Vidoop Leaving

[AVERAGE JOE]

Vidoop is leaving. They are not maintaining a headquarters or any presence of any note in Tulsa. They will be a Portland company by the end of the year.

[Hometown]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

Are you arguing that it shouldn't be HT?

A single industry town is not a safe bet.  Ask Detroit, or Tulsa for that matter from the oil bust.  Tulsa did get amazingly unlucky in having Telecom and Aviation be our diversity and seeing them both collapse... but it was better than a single bet.

Why NOT diversify?

Thanks for asking.  I was here at the beginning of the exodus of oil headquarters.  There was no effort at all to retain the impending exodus.  That is still true today.

Diversification was going to save us.  It hasn't.  The contrast between Tulsa then and Tulsa now is staggering.  Like most mantras, people still recite it without thought because it has become belief.  A similar mantra from the "Bay Area" is that freeways are bad.  That mantra has largely destroyed their transportation system and left them with the longest average commute in the nation. Our Mantra is diversification and that has left us as something of a bomb in the call center business.

Average Oil Industry compensation is something like $60,000 a year.  Average call center compensation is something like $30,000 a year.  No brainer.

But oil/energy is cyclical and we got hurt in the 80s.  BFD.  Everyone got hurt in the 80s.  You learn to work the cycles.  You expand during recession.  You don't get too big during boom.  You plan for and work the cycles.  There is money to be made going up and down.

I have finally decided that Tulsa has nothing but dumb luck.  Our strategies are fruitless.  Dumb luck saves us again and again.  Note the recent burst of oil/energy revenues that have boosted the state's bottom line.

When you are in trouble, you take an inventory of your assets and strengths and you build on your strengths, you don't experiment.

Tulsa's greatest strength is still oil.  Not big headquarters but small headquarters and oil and gas services sector.

We still enjoy good will in the energy industry.  That is worth billions of dollars.  We have that good will and we are doing nothing with it.  Because we don't like oil.  We got hurt in the 80s.  We're kind of sensitive in that regard.

B******.  We had a top drawer industry that we let slip through our hands and now we cannot even compete with Oklahoma City, which has become more of an oil town than we are.

There is no future in oil.  Wrong.  Peak oil will be more profitable than ever and the oil companies will buy their competition and own alternative energy.

Tulsa, I love you, you have many admirable traits, but you are stupid when it comes to business.

Okay Cannon, go dig up some statistics that prove we are much better off than we have ever been.

And thanks for the invitation to rant.

[PonderInc]

quote:Originally posted by booWorld

Portland has rail transit.  Tulsa doesn't.

Isn't that reason enough for Vidoop's relocation?

I know you're being wry, but I'll bite.

Portland has a fantastic quality of life.  Part of that, yes, relates to urban planning and mass transit.  Because Portland is known as an open-minded, accepting place with great quality of life, they easily attract a diverse, educated workforce.  Which, in turn, attracts even more people and businesses to the city.

They don't have much sun.  They don't have a cheap COST of living.  But bright, young people are excited to move there.  Tulsa has a lot to learn.  Can we do it?

BTW, one of my best friends lives in Portland.  She's a doctor who's married to a lawyer.  They both ride their bikes to work (because their bike routes are safe and beautiful), and they both ride the train b/c it's efficient and convenient.  And they walk to the grocery store and the neighborhood coffee shop, b/c they can.  The city started planning for pedestrians/transit users years ago.  It makes life more enjoyable, it makes sense...and it pays off.

[cannon_fodder]

Great response HT.  A well organized, passionate, yet meaningful rant.

AND... I agree with what you are saying.  I agree that retaining existing industry should be as if not more important than attracting new industry.  Letting the oil slunk away to Houston was a big mistake and has cost us dearly and most of the replacement industries are not on par.

At the same time though, I would like to encourage new industries to move to and grow in Tulsa.  I'd prefer not having a single industry, but if that's what comes we should certainly not discourage it or hold it's hand on the way to the door.   Along those lines I think Tulsa should get ahead of the curve on alternative energy companies.  

Keep Syntroleum & DMI and try to attract others.  It is a sister industry really, and many of our tank and boiler makers could easily make components for these other industries.  It would be diversifying into a related yet antithetical  field.

Anyway, I agree that we were stupid to let it slip away.  I can not comment on how or why nor specific cases... but certainly moving is more expensive than staying, so in many instances we could have held our own.  BUT for the future, I hope we can retain what we already have as well as attract and grow new industries.

Again, thanks for the good rant.

[Conan71]

Tulsa is still quite prosperous.  I don't know what all other industries are making great bank right now, but people are still buying or building large homes in the area.  We should consider ourselves fortunate that we have kept our link to energy through our many manufacturing and fabrication industries.

At some point the expansion orgy in oil and alt energy is going to let up, but not likely in the next five to ten years.

[Hometown]

We should devise a strategy for the downturn in energy prices which will certainly happen.  Technology is cyclical but San Jose hasn't given up on it.  They have the highest incomes in the U.S. with an industry that goes bust from time to time.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

We should devise a strategy for the downturn in energy prices which will certainly happen.  Technology is cyclical but San Jose hasn't given up on it.  They have the highest incomes in the U.S. with an industry that goes bust from time to time.

