Captain Sully’s Lessons

We all know the story. Captain “Sully” Sullenberger saved the lives of 155 passengers on Flight 1549 after landing his plane on the Hudson River in New York. An experience like that is sure to teach something. Captain Sully has brought away some lessons for economic developers to learn from.

• Don’t panic – Sullenberger was able to handle a life or death situation while staying in complete control. For economic developers, the lesson here is to remain calm and in control no matter what. If you have just lost your largest employer, don’t panic. Instead, find out why. Was there something your community could have done and didn’t? Be proactive and communicate with the individuals involved. How can you work to mitigate the fallout?

• It’s not WHO you know but WHAT you know – The captain attributes the safe landing to the experience he’s gained over his years in the business as well as the ongoing training he’s received. For economic developers, the lesson here is to understand the process of economic development through real experience and also include ongoing professional development to make sure you are on top of trends and best practices.

• Balance and perspective – Captain Sully acknowledges that the demands of his job have affected other parts of his life. For economic developers we can be pushed and pulled in many directions – attending too many meetings that have little or no value, wasting valuable time on projects or prospects because of funders who don’t really understand, micro-managing and not understanding the big picture. It’s important to know that some things will just not get done and that every community has to make its own priorities for success.

• Take pride – Sullenberger has been praise by his peers for giving them pride in their profession. The lesson for economic developers is to take pride in not only what you do but also in the community or region you represent.

Know Thy Competitors and Know Yourself

We’ve talked about the importance of knowing what your competitor is up to and how well they are doing. This type of knowledge can help a community in many ways but how do you find out any information. When it comes to a competitor’s website, finding information is only a click on your toolbar away.

Quarkbase -will provide you with a wealth of knowledge about a site including how popular it is in social news and networking sites, its estimated traffic and even any Twitter accounts associated with it.

Who is Hosting This? will tell you who is hosting a site. You can simply drag the bookmarklet (applet or small computer application) to your browser toolbar.

Smart PageRank does one thing only, it tells you the page ranking of the site you are on. It also provides other information including traffic data and an estimated number of pages indexed on search engines.

DomainTools provides its information in a clear and easy to understand manner. Here you can see who registered the domain name and information about inbound links and references in search engines and directories.

Way Back Machine has nothing to do with 80’s disco and everything to do the history of how a website evolved. You can see how a site looked at almost any point in that site’s history. By looking at the older versions of a page or website you can see how its look and content changed and evolved.

All of these tools are free and are an easy way to look beyond just the website page. You need to know what your competitor is doing but these tools also can provide some useful information for your own website.

What Should You Be Doing Now?

The economy is in a definite slowdown and opportunities are hard to come by. What should you be doing to increase external and internal growth for your community? No matter where you want your opportunities to come from, and for your community to thrive, it is more important now than ever before to engage both your external and internal audience.

Time to take inventory – what is happening at the local level with your businesses, your partnerships, your stakeholders and your prospects? What is it they expect of you and what can you do to answer? It’s time to step up to the plate and start swinging.

Stay in touch – let your businesses, partnerships, stakeholders and prospects know you’re still around and interested in what they are doing. Determine their preferred method of communication and reach out to inform, educate, listen and just stay in touch.

Ask and you shall receive - ask for feedback on how you can do things better or improve communication. What can you offer to benefit your businesses, partnerships, stakeholders and prospects – they’re your customers and you need to know what they want.

Be someone people enjoy working with – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, enjoy what you do. Everyone wants to work with someone who is passionate about what it is they do. Being passionate about your job and your community is what can set you apart from other economic developers who are just showing up.

Be on the radar – keep marketing and promoting your community. You can’t just build it and expect them to come. You have to build it, market it, promote it and show it.

Where’s your competition – keep on top of what your competitors are doing. You need to make sure you are the first community that is thought of.

Be strategic – this is the time to have a strategic plan firmly in place. You need to know exactly what is it you’re doing today and what it is you’re planning for tomorrow.

Are You Smarter than an Economic Developer?

As an economic developer you have to know about a lot of different things. You have to be aware of what your community is all about, what is happening in the local, regional, national and global economies, what industry trends are happening, what are the best practices in economic development, how to write a good business plan, marketing plan, where to find financing. As an economic developer sometimes it feels like we know a little about a lot. What do you know? This is a quick quiz for you to test your knowledge of economic development terminology and simple basics.

