Archive for August, 2007

On Death and Dying

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

By Dean Whittaker

None of us wants to think about death or dying. We pretend that we are immortal and in some ways, we are. Last week I sat with a friend of thirty years as he lay in his bed at home receiving Hospice care after a long illness. We talked about his life and how he endeavored to make a difference to communities recovering from economic setbacks, re-structured a federal agency to be more responsive to small business needs, and directed a state agency in its efforts to assist expanding companies.

During his lengthy illness, we had many conversations about workforce development and the role of education. He pondered the skills needed by students as they face an increasingly competitive world economy. He labored over compiling his thoughts into two articles that he entrusted to me to share with you. I think you will find them to be thought provoking and insightful. You may read them by following these links. The Global Challenge. West Michigan’s Response.

As I was leaving his bedside, he turned his head toward me and said simply, “thank you.” What better comment could one friend make to another friend? As I left the room with tears filling my eyes, I thought about my friend Dick Durkin and the contribution he made to all of us. Dick passed away peacefully on August 8th, 2007, with his wife and adult children at his side.

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Talent Based Economic Development

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

By Jim Edmonson

The old business model for locating a business was to locate near your raw materials, particularly if you were a manufacturer. Another location factor was to locate where your customers were located. Today it is becoming more apparent that the new business model will be to locate where your talent needs reside. Before, employees traveled to jobs; today and into the future, employers will travel to clusters of talent. This, in large part, is due to the advancement of global supply and distribution channels.

Do you know what your community talent base includes? If not, you need to inventory your talents and use your excess talent base to target market business. Another way to approach the issue is to look at what talents are most in need. A 2007 Manpower, Inc. Annual Talent Shortage Survey identifies the following as the “10 Hardest-to-Fill Jobs in the U.S.”

1. Sales Representative
2. Teacher
3. Mechanic
4. Technician
5. Management/Executive
6. Truck Driver
7. Driver/Delivery
8. Accountant
9. Laborer
10. Machine Operator

From this list one can easily conclude that business services, transportation/distribution, and manufacturing are three sectors looking for talent. If you can identify a surplus of talent in these occupations, you just identified three target sectors for your attraction program.

For more help with business attraction strategies, give us a call at Whittaker Associates.

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Future Impact

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

By Joel Burgess

In our profession of economic and community development, we often discuss future economic impacts. But have you ever considered that your greatest future impact may not even be a result of your vocation?

Dennis Rainey of Family Life recently posed the question: What are you doing today that will have the greatest impact on the future?

Answer: Your greatest impact will be through your children. For most of us, our greatest legacy will be the little people now eating at our tables, devouring our resources, and testing our patience.

Sociologist Neil Postman describes it well: “Children are the living messages we send to a time that we will not see.”

Of course we want those messages to be positive and for our offspring to positively influence the future. We want to raise happy kids who relate well to others and have the emotional capacity to change with the times. But how can we be sure what makes kids happy in the long run?

A recent survey conducted by The Associated Press and MTV on the nature of happiness among America’s young people asked more than 100 questions of 1,280 people ages 13-24 about what makes them happy. The answers may surprise you, and get you thinking about your impact on the future, economic and otherwise.

Here are the top three keys to kids’ happiness:

1.) Spending time with family. Nearly three-quarters of young people say their relationship with their parents makes them happy. When asked to name their heroes, nearly half of respondents mentioned one or both of their parents.

2.) Spending time with friends. In addition, most young people say it makes them happy to hang out with well-liked peers.

3.) Spending time with a significant other. Then there’s that beloved peer. And it’s not about sex. Being sexually active actually leads to less happiness among 13-17 year olds, according to the survey. If you’re 18 to 24, purely sexual relationships might lead to more happiness in the moment, but not in general. Overwhelmingly, young people want long-term relationships: a high percentage think marriage would make them happy and want to be married some day. Most also want to have kids.

It may be that we worry excessively about our kids’ future happiness when what they really need is for us to model happiness in the here and now. Show love, commitment and integrity to your children – yours is the most important voice in the positive or negative message they carry into the future. Investing in them bodes well for you, them, and your community for years to come.

Dennis Rainey, Family Living, Family Life Transcripts http://www.familylife.com/fltoday/realfamilylife.asp?id=9365
Jocelyn Noveck and Trevor Tompson, Family Ties Key to Youth Happiness. The Associated Press; 8/20/2007

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Trusty Methods for Trusty Results

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

By Jami Miedema

The study has been conducted, the homework has been done, and the industries that will thrive in your community are clearly spelled out. You’ve finally reached the middle of your economic development strategy! The next step in the process is to find companies within those select industries to attract to your area. So how does an organization, city, or region go about doing this?

