"The endurance athletes who ran up two mountains in Roanoke's [Virginia] first marathon in 24 years brought with them $350,000 in economic activity, event organizers said...The marathon 'is drawing attention to the world about our valley having this great outdoors'...Organizers said they expect twice as many participants to register for next year's event...'it exposes us to other people outside of the region who will come back to visit or - even better - come live here or open a business here."
- The Roanoke Times

Hosting a New River Valley Triathlon in Virginia has been a dream since 2007.  While the event has yet to occur, and it will be very nice when it does happen, the contribution of a single triathlon to regional economic development is only the beginning of revenue generation.  A local triathlon creates a local triathlon economy.

As we mentioned in Doing Business with Triathletes, Set Up Events, a major triathlon production company, describes the business value of "The Coveted Triathlete Demographic."  While I don't meet all the criteria, as a business owner, I would covet me. I spend.

Much of my triathlon spending is public knowledge.  As of the writing of this post, I am the Mayor of The Weight Club and the Blacksburg Aquatic Center in Blacksburg, Virginia on Foursquare, a gelocation application, sort of like Facebook with places.  This is no surprise.  I'm in training for a 2010 sprint triathlon season so I frequent both places regularly to improve my swimming, biking, running and overall strength.   (You're invited to read about Foursquare on Handshake 2.0 if you'd like to know more about our Foursquare experiences.) 

I pay $419 for a yearly membership as an individual at The Weight Club. That's over a $1 a day I contribute to the revenue of The Weight Club, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with 70 employees.

We have a family membership at the Blacksburg Aquatic Center which is more, but I would pay $230 for a yearly membership as an individual.  That's 63 cents per day I contribute to the revenue of the Blacksburg Aquatic Center, a municipal facility funded by tax dollars with 40 employees.

As a triathlete, I create jobs. 

And that's just through athletic facilities memberships.

Don't get me started on how much I spend on triathlon gear.

But "getting started" is an important topic.  How did I get started doing my first sprint triathlon at age 50?  I was inspired by others.  Was I a member of The Weight Club before I was a triathlete?  You bet.  I'm a Foursquare-certified gym rat.  Was I a member of the Blacksburg Aquatic Center? No. Did I join when I became interested in triathlon and then pay an instructor for my first swimming lesson since 1969? Yes.  And did I have a bike? No.  Did I buy one at East Coasters? Yes...

Triathlon has an appeal that gets people started, regardless of age or in what condition they begin.  People training for triathlons, often their first, find each other, call themselves triathletes, and create a triathlon community.  They join athletic facilities and buy bikes... 

Hosting a triathlon in a locale can speed the evolution of a region-enriching local triathlon economy.

***

Triathlon is one of many athletic endeavors that falls under the category of "multisport." I envsion the New River Valley of Virginia with a multisport destiny.

"We want the New River Valley Triathlon HERE!" That's what organizers and sponsors of the New River Valley Triathlon would welcome hearing from a venue with a pool in the New River Valley.  If you're that venue, please contact the New River Valley Triathlon.

"Economically the event is said to have infused between seven and ten million dollars into the local economy."
- About the Ironman held in St. George, Utah for the first time in 2010

What local economy wouldn't want those kinds of dollars?

"After only three years in existence, the Hy-Vee Des Moines ITU Elite Cup has already become one of the most important triathlon events in the world, consistently drawing the fastest athletes in the world to Des Moines, Iowa..."

Des Moines?

Why not the New River Valley?

Handshake 2.0 is a proud sponsor of the New River Valley Triathlon, a sprint triathlon in need of a venue.  We continue to hope that it will exist soon as part of the Virginia Triathlon Series produced by Set Up Events.

As a company, we'd like to do business with triathletes.

Why?

USA Triathlon - the sanctioning authority for triathlons including the Olympic Games - has done comprehensive market analyses of the demographics of triathlon including The Mind of the Triathlete (.pdf). Set Up Events, in its Triathlon Sponsorships 2010 Overview (.pdf), highlights key points of those studies:

The Coveted Triathlete Demographic

• 81% [are] 18-49
• Largest age groups are 30-39 and 40-44
• Median age: 41
• 59.6% male - 39.5% female
• 98% have attended college
• 45% have a post-graduate degree
• 67% are business and community leaders between 30 and 50 years old
• Average [House-Hold Income] HHI: $174,600
• Mean [House-Hold Income] HHI: $133,200
• 93% gave purchasing advice in the past year to an average of 12 people

How many triathletes are there? 

24.8 percent more than last year, according to USA Triathlon.

In the New River Valley triathlete traveling area - North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Georgia and West Virginia - Set Up Events will register over 40,000 entries during the 2010 season.

