Podcasts about economic gardening

Welcome to the daily304 – your window into Wonderful, Almost Heaven, West Virginia.   Today is Monday, March 25, 2024.   Advantage Valley seeks regional companies for its Economic Gardening program. A Martinsburg barbershop's partnership with the WV SBDC helps the business secure funding. And get your registration in today for Bridging Innovation Week…on today's daily304. #1 – From ADVANTAGE VALLEY –  Wanted: Participants for Economic Gardening, a program designed to provide sophisticated technical assistance to local companies poised for growth. Advantage Valley is seeking growth-oriented companies in Boone, Cabell, Clay, Kanawha, Putnam, Lincoln, Mason, Jackson or Wayne counties that sell to markets outside the region, have 6-100 employees, and have experienced growth 2 out of the past 5 years.  Advantage Valley is offering this program for free to select companies through a partnership with the National Center for Economic Gardening, an organization that has patented this successful approach to economic development over 20 years. Learn more: https://advantagevalley.com/business-services/economic-gardening/   #2 – From WV COMMERCE –  Walking into the Rugged Gentleman Barber Shop, you'll step on classic black and white checkered floors and sit in 100 year old barber chairs. In this familiar atmosphere, you'll find children getting their very first haircut and old friends laughing together.  When the Martinsburg shop needed funding, owner Austin Hale worked with the West Virginia Small Business Development Center to help him create a business plan and do some financial projections that helped him to secure a loan. “Because of the SBDC we are able to keep barbing in our family for a third generation with me and will hopefully continue on with a fourth generation with my kids,” Hale said. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcQUwPqIIkA   #3 – From WV ESHIP ECOSYSTEM – Register now for Bridging Innovation Week, set for April 8-11 in Huntington! Bridging Innovation Week is the state's premier ​entrepreneurship event. The annual symposium ​advances entrepreneurship-led economic ​development by providing connection and education ​to business owners, current and prospective ​entrepreneurs, and entrepreneur serving ​organizations (ESOs) throughout West Virginia. Whether you're just starting or looking to scale, this is ​the place to explore entrepreneurship opportunities ​in the Mountain State! Learn more: https://wveshipecosystem.org/   Find these stories and more at wv.gov/daily304. The daily304 curated news and information is brought to you by the West Virginia Department of Commerce: Sharing the wealth, beauty and opportunity in West Virginia with the world. Follow the daily304 on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @daily304. Or find us online at wv.gov and just click the daily304 logo.  That's all for now. Take care. Be safe. Get outside and enjoy all the opportunity West Virginia has to offer.  

Chris Gibbons, creator of the economic gardening concept, explains how he pioneered the idea in Littleton, Colorado in the 1980s to help local companies create jobs after major layoffs. Economic gardening focuses on providing research and insights to growing stage two companies, not basic business assistance. Gibbons discusses the sales window concept they use to efficiently find the best prospects, and their move into leveraging AI like ChatGPT. He also shares his passion for helping communities and people prosper through economic development. Like this show? Please leave us a review here (https://econdevshow.com/rate-this-podcast/) — even one sentence helps! Special Guest: Chris Gibbons.

Economic Gardening: No Green Thumb Needed   Economic Gardening is an economic development model that embraces the idea that entrepreneurs drive economies and places a laser-like focus on creating jobs by supporting existing companies in a community. It originated in the late 80s in Littleton, CO when the state was in a recession and the community lost a major employer. Local leaders realized that only a small percentage of all companies were “high growth” but those companies were creating the majority of new jobs.  Since 1989, Littleton (current population 45,000), has added 15,000+ jobs, with no incentives.    

