To prevent yourself from having to take a job as a server or be forced into the sales profession, you have to do everything you can to differentiate yourself and make yourself unique. Personal networking is the number one way to do this! Perhaps it is in how you apply for the position such as overnight FedEx your application and resume. Maybe it is your personality or rapport you build with your initial point of contact. These tactics are how people get the high demand jobs where competition is stiff. Whatever the tactic, be different, stand out and take a chance. You have nothing to lose.

  So if you do not have a billable skill set and have a business degree, then you probably will be contacted by companies offering sales jobs with little, if any, guaranteed income. Most people are turned off by such positions, but it makes sense if you think about it. They are giving you an opportunity to turn your potential into success. Just because you have a degree does not equate to business success, but the degree does show potential. This entitlement comes in play as folks shy away from sales jobs because they are not comfortable selling or think they deserve more. However, in reality if billable skills are required, and you do not have any, then a sales career is the perfect role in proving your return on investment to the company offering the position. This is your chance to validate yourself.

Over the next two weeks we will look at a number of tricks of the trade or factors you can use to make yourself more noticed in the regional job market. I would appreciate your feedback and also sharing this to others who may find it useful. Good luck!

A very interesting op-ed in the Cincy paper about how the local government can better work with its primary college to keep more of its graduates in the region.

Scarborough Research released this study showing the percentage of residents in the 120 DMAs, according to Nielsen, who have broadband access (defined as either cable modem or DSL). Roanoke-Lynchburg was last on the list measured of 79 DMAs with a 29% mark. Roanoke is the 67th largest DMA in the U.S.

What does this mean? It depends on how you look at it.

It could be more of a choice, people not wanting to invest in the broadband in their homes.

It could be access due to the mountainous terrain and wiring is less cost efficient by the companies.

It could be since the percentage of internet users are doing only email and light surfing, they may not need the speed and power of broadband for downloading music and video.

According to a former employee of Hughes Net - a satellite broadband provider - Roanoke is one of the strongest market units perhaps because of its geography constraints of traditional broadband, yet the desire to have access to broadband.

There is no doubt accessing the information highway today is like accessing the interstate highway from years back and certainly among a younger, web savvy audience broadband is an essential lifestyle amenity just like running water was in rural America several generations ago. We must acknowledge the importance of broadband and being connected in this fast and powerful way.

Buffalo which has come up with some pretty creative events in the past to recruit and retain young adults, such as Old Home Week, has integrated the YP movement into their new strategy. Our own Roanoke Valley Economic Partnership is also changing its focus to better attract and retain young professionals. Kudos to both for being proactive in doing this… 

After reading Richard Florida’s book, Who’s Your City and thinking about what he says through his research findings and trying to implement in Roanoke, I would offer some initial responses.

1. It’s obvious Roanoke’s competitive advantage across the 5 life-stages is cost of living as evidenced by our better rankings in Appendix C.

2. The older you get, the better Roanoke is for people. Our lowest ranking was 143 out of 167 for singles ages 20-29, yet it is 50 out of 72 for metros whose population is between 250-500k. Professionals (ages 29-44) it’s 37 out of 72. Therefore, this data confirms our focus should be on attracting and retaining the YP population.

3. Some cities Roanoke aspires to become actually overall rank worse than Roanoke. When you do a head-to-head comparison of Appendix C to cities such as Asheville and Chattanooga (which were cities visited by local economic development officials) Roanoke has better marks 6-4 and 8-2, respectively. Therefore, I think the data shows Roanoke is better than many think when compared to its peers.

4. One Roanoke and New River Valley MSA. Using this same overall head-to-head comparison, Roanoke is 18 of 72 cities in the 250-500k population category. The 17 ahead of Roanoke many have 4-year institutions (Ann Arbor, Boulder, Durham, Fayetteville, Green Bay, Lexington, Lincoln, Provo, Etc.) . Therefore, this proves an old assertion. Roanoke is disadvantaged without a 4-year research entity and the importance of relationships with our local colleges  - supported by the new medical school. Further, the Blacksburg MSA was not in the list. There has been talk previously of working to combine the Roanoke-Blacksburg MSA into one MSA. Not sure what needs to be done to make it happen, but it is worth investigating. One combined MSA would not put the region into a higher population category, but instead would make it a total population of about 450,000 and perhaps in the top 5 of regions 250-500k. Doesn’t that sound a little better.

More to come in the future on Who’s Your City.   

We examined the Roanoke Facebook community in a previous post on July 6, and recently looked yesterday about 8 months later and the growth is phenomenal. In July, Roanoke had just under 10,000 registered users and in 8 months the number has soared to 28,344. That is 2,300 a month or 75 new users a day!

This is compared to growth in the Virginia Tech community from 44,000 to 48,504 during the same time.

Many of the top interest categories remained the same during this time. For interest, the top interest of the community is music and the favorite type of music is country with rap a close second. The favorite book is the BIBLE and the favorite TV show is Family Guy.

In July, 2007, 67 people were on Facebook in their 40s now that number is 2,180. (In looking at the comparison to the 50s this number seems low in July, but nonetheless, the growth is substantial.)

For the 50s age group 247 in July and now 1,164.

The 60s was 57 now 118. 

There are 92 people over the age of 70 on the Roanoke Facebook community and kudos to Sgt. Bennington at the age of 80 for having a photo on his profile and having some friends. (There were others older, but the profiles were sketchy.) Also, Kudos to Frank L. Moose Jewelers in downtown Roanoke for having a profile!

The 40 and over age group comprised just under 10% of the Roanoke Facebook community in July now that number is 12.5%. It’s a nice increase and encouraging to see more older Xers and Boomers join social media outlets, even if their motivation is to keep tabs on their children. Also noteworthy, is that the older a person is the less likely they have a photo or image on their profile.

The big aha is - just focusing on Facebook and not MySpace - the Roanoke Facebook community is about 10% of the Roanoke MSAs entire population. This is significant and it shows the emergence of online Roanoke compared to offline Roanoke. Offline Roanoke must connect to the growing online Roanoke so that both groups can better understand and communicate with each other.

Small business owners, marketers, salespeople, civic groups, non-profits, charities, etc. must have a presence to better connect to this growing population. 

An interesting development seems to be occurring. Now that the problem of attracting and retaining young adults has been identified, and studies have been commissioned, we are now having groups determine the effectiveness of the implementation process. That is what two Harvard graduate students did in Richmond this past weekend. YRichmond is at the center of this implementation plan and are receiving fantastic leadership from its director and a very generous and powerful community leader.  

Until this time, there really had not been a common, shared blueprint for success. Those regions who are gaining some success are now telling the rest of the groups how to do it.

It should be interesting to see how these groups evolve over the next 3-5 years.  

Why would the City of Roanoke want to have a MySpace presence instead of just a website? Because the MySpace community produces inquiries like this…