To shake up its member outreach and to showcase North Carolina’s technology industry, the North Carolina Technology Association is embarking on a month-long, statewide Tech Tour.

“As an association you do events and your members come to see you, so we felt like it would be a good outreach initiative for us to go see our members,” said Marc Montoro, senior director of programs and communications.

Starting this week, a handful of NCTA staff members will travel to five of the state’s regions where they will be able to get an insider’s view and visit with executives of some of its 650 member companies. While several of the tours are open only to NCTA staff, others are open to the association and its members.

At each tour stop, NCTA will also host Tech Partner roundtables where members, industry partners and leaders, and NCTA staff can discuss industry issues. “We’ll be looking at economic-development organizations and other partners and organizations that do similar initiatives as ours, and we’ll be meeting to talk about how we can improve and create more synergy,” Montoro said.

For a little fun each evening, NCTA will host Techworking receptions, or networking events, including one in Charlotte that will help mark the association’s 20th anniversary. Other tour locations include stops in Asheville, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Wilmington, and Raleigh.

The association will also make use of social media to document and illustrate how the technology industry is helping the state’s economy.

“We’ll be using all facets of Instagram, Twitter, and our blog to be able to chronicle all the visits that we’re doing,” Montoro said. “We really want to be able to tell a story about how specifically in North Carolina there is a diverse range in markets and how companies have gone to each of those regions and built businesses that have helped North Carolina’s economy.”

(NCTA screenshot)