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Workforce shortages, business migration, government initiatives and rapid technology development bring unprecedented change to communities. These developments will transform your community's economic development ecosystem. Are you ready to lead your community through the change?

This webinar will begin by examining economic development edge theory and how communities can understand some of the expected changes. Participants will learn the difference between core strategies and edge strategies and how to apply these theories to communicate complex changes to boards and community members.

The second part of the webinar will cover change management and give leaders the insight on how to “bridge the gap” of change. Meg Manke will reveal different personality types and how to apply that knowledge to facilitate effective change strategies. She has a passion for helping others realize their full potential and breaking down social and personal barriers

Ben Eubanks will cap the webinar with research-based recruiting practices that can be used to help leaders with changing workforce needs and populations. His strategies demonstrate how employers and communities can use data and competitive talent practices to differentiate themselves from the crowd.

Grab your favorite drink and come party with Santa as we review top economic development trends for 2021! From new tech that's powering Santa's sleigh (aka our economy), to the toys that everyone will be talking about and stories from Uncle John - you won't want to miss this!

Advanced SEO involves a complex process that begins with a content strategy. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is for a website to pull up at the top of an organic search.

With so many websites available, Google spiders have to crawl websites to determine what they are about and then to determine if a site is authoritative/valuable or not. This allows them to make an instant determination as to which site is going to be provide someone with the information they are search for. So, what matters when it comes to SEO?

Golden Shovel Agency demystifies advance SEO and share content strategies on this webinar.

Are you getting the best results from social media? Every economic development organization can improve its SEO results with some simple improvements. Backed by research and extensive experience, the Golden Shovel Agency team has put together these Social Media Best Practices to help you succeed.

Our presenters will teach you how to optimize your social media profiles, grow your following, and get more leads through social. You’ll learn about some new features of each platform and walk away with tips and tricks you can use every day, along with a few “hidden” best practices that you might not hear of anywhere else.

Expect to learn:

1. How to get the most out of your social media profiles.
2. What an “optimal post” looks like in each platform.
3. Which audiences to target on each platform.
4. And much, much more!

Communities around the nation are continually asking themselves the same question: how do we attract, engage, and keep a millennial workforce? In this expert webinar, Kirstie McPherson, Director of Marketing of Golden Shovel presented about how to actively engage millennials in your community while working to attract new ones.
 

Recruit people to our city? Why should we focus on that over attracting businesses?

These type of questions from critics rarely surface now. Almost every economic development organization, urban and rural (especially rural), has started realizing the need for workforce attraction.

In this webinar we will focus on three key principles:

• Developing your talent attraction scorecard
• A look at talent retention
• Talent development - an inside job

The three elements to successful workforce development—developing, attracting, and retaining skilled talent—require short- and long-term thinking among community partners.

Ramsey County leaders wanted to effectively communicate with site selectors and companies looking to relocate, providing them information on the ample incentives offered by the east metro. In order to gain the attention of site selectors and showcase their resources, they needed a strong online presence with a user-friendly tool.

To accomplish this economic development goal, Ramsey County pursued an online incentives dashboard. This online resource consolidates local, state and regional incentives and resources for existing and future businesses. By offering a powerful, easy-to-use online portal, Ramsey County economic developers and partnering agencies are committing to vibrant business growth. In this webinar, Ramsey County Economic Development Specialist Rick Howden shared about Ramsey’s vision and how success.

Golden Shovel Agency is thrilled to announce a new geo-targeting tool that allows you to personalize your existing website content based on the geographic location of visitors. On average, geo-targeting:

• Improves time-on-site by 25%
• Increases pages-per session by 30%
• Nearly doubles the conversion rate of your CTAs
• Brings in more quality traffic

Geo-targeting is a new tool, offered exclusively from Golden Shovel Agency, allowing you to market your community to other regions, getting much more qualified leads. You’ll also one-up other economic development organizations. Not only does this tool make you the “cool kid” in economic development, but you’ll also impress your board and have a better ROI on your marketing dollars.

If you’re wondering how to talk directly to different geographic personas, don’t wait any longer! Start connecting with specific audiences from all around the world by using this fast integration in a single line of code.

In this webinar, GeoFli co-founder, Kyle Pucko explained more about this awesome tool and how to personalize your website to targeted regions that you choose.

