News

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...

A Heightened Focus on Reshoring

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the risks inherent in the global supply chain, particularly the worldwide reliance on China for medical supplies. The supply chain turbulence experienced during the pandemic undoubtedly will impact future business decisions, extending beyond medicine to other industries, including electronics, aerospace, automobiles, defense, consumer products, and technology. Incentivizing Reshoring Manufacturing companies accelerated moving production to low-cost manufacturing countries (known as offshoring) in the early 1990s. In the rush to globalize, key manufacturing sectors were abandoned in the United States. But now that the vulnerabilities of doing so have been exposed, there is talk of “de-globalization,” or reshoring. Read full article.

How to Work from Home Successfully

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Whether you’re a 9-to-5 office worker or an entrepreneur used to running around to clients and conferences for different business opportunities, the health crisis has caused many people to make the dramatic shift to working entirely from home. As someone who’s experienced the whole spectrum of work setups — everything from corporate offices to coworking spaces to getting work done on cross-country flights — I can say firsthand that even though it can be hard to make this quick transition, there are steps you can take to make working from home more manageable. Many people will even find some advantages to this setup that ca...

Minnesota Rural Broadband Coalition Launches Statewide Speed Test Initiative

Friday, August 07, 2020

By Ann Treacy From the MN Broadband Coalition... “The Minnesota Rural Broadband Coalition is pleased to announce the launch of the Minnesota Speed Test Initiative,” said Vince Robinson, Chair of the MN Rural Broadband Coalition. “There is no doubt that the lack of broadband in rural Minnesota hampers telework, distance learning, and telehealth. Our goal is to find out exactly where broadband service is available in rural Minnesota and what speeds people are receiving.” TAKE THE TEST: http://mnruralbroadbandcoalition.com/speedtest A pilot program for speed testing is ongoing in St Louis, Koochiching, and Itasca Counties. The Range Association of Municipalities and Schools has been leading the wa...

Business Development Return On Investment During New Normal

Wednesday, August 05, 2020

In the marketing world, many businesses focus on ROI (return on investment). However, when the business does not obtain the immediate monetary results it desires, the decision makers begin to pull away from social media marketing. This is especially true with ROI during a time of crisis, such as the pandemic. But, there is another side of the coin called return on influences, says social media marketing expert Christopher Tompkins. Read full article.

The Importance Of Remote Working To Younger Generations

Tuesday, August 04, 2020

As more jobs shifted to remote work during the Covid-19 crisis, many Millennial and Gen Z employees experienced “flex work” for the first time in their careers. According to the Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020, 45% of these younger employees had never worked remotely before the pandemic, compared with just a third after the onset of the pandemic. As of May 2020, the shift to remote work had largely been viewed positively by employees, with more than 60% of younger generations saying they would like the option to work remotely more often after the crisis and use video conferencing instead of travelin...

Crisis in the Heartland

Friday, July 31, 2020

There’s a daycare crisis in rural Minnesota. It’s looming over rural Todd County like a storm rolling across the prairie. Everyone in the middle of it can see it, even as it grows, but convincing those under clear skies that it exists is an uphill battle. Recently, local economic development authorities began seeing encouraging signs of support through the involvement of the MN Dept. of Human Services, Initiative Foundation and First Children’s Finance in the form of grants to several hard-hit communities. Last summer, the Initiative Foundation selected four central Minnesota cities to receive grants amounting to $10,000 each in respons...

Study: Your dollar goes further in rural Minnesota, if you can find a place to live

Friday, July 24, 2020

Nowhere in Minnesota can a person afford the cost of living on the state minimum wage of $9.86 an hour. In fact, most regions require well over $15 an hour to afford to live. However, rural Minnesotans can often afford a similar or higher quality of life than their metro area counterparts, despite overall lower wages, according to a new study from the Center for Rural Policy and Development. Read full article.

In Focus: When — and How — to Ramp Up the Workforce

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

With the uncertainty in the future of businesses and the length of the coronavirus pandemic, many companies have responded to the crisis by moving to conserve money as quickly as possible. Steps taken to do this have included laying off or furloughing staff, reducing contractors and consultants, placing a freeze on new hires, and reducing compensation. Many of these steps were necessary for companies to take due to the unforeseen collapse in the economy and a lack of demand for their services. However, companies now need to consider when is the right time to re-engage with talent acquisition and what ar...

How the Covid-19 Crisis is Affecting the 2020 U.S. Census

Monday, June 22, 2020

The U.S. Census is conducted in the United States every 10 years. The Census aims to count the entire population of the United States. The Census asks American households certain questions such as sex, age, and race of each person in the household. These demographics help determine congressional representation and how much funding each state, county, and community received of the $675 billion per year in federal funding. These funds are spent on schools, hospitals, roads, public works, and other essential programs. The U.S. Census data is also very helpful for businesses and developers. Businesses can use Census data to decid...

What's Your Pandemic Pivot? 4 Key Steps for Startups to Survive Catastrophe.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Back in 2008, I was happily running a thriving ad-tech business — until the day the economy tanked. I woke up that morning to find my inbox overflowing with about 50% of my customers writing to cancel their services. Pretty soon, I was having to lay off dozens of smart, hard-working employees and move our office, along with a handful of survivors, into a barn. I had to give up my family home, too, and move with my wife into a moldy studio apartment. Unable to pay my remaining employees and also myself, I spent my weekends refinishing furniture and selling it at yard sales to mak...

COVID-19 Will Remake How We Work and Live

Monday, June 01, 2020

Generally speaking, everyone resists change. Especially sudden change. But Covid-19 changed all that. Friday rolled around and we were told to grab-your-stuff and go home and no one knew when we would be back. You hear people say, “When things go back to normal…” Well, will things really go back to normal? We’ve learned new techniques, new ways to do things differently when working together digitally. Perhaps we will not return to the old ways. Read full article.

Potential Shifts in the Workforce Due to COVID-19

Monday, June 01, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic is already causing shifts in the economy and workforce. Other than the obvious loss of employment, some of which will hopefully be temporary, another significant shift in the workforce involves employees in the professional services sector and others forced to work remotely from home. Although companies allowing employees to work remotely was already a growing trend in the United States, the question will be whether this trend continues after COVID-19 is under control. And, if the trend does continue, which is likely, consideration for incentives for home-based or remote employees will also have to be considered fro...

Smart Facilities and Industrial IOT in the Era of 5G

Monday, June 01, 2020

For manufacturing and distribution facilities, the introduction of 5G — the next generation of cellular wireless — could be a game-changer down the line. Consider: 5G will hasten the rise of the smart factory/warehouse, where tracking and distribution will improve exponentially, thanks to industrial IOT sensors. Monitoring will happen continuously in real time as the 5G network takes a triple approach to improving mobility — speed (ultra-fast data rates), interactivity (ultra-low lag with no buffering), and connectivity (more capacity, devices, and data). Read full article.