Government Affairs Blog

Washington State Employment Numbers -- Tech Still Holding Its Own

2008-09-05T16:44:00Z

Good Morning Readers,

There has been a lot of bad economic news lately, including this morning's announcement that the unemployment rate in the U.S. rose in August to 6.1% from 5.7%. Clearly not a good trend, even as oil and commodity prices fall relieving some pressure on prices for basic goods. There is also a global economic slowdown occuring that is taking a toll on stock markets around the world after several years of growth. One takeaway to this is how influential the American economy and consumer still is on worldwide economic health.

How is the employment situation holding up here in Washington? While August statistics are not yet available, the July numbers are mirorring the national trend. July's unemployment was 5.7%, the same as the U.S. as a whole. This was up from 5.4% in June and 4.6% from July 2007, definitely not a good trend. In King County, though, unemployment is still under 5% at 4.3%, a very strong showing.

In terms of tech sector employment, software publishers in the state now employ 51.400 people. These are companies that produce "packaged" or "prewritten" software, such as Microsoft, Attachmate, and others. This is up 2700 jobs from a year ago.

In the "computer system design and related" category, 30,600 are now employed compared to 29,900 in July of last year. In the very broad employment category of "professional, scientific and technical services", which is not entirely tech related but does include a wide range of technology professionals, there are now 164,700 employed versus 158,300 in July 2007, a substantial gain of 6400 jobs.

A continued sore spot is telecommunications, which shed 300 jobs over the past year and now sits at 25,800 jobs.

Considering the fact that tech related jobs are among the highest paying in the state and have a high "multiplier" effect, the state's technology sector is carrying a big load in terms of generating economic activity and tax revenue for Washington.

A couple of other interesting employment statisitcs to highlight. The "goods producing" sector of Washington employs 521,000 people, just slightly more than the 520,000 people employed by the federal, state and local governments combined (that includes schools and public colleges and universities). I am not sure what to make of that but shows that there are as many people who get paid with taxpayer money as there are who make things.

The "services producing" sector dwarfs both at 1,930,800 employees across Washington, demonstrating that today's economy is indeed information-based, not manufacturing based.

The source for these numbers is the state Employment Security Department. ESD runs the Workforce Explorer website, which contains great information about labor markets, employment trends and wage and salary information. http://www.workforceexplorer.com/cgi/dataanalysis/?PAGEID=148 is the url to check it out.

Intellectual Stimulation on Television? Check out UWTV

2008-09-03T22:28:00Z

Good afternoon Readers,

Last night I was channel surfing and stopped on UWTV (Channel 27 on my Comcast system) and was both entertained and captivated by the program "Computer Science: Past, Present and Future", which was a talk given by Ed Lazowska, Ph.D., the Bill and Melinda Gates Endowed Chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Dept. at UW, in October 2007.

First an aside about Ed. For those of you that know him, you know he is brilliant and engaging. Based on the amount he gets done, I don't think he ever sleeps. You can read more about Ed here: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/. He is a member of the WTIA Board of Directors and almost singlehandedly put the issue of STEM degrees on the state's radar screen.

Ed spoke about the various challenges and problems that face our nation and world today and how information technology is going to be a major part of the solutions to these problems. It was an optimistic presentation.

Luckily UWTV archives these shows on their website. Here is the link to the one mentioned above: http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=21038

Ed has other archived shows and of course there are many others on a wide range of topics. It is good to know that you can still learn something valuable on TV. This is a "reality" show worth watching.

Bellevue Teachers: Get to Work

2008-09-02T19:16:00Z

Hello Readers,

I am hoping you all had a relaxing labor Day weekend, enjoyed Bumbershoot, backyard BBQs, camping, labor rallies and the other activities that mark the "end of summer."

Now all the kids are back to school--but wait, not in Bellevue where the teachers are now on strike over pay and curriculum issues. I don't know about you but the whining from the teachers unions is enough. First off, strikes by public employess are illegal in Washington state. But why would a public employee union worry about that? They know that as long as they continue to contribute to the campaigns of elected officials, no one will really call their bluff.