What does it mean and what a community can do to attract investments?

Opportunity Zone’s have been the talk of the Economic Development world throughout 2018, most of the conversation to date has been targeted directly at private-sector investors and how individual corporations can utilize the program to meet their tax goals.

Springsted’s Housing and Economic Development (HED) clients come only from the public and non-profit sectors. During this Opportunity Zone Webinar, the focus is what local development leaders can do to become “Investment Ready” and how to encourage projects that meet their community’s goals in 2019 and beyond.

As an executive director, ever zone out at dinner with your family wondering how to get more quality engagement out of your board? Ever lie awake at night as a volunteer board member wondering how you can get your executive director to understand your side of the story?

Many of us have filled the shoes of one or both of these scenarios. In an organization, nothing is more foundational that a healthy culture and that starts with transparency, shared vision and common values. Unfortunately, the grind of every day takes us out of that mindset - how do we get back in the groove?

Meg Manke, COO of Rose Group International shareed with us about Organizational Culture and Dynamics and discussed how to create an environment where all the talents of an organization are utilized and stakeholders are engaged, appreciated and excited!

In this webinar, Golden Shovel’s Marketing Director, Kirstie McPherson walks through how to create a simple strategy framework in five steps: this process is critical to building a successful plan.

Your organization's strategy should start with five basic components: purpose and goals, advantage, target, marketing, and lastly, niche. These components, if built correctly, can provide a solid framework for use in grant writing, business attraction and workforce campaigns as well as internal stakeholder communication. We also discussed common answers among Economic Developers and how to think creatively through the process with best practices.

Where do leads come from? Where do they go? 

In this webinar we will lead you through a discussion about how to best attract leads, and how to track them, as well as what to do once you have them. 

Focusing on best practices and tools, this webinar is for any EDO!

Golden Shovel and National Community Development Services released a white paper exploring many of the issues related to the ongoing trend of organizational mergers / consolidation in the Chamber and economic development world.

Tom DiFiore, President of National Community Development Services (NCDS), highlighted in this webinar the findings and recommendations from leaders who have been through the merger process. If you – or your community’s leaders – have thought about a possible merger, tune in to learn the potential benefits, negative impacts, and what to know about the process.

Yankton, South Dakota has taken a fresh approach to diversity, inclusion, and workforce attraction. They are "Connecting Cultures" in a fun and vibrant way. Learn how they set up this innovative program and the benefits of having fun with inclusion and diversity.

Generating reports for site selectors, grant administrators, private funding groups or board members can take hours—especially if the information is scattered across multiple locations.

Wouldn’t you like to have all the information in a single location in a ready-to-use report generator? What if that information was located on your website and pulled existing, relevant information?

Golden Shovel Agency’s Universal Report tool for responsive sites makes it fast and easy for users to create customized reports using content from your website.

By only using the 'add to report' link found on all eligible pages, you can populate the content you need for your report. Once you're ready, view your report and you can review and sort your content as well as adding a custom cover page content.

Digital transformation is helping every industry in getting more efficient in using the resources they have, and augmenting their capacity on demand. When it comes to startup ecosystems, digital transformation can help in connecting startups with investors, develop quality standards for service provides, reduce overload of the existing facilities, and increase the footprint of current community services infrastructure through digital means. In this one hour webinar, you will learn about the digital components and services that can support a startup ecosystem in your economic development region. Presenter: Hassan Syed, CEO of Bir Ventures USA, founder of IdeaGist.

During this webinar we'll guide you through the importance of a strong email list and how to best use it for inbound marketing. We'll cover topics including how to build your email list, why it's important, and how to schedule newsletters and build your audience for a strong inbound marketing campaign. We'll look at all these items through the lens of an economic developer and how this audience is different than many other email campaigns.

As an economic developer, it is critical to take action to protect the local economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are specific things that can be done to help protect local businesses and the workforce. With the stimulus bill having been passed, it is important to understand what provisions are included for businesses and workers and how people within your community can access them. Golden Shovel created informative materials our clients can use to convey information about the SBA Economic Disaster loan and new Paycheck Protection Program, among others.

Effective communication is crucial when it comes to building support for your vision among local ED stakeholders. If the benefits of the project are seen as one-dimensional, you may only convince a portion of your audience, but if you are able to convey the benefits from multiple angles you can build broad support and receive less resistance from boards or city councils.

