Did you go to Innovation Day yesterday? Because if you did, then let’s talk about how awesome it was — and if you didn’t then let me tell you about it. Put on by Opportunity Knocks, the Bend Chamber and OSU-Cascades with the help of many other organizations, Innovation Day presented a chance to meet innovators from around Bend, hear their ideas and then offer your own.

First of all, we all get stuck in the rut of talking with the same people in our industry or going to events about topics we’re familiar with. It’s human nature, but it creates community silos and frankly, missed opportunities. In fact, there’s some fascinating research by University of Chicago business professor Ronald Burt that highlights the benefits of engaging with people from different social clusters (I wrote some about it for SoFi here).

By Julie Harrelson, Fund Manager for Cascade Angels

I was in Kansas City last week representing Oregon at the Kauffman Foundation ESHIP Summit with 430 entrepreneurial community builders including entrepreneurs, investors, educators, government and civic leaders, and economic developers from 48 states and 10 countries. The mission: share best practices to develop and design new knowledge, strategies and tools that will help move entrepreneurial communities/ecosystems forward. Stoked to be with a diverse group of like-minded ecosystem builders, I wanted to share some of my insights.

Here are my 7 takeaways from an inspiring conference: 

• Collaboration is key. Bend specifically and Oregon generally are in the game on building an ecosystem with a collaborative approach across the state and region. Let’s keep this going!
• According to Brad Feld, angel funds are key to ecosystems because it is important to free up local, community wealth to ensure entrepreneurs can raise the critical first $2M. His term for this is “for profit-philanthropy.”
• While there is an increased interest in entrepreneurialism, we are in the midst of a 30-year decline in entrepreneurship. To reverse this, we must put the entrepreneur front and center and get them resources to build and scale successful companies.
• Community conversations are key. Bend is lucky to have StartupBend.com, Innovation Day, EDCO Pubtalks, Opportunity Knocks, and a million other efforts taking place #inbend!
• Ecosystem builders, those who “connect, empower, and collaborate with others to build the whole system” can accelerate the success of a community. It’s a real job.
• Certain groups are consistently underrepresented in the entrepreneurial community. When that is the case, fewer opportunities and jobs are created. Let’s ask different questions and be open to change.
• Building ecosystems that are sustainable is hard work. We need to take care of ourselves and each other.

Although we were in Kansas, I left the conference thinking that, with regard to traditional ways of doing business, “we’re not in Kansas anymore.” We have increased confidence that we can innovate our way through challenges and opportunities to increase economic prosperity and a “new American dream that is accessible to us all.”