Further, the only thing that KEPT a lot of workers here was the recognition by Silicon Valley companies that there WAS a strong workforce in Minnesota. For example, in chip design there was LSI Logic, Cirrus, In-Chip, etc. Although these companies aren't considered Minnesotan, they do employ segments of the tech workforce that choose not to relocate to the Valley. Others, like myself, became Valley commuters. Work there, live here.
Silicon Valley IS the center.
But even in the Vally, things are more distributed than ever before and the expansion continues. And the ones they note are often irrelavent. And, yes, you can use that as a testimonial if it helps. You don't write merely about technology, you write about what technology means to us and how it has changed us. I like it.