Impact DataSource is an Austin, Texas-based economic consulting firm that specializes in economic and fiscal impact analysis. During this session, Paul Scheuren will draw on Impact DataSource’s 20+ years of experience evaluating and communicating the value of a diverse range of projects and will show how helping economic developers analyze the impact of “the deal” is much more valuable than reporting regional GDP or other stuffy economics metrics.

Presenter Bio: Paul Scheuren is a principal and economist at Impact DataSource and currently leads the firm’s economic and fiscal impact model development. Paul also conducts analyses for larger projects including hospitals, mixed-use developments, oil and gas projects, manufacturing firms, as well as a variety of other activities. In addition, Paul has completed several successful economic analyses for the USCIS EB-5 program.

We all know that ‘facts and data’ are important for Economic Development communication. But the game is changing – Big Data strategies are now table stakes for innovative agencies and AI is the new buzzword. Standard marketing websites are giving way to interactive presentations that engage the user with information. But how to make sense of these new capabilities and apply them effectively to the needs of local and regional Economic Development?

In this webinar Bob Lytle, President of rel8ed.to and Aaron Brossoit, CEO of Golden Shovel reviewed recent examples of online systems supporting the goals of a US regional business attraction agency. You’ll view Big Data at work to understand the market, analytics strategies used to find and engage leads in the digital world, and simple steps to improve your online presence with compelling, interactive content.

Disruptive trends in technology are irrevocably changing economic development. Employment, supply chains, and social norms are all being impacted. Traditional models are no longer sufficient; our assumptions about what constitutes economic vitality must evolve. Every industry is adapting to respond to disruptive trends in technology. Economic development–as a profession–must show similar flexibility and a similar commitment to change.

This webinar, presented by  Jon Roberts, Principal and Managing Director at TIP Strategies, continues a dialogue that can move our profession in a new direction. Jon was elected to the board of KMFA radio in Austin, Texas, and is active in the technology community. He maintains his ties to the Northwest and is a Fellow of the Washington World Affairs Council in Seattle. He has served on the boards of several start-up technology companies and on state task forces and gubernatorial committees.

Economic Development video for business attraction is a powerful tool and strategy, but like any other form of content marketing, it works wonders when it's crafted by a professional who knows how to tell your unique story visually. In this session, presented by Brian Aiken, Founder of Neon Cloud Productions, you will find out why it's not just about having the content but when video artistry is designed by an expert, it will guide your intended audience through the sales process and call them to action.

There are 10,000 baby-boomers retiring every day.  This demographic fact provides a great opportunity to help revitalize small towns and cities. Bring talent, experience, and income to your area by attracting retirees.

How do you attract this asset to your community? How age friendly is your community? What are “encore adults” looking for in an age-friendly community?

In this session, presented by Dean F. Whittaker, CEcD., President & CEO of Whittaker Associates, Inc., you will learn the eight factors of an age-friendly community that attract active “encore adults” and how to assess your community’s age-friendliness.

Presenter Bio: Dean Whittaker is Founder, President and CEO of Whittaker Associates, where he assists on projects as a coach/advisor to the team, using his 30 years of experience in economic development and industrial/commercial real estate. Dean’s background includes managing three local chambers of commerce, and serving as a field staff person and managing director of Industrial Development for the State of Illinois.

Websites are a critical public face for any economic development organization. Whether large or small, your organization needs to think strategically and as an economic development organization, your goal is to provide relevant information and resources to your target audiences, like site selectors and businesses, so they can make investment decisions.

The right approach will maximize impact, inform target users and generate engagement. As you know, technology progresses everyday and there are always new options you can take advantage of. In this webinar, presented by Aaron Brossoit, Golden Shovel CEO, Lisa Hurley, Executive Director at York County Development Corporation and Bob Henningsen, Partner at Smart Solutions Group, Inc. we presented the best practices and tools that made the York County Development Corporation website a winner of the Gold Excellence in Economic Development Awards at the 2015 IEDC Annual Conference.

The economic development industry is changing faster than ever as new approaches and technologies are being deployed. Learn how virtual reality, regional connectivity, big data and lead tracking are adding fresh sophistication to small town economic development marketing. Through examples and case studies of progressive cooperatives, you’ll see how utilizing these new technologies can convert an aspirational success story into qualified business attraction leads.