Whether they brave the task alone or seek help from a business intelligence firm, such as Whittaker Associates, the first place to search would be a thousand-page volume of the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS). This system can help narrow down the search to specific niches within an industry, each classified by a 2 to 6 digit code. These codes are then used in secondary sources to find companies that fit into those particular categories. Although this is tedious and time-consuming, it is also accurate in its identification of targeted companies. However, what if one step of the process could be eliminated in finding desirable companies, but still yield precise results?

A research method Whittaker Associates has used and trusted has been to explore trade associations. These days, there are associations for almost any industry imaginable. Databases of member companies are often searchable online for free or for a fee. Although associations may have thousands of members to dig through, they are a great starting point to find companies within a certain industry that a community would like to target. While in-depth research about the firms is still needed on the back end, looking into trade associations may increase efficiency by phasing out the need to look for industry codes.

Whittaker Associates has had much success using trade association lists for research purposes. For one of our targeted company lists, this method resulted in six qualified leads and six suspects out of only 65 companies – an outcome which was of great satisfaction to our client! It’s always nice to see repeated success with a tried and true process.

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Whittaker Associates Goes with GoToMeeting

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

By Patrick McConahy

For a while now, Whittaker Associates has been searching for the right application to host its conferencing services. After taking a long hard look at what the market has to offer, we have decided to adopt Go To Meeting to host all of our conferencing needs.

Communication is vital to our success here at Whittaker Associates. Because so much of what we do is educational, we have to be able to teach our clients the best ways to use the products we deliver. This requires hands-on teaching that would not be possible without the technology that Go To Meeting software provides.

For those of you unfamiliar with conferencing software, Google “online meeting software” and a whole host of products will pop up. In essence, these programs allow multiple users to simultaneously view a single computer’s screen. For example, when we give WALT demonstrations, we can physically show a group of clients how to navigate our on-line lead-tracking system and database. A free phone-conferencing number is provided, and the set-up could not be simpler. All you have to do is click download and register your copy.

We took a look at several different conferencing programs, but in the end we decided on Go To Meeting because of its simplicity. Other programs, such as IBM’s Lotus, Meet Me Now, WebEx, and My Remote Meeting are very good, but can be a little bit too technical for our purposes. Go To Meeting is simple, yet very effective for our conferencing with clients.

If you have any questions about the software or why we chose Go To Meeting over all of the others, feel free to e-mail me or visit www.gotomeeting.com.

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Shove Tradition off the Roof

Monday, August 20th, 2007

By Rebecca Rooy

Sometimes it seems like I’m surrounded and staring, wide-eyed, at cloned characters from the musical Fiddler on the Roof, bellowing “Tradition!” from the rooftops to unhearing ears.

This insistent and unyielding mentality toward nonsensical traditions has always challenged, thwarted, and haunted the human race: way before the first Running of the Bulls and the many gory deaths to follow; way before the first New Year’s Resolution had been made and, subsequently, broken; way before the first newly 21-year-old decided to take 21 shots to celebrate the big birthday; way before the first HIV-positive person forced his own mythical purification by assaulting a virgin to rid himself of the virus; way before the first mistletoe was mounted and the kissing system enforced.

What is the point of these traditions? Why are they still supported and, ultimately, in existence?

Most scenarios of tradition and resistance to change aren’t quite as dire or extreme as the above listed circumstances, but the mental block is similar. How many of us grasp so tightly onto the past, chalking it up to establishing tradition, or some other excuse? How many of us truly want to embrace change, despite how positive it may be in the long run? Is it too much of a gamble? Would we rather feel safe than risk our familiar comfort to the unknown? I recently heard a stated statistic that within the United States, about 25% of the population is prepared and eager to embrace change, while approximately 75% is utterly resistant.

Change can be good. Change can be difficult. Change can be rewarding. Change can be scary. Change can encompass actions of learning, growing, innovating, and practicing flexibility. If we are reluctant to embrace change, what will keep us on our respective toes? What sort of betterment is available? Can we even fully imagine and explore betterment if our minds are closed to change from the start? To remain stagnant, unwilling, and unchanged in a changing world defines the epitome of what we, as a developing and progressive human race, should fear. We need to fiddle our way down from our rooftops and begin embracing change. This is, by the way, much easier said than done.

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