What is absorption?
a) The process of absorbing nutrients into the body after digestion.
b) A measure of how much real estate product is absorbed with a given period of time.
c) Job created minus jobs lost

What is BRE?
a) Business Retention and Expansion
b) Business Recruitment and Enhancement
c) Branch of Real Estate

What is not necessary in a Business Plan?
a) Financial Data
b) Competition
c) Vision Statement

What is breakeven analysis?
a) Breakeven Point = Fixed Costs / (Unit Selling Price – Variable Costs)
b) Breakeven Point = (Fixed Costs – Variable Costs) / Unit Selling Price
c) Breakeven Point – (Fixed Costs + Variable Costs) /Unit Selling Price

What is FDI?
a) Financing Data Initiative
b) Foreign Direct Investment
c) Foreign Development Impact

If I gave you the answers that would be cheating. Besides that’s what Google’s for.

What's Love Got to Do with It?

It’s not usual for economic development and Valentine’s Day to be tied together. Sure, we can talk about the economics of Valentine’s. According to a survey from the National Retail Federation (NRF), most of us will spend about twenty dollars less this year than we did last year. Fewer people will be going out for dinner this year and will chose to stay home instead. It will be more about small tokens of appreciation than it will be about extravagant purchases. For economic development we can factor out what that means for our individual communities. How our local businesses will be affected. How the local consumers are spending their money – to local mom and pops, big box or online?

As Tina Turner belted out in the 80’s, What’s Love Got to Do with It? For the sake of your community – a lot. This Valentine’s, let’s look at a few ways that love helps your community.

· Love Your Community – if you don’t, who will? Love what your community has – the good, the bad and the ugly. Proudly promote the good and work to improve the bad and revitalize the ugly. If you don’t know the good, the bad and the ugly – make it a part of your strategy to understand what your community is all about.

· Love Your Businesses – in this time of economic slowdown, you need to ensure you value your existing business base. If you don’t have a formalize business retention strategy, this is the year to make it a priority. Find out what is happening with your businesses and how you can be involved and a catalyst to their success and growth.

· Love Your Job – be passionate about what it is you do. When you are truly passionate about your community it makes everyone else want to know why they need to be living there, doing business there, spending their dollars there.

· Love Your Competitors – find out what your competitive communities are doing right, what are the best practices being implemented, why are businesses there succeeding, why is investment growing there?

As Economic Developers loving your community has got everything to do with.

Is Your Community Investment Ready?

In today's economic uncertainty many communities are rounding up the troops and looking internally rather than externally. While communities need to ensure they have a solid business foundation in place they also need to ensure they are ready for opportunities when the tide changes. Economic development does not happen in a bubble and taking advantage of the economic slowdown to proactively prepare for the future is what successful communities are going to do.

Attracting foreign direct investment can provide a community with new technologies, products, skills and financing, and as such, can stimulate and support economic development. Investment readiness is about ensuring a community is ready when opportunity comes to knock on the door.

A recently produced Investment Readiness manual provides answers to explain the general FDI process and what is required by a community. It provides a step by step process that any community can adapt for their specific attraction goals. The manual provides contacts and links for agencies and organizations that provide additional resources for FDI attraction.

There are many communities that are doing investment attraction successfully and are ready for the opportunities. Unfortunately, there are more communities that are not prepared at all. This manual can be the first step to develop the economic development tools necessary.

Click here to download the manual. More information can be found at twitter.com/ecdevcomdev.

Economic Development 101 – Overview of Economic Development

Those new to the economic development industry and even those who have been involved for many years can be challenged to define exactly what economic development is. Is it job creation? Is it relationship and facilitation? Is it attracting new investment in a community? Is it diversification of industry? Is it increasing income levels? Is it managing rates of growth? Economic Development is all of those things and more.

One of the simplest definitions of economic development is the activities relating to working with the business community to support business development, trade, investment and partnerships. Each economic development organization needs to understand what economic development is for their specific community or region and they need to be able to clearly communicate it to their stakeholders.

There are a few myths or misconceptions about what economic development is. When defining economic development for your community remember to try to keep it simple – it isn’t rocket science and it doesn’t have to be expensive. It shouldn’t just be about high tech but it should be inclusive, collaborative and practical.

Before you can successfully do economic development you must clearly understand what it is you’re suppose to be doing. Taking the time to define economic development for your specific community or region is an important step to create community buy-in and to develop successful and sustainable strategies.

This is meant to be a series of articles designed to assist individuals new to the Economic Development industry. There may also be value to those already in Economic Development looking for additional resources and best practices. For a complete overview of economic development consider the EDCD Consulting “Economic Development 101©” presentation for your community.