We have five to ten years to think of it from what I can see from my own corner of this boom.  Just curious what types of industry diversity do you see fit for the area?  We have some very good existing assets like the Port of Catoosa.

Medical and legal expansion seem to go hand-in-hand. And those are good paying jobs (at least Dr. and lawyer) [}:)]

[Hometown]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

We should devise a strategy for the downturn in energy prices which will certainly happen.  Technology is cyclical but San Jose hasn't given up on it.  They have the highest incomes in the U.S. with an industry that goes bust from time to time.

We have five to ten years to think of it from what I can see from my own corner of this boom.  Just curious what types of industry diversity do you see fit for the area?  We have some very good existing assets like the Port of Catoosa.

Medical and legal expansion seem to go hand-in-hand. And those are good paying jobs (at least Dr. and lawyer) [}:)]

Build on our strength -- energy.

[TheArtist]

Could we become more of a college and research town? We see how young people create businesses "Vidoop" and you need young educated people to work for new, high tech and high paying jobs. It keeps coming back to the chicken and the egg thing, what do you do first?  We want to attract young educated people. We want encourage start up companies, new businesses. We want to have a thriving, urban, core, thats attractive to the YP and creative class set. But how do you "force" that to happen? What can you as a city do? Best thing I can come up with is to invest in our colleges and research oriented programs at those colleges.

Sure pushing for kewl amenities, parks, trails, museums, etc. can absolutely help. I think an improved River Parks will help with our quality of life attraction. But having colleges on top of that will definitely be important.



We actually are quite lucky to have these booming suburbs. All those young families, equal loooots of young people that Tulsa can capture as their city of choice. A large, youthful, educated workforce.... thats a great draw in this time of age demographic shifts.


This I think is very important....


We also need to just "rebrand" and sell ourselves better. Its about competition with other cities. We all know how to highlight our strengths at a job interview. You know how to sell yourself, your product or your business. We already have some great assetts. We just dont seem to sell it, even to ourselves. The River and all the stuff that goes with it, D-Fest!, Tulsa Tough, Brookside, Cherry Street, The colleges we do have, cost of living, Mountain Biking, Kayacking, beautiful city, skyscrapers, high end shopping, great clubs and music scene, fantastic new Arena, Philbrook art museum, etc. etc. etc..... You could SO sell Tulsa to the younger set. I find that the locals are far more negative about Tulsa than the visitors. Thats sad.  If you get the positive image out, become hip, it will attract more people and businesses. Even though we arent as great as we would like to be, we are improving and it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy in no time. We dont have that far to go on many fronts. But selling ourselves can really make a difference. If Omaha can create buzz about itself, good lawd, we could rock.

[booWorld]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

Portland has a fantastic quality of life.  Part of that, yes, relates to urban planning and mass transit.  Because Portland is known as an open-minded, accepting place with great quality of life, they easily attract a diverse, educated workforce.  Which, in turn, attracts even more people and businesses to the city.

They don't have much sun.  They don't have a cheap COST of living.  But bright, young people are excited to move there.  Tulsa has a lot to learn.  Can we do it?

Can we do it?  I doubt it, but that remains to be seen.

Portland initiated some major planning efforts in the early 1970s.  Tulsa's planning policies are not very coordinated or unified.

[sgrizzle]

I heard a city official on monday talking about political parties. He said Republicans want everything in Tulsa to stay the way it is and the Democrats want everything to be like Portland.

[booWorld]

That city official is wrong.

[cannon_fodder]

In 10-15 years I wanted people to be saying they want their town to be like Tulsa.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

Could we become more of a college and research town? We see how young people create businesses "Vidoop" and you need young educated people to work for new, high tech and high paying jobs. It keeps coming back to the chicken and the egg thing, what do you do first?  We want to attract young educated people. We want encourage start up companies, new businesses. We want to have a thriving, urban, core, thats attractive to the YP and creative class set. But how do you "force" that to happen? What can you as a city do? Best thing I can come up with is to invest in our colleges and research oriented programs at those colleges.

Sure pushing for kewl amenities, parks, trails, museums, etc. can absolutely help. I think an improved River Parks will help with our quality of life attraction. But having colleges on top of that will definitely be important.



We actually are quite lucky to have these booming suburbs. All those young families, equal loooots of young people that Tulsa can capture as their city of choice. A large, youthful, educated workforce.... thats a great draw in this time of age demographic shifts.


This I think is very important....


We also need to just "rebrand" and sell ourselves better. Its about competition with other cities. We all know how to highlight our strengths at a job interview. You know how to sell yourself, your product or your business. We already have some great assetts. We just dont seem to sell it, even to ourselves. The River and all the stuff that goes with it, D-Fest!, Tulsa Tough, Brookside, Cherry Street, The colleges we do have, cost of living, Mountain Biking, Kayacking, beautiful city, skyscrapers, high end shopping, great clubs and music scene, fantastic new Arena, Philbrook art museum, etc. etc. etc..... You could SO sell Tulsa to the younger set. I find that the locals are far more negative about Tulsa than the visitors. Thats sad.  If you get the positive image out, become hip, it will attract more people and businesses. Even though we arent as great as we would like to be, we are improving and it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy in no time. We dont have that far to go on many fronts. But selling ourselves can really make a difference. If Omaha can create buzz about itself, good lawd, we could rock.

