Avon High School's "lip dub" to Daniel Kim's mashup of hit songs from 2013 was featured on ABC's World News with Diane Sawyer and the Huffington Post last night, and this morning Good Morning America did a segment on the video and used it as the bumper track for at least the first hour of the TV program.
  

   
This isn't just for fun, it's also a promotion for the school's dance marathon raising money for Riley Hospital for Children.

Watching this video got me thinking about how difficult creating it would have been in other communities that don't have the same kind of cooperative, "rising tide" attitude that seems to be part of the community fabric here in Central Indiana. Just getting permission to do such a thing likely would have been too high a hurdle in some places. But not here.

This attitude is reflected in the tech sector, too. We often hear stories about the zero-sum mentality of tech communities on the coasts. It's cut-throat, and where they see only competitors, here in Indy we see "CO-OPetition."

Every time I speak with someone relocating to Indy from Silicon Valley (and that is happening more and more), they say the same thing. It takes a moment to adjust to the idea that potential competitors aren't automatically out to buy you or bury you. Here, you're more likely to get a sales lead or potential development partner than a hostile takeover.

Some might point to this attitude and say that we're missing the killer instinct necessary to achieve greatness, but that's a bunch of malarkey. I think the world will be a better place when the greater Indianapolis area and its friendlier, more cooperative tech ecosystem becomes the model for the world to copy. It could happen.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below about the Indy tech community and how it's different from other tech hubs.