Archive for the 'Economic Development' Category

Invest In Ontario’s GIS Site Selection Tool

Published
by
Ian Smith
on April 7, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Investment Attraction
. 2 Comments

Do you think that you have the ideal website and applications for investment attraction purposes?  Are you providing the best information to site selectors to make informed decisions?  Consider using a geographic information system application to address the two issues at the same time.  Invest in Ontario is a prime example of how a government agency is modifying their approach to selling their region for business attraction.

In February 2010, The Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade launched SelectOntario, Canada’s first web-enabled, investment attraction-focused site selection tool. (A similar tool is available on the Indiana Economic Development Corporation’s website.  Please read, “Site Selection Tool Puts Indiana On The Map“)   The index page of SelectOntario can be seen in Figure 1:

Select Ontario Index Page

Figure 1: Index Page Of SelectOntario

There are four main components of the tool that site selectors may use to gather information:

  • Site Search - To find real estate for an investment project
  • Community Search - To examine communities by workforce and demographics
  • Industry Search - To investigate industry clusters in Ontario
  • Skills Search - To assess the skills, language and educational capabilities of Ontario’s workforce

For the purposes of this post, the Site Search was selected to test SelectOntario to identify available real estate for sale in the City of London for a new drug store.

Placing a mouse over the “Site Search” button will prompt the tool to provide a menu where users can select to conduct the following types of searches:

  • Industrial
  • Commercial
  • Investment
  • Agriculture
  • Investment
  • Vacant Land
  • Business

Figure 2 is an image of the Vacant Land search interface.

Figure 2: SelectOntario’s Vacant Lot Search Interface

By entering the following details for the query, users will be supplied with the map seen in Figure 3:

  • Transaction Type: For Sale Only
  • Vacant Land Subtype: Industrial Lot
  • Price: (Maximum): $5 000 000 (Canadian Dollars)

Figure 3: Mapping of Available Industrial Lots In Ontario With A Maximum Value Of C$5 000 000
Please On Image To Enlarge

The numbered green plotted points on the map indicate the available vacant lots for sale.  Each point corresponds to a data record listed below the map.

The second page of records must be accessed to read details on the lot in London as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Site Summary Report For Vacant Industrial Lot At 268 WILLIAM ST, LONDON,  ONTARIO

The application permits users to generate comparison reports amongst available lots.  Figure 5 is a site comparison report for 268 William St and 203 Crumlin Side Road in London.

Figure 5: Site Comparison Report For Two Lots In London, Ontario

SelectOntario is a tool that will no doubt make life easier for site selectors.  Via computers or smartphones, site selectors can conduct extensive research on some of the key locational factors on one site.

Time will only tell if other Canadian provinces will select to adopt an similar tool rather than sticking with an ordinary website with tons of .pdf documents to open.

SelectOntario is available at http://www.ontario.ca/siteselection/

Invest In Korea Social Media Tools

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 31, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Investment Attraction and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

On the heels of our recent post, “Invest In Sweden Social Media Tools” that discussed the use of web 2.0 tools to promote a region for foreign direct investment, we were informed on the LinkedIn Group, Foreign Direct Investment - FDIexecutive about the Invest In Korea economic development 2.0 initiative.

Invest In Korea seems to be slowly building their presence on some of the popular social media websites.  Using the UK Trade & Investment integrated approach with Invest In UK as a model, Invest In Korea is promoting their region by means of the following tools:

1) Twitter Feed

INVESTinKOREA is a source of information regarding the foreign direct investment entering the country.  This evident by the use of the hashtags, “#FDI” and “#Korea” in the posted tweets as seen in Figure 1.

InvestInKorea Twitter Feed

Figure 1: INVESTinKOREA Twitter Feed With Appearances Of Hashtags, #FDI and #Korea

2) YouTube Channel

The InvestinKorea YouTube Channel has a collection of  multilingual promotional videos.  Below is a  clip that combines a listing of world rankings for Korea in terms of economic factors, top sectors and key locational factors.  To reinforce the message that Korea is the best place to invest, brief testimonials from CEOs of companies that are in the country are used.

Using subtitles throughout the video allows the promotional clip to be effective without the audio track.

The use of the two tools are solid building blocks to add to in the future.  Will we see a Facebook Fan Page?  Stay tuned!!!

Thank You Readers Of Tools For Thought

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 19, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Competitive & Internet Intelligence, Economic Development and Social Media Marketing
. 2 Comments

Last week, Intelegia published its 300th post.  From the first post, “Users of Wikipedia - Now Read This!!!” to “Competitive Intelligence Research With Google Squared? “, the objective of Tools For Thought was to provide readers with an outlet to learn about tools and practices for competitive intelligence research, social media marketing and economic development initiatives.

We are honored that we have such loyal readers from around the world.  In January 2010 to February 2010, readers came from over 75 countries, specifically, from approximately 800 cities as illustrated in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Locations of Tools For Thought Readers (January 2010 - February 2010)

From search tools to the use of Web 2.0 applications for economic development purposes, Intelegia looks forward to every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in providing its readers with the relevant resources to be efficient users on the web as a research or communication tool.

