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So what does the next year hold for us? I am an eternal optimist. Those who know me may not think so, but they merely confuse my skepticism with pessimism.  Being a skeptic, means to question the authenticity or reality of a concept or situation. My skepticism gets me in trouble with people from time to time, particularly loved ones, but it helps me more than it hurts me. I am an optimist because of my belief in our ability as humans to impact our day, today and that will eventually lead to long term success. Of course, if one is sitting on the couch and accomplishing little, then one might as well be a pessimist.

My predictions for 2010 are what i would call hopeful. I didn’t get too far out on the limb. OK, maybe the Cub reference is a bit hopeful. Here are my predictions for 2010:

1. The economy will improve and everyone will agree things are getting better, but it really won’t feel like it much as high unemployment will linger for some time, and the easy credit we once enjoyed will have become a thing of the past. Our local economy will be flat, but housing will see a slight pick-up. In the long term, the economy will continue to improve oh so slowly. It will be 2013 before things feel better.
2. Consumer confidence will improve, but in small doses. The public will continue to consume, but because easy credit will go away the purchasing will be in small increments, be based on savings, and will drive up quality.  When one pays cash for things, one wants something to last. When it’s cheap, you will buy it more often and throw it away.
3. Local government will continue to feel the pinch of lower tax revenue as consumers spend less, use the internet more and property values remain flat.  It will take several years before local government will be able to achieve the revenue levels they had prior to 2008.
4. The State of Illinois will go bankrupt, unless our elected leaders have the courage to be realistic.
5. The Bear’s will win the Super Bowl.
6. There will be continued interest in the Green/Sustainable Economy. More jobs and more business opportunities will be generated by interest in making sure we have a sustainable environment, energy can be used efficiently, and the earth can be left behind for our grandchildren in a bit better shape than how we found it.
7. Social Media/Communication will become ubiquitous. More and more people will use social networks as a means to communicate, collaborate and build their standing in the world. Fax machines will become less and less important, and email will suffer as an inefficient communication tool. Businesses that are not having a conversation with their current and future customers through new social netwrking tools will suffer.
8. Economic Development organizations will begin to realize more so than they do today, the value of locally grown business and the folly of  smoke-stack chasing.  Elected officials too will begin to understand the importance of helping existing businesses.
9. The EDC will open a business incubator and begin a new era of innovation, discovery and entrepreneurship in the Bloomington-Normal Area.
10. And finally, the Cubs will win the World Series.

Enjoy your 2010. Tell me your predictions. What can you accurately predict for this year?

I spent a Saturday morning on  a panel discussion at the Multicultural Leadership Program “Business Development” day. The panel was made up of individuals who have spent time developing their leadership skills, their businesses or organizations in the Bloomington-Normal Area. I was honored to be part of the panel as it included some very successful people and I am glad to think I was worthy of that discussion.  We were asked about everything from the economy to the how we balance work with private life. I really enjoyed this discussion. The audience was the very first class of the Multicultural Leadership program that was developed by Phani Atyam,  a young leader who has almost single handedly put together this program for the culturally diverse people in our community. Phani is a smart, eager and interesting young man who deserves a lot of credit for developing this program, finding sponsors, and making this happen. So my hats off to Phani.

We discussed a wide range of topics. Leadership, failings, successes, etc. The one topic that interested me most was “what is our greatest failing or weakness”. Just about everyone on the panel said their greatest weakness was  “themselves”. I find that highly intriguing. How  would all these successful people come to the same conclusion. Is it that strong leaders and entrepreneurs are that self-aware? Do we all find our selves getting in our own way that often? I would venture that the answer to both of those are yes, and yes.

The current issue of Wired Magazine has the topic of failure front and center. They highlight the actor Alec Baldwin who has seen his career go up and down.  We have seen all types of people resurrect their careers on the public stage. I have seen privately people who seemed to be “out” get back “in the game” with perhaps greater success than they had before. American society, it seems, likes to tear down people when they are on top, but also offer forgiveness once they have screwed up (we’ll see about Tiger).

So perhaps my greatest failure might be the failure to fail. Or, better said, the willingness to say it’s OK if things don’t work out. There is a tomorrow, there are other opportunities, redemption is always at hand.  Hopefully some of the participants in the multi-cultural leadership program will read this and see my change of heart. Now go out and fail!

