We were talking to our friend Gwyn Fisher about talent and the conversation that was stimulated by our recent posts. She was generous enough to send in a post of her own. Ms. Fisher has worked on talent issues for years and knows firsthand the potential and the challenges, and we are proud to post her commentary:
“David, I’d like to introduce you to the Princess of Memphis.”
I felt my cheeks flush as I sipped my wine and quickly tried to come up with a witty reply.
“I might not be the official Princess, but I definitely love Memphis!” He didn’t smile.
It didn’t really matter if David was unimpressed by my cleverness, the statement was only half true anyway. I’m trying to love Memphis, but not getting much in return. A one-sided relationship, and I’m on the losing side.
For a few years, I truly believe our community was making progress in our efforts to turn the tide on the massive outflow of young talent. Human capital was a critical – and most importantly funded – part of the MemphisED plan. MPACT Memphis experienced unprecedented growth and a new level of YP engagement not seen in Memphis for more than a decade. Memphis Urban League Young Professionals burst onto the scene with amazing programming and strong membership growth. Leadership Memphis and Leadership Academy (now New Memphis Institute) were honing their curriculum to reach more emerging leaders and equip them with the tools to lead the change we so desperately need. Arts organizations were launching initiatives aimed at connecting with YPs throughout the county. Local government was actively recruiting YPs to serve on boards and commissions. Memphis even announced the nation’s first Office of Talent and Human Capital.
Now… Not So Much.
Despite having released the nation’s largest survey of young professionals, and using the data to develop an action plan for the entire community, MPACT seems to have gone quiet for the time being. The plan still exists (with metrics, deliverables, timelines, and financing vehicles); I’m looking at it on my desk right now. It was once supported by hundreds of volunteers and organizations throughout the community. Now… not so much.
Arts Memphis’ BRAVO program folded after more than ten years. I loved that program! For many years I split a membership with a friend of mine, and every Fall I eagerly anticipated the release of the season’s schedule. For myself and my friends, it was the only way we could experience the oft-above-our-budget wonders of the Memphis Symphony, Ballet Memphis, Theatre Memphis, Playhouse on the Square, Opera Memphis, Ornamental Metal Museum, and more than a dozen other delights. Had it not been for BRAVO, I would never have known what an amazing, vibrant visual and performing arts community we have. Now… not so much.
One of the most distressing community losses is the demise of Live From Memphis. I’ve known Chris and Sarah for many, many years (anyone remember the Pizza Hut raves??), and I can say with confidence they are two of our most visionary citizens. They understand the soul of our city lies in its music, but that’s not enough to sustain us. They challenged the notion that “starving” and “artist” should ever appear in the same sentence, and foresaw that our economic success could actually be built around music, and not just around factories and shiny objects. And for a few years, Memphis seemed to see it too. Now… not so much.
Thankfully (with hands thrown up and a giant sigh of relief), there are several key organizations still movin’, groovin’, and makin’ change – New Memphis Institute, Leadership Memphis, MULYP, and a few YP initiatives around town. They are still standing strong, symbols of our city’s success… and its potential for failure.
Did I Miss The Memo?
Not so long ago, talent and human capital were a critical, and reasonably-well-funded, component of Memphis Fast Forward’s economic development agenda, MemphisED. These organizations (I’ll call them YP orgs) sat at the table with logistics, biotech, tourism, innovation, and the like. Leaders understood and supported efforts to recruit, retain, and develop the most important indicator of a city’s economic success – its talent. And in five short years, those YP orgs made a lot of progress. A lot. Leadership Academy expanded its Summer Experience and launched MemphisConnect, an amazing repository of Memphis culture, events, and all things awesome, viewed by thousands of visitors from around the world. MPACT Memphis released The Voice of MPACT, hosted hundreds of events, and connected with several thousand YPs throughout the community. Leadership Memphis developed the Memphis Talent Dividend, leading the nation in its efforts to increase college attainment.
At the end of five years, Memphis Tomorrow threw a big luncheon to celebrate the success of its first Memphis Fast Forward Plan, including the MemphisED partners. It was a great event! Very snazzy. I particularly enjoyed the focus on the power of collective impact. Shortly after the luncheon, the YP orgs got the boot.
No longer a part of Memphis Tomorrow’s economic development agenda, for the second phase of Memphis Fast Forward, the YP orgs were moved over to PeopleFirst, and loosely appended to the group’s “cradle to career” efforts. Now they sit at the table with pre-natal experts, Shelby County Head Start executives, workforce training specialists, and area college and university representatives. It kinda makes sense. All these groups work with “people.” YPs are “people.”
