[Hidden-tech] Greenfield Recorder tribute to you and the board

[A - Z International]

Hi all,

This appeared in the Greenfield Recorder on Tuesday, I'm told:


*A birthday worth noting

* Proud of my connections to Hidden-Tech

Not longer after 9/11, with my business greatly 
reduced, I started to contemplate creating a 
formal support group for virtual company owners 
like myself. At the time, I was writing about the 
growth of the virtual company trend in the valley 
for the Boston Globe Magazine and it had become 
apparent that small, often home-based virtual 
companies were booming in the valley.

I soon realized management guru’s Tom Peter’s 
vision of the virtual work world had come to life 
in the valley. Entrepreneurs like myself were 
workin out of homes or small offices backed up by 
advanced technology to serve far-flung, sometimes 
global customers. We were both hidden from sight 
and from government statisticians ­ hence I 
called this population “hidden tech.”

Throughout that seemingly endless fall of 2001, I 
labored on the Globe article, earnestly trying to 
find nonexistent data on the virtual company 
trend. Four people came to my rescue and later 
helped get the organization off the ground: 
Jaymie Chernoff, then head of the UMass Office of 
Industry Liaison and Economic Development and 
founder of the Regional Technology Alliance (RTA) 
now the Regional Technology Corp.; John Mullin, 
then vice chancellor of UMass Outreach; Tim 
Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer Valley 
Planning Commission (PVPC); and Mike Levin, then 
chief economist for Northeast Utilities in Hartford.

Levin was able to cobble together some stats, but 
not enough to satisfy my editors. I approached 
John Coull, former executive director of the 
Amherst Chamber of Commerce and Ann Hamilton, 
president of the Franklin County Chamber of 
Commerce, to see what they knew about the virtual 
company population. In the process of pouring 
over their membership lists, we unwittingly 
created the first database on the virtual work 
place that I have found anywhere in the United States.

But it wasn’t until the winter of 2002, after the 
Globe piece was published, that I saw a pathway 
to connect micro-company owners like myself with 
larger companies and institutions in the region. 
Attending a meeting at the Log Cabin in Holyoke of the then-
fledgling RTA, I was awed by the hundreds of 
other entrepreneurs in the room. Accustomed to 
seeing writers, artists, acupuncturists and 
professors, I never knew that western 
Massachusetts was home to so many other business 
owners and I was eager to connect with them. I 
also knew then none of us could survive without 
high-speed Internet connection and that companies 
like mine couldn't afford to be hidden to 
Internet service providers. We needed to stand up and be counted.

The RTA’s Technology Enterprise Council (TEC) 
agreed to support me in building an affinity 
group for TEC, which is why Hidden-Tech was once 
Hidden TEC. Humera Fasihuddin, then RTA director, 
agreed to hold the growing list of names I’d collected
from chambers, from friends and even a buddy’s 
Christmas list, in the RTA database. By the time 
we announced that initial meeting, held on May 7, 
2002, at the former headquarters of Avaquest in 
Amherst, we had almost 100 people on an e-mail 
list. By the end of the first summer, the 
fledgling organization had grown to 300 and Rich 
Roth of TnR Global in Greenfield began housing 
the organization database on his company servers that fall.

Of the many people throughout the region who has 
assisted me in me in building Hidden-Tech, along 
with conducting ongoing research on the hidden 
tech/virtual company trend, Hamilton was one of 
the most helpful and dedicated. Not only did she take
my concerns seriously, agree to interviews, glean 
information from her database, but she also 
introduced me to economic development, educators 
and community builders throughout Franklin 
County. One of those was Nancy Bair, head of work 
force development for Greenfield Community 
College. On several occasions over the years, 
Bair helped stage programs for the Hidden-Tech 
population, always with backup from Hamilton.

It’s impossible to assess the impact of these 
efforts without a formal study, but there is no 
doubt that the programming spawned media coverage 
­ particularly in this paper ­ which helped breed 
awareness that built Franklin County membership 
in Hidden-Tech. Research I conducted with the 
help of grants from Western Massachusetts 
Electric Co. (WMECO), based in Springfield, and
Northeast Utilities in Berlin, Conn., indicated 
that the arts was a major cluster within the 
Hidden-Tech population and many of those people 
lived in Franklin County. I’d like to think that 
the research helped Hamilton, Dee Boyle-Clapp and many others promote
Franklin County’s creative cluster net work. And 
last fall, with Hamilton’s intervention, 
Hidden-Tech had a table at the Creative Economy Summit held at GCC.

At its fifth birthday Hidden-Tech is still “a 
sniveling adolescent” searching for a pathway to 
become sustainable, jokes Jon Reed, the 
organization’s president. But the trend is 
recognized throughout the region and is part of 
an action plan in the region’s economic
blueprint, the Plan for Progress. Although I am 
no longer on the organization’s board, feeling 
strongly that founders need to allow their 
creations to evolve, I am proud to have 
jump-started an organization that assists so many 
people flourish independently.
Thanks to the hundreds throughout Franklin County 
and the region who helped, especially Recorder 
writer Richie Davis for his outstanding, 
award-winning coverage of the hidden tech economy.

Amy Zuckerman is founder of Hidden-Tech
(www.hidden-tech.net) and principal of AZ
International Associates, a strategic marketing
firm in Amherst. She resigned from the board of
Hidden-Tech in the fall of 2006 after five years to
allow the organization to evolve. She thanks Jon
Reed, Rich Roth, Claudia Gere, Jeff Lander,
Heather Row, Sheldon Snodgrass, Afranio
Torres-Neto, Rick Feldman and many others for
their significant contribution to Hidden-Tech.