Or Download this issue (~35mb) as a PDF - Hippo

Cyan Magenta Yellow Black
real-life networking
City groups attract young professionals
By Jeff Mucciarone
jmucciarone@hippopress.com
If you’re young, at least at heart, and you live
at least somewhat close to Nashua, Manchester
or Concord, there are organizations you can turn
to for fun, professional development or to meet
some new friends or colleagues. Each city has its
own young professionals network: the Concord
Young Professionals Network (CYPN), the Manchester
Young Professionals Network (MYPN)
and the Greater Nashua Young Professionals Network,
which is called iUGO (pronounced you-go,
and which means connect in Latin).
The groups try to connect with young professionals
in similar ways. They have brown bag
lunch gatherings with experts or business leaders.
They get together for social networking
events at local bars and restaurants. They offer
expert panels where members can hear from and
interact with area CEOs or community leaders.
And they all have events that give participants
a chance to try something new, such as a wine
tasting or sushi tasting. None of the three groups
charge an annual membership fee, though members
are charged a fee for some events.
“At the highest level, it just opens all kinds
of doors,” said Karen Cooper, chairwoman of
iUGO’s board. iUGO celebrated its three-year
anniversary last week. The group has a growing
list of more than 1,200 members. “It presents
opportunities you might not otherwise have. …
We feel that, when members are connected, if
you’re connected well personally, that leads to
more job satisfaction.”
Prior to becoming involved with iUGO (iugonashua.com),
Cooper, who works at Rivier
College, pretty much went home to Milford
every night after work. After joining, she got to
appreciate more of what greater Nashua has to
offer. As a guideline, iUGO targets professionals
ages 22 to 40, but it has a number of people older
than 40 who are active. So “young at heart” is
really the only criterion, Cooper said.
“I think you’re happier at work when you feel
you’re part of a community,” Cooper added.
With more than 2,000 members, the MYPN
(www.mypn.org), which formed in 2004, is the
largest young professionals network in the state,
and E.J. Powers, vice-chairman of the MYPN
board, said it has led the way for similar organi-
Preseason politics
Lawn signs are up, campaigns in gear for fall votes
By Jeff Mucciarone
jmucciarone@hippopress.com
Still leading up to the primaries in the
Granite State, analysts and politicians are in
wait-and-see-mode.
“I think to some extent we’re still waiting to
see how the [New Hampshire] races are going to
fit into the larger narrative,” said political analyst
Dean Spiliotes of NHPoliticalCapital.com.
Democrats made considerable gains in the
state in 2006 and 2008 — so much that some
questioned whether New Hampshire had lost
its “swing state” status. Dante Scala, a political
science professor at the University of New
Hampshire, said perhaps the shift to Democrats
had been overstated.
“I think there’s a good amount of anxiety
and uncertainty about the course of the country,
grumpiness about the economy,” Scala said.
For almost a decade, New Hampshire vot-
Hippo | July 1 - 7, 2010 | Page 6
zations. Recently working with a client in Salem,
Powers, who is vice president of strategic communications
at Montagne Communications, said
the client told him people are working on putting
together a similar network in Salem.
“It’s great to see other groups popping up and
supporting the overall goal of attracting and retaining
workers in New Hampshire,” Powers said.
The different groups interact regularly.
“I think it makes every sense to share information,
to use each other kind of as springboards to
get to higher levels of quality,” said Josh Robinson,
a member of the CYPN (www.concordypn.
org) steering committee.
Christopher Williams, for example, is president
and CEO of the Greater Nashua Chamber of
Commerce and a member of iUGO’s steering committee.
He was also the founding chairman of the
MYPN and is co-chairman of the statewide “Stay.
Work. Play.” (www.stayworkplay.org) initiative.
“It has really blossomed into six different
groups across the state,” Williams said. “It’s
amazing what a germ of an idea can turn into.”
The young professionals groups have been
particularly important resources for people
who didn’t grow up in New Hampshire or who
don’t have an established core of colleagues and
friends, Williams said. “It was a very unique thing
that New Hampshire hadn’t experienced until
2004,” Williams said.
Each of the groups holds regular networking
events at local restaurants and bars.
“Basically, the concept that we’re working with
is to ... reach out to those people in the demographic,
22 to 45, trying to engage people who work
or live in Concord and make it clear to them that
this perception that Concord is closed after 5 p.m.
on weeknights is wrong,” Robinson said. CYPN
events sometimes draw more than 100 people. In
September, the CYPN holds an event called Ignite,
where as many as 20 people can take five minutes
to show off some interesting, quirky or unique talent,
such as skills with a Rubik’s cube.
“Every time I go, I’m meeting many new people,
new faces,” Robinson said. “It tells me we
have a very steady rotation of new interest ....”
CYPN, which launched in 2004, started slowly
but has grown considerably. It has 1,600 members
today. “Members” are people on the group’s
e-mail list. Robinson said initially there was a little
resistance from the business community, which
ers cast ballots that were essentially anti-George
Bush and by extension anti-Republican. Now
into the Barack Obama era, there’s flux among
voters still sorting things out. Democrats could
previously count on the independent voters, but
that isn’t likely to be the case this time around,
Scala said.
Republicans, for their part, appear poised
to regain some ground in the fall. How much
ground is the question, analysts say.
Scala will be watching Obama’s approval
ratings. The president has weathered the last several
months, despite issues in Afghanistan, the
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the continued
struggling of the economy. If Obama drops suddenly
in approval, that could signal trouble for
Democrats, but if his approval spikes, that might
help to energize Democratic voters. Scala said
he thought voters’ ambivalence toward Obama
could go all the way down the ticket.
