The coronavirus pandemic plunged the world into a deep health and economic crisis. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine points to a “light at the end of the tunnel” for the country’s physical health, but as we collectively take stock for ways to rebuild our economy stronger and more resilient than before, we need to remember what works. Entrepreneurism has been, and will continue to be, a driver of long-term economic growth.
The economic free fall brought about by the coronavirus was unexpected and unprecedented. Experts are still attempting to fully understand, quantify, and predict the full extent of the fallout...
AD: How has COVID-19 changed the employee experience in manufacturing, and what facets of this should organizations retain going forward?
Zenk: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees have been experiencing a drastically different work environment. Thousands of manufacturers across the U.S. and around the world were deemed essential during the pandemic, and their production lines haven’t stopped. They’ve continued to produce essential goods that the global community relies on — from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and cleaning supplies we use in our homes. As some manufacturers increased output and others reconfigured operations to satisfy urgent demands...
Back in the 1980s, the term “offshoring” became a business buzzword as more and more U.S. companies moved manufacturing to foreign countries, typically to save on labor costs. In recent years, “reshoring” has been added to the lexicon as companies decide to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., for various reasons.
In 2020, reshoring created more U.S. jobs than foreign direct investment (FDI) for the first time in seven years, according to data collected by the Reshoring Initiative. In 2020, U.S. companies reshored nearly 69,000 manufacturing positions, while greenfield investment in the same industries created fewer than 42,000 jobs, according to the Initiative...
The stratospheric rise of the cloud over the past few years caught many off guard and created an arms race among the cloud providers, with data center development underpinning the effort.
These cloud providers were anticipating ever-increasing demand for the cloud by globally creating a robust and redundant network of massive data centers tethered together through a network of smaller data centers and fiber connection locations. Data centers that service other segments of the market (wholesale colocation, “edge,” and retail) were also riding the wave of increased demand. Little did we know a global pandemic would make data centers and th...
Judging by the number of e-commerce and health-related facility investments all around us in this pandemic year, you’d expect those categories to vault to the top of any global ranking by industry sector.
They didn’t quite reach the summit, but logistics (+19.3%) and life sciences (+12%) show the biggest — and only — growth rates among the Top Industries of 2020, as judged by the number of projects tracked by NAICS code in the Conway Data Analytics Database. The database since the 1980s has tracked facility investments by corporate end users across all world geographies and all industry sectors.
Life sciences rise...
As entrepreneurs we tend to spend many hours at work, however, this may not be the most beneficial for your health or even for your cognitive development.
According to a study published by the Melbourne Institute Worker Paper , spending only 25 hours at work a week, that is, three days, could be the healthiest, especially if you are over 40 years old.
According to Australian researchers , who analyzed 3,000 men and 3,000 women, working more than 55 hours a week produces fatigue, stress, affects neural processes and atrophy cognitive functions. That is, reducing work time to 25 hours for every seven days improves memory, abstract reasonin...
Because of its support of Fort Riley, Junction City, Kansas was named a Great American Defense Community in 2020. This award celebrates communities with an exceptional commitment to improving the lives of service members, veterans, and their families.
“Only five communities are selected annually to receive the Great American Defense Community Award amongst all military installations in the U.S., not just the Army, so it is very select company,” said Craig Bender, Military Affairs Council Director.
Defense communities are the towns, cities, counties, regions, and states that serve as home to the nation’s military installations and industrial partners. In some cases, ther...
Core technology jobs are weathering the pandemic better than many other occupations as demand stays strong for tech services and products that support social distancing and basic business and societal functions. This bodes well for tech hotspots across North America.
The tech industry already is a pillar of the U.S. economy. In the past five years, one of every four new office-space-using jobs created were in the technology industry. That influence extends to commercial real estate: Tech companies in this year’s second quarter accounted for 20.5% of office leasing activity in the U.S., more than any other industry.
The pandemic has pause...
Of course, the big factor impacting office and industrial parks going into 2021 is COVID-19. The pandemic has reduced business production and workforce (through illness, social distancing, and remote working), disrupted the supply chain and cash flow, and brought about significant investments in technology.
