News

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Every town has a go-to place, a gathering spot where friends and neighbors take on the world’s problems, hash over local news and banter about ideas of how things should be done, what can be done and how to do it. More often than not, when the coffee goes cold, so do the ideas and good intentions until another day. Minnesota has its share of these small-town meeting spots for ad-hoc community advocacy groups that are unable, for one reason or another, to gain the traction needed to become an effective agent for their aspirations. In some places, however, it works...

5 Ways COVID-19 Changed Site Selection

Thursday, January 28, 2021

COVID-19 didn’t just upset the established model of corporate site selection in 2020; the global pandemic obliterated it. Site Selection Magazine’s annual survey of site selection consultants, conducted in late November, revealed five ways in which the global outbreak of coronavirus significantly altered how companies choose their business facility locations: Instead of people chasing jobs, jobs are now chasing people. Remember the good old days when everyone checked into the central office each workday and reported for duty? Yeah, neither do we. When the pandemic hit America in early March, worksites around the country began shutting down and the shift to remote wor...

Education and Training Opportunities in Health Care

Thursday, January 14, 2021

So you’ve heard time and time again about how an entry level position in health care can be a springboard to a new and fulfilling career, and that is true. Health care is one of the few occupations where you are limited only by your own personal goals in life. So I wanted to take this opportunity to share information about the education and training opportunities that exist to help you begin your journey as a health care professional. Health care for youth and young adults Not sure if health care is the occupation for you? There are many opportunities to tak...

Entrepreneurs, Here's Why 2021 Is The Right Time To Start Your New Business

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

The year 2020 came with its own share of problems. If there is one thing to learn from living through pandemics and lockdowns, it’s that a lot can change in a year. Many entrepreneurs started last January with high hopes and expectations for their businesses. However, many of those expectations went downhill as the year progressed. As with human nature, life moves on no matter what, so even though we were stuck at home for most of 2020, many businesses found ways to stay afloat. As we move forward in this new year, entrepreneurs are looking to strategize and many ar...

Five Essential Elements Of A Marketing Plan For A Small Business

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

If you are planning to open your own small business, the first step is to develop a business plan. The next step is to develop a marketing plan, as all business plans should be paired with a strategy for marketing your products or services. Marketing strategies vary in format, but they all have the common goal of attracting and building relationships with customers. The style is up to you, but it should include the following elements. 1. Marketing Goals and Objectives You will need to develop realistic and measurable marketing goals that cover a full calendar year and are aligned with you...

The Spirit of the Prairie: Generosity in Todd County

Friday, December 11, 2020

On a beautiful fall evening in late September hundreds of cars rolled into the Todd County Fairgrounds to take part in a “food drop,” a euphemism for a mass food distribution. It’s an all too familiar scene played out not only here, but across the country. The event, sponsored by the Food Shelf, and Todd County Health and Human Services, a team of volunteers served an estimated 570 households with boxes of dairy, product, and meat, no questions asked. Community involvement in this event, along with similar food distributions that take place in church parking lots, inside of local food shelves...

Minnesota Ranks First in Five-Year Business Survival Rate

Monday, December 07, 2020

St. Paul – Minnesota ranks first in the nation in its five-year business survival rate (2015-2020), based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state’s rate was 55.3%. In comparison, the national rate for the same period was 50.0%. “This ranking confirms something we know to be true – people who start things in Minnesota tend to stick to it. It’s part of that Minnesota work ethic that we’re known for,” said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. “This ranking bodes well for our economy, as we know that small businesses account for 47% of the jobs in the state.” A recent stud...

Top 30 Jobs in Demand Now in Minnesota

Tuesday, December 01, 2020

St. Paul – The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) is working hard to connect Minnesotans who need work now with employers who are hiring. One of the ways we do this is through posting a regularly updated list of the top 30 types of jobs being hired for in Minnesota. You can see this list at CareerForceMN.com/JobsinDemand. “COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges to Minnesotans and our businesses,” said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. “Despite these challenges, companies in many fields are hiring. DEED and our workforce development partners in CareerForce can help people looking for work now. From getting connections to employers wit...

Startups Key to Minnesota Post-Virus Economic Recovery

Monday, November 23, 2020

First, I’d just note that we gathered state leaders, partners and startups from across the state last week for a virtual event to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Launch Minnesota, a program designed to accelerate startups. You can find out more in Launch Minnesota’s First-Year Progress Report. I’d like to share a message I wrote – which appeared in the Star Tribune on Sunday – about the importance of our startup community to Minnesota’s economic recovery. To say that 2020 has been a challenging year for the Minnesota economy would be an understatement. In the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we lost a stunning 385,000 jobs. We'v...

Front Line: COVID-19 Spurs More Automated Manufacturing

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

The global pandemic has upended the labor market and dramatically and suddenly reversed U.S. economic expansion. COVID-19, especially, has caused U.S. manufactures to face unprecedented labor challenges. With COVID-19 and the need for social distancing, these shortages are escalating. Many factories have shuttered to protect workers and prevent COVID-19’s spread. Even before this global crisis, in 2018 Deloitte had already projected that manufacturers would face shortages of some 2.4 million workers through 2028. Read full article.

How to Keep Remote Workers Productive and Happy

Sunday, October 18, 2020

If a company has survived this far into 2020, they've figured out how to make remote work possible. But companies that see it as a temporary make-do effort will soon fall behind. Not only are the effects of the pandemic likely to affect the way we do business long term, but the fact is that remote work was a growing trend before the pandemic, and now it's here to stay. To be successful, companies need to move beyond making remote work possible and begin to make it more productive and efficient. They need to focus on ways to bring remote employees together while apart, engaging them wit...

Enterprise CP: Vital Link in the Food Shelf Supply Chain

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Nearly all of our grocery shopping begins at home when we sit down to make “the list,” that hand-written scrap of paper of the food items we need to fill up our pantry. As is the case in most homes, when the shelf gets low, it’s time to go. When it comes to filling the grocery cart, we rarely question the availability of our favorite foods being on the store shelf. Questions like where does it come from and how does it get there are not usually in the thoughts of most consumers. So, you may be surprised to lear...

2nd Avenue Apartments on the Rise

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

In large, densely packed urban centers, the lack of quality, market-rate housing is readily apparent. It is not, however, so easy to identify in rural cities and townships. In fact, it’s almost invisible to the community. Nevertheless, it is a reality that economic development associations face daily when trying to maintain existing manufacturing and entice new businesses to their area. That is why the recent groundbreaking ceremony for the 2nd Avenue Apartments in Long Prairie was a reason for celebration. The symbolic turning of dirt represented the completion of the planning and development phase for a major 37-unit market-rate apartment complex...