What about the Bellevue School District? They obviously fumbled the negotiations and will now have to get a court injunction to force the teachers back into the classroom. Doubt they have the intestinal fortitude for that.

The parents and students are the ones who are really losing here. It is just selfish for the teachers to go on strike, even if they do have some legitimate gripes.

What are those gripes? Not surprisingly it is over money. The district is offering a pay increase that is in addition to the raise the state is giving them (that is us, the taxpayers) but that is not enough. It seems that if teachers want to make really big money, they need to change professions and stop whining.

The other beef the teachers have is over web-based curriculum that is uniform across the district. The teachers seem to have a problem with this, or maybe just being told what to teach. Part of the problem in K-12 education in this state is the lack of uniform curriculum that ALL students need to learn. In fact, maybe it is time for the state to dictate a uniform curriculum across ALL school districts. That way we would know that students in Colville, Seattle and Washtuckna would be getting the same material. Yes, students learn at different paces and in different ways but why should the curriculum change?

As with any labor dispute, both sides have legitimate positions where they disagree. But this situation points out that the two biggest problems in education in this state are the teachers unions and elected school boards. Let's hope they figure this out soon so that these kids can get going and not continue to fall behind their peers in Europe and Asia, where I doubt they are having teacher strikes or arguing over what students need to learn.

If you want to read more from both sides, you can find the Bellevue Education Association's website here: http://www.bellevueea.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

The Bellevue School District's website is here: http://www.bsd405.org/

The Seattle Times wrote about it this morning: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008152958_webbellevue02m.html

WTIA Candidate Endorsements, Part 3

2008-08-18T20:43:00Z

Hello Readers,

Attached is a document listing the remainder of our candidate endorsements for the primary election, which is tomorrow. We were able to get questionnaires out to most of the candidates in legislative districts 1 through 36. We plan to get questionnaires out to the candidates in districts 37-49 as soon as possible. We e-mailed the candidate questionnaire to those candidates who had e-mail addresses listed in their candidate information on the Public Disclosure Commission website, www.pdc.wa.gov. For those that did not have an e-mail address listed, we did not send a questionnaire.

When researching the candidates, I came across a lot of very interesting information about the various political committees in Washington state and where they are spending their money. I will provide more detailed information in a future post about which entities are the big political spenders.

As we did with the other endorsements, we list the score the candidates received on the questionnaire and if we endorsed them based on their responses. If no questionnaire was returned, that is mentioned.

WTIA Candidate Endorsements, Part 2

2008-08-15T02:45:00Z

Here are the candidate endorsements. I have attached a link to the legislature's website so you can identify the legislative districts that are referenced in the attached document.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/Default.aspx

WTIA Candidate Endorsements

2008-08-15T02:39:00Z

Hello Readers,

Today we make the first ever WTIA candidate endorsements. This is new for WTIA. We have been politically active for many years through our Political Action Committee, through which we have made campaign contributions to legislative candidates that were supportive of the technology sector.

During this election season, though, we decided to step it up and ask candidates and incumbents to tell us if they agreed with the positions on 4 priority issues that WTIA developed. The questionnaire that we sent to the candidates is attached so you can see what we asked and the positions we have taken. These policy stances were vetted through our Government Affairs and Legislation Group and the WTIA Board of Directors. (Any WTIA member can be part of the Government Affairs and Legislation Group—just contact me if you wish to join.)

For this election our PAC contributions are not tied to the endorsements we are making. We may do so in the future but we felt it was more important to see where legislators and candidates stood on issues. We also do not want to box ourselves in politically. As you will see by the endorsements, we are endorsing some candidates who really have no chance to win or are not campaigning actively and it would be a waste of resources to make contributions to those campaigns. However, if they took the time to answer the questions and support WTIA’s top issues, it is important that WTIA recognize those candidates. The political process is rarely straightforward and logical.