Across the nation, the demand for suburban office parks is rising as more skilled workers move back to suburbs, due to concerns about housing costs and quality of education — they also feel safer from COVID-19 and the civil unrest that is happening in some larger cities.
“The most notable shift is toward lower-intensity spaces, where getting int...
TOPEKA – Kansas had the most dramatic jump in economic development success of any state in the country in 2020, according to Site Selection magazine.
With 70 projects meeting the magazine’s criteria, Kansas ranked 10th in the nation in economic development projects per capita in 2020. The new ranking increased from 2019 when Kansas was ranked No. 20.
“Our latest Site Selection ranking proves what we already know: Kansas is on the right track to continue strengthening our economy,” said Governor Laura Kelly. “More businesses means more, higher-paying jobs for Kansans. As our economy continues to recover from COVID-19, our ability to attrac...
If you're marketing your products or services online, good copywriting is a must. Quality copywriting can be the difference between someone deciding your product isn't worth the trouble or that it's the most important thing they've ever needed in their life. It's all about perspective, and copywriting helps people get into the right perspective.
It's easy to outsource your copywriting needs, but that can get expensive quickly. If you're cutting costs and want to manage your copywriting yourself, learn how to do it properly in The Premium Digital Copywriting Training Bundle.
This five-course bundle features training from experts like Derek Franklin (4.5/5 instructor rating), Alan Sharpe (4.5/...
It can be easy to put team-building activities on the back burner these days. Who wants to schedule another video call? However, it’s a leader’s job to ensure the team is engaged and functioning well. And if you’re not making time for team building, you’re actually making your team less productive.
Although employee performance optimization — improvement of an individual’s own skill set — is important for personal growth, studies have shown that individual expertise is not what ultimately makes teams and companies more competitive and innovative. As clichéd as it sounds, teamwork really is what makes the dream work. Google’s well-known research into tea...
Every business needs a way to tell its customers about its products and services. Those marketing channels differ from one business to another and can change as the business grows. And just like everything else in business, marketing needs an investment. In the earliest stages of a startup, this investment is usually best spent developing a product customers need.
Imagine that you have just developed two brand new products. Product one has great signs of possible product-market fit based on customer interviews and the validation experiments data. Yet, you have no marketing budget for it. Product two is not validated at all, but you hav...
Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from difficult events, and if there’s one group who needs that ability, it’s entrepreneurs. Without resilience, every lost client feels like a catastrophe. Failure seems like a point of no return, despite being a normal, if unpleasant, outcome of starting a business.
Resilience, however, is not all or none. Some entrepreneurs are better at picking themselves up and pivoting than others. What separates people who thrive in stressful times from those who break down when faced with adversity?
Research by Vassar College Department of Psychology's Michele M. Tugade from 2004 suggests that resilient people experience positive emotions mor...
The world as we all knew it changed earlier this year with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seemingly overnight, everything that we used to think was normal had changed, and things that once were deemed impossible for the workplace became the “new normal.” Now, seven months later, most of us have gotten used to this “new normal” — embracing the work-from-home lifestyle, using new technology, wearing masks, social distancing, and connecting virtually. But what comes next? Eventually this pandemic will end, a vaccine will be readily available, and we will attempt to return back to our “normal” lives. Bu...
Junction City, Kansas has a business-friendly climate and exceptional access to higher education. Add that to its prime location along I-70 in the center of the nation, and you have a formula for entrepreneurial and business success.
LaDonna Junghans of LaDonna Junghans State Farm Insurance Agency is a prime example of Junction City’s spirit of success. Junghans has been serving the community as a State Farm agent since 1991.
Junghans, a Kansas State University graduate, credits her career development to jobs that allowed her to work closely with customers. She worked as an administrative assistant with a financial institution president, and the...
You know you need remote workers, now let's talk about how to attract remote workers to your community. REMOTE WORKERS bring an abundance of advantages to a local workforce, from growing the tax base to diversifying the labor pool. As remote work continues to grow, more communities will benefit from adding remote workers to their local workforce.
