Why Technical.ly Delaware isn’t Technical.ly Wilmington

Technical.ly is proudly based in four markets: Our main HQ in Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Md. and Delaware. In case you didn’t notice, one of these things is not like the others.

With the majority of Delaware’s tech industry in and around Wilmington, it might make sense to call the market between Philly and Baltimore Technical.ly Wilmington. Inevitable confusion between Wilmington, North Carolina aside, there are reasons we’re the one market to identify by state rather than city, a topic discussed at our quarterly Technical.ly Delaware Stakeholder’s Meeting on November 2.

Ken Grant, Manager of Public and Government Affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic, summarized Delaware with paraphrased observations of the state going all the way back to Caesar Rodney: “In Delaware, Wilmington is the Northeast, Newark is a college town, below the Canal down to Dover it’s the Midwest, the beaches are West Coast, and west of the beaches is the Deep South.”

In other words, it’s a microcosm. An ecosystem, really. And, as impossibly distant as people from different parts of the second-smallest state appear, you can’t really have Wilmington without Newark and Dover and Rehoboth and Harrington. Can we exist without each other? Sure. But that would be off-brand.

Part of Delaware’s identity is that it’s literally both northern and southern (Fun fact: Delaware is east of the Mason-Dixon line, which ran vertically along its western border). It’s a tiny state of different worlds — and different industries, from tech to finance to agriculture to tourism to commercial fishing. When it comes to presenting ourselves — especially economically and as a hub for businesses —Delaware, not Wilmington, is our brand.

“Wilmington is the hub,” said Alta Porterfield, Dover-based statewide coordinator for Delaware Library Innovation Spaces. “Wilmington is affected by trends and social issues first, and the rest of the state follows.”

Likewise, Wilmington is the hub of Technical.ly Delaware, and Delaware is our brand.

We’re always looking for stories (from all over the state). Got a story idea? Send it to holly@technical.ly