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The old real estate adage “Location, Location, Location!” has an interesting intersection with the most recent Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) awards. Some quick math helped me to analyze where the MITX designated hot stars of the future call home. While I believe the Greater Boston Area technology ecosystem is firmly planted throughout the region, there is clearly an increased sense of activity and energy in Boston. And certainly Cambridge continues its long-held place as one of the centers for tech innovation.
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The T3 Medical Device delegation lead by Mark Cote and Austin Barrett recently attended the MDMA (Medical Device Manufacturer’s Association- www.medicaldevices.org) annual meeting in Washington D.C. The goal of attending MDMA was to gain an intimate understanding of the challenges faced by our medical device clients so that we can provide the most strategic guidance possible and anticipate their needs as they plan for global expansion.
All this "workplace of the future" stuff is just for tech companies, right? WRONG!
Working on the west coast Emerging Tech team at T3 Advisors has provided me with unique insight into the thought process behind early stage startups finding their first non-shared office space. For many companies, that time comes right after they have raised +/- $1 million dollars and have started competing with every other tech company to hire 5-10 new engineers/developers. The majority of our clients approach us with the same basic set of needs:
T3Man here with some important tips about saving time, money and keeping things neat and tidy. Some companies need their office to be really clean. No, I’m not talking about getting rid of that old sandwich in the lunchroom fridge (although that’s a good idea too.) I’m talking about clean rooms needed by biotech, medical device companies and others. T3 Advisors has extensive expertise with cleanroom technology and clean room construction, which gives us the ability to save companies time and money by eliminating buildings that are not a good match and/or minimizing significant capital investments necessary to meet clean room requirements.
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the 31st JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. Union Square was a scene out of the Matrix with all the dark suits as healthcare industry executives, investors, and entrepreneurs gathered to discuss what lies ahead for healthcare in 2013.
Following the exciting launch of T3 Man last month, T3's own Rimi Chakraborty moderated a lively panel on how office building owners/landlords could better meet the real estate and facility needs of expanding technology tenants. Joining Rimi on the panel was Julia Regan of EnerNOC (who just signed an 80,000 square foot lease in Boston for its new headquarters) Dan Ryan of Pegasystems (who just moved into a beautiful new 180,000 square foot new hq in Cambridge MA and landlord David Provost of Boston Properties (one of the largest landlords in the country with nearly 40 million square feet under management).
A repeated theme from the panel was that today’s technology companies are up against a talent war, vying to draw the best and the brightest while at the same time facing tremendous pressures from top management to cut costs. Julia Regan spoke about the benefit of moving to Boston's hot and trendy Seaport area as a move to further underscore the company brand and to continue to attract the best and brightest. In addition, EnerNOC’s new space will improve employee connectivity (currently EnerNOC is separated across multiple floors and elevator banks), as well as increase efficiency of its space. Dan Ryan shared his philosophy that “apples don’t fall far from the tree,” citing Pegasystems’ decision to stay in Cambridge based largely on where its CEO lives, but also a function of PegaSystems' history of drawing key talent from MIT. The "clustering" concept continues to be an important trend across the country.
I recently had the privilege of attending the nineteenth annual Phoenix Conference in Laguna Beach, California. I was joined by top level executives from large healthcare organizations and small venture-backed companies to discuss key strategic issues facing the medical device industry.
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel for the Urban Land Institute, Workplaces: Thinking Outside of the Cube with Jeff Cook of Fidelity, Richard Kimball of Edwards Wildman, and Peter Carty of Genzyme. Brian Dacey of the CIC served as the moderator.
