It is easy to measure talent and hard to measure everything else, which is why conversations about tech ecosystems tend to stop at headcount. The parts that are harder to count are usually the parts that decide whether the people stay.
Connective tissue
- Places to meet that are not anybody's office.
- Events frequent enough that missing one is not a year's wait.
- Shared reference points — standards, meetups, a common vocabulary.
- Visible paths from junior to senior work without leaving.
Why visibility matters
A company that cannot be found by a prospective employee, partner or client is doing its own marketing from scratch every time. A directory, a conference listing, a well-maintained profile: none of these are glamorous, and collectively they are the difference between a sector and a set of companies.