It should not be surprising that most of the responses came from candidates who are challengers or are running for open seats and not incumbents. The power of incumbency cannot be understated. Once someone is elected, it is very difficult to remove them, especially since most legislative districts are pretty much either very Democrat or very Republican. There are some exceptions, mostly suburban districts in the Puget Sound region where voters are generally moderate and tend to be less ideological. This makes for a situation where only a few legislative seats are truly competitive. The “top two” primary might change that in districts where there are multiple candidates from the same party running. For example, it is likely that in Seattle’s 36^th district (Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia) two Democrats will emerge from the primary to run against each other in November. Under the old system, the race would essentially be over next Tuesday after the primary. Of course it means if you are a Republican in a district like this, you basically have no one to support in November. The fairness of that situation is certainly up for debate and the political parties will be doing just that after the primary.

We hope that these endorsements are helpful to you. Please contact me if you have any questions, comments or tirades about this process. The document with endorsements and other information is attached. We scored the responses and are endorsing only those with the highest scores. A “4” is the highest score and we gave half points for responses that were generally in agreement with the WTIA position but are not in complete agreement. In some races, more than one candidate is endorsed. There are also some qualifying comments.

Due to technology limitations only one attachment can be posted. I will publish some of the endorsements in a post immediately following and the remainder in a subsequent post.

I mentioned the WTIA Political Action Committee above. We depend on the voluntary contributions of WTIA members to fund the PAC. Please make a contribution to the WTIA PAC today. It is one of the most effective ways for the voice of the tech sector to be heard by our elected officials. The PAC contribution form can be found on our website here: http://www.washingtontechnology.org/pages/advocacy/advocacy_wsa_pac.asp

Don’t forget to vote in the primary on August 19!

Contact information: lmcmurran@washingtontechnology.org (206) 448-3033 x101

State House of Representatives Looking for IT Consultant

2008-08-11T23:01:00Z

Good afternoon Readers,

The Washington state House of Representatives is looking to hire an IT Consultant to evaluate how state agencies handle their IT tasks and projects. Due to cost overruns in a couple high profile state agency IT projects in the last few years, the legislature began to take a close look at IT costs and how projects were scoped and managed by state agencies.

The Request for Proposal is attached. Here is a statement from the House of Representatives about the RFP:

"The Washington State House of Representatives has prepared a Request for Proposals (RFP) for individuals or firms that may be interested in conducting an evaluation of Washington State’s approach to information technology as outlined in the attached RFP. This RFP will also be posted on the House of Representatives web site at http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/. Proposals are due August 29, 2008 at noon.

Inquiries and questions about the RFP should be directed to the RFP Coordinator, Kara Durbin at Durbin.Kara@leg.wa.gov."

Please read the attached RFP for details and contact Kara Durbin directly if you have any questions.

Has Your Laptop, PDA or other Device Been Searched by DHS? Congress Wants to Know

2008-08-08T23:08:00Z

Hello Readers,

There has been some recent news regarding the searching of various types of tech devices, such as laptops, PDAs, Blackberrys, etc. by the DHS of travelers returning to the United States from other countries.

While it is obvious that travelers either entering or re-entering the U.S. are going to be checked out by border and customs officials, sometimes heavily, the apparent increase in the searching of electronic devices has some aspects to it that could be privacy violations.

A July 23 Seattle Times article by Janet Tu, discusses this issue in more detail: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008067440_searches23m0.html

WTIA Ken Myer is quoted in the article. We also followed up with a letter to most of Washington's Congressional delegation, which is attached.

Clearly the federal government needs to protect our borders not just from terrorists but also from child pornographers and other criminals who are trying to enter our country. The search of electronic devices is perfectly legitimate to ensure that nothing illegal is being brought in or that harm is perpetrated.

However, it is important to make sure that innocent Americans are not being targeted indiscriminately due to their appearance or other overly subjective criteria. It is important to note that the 4th amendment against unreasonable search and seizure ends at the borders. The courts have given federal agencies a lot of leeway to search the belongings of travelers, including returning Americans.