Welcome, triathletes, to the New River Valley of Virginia! We don't quite have an event yet, but maybe you'd like to train here?  We'd welcome doing business with you.

***

Added 5/26/10:  According to The Roanoke Times, "The endurance athletes who ran up two mountains in Roanoke's [Virginia] first marathon in 24 years brought with them $350,000 in economic activity, event organizers said...The marathon 'is drawing attention to the world about our valley having this great outdoors'...Organizers said they expect twice as many participants to register for next year's event...'it exposes us to other people outside of the region who will come back to visit or - even better - come live here or open a business here."

Cartoon by Daniel Yowell

***

Added 5/22/10 - I thought this would happen to this cartoon! We have had several requests from those doing slide presentations on economic development and small business for permission to use the cartoon.  Yes, please, use it!  If you cared to give attribution - "Cartoon by Daniel Yowell for Handshake 2.0," and let us know, that would be great!  If you use the cartoon for a blog post or web site, using the same attribution and providing a link back to this post would be ideal.  Thank you!

From Margaret Galecki, General Manager of Coldwell Banker Townside in Blacksburg, Virginia:

We are honored to announce that for the second consecutive year, Coldwell Banker Townside, REALTORS (R) was voted the "Best Real Estate Company in the NRV."  Three of our agents were in the top 5 “Best Real Estate Agents in the NRV":  Mike Eggleston, Dana Orr, and Jeremy Hart.

Regional economic development is a frequent topic of discussion on Handshake 2.0 and we wanted to let you know one way we contribute to corporate development in the New River and Roanoke Valleys of Virginia.

As a full service real estate firm, we are able to provide top real estate service for you in our region.  We also have the additional ability through our association with Cartus Corporation's relocation network to provide businesses with relocation services for incoming employees and transferees alike.  

The Cartus relocation network handles over half of the relocation needs of Fortune 500 companies and only 1% of all real estate firms are qualified for an association with them. We're very proud to be included in that group.

Not only can we find your newest employees the most professional agents locally to make sure that your new “family” is taken care, but we can also make sure that your valued associates are taken care of when they need to find a new home in another location.  We hope to help you take the guess work out of “who you gonna call” when your employees need real estate help. We hope that you will choose to call Coldwell Banker Townside for any of your real estate or relocation needs.

For more information on our relocation services, please contact Shelly Wade Baldwin.

***

Coldwell Banker Townside, REALTORS (R) is a full service real estate agency specializing in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Roanoke, and Salem, Virginia real estate and homes.  Coldwell Banker Townside, REALTORS (R) strives to be the best online source for real estate listings in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Roanoke, Salem and all of the  Roanoke Valley and New River Valley.   Experienced agents are available to provide expert real estate advice and quality customer service.  You're invited to view this week's featured properties, learn the latest on CBT's blog, Keepin' It Real Estate, and see more CBT on Handshake 2.0.

Coldwell Banker Townside, REALTORS (R) is a client of Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0.

Should I stay or should I go?
- Clash

"Why should I stay in the New River Valley?" asks Allen J. Fuller, III.

To me, underlying the question is the premise that people should stay somewhere and need reasons to do so.  Why should I stay in the New River Valley of Virginia?  In Silicon Valley?  In Paris?  In Borneo? 

Should anyone stay anywhere?

Although I've seen no official announcement that a local company's founders have moved to the headquarters of the company that acquired it, their Twitter streams self-report that they are no longer local residents.

Should they have stayed?

"Should" is a form of "shall" which implies "an order, promise, or obligation."

Try these on for size:  "I order you to stay.  You promised you would stay.  You're under an obligation to stay."

The heaviness of those sentences saps my spirit and creativity.  And Allen points out that's the opposite of what people seek:  "...inspiration, people to dream and work with and businesses and localities that value their contributions."
 
In his latest post, Allen refers to my latest post in our dialogue on regional economic development, An Entrepreneur in Every Garage.  While that post discusses economic development in the New River Valley of Virginia and, therefore, garages in that locale, I'm glad to have an opportunity to clarify.  I think developing a culture of entrepreneurship as a model could fuel economic development in any locale's garages.  My company just happens to be currently based in this locale.

Allen asks, "So I ask, if you had the chance to talk to someone under 30..."

Having been fortunate to live a half century of an adventure-filled life in many places, I find myself less and less willing to give advice to anyone.  The more I see, the less I have to say and the more respect I have for a an individual's life path.

If I had a chance to talk to my 30-year-old self, I would say this:  "Spend less thought and heart and time on 'should' and 'obligation.' Give that thought and heart and time to living, loving and working in ways that are meaningful to you."

I have found living a meaningful life is not place-dependent.  I can stay or I can go.  Both work.

Allen continues, "So I ask, if you had the chance to talk to someone under 30, single and talented, who felt that trying to live and work in the NRV was a waste of time, what would you say?"

