After last night’s heavy rainfall it’s warm and clouded in Lake Bueana Vista, an Orlando suburb, where the annual international NBIA conference is taking place. It’s a great atmosphere of approx. 250 people who share an interest in business incubation. 4 Venturelab staffmembers attend: Rob, Aard, Mariska and me. On Saterday we visited a.o. Kennedy Space Centre. On Sunday I attended a workshop on Advanced Incubator Marketing. Practical information plus useful ‘tips and tricks’. It’s also been sort of a  wake up call for me to hear from the presenters and the people participating in the workshop, that in USA or Canada states struggle with the same issues that VentureLab Twente does, such as preventing braindrain or the need to raise awareness for entrepreneurship as a career path.

A few things that struck me in the morning session on growing and managing your client pipeline. Many incubators are commercial and they position themselves in terms of their square meters. As successful clients are their prime marketing tool, they do have selection at the gate (“it’s no use having people who want to put pink lipstick on a pig” said presenter Stephen Hartlen, CEO at Innovacorp, Halifax – Can.). They also keep good track of clients’ progress. Having a good CRM system is of course very important, and…. Be On Facebook and send out a few tweets per day.

In the afternoon the floor was for Chris Reddin executive dir. of the BIC in Grand Junction, Colorado. Her topic was social networking for community building. Eye-openers: people’s contacts have to travel with you, as generation y will have had on av. 25 different jobs before retirement (where now it is between 3 and 6). As important as before are: having a good brand and a consistent message, and a good website to reflect those. Her favorite social media tools, to be used for different purposes: facebook, linked in, and twitter (“ it’s all about your phone now” ). Thank you Stephen and Chris for very interesting sessions.