Some of the popular posts so far in 2010 include:

We welcome your feedback on each post that is placed online.  Feedback will be used as discussion points in future posts.  If you feel that we are not dealing with an important aspect of competitive intelligence research or economic development, please let us know.

Once again, thank you for dropping by Tools For Thought and your continued support.

Best Regards,

Isabelle Poirier and Ian Smith

Site Selection Tool Puts Indiana On The Map

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 17, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Investment Attraction
. 2 Comments

Here is a look at a new web application that will facilitate the site selection process for investors interested in the state of Indiana.

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation launched StateIN.ZoomProspector.com at the beginning of March.  The tool will allow investors to gather relevant information to make the best decisions regarding site selection and business investment.

Figure 1:StateIN.ZoomProspector.com

Users of the application can simply enter their specifications in terms of what they are looking for their location needs.  ZoomProspector will provide results from the database as illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Results From StateIN.ZoomProspector.com

It shall be interesting to see if other regions around the world will take a cue from the state of Indiana to rethink how to cater to site selectors’ needs for information.

StateIN.ZoomProspector.com is available at StateIN.ZoomProspector.com

Economic Development Groups On LinkedIn

Published
by
Ian Smith
on March 10, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Part of having an economic development 2.0 strategy is participating in discussion groups on social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.  The benefits of being members of groups related to economic development are:

  • Expanding your network beyond your region and areas of expertise
  • Sharing your expertise with other professionals in the field
  • Learning from others located around the world

Below are a few groups that are on LinkedIn that the team at Intelegia are members.

  • Business Retention & Expansion International (BREI) - This group is composed of economic development professionals that are dedicated to investment attraction initiatives.  Some of the common issues that serves as discussion points are incentives programs, business retention strategies and marketing initiatives for regions.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th, 2010): 129
    Owner: Ernest Strickland
  • Economic Development Network - This group is a collection of professionals from around the globe who are concerned about the engagement of research organisations with the economy.  Recent discussion topics include the use of social media marketing applications, marketing strategies and strategic planning issues.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th, 2010): 347
    Owner: Steven Brown
  • Economic Development Professionals - The Economic Development Professionals Linkedin group is geared towards individuals who wish to share and learn about best practices in field of economic development.  Lately, members have exchanged thoughts on subjects such as website design issues, search engine optimization strategies and incentive programs.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th, 2010): 2 468
    Owner:Gary Knight
  • Foreign Direct Investment - FDIexecutive - This LinkedIn group brings together professionals from all points around the globe in the field of foreign direct investment.  Issues such as attraction strategy, competitiveness, location selection and decision making are the major themes that members discuss.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th): 442
    Owner: Douglas van den Berghe
  • Next Gen Economic Development Marketers - As the name suggests, this group is meant for professionals focused on marketing in regards to economic development.  Members include economic development officers and consultants that talk about such issues as social media tools, website design and branding initiatives.
    Level of access: Open
    Number of members (as of March 9th): 171
    Owner: Ben Wright

Are we missing some other LinkedIn groups?  Let us know by leaving us a comment on this post.

Looking for an efficient way to manage your contacts on LinkedIn?  Read Intelegia’s tutorial, “Tag Function In LinkedIn“

Why Use SlideShare As A Part Of Your Economic Development 2.0 Strategy?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on February 24, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Investment Attraction and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 1 Comment

You have decided to implement a marketing strategy for your region for investment attraction purposes.  As a part of  the strategy, you have selected to use social media marketing applications. After concluding a benchmark of sites that are using Web 2.0 tools, you have created a list of the following applications that should be used in the strategy.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Flickr
  • RSS Feeds

The list seems to be pretty complete however; there is an application that does not come to mind when discussing social media marketing tools.  The application is SlideShare.

SlideShare is a tool that allows individuals to place documents in various file formats (i.e, .ppt, .doc, .pdf) on web.

The use of SlideShare in a marketing context is very practical.   Here are the advantages

1 - Avoid reinventing the wheel

There is a good chance that you may have promotional material in .pdf and or PowerPoint already in your agency that can be easily placed online.  Instead of spending a portion of your budget on new promotional content, use what you have and upload it to SlideShare.

2 - Reinforce Your Search Engine Optimatization Strategy

Having a presence on various Web 2.0 applications will enhance and reinforce your search engine optimization strategy for your website.  SlideShare is an efficient tool to accomplish this goal,  Each word of the document on the application is indexed and allows it to appear on Google’s result page quickly and within the first couple of pages. (if you are creating a new document to be place on SlideShare, keep in mind the keywords that investors are most likely to used to find information regarding investment attraction along with the name of the city, region, province / state or country.  Good examples of keywords would be: “Invest in”, “Investing in”, “Incentive” or “Doing Business In”.

3 - Be Visual

Using Slideshare to publish Microsoft Powerpoint presentation is a very powerful strategy.  The medium allows agencies to communicate facts about their region visually.  Figure 1 is a page from the Chesterfield Economic Development (Chesterfield, Virgina) presentation on SlideShare.

Figure 1: Chesterfield SlideShare Powerpoint Presentation

This particular slide is effective to help sell the region as a location of  growth in terms of the value of new commercial construction by using the ascending set of bars in the chart.