I purposely stay away from debates like the current debate on health care reform. And I plan to stay away from it here.  I look at our health care system and admit there are flaws. I also know that there are many really great medical centers, specialists and medical research and discoveries that are occurring here every day.  Is our health care system so flawed that it requires these huge changes that are being  reccoemnded by the Administration, the Senate, and the House? On the other hand, is it so good that it requires no fixing at all. My guess is that it is somewhere in-between.

My Mom just had knee replacement surgery. She is very fortunate. She is 79 years old and is  still insured by the parent company that now owns the company my father retired from in 1978. Add in Medicare and she had it made. She had to pay very little out-of-pocket. On the other hand as a divorced father of two teenage girls who live two hours away and for which I still foot the bill for insurance I am perturbed by the fact that it is so incredibly expensive,  and it has increased on average 8-10% a year since I purchased the policies. I could put them on my employers plan, but then every doctors visit in their home town would be  with “out-of area”  service providers. They might as well walk into the emergency room at that rate. Insurance hasn’t been easy, and it is incredibly expensive.

So I am not going to  weigh in on what I think about the current bill. I will keep that to myself. Instead I offer you too competing views on how this would impact small business. One paper is from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. They analyzed the impact of the House/Senate bill on small business. On what looks like the other side of the ledger is a report and analysis by the US Chamber of Commerce (I think their analysis is a bit dated as I understand the “public option”  is gone). You decide what you want to believe and what you think:

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Report: What would Health Care Reform Mean for Small Business and Their Workers?

U.S. Chamber Report: The Senate Health Care Bill will Hurt Small Business

Where you stand probably depends upon what your life experience with insurance employment, and benefits have been.

Over the past year I have been lucky enough to be a co-host fo a radio show centered on small business and entrepreneurship. This program is hosted by our local AM radio station WJBC 1230. This station is a gem of an operation. They have committed themselves to local talk and local news in an era of syndicated blabbermouths that appeal to the lowest common denominator. WJBC  is an investor in our organization, but also an investor in the community through their responsible local programming. Yes, they run some syndicated shows late at night and on weekends, but for the most part they are the “voice of McLean County”. Kudos to WJBC for having the patience and might I say wisdom for running this show.

One of the best parts of my show is my co-host Beth Whisman. She is one of the best interviewers I have met. She picks up on the issues small businesses are talking about and asks all the right questions. Trained a s a radio reporter from day one, Beth has a great way of putting even the most nervous guest at ease with her confidence and self-assured demeanor. We really couldn’t do the show without Beth. In addition, Brooke Weishaupt on our staff has been a super “Executive Producer” of the show. She has booked every guest, gets them a questionnaire that we can use as a basis for the show, and comes to every show to make sure things are going ok and to take few pictures. Thanks to Brooke, we can actually interview people.

BNBIZ Radio is all about interviewing small businesses and entrepreneurs that are starting,are in the midst of success or have a long track record in business. We hope by telling their story, others can be inspired and others would-be entrepreneurs will gain courage and hope in achieving their successes.  We had 44 shows this year and interviewed a wide variety of people. We also interviewed small business experts, talked about the business incubator and other issues facing small business. We heard about businesses starting the old “boot-strapping” method and those with full fledged business plans and sophisticated financing.

One of my favorite interviews was with the founding partner of Biaggi’s, a regional restaurant chain whose mother-ship property is right here in our community. I have never met someone who I felt knew more about every aspect of their restaurant company like he did.  His operation is so good, In the many times I have been in his establishment, I cannot recall an instance of bad service. He should be an inspiration to any budding restaurateur. You can listen to the podcast here.

There are so many good interviews. We have cataloged them all here so you can listen to them and download them. Next year we plan to continue to have more interesting interviews. Mark your calendar starting January 5th, 1:00 pm (CST) every Tuesday. We promise to bring you great stories.  I hope you listen and become inspired.

I recently went to a seminar on the economy by a local banker. He is always very good at presenting information in a way that people understand and provides a logical view of the nuances of fiscal and monetary policy without getting into the typical political discussion you see on television. According to our banker the news is cautiously good.

Non-farm payrolls fell only 11,000 in November. This beat the forecasts which was 75,000, and of course the unemployment rate dropped by .2 percentage points to 10%. It is still the highest national unemployment rate in a very long time, but things are looking brighter. Homes sales nationally and locally are also getting better. The difference in the percentage change in the cost of new versus existing homes is getting smaller. In fact in Bloomington-Normal the difference is getting minimal. However the total number of new homes sold is at least 30% less than last year.