I'd say I think the wording of that question might contain its own answer.

Photo credit:  Jennifer Greger

"A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."
- Presidential campaign slogan attributed to Herbert Hoover

Allen J. Fuller, III asked me via Twitter, "You have talked about regional development in the past.  What would the NRV [New River Valley of Virginia] look like if your vision were realized?" 

Yes, I certainly have talked about regional economic development. A vision of the awesome power of social media to contribute to a regional economic revolution is fundamental to Handshake 2.0's business model.  We walk the talk of economic development through social media and Regional Economic Development on Handshake 2.0 certainly has its own category on the site.

If realized, what would regional economic development look like to me?

An entrepreneur in every garage. 

Or in every basement, coffee shop, dorm room, home office, bedroom or established corporation - wherever computer power and tools and materials could exist for a creative mind to invent.  And then for that mind to think, "This could be a business."

That's part of my vision.  It's only part because of this:

“When I started my company, I had to find my own mentors and scrape together capital in an ad hoc manner - and also do all the work required to make the enterprise succeed operationally.  I’m excited about helping the next generation of entrepreneurs by systematizing those critical tasks.  And Blacksburg [Virginia] is a great place to live and work.”
- Pat Matthews, DayOne Ventures Mentor

That's a hard way to go.  For my vision, which is impatient, I want new companies now, funded now.  That can happen when a culture of entrepreneurship is born of consciousness rather than opportunism.

I see our region creating a culture in which entrepreneurs are valued as individuals, as creators and inventors, as potential world-changers and as potential generators of profits, enriching their companies, their investors, and their communities.

Just look at these recent entrepreneurship launches, some within the past few days:

• Access to Capital, NewVa Corridor Technology Council, NCTC
• VT KnowledgeWorks Entrepreneurship Summit - In its second year, designed to bring together entrepreneurs and the partners and investors they need to succeed.
• DayOne Ventures

Allen, thank you for asking about my vision for regional economic development in the New River Valley of Virginia.  It's already taking shape.

BTW, Allen, are you an entrepreneur?  Got a garage?  Around here, it's a good time to be an entrepreneur.

***

Handshake Media, Incorporated, the parent company of Handshake 2.0, is part of the culture of entrepreneurship through membership in business acceleration center VT KnowledgeWorks. VT KnowledgeWorks is a client of Handshake Media.

One of the challenges a rural locale faces in developing a local technology industry is attracting and retaining talent - sometimes termed knowledge workers - information technology professionals, software developers, and experts in engineering and science, such as biotechnology and physics. 

For its series on regional economic development, Building a Region, Handshake 2.0 asked:

"What do 'knowledge workers' want from where they work and live?"

An official of a leading software company, who asked to remain anonymous, replied:

I think that for knowledge workers, the role one plays has a significant effect on the desire to be attached to a particular office location. The vast majority of the developers who work for my organization work remotely. They are largely individual contributors, they do not directly interact with customers, and their success in the business is measured by their output and deliverables, so, for all practical purposes, their participation in the business as individuals is secondary: they can go be wherever they want, turn in their code, and not worry about talking to anyone. For junior people especially, this is appealing: live in a hip place, or in a great natural environment, or wherever strikes your fancy personally, escape the office politics, and just write good code.
 
For those whose major focus is customers (consultants, sales reps, etc.), they want to live where their customers do, to minimize travel. Hence, the best thing a community can have is a big account: a Boeing or a Toyota or a UPS or other major firm that requires a lot of services and attention, so that you can spend your time working with one big customer rather than running all around trying to meet the needs of many smaller customers.
 
For people in my role, whose primary responsibilities relate to advising others, the most important thing I can get from a community is a concentration of like-minded people in similar roles. Wherever my management or my peers live, I want to live, and the main thing that a location can provide me is a concentration of people in similar roles, whether in my company or in partner firms. Richard Florida explores some of this clustering phenomenon in his various books (Cities and the Creative Class, etc.)

Essentially, for knowledge workers whose primary economic value is in their interaction with other people, the presence of those other people becomes the determining factor of whether a community is a good place to work. So, the presence of a company headquarters, which has a large concentration of employees with similar roles, weighs heavily in choosing a city to reside in. And then you get the virtuous circle of multiple companies with similar strengths clustering together to compete for scarce talent that was already attracted by their predecessors, hence Boston gets lots of new biotech startups because Genentech is already there, and the new companies are hoping to poach talent from the more established firm.
 
I’m not sure there’s a thing in a city that attracts knowledge workers, rather, there is a sort of critical mass / gravitational attraction process that causes certain types of workers to cluster around each other.

