Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner discussed the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, economic concerns and efforts to grow the next generation of local companies in his 2020 State of the City address.   “As we move forward through these unprecedented times, the City’s foundation is strong; the City itself is resilient; and the City’s future is bright,” Mayor Turner said.  The Mayor delivered his fifth State of the City address, hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership, on October 22. He said while each of those speeches has been special in different ways, “this one, during an unprecedented year, is significant while we are in the midst of a global pandemic, social and civil unrest, economic instability and a highly charged election season.” The city has battled the COVID-19 pandemic on several fronts over the last seven months, from leveraging new public health resources to developing small business assistance programs. Mayor Turner praised the Houston Health Department for leading “one of the most remarkable responses to the pandemic in the country.” The department has established numerous free testing sites and hired more than 300 contact tracers to help stop the virus’ spread.   In April, Mayor Turner tapped former Shell Energy CEO Marvin Odum to lead Houston’s COVID Response and Recovery. That same month he launched the Houston Health Equity Response (H.E.R.) Task Force to provide resources and education to the city’s vulnerable and at-risk populations.  So far, the Mayor said, the task force has:  Distributed 1.3 million masks Made more than 4,000 food and supply deliveries Created the successful Mask Up! Campaign Hosted several virtual town halls to provide support and resources to those facing mental health challenges as a result of the pandemic The City of Houston also created a rental assistance program for residents and established a $20 million fund for grants to small businesses. Addressing the convention and meetings business that contributes considerably to the local hospitality industry and helps fund city promotion, Turner said nearly 200 conferences and conventions have been cancelled or rescheduled since March—a $332 million economic hit. Houston First Corporation, the agency charged with booking conventions and marketing the city as a destination, has managed to rebook 23 out of the 24 citywide conventions that were planned during the period for future dates.  “This was a critical and proactive response that will provide economic resiliency in the years to come, yet the impact for 2020 and into 2021 will be significant for our hospitality community,” the Mayor said.  In February, the City launched Resilient Houston, a framework for how Houston should address future challenges and sudden shocks, from transportation infrastructure to natural disasters. Two months later, the city unveiled its first ever Climate Action Plan with a goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. The Mayor said more than 5,200 individuals participated in the inaugural Climate Action Week to help kick off implementation of that plan. These efforts followed the late-2019 launch of Evolve Houston, a public/private partnership with NRG, Shell, CenterPoint, the University of Houston and Houston Sustainability Office to accelerate electrification of private and commercial fleet vehicles in the city.  Mayor Turner said that this year the City received its latest hazard mitigation grant from Federal Emergency Management Agency to help combat flooding. It’s the fourth and final grant the City sought to complete large scale flood mitigation projects in the most vulnerable areas.  Turning to efforts to grow Houston’s technology and innovation ecosystem, Mayor Turner pointed to several announcements this year that have positioned the City to increase entrepreneurship and digital skills.  In September, the Rice Alliance announced the creation of a new clean energy accelerator to help create a new generation of young entrepreneurs focused on our energy future.  In June, Greentown Labs, the nation’s largest climatech incubator out of the Boston area, announced plans to open a Houston incubator next year in the 16-acre Midtown Innovation District. The 40,000-square-foot Greentown Houston will have space for up to 50 emerging companies. They announced Greentown Houston's inaugural members in October.  The City has also expanded its digital alliance with Microsoft through the tech company’s Accelerate program. The program is designed to address economic recovery through skilling both underserved communities and re-skilling the many Americans impacted by COVID-19. “Houston is a City that continues to transform, to innovate and to be an example for the rest of the country on how to be diverse, welcoming and inclusive,” Mayor Turner said. “As we gradually take steps to reopen, we recognize that the full recovery will take several years, but when we work together, we put ourselves in the best position to manage the virus and rebound from it.” In opening the event, Partnership President and CEO Bob Harvey said 2020 has proven to be among the most difficult years in Houston’s history. "The COVID-19 pandemic, the fall of the oil markets, renewed alarm over racial injustice—these issues and others have presented considerable challenges for our city and others around the country,” Harvey said. “But time and again, I’m amazed by the resiliency and perseverance of Houstonians to rise to the challenge.  Throughout these last seven months, Houston has shown the world what it’s made of—working to fix broken systems, growing new industry sectors, and creating a better quality of life for all who call this place home.”  The Mayor addressed other issues including racial justice, homelessness, mental health and street infrastructure in his speech. Watch the full presentation on this page when it's posted later this week. 

In an entrepreneurial career that’s helped spawn some of the most recognizable company names in the tech world, Matt Mullenweg has become an evangelist for the concept of distributed work.  Mullenweg realized as a young adult growing up in Houston that the internet offered a means of connecting with some of the smartest people in any given field around the world. And you didn’t have to be in the same physical space to actually create things together.  The co-founder of Wordpress, the wildly successful open source content management system and website building platform, knew he was on to something when programmers worldwide worked to help build and improve upon that platform. Roughly 600 programmers worked on the most recent version of WordPress, only a fraction of which work full time for the company.  Today, Mullenweg’s open source tech company Automattic, which he founded in 2005, has a distributed workforce of 1,300 people in 77 countries. He spoke this week with HEB President Scott McClelland about distributed work, diversity and inclusion and the need for companies to adapt to a changing landscape, in a fireside chat. The conversation was part of the Partnership’s annual Houston NEXT: An ERG Summit.  “Words create reality,” Mullenweg said, describing how he differentiates between remote and distributed workers. “Remote suggests that there’s someone central and someone remote who isn’t. We tried to think of a word that captured the idea of being very close to each other in our work, but not physically in the same space. Distributed is the word we chose.”  Click to expand Distributed Work's 5 Levels of Autonomy developed by Matt Mullenweg. That distributed approach gives employees a great deal of personal freedom and autonomy to get the job done in a space of their choosing and in their own way. “When people are really happy and fulfilled in the rest of their life, they bring their best self to work,” Mullenweg said. “They’re more creative, they have more energy, and for every person what that looks like is different.”  The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a lot of companies that might never have seriously considered allowing employees to work remotely to do just that. And for many who’ve seen productivity and quality actually increase, it’s been a wakeup call, Mullenweg said. “This has allowed us to break out of the ossification of ideas,” he said, adding that companies need to be able to adapt to both crises and gradual change or risk becoming obsolete.  Building a More Diverse Workforce  Automattic is well-regarded for its diversity and inclusion efforts, and Mullenweg touched on why. “Talent and intelligence are equally distributed throughout the world, but opportunity is not, and we can see that,” he said. “If our company is able to provide that opportunity where it hasn’t existed, then we benefit.”  Automattic has also upended the traditional hiring process. Managers don’t look at where a candidate went to school or even their employment background. Rather, Mullenweg said, jobs are open to anyone, regardless of their background, if they are able to exhibit the necessary skills through a trial run at the job.  He said even before the pandemic struck, the company actually did a lot of its hiring remotely via chat, sometimes not even seeing the individual. “Some people don’t do well in a traditional interview, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be good at the job,” he said. “Our approach has been great for creating a more equal playing field for everyone who wants to join the mission.”  The number one thing businesses need to do, according to Mullenweg? Embrace change. “We have all had to adjust with COVID,” he said. “If you really try to hold on to the way things worked before, it’s going to be really tough. And it’s going to be tough for the people on the front lines of your business. Open things up more.”  Check out Matt Mullenweg’s Distributed podcast and learn more about the 5 levels of distributed work.