In a 21-year career serving as the chief executive of a Main Street program, rural county economic development organization, and two metropolitan economic development organizations and chambers of commerce, Joe Raso used his Business Retention & Expansion program as the foundation for all his work. In that time, he discovered the four essential challenges all economic development staff and organizations face in their work and in this presentation, Raso will explain each of these challenges and offer solutions you can implement immediately.

Grant funding can play a significant role in project feasibility. Securing grant funding can be a bit tricky at times, but in this session, you will learn tips on how to find available grants, how to cultivate relationships with funders, and how to create a “dream” proposal that a program officer can hold up as a model for other grantseekers to emulate, rather than an application that needs explanation.

Presenter Bio: Michelle Landsverk, President of Landsverk & Associates, Inc. presented this highly relevant session. Michelle is a consulting business that works with businesses, organizations, and communities. She has worked in the nonprofit and economic development arena for fifteen years, and has helped numerous organizations with the process of project design, aligning partners, and successfully securing federal, state, and private grant funding for their projects.

Strategic plans and the strategic planning process are vital to organizational relevance and value. And they often create new energy and enthusiasm among staff and volunteers. But without new resources to implement them, these plans often fail to meet heightened expectations, or risk becoming the dreaded binder gathering dust on a shelf. Tom DiFiore, President of National Community Development Services (NCDS) shares in this webinar five-steps to making sure your strategic plan gets funded and fully implemented.

Each year more than half a million new businesses are formed. These new employers are a key element to creating strong communities, but often their first interface with local government relies upon the tools of a different era. Those tools are costing cities too much money, and too many opportunities.

In this webinar, presented by Peter Koht, Co-Owner of OpenCounter, we’ll share statistics and case studies to show how the efforts to make these processes more transparent and digital have led to higher levels of service and efficiency.

Do you mind your business? More specifically, do you mind your small businesses? It is widely known that the heavy majority of net new jobs created over the next 10 years will be from entrepreneurship yet most economic developers are spending the majority of their time recruiting big business.

During this webinar we will take a look at just how crucial small businesses are to a local economy. Join Mark Hays, SizeUp LBI National Sales Executive on this session, and find out different ways to help grow those businesses without having to change much about how you currently do your job.

This session will be for those seeking to understand and grow their community’s retail and restaurant businesses. Discover how retail today is a catalyst for economic development fostering a critical base to a vibrant community and strong workforce. Learn the consumer shopping trends that drive profits impacting real estate decision for opening and closing locations.

Presenter Bio: This webinar was presented by Lacy Beasley, President & COO of Retail Strategies. Lacy has been involved in retail real estate since 2005. Her experience with The Shopping Center Group and the Dickson County Chamber of Commerce prior to joining Retail Strategies provides her with the insight to understand the connections needed from the public and private side of the conversation.

What incentives would you offer to a company that would create 50 jobs with an average pay of $80,000 a year? In this session, you would learn how to attract these workers without the incentives. 

Dean Whittaker will be leading a discussion on how to attract the mobile workforce or "freelancers" to your community. Who are these workers and what makes them tick?

Presenter Bio: Dean Whittaker is founder, president and CEO of Whittaker Associates, where he creates, invents, learns, and teaches as he assists on projects as a coach/advisor to the team, using 30 years of experience in economic development and industrial/commercial real estate. 

Implementing the fundamentals of CRM, or Customer Relation Management, is of critical importance for economic developers. CRM allows economic developers to track and manage potential projects over an extended period of time. In addition, it allows for the connection of various stakeholders including company executives, bankers, site selectors, and government officials to any specific project allowing you to quickly identify individuals associated with any project.

Join Todd Smithee, President of Conrin, Inc. for a brief but highly interesting session to review about the advantages of integrating a CRM that will hep you to get the most out of your economic development efforts.

Presenter Bio: Todd Smithee is President of Conrin, Inc, which he founded in 2003. Since its inception, Conrin has specialized in implementing customer relation management for economic development organizations, providing assistance in areas including lead, account, contact, project and retention call management.

We recognize how busy economic developers can be and we know the job is demanding. This month Golden Shovel would like to offer the opportunity for you to just listen and learn and take a little time for yourself to hear from your peers.

In this webinar, Golden Shovel Agency introduced a panel of economic developers who have experienced success and are leading their communities through growth and transformation.

