If your region–like so many others–is touting itself as a hotbed for bioscience, where do you go when you need something? Is there one organization that serves as a central resource? Or are there lots of them that you must identify and then develop relationships with?

In Northeast Ohio, for example, several organizations split up the duties of providing resources, contacts, and references for startups and other entrepreneurial ventures. Then they put together another organization to try to bring some unity and organization to the many. That one, called Team NEO, sort of “hosts” some of the others on its website thus:

Jumpstart
Nortech
Bioenterprise
Commercial Real Estate
Northeast Ohio Video–these last two links being to the organization’s own internal real estate and video businesses, an unusual practice for a group that’s supposed to represent its region.

But at an event a few weeks ago, attendees discovered there are even more organizations. NEOBio co-hosted the event with the above organization, and another presenter, NEO411.biz, said it offered still another place for entrepreneurs to get information. A dizzying array of places to go, each offering a very broad description of services.

One attendee said afterwards that it had taken him two years of rooting around to discover all the information that was presented. In the process, he said he’d built his own network of contacts. He also said though the presentation was informative, he wished that it had contained more tangibles about products and/or services that might fit the needs of his medical equipment company. Read more about MedXS and Northeast Ohio here.

It’s not easy putting together an organization that will serve the bioscience community thoroughly and fairly. With so many competing to be “the leader” in the local industry, the job gets even more complicated.