising T-shirt

Posted 12:02 AM, May 19, 2016, by Larry Hawley, Updated at 02:32pm, May 19, 2016

"Put it on a T-Shirt and raise some money for a good cause.
This philosophy worked well for Joe Maddon when his "Try Not To Suck" slogan was put on a T-Shirt by Korked Baseball. The local business partnered with the Cubs manager to donate a portion of the proceeds to Cubs Charities, Maddon's "Respect 90" foundation and other organizations of his choice. . .
On Wednesday, Maddon surprised reporters in the Cubs' dugout at Miller Park by showing off his latest offering in fundraising apparel-this time it was quite eye-catching.
Maddon sported a pink T-Shirt with his slogan "If You Look Hot, Wear It." The shirt features that phrase in blue with a flamingo on one side of the shirt.
"It's just coming out today," said Maddon, who was eager to show off his newest fashion item . . .
This "Maddonism" was used in Spring Training in Mesa, Arizona by the manager when discussing the team's dress code. It's been reference a couple of times since, especially when the team departed for a road trip in early May by wearing zany suits to Pittsburgh . . . Maddon says each Cubs player will get one of the pink shirts and they'll try to where them when the Cubs travel to San Francisco to play the Giants on Sunday night, a game broadcast nationally by ESPN.

As far at the design of his most visible fundraising efforts, he said is a collaborative effort between Korked Baseball co-founders Jacob Chandler and Joe Ferro . . .

"The thoughts are mine, they design," said Maddon of coming up with the T-Shirts.
[Bigger's Note: with slogans like "Try Not To Suck" and "If You Look Hot, Wear It" ya gotta wonder what's on Maddon's mad mind]

. . . and here in Mesa

A project to sell T-Shirts and raise money by Creative Catalysts who are starting a series of downtown Mesa t-shirts designed by our amazing local artists.

HUGE Props to Mark Matlock for this awesome t-shirt design for Downtown Mesa!

For those of you who haven't heard, we are working on a whole series of Downtown Mesa t-shirts to sell and raise money for public art like murals and installations etc. If you are an artist and you'd like to design one, contact Jen Gastelum or Erica Snyder
Please comment here if you would be interested in a pre-sale order of this shirt. We haven't gotten to cost yet, but they will be somewhere in the range of $22-25 with all proceeds going towards public art.
*Also, for those of you not super familiar with downtown yet, this art depicts our downtown mascot, Batman aka Caitlyn who always is a part of our day to day downtown activities

We are starting a series of downtown Mesa t-shirts designed by our amazing local artists.



This is the first, and holy crap did it surpass expectations, thanks to the amazing Matlock the Artist!
Erica is taking pre-orders, who's interested!? Also, if you're interested in designing one and showing a lil' Mesa pride, let us know!