A recent post on the local Facebook group, Gardner, MA-What's Going On? Ask the question, ‘What does Gardner MA need to do to make it a destination city? The term ‘destination city' has entered our modern lexicon only recently.  Generally, it refers to a community that may contain any number of positive economic and cultural characteristics that make it attractive to both local residents and visitors from far and wide. To be a destination city these days means your community is a place people want to visit, transact business in and maybe even dream of living in.  But what makes for a destination city?  How do they develop?  Why would we want to be a destination city? I'm writing to you right now from the HULA co-working center along the banks of Lake Champlain in Burlington, VT.  This section of town along with the entirety of the city contains countless features, developed over the last 40 years that make this community a true destination.   Learn about Burlington's transformation under CEDO director Bruce Seifer on SMG's ‘Are We Here Yet?' Podcast. I'm here for a conference and each time I come back to Burlington I'm struck by several key factors that make this a dynamic environment.     Work with what you got.  Burlington has some incredible natural assets.  No less than a stunning view of the Adirondack Mountains across the 6th largest lake in the United States. But how can our city compete with that? You ask?  There are countless examples.  Closer to home, who amongst us would have said 30 years ago, ‘Let's hang out at the mills and learn about industry,' and spend all day in museums, art centers and restaurants in downtown Lowell, MA? Burlington spent considerable attention on integrating its natural, economic and human assets.  40 years on, it shows.     Who are the People in your neighborhood? Much of what works in a destination city happens because local leadership is constantly ensuring that citizens are heard, and neighborhood responsive solutions are sought and executed in the marketplace.  Neighborhood Planning Committees, robust public comment mechanisms and a high percentage of engaged citizens.  These are just three precepts of a community that is actively developing itself according to the needs and desires of its people.  People responsive communities attract and retain, you guessed it, people.  How would you rate your community on this measure?      Resiliency: We can't give up.  Entrepreneurs know this.  Developers know this.  The inertia to remain the same is profound.  So is the need by those who benefit from the status quo to keep things as they are.  Leadership and citizens including a majority of a community's business community have to be in the game for the long term.  They must be working together from the same gameplan.  They must believe together in the same fundamental precepts; the what, where, why and how of their city's development plan. And like that entrepreneur or developer, they cannot give up until the job is complete. Find one great example of resiliency in our interview with Melinda Moulton, Main St. Landing January 2022. It starts with the right fundamentals. Larry Bird, the legend of the Boston Celtics, was a firm believer that one can only achieve great things if one is obsessive over their fundamentals.  This insistence showed in the consistent results of play he had over his career.  Cities only become destinations when the underlying economy is sound.  In our current world, communities must cultivate home-grown primary employers first before they can support those trendy, ‘downtown' businesses that citizens generally think of when they are dreaming of destination cities. And in our current economy this means a focus on encouraging the growth of businesses across industries that focus on innovation.  Specifically, in the business of constantly creating the next generation of their product or service or entirely different products and services as part of their normal long-term life cycle.  Products become commodified and are sent overseas for production. No matter, the company has the next gen model underway to be locally produced.  Take this fundamental precept, ensure your community generates diversity of firms across a wide spectrum of employee size, industry and property needs and you will soon find yourself attracting yet more innovators from beyond your borders as well. This dynamism can play out over the long-term and reaps benefits for generations. Programs such as the National Center for Economic Gardening have lead the way in this realm.  Without a sound underlying economy, you don't create a destination city, your create a tourist trap.   Find out more about this approach from Chris Gibbons on SMG's ‘Are We Here Yet?' podcast March 2021. There is more we could discuss but for now, perhaps the most important part to embrace is to know that, countless cities have had to re-invent themselves.  Millions of hard-working enterprising citizens throughout the world right now are experiencing similar challenges.  There is massive amounts of data; scenarios in great detail on what has worked and what has not in the past.  So, we're not alone.  We need to embrace the need for change.  We need to embrace our unity with those also on this journey. We need to start believing in a brighter future by first believing in ourselves. 

In this episode of Pathways to Rural Prosperity, Chris Gibbons, founder of Economic Gardening, joins Don in a conversation about the role of market intelligence research as part of a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. Chris shares the history of this historic and possibly oldest entrepreneurship movement as well as some fun stores of how Economic Gardening is making a difference with growth entrepreneurs.

