At our annual CEO Forum, we partnered with TEDxSeattle to explore the multitude of cultures that make up our tech community and discuss what defines it as a cohesive whole.

“Cities are fundamentally about people, and where people go and where people meet are at the core of what makes a city work,” says urban planner Amanda Burden in her TED Talk “How Public Spaces Make Cities Work.” Seattleites seem to feel this acutely, as our high expectations for this city can often manifest themselves in complaints about traffic, the tight housing market, and how far behind our infrastructure is compared to other major metropolises. But before our community can thoroughly address these complaints, we must first define its culture.

“Our industry produces two out of three new jobs in this region and there’s been a massive influx of people from around the country into our region,” said WTIA CEO Michael Schutzler. “They all work in tech companies, so the culture of those companies will then be reflected in the behavior of the people working there…if we are oblivious as CEOs to our community then we risk having a significant disconnect between the values of the companies and the community. Our goal is to collaborate and cut down on that friction.”

On July 27th, about 80 CEOs from the Seattle area gathered for the annual WTIA CEO Forum at TUNE to explore the multitude of cultures that make up our tech community and discuss what defines it as a cohesive whole.  This year, WTIA  partnered with TEDxSeattle to create a special TEDx Salon style event. “[The event was] informed by the current public discourse about the impact the tech industry is having on Seattle metropolitan community areas,” said Schutzler. “We have an obligation to institutionally participate in that discussion and our intention is to build a better community based on these conversations.”

Four CEOs spoke set the example: Jonathan Sposato of Picmonkey, Dave Parker of Code Fellows and Techstars, Liz Pearce of Liquid Planner, and Jessie Woolley-Wilson of DreamBox Learning, Inc. Then all participants were asked to select what they thought was the single most important element of their company culture. After sorting through about 50 suggestions, we collectively decided on the following five elements that we felt were also representative of the greater Northwest tech community culture:

• Collaboration
• Get shit done
• Innovation
• Passion
• Curiosity

“For my part, this list resonates well,” said Schutzler. “Most of us value collaboration, but most also get frustrated if it’s too much talk and not enough action. Our entire community values creativity and bucking the status quo. We are for the most part passionate and curious and wickedly innovative.”

By having a clearer definition of our community culture, movers and shakers in the tech industry can engage with government and educational leaders in clearer, more aligned ways that benefit not just the tech industry, but the Seattle community at large; something that will exacerbate what Schutzler calls an “awareness shift” that’s taking place right now in tech.

“When I started at this job three years ago, very few leaders were even modestly engaged in policy and grappling with the challenges of urban planning, transportation, and education,” he said. “Three years later, we have a much larger number of tech leaders actively engaged in this conversation.”

Rob Hyman, a TEDxSeattle Salon experience designer, saw this shift taking place in real time at the event. “The dozens of experience design details resulted in…a highly-engaged audience, applying their energized minds to a challenge, contributing new ideas for a focused purpose,” he said.