Though there were no big surprises in her
didn’t know what the group was all about.
“It took a little bit of time to open the eyes of
some of the other businesses to the opportunities
we were offering,” Robinson said. “Initially, they
didn’t all recognize the value of the demographic.”
The groups are not all about socializing. Many
members of the CYPN are looking to get more
professional development. In turn, the organization
provides an enrichment series that is “geared
more toward people who want substance, not to
just have a drink, people who want to actually
learn something,” Robinson said.
CYPN recently began its own brown bag lunch
series, in which groups or officials will make presentations.
Main Street Concord was the first
featured group; it gave a presentation on its effort to
re-think downtown Concord. At a brown bag lunch
event with MYPN last year, officials presented on
extending commuter rail to Manchester.
MYPN has hosted local developer Dick Anagnost
and Manchester Boston Regional Airport
director Mark Brewer. Last year, MYPN hosted a
panel discussion with some of the most successful
women in the state, such as former attorney general
Kelly Ayotte. “They provide guidance for our
members, shed light on their path....” Powers said.
The mix of events is key because of the variety
of professionals in the groups.
“If you come in with an open mind, sure, you
might gain some professional development, you
might build your professional network. You also
can come wanting to have fun. If any of those
things are accomplished, that’s all the better,” Cooper
said.
CYPN is fighting back against the perception
the group is a bunch of suit-and-tie-wearing business
people. Robinson said there’s always a place
for suits and ties at meetings, but the organization
wants anyone in a profession, teachers and plumbers
along with bankers and lawyers.
Cooper said iUGO is growing and is becoming
more efficient in the process of planning and
coordinating events. She said events are becoming
more and more creative and recently the
group had its website redone and has begun to
have a presence on social media platforms.
iUGO tries to create a welcoming atmosphere.
Members of the steering committee are always
on the lookout for new faces to make sure they’re
engaged and connecting. Cooper said that’s key
because many people do come alone.
testimony, former attorney general and current
Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte is catching some
flack for her office’s lack of action in the case of
a major financial scandal. Ayotte, in her testimony
two weeks ago, didn’t say anything analysts
think is particularly damaging, but that hasn’t
stopped Democratic Senate candidate Paul
Hodes, currently a U.S. Representative, from
blasting Ayotte in a recent television ad.
“This is the best opportunity Paul Hodes has
had in a long time to nose into the conversation,”
Spiliotes said, adding Hodes’ poll numbers have
stagnated recently. He said Hodes is having a
tough time getting noticed, perhaps largely due
to the fact that he’s not facing a challenge in the
Democratic primary. Ayotte, on the other hand,
is feeling pressure from Ovide Lamontagne and
Bill Binnie. None of the Republican candidates
have jumped on Ayotte yet, but that could be
coming.
“It’s a very frustrating thing and potentially a
The MYPN started as about a dozen people
with an idea. Mike Skelton, chairman of the
MYPN board, said all of the group’s founders
have since moved on from the board of directors.
“We have completely graduated into a new
generation of MYPN leaders,” Skelton said. “You
do lose your institutional memory a little bit.”
Skelton said MYPN is grounded in social networking,
but it has expanded to become a place
where people can gain professional development
and enhance their careers.
The MYPN is run by an all-volunteer board
and steering committee, and Skelton said the
board will be unveiling some different events
and programs that should garner sufficient funds
to hire a paid staff member. MYPN would be the
only young professionals network in the state to
do that, if it comes to fruition, he said. A paid
staffer would piece together the logistics of the
operation while letting the board focus on the
high-level strategic planning, Skelton said.
Setting itself apart from other groups, the MYPN
runs the annual Start-up Challenge, a business plan
competition whose winner gets $25,000 to get the
business rolling, along with in-kind guidance and
resources. About 60 applicants sent their business
plans in for the most recent competition.
All the groups support the state’s “Stay. Work.
Play.” initiative. Williams said the initiative was
born out of a University System of New Hampshire
program designed to increase the percentage
of college graduates who stay in New Hampshire
to work. That mission is a little different from the
that of the young professionals networks, but the
success of the initiative could depend partly on its
ability to work with the networks.
In the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the number
of young people in the state was decreasing,
though that appeared to be due more to the birth
rate than to a “brain drain,” Williams said. Still,
the state was falling behind many areas nationwide
in getting young people to settle in the state.
Today, the state is seeing progress in the 30-to-
40 age bracket, but less in the 20-to-30 range.
Nashua and Portsmouth benefit from their proximity
to Boston, and Nashua from its high-tech
manufacturing companies.
“I think it’s all about providing experiences
so they end up putting roots down in New
Hampshire and feeling part of the community,”
Skelton said.
dangerous thing for someone in [Hodes’] position,”
Spiliotes said. Scala said, on the plus side,
Hodes doesn’t have to expend the resources in
the primary that Republican candidates do.
Scala said for Hodes and other Democrats
not facing a primary, the concern is the Democratic
base might not be as engaged as it has
been in the last few election cycles. That’s not
unexpected. They have control of the governor’s
office, both congressional seats, one senate seat,
and both houses of the state legislature. He said
it’s only natural that the sense of urgency is lost
to some extent. The problem for Democrats is
that Republicans are likely to be anything but
complacent.
“You’re seeing [Rep. Carol Shea-Porter] and
[Hodes] experiencing troubles they didn’t see in
2006 and 2008,” Scala said. “They had the wind
at their back, the national wind. That doesn’t
appear to be the case.”
Even those with primaries may face trou-