speaking – Christopher Wink

What happens after Eureka?

We love to celebrate the spark of a good idea, but we too often skip over the long, uneven road it takes to get that idea into the world.

Research on innovation keeps pointing to the same tension: breakthroughs come from serendipity and “structural holes,” where people from different disciplines collide, but impact only happens when we deliberately smooth the path that follows. That’s what made a conversation I led at Baltimore’s University of Maryland Biopark, inside the innovation district’s year-old 4MLK building feel special.

I contributed Technically coverage here and here. The Biopark team had a photographer on site, so I also just pulled some of the shots of me in action below.

This is what a robotics ecosystem looks like

A robotics ecosystem connects education to workforce training to entrepreneurship and industry. Many parts and components fit in, overlap and even compete but contribute to a shared goal.

While out there, I filed a story on driverless freight company Aurora, and on a new mural series.

That’s what I got to in a panel discussion I led on the main stage of the Pittsburgh Robotics Discovery Day last Thursday. Below watch video of the panel.

We didn’t remove gatekeepers; we replaced them with algorithms.

I joined CURRENTLY, the slick video interview series from the creative agency [Electric Kite], hosted by principal Kevin Renton, to talk about local journalism, entrepreneurship and how we build healthier information ecosystems. (I wrote more about it on Technical.ly here)

Themes we hit: why geography still matters online; why “friction” is a feature of community; how luck shapes entrepreneurial outcomes; and why journalism is a strategy you attach to sustainable business models.

Below the full video, and a few points I want to stand out.

My storytelling keynote to Tech Hubs leaders in Montana

Meaningful commercialized science and intentional local economic coalition building does not correlate to high-quality storytelling about it. Economic development leaders should take storytelling seriously.

The kind folks at Montana’s Headwaters Tech Hub gave me the chance to address their summit of Montana ecosystem members and other tech hub leaders from around the country. I gave a storytelling presentation informed by this research — and led with the impressive tale of how Jeanette Rankin became the country’s first female Senator.

Bloggers were once the creators, and there are lessons to learn

Nearly 50 philanthropists and funders squeezed into the breakout at the annual Media Impact Forum conference held at the National Constitution Center.

Our panel’s focus was on newsroom-creator relationships, which we at Technical.ly have dove into — both with creators, and with our own newsroom and, in a sense, because looking back my start as a “blogger” sure sounds a lot like the creators of 15 years ago. My moderator Liz Kelly Nelson wrote up more here on the conference here, and she previously wrote this piece which fits into my writing on ‘journalism strategy.’

Below I share a few notes from the discussion.

Builders Live @ Global Entrepreneurship Congress

The Global Entrepreneurship Congress was held in the United States for the first time since its founding back in 2009. This time in Indianapolis was a chance for me to get a sense of both a global conversation and a particularly American version.

I also got to host a pair of live recordings of Builders Live, Technical.ly’s regular conversation series on ecosystem building. Find my recap stories, and one of those interviews below:

Remarks: Tech meetups shape economic mobility

Below are my notes, and video, from the remarks I offered to kickoff the second day of our Technically Builders Conference, which also doubled as the closing of the 15th annual Philly Tech Week. It informed this story we published on Technically. My slides are here.

Starting in 1975, the Homebrew Computer Club was a regular gathering of tech enthusiasts in northern California.

The group was made famous for inspiring Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But hundreds of computer clubs emerged around the country then. The Philadelphia Area Computer Society (PACS), for example, was first organized in spring 1976.

You don’t have to care about a few dozen computer nerds getting together 50 years ago. How they did has shaped the work we do, though, and has a few lessons for our future.

Keynote: The case for storytelling (for entrepreneur-led economic development)

Below are my notes, and video, from the keynote address I used to kickoff Technically Builders Conference. It informed this story we published on Technically. My slides are here.

Maria Romero has 90 days to find a job — or she gets deported.

In December, the Mexico City native completed her MBA in marketing analytics at Philadelphia’s Drexel University. She’s young, educated, with in-demand skills. The kind of immigrant Americans across the political spectrum say we want.

And yet: Maria is worried. It’s February 2025 when the Technical.ly newsroom first meets her — 30 days left, tick tock tick tock. Higher interest rates have ended the tech hiring boom. Volatility is everywhere. Her STEM degree and F1 visa gives her years to work like any American citizen — no quirky paperwork, not even modest immigrant sponsorship costs. But she’s nervous anti-immigrant rhetoric is making a tough hiring climate worse for her. Forget about paying bills, if she doesn’t get a job she’ll get kicked out of a city, out of a country, that she was ready to call home.

She applies to more than 500 jobs. She does coffee meetings, texts friends, has her story told by a news outlet and responds to inbound outreach. She also keeps on living — she walks her dog, she goes to restaurants she loves.

The thing we do before our life changes forever is almost always mundane.

A few lessons from the 15th annual Klein News Innovation Camp

We were back. Audience was great, I enjoyed my lunchtime keynote interview with Wired editor Steven Levy.

To fill an early-morning slot, I crowdsourced a session (in old school unconference style!) on creators as distribution partners, and creators of news. (The topic has been on my mind!) In a crowded room

Below are a few notes from the daylong unconference on the future of news for my own memory.

Keynote: What marketers need to know about the creator economy

The creator economy may be big, or not. The numbers are somewhat divided because definitions are still evolving.

I took what I did know from covering, living and curating creator campaigns, and gave a keynote on the topic for the Philly Ad Club’s annual conference. They had roughly 150 marketers on site at the cozy innovation space of Independence Blue Cross’s headquarters.

Find my slides here. A rough audio recording of the presentation can be found here (or here).

I published here a piece on Technical.ly informed by this work.