The problem comes when there is encrypted, confidential or other highly sensitive information on these devices that needs to be protected. If the person who is being searched allows the government to see the encrypted or sensitive information, does that leave the person open to other types of liability? What is the government doing with this information? DHS could easily copy data without anyone's knowledge but how is DHS securing this information and are they sharing it with other agencies?

In today's security conscious world, these are important questions that require a difficult tightrope that the government must walk to protect society as well as individual's rights.

WTIA has had conversations with Sen. Patty Murray's and Congressman Adam Smith's offices about this subject. Congressman Smith is interested in talking with U.S. citizens who have had their electronic devices searched when returning from overseas travel or even within the U.S.

If this has happened to you, please contact WTIA at lmcmurran@washingtontechnology.org or by phone at (206) 448-3033 x101. You may also contact Congressman Adam Smith's district office directly in Tacoma at (253) 896-3775. Ask to speak to Ruth Clapp.

Kudos to the State Board of Education; Algebra II is Required to Graduate

2008-07-25T16:42:00Z

Hello Readers,

I wanted to give kudos to the State Board of Education, http://www.sbe.wa.gov/default.htm, for their efforts to move the state's education system forward. Yesterday, the SBE adopted Algebra II as the third year math requirement for graduation from high school. The legislature adopted the third year math requirement in 2007 when they dropped the math WASL requirement for high school graduation and directed the SBE to determine what that third year should be.

Through a series of public meetings that WTIA and many others participated in, the SBE got a lot of input and research about why Algebra II was the best choice for that third year of math. Students who pass Algebra II are most likely to succeed in college level math and be able to understand higher math concepts.

The SBE also adopted their "Core 24" proposal for a complete high school curriculum that requires 4 credits of English, 3 credits of math, science and social studies each, 2 credits of arts, 1.5 credits of fitness and .5 credit of health. The proposal then breaks out the requirements based on a student's desired path of either college or entering the workforce or a trade. The "standard" plan has students taking 3 credits of career and technical courses, 2 credits of language and 2 credits of electives. The more college oriented track has one credit of career and technical classes, 2 credits of language and 4 credits of electives. The more career/work focused track has 3 credits of career and technical courses and 4 credits of electives. You can read more about it here: http://www.sbe.wa.gov/documents/Core24_Final_06-02-08.pdf

Obviously funding this plan will be key to its success. The legislature will need to step up and ensure that K-12 is adequately funded and will have to make it (and higher education) its top priorities and spend less on other things, esepecially as the state economy slows. The next governor, be it Gregoire or Rossi, will have to make some tough decisions about other less worthy government programs like the Health Insurance Partnership and paid family leave.

WTIA's priorities are K-12 and higher education and we will be actively lobbying to keep these two areas top of mind for state lawmakers. In fact, I will be posting our public policy priorities very soon so you can see where we stand on some of the key issues that we face as a state.

Take a moment to thank the State Board of Education for their efforts in improving K-12 education in Washington state. http://www.sbe.wa.gov/contact.htm

Do You Want to Know What Technology the Government is Looking For? Check out This July 24-25 Event

2008-07-15T17:55:00Z

Hello Readers,

A very interesting event is taking place on July 24-25 in Seattle titled the "Executive Summit Series". Here is the link to get more information and to register: http://www.execsummitseries.com/Seattle_Home.html WTIA members can get 50% off the registration fee.

Pete Erickson is the founder of Technology Frontiers, the company that is putting this event together. He is a Seattle area tech veteran who has worked for various startups. As you can see from the list of speakers from the federal government, some key people will be here to discuss what kinds of technology the federal government is looking for, particularly in the homeland security and defense arenas.

Small technology firms have a difficult time selling to the government due to the lengthy procedures and paperwork necessary to get on the GSA schedules before being able to bid on contracts. This event is geared toward those tech firms that are trying to get their IP commercialized and cross that proverbial "valley of death".

The attendance is very limited so act now to secure your spot.