Did I mention the YP orgs also got de-funded? Yep. MemphisED funded specific projects of each partner organization, subject to meeting certain benchmarks. Its successor, the Growth Alliance, continues to fund initiatives as well. From what I understand though, PeopleFirst doesn’t fund anything.
Um… Did I miss the memo saying talent is no longer the most important component of a city’s economic success? I know I saw the report where Memphis pretty much comes in dead last for number of YPs with college degrees, number of creative professionals, and overall out-migration of many of my friends. If talent = money, then why did the powers-that-be boot it out of economic development?
Speaking of powers-that-be, what ever happened to the Office of Talent and Human Capital? I haven’t seen anything from them in ages.
Alas, I digress…
It Won’t Matter
Talent – particularly young, college-educated professionals – should be our number one economic development priority. If we keep bleeding talent (5 YPs a day and 5 middle class families a day), none of our other efforts will matter. It won’t matter what company we recruit to the area, if we don’t have the educated workforce to fill the jobs. It won’t matter how many miles of bike lanes we have if there’s no one to ride them. It won’t matter that we hosted one of the biggest entrepreneurial conferences American has ever seen if all the startups move out of town. It won’t matter that crime has gone down 30% in the past five years; the children we are trying to protect are leaving anyway.
We are pouring tens of millions of dollars into our education system, and we’re beginning to see real progress. Our school merger provides an unprecedented opportunity to build a world class educational ecosystem where every child has the chance to reach his or her full potential. And in ten to fifteen years, when today’s pre-kindergarteners are tomorrow’s graduates… They will hightail it outta here.
Young professionals want to live near other young professionals. At the rate this city moves, we should have started building our City of Choice five years ago, just to be ready for those “tomorrow’s graduates.” Otherwise, Austin, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Portland, LA, New York and a dozen other cities will gladly welcome them with the kind of jobs YPs want and the neighborhoods they crave. And our efforts will have been for naught.
Memphis has always been in a bit of a conundrum. Companies won’t locate here because we don’t have the professional workforce they need. Young professionals won’t come because we don’t have the jobs they want. Chicken and egg. With MemphisED, I thought leaders had finally caught on to the idea that any economic development needs to go after both talent AND jobs. And then, somehow everything changed.
EDGE was created with no YP / talent component. The YP orgs got booted out of the Growth Alliance. The community failed to support one of our most prized assets – Live From Memphis. Leaders were not brave enough to invest in the kinds of big ideas that make good cities great – Memphis Art Park.
The Breakup
I’ve said it a gazillion times – We’ve got one shot at this. Please put talent at the top of the economic agenda and fund it accordingly. Please stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. I love Memphis, but right now… not so much.
Memphis, do we need to break up? Does this Princess need to find a new kingdom? Nashville and New Orleans are asking for a spot on my dance card…
Well, I am hardly young, but you raise a great point here. We need to import and keep YPs at a far better pace than we do now.
We also need to create our own talent base with our school system so that when high-school age children consider colleges and universities, they consider our own. We need to start by keeping our own here, and that in turn will attract more YPs.
But then, they will demand more payment for their services, and the plantation mentality of the 1% in this town will clutch their pearls, go to their social organizations, and do their best to keep it from happening. Can’t have Memphians getting all uppity now, can they?
Sorry for the rant, but this hit a nerve. And I do appreciate what you’re saying, you are very much on point, but we don’t do enough with the people we HAVE.
If we developed the home-grown talent, we might attract more from elsewhere.
Not being young any more, I may not have standing, but I question the value of YP advocacy, especially via a plethora of nonprofit organizations. Young Professionals are found where there are professional jobs.
This post accurately points out concerning trends that affect the inclusion and development of new AND existing young professionals (YP). I hope the “powers-that-be” take notice.
Wow Gwyn-
It’s as if you read my mind and put it to post. Might I add you did it far better than I ever could.
I love this city and when we- my wife and myself- moved here 3 years ago, we thought that the pendulum of momentum was finally beginning to swing in the city’s favor. However, that love- which translates into involvement be it via monetary support to programs and activities or through volunteer efforts- has become increasingly difficult for all the reasons you mentioned and more. We too feel in some indirect way that our help, the product of our labor and our presence is not particularly valued by the community around us and is not having a meaningful impact on the city’s trajectory. We as individuals do not require any sort of acknowledgment, but as a professional I would like just once that any suggestion of change to the status quo not be met with reactions that range from disinterest at best and outright hostility at worst. No matter what we do the message appears to be that the community and region (in general) simply do not care…about anything!