In today’s Substack-fueled shout-out, Code for Charlottesville is seeking volunteers with tech, data, design, and research skills to work on community service projects. Founded in September 2019, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department, and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. Visit the Code for Charlottesville website to learn more, including details on projects that are underway.On today’s show:An update on Habitat for Humanity’s redevelopment of Southwood The Albemarle Economic Development Authority gets a briefing on economic gardening Charlottesville Police Department releases its annual report for 2020Before the segments with soundbites, a few bits of timely information:Governor Ralph Northam has announced that the General Assembly will convene in a special session on August 2 to fill judicial vacancies and to allocate over $4.3 billion in federal relief funding related to the pandemic. In May, Northam and legislative leaders put forth a statement that seeks to prioritize the funds as an investment on Virginia’s future. “We reject calls to refuse these federal dollars, and we support the law’s prohibition on cutting state taxes to substitute federal dollars,” reads the statement. “We embrace this rare opportunity, and we choose to invest.” The five broad categories for investment include to help public health, small businesses, workers, public schools, and to deploy broadband across the Commonwealth. The Charlottesville Police Department has released their annual report for 2020. The total number of reported crimes continued a downward trend from 3,168 total Group A offenses in 2018 to 2,492 in 2020. Group A ranges from homicide to weapon law violations. Four people were murdered in 2020 compared to only one in 2018 and two in 2019. The number of calls for shots fired increased in 2020 to 292, up from 185 in 2018 and 169 in 2019. Overall, there were 35,744 calls for service last year. (read the report)(Read the report)For the second year in a row, Monticello will hold a private ceremony on Independence Day for naturalization of new American citizens. It is an annual tradition for such an event to be held each July 4 with a prominent speaker. Last year the event was not held for the public due to the COVID pandemic, and this year will once again be a virtual celebration featuring highlights from previous years. To get a sense of what these are like, take a listen to the 2006 event recorded for the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. Or the one from 2008. Or the one from 2017.   (calendar) After years of planning, construction is well underway for the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville’s redevelopment of the Southwood Mobile Home Park in Albemarle’s southern growth area. Land has been cleared along Old Lynchburg Road to make way for the first phase of the project. Andrew Baxter is the director of operations for Habitat and he briefed the 5th and Avon Community Advisory Committee at their meeting on June 17, 2021. “Last September as you probably are aware we had the ribbon-cutting, have owned the park for a number of years, invested a great deal in basic infrastructure and safety over the years,” Baxter said. In August 2019, The Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning of nearly 34 acres of land from R-2 to the Neighborhood Model District, and the concept plan in the application is for up to 450 homes. “We’re operating now under a 2019 approved non-displacement plan,” Baxter said. “That’s our primary commitment in this redevelopment, that we will not displace current residents of the park, unless they choose to go somewhere else.”Baxter said the idea had been not to move any existing residents in the first phase, but issues with aging septic systems on the site forced a change. “If you can imagine, a trailer park that was initially put in place in the 1950’s and 1960’s, about half the park is not on public sewer so that’s created some challenges,” Baxter said.  In all, 26 mobile homes are in the process of being relocated and that work is expected to be complete in August. Baxter said Habitat is complying with the federal Uniform Relocation Act as part of those efforts. (watch a video on the URA)“The options vary from physically moving a trailer to an empty pad in the park and the family goes with it, to moving a family to a vacant trailer that we own, to moving the trailer off property to a location that’s identified and desirable by the family, by the homeowner,” Baxter said.The first lots to be used for new homes will be ready this fall. “That will allow for the construction of what we call Village 1, so Phase 1 Village 1, which will be a combination of duplexes, there’s one single-family dwelling in Village 1, and then four condo buildings that constitute twenty units total,” Baxter said. Baxter said the process is also underway for existing residents to apply for Habitat’s homeownership program.“And that is an incredibly detailed, individualized process for each family that involves financial coaching, to get those folks ready if they want to be homeowners,” Baxter said. At the same time, the Piedmont Housing Alliance has been successful in their application for Low Income Housing Tax Credits for 70 units in what’s to be called Southwood Apartments. (2021 LIHTC rankings)“So there’s very low rent units will be available for certain folks if they qualify as well,” Baxter said. A second rezoning application is also being prepared for the rest of the park’s redevelopment. Partners in the project so far are Faulconer Construction, Atlantic Builders, and Southern Development. Atlantic is building the condominiums and Southern Development is building the market-rate units. Concept included with the rezoning request from the summer of 2019 There is other construction happening nearby on Old Lynchburg Road. After Baxter was County Planner Tori Kanellopoulos gave details on site plans that are under review, such as part of the Albemarle Business Campus development for which ground has already been broken. “Block 5 includes a 103,500 square foot self storage building with additional retail space and restaurant that would be 3,800 square feet,” Kanellopoulos said. Later in the meeting, Supervisor Donna Price updated the CAC on items the Board has been up to lately. I’ve not yet had a chance to review the recent public hearing on the Housing Albemarle update, so let’s hear from Supervisor Price about why only parts of the plan were adopted at the meeting on June 16.