WAYS TO ATTRACT REMOTE WORKERS TO YOUR COMMUNITY
REMOTE WORK IS THE NEW NORM
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers who have been working remotely during the pandemic want to continue to work from home, according to a GALLUP POLL.
Between April and May 2020, the number of remote workers in the U.S. doubled, GALLUP REPORTS...
There is not a day that goes by where we don’t talk about the COVID pandemic. It is on the news, in our social feeds and it has infiltrated both our personal and professional worlds. Many businesses have shifted employees to a work-from-home routine; changing everything about how the business day works. We’ve moved from in-person to video. We’ve adapted to multiple family members attempting to be productive, in the same space, at the same time and we’ve shifted from brick-and-mortar to a heavier online presence. In the midst of it all, there have been many success stories. Yet, the challenges are ever apparent...
Have you ever seen one of those 50-page business plans that go into detail about every conceivable aspect of a still purely theoretical business? You probably have, since those business plans have been the industry standard for decades.
Yet, in a world where words like lean and agile are becoming the new norm for startups, 50-page business plans look a bit out of place, and with a good reason.
It’s a fact that creating a plan is very helpful for a new business. A study of more than 10 thousand businesses shows that ventures grow 30% faster on average if they create business plans.
Read full article.
If you’re like most professionals, you spent a lot of time in virtual meetings in 2020 and will in 2021 — more than you ever thought possible in, say, 2015. And if you’re like most professionals meeting virtually, you’ve lamented the fact that they could be better.
Virtual meetings suffer many of the same drawbacks as traditional meetings, including poor organization, bloated time slots and disinterested attendees. But they also suffer from a batch of problems uniquely their own, including intermittent delays, connectivity issues and the dreaded patterns of ongoing interruptions.
And of course, virtual meetings aren’t going anywhere. Many businesses that transitioned t...
Given the uncertainty businesses face in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, company leaders are looking at every phase of their operation to determine ways they can improve.
Workplace culture is one area commanding attention. As the virus caused business limitations and forced many companies to go fully remote in 2020, workplace culture was challenged in new ways. This was a reminder to company leaders to make this a priority, forcing them to find ways to strengthen it in the new year, says Mark McClain, CEO and co-founder of SailPoint and the ForbesBooks author of Joy and Success at Work: Building Organizations that Don’t Suck (th...
Many would-be entrepreneurs spend a lot of time trying to think of the next big thing. Most end up spinning their wheels and never getting a new venture off the ground. It’s hard to come up with an original business idea. However, if you look at some of the most successful businesses in the world, you'll find that they aren't based on new ideas at all.
The truth is that you don't have to be original to start a successful business. Many startups succeed in crowded markets by doing their homework and executing their business plans. Nerd Wallet, for example, succeeded amon...
Further assistance for businesses is now available — the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has reopened the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). On December 27, 2020, the Economic Aid Act became law and extended the authority to make PPP loans through March 31, 2021. With an official title of the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Non-Profits, and Venues Act, the Economic Aid Act is part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. This $325 billion title would provide additional assistance to the hardest-hit small businesses, nonprofits, and venues that are struggling to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic...
WATCO is a Kansas-based single-source transportation and supply chain services company with locations throughout North America and Australia. Founded in 1983, they grew from one locomotive into what they are today: a leading company that offers its customers water, rail, road and air transportation, material handling and storage, repair and maintenance, logistics, and design and development. They own and operate a diverse and unmatched network of short line railroads, terminals, ports, and mechanical shops. Junction City, Kansas is home to one of their railcar repair shops.
“Customers send us their railcars so we can fix them up to ‘track ready’ accordin...
AD: Can you define people analytics for our readers?
Williams: People analytics is described as the method of analytics which can support leaders as they make decisions about their employees and workforce. This method applies statistics, technology, and expertise to large sets of HR data, which should result in better business and management decisions by an organization. Another way of looking at this is how to get the best return on investment from their people — in an analytical, data-driven way.
AD: How can the use of data help industrial companies satisfy their workforce requirements?
Williams: Data can prove instrumental to inform industrial companies on the bes...