***

In our Building a Region series, are we asking the right questions?  What are better questions?  What are the answers to those better questions?  We welcome guests posts and comments.  With a guest post or an idea for one, please email us at contact@handshake20.com.

To the Help a Reporter (HARO) query service, Handshake 2.0 posted this question in anticipation of its Building a Region series:

"To foster its regional economic development, what are the three most important traits a rural region needs to develop in order to have a chance at attracting a high-tech Global 1000 company - or two or three - to establish headquarters, a division, a product development laboratory, or a research facility in its locale?"

John Sechrest, Economic Development Director for the Corvallis Benton Chamber Coalition, Oregon, replied:

In Economic Development, there are three choices:

1. Move a company to your area,
2. grow the companies you have, or
3. start new companies.

With the 25,000 Economic development agencies all chasing a much smaller number of opportunities, it makes sense to focus on the start and grow side of the equation instead of recruitment.

Economic Gardening is one of the names for this process of focusing on making existing companies more effective and growing new companies into the mix. Chris Gibbons of Littleton, Colorado has done significant work in Economic Gardening over the last twenty years.

The most effective creator of new jobs is to nurture companies that are in size between 10 and 50 people. They are the historical engines that have created new growth in an industry or a region.

Where we can leverage R+D and our university system to create innovative new opportunities, we can work with Global 1000 companies to make progress. However, it does not require the participation of the Global 1000 companies to make that progress.

Spending time creating a foundation to the local economy by growing local capacity for value creation has proven a worthwhile strategy.

Relying on incentives to attract Global 1000 companies who do not have a long term vested interest in the local community in the long run does not provide any kind of economic foundation. When you are able to create a critical mass of interconnected companies who create a local synergy, then you have a foundation for a stable local economic cluster.

***

In our Building a Region series, are we asking the right questions?  What are better questions?  What are the answers to those better questions?  We welcome guests posts and comments.  With a guest post or an idea for one, please email us at contact@handshake20.com.

In our introduction to the Building a Region series on Handshake 2.0 - in which we're exploring the definitions of regional economic development and related issues - we asked several questions, one of which was:

"What is the relationship of the development of a local technology industry to regional economic development?"

Jim Flowers, Director of VT KnowledgeWorks answered:

High-tech companies produce top-of-the-food-chain jobs.  Their highly-educated workforce, producing high-value products and services, earns above-average wages, and fuels the local/regional economic engine by consuming the products and services of the various enterprises that involve less intellectual property, such as restaurants, specialty stores, remodeling shops, lawn services, etc. 

In addition, high-tech businesses are commonly green (no belching smokestacks); they have a long life-expectancy (being grounded in the latest stuff); and they sell principally to customers outside the region (the technology world is really flat), thereby creating  a positive balance of payments for the region as a whole.
 
So, it’s reasonable to emphasize high-tech as a catalyst for more general economic growth.  High-tech companies produce high-paying jobs.  They are green.  They are connected to the earliest stages of new markets, and thus have long life-expectancy.  They contribute positively to the regional  balance of payments.
 
Should all entrepreneurship be supported?  Of course, that’s why we have Small Business Development Centers, SBDCs and community incubators.  Each sub-sector of the overall economic “system” has unique challenges.  No one has demonstrated a successful one-size-fits-all approach to business acceleration.  In many respects, business is business, but there are very real market sector nuances to be addressed.  The metaphor is weak, but you might compare broader economic development and developing a technology industry to the practice of medicine - family practice versus specialists.

Photo credit:  Jennifer Greger

Jim Flowers and VT KnowledgeWorks were featured in the Tech Showcase on Handshake 2.0, sponsored by Rackspace.  VT KnowledgeWorks and Jim Flowers are clients of Handshake Media, Incorporated.

In our Building a Region series, are we asking the right questions?  What are better questions?  What are the answers to those better questions?  We welcome guests posts and comments.  With a guest post or an idea for one, please email us at contact@handshake20.com.

Handshake 2.0 asks:

"To foster its regional economic development, what are the three most important traits a rural region needs to develop in order to have a chance at attracting a high-tech Global 1000 company - or two or three - to establish headquarters, a division, a product development laboratory, or a research facility in its locale?"

In seeking to define the what and how of a regional social media initiative and best practices for the use of social media for regional economic development, Handshake 2.0 seeks first to define what is meant by the terms we are using.  What is "regional economic development"?  What creates it?  What is the relationship of the development of a local technology industry to regional economic development?  How will we know how we're doing along on the way?  How will we know when we're "there"?

Are we asking the right questions?  What are better questions?  What are answers to those better questions?  We welcome guests posts and comments.  With a guest post or an idea for one, please email us at contact@handshake20.com.

Note:  Answers to these questions from thought leaders and the thoughtful can be found in Building a Region, a series on regional economic development from Handshake 2.0.