Message from Craig
Happy New Year! I hope each of you had a pleasant and relaxing Winter Break. I caught up on some reading, as I try to stay abreast of key issues influencing our society. One of the themes most often discussed at the end of 2018 was around
talent.
I heard it applied in a variety of phrases such as: the
need for talent
, or the
talent pipeline.
It was also included in questions being asked about our city, such as:
What is the state of Philadelphia’s tech talent
? Or,
does Philadelphia have “Day One" talent?
You may have picked up on the buzz around talent, and so this is an attempt to figure out this trend.
What do we mean when we say talent?
For such a simple and straight forward word, talent can be confusing. We think of athletes and physical talent and artists as visual or performing talent; professors with intellectual talent and entrepreneurs with business talent. As a practical matter talent is simply the sum of a person’s aptitude, characteristics and abilities which can be a natural gift, or as I believe, can be learned and perfected through hard work and practice.
Why is talent a buzz word?
Philadelphia competed valiantly and made it onto the list of top tier cities considered by Amazon for its second headquarters. The cities competing for this new headquarters were motivated by the tens-of-thousands of new jobs that are predicted to attract top talent in technology which would generate more revenue for the local economy. Amazon ultimately split their second headquarters into two places - New York City and Northern Virginia - citing those places’ available “Day One Talent” (among other assets).
What does that mean exactly?
Day One is a philosophy of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos who tells his employees that to remain innovative and relevant, they must behave as if they are on "Day One" of a new startup company. Far be it from me to disagree with Jeff Bezos, but if we follow his logic then Penn would be irrelevant. We were founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin and that was approximately 102,000 days ago. Not only are we relevant, we are one of the most innovative research universities in the world! And, we are constantly improving with experience which comes from you who is our talent. You, who are committed to advancing our educational and research missions with great business agility.
What are we doing to cultivate great Penn talent?
We should always remember that Penn talent takes many forms. Inside our own EVP Division we have expertise in auditing and budgeting, policing and construction, HR and IT, and professionals in hospitality and transportation, all of whom bring their talents each day to making Penn a stronger and more vibrant institution.
Thank you for being such great colleagues and being part of our team.
With respect and gratitude,
Craig
