Attended a seminar at the Center for Rural Studies (Sam Houston State U) and several statements were made during the presentations that got me to thinking. There were several examples given as presenters were illustrating successful communities in their discussion of community and economic development. What was unclear to me in most cases was the barometer they were using to measure success. There was no clear indication that they had any empirical evidence to substantiate their assertions. It seemed like it was sufficient for us to believe that these communities are successful because the presenter concluded they are.

This situation reminded me of when I ask participants of my entrepreneurship workshops to give me an example of a local business they consider very successful and then ask them what brought them to that conclusion. I get a variety of responses from “they have been there a long time” to “they must be successful; they live in a big nice house.” Of course there is a whole array of reasons given. However, as an economist I look to financial statements for the data on which to base an answer to such a question. Of course no one ever has that information at their disposal.

Without any baseline data it seems to me that one has a difficult time determining whether communities are successful or not when it comes to community and economic development. TCRE has a Community Assessment Matrix that is used to help residents establish baseline values upon which improvement can be evaluated. Scores are given for attributes of community and of economic development. Even though the assessment is somewhat subjective, it still characterizes the current status of a community and opens up discussions about developing action plans aimed at improvement. Subsequent assessments should help indicate whether projects resulted in improvements or not. The assessment is available upon request and assistance in its use is also available.

Finally got the URL for the Texas Leadership Institute (TLI) linked to the new web site which is part of TCRE’s site. You can now go to http://ping.fm/S8LAj to find out the latest about TLI.

Austin RISE

Just spent a couple of days this week attending Austin RISE entrepreneurship seminars. This is an outstanding program now in its fifth year. All programs are free and create so much value it is almost overwhelming at times. I will share what I have learned over the next several weeks. Posts to social networks and the TCRE Blog are expected to become much more frequent.

Texas Leadership Institute (TLI) Survey

TLI is now a program of TCRE and is about to offer courses on a regional basis across rural Texas. If you would like to receive notification of future TLI courses and other workshops and news related to leadership, community and economic development, please subscribe using the link on the TCRE homepage. In preparation for selecting courses to offer and locations that will make participation more feasible for folks around rural Texas, I have posted an online survey. When you have a few minutes, please provide your responses to this short survey as it will provide valuable guidance for future TLI operations. The survey can be accessed HERE and should not take more than 10 minutes to complete. Thanks in advance for your assistance. We look forward to seeing you at future TLI courses in your area.

Headed to Sonora in the morning to visit with the Concho Valley EDC Peer Networking group. Afterwards we will visit the Caverns of Sonora. Look at their web site at http://ping.fm/qviK5 Looks like it will be an interesting day.

TLI under TCRE getting quick start. Teaming with Texas Film Commission to offer Film Friendly classes around TX starting this fall.

Texas Rural Challenge

If you didn’t attend the Texas Rural Challenge in San Marcos the past few days you missed a great event. The conference was organized by many, but kudos go out to Gil Gonzalez, Director of the Rural Business Program at the UTSA IED for chairing the event and for the TEDC staff for their major contributions. We heard speakers address Community Planning Tools, Community Research Tools, Infrastructure Planning & Development, Capacity Building, Creating New Markets for Small Businesses, Entrepreneurship as an Economic Development Tool, Rural Resources and Capital Access. Outstanding keynote speakers included Brian Dabson from RUPRI, Bob McKinley from UTSA IED, Judy Canales from USDA-RD Washington, and Burt Chojnowski from Fairfield, Iowa. Looks like this will be an annual event so make plans to attend next year as it should be even bigger and better. The networking among the 250 plus participants was invaluable.  Watch future posts for links to presentations.

Developing Entrepreneur Ready Communities

For those interested in working with communities to become Entrepreneur Ready, there will be a free webinar 9-10 a.m. CDT on Tuesday, April 20. We will share background and criteria for the TCRE certification program. This will be on the TAMU Centra system…guest URL is http://165.95.250.7/GA/main/000000738e971101259941074c006d72 Please email gclary@ag.tamu.edu with questions or problems. Following is a program description:

Learn about what it takes for your community to be certified as an Entrepreneur Ready Community including:
1. Benefits of entrepreneurship as an economic development strategy
2. Organizing the effort including who should be involved and how to get started
3. Educational programs to build local interest and capacity
4. Assessments that guide identification of community and economic issues for remediation
5. Fostering key partnerships and networks to create a sustainable entrepreneur support system

Operating a virtual office

Alan Weinkrantz published an informative column in the April 6 San Antonio Express-News on operating a virtual office. With the tight challenging economic times business owners are facing, it seems imperative to do whatever possible to run your office more efficiently and at a much lower cost. I attended several seminars at RISE Austin several weeks ago and met several entrepreneurs that are working virtually and some that use communal office space rented temporarily from a provider. One of the seminars was actually held in an old house in East Austin that had been converted to accommodate several budding entrepreneurs that were bootstrapping their businesses.

Technology and cloud computing has made it much easier to run a virtual company. Several online tools are available that you might want to look into such as Google Apps, www.google.com/apps. You will find a comprehensive suite of online applications for work processing, spreadsheets, calendars, document sharing, communications and many others for very little cost per year.

Another site you might want to look at is Small Business Web (thesmallbusinessweb.com) as it has a directory of Web-based applications that include accounting, analytics, billing, customer relationship management, ecommerce, and many more. The great thing about all these software applications is that you do not have to own anything and never have to worry about upgrading. It is all done automatically on the various sites.

“Give me a computer and a cell phone and I can do business about anywhere I have connectivity” is commonly heard in entrepreneur circles. There is not doubt that technology is changing the face of how we do business. There is a steep learning curve for some of the applications and sometimes it takes a little creativity to fit them to your specific needs. However, it is here to stay and offers a considerable amount of efficiencies if we learn how to adapt the appropriate tools to our needs. I for one am looking at ways to help more people with less windshield time.

Making the case for supporting entrepreneurs

The first of what I hope will be many recorded programs aimed at developing Entrepreneur Ready Communities is listed at on the TCRE/Resources/Webinars page…first posting is Making the Case for Supporting Entrepreneurs as an Economic Development Strategy: a Historical Perspective. This is my attempt at being a little creative after thinking about the fact that entrepreneurship is not something new and that we should occasionally look to history as it offers many lessons that benefit us today. Enjoy and look for future installments on related topics as I get the technology kinks worked out. Any and all comments are welcome.