Also, don't forget about WTIA's summer celebration this Thursday, July 17th at Pyramid Brewery. This will be a fun time with a live band. We have partnered with a slew of local tech and non-tech orgs. Please register today: http://www.washingtontechnology.org/pages/events/events_events_wsaevent.asp?id=0807SUMMER

Want to Hobnob with the Democrats at Their National Convention? Here's How...

2008-07-11T23:36:00Z

Happy Friday afternoon Readers,

This weather is what we wait for in Seattle all year long; makes you forget about that cold June, doesn't it?

I wanted to pass along some information given to me by Dwight Pelz, the Washington State Democratic Party Chairman about their national convention in Denver that takes place August 25-28. The attached 3 page pdf file gives you the rundown of events that you can sponsor at the convention. All the major state Democrats will be in attendance, including Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Governor Christine Gregoire, plus many other Democrat elected officials and party leaders. If you are a serious political junkie, this is for you. The state Democrats home base will be the Hyatt Regency Tech Center in Denver.

For those of you on the other side of the aisle, check out the Republican Party Platform website. http://www.gopplatform2008.com/intro.aspx

Michael Arrington's Techcrunch blog discussed it here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/11/the-gop-launches-site-and-facebook-app-to-solicit-policy-proposals-from-the-public-why-arent-the-democrats-doing-this/

Have a super weekend.

Please Act Now to Extend Federal R&D Credit

2008-07-08T19:21:00Z

Hello Readers,

In addition to being very active at the state level on public policy issues of importance to the technology community, WTIA also weighs in with our elected officials in the "other Washington" on important issues. The federal R&D tax credit is one of those issues. Congress has dithered on extending the federal R&D tax credit for too long and now it is time for the tech community to let Congress, particularly the U.S. Senate, know in no uncertain terms to get this done, and in fact, make this tax credit permanent.

Below is the text of the e-mail we received from the Software Finance and Tax Executives Council urging the employees of software and technology firms to weigh in now.

"As you know, the R & D credit expired at the end of last year. The House has passed a bill extending several expired or expiring tax provisions, including a one-year extension of the credit (effective Jan. 1 2008). The Senate has been unable to take the bill up over a dispute about whether the revenue cost of certain extenders should be offset by tax increases in other areas.

The R & D coalition is organizing a letter to Congressional leaders complaining about the expiration of the credit and urging action to renew it. The letter is to be signed by company employees. This presents a unique opportunity for you add value to your member companies. Chief assets of any trade association are its membership and its ability to mobilize its members when need be.

The signing process for the letter is all online. Here is a link to the letter and the signature screen. The exercise here is for you to forward the link to your member companies with a request that they distribute it to their employees. Employees would be encouraged to follow the link and subscribe to the letter. The deadline for the letter is July 22.

I realize that communication by companies with their employees on a legislative matter is somewhat unusual and delicate and each company is likely to have a different policy and process for doing so. But this is an important matter. In the mid-1990’s Congress let the credit expire for an entire year and then renewed it only prospectively. The longer the current stalemate in the Senate goes on, the danger increases that Congress will not retroactively restore the R & D credit. Now is the time to leverage your members for an important issue."

Here is the link for the sample letter: http://investinamericasfuture.org/letter_signup.html

Don't hesitate to contact Senators Cantwell and Murray directly. Here are the links to their websites: http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm Senator Cantwell

http://murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm Senator Murray

Thank you for taking the time to communicate to our elected officials on this important issue.

Want to do Business in China? Check out July 15 Seminar and Lunch Event

2008-06-30T22:08:00Z

Hello Readers,

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council is doing its annual "road show" of events in various cities highlighting the business opportunities in China. Of course the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as "the" place from which to enter China. This year they are teaming up with the Zhuhai region, which is west of Hong Kong, at the southern tip of the Pearl River Delta.

Certainly China cannot be ignored as a vast and emerging market for all kinds of products and services. Hong Kong can indeed be a smart way to establish a China presence with its reliable legal system and mature network of professional and business services.