“The Board clearly, had a very clear consensus for support for the overall theme and structure,” Price said. “There were four areas we did not vote to approve and that was an incentives package for developers [and] what percent of affordable housing needs to be provided in a rezoning. Currently its 15 percent and there’s a proposal to raise it to 20 percent. What the length of the term for the affordable housing would be. Currently it is ten years and the proposal is to raise it to 30 years for rental units and 40 years for sale units.”Price said the final item where Supervisors had concerns was over how affordability is measured. At the public hearing, many representatives from the development community expressed concern about their increased costs. Ideas for incentives include tax breaks, reduced utility connection fees, and expedited application review. “We want to have a policy that not only makes us feel good but will achieve good,” Price said. “While we would like to to 15 to 20 percent affordable housing, is that going to be an economically viable plan?”Stay tuned.You’re reading Charlottesville Community Engagement. In this subscriber supported public service announcement, over the course of the pandemic, the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society has provided hours and hours of interviews, presentations, and discussions about interpretations and recollections of the past. All of this is available for you to watch, for free, on the Historical Society’s YouTube Channel. There’s even an appearance by me, talking about my work on cvillepedia. At their meeting on June 15, the Board of Directors of the Economic Development Authority (EDA) got presentations on projects that seek to improve businesses in Virginia and the region. The work of the Economic Development Office is directed by a strategic plan known as Project Enable. Roger Johnson is the director of Economic Development. “One component of Project Enable was to launch a business retention and expansion strategy,” Johnson said. One of the goals of the Project Enable plan is to put a priority on growing local businesses (read the report)To get ideas, economic development staff have been in talks with their counterparts at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. Jason Smith is the manager for a program called Economic Gardening which seeks to nurture existing companies started in the Commonwealth.“It’s geared towards facilitating growth for Virginia companies,” Smith said. “This is not about finding that next big base hit or home run. This is about working with folks in our backyards. It’s about working with companies that are looking to grow. They might now have that million dollar budget like the Googles and the Amazons have. This program will create an even playing field for those companies.”The program is aimed at manufacturing companies and other trades who are considered at their “second-stage” and offers training tools and advice on how to boost sales and overcome growth challenges. Two Albemarle companies that are participating in the program are Gropen and Biomic Sciences. “They get access to data, research, and intelligence they wouldn’t otherwise have and are able to determine where they should expand, when they should expand, and what their competitors are doing that puts them in a better position to be successful long-term,” Johnson said. Later in the meeting, the Central Virginia Small Business Development Center made a pitch for additional funding from the EDA to help fill a financial shortfall projected for the next fiscal year. Rebecca Haydock is the organization’s director. “Albemarle County makes up a significant portion of the work that we do,” Haydock said. “It is the largest recipient of our resources with clients being about 44 percent of them for the ten municipalities that we serve.”Specifically Haydock asked for $25,000 to help unlock another $66,000 from the state. The EDA agreed to make the contribution. The EDA next meets on June 30 for a special meeting to discuss whether it would be acceptable for a piece of property at Southwood to be transferred to ownership by the Piedmont Housing Alliance. Before you go today:This is a community-supported effort and about a quarter of the audience has made a financial contribution. For the next two days, I’m specifically asking people to make a monthly contribution through Patreon. There are various tiers that offer various perks. Want to fund a public service announcement? Click over there and look, and feel free to ask me questions. Thank you for your help in keeping this service going. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Chris Gibbons has spent 35 years in the trenches implementing economic development programs that are meaningful and based in scientific data. The concept of Economic Gardening is based in data-driven work that within many municipal organizations is still considered radical.  Base your efforts in entrepreneurial support; focus on marketable, fast-growing and innovative firms delivering high demand, low supply products and services.   The work blends a focus on stage 2 companies and entrepreneurial support informed by the science of complex adaptive systems (Santa Fe Institute).  In their own words “Adding sophisticated, corporate level tools to these foundational principles and then working out the root problems that prevented companies from growing, Economic Gardening started producing amazing results.  The job base in Littleton grew from 15,000 to 30,000 without recruiting a single company.”  Find the National Center for Economic Gardening We enjoyed a great conversation with founder Chris Gibbons on the work of economic gardening, where the institute is going and how our communities benefit when they focus on the right combination of business fundamentals and a look from within for the time, talent and treasure to transform our communities.   