Here are three points of good news:

1. There have been four consecutive months of growth in temporary workers. Often, as an economy climbs out of a recession, temporary workers are first to be hired. They often become permanent workers over time.
2. Wholesale sales increased 1.2% in October for the 7th consecutive month. For retail and consumer sales to increase the Wholesale trade must first increase.
3. Discount air carriers saw traffic increases between 7 to 12% in November. This may due to the fact some legacy airlines have been cutting back and travelers are migrating to the discounters.

Finally it looks as though the bailout of banks wasn’t such a bad idea. Citibank is finalizing a plan to pay back their TRAP dollars. Can AIG, General Motors and Chrysler be far behind? Only time will tell.

I have often said that the execution of economic development is the process of making friends. Maybe that sounds flippant or casual, but it isn’t meant to be. If one thinks about it, the success of any transaction in life can be measured by the trust and goodwill built between two parties. Think about a relationship between two lovers or a marriage. If there is not trust between two people then the compact fails. If an economic development professional fails to learn how to make friends, develop relationships and forget the human side of the equation, they will fail.

Economic Development is less about economics, less about development and more about listening and caring. Listening to what your community is saying, what your city councils are saying, what your investors and stakeholders are saying is important. Listening, not talking is the key to a dialogue.

Many of my economic development colleagues like to talk (including me). We are a gregarious and outgoing bunch of people. Sometimes we talk to make sure we can be heard. Sometimes we talk so we can sell our communities. Talking is fun, but people also need to be heard. As a parent, listening to your children reaps great rewards, and as a parent, having your children listen to you also has great impact. So you see, listening is key. Listening can speak louder than words to no matter who you are working with.

Listening is more than just hearing the words that are being spoken. Listening includes tearing down the filters you have created in your own mind about the topic being delivered or the the person delivering the topic. Are you predisposed to not taking what the person is saying seriously because you don’t like the person or the person’s viewpoint in general? Have you had some experiences in your own life that has hardened your opinion so much that what the person is saying hardly penetrates your thinking?

To listen is to destroy these pre-existing conditions and spend some time “hearing” what someone has to say. Putting yourself on their side of the table, and empathizing. You don’t have to agree with what they are saying, only understand why they say it, and only then can you have a real relationship and only then can you succeed.

So can we listen, and listen well? It’s as simple as learning to keep one’s mouth shut and opening your mind. Next time we’ll talk about questioning.

I told my mother the other day that I remember a teacher telling me in grade school, that one day someone will invent a computer that one can ask a question of and it will spit out the answer. A single unit, a single computer, telling me the answer to any question I might have. Pretty cool, huh? Well, I think the Internet comes fairly close. Typing a question into a search engine often achieves a similar result. My mother, who at nearly 80 years of age is a modern and well-read person still does not have a computer at home, wasn’t sure that I was telling the truth, but it felt good to say it, and to think about it. No one designed this to happen. In other words no one sat down one day and said, I think I will invent the all knowing computer. The Internet just kinda happened, didn’t it.

Tim Brown is the CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO and his video below is the discussion of a different way to think of design. He says that we need to to start thinking of design in a “big way”. Often design is incremental and doesn’t take into account the bigger picture. The design that he favors is “systems thinking” versus smaller piecemeal thinking. For example we often think of transportation in unitary ways. If I were to travel from New York to L.A. I could do it a number of ways. Car, train, plane, right? And each of those modes of transportation relay on their own technology to make it happen. But what if I could get in my car in my garage, drive to the train station, drive my car onto a train car, ant that train car was eventually loaded onto a plane in Chicago and flown to L.A., that would be a system, right. Indeed, Brown brings Isambard Kingdom Brunel into his presentation, the great civil engineer systems thinker who achieved great feats in his time due to this greater way to look at problems and challenges.

When you watch this video ask yourself if there is a way to solve a problem in your work or life that incorporated a system rather concentrating on a single issue or incremental part. Maybe you can improve your work, or life:

Is there a “system” in the next thing you design? In the next thing you “fix”. Let me know what you think.

Water. Snow. Moisture. We often talk about these subjects. But in many parts of the world, the subject of H20 is a matter of survival. In North America as in much of the Western world we “waste” water, or in other words, we use it without discretion.  TED went to India and recorded this video about how ancient systems are the sometimes the best way to get water to those who need it.

A simple method is sometimes better than something more complicated.