There is arguably no other place on Earth with the concentrated innovation power of Kendall Square. Within a few-block radius of the Kendall Square T station on Main Street on the edge of the MIT campus, you can find an unprecedented collection of startups, large company labs and offices, and non-profit organizations, from the One Laptop Per Child Foundation to the Broad Institute and, of course, MIT itself. There are public companies, private companies, and incubators—and the work across these enterprises spans medicine and health, biotechnology, IT, the Web, software, hardware, energy, robotics, transportation, nanotech, media, and probaby everything in between.
It’s only fitting that such a unique place as Kendall Square should have its own tagline or motto that reflects its legacy of entrepreneurship and cutting-edge activities, coupled with collaboration, mentoring, and community building—and now it does: “The Future Lives Here.”
The tagline, which is being announced today, is the creation of the Kendall Square Association, of which Xconomy is a member. The association, with well over 100 members, was organized a year ago (its first meeting was this February) by a group of community leaders, including Xconomist Tim Rowe, who besides serving as the KSA’s president is CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center and a venture partner at New Atlantic Ventures. “The purpose of the Kendall Square Association is to foster an environment that encourages creative collaboration and community-building across endeavors of all kinds, and that generates the dynamic energy that helps to transform leading edge ideas into global realities,” Rowe says in the statement announcing the tagline. He tells me the new motto is meant to dovetail with the motto recently adopted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: “It’s All Here.”
The Kendall Square branding process started this spring and was led by the KSA’s Marketing and Promotions Working Group, which is chaired by Sarah Gallop, co-director of government and community relations for MIT. Gallop, who is one of three MIT representatives on the KSA board, says Steve Herskovitz, president of healthcare-oriented marketing company Hammond Hill of Acton, MA, led the effort to come up with the tagline. And the new slogan represents only one step in the KSA’s branding and marketing push, she says. “We’ve finished the tagline process and are deep into logo work now. After that is complete, we’ll focus on finishing the KSA website.”
Rowe and Gallop say the KSA is just getting started with its plans to strengthen the community of entrepreneurship and innovation in Kendall Square. According to today’s statement, “Besides the branding process, the Association is also focused on a long term vision for the Square, with special emphasis on retail, restaurant, entertainment, and residential objectives.” Those plans include sponsoring a series of local talks and other events. And Rowe, together with many KSA members (including Xconomy) and others, is also privately pursuing the creation of an entrepreneurship-enhancing hangout that’s been tentatively dubbed the Venture Café.
What do you think of the new tagline? Feel free to leave your comments below.
