January/February 2009 | Trade and Industry Development

January/February 2009

Trade & Industry Development Magazine

January/February 2009

Moving Forward in the New Year!

Well I never thought I'd see the day that the price of gas would drop so much...and so quickly. It wasn't long ago I paid $4.09 for a gallon of gas; last night I filled my tank for $1.59 per gallon. Amazing! Looks like the New Year is going to be great - I just hope we don't become complacent when it comes to finding alternative fuel sources.

But the future does look bright. In this issue one of our Feature articles is on Alternative Fuels - specifically Biodiesel. Jim Zuber and Preston Boone tell how the future for biodiesel is 'bright green' in "Cultivating the Marketplace for Biodiesel in Your State."

In another Feature article, Jim Renzas discusses the four categories of life sciences and how each of these industries has different objectives and locational challenges in "Site Selection for Life Sciences Companies." And check out "Trends in Food Processing and the Impact on Corporate Site Selection" - Suzanne Davis explains that as companies evaluate growth and expansion plans, the site selection process is complicated by many factors.

Don't miss Kevin Mayer's Special Report on Nanotechnology Initiatives. I love how he begins his article, "Nanotechnology doesn't make the industries you promote. Nanotechnology makes the industry you promote more competitive."

In this issue

Insights

BY: Dennis J. Donovan

Economic Development Website Underperformance   By Dennis J. Donovan     Economic development (ED) websites comprise an indispensible tool for the corporate site selector as well as the most cost-effective marketing medium for economic development organizations. This is especially true for smaller communities with limited business recruitment budgets.   Yet despite the criticality of ED websites in the site selection process, most fall far short of customer expectations. The biggest shortfall is lack of important information necessary to develop a basic understanding of a particular location’s fit for the project in question. From experience, I would rate at least 2/3 of economic development websites as sub par. Developing meaningful websites should be accorded highest priority by economic development organizations (EDOs).  The Challenge  The essence of the challenge involves lack of knowledge as to what information is most important. It appears that most economic development websites are designed... more....