Silicon Bayou (New Orleans nickname)
New Orleans, in a borrowing from Silicon Valley, has been called a “Silicon Bayou” or (less frequently) “Silicon Swamp.” “Embracing the name ‘Silicon Bayou,’ the Louisiana Commerce and Industry Office has tried to turn a sluggish, marshy inlet into a magnet for fast-developing high-tech industries” was printed in the Orlando (FL) Sentinel on February 7, 1984. “Louisiana advertises the area (Lafayette—ed.) as ‘Silicon Bayou—a first-rate alternate to overseas production,’ with low taxes and state-supported job training” was printed in the New York (NY) Times on May 19, 1984.
“Many of those aboard, Mayor Ray Nagin among them, were under the impression that the party boat—christened the Silicon Bayou, a nickname for New Orleans’ tiny technology community—belonged to [Greg Meffert]” was printed in The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA) on September 17, 2006. “NOLA’s Silicon Bayou struggles to stay afloat” by Christian Villere and Christopher Tidmore was an article printed in The Louisiana Weekly (New Orleans, LA) on November 12, 2012. “Silicon Bayou rising: New Orleans’ drive to be the next great tech city” by Andrew Thompson was printed in The Verge on June 6, 2013. “New Orleans reinvented as ‘Silicon Bayou’ for start-ups” was a BBC News video on Novemberr 20, 2013.
Not everyone agrees that “Silicon Bayou” is the best nickname for New Orleans. “Oh Geeze… Now they’re talkin ‘silicon bayou’ http://bit.ly/46fI4t New Orleans is not on a bayou. That is the Mississippi River Guys!” was posted on Twitter by RayNichols on August 3, 2009. “New Orleans calls itself the Silicon Bayou. Rouland mistakenly referred to it as Silicon Swamp. way better. #cybercon15” was posted on Twitter by Urvaksh on August 20, 2015.
Houston, Texas, also calls itself “Silicon Bayou,” although the use is later than New Orleans. “Mayor Turner likes the new nickname ‘Silicon Bayou’ for Houston. Who’s gonna tell him that New Orleans already has a healthy technological initiative called Silicon Bayou” was posted on Twitter by Golf Conspiracy on October 11, 2018.
Other New Orleans nicknames include “America’s Most Interesting City,” “Baghdad-on-the-Bayou,” “Big Crescent,” “Big Easy,” “Big Greasy,” “Big Sleazy,” “Birthplace of Jazz,” “Chocolate City,” “Chopper City,” “City of a Million Dreams,” “City of Yes,” “City That Care Forgot,” “City That Forgot to Care,” “Convention City,” “Crawfish Town,” “Creole City,” “Crescent City,” “Erb City,” “Gateway of the Mississippi Valley,” “Gumbo City,” “Hollywood South,” “Jump City,” “Mardi Gras City,” “Metropolis of the South,” “N’Awlins,” “Necropolis of the South,” “Nerlins,” “No Orleans” (after Hurricane Katrina), “NOLA,” “Northernmost Banana Republic,” “Northernmost Caribbean City,” “Old Swampy,” “Paris of America,” “Queen City,” “Saint City,” “Silicon Swamp” and “Sweet Lady Gumbo.”
Wikipedia: New Orleans
New Orleans (/njuː ˈɔːrli.ənz, -ˈɔːrˈliːnz, -ˈɔːrlənz/, or /ˈnɔːrlənz/; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃]) is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana.
7 February 1984, Orlando (FL) Sentinel, “Hi-Tech: Florida making a name for itself in technological circles” by Lisanne Renner, pg. E-1, col. 3:
Embracing the name “Silicon Bayou,” the Louisiana Commerce and Industry Office has tried to turn a sluggish, marshy inlet into a magnet for fast-developing high-tech industries.
19 May 1984, New York (NY) Times, “Dramatic Changes in Population Reported Despite Economic Woes” by John Herbers, pg. 9, col. 3:
(Datelined Lafayette, Louisiana.—ed.)
Lafayette has many mushrooming small businesses. “Many came here to provide computer and other technology for the oil companies and have turned their production to other uses,” said Michael J. Olivier, manager of the Lafayette Harbor, Terminal and Industrial Development District. Louisiana advertises the area as “Silicon Bayou—a first-rate alternate to overseas production,” with low taxes and state-supported job training.
