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Economic Development blogging
Submitted by acohill on Wed, 12/28/2005 - 11:31.
This new blog is a great example of the potential of local blogging to enhance economic development and to educate/inform local leaders and citizens. This new Blacksburg area blog has a nice mix of job opportunities, economic development news, and leadership issues. It is just what is needed in many local areas.
To make it successful, though, most communities will also need some training sessions to teach people about blogs, RSS feeds, and how to make good use of this new communications styles. Blogs are still poorly understood, and few people, even among the young, can tell you exactly what a blog or an RSS feed is.
Every economic development authority should be running a blog and a series of RSS feeds on a variety of topics, including enterpreneurial news, local quality of life issues, retail/commercial real estate opportunities, business management, and local governance.
How about your region? Are your economic developers using this new medium to communicate more effectively? If not, why not?
Bottom line: an economic development group that is blogging and using RSS feeds sends a strong message to businesses and entrepreneurs who might be looking at the region that the community is technologically savvy and connected. It's a powerful marketing tool. If your economic developers won't do this, maybe you need some new leadership at the helm.
Thanks
Andrew:
I have been subscribing to your feed for a couple of months now and I was surprsied to see that you mentioned Connecting People. Thanks for the publicity.
I think your comments are right on the money. We have yet to really see how effective blogs can be to topics such as economic development. For example, I spoke to a 1000 student management class recently and asked if they knew about blogging. Surprisingly, only about 10% raised their hands affirming they knew what it was. That was amazing!
You may want to check out Facebook.com - if you do not know about it. It is one terrific online college community.
Facebook....
I am familiar with Facebook. By some estimates, 85% of students at participating colleges use it.
I think the jury is still out on how online applications like Facebook will change us and the way we interact socially. I'm not convinced that the best way to meet people is to sit alone at our computer and browse personalities the way we browse in an online CD or book store.
But I've grown up in a different time, so my opinion is suspect. I've been subscribed to LinkedIn for about two years, as an experiment. The invitations I get are almost all from strangers who seem to think that being "connected" to me will help them find a job. Yes, they contact me because they are someone else's list who is connected to me, so there is some vague connection, but it would be very rare for me to recommend someone I have never met for a job opening.
We are all feeling our way along with the social software apps, and we have just barely scratched the surface.