Episode #5 explores what we've become, where we are, and how we stop missing out on all the cool stuff from an economic development and planning standpoint.  Engage: next city council meeting: https://www.gardner-ma.gov/calendar.aspx?CID=14,22,26 Mentioned in podcast: National Center for Economic Gardening: https://www.nationalcentereg.org Chris Gibbons' Free PDF on Economic Gardening: https://economicgardening.org/economic-gardening-book/  

‘Economic Gardening’ is an intensive program that helps stage two companies grow strategically and add more customers through targeted market research and intensive coaching. Staff from the Purdue Center for Regional Development talk through the details and explain how economic developers can access the program for Indiana companies. 

Almost exactly one year ago, we chose Chuck Marohn’s 2013 interview with Chris Gibbons as one of the Strong Towns podcast’s eleven “greatest hits.” Why this episode from among several hundred choices? Not only because it’s a compelling listen, but because Gibbons’s approach to economic development — Economic Gardening — has become such a core concept for us. It’s like we said last year: [Economic Gardening is] an approach to growing a city’s job base and economic prosperity that doesn’t involve a dollar of subsidy to a large, outside corporation—and produces better results than those subsidy programs, too. Economic Gardening predates the Strong Towns movement by 20 years, but you can think of it as the economic-development analogue to our Neighborhoods First approach to public infrastructure: a program that seeks to make small, high-returning investments instead of big silver-bullet gambles, by capitalizing on a community’s existing assets and latent potential. Or like Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn said in this new interview with Gibbons: “I tell everyone I can, if you’re not pursuing an Economic Gardening strategy, you’re missing out.” The approach too many communities take to economic development is what Phil Burgess refers to as economic hunting — or recruiting companies from other towns. As we’ve written about extensively, this often involves a race-to-the-bottom strategy that pits one city against another to see which can offer the biggest tax incentives. As Gibbons describes in this podcast, it's a strategy that also doesn’t necessarily create genuinely new jobs.  An economic gardening approach, on the other hand, focuses on growing local companies. It’s hard to argue with the results, including a 9:1 return on every dollar of funding in Florida, the country’s first statewide Economic Gardening network. In this episode of the Strong Towns podcast, Marohn and Gibbons explore how cities can grow an economy using a truly entrepreneurial approach. They discuss the difference between an entrepreneur and an investor, the two systems at work in every company (mechanical and biological), the importance of human temperament as a consideration when building teams,  and why every town and city needs to get on the “innovation train.” They also game out several scenarios familiar to towns and cities looking to build their economies. Chris Gibbons is the founder of the National Center for Economic Gardening (NCEG), and the former Director of Business/Industry Affairs for the City of Little, Colorado. He’s also the author of Economic Gardening, an ebook you can get free from NCEG. If your town or city is not pursuing an Economic Gardening strategy, you're missing out. We hope this conversation with Chris Gibbons will help till the soil for change where you live. Additional Show Notes Chris Gibbons (Twitter) National Center for Economic Gardening How Does Your (Economic) Garden Grow? - October 2013/April 2019 (One of our podcast “greatest hits”) Select Strong Towns articles related to Economic Gardening Five Low Cost Ideas to Make Your City Wealthier, by Charles Marohn Cities as Platforms of Productivity, by Andrew Price How to Encourage Entrepreneurship in Your Town, by Rachel Quednau Dunkin Our Future, by Charles Marohn

Zach talks to IBM VP in Tucson Calline Sanchez about the past and present impact of IBM in the community, and about the Tucson enterprise landscape. Then, Zach talks about economic gardening of the enterprises we have already here in Tucson and how to create an environment where both small and mid-size companies and large corporations can thrive and benefit Tucson.