31 May 1985, Chicago (IL) Tribune, “Reagan Looking to End ‘Tax Bondage’” by George E. Curry, pg. 3:
“Venture capital, that capital that funds the new, adventurous high-risk industries like many of these here in the Great Valley Corporate Center—it is thriving,” (President Ronald—ed.) Reagan declared. “From a disastrous low of $39 million in the depths of 1977, it exploded to $4.2 billion last year. High-tech is spreading across the country like wildfire. Silicon Valley (in California) is being joined by Silicon Bayou in Louisiana, Silicon Mountain in Colorado, and, as some have called it, the Silicon Valley of the East, right here in the Route 202 corridor.”
Google Groups: neworleans.general
Ponchartrain Beach computer center?
Stephen Bellaire Jr
12/28/99
Does anyone have any information on employment at the new, highly touted, “Silicon Bayou” IT nest forming around the Navy’s national personnel records project we are getting (have got?) at the old Ponchartrain Beach site, out by the lake?
17 September 2006, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), “Yachting by N.O. official raises questions; Records dispute claim that Meffert owns boat” by Russell Gordon, pg. A1:
Many of those aboard, Mayor Ray Nagin among them, were under the impression that the party boat—christened the Silicon Bayou, a nickname for New Orleans’ tiny technology community—belonged to [Greg Meffert].
Twitter
RayNichols
@MrRayNichols
Oh Geeze… Now they’re talkin “silicon bayou” http://bit.ly/46fI4t New Orleans is not on a bayou. That is the Mississippi River Guys!
11:24 PM - 3 Aug 2009
Twitter
Jace Grebski 🌴
@jgrebski
Hey, @lpignition @cschultz, check out this article on the NOLA startup scene. The Silicon Bayou, a Phoenix Rising http://shar.es/HXvA2 #nola
7:29 PM - 10 Apr 2011
Twitter
George Downing
@abcproject
New Orleans Internet entrepreneur simplifies web design: By Bradley Warshauer of Silicon Bayou Plebu founder Sim… http://bit.ly/r8C4Tl
3:48 AM - 19 Aug 2011
Twitter
Silicon Bayou News
@SiliconBayou
WorkNOLA - Jobs for New Orleans // Editorial Intern At Silicon Bayou News http://bit.ly/tKQ1EF
5:54 PM - 24 Oct 2011
Reuters
U.S. DECEMBER 21, 2011 / 5:05 PM
Silicon Valley in the bayou? New Orleans hopes so
Mark Guarino
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Developers and business owners are flocking to New Orleans, thanks to factors that can be traced back to Hurricane Katrina, an event that shook the old ways of doing business in the city and created opportunities for experimentation.
Fast Company
04.17.12
Why The Next Big Ideas In Education Will Come Out Of New Orleans
With 71% of New Orleans schoolchildren attending charter schools, the atmosphere is ripe for testing new educational ideas. Enter 4.0 Schools, a nonprofit incubator that helps turn teachers into entrepreneurs.
BY ANYA KAMENET
(...)
Organizations like KIPP, Teach for America, and the Gates Foundation have established beachheads, drawing top teachers and fresh blood from all over the country. These are intersecting with a nascent startup scene dubbed “Silicon Bayou” to produce a hothouse of ideas to change education: for-profit and nonprofit, from school redesigns to apps, often from younger, female entrepreneurs.
Twitter
January Advisors
@januaryadvisors
New Orleans has always been fascinating. But please do not call it Silicon Bayou. http://bit.ly/IzOkcw via @FastCompany #USInnovation
2:56 PM - 17 Apr 2012
Twitter
Monica Roman Gagnier
@beacongal
Silicon Bayou? @WSJ says tax credits are creating a tech boom in New Orleans: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303506404577446751755988324.html … #nola
10:25 PM - 7 Jun 2012
12 November 2012, The Louisiana Weekly (New Orleans, LA), “NOLA’s Silicon Bayou struggles to stay afloat” by Christian Villere and Christopher Tidmore, pg. 13:
Making New Orleans the Silicon Bayou entails achieving that big well-known success, but also improving the general business climate as a whole. In this area, New Orleans appears to be on its way to eradicating the “brain drain” that has occurred since the 1960s.
(...)
New Orleans is far away from being the next Silicon Valley. Steps have been taken to make the city accessible and enticing to possible technology entrepreneurs. Hopefully, more will be done, so that New Orleans can rightfully lay claim to the title of Silicon Bayou.
The Verge
Silicon Bayou rising: New Orleans’ drive to be the next great tech city
A group of local entrepreneurs wants to make New Orleans the next San Francisco. Can the Big Easy thrive while keeping its character?