Zhuhai, like many other regions of China is a "Special Economic Zone" that can confer certain economic benefits for those entering that market and working with a Chinese partner.

The July 15 event will focus on the advantages of Hong Kong and Zhuhai as a region to open an office, manufacture products or otherwise establish a China market.

A solid line up of speakers is set for you to learn from. You can find out more and register for this events here: http://www.nushkba.org/Events/Seattle15Jul08.htm.

The event is free if you register by Thursday.

Washington Ranks 5th in Recent Milken Institute Index

2008-06-26T23:14:00Z

Hello Readers,

I wanted to pass on some interesting information about Washington state as it compares to the rest of the nation. Every two years the Milken Institute puts out a "State Science and Technology Index". John Cook recently featured the report in his Seattle P-I blog. You can find the report here: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/library/StateTechScienceIndex1.pdf

There are several indices that are used in the report to determine the rankings. Washington moved up one spot to fifth from sixth compared to the 2004 report. Massachusetts ranked first followed by Maryland, Colorado and California. After WA, Virginia came in sixth and Connecticut, Utah, New Hampshire and Rhode Island follow in order to round out the top ten. Our neighbor to the south, Oregon, came in at 23, a drop of four spots compared to 2004.

The report is very meaty but worth reading if you are into economic development, science and technology indicators and things like that. The Milken Institute uses five indicators to build its index. Those indicators are listed, followed by Washington's 2008 ranking: Research and Development Inputs (8), Risk Capital and Entrepreneurial Infrastructure (4), Human Capital Investment (16), Technology and Science Workforce (4) and, Technology Concentration and Dynamism (8).

Interestingly, the areas in which our state scores the lowest, Human Capital Investment, is where there is most involvement from government in terms of bachelor degree or better production. Washington dropped eight places to 16th, due in part to other states stepping up their investment in state R&D and in bachelor degree or higher production, demonstrating that Washington is still way behind where we need to be in STEM degree production. This is further demonstrated by WA's high ranking, fourth, in Science and Technology Workforce showing that we still "import" well educated workers to our state.

It is certainly gratifying and worth a little preening over Washington's fifth place ranking in this rather prestigious report but we cannot rest on our laurels. Other states, like Maryland, Virginia, Colorado and others are aggressively building their intellectual and technology capacities. It definitely points out the need for the state to continue to invest in and improve both K-12 and higher education as well as technology transfer and commercialization.

In doing some additional research I came across another very interesting list of economic facts put out by the New York Public Policy Institute. The purpose seems to be to show how bad a place New York state is to do business and many of indicators support that. But it ranks all the states on various factors, such as educational attainment, tax burden per capita, per pupil spending, job growth/job loss, etc. There are a number of categories where Washington ranks quite low and several where we rank quite high. Sadly, those areas where state government is involved, our state's ranking leaves a lot to be desired. You can check this report out here: http://www.ppinys.org/reports/JustTheFacts.html.

Much of our advocacy and lobbying activity is done to ensure that our state remains in the top tier of states in the "good" rankings and we have had a solid long-term record of doing so. We also work hard to try to reduce the burdens that state government places on you and your business, while promoting the areas of government that matter most, primarily education.

Please contact me if you have any questions or wish to get involved in our advocacy and government affairs activities. We need more WTIA members to help us weigh in with policymakers at the local, state and federal level to ensure that our state remains a leader in the global economy.

Internet Strategy Forum Executive Summit July 17, Portland, OR

2008-06-17T15:53:00Z

Good morning Readers,

The Executive Summit of the Internet Strategy Forum is back again this year with a great program. Steve Gehlen, ISF's founder and Executive Director, has done a great job lining up some great topics and speakers for this year's event to be held at the Governor Hotel in Portland, OR Thursday, July 17. The cost is a very reasonable $229 per person.

You can read more about it here: http://www.internetstrategyforum.org/events/summitwest2008.html

Anyone who has a role in Internet marketing should attend this event.