The guru of attracting and retaining young adults in regions, Richard Florida, presents his three Ts to economic development - technology, talent and tolerance.

Yesterday, we mentioned Mailtrust(based in Blacksburg) parent company Rackspace filing for an IPO today indicating our region’s technology focus couple with a great local technology council.

Throughout the history of this blog we have mentioned many expamples of the need to help job seekers, promote hidden jobs, connect you to sites and events with examples such as the Roanoke Connect database.

Tolerance is one that is more difficult to quantify, but is equally important. The region is not perfect, but is making strides and one is with an upcoming Roanoke Valley SHRM program on diversity in November bringing more attention to the tolerance issues as part of the the 3 Ts.  

We must challenge ourselves in examining what programs, events and organizations are actively being done in the framework Dr. Florida presents. A menu of these would be a good start. If you have one, please share…