As practitioners of ecosystem builders, we are developing a new profession.

In this endeavor, many of us are creating new concepts and vocabulary and discovering new applications and possibilities for our work. While we share similar aspirations to help entrepreneurs, we often find collaboration with each other challenging because our desired outcomes and our terminologies are nuanced and different. Even key terms, such as "entrepreneur," "early-stage," "small business," and "ecosystem building," have different meanings for different people and organizations within our field.

Strong collaboration will require alignment on our desired outcomes for ecosystem building and a common terminology for this work. We must build consensus on these cornerstones of our profession to facilitate communication and collaboration within the field and make ecosystem building practices more accessible to the broader community.