The following economic development professionals joined the panel for this exclusive webinar:

 -Rick Allely - CEcD, Mills County Economic Development Foundation, Inc.
-Brian Hanson - President & CEO, APEX
-Lisa Hurley - Executive Director, York County Economic Development Corporation
-Chuck Sexton - President & CEO, One East Kentucky
-Dave Simonsen - CEO, JOCO First, New Growth Alliance

Cost-benefit reports are ubiquitous in economic development but their quality and relevance vary significantly. The lack of an industry standard concerning terminology and presentation contribute to widespread confusion and misinterpretation. In many cases a high-quality cost-benefit report will help all sides better understand the good and the bad of what may come with a planned project and bring to light issues requiring further study. However, in too many instances these potentially useful reports are intimidating, opaque, and ultimately abandoned in favor of “gut feel”.

This session, presented by Paul Scheuren, an economist and Principal of Impact DataSource, is intended to help economic developers, their boards, and other stakeholders cut through the jargon, identify the hallmarks of a high-quality cost-benefit report, and utilize the cost-benefit report to its fullest potential.

Part 1 of 2
 

Cost-benefit reports are ubiquitous in economic development but their quality and relevance vary significantly. The lack of an industry standard concerning terminology and presentation contribute to widespread confusion and misinterpretation. In many cases a high-quality cost-benefit report will help all sides better understand the good and the bad of what may come with a planned project and bring to light issues requiring further study. However, in too many instances these potentially useful reports are intimidating, opaque, and ultimately abandoned in favor of “gut feel”.

This session, presented by Paul Scheuren, an economist and Principal of Impact DataSource, is intended to help economic developers, their boards, and other stakeholders cut through the jargon, identify the hallmarks of a high-quality cost-benefit report, and utilize the cost-benefit report to its fullest potential.

Part 2 of 2

Economic developers everywhere are scrambling to provide actionable resources to ensure long-term business continuity. APEX, the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion, recently updated its website with new Business Continuity pages. In addition, a moderated Business Forum provides registered users a place to post ideas, ask questions, and interact to help one another succeed in this turbulent time. In this webinar, Brian Hanson, President & CEO of APEX, David Faynik, General Manager of Altec Duluth Operations and Lisa Bodine, President of Giant Voices, reviewed how these pages are designed to provide insights, information, and also provided examples to help business be creative in doing their part to deliver useful products and services.

Aaron Farmer, President of The Retail Coach and Aaron Brossoit, CEO of Golden Shovel Agency joined on this webinar for a 'fireside chat' exploring the changing face of retail post-pandemic and what that will mean for communities. They reviewed the trends in the retail landscape, discussed strategies for retail recruitment, and explored some of the new technologies that are defining the New Economic Development Toolkit.

We understand more than ever that communities need to find alternative ways to showcase their assets. With the social distancing and travel bans, virtual reality tours are becoming the go-to method of allowing people to experience your community--without worry about travel restrictions. Join our PlaceVR team for how to create a memorable virtual experience.

The COVID-19 crisis will pass and communities that work to get heard now will be remembered after the crisis is over. Join us for this webinar where we will explore how to position your content, website and social media to best communicate within your community and with external audiences for the rest of 2020. Now is the right time to plan.

COVID-19 has disrupted the economy, supply chains & how economic developers do their job. But it hasn’t stopped them from pushing forward for their communities.

Industry leaders are refusing to have their hands tied and are choosing to fight for economic recovery and future growth. Hear from economic development leaders on how they are fighting the economic impact of COVID-19 and pushing for a prosperous future.

Join us and a panel of economic developers from different communities to learn about how to successfully navigate through the COVID pandemic.

Many local businesses have voluntarily or involuntarily closed down to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. Even the businesses that have opened are operating at an extremely limited capacity.

• This leaves local business owners at home thinking about how they can improve business and gain back lost revenues once things get back to normal.
• Entrepreneurial workers will have time to plan the business they’ve always dreamed of opening.
• Laid off workers may have no choice but to pursue some type of self-employment.

With no ability to go and sit down with any business advice experts because of lockdowns, online resources will be the only option available to plan for their new business or to resurrect their current company. Your local businesses need online assistance to solve this. To respond to this new challenge and opportunity, we reached out to our friends at SizeUp to find out what they could do for our economic development customers.

