SourceLink director, Rob Williams, kicked off our third SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly conversation of the year recalling his recent trip to the City of Detroit. While visiting, Rob returned to one of his favorite monuments, the Spirit of Detroit, a large bronze that is one of the city’s most iconic landmarks. It was commissioned in 1955 to represent hope, progress, and the “spirit of man.”
With this quote in mind, Rob asked us to reflect on this past year and look forward to 2026 thinking about balancing technology and human interactions in this fast-paced, changing environment. We can ask ourselves, “What are we building for entrepreneurs? Flashy, shiny things that will burn out quickly or ways to build a better more connected and humane society?”
The Importance of Storytelling in Ecosystem Building
Our guest speaker, Christopher Wink, co-founder and CEO of Technical.ly news organization brought the notion of communicating with people effectively front and center. We learned that people listen to stories differently than when we hear facts and data. We process those details from a story as if we are experiencing it. Storytelling is how we learn to navigate reality. It is a practice of using characters and plot to share ways to navigate a complex world. Storytelling can open a person’s mind to be willing to listen to you in the first place. Storytelling is ongoing and an effective way to make complex information more accessible.
The concept of storytelling may be difficult to convey. When highlighting entrepreneurs and incorporating data in the story, people are more likely to listen. Local stories about people shape our local identity. Authentic stories about people do this best. Over time, stories can shift a place’s reputation outside of the region.
Recently, Technical.ly conducted an analysis comparing the number of news stories of six pairs of ecosystems with similar populations and economies. Between 2010 and 2012, all those pairs had the same number of stories told about their startup ecosystems, both locally and nationally, using Google News Data. Within 5-7 years, whomever had a dedicated storyteller received almost 60% more stories about their ecosystem. Ecosystems with storytelling grew twice as big as regions that started off as peers 10 years prior, according to a small subset with available data. Storytelling strategies earned ecosystems coverage beyond peer regions conservatively valued at between $500k and $1.5M.
Chris helped us understand that by collecting stories, using tools like SourceLink Pro℠ CRM and The Resource Navigator® for data collection, then by adding insights, citing trends, etc. we begin to learn more about what we’re good at or what needs improvement. We can share those stories with our community to continue to drive the culture of creating and growing local businesses and uplift entrepreneurship. Then we can decide what stories to tell beyond the community, determine who is listening and where and how we should tell them.
Key Takeaways
Affiliate Nancy Villatoro-Sorto from the Greater Washington Urban League shared three core points gleaned from this presentation:
- Local stories shape local identity
- Authentic stories show “messy reality.” The more authentic shape that better. Let people talk in your community, that’s going to get to the true reality.
- Shape a reputation over time. Those stories shape how an outside group of people view the inside.
With the number of local newspapers and journalist storytellers shrinking, Chris recommends identifying other ways to get the word out including independent local newspapers, individual creators, influencers on social media, newsletter editors, and even email. Understanding where people are getting their information is changing. With AI, chat bots and social videos, it’s important to position your organization as a provider.
Celebrating News from Around the Network
We are thrilled to welcome new SourceLink affiliates including Santa Fe Small Business Navigator, MI Small Business Helper, IgniteMN, Sherman Phoenix Foundation, WyoBizLink and NoCo Works, our first workforce development affiliate.
Congratulations to: Mark Burdette, West Virginia BusinessLink, on his election to the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) board of directors, Maggi Spartz, president of the Unity Foundation on her retirement, colleague Marco Johnson formerly with Sparkyard in Fort Worth, TX, who is now Senior Manager of the Innovation Accelerator at United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Cameron Cushman also formerly with Sparkyard is founder of Red Sage Innovation consulting and Fay Horwitt formerly from Forward Cities, who is now the founder and chief of WayBuilders. WayBuilders is a social enterprise fostering inclusive economic growth by transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems and is running a campaign to right size the definition of small and microbusinesses with the Small Business Administration through their #RightSizeSBA campaign.
Thanks to Samantha Dimaggio Economic Development Manager of Chanhassan MN, Jessica Martin, Administrative Assistant at Launch Network LA and Frank Kuhns, Division Manager – Small & Local Business Development at Fairfax CORE for sharing their best practices using SourceLink Pro and The Resource Navigator.
Stay tuned for our next SourceLink Affiliate Users Conversation October 29, 12-2PM CT and our next SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly Conversation December 18, 12-1:30PM CT.
About SourceLink Affiliate Quarterly Conversations
SourceLink Quarterly Conversations and SourceLink Users Conversations are an exclusive benefit for SourceLink affiliates. Agendas include topics, national speakers and inspired discussions suggested by our community of ecosystem builders and is an opportunity for the SourceLink network to share best practices. For more information about becoming a SourceLink affiliate and to join our conversations, please contact Krista Markley, kmarkley@joinsourcelink.com.