If you’re looking for an example of the Strong Towns mindset applied to local economic development, you couldn’t do much better than Economic Gardening. It’s an approach to growing a city’s job base and economic prosperity that doesn’t involve a dollar of subsidy to a large, outside corporation—and produces better results than those subsidy programs, too. Economic Gardening predates the Strong Towns movement by 20 years, but you can think of it as the economic-development analogue to our Neighborhoods First approach to public infrastructure: a program that seeks to make small, high-returning investments instead of big silver-bullet gambles, by capitalizing on a community’s existing assets and latent potential. The approach has its origins in the Denver suburb of Littleton, Colorado, in 1988. Martin Marietta, a predecessor of Lockheed Martin, was Littleton’s dominant employer in the 1980s. The company was in the war business—it’s a major military contractor. As the Cold War wound to an end, the U.S. found itself, as a country, divesting from the war business, and in 1988, Martin Marietta laid off thousands of its Colorado employees. Littleton’s City Council tasked economic developer Chris Gibbons with a challenge: find local businesses that already exist that want to grow. Figure out what these startups’ needs are and how we can help them. Provide them with technical support, access to databases and analytical tools that can help them find customers, resources to help them manage the challenges of rapid growth. We’re going to grow our own jobs locally, instead of trying to import them from outside. Gibbons’s efforts were phenomenally successful, and sparked a whole alternative movement in economic development: Economic Gardening. Numerous cities and states now have Economic Gardening programs, and Gibbons and the Edward Lowe Foundation continue to develop and promote the concept through the National Center for Economic Gardening. In 2013, we had Chris Gibbons on the Strong Towns Podcast as a guest to explain what economic gardening is, what kinds of companies it can benefit, and the many successes the approach has enjoyed. It’s one of our most popular podcast episodes of all time, and so we’re featuring it as the final entry in our Strong Towns Podcast Greatest Hits series. Yes, we said “final.” Next week—Monday, April 22nd—Charles Marohn will be back from hiatus with a brand new episode of the Strong Towns Podcast. And we’ll keep rolling out new episodes on Mondays after that, so keep us in your iTunes feed or wherever you get your podcasts, and keep doing what you can to build strong towns.

In this episode with Steven Groves (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevengroves/), we covered a range of topics.  The first area I really wanted to explore with Steven was his involvement with 1 Million Cups in Charlotte.  Steven was new to Charlotte and almost immediately sought to bring in the areas first 1 Million Cups.  It’s a national ‘pitch’ platform with over 100 chapters across the country.  It’s unique because after a 6 minute pitch it solicits the input of the audience to help entrepreneurs learns and grow with their pitch. Steven is involved in all kinds of efforts to grow entrepreneurism here in Charlotte and beyond through both the Kauffman Foundation, the National Center for Economic Gardening, and the Edward Lowe Foundation.  He clearly has a passion for supporting local entrepreneurs and his knowledge and contacts in this space should be helpful for Charlotte for the coming years as he gets more involved. Some of the things Steven discussed in the podcast call are highlighted below. 1 Million Cups – brought to you by the Kauffman Foundation out of St. Louis Missouri celebrated its one year anniversary in Charlotte in March 2017.  Steven and Todd Sivers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddsivers/) started the local Chapter operating out of Industry Co-Working (www.industrycharlotte.com).  It meets the 1st Wednesday of every month from 8:30am to 10:00am and has two presenting companies at each meeting.  The format is a 6 minute pitch followed by 20 minute audience feedback.  In essence it’s a community oriented effort to support early stage entrepreneurs. National Center for Economic Gardening (https://nationalcentereg.org/) which is supported by the Edward Lowe Foundation (http://edwardlowe.org/entrepreneurship-programs/economic-gardening/) Favorite quotes – "As a serial entrepreneur myself, I genuinely see entrepreneurship as this path for both personal and financial independence." "Not only has entrepreneurship been a tremendous force in my life but in my work with the national center and working with successful second stage companies, I’ve come to understand and see just how important entrepreneurship is to us on this planet and here in our culture." "Entrepreneurship is what has made America great…. And this is my contribution to that." ProRelevant Marketing Solution (https://prorelevant.com/) – His company provides the Preznc Report “which is a competitive assessment platform providing highly relevant, strategically important information to executives and marketers who need to manage and improve the ROI on marketing investments…. We are the ROI guys in marketing.” Difference between Colorado and North Carolina – Colorado is working harder to push economic development and businesses into smaller communities such as Pueblo and Grand Junction.   There doesn’t seem to be as much of a push yet here in North Carolina – but he suspects that is coming. What does Steven think is necessary to grow entrepreneurism in North Carolina?  Education of focusing on existing North Carolina and Charlotte businesses. Go to a website called goodjobsfirst.org is a website focusing on educating about how a community should invest in growing a businesses and building a city. www.stevengroves.com, www.prorelevant.com

How effective are economic development strategies that seek to grow local entrepreneurship and small businesses? Todd Johnson at Gallup and Dell Gines at the Kansas City Fed explore the successes and challenges associated with this approach in an Economic Development podcast.

Special guest Chris Gibbons talks about Economic Gardening, the early days of success and failure in Littleton, CO, the nationwide movement today and how to get involved. This is a far reaching conversation that demonstrates why the smart money in local economic development is in Economic Gardening.

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