All good points Artist and HT.  Energy diversity is going to be a big deal for many years to come.  Tulsa could easily parlay our oil patch know-how and experience into new energy technology, there are certainly other areas of commerce we can attract.  It's not even too far-fetched that Tulsa could become even a bigger medical science training and research base as well.  We certainly have the investment from two good med schools and plenty of re-investment in most of our hospitals.

Our three major University campuses have all been spending major $$$ on expansion in the last five years.  I believe all three (unless OSU is finished up for now) still have improvements going on.

TU for a long time had (and may still have- not sure) a very well-respected petroleum program and they still do maintain their energy research center behind the Job Corps on north Lewis.  Only problem is, TU is not accessible to everyone.

What Tulsa really needs educationally is something the boards of regents at the various state universities apparently are not going to grant us:  a simplified four year public university degree program which is attractive on a nation-wide (and world-wide) basis.

I know I sound like a broken record, but Tulsa being the largest metro in the country without a public four+ year University is just plain stupid.  It's another of those antiquated ways of doing business in Oklahoma like the pre-liquor-by-the-drink days.  That is probably one of our more limiting factors in attracting more companies and retaining a younger professional work-force.  Our public college system in Tulsa is like a mis-matched patchwork quilt.

I guess regents feel they need to protect Norman and Stillwater from student run-off if Tulsa area students elected to stay here instead of "going off" to OU or OSU.  

Instead, we just keep funding schools in garden spots like Wilburton, Ada, Alva, and Tahlequah.  I'm not suggesting that any of those schools which serve their region be shut down in favor of Tulsa, but why has Tulsa always been the bastard child of the state university system?

I think an initiative needs to get started to bring a cohesive, single-school four year program to Tulsa finally.  Merge some of the campuses from TCC and OSU or OU to make that happen.  There are always going to be kids who will still leave Tulsa for College, but we keep giving a lot of those away who might otherwise stay and be a part of a well-trained workforce if that option existed.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of people have benefitted from what presence of higher education we have in Tulsa, but it's convoluted enough that many choose to go to college elsewhere and it certainly limits Tulsa as a "destination" college town to attract quality people into our workforce in the future.  Good college programs are a recruiting factor for business and future employees to work at those businesses.  

Dell and UT Austin is the model we seem to hear most.  Of course every time there's a layoff at Dell, the Austin area panics, they have gotten dependent on them as a major employer.  That's what happens when you have employers with staff as large as a small town in the same area.  We have the same problem with American.  If they ever shut their base down in Tulsa, it would take years to recover the loss.  Wasn't CFS up to about 3300 or so employees when they shut down?

Speaking of diversity: Ideally, I'd think you'd want a bunch of different employers in the 200 to 1000 employee range instead of five or six in the 3000 to 8,000 range.  It does't hurt near as much if one of the smaller ones knuckles under and it's easier to absorb displaced employees into other companies.

[Hometown]

"What Tulsa really needs educationally is something the boards of regents at the various state universities apparently are not going to grant us: a simplified four year public university degree program which is attractive on a nation-wide (and world-wide) basis."

We live in a world where people fight for goodies.  No one is going to come knock on our door and say may I give you this valuable goodie.  We need leadership that is effective at fighting for the goodies.  Tulsa is not a helpless victim on the receiving end of everything.

Two very significant things have happened recently regarding our core strengths.

I forgot the name of the energy company that is staffing up to exploit hard to recover oil.  200 employees were added – downtown.

Kaiser established a new think tank in Tulsa that will explore energy issues.

Yes Tulsa needs first class and well funded universities to support our energy business.  We also need money center banks, direct flights to money centers, direct and uninterrupted ground transportation to money centers, rail connections to money centers.  We have ceded all of this to OKC.

We need and an aggressive public relations campaign to the energy industry.  We need to exploit the "good will" we already possess.

We need leadership that will fight to relocate OU's Sarskis Energy Center to Tulsa.  We need the expansion of venture capital funds that specialize in energy startups.

Instead of rebranding as the Artist has suggested, how about dusting off the brand we already have and market ourselves as ENERGY GULCH.  We should fill up our affordable downtown towers with energy startups.

We have the lovely, livable amenities of a small but sophisticated city that is very family friendly and the most kid friendly community I have ever come across.

We need to show the labor market the money and they will come.  Young and skilled will flock to a livable city that offers them a decent job market at a competitive rate.

We need to ditch the focus on diversification and dance with the one that brought us to the party.

And given the strength of energy and the affordability of doing business in Tulsa and our critical mass of energy companies, some of this wish list might happen despite anything that Tulsa does.  That's where we are at now.