By Andrew Thompson on June 6, 2013 12:20 pm
(...)
Looking to evoke such cultural and economic transformations, pundits and civic boosters have long touted other cities’ tech sectors with cutely allusive monikers, from New York’s “Silicon Alley” to London’s “Silicon Roundabout” to Washington, DC, which received the decidedly less creative label, “Silicon Valley of the East.” Austin is “Silicon Hills,” while Portland, Oregon, claims “Silicon Forest.” Dallas is sometimes known as “Silicon Prairie” — unless you’re talking about Chicago, part of Wyoming, or Omaha-Des Moines-Kansas City.
(...)
Then there’s “Silicon Bayou,” the New Orleans brand of technology boosterism.
BBC News
20 Nov 2013
New Orleans reinvented as ‘Silicon Bayou’ for start-ups
The US city of New Orleans saw its population decline by almost a third in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
But the population - like the city’s fortunes - has been revived in the years since the flooding, partly because of the Big Easy’s culture and charm but also thanks to a series of economic incentives.
New Orleans earned the nickname “Hollywood South” by attracting filmmakers to Louisiana, and now entrepreneurs have dubbed the region the “Silicon Bayou” because of the growth in the number of tech start-ups.
HuffPost
Diane Smith, Contributor
Advisory Board Member, Mobile Future
Welcome to Silicon Everywhere
11/08/2013 03:11 pm ET Updated Jan 23, 2014
The tech world has changed a lot in recent years - instead of looking toward Silicon Valley, we’re seeing innovations happening closer to home. From Silicon Alley in lower Manhattan, to the Silicon Swamp in Florida, across the Silicon Prairie, and down on the Silicon Bayou in New Orleans, wireless broadband is driving entrepreneurship and empowering innovators in every corner of our nation.
Twitter
Urvaksh
@Urvaksh
New Orleans calls itself the Silicon Bayou. Rouland mistakenly referred to it as Silicon Swamp. way better. #cybercon15
4:56 PM - 20 Aug 2015 from Atlanta, GA
Twitter
Mashable
@mashable
The ‘Silicon Bayou’ of New Orleans lives on after Katrina: business pitches during a parade. http://on.mash.to/1N3aUzn
3:35 PM - 30 Aug 2015
22 January 2017, Indianapolis (IN) Star, “Indiana is no Silicon Prairie (it’s better),” pg. D2:
Every American city with a marketing budget wants to brand itself as a tech hub. If it’s not Silicon Prairie, then it’s Silicon Alley (New York), Silicon Mountain (Denver) or Silicon Swamp (Gainesville, Fla.). Don’t forget about Silicon Bayou (New Orleans) or Silicon Harbor (Charleston, S.C.).
Twitter
matt_dunn
@thatmattdunn
I want to move to the Silocon Bayou, aka #NewOrleans
11:53 PM - 31 Oct 2017
Twitter
Golf Conspiracy
@GolfConspiracy
More Golf Conspiracy Retweeted Sylvester Turner
Mayor Turner likes the new nickname “Silicon Bayou” for Houston. Who’s gonna tell him that New Orleans already has a healthy technological initiative called Silicon Bayou.
Sylvester Turner
@SylvesterTurner
Exciting announcement: @HouEX, our tech innovation engine, has amassed $25M as a venture capital “fund of funds” first stake to seed start-ups and digital advancement. We are beginning to inhabit the new nickname “Silicon Bayou!”
5:51 PM - 11 Oct 2018
Twitter
GNO, Inc.
@GNOinc
“In its post-Katrina era, New Orleans — nicknamed ‘Silicon Bayou’ — has defied its Mardi Gras reputation to become a destination for serious tech innovators.” Learn more about why @ozy calls New Orleans one of three rising tech cities.
https://bit.ly/2AAR5P9
10:14 AM - 1 Nov 2018
Houston (TX) Chronicle
Silicon Bayou? Houston makes tech pitch.
By Andrea Leinfelder and Nancy Sarnoff Updated 8:08 am CST, Thursday, January 31, 2019
Houston officials are deliberately moving forward with plans to transform the city into a hotbed for technology innovation, detailing two separate initiatives on Wednesday that seek to address some of the region’s historic shortcomings in attracting and developing fast-growing startups.
(Trademark)
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Filing Date March 26, 2018
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Owner (APPLICANT) NTE Planning Consultants, LLC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY TEXAS 2342 Broadgreen Missouri City TEXAS 77489
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