DISQUS

I can't argue against an incubator in downtown Roanoke. I think it would be a great talking point but more importantly it would offer a vibrant metro atmosphere for startups who seem most often to be relegated to commercial parks off the beaten path.

Sean

Do you ask them how they found you? It might be neat to ask what particular web sites led them to submit their profile.

Kids today are using instant messenging and Web sites to establish and maintain localized social relationships among their neighborhood peers in ways that would give befuddle the typical forty something. Yes, they're using iPods to listen to music and playing games on XBOX. But I'm 34 and 20 years ago I listened to music on my Walkman and played games on my Atari 5200. If anything, kids today are the most socially connected generation the world has ever seen.

Sean

I forgot to mention the importance of contacting the social connectors. They have a natural ability to spread the word. They might tell 10 people something cool they read in the e-newsletter, but because of their influence, those 10 people consider this social currency to be worth more because of the source, and each of those 10 mention it in conversation to more people than they otherwise would. It's a proven social paradigm. If you could magically find the 500 most influential social connectors in the Valley, you could give them a message to deliver and 80% of the valley would have likely heard the message within a month's time. Something to think about.

I'd recommend that you read a book called Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. I got turned onto his books after a keynote he made at a webmaster conference in Boston last year. It has significant relevance to your challenge. Since I've read it, I'll make some suggestions :) First and foremost is that before we go spending 50 million dollars on an Amber Alert style method of distributing information to the citizens of Roanoke Valley (smile), consider a more viral method. Deliver time-sensitive civic news to the social connectors in the Valley. Presuming you have the contact information of each business operating within the city, you could deliver a periodic e-newsletter in printable pdf form to each business owner, asking them to forward it to the marketing person who can in turn forward it to everyone else. Other methods of gathering subscribers to the e-newsletter would be to offer a $5 fee refund per employee that each company has subscribed to the e-newsletter through their work email. This wouldn't be a huge cash incentive; it might save a 50 employee law firm $50/year but the $250/year savings would be a feel-good incentive that would help boost your reach. The money would be more useful for PR value in that it would generate news. The actual incentive would be helping the community stay better informed about positive change in the valley. That's good for business. You could also add an email field to all city forms and in turn a checkbox to opt-out of the newsletter, and then develop a system whereby the email address is delivered to the dept in charge of the newsletter. Of course a web site where anyone can subscribe is helpful too, but it won't have nearly the viral effect of the other things I've mentioned.

I'm not sure if this reflects as poorly on Roanoke's economic opportunities as it does on the sorry state of the Texas public school system. I'll leave it at that.

Marty has some great points. Perhaps a cooperative project between the appropriate chamber of commerce and the city. In this way actions can be taken with respect to the web site through the chamber to avoid red tape. For something like this you need to avoid glacial progress, the web site will need to be very adaptable especially during it's formative stage.

Sean

I'm busy today, and will be at the WebmasterWorld PubCon in Boston most of next week. After the weekend of the 22nd I'll be available for a meeting. Perhaps a group of us can meet for lunch and then brainstorm.

I think it should be a property of the city to the extent that the city should maintain control of the web site and continue ownership of what would become a viral marketing in perpetual motion. In fact it's a much better use of some of the money being poured into print advertising because print advertising stops paying off almost immediately. By contrast, a web site that evolves into an economic and community portal for professionals living in the Roanoke Valley would be working for you 24/7.

There are alot of cookie cutter web sites out there that try to be a portal for a city or metro area. They don't work particularly well because for the most part they're just one of a thousand portal sites that have just enough content to be mildly interesting but are too generic to be of any real value. However, if you took the idea of a portal and built one specifically for the valley then the model could work quite well. You could aggregate area blog feeds. You could have a photo journal aggregating photos from locals that are activity based (i.e. not photos of your dog sitting on your couch, but photos of your dog hiking with up a local mountain). You could have a resume repository. You could have a job repository. You could have a calendar with local events (cultural, local bands at local clubs, etc). You could list homes for sale, apartments for rent. You could have a transplant sponsor directory - a directory of folks who could help people get settled into the area, introduce them to new friends. You could have a directory of vendors where folks can buy furniture and so on (emphasis on non-box stores, make it more interesting to people).

This is something the paper could own too, I'm just not so sure that it's a good idea given the need for the paper to have concrete ROI. The city itself can get concrete ROI with an influx of new white collar workers so a web site of this scope becomes more justifiable.