AD: How has COVID-19 changed the employee experience in manufacturing, and what facets of this should organizations retain going forward?
Zenk: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees have been experiencing a drastically different work environment. Thousands of manufacturers across the U.S. and around the world were deemed essential during the pandemic, and their production lines haven’t stopped. They’ve continued to produce essential goods that the global community relies on — from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and cleaning supplies we use in our homes. As some manufacturers increased output and others reconfigured operations to satisfy urgent demands...
The world as we all knew it changed earlier this year with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seemingly overnight, everything that we used to think was normal had changed, and things that once were deemed impossible for the workplace became the “new normal.” Now, seven months later, most of us have gotten used to this “new normal” — embracing the work-from-home lifestyle, using new technology, wearing masks, social distancing, and connecting virtually. But what comes next? Eventually this pandemic will end, a vaccine will be readily available, and we will attempt to return back to our “normal” lives. Bu...
Of course, the big factor impacting office and industrial parks going into 2021 is COVID-19. The pandemic has reduced business production and workforce (through illness, social distancing, and remote working), disrupted the supply chain and cash flow, and brought about significant investments in technology.
Across the nation, the demand for suburban office parks is rising as more skilled workers move back to suburbs, due to concerns about housing costs and quality of education — they also feel safer from COVID-19 and the civil unrest that is happening in some larger cities.
“The most notable shift is toward lower-intensity spaces, where getting int...
While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to accelerate consumer and workplace trends that were, in many cases, already under way pre-pandemic, challenges and opportunities in finding, training, and retaining an efficient industrial workforce remain constants for distributors and manufacturers. Effective site selection decisions hinge on a complex cost/quality balance of labor, logistics, and location. It is critical that occupiers remain vigilant in fostering a workplace and workforce that delivers on performance objectives while meeting current and future pandemic-driven challenges. With labor costs making up as much as 70 percent of warehouse operating expenses, the focus on workforce potential in existing an...
The strategy of simply creating a website and hoping new businesses will look at your community isn’t going to work by itself. You need a marketing plan to work along with it. A workforce attraction and business growth strategy need to target specific industry sectors. A solid strategy will have four key components: workforce attraction strategy, narrative placemaking and successful story creation, aggressive social media campaign, and a robust analytical approach to measuring the marketing effectiveness.
CRAFTING A WORKFORCE ATTRACTION STRATEGY
The demand for skilled labor continues to burden communities and US employers. Manufacturing has been on the rise, but the manufacturin...
It’s not enough to have a competitive advantage in the Covid-19 era. Marketing must adapt to the new normal, and crafting a strong and authentic brand helps with this process.
Brand-building is a long-term initiative that demands patience and persistence, but its benefits are worth the effort. The perks of brand-building are present in both internal and consumer-facing aspects of your business.
Below is a quick list of what you can expect from maintaining a strong brand.
Read full article.
Authors don’t write books for librarians, they write books for readers. So why are economic developers creating websites just for search engines?
The sole focus on search engine rankings has moved economic development website marketing away from the true intended purpose - connecting communities to business owners and expanding economic growth opportunities.
Economic development professionals desire more traffic. But that goal is getting in the way of making sure the users actually find the information they are seeking. We confuse the search engine rankings and analysis with success when the primary goal is still to deliver relevant content from the user. Th...
State business climates are exceedingly competitive in 2020, if Site Selection’s latest Business Climate Ranking is any indication. For the first time ever, two states claim the top spot — Georgia, which now has an eight-year run in first place, and North Carolina, which missed tying Georgia last year by just two points. What’s more, there are two additional sets of tied states in the Top 10, Texas and South Carolina in fourth place and Alabama and Arizona in seventh.
Half the ranking is based on a survey of corporate executives and site selectors (asked to identify the states they believ...
The Grain Belt Express transmission line, an approximately 800-mile high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line being developed by Invenergy Transmission, was announced on September 30th by Governor Laura Kelly, Kansas Department of Commerce Deputy Secretary for Business Development Bill Murphy and Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for Invenergy Kris Zadlo. It will deliver up to 4,000 megawatts (MW) of low-cost, homegrown clean energy from western Kansas to millions of Americans in the Midwest and other regions.
