A few months into my role at TEDCO as the Digital Marketing Coordinator, I was encouraged to write about one of the organization’s five core values – accountability, collaboration, integrity, respect, and stewardship – and why I think this value is so essential to Maryland’s ecosystem; I decided to focus on collaboration.
As a young professional with a little over five years of experience in the marketing industry, collaboration has played a significant role in my success. In a previous role, I worked on a team that focused on supporting economic development in the state, and it was there I learned just how important collaboration is to support our entrepreneurial community. Through collaboration, we’re able to identify synergies amongst organizations and develop mutually beneficial solutions for our entire ecosystem, thus building a better, more sustainable future for us all.
Collaboration is “the action of working with someone to produce or create something,” according to Oxford Language. This definition describes the reality of everyday life – it’s all about collaboration. We collaborate with educators or mentors to learn and grow; we collaborate with doctors to ensure we get the best care; and we collaborate with peers to grow relationships.
It’s easy to see why TEDCO places such value on collaboration – it allows for the continued growth and development of Maryland’s ecosystem, allows for us to continue supporting the innovative researchers and entrepreneurs, and, most importantly, allows us to work as a cohesive unit in our support across Maryland.
Knowing all of this, it’s no surprise that collaboration is at the heart of TEDCO’s mission – to enhance economic empowerment by fostering an inclusive and entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem, as we identify, invest in, and help grow technology companies in Maryland.
Storytelling is a major focus for our Development and Marketing team. Each of our roles plays an important part in telling the story of TEDCO, whether it’s telling the stories of our innovative portfolio companies or highlighting the incredible, impactful work of our small organization. No matter what the story is, it’s being told to uplift Maryland’s ecosystem towards success. The collaboration we see across not only departments, but organizations, encourages us all to do our best work and offer the same experience to innovative entrepreneurs.