Sean

David St. Lawrence over in Floyd, VA maintains a blog (http://ripples.typepad.com/ripples/) and has begun to organize a Floyd Bloggers group that I think represents an interesting concept that you might consider for the Roanoke area. He's promoting the idea of blogging as a way for Floyd to reach out to entrepreneurial type folks who are interested in the sort of country life that Floyd is particularly suited for. You might consider executing a similar strategy for Roanoke. Perhaps recruiting new bloggers who live in Roanoke city, people who work I.T. jobs and live in the city, people who work financial jobs and live in the city, and so on. Inspire them to blog about their lives and how the city is largely a great place to live and so on. Then as you're recruiting them, buy a specific domain for the purpose of collecting these blogs together (suggestion: something like roanokeclicks.com which is available). Start with blogs but continue with categories on the web site that appeal to your target market (health food stores, like a feature on Roanoke Co-Op). Interview young professionals who blog and put up bios. Make it easy for visitors to get to know the area through it's people. The more people can learn about Roanoke through it's people, the more enticing a trip to Roanoke will be. Spotlight upcoming events of interest, outdoor adventures and so on. If Roanoke is truly interested in headhunting this flavor of citizen then it has to get aggressive. Just some thoughts.

Sean

Hey, I just read that Roanoke won in its bid to host the 2nd annual American Challenge. That's good news for the valley! Perhaps there should be some creative thinking and planning with regard to facilitating good vibes for the Autumn arrival of the corporate "teams".

Sean

I'm a successful internet business developer. I'm 33 years old and lived in Blacksburg for nearly a year before buying a horse farm south of Roanoke. I'm originally from Burlington, Vermont, an extremely attractive, progressive and thriving small New England city. Here are some of my thoughts, for what they're worth.

Blacksburg is a great town to raise a family. I mean it's absolutely superb. I think this is largely thanks to the long established working population of white collar families with one or more children - have heavily influenced the direction of the town - and its resources - for decades. These families aren't pushing hard for more and bigger bars and a thriving singles' social scene. They're clamoring for upscale health spas, extra-curricular activities for their school age children, personal services, home improvement stores, and retail venues that are relevant for their particular stage in life. They're asking for it and they're getting it because they're the largest segment in Blacksburg with the most money to spend. But, there are still many things missing from the town that as others have pointed out, make it less desirable for young professionals (and myself, if I'm being honest). Blacksburg still feels..... Hmmmm, I hate to say it. It feels like a small town without it's fair share of small town charm. The home boom in Blacksburg came at the worst time, my guess is the mid sixties; the older houses are almost exclusively homely ranches and split levels. I imagine a young professional would find it hard to see themselves in that sort of home (and I don't blame them). If you take the students away, the town of Blacksburg shrinks to about 13,000 people. Virginia Tech is a massive economic engine that gives those 13,000 permanent residents some ameneties that usually only much larger cities enjoy. However, most amenities that a typical vibrant small city enjoys would have a difficult time finding purchase in Blacksburg. There just isn't enough population. For example, Roanoke City with its +/- 100,000 people and Roanoke County with it's +/- 90,000 people, enjoys the Civic Center, the Coliseum, and Mill Mountain Theatre, and so on, and you've got a cultural event in Roanoke every weekend of the year. How many professional theatre productions get to Blacksburg? How many museums does Blacksburg have? Live concert events from major performers? How many neat little streets with towering buildings and an endless list of restaurants from which to choose? Blacksburg has a LONG way to go in these matters.

Still, Blacksburg's population is growing. Demand for housing is very high. When we put our house on the market last year it sold within 24 hours. Contrary to what someone else stated, it's pretty easy to find new homes being built within Blacksburg town limits. Just be prepared to drop $350,000 or more for a newly built home. Affordable housing with charm for those new graduates in town limits is very hard to come by. And as a new graduate, you might either commute from surrounding towns or be forced to rent a broke down little house in town with college age neighbors who prefer keg stands to art galleries ;) Not a selling point.

Another observation is Roanoke. The "Smith Mountain Lake Effect" is creating ALOT of economic growth and interest around the lake. At this moment in Franklin County there are over - get this - forty homes on the market for over $1M. This lake effect is beginning to have a visible effect on the lakes closest "big" city of Roanoke, and of course Roanoke County and Franklin County. As both the New River and Roanoke Valley economies evolve, Blacksburg might have a fight on its hands when it comes to attracting young professionals who prefer a more vibrant, artistic and progressive culture. In my opinion, Roanoke has that "it" factor that Blacksburg seems to be missing. Roanoke will never be able to offer up anything like Virginia Tech, but all the other ingredients are there.

Just some thoughts. Keep in mind I still enjoyed my time in Blacksburg, it's a great town. But I have a feeling too many young folks are hoping to turn Blacksburg into something that just might not be in it's DNA?

Sean