We understand it can be challenging to keep visitors on your website, even with the flashiest, most updated, easy-to-use website. This could be because the content doesn't resonate well with them. However, it's just not reasonable, or possible to give each visitor a unique experience, right?!

Now, GSA's new geo-targeting tool makes it possible for you to customize website content based on the location of visitors! When someone lands on your site from CA, for example, they'll see content related to CA. If they came from the Midwest, they'd see content that resonates with Midwesterners. Interested?

Do you still have questions about what direction to take your Opportunity Zone marketing? Have questions in regards to finding the right investment or creating an Opportunity Zone fund? Do you have questions in regard to building your community prospectus and getting it in front of the right people? Whether you've been doing your research, or just getting started, we're ready to help you get the word out about your Opportunity Zone and to be successful with it!

Economic development incentive programs are a powerful tool for EDOs making an impact in their community. However, questions and pushback from stakeholders can throw a wrench into those plans. A comprehensive analysis of the incentive package can illustrate the net benefit from a project and make clear the value of the incentive package to the company on behalf of local governments.

In this webinar Paul Scheuren, Principal of  Impact DataSource, explained how to clearly and comprehensively model common economic development incentives including:

• Tax Abatements or Rebates
• Tax Increment Financing
• Infrastructure Grants
• Job Creation Grants
• Free or discounted land

Paul Scheuren is an economist and an Impact DataSource Principal. Established in 1993, Impact DataSource is an Austin, Texas-based economic consulting firm that specializes in economic and fiscal impact analysis. Paul develops and provides support to Impact DataSource clients utilizing the firm’s desktop and web-based economic development impact models.

Now more than ever economic developers need to actively communicate within their communities and to prospective businesses. In this webinar, we shared strategies for how to communicate during the COVID crisis, along with communication strategies you can use to Get Ahead of the Curve when coming out of it. It is important not to go silent during this crisis.

Intuition alone will not get economic developers through the COVID crisis. Leaders need to understand what content people are consuming and how to make sure your communication is crisp and razor sharp to reach your audience. In this webinar, we reviewed how to look at website traffic to determine the best approach for communicating through the crisis.

How do you reach a CEO sitting in a boardroom, a thousand miles away or across the world? How do you capture the imagination and attention of a site developer sitting at their mahogany desk, sifting through a mile-high stack of proposals? Elite communities have discovered the answer – virtual reality.

In this webinar, you will learn how 360 VR technology is being used by economic developers as a business and workforce attraction tool.

Imagine if you could take control of your lead generation activity and convert sales-ready prospects before your competitors even got close? Lead Forensics is the software that reveals the identity of your anonymous website visitors and turns them into actionable sales-ready leads. In real-time.

Chris Murray, VP Partnership of Lead Forensics, reviewed some of the most relevant features of the Lead Forensics software and how to approach new leads. Don't miss the opportunity to improve the results you can get out of your economic development efforts by implementing this cutting-edge tool.

Lead Forensics is the lead generation tool that helps you fuel your sales outreach and grow your business.

What can Lead Forensics do for your organization?

Imagine if you could take control of your lead generation activity and convert sales-ready prospects, before your competitors even get close? Lead Forensics is the software that reveals the identity of your anonymous website visitors, and turns them into actionable sales-ready leads. In real-time.

For this webinar, we have invited Justin Sommer, Executive Director of Grow Piqua Now, to briefly share about his own experience while working with the Lead Forensics software and the improved results you can get out of your economic development efforts by implementing this cutting-edge tool.

The right tools can enable businesses to grow and scale faster, farther, and more cost-effectively. As communities everywhere pave their way forward through a global pandemic, it’s more important than ever to make sure supply chains are moving smoothly and working to save businesses money and resources. Navegate is the only comprehensive, global platform with all of the capabilities required to bring the power of digital supply chains to every business. Joe Pelletier, President, and Shannon Olson, VP Global Accounts of Navegate shared on this webinar how better supply chain management can put small businesses back in control.

2019 was a busy year in Economic Development, from Opportunity Zones, and Workforce Attraction we saw an abundance of activity. In this webinar Aaron Brossoit and John Marshall both of Golden Shovel Agency, reviewed 2019 from an economic development perspective. Looking ahead into 2020, we talked about what we're anticipating from marketing, attracting capital, and how to stay ahead of the economic development game.

