On May 11 from 5-7 pm at the University Club on the Virginia Tech campus at 100 Otey St, you are invited to a book release party and signing for Krisha Chachra’s new book Homecoming Journals: Dreaming Big in a Small Town. The book hits to the core of retaining and attracting young adults in the region. Krisha is a freelance writer and has appeared in many media outlets for her work covering the region from a young adult perspective. Please plan to attend this event. It will be a great opportunity to meet other young professionals in the region. For more info, email Krisha.

A fellow blogger told me about the site City-Data.com as an outstanding resource to showcase our region to outsiders looking for relocation information about our region. Over the last couple of months, I have been surprised at the number of people who have submitted profiles to the Roanoke Connect job site from this link.

What is becoming more and more obvious is people from outside the region are forming a different opinion and perspective about our region – ONLINE – than people living here now have OFFLINE (newspapers, walking down the street, driving on I81, etc.). It appears that the ONLINE perspective of Roanoke is quite good.

Another example to back up this claim is that we have nearly 2000 registered in the Roanoke Connect database. Most new entries now come from Google search or viral channels. In fact, in a 90 minutes span over the weekend, four people submitted profiles opting-in to receive job information from Proctorville, OH; Rosepine, LA; Leavenworth, KS; and Bluefield, WV.

People want to be in Roanoke! Roanoke employers have jobs that are going unfilled! They just need to get connected to the right people in the local job market. Sites like City-Data.com and Roanoke Connect help us shape the positive ONLINE perception of the region and make these connections that will ultimately lead to success stories.   

A local firm, Career Connections, has started this blog to help folks locally with their job searches. More resources such as these are needed as we continue to connect job seekers to employers in this complex multi-media environment. We are working on more face-to-face opportunities for organizations like Career Connections to meet with job seekers on a weekly basis. More info to come in the near future. 

The Open Studios Tour is a self guided tour of artists’ homes and their work, which will occur this weekend in downtown Roanoke. One of those homes on tour this year is young professional couple Zephren and Page Turner.

You may recognize some of Zephren’s work on the cover of this month’s City Magazine.

For more information about the tour, contact Page.

The Roanoke Regional Commission has created a blog to communicate with the community. This will hopefully be a good channel for a forum to encourage conversation about regional issues. Good job to Wayne and his staff for taking this proactive step.