Some may consider SlideShare as the poorman’s YouTube when it comes to delivering content visually however; it can be efficient tool to aid in obtaining your marketing goals for economic development initiatives.

SlideShare is available at www.slideshare.net

Thinking about creating your Economic Development 2.0 strategy?  Attend Intelegia’s seminar,  “Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications“

SODIL Lanaudière On Twitter

Published
by
Ian Smith
on February 10, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development and Social Media Marketing
. 3 Comments

The topic of this blog is based upon a posting on the Linkedin group, Economic Development Professionals, specifically in the “discussions” section of the group.

A group member brought to our attention a Twitter feed that offers trilingual tweets.

Figure 1 is a screen shot of SODIL Lanaudière Twitter page.

Figure 1: SODIL Lanaudière Twitter page

SODIL Lanaudière is the agency that encourages the development of the Lanaudière (Quebec, Canada) business communities by assisting the region’s SMEs with their projects directly.

The SODIL tweets are made available in French, English and Spanish.  The images in Figure 2, 3 and 4 illustrates the trilingual tweets.

Figure 2: French Tweet

Figure 3: English Tweet

Figure 4: Spanish Tweet

Having the ability to post in more that one language is a benefit and most importantly, it can be a competitive advantage.  Communicating with existing or potential stakeholders of a region in a language that they feel the most comfortable in is a critical aspect in marketing.

Using YouTube To Promote Your Region and Economic Development Agency

Published
by
Ian Smith
on February 5, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Investment Attraction and Social Media Marketing
. 0 Comments

Below is a best practice example of how to use a social media marketing tool such as YouTube, to promote two items at one time.

In the video, “Michigan Gives You the Upper Hand”, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) is able to market: 1) the state as THE place for investment opportunities and 2) themselves as facilitators in getting companies to invest.

Using testimonials by CEOs, MEDC drives home the message that they are will equipped with the incentive tools,  services and skills to address investors’ key location factors inquiries.

Does your economic development agency have a video or channel on YouTube for investment attraction purposes? Is it effective? Let us know and we will mention you and the video or the channel in a future blog post.  Please email the link to Ian at ian@intelegia.com.

Intelligence “R” US: Innovative Economic Development Practices in Mauricie, Québec

Published
by
Isabelle Poirier
on February 1, 2010
in Author-Isabelle Poirier, Economic Development, Economic Intelligence, Investment Attraction and Social Media Marketing
. 2 Comments

New economic development practices in a region is not the result of a sole leader. Changing the economic landscape of a region will be the work of individuals who collectively engage into innovative economic development practices.

Last week, I had the opportunity with my colleague Aicha Habiby to conduct the seminar, “Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications“.  Sixteen participants representing different sub-regions in the Mauricie Region gathered in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Canada.

It was a busy day :-) Needless to say that because this course was computer based and we were more than happy to provide this training as a team. All participants agreed to start slowly but surely embraced social media tools to improve their regional investment attraction strategy and place their region on the radar of investors and site selectors. The process included achieving the following goals:

  • Establishing their “web identity” on social networks
  • Putting into place an information monitoring system
  • Improving their web researching skills by learning advanced research techniques using web 1.0 tools and sources, social media applications and real-time search engines
  • Generating “Intelligence” using specific analysis frameworks for investment attraction
  • Nurturing their virtual and real life communities by sharing information and knowledge
  • Being aware of key success factors and best practices for their future communication strategy

For quite awhile,  investment attraction techniques have included taking advantage of the web 1.0 however; it was just the beginning.  By tapping into the new applications on the internet,  the participants can now efficiently benchmark their region, target leads and promote their region.

If you want to know more about economic development opportunities in Mauricie, you can get in touch “within a click” with the following professionals:

At the end of the day, interesting opportunities are just one click or one phone call away from you… It’s yours to discover :-)

The Use Of Testimonials In YouTube Clips For Investment Attraction

Published
by
Ian Smith
on January 27, 2010
in Author-Ian Smith, Economic Development, Investment Attraction and Web 2.0 Strategy
. 0 Comments

What makes a good YouTube clip for investment attraction purposes?

1. A concise message with all the key locational factors that site selectors and or investors are primarily concerned about?

2. Footage of the existing land opportunities and transportation infrastructure in the region?

3. Testimonials from existing investors about the positive aspects of investing in the region?

All three elements are needed however; testimonials can go a long way in regards of putting a region on the map for investment attraction.

The following clip is from the Niagara Economic Development Corporation, the agency responsible for activities to advance the economic prosperity of the Niagara (Ontario) community.

The key elements of the video are:

  1. The various companies from an array of sectors that has selected Niagara to do business.
  2. How companies have built links within the business community and universities in the region.
  3. The level of government assistance offered to investing companies.

Through the use of testimonials to promote Niagara, the YouTube clip can effectively grab the attention of potential investors and site selectors.

Are seeking to improve your region’s investment retention or attraction strategy?  Attend Intelegia’s seminar, “Optimize Investment Attraction Strategy Through Information and Social Media Applications“.