Still have questions about what direction to take your opportunity zone marketing? Have questions in regards to finding the right investment, or creating an opportunity zone fund? Do you have the questions in regarding to building your community prospectus and getting it in front of the right people?

Join Sam Howard, Project Specialist of Northeast Kentucky Development and Kirstie McPherson, Director of Marketing for Golden Shovel Agency in a webinar where they focused on a variety of opportunity zone topics to help answer any remaining questions you have about the process.

As we begin the new year, what is the latest update on retail development and opportunity zones, and what does it mean for your community in 2020?

In this webinar, Lacy Beasley, President of Retail Strategies, presented and reviewed on the following topics:

• The state of the retail industry
• Are opportunity zones viable incentives to attract retail development?
• How public-private partnerships are the new normal in retail development

Retail Strategies is a full-service advisory firm that works with municipalities to bring retail and restaurant businesses to the community. Lacy Beasley currently serves as President and formerly as COO. She has been involved in retail real estate since 2005. Her experience with The Shopping Center Group and the Dickson County Chamber of Commerce prior to joining Retail Strategies provides her with the insight to understand the connections needed from the public and private side of the conversation.

In 2018 Lacy was named to the “Top 40 under 40” by the Birmingham Business Journal, included in the nationwide “Top 100 Influencers in Commercial Real Estate,” and listed as one of Birmingham’s “Eight emerging influencers”.

How do you reach a CEO sitting in a boardroom, a thousand miles away or across the world? How do you capture the imagination and attention of a site developer sitting at their mahogany desk, sifting through a mile-high stack of proposals? Elite communities have discovered the answer – virtual reality.

At IEDC in Toronto, Canada, Golden Shovel Agency unveiled the newest innovation in business and workforce attraction for economic developers: 360 Virtual Reality Immersion Videos. This technology allows site selectors and businesses to experience your community from their location

In this webinar, you will learn how 360 VR technology is being used by economic developers as a business and workforce attraction tool.

Placemaking inspires people to collectively reimagine and reinvent public spaces as the heart of every community. Strengthening the connection between people and the places they share, placemaking refers to a collaborative process by which we can shape our public realm in order to maximize shared value. More than just promoting better urban design, placemaking facilitates creative patterns of use, paying particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution.

A Community Conversation Guide for Making Your Community a Welcoming Place for Newcomers. Creating a sense of place is one of the key components for workforce attraction. In this webinar discussions will be held on a variety of placemaking topics, including a hands on guide that will help you to evaluate if your community is actively participating in placemaking design.

Learn how remote working, entrepreneurship, and the gig economy are changing workforce and attraction strategies.

Our presenters went over the new realities of what work and location mean. They laid out a structure for how to process how these changes will impact both what we can no longer do and what we will face immediately.

Case studies were also featured including specific examples of organizations doing this well, and how small businesses in your community can positively affect it long-term.

"Going to work” is not what it used to be. The old model of employer-worker dynamics has been fundamentally altered.

The labor market for professionals is increasingly defined by flexibility in how, where, and when people work. This transformational change is driving rapid growth of remote workers, an expansion of “gig economy” (1099) employment opportunities, and major disruptions in the real estate market, which by the way, are all connected.

In this webinar Jon Roberts and John Karras of TIP Strategiesdiscussed the new realities of work and how economic developers can respond.

Moving to a rural part of the country has never been more attractive. Coastal and population-dense areas of the country are experiencing a high-cost of living, COVID-19, and civil unrest. Any one of these issues alone can compel population migration toward less dense, rural areas of the country.

In a style unique to 2020, ALL three of these unique events are occurring simultaneously. Because of the aggressive rural broadband initiatives, people have the ability and motivation to move to rural areas. what does this mean for you?

Remember all the claims about "quality of life" or "access to great recreational activities" or "small-town with big amenities"? Now more than ever, the small-town charm is in vogue. But, like any great opportunity, if people don't know about your community, they won't move in.

Join Ron Kresha, COO of Golden Shovel Agency, for a free webinar where we will examine who is moving and how to capture the attention of the migrating population. You will gain helpful knowledge of migration trends and strategies to propose to your board or marketing team.

In the world of corporate site selection, three decisive factors come into play: Location, Real Estate and People.  

