Much is said about Maine’s innovation community and how to get the word out about what’s going on here. There’s also debate about the definition of “innovation.”While we might disagree on the definition, I would argue that in Maine it doesn’t always come in a neat package. Sometimes it’s traditional Yankee ingenuity, sometimes its Yankee […]
Much is said about Maine's innovation community and how to get the word out about what's going on here. There's also debate about the definition of “innovation.”
While we might disagree on the definition, I would argue that in Maine it doesn't always come in a neat package. Sometimes it's traditional Yankee ingenuity, sometimes its Yankee inventiveness.
Here's an example: I have a sister who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. That's roughly 3,300 miles from where I'm sitting in Maine. Aside from going to camp here decades ago, she has no other association with Maine. Yet when I got the job at Mainebiz, my big sister wrote to me immediately to let me know of four Maine companies I needed to know: Thos. Moser in Auburn, Swans Island Blankets in Northport, Maine Kiln Works in Gouldsboro and Shaw & Tenney in Orono.
These are not tech companies. But they are iconic brands that have demonstrated Yankee inventiveness (the forerunner to Yankee innovation).
As you'll see with the “Nexters” we have in this issue, there's a new generation of leaders coming along. Some run small businesses, some run larger operations. Some are relatively new, others well established. In my book, they have shown ingenuity but they're also innovators.