On a side note, we just discovered the BRAVO program last year and planned to join with the beginning of a new season only to find it no longer exists. What the %^&*?
It’s really more complicated than YPs going where there are lots of jobs. Talent is going to where talent already is and the jobs are following them. That’s the big risk for Memphis and most mid-sized cities, because we’re losing this race badly. And keep in mind that 60% of this demographic decides where to live based on factors like quality of life before they even try to find a job.
That said, if our economic development entities don’t really have talent on their agenda and never discuss it strategically at their meetings, we really don’t have an economic development agenda.
Great commentary and right on point, Gwyn.
Want to shake things up around here? Start by blowing up Memphis Country Club.
Memphis may well be seeing an ebb period in the ebb & flow cycle of talent. But it is a cycle and one that is generational. Service organizations start, flourish, and even if they don’t grow stale are seen as belonging to an older generation after a decade or two. Masons, Rotary, Carnival, Jaycees, Bravo, Hands on Memphis, Mpact, Memphis Urban League Young Professionals, City Leadership, and whatever might next. There is an analogy with entrepreneurial start ups: the excitement is in the grassroots, slim resources, all sweat & brilliance stage before infrastructure and establishment begin to ever so slightly dull those senses.
That said, talent — including but not limited to YPs — is important to think through and support via existing establishments. Sort of like a business incubator.
Bravo ran nearly 20 years, going back to 1992, and seemed a particularly good model by virtue of bringing in fresh faces and new volunteer leadership to an existing but malleable structure. I hope it or something like it comes back.
More than anything, the excitement about talent is a movement, and movements are forged and led by people with vision, with a spirit of cooperation, with a willingness to lead, and with the superb luck of timing. We need to lead the charge when we can but also be willing to follow if we spot someone who has a great new (or nicely recycled) idea. The next thing is coming. Flow follows ebb. Please don’t move away!
Anon 10:56 hit it an interesting thought. People like to be part of movements they start. That is the point of comfort, enthusiasm and inclusion. The state of talent isn’t solved as a finger pointing exercise. It is a rallying cry for new emerging leaders. Some of us old dogs with all the answers may not be making room for them. Yes, there is a responsibility to pull people up into the system… If and when that system is the right mechanism. Maybe we need to let some people run with their own ideas though and not expect them to jump on board with the old new leaders.
The notion of Young Professionals taking jobs away from other people is misguided. YPs create their own jobs by using the skills they bring with them. That’s how the economy grows, but only where the YPs are located.
Respectfully to Gwyn and SMC, this post is a little ridiculous. It comes off mostly as a misguided rant. Ostensibly, the goal is right, in as much as it states as an admirable goal increasing the number of educated, creative, high-productivity young professionals in Memphis. But, “attracting and retaining” that demographic can’t happen simply by fiat. We all want to attract and retain valuable young professionals. Great, glad we agreed on that. Now what? Should we have some cocktail hours and talk about it ?
Without specific recommendations for how to change the economy and culture in place, nothing is going to change. In all seriousness, I want to know the answer to this: How is EDGE supposed attract and retain young professionals, as a specific task? You know what they do? They pay (aka, are extorted by) local companies to not leave (International Paper, occupying the most valuable real estate in Memphis, is now on the list of companies that needs taxpayers to pay them to expand their facility and stay in Memphis – cue, EDGE, whose job it is to give IP whatever they want). AND they pay non-local companies to come here and do what, in some cases, local entrepreneurs want to do, but can’t find the capital or technical assistance to pull off on their own (why isn’t EDGE part of the start-up scene? why are they hostile to local entrepreneurs and local businesses who pay their salaries?). Otherwise, how is a special office or other department of local government supposed to solve our economic problem vis-a-vis young professionals? You think Austin, Portland, etc., got cool and sexy because the government developed an ad campaign that said so? As far as I can tell, you’ve accurately identified a problem (the data isn’t lying about us, of course), but you’ve badly misdiagnosed the solution (if solution is even the right word).