Site certification is all about proof that a plan is in place mitigating a variety of risks associated with a specific site. In this webinar, Dean Barber, Principal of Barber Business Advisors (BBA) , offered an overview of the different stages for site certification and how to achieve the process of building the necessary documentation.

Economic development organizations have changed to make small businesses their biggest priority. COVID-19 revealed that local businesses are the real economy that sustains community success. Small businesses also create 425% more new jobs than big businesses. The speakers covered effective tools and strategies that you can use to make sure you're implementing the best BR&E, entrepreneurship, and local business assistance.

Economic development organizations face hard choices. To encourage investment and job growth, they must make certain decisions. They cannot be all things to all people. To a large degree, an EDO must bet on certain aspects of a community to be effective. 

Site selection is a changing landscape, staying on top of the current trends and features is important for your local economic development. 

Knowing how to tell the story to match the changing trends is even more important. in this webinar, Aaron Brossoit, CEO of Golden Shovel, explained about the changes in site selection and how an EDO can stay on top of the curve with storytelling.

Plans, procedures, and everything we used to know has been thrown out the window as COVID-19 has taken over. With that, we can't assume that everything will just go back to "normal" when we come out of the pandemic. In this panel, our presenters explore the new roles of the economic development professionals post-pandemic and get into the nitty-gritty on business retention, automation, remote working, and business expansion.

Join Jon Roberts (TIP Strategies), Anatalio Ubalde (SizeUp/GIS Planning), and Aaron Brossoit (Golden Shovel Agency) in this panel where they will explore the new roles of the economic development professionals post-pandemic and get into the nitty-gritty on business retention automation, remote working, and business expansion.

Workforce attraction is crucial in economic development - without the workforce and enough potential employees - your business attraction can suffer. What does workforce attraction actually mean? What are companies actually looking for here when deciding where to locate? And more importantly, how do you even find this potential workforce?

It all starts with understanding the trends in the current workforce system -- how many people use just their phones to apply for jobs? What is the actual unemployment number and what does that mean? In this cutting edge webinar we discussed these trends and showed the audience how to use and build your own toolkit for workforce attraction.

The trade war and the COVID crisis have proven the value of shorter supply chains. Retail stores are closing, often permanently. The best solution to strengthen existing local manufacturers and provide the good jobs needed for social and economic stability for companies, minorities and displaced retail workers is to reshore manufacturing.

In this webinar, Harry Moser, founder of the Reshoring Initiative and former president of machine tool maker GF AgieCharmilles, provides the tools to help your organizations guide the work back to your region from China and other countries and to turn these critical issues into opportunities for your region.

Generating reports for site selectors, grant administrators, private funding groups or board members can take hours—especially if the information is scattered across multiple locations. 

Wouldn’t you like to have all the information in a single location in a ready-to-use report generator? What if that information was located on your website and pulled existing, relevant information? 

Golden Shovel Agency’s Universal Report tool for responsive sites makes it fast and easy for users to create customized reports using content from your website.By only using the 'add to report' link found on all eligible pages, you can populate the content you need for your report. Once you're ready, view your report and you can review and sort your content as well as adding a custom cover page content. 

Participants learned the basics of social media, channels, features and benefits, type of content and tips on social media best practices to increase engagement. Economic Development tips and tricks on how to effectively use social media for both business and industry attraction and community engagement. This webinar is suited for those considering starting a social media presence for their organization, or interested in some basic tips and ideas for furthering their existing accounts.

Have you ever wondered how other communities are able to add valuable assets to their community such as community centers, or to raise money for a new P3? During this webinar Convergent and Golden Shovel address the what, why, and how of creating a successful capital campaign and what that can mean for your community in terms of workforce or industry attraction.

Part 2 of “Why Invest” with Golden Shovel Agency and Convergent Nonprofit Solutions continues the discussion on packaging your community for successful investment for economic development by showcasing case studies from economic development groups who have completed successful fundraising campaigns that led to positive investments in their communities for years to come. We will identify key strategies to implement after a capital campaign and how to use that success for economic development marketing, whether that be to highlight a space for workforce attraction, or showcase new services offered to attract new businesses.

This final webinar in the series will bring all the pieces together so your community knows what to do to both prepare for and launch a campaign and how to best use it for marketing your community and economic development group in the future.