“Kansas is uniquely positioned to be a regional and national leader in the development and expansion of clean and renewable energy,” said Governo...
Junction City in Geary County Kansas is an ideal place to live, work and play. With a prime location in the center of the nation, “600 miles to everywhere,” it boasts the beauty of Milford Lake, property and resources for businesses, and a desirable cost of living. It was named a 2020 Great American Defense Community for its support of nearby Fort Riley.
While families, entrepreneurs, young professionals, and remote workers can all find amenities to love, it is the people who make the town a real community. Jeff Underhill is one of those people who shapes the character of Junctio...
Wichita, KS – NetWork Kansas’ Entrepreneurship (E-) Community Partnership announces the 2020-2021 Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge (YEC) Series. The YEC Series consists of local-level youth entrepreneurship competitions hosted by volunteers. The goal of the competition is to expose Kansas middle school and high school students to entrepreneurship. Forty-eight local events in Kansas cities and counties will culminate in a state championship hosted by Kansas State University, date TBD.
“YEC has been a great program for our kids in Northwest Kansas. I see kids who normally don't enjoy school actually get excited about developing and presenting their own business! All of a sudden, writing...
In the digital age, getting attention is anything but a given. An abundance of publishers, gadgets and apps are competing for mind share, and data overload causes audiences to block distractions and instead focus on what’s urgent.
Five years back, a Microsoft study found that humans now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish, which lasts about eight seconds — only two decades ago, we were at 12 seconds. That's proof positive why content must be compelling, truly entertaining and/or informative; otherwise it’s just mindless noise.
When marketing online, it also helps to have the right format. Entrepreneurs, startups and small- to medium-sized businesses can all use videos to hook audience...
If McKinsey & Company insights from July are any indication, consumers have rediscovered their power in the pandemic. Due to a combination of product shortages, economic and job concerns, along with a general willingness to change their purchasing behaviors, 75 percent of shoppers say they’ve behaved differently since coronavirus began spreading. In many cases, their new purchasing habits have led to exposure to unfamiliar brands.
This is a huge boon, especially for entrepreneurs trying to disrupt a market or industry. Under ordinary circumstances, getting consumers to move away from their favorite companies’ products and services can be challenging. However, with so much general uncertainty i...
For companies looking to stabilize their supply chains by onshoring, Junction City-Geary County, Kansas has the desired assets and amenities that appeal to site selectors looking to relocate or expand.
Why Did Onshoring Become a Key Strategy?
Onshoring to strengthen supply chains has become critical for many businesses as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the vulnerability of relying on global resources and products. Over the past 40 years, many companies focused on cost reduction, choosing to steadily relocate manufacturing overseas as global markets opened up in places such as China, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. However, because of world events, businesse...
To say that Covid-19 has thrown businesses for a loop would be an understatement. Yelp recently reported that, of the more than 160,000 U.S. companies that have closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, 60% are now shut down for good.
With businesses across the country struggling to keep their doors open, scaling your company in this economy might seem like a pipe dream. Not necessarily, says Charles Gaudet, CEO of growth consultancy Predictable Profits: “While we are in a challenging environment, you will find companies in every industry having their best year yet. Those succeeding are adapting, looking for the opportunity and using dat...
Five exits off I-70 and an abundance of affordable sites for development.
Higher Education
Kansas State University, a world-class research institution, is 20 minutes away.
Connected
An unbeatable drive-time radius with multiple major markets within 600 miles.
Technical Training
Twenty minutes from one of the top tech colleges in the nation: Manhattan Area Technical College.
2020 Great American Defense Community
This is a national level award that is only given to five communities per year across the entire United States after a tough competition between applicants. This award demonstrates the continuous dedication that Junction City shows in its support of Fort Riley and the 1st Infantry Division.
Education
An exceptional state public school system, ranked 15th in the country.
Natural Beauty
Home to the largest lake in Kansas with 163 miles of shoreline.
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