Frankly, rather than focus on the trying to change way our local corporate leaders make personnel/HR decisions (you think after the sunken costs of decades of decision-making and corporate latter-climbing culture, that these companies are going to start developing young professionals as a priority over existing employees?), or advocating for a local office of young talent (paying college graduates to move to the city didn’t stop Detroit from going bankrupt), maybe what we really need is more people willing to get down and dirty, start new companies that matter, that fit into the changing macro economy and serve the local economy, and appeal to the ethos and values of young professionals. THAT’s how we’re going to turn this ship around. By BEING young entrepreneurs, first and foremost. And secondarily by supporting them, in a self-reinforcing foodback loop of an “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” in which Memphis is a place where people who have ideas can come to get them off the ground. Not by trying to convince the Memphis Chamber of Commerce to stop being so obtuse and tone deaf.
I understand that sounds like a herculean task (stop talking about what others should do, and start your own **** business yourself). It’s much easier to strategize and plan around the concept of attraction and retention. And to talk about creating jobs or whatever else magic we need. It’s much more difficult to actually start a company yourself. Which is why it’s not happening very much. But if you want young professionals to stay here, if you want to increase the standard of living in this region, and help guide Memphis into the future of the new economy and new economic realities, start a local company. Period. Or tangibly, demonstrably, tactileLY help someone else start theirs. Otherwise it’s just noise.
Change the conversation. We know we need to attract and retain. The hard part is where this has all stalled out, and that is, actually DO SOMETHING that attracts and retains.
Thanks, Ambrose, for the feedback. We’ll let Gwyn respond to her post if she desires, but we know it’s a lot to ask anyone to remember all that we’ve written on this subject – which is an area of our work – over the past seven and a half years as we’ve made many suggestions about many aspects of this issue, which is one of the most critical challenges facing Memphis. We forget when we’re writing for the blog that most people don’t have that seven years worth of context for our posts, so we’ll try to do better it summarizing. Thanks for the comments. .
Ambrose Vanuys – I appreciate your passion about such an important topic, and I agree that we’ve done an awful lot of talking and not enough doing. That said, there are literally thousands of Memphians working hard every single day to create change, launch businesses, engage investors, and tap into the talent we have in all corners to lift the community up.
If you believe that starting a business is the golden ticket, I encourage you to reach out to and support some of the following organizations:
1. EmergeMemphis
2. Launch Your City
3. Upstart Memphis
4. Seed Hatchery
5. ZeroTo510
6. Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
7. Everywhereelse.co – The Startup Conference
8. SCORE
9. Memphis Society of Entrepreneurs
10. National Association of Women Business Owners, Greater Memphis Chapter
11. Greater Memphis Chamber, Small Business Council
12. Memphis Office of Resources and Enterprise (MORE)
13. Mid-South Minority Business Council Continuum
14. Startupmemphis.com
15. Small Business Administration
16. Memphis Minority Business Administration
17. Small Business Chamber, Memphis
18. Black Business Association
19. City of Memphis Renaissance Business Center
20. First Tennessee Small Business Center
21. Hispanic Business Alliance
Yes, someone will always create a bumper sticker and point to it as a sign of success. Rest assured, however, that most of us are too busy pushing boulders up the hill to waste time on bumper stickers.
And lest you ask, I am a small business owner working alongside those thousands of others.
P.S. to all readers – If I have left off an organization, please feel free to add it. thx
Memphis is full of noise and no substance, that’s exactly why YP’s leave or don’t even consider Memphis as a home ! Memphis is not what it purport to crow about because nothing changes, or nothing changes for the better in a hurry – look, memphis is getting outplayed and outbid every year, every decade ! why ? other cities are doing something tangible other than giving away the farm to folks like IP, Pinnacle Airlines (another joke), the hospital groups and more. Twenty years and more have gone by, and some of you are still asking the same stupid question, still trying to make Memphis into something it’s not likely to be, and YPs aren’t stupid, not by a longshot, and that’s why they leave, they are smart enough to call a spade a spade, and call a loser for what it is in a competitive field. The YPs don’t waste their valuable years praying for Memphis ! they do the right thing for themselves, their careers, their aspirations, their families , their ages, and simply seek more productive and greener pastures. How is that foolish , misguided, or dumb ? Seems like a smart thing to do to me, simply move to a better, more hospitable environment. Their doing that may irritate some who have been pretending about Memphis since the 1980s and 1990s, but to most YPs they simply don’t see it in their best interest to wait around, waiting and waiting some more for Memphis to truly wake up, and stop with the bullcrap and malaise. Who can really blame THEM ? blame the old guard, blame the insular nature of the region, blame stupidity ! and stop crowing about advantages of a city that really don’t exist, and have not dor decades.
Any thinking dynamic YP would be a fool not to look to other cities and environments. In fact they would be hurting their chances for true success by not doing so. The playing field for Memphis is bush league by many comparisons. They know it already.