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Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

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Gorges, Susan (N-Strategic Business Solutions)

Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

Cathie;
I am a 'silent' reader of the Friam conversations. If you wouldn't might, I would like to sit in on your cluster group discussions to hear what they need for growth. I would like to make sure that what TVC in Northern New Mexico is advocating corresponds with what your group(s) are asking for. Sort of the idea of a common (and LOUD) voice!

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of cez
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 1:29 PM
To: Owen Densmore; [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

Owen,
The SFEDI Board is now going to be revising the cluster groups we met with
several years ago to talk with them about their needs for growth. I think
that your ideas are outstanding and make much sense for Santa Fe's small
businesses. We definitely need to talk further.
Cathie

Catherine E. Zacher, President
Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
624 Agua Fria (87501) P.O. Box 8184 (87504-8184)
505.984.2842 505.989.8614 (fax)
www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org> [hidden email]
<mailto:[hidden email]>

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world....indeed it's the only thing that ever has!

-----Original Message-----
From: Owen Densmore [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:37 AM
To: cez; [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

Cathie: Thank you for the clear and considered response.

My interest was sparked by a SF New Mexican article a while back that
focused on the disappearing local small business. At the time, it
occurred to me that the disparity between the large chains and local
businesses, both newly starting and old and struggling, could be eased
by some fairly simple local shared facilities.

The large businesses have advantages brought about by sharing
infrastructure costs among a large number of stores. Their phone costs
can be negotiated, getting discounts for their large volumes. Their
use of a common IT infrastructure, from cash registers to credit card
validation machinery/accounts to web presence to networks .. all are
volume sensitive and thus costs per store reduced. And when you factor
in newly emerging technologies such as RFID tagging and supply chain
optimization, you can see the small guy is going to continue to suffer
significant cost disadvantage.

So, what to do? Well, I'd like to see how we could structure some sort
of infrastructure support for local businesses, again both old and new.
Think "IT Co-op" so to speak. (I suspect there is some attempt at
this already, but I don't know of specifics.) So for example, if a
large number of businesses could pool their access to credit card
validation, they could bring themselves to within cost parity of the
corporate stores in that area. Ditto for the others. An obvious
example would be very low cost web presence using shared servers with
help from local technologists to reduce cost of managing the sites.
Many folks are surprised to see, for example, that RedFish pays only
$9.00/month for their web site!

Owen

On Jan 27, 2004, at 2:29 PM, cez wrote:

> Last?weekend, I sent an email to Michael Shurman in response to his
> general email to FRIAM last week, responding to Randy Burge's
> thoughts.?Michael's reply encouraged me to share my thoughts with the
> email list.
> ?
> SFEDI facilitates a program we call The Santa Fe Plan: The Cluster
> Approach to Economic Gardening. The clusters we have identified as
> emerging in our community are Biotech, Publishing, Information
> Technologies (informatics in particular), Medical Practioners
> (traditional and alternative) and Woodworkers. Our goal is to see
> these clusters identified as businesses emerging in Santa Fe,
> contributing to our economy and in need of support from the community.
> ?
> While we strongly feel that a community needs to give strong support
> to existing businesses before attempting to relocate new businesses to
> town, we do recognize that?outside?companies are interested in a
> community with a strong business base.
> In the "old model" of economic development, all energy was put on
> attracting new business, perhaps because that was what received the
> headlines in the paper. When a local entrepreneur adds two new jobs to
> his company, coverage in the press is non-existent.
> ?
> SFEDI understand that it is not the public sector economic developers
> that are creating jobs, it is the entrepreneur.
> ?
> Santa Fe itself faces a big challenge when it talks about importing
> jobs - we have a high cost of living, a high cost of housing, high
> cost of land, poor public education and very limited water. This
> leaves us with very few recruitment tools. So focusing on our "new"
> clusters is important - the clusters, as they grow stronger and more
> widely recognized, are attracting similar businesses to Santa Fe, with
> little or no support from the public sector.
> What Santa Fe needs is more growth capital to support the clusters.
> My thoughts on Michael's "Going Local" ideas. If you haven't read his
> book, "Going Local" I recommend it.
> ?
>
> Catherine E. Zacher, President
> Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
> 624 Agua Fria (87501)???????? P.O. Box 8184 (87504-8184)
> 505.984.2842????505.989.8614
> (fax)???????????????????????????????????www.sfedi.org???cezacher@sfedi.
> org
>
> Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
> change the world....indeed it's the only thing that ever has!

cez-3

Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

excellent, Susan and we'd love to have you. I'll make sure you get emails on
the meetings as we start.
Thanks for the interest.
Hope you're doing well!
Cathie

Catherine E. Zacher, President
Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
624 Agua Fria (87501) P.O. Box 8184 (87504-8184)
505.984.2842 505.989.8614 (fax)
www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org> [hidden email]
<mailto:[hidden email]>

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world....indeed it's the only thing that ever has!

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]On
Behalf Of Gorges, Susan (N-Strategic Business Solutions)
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 2:23 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

Cathie;
I am a 'silent' reader of the Friam conversations. If you wouldn't might, I
would like to sit in on your cluster group discussions to hear what they
need for growth. I would like to make sure that what TVC in Northern New
Mexico is advocating corresponds with what your group(s) are asking for.
Sort of the idea of a common (and LOUD) voice!

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf
Of cez
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 1:29 PM
To: Owen Densmore; [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity
Coffee Group
Subject: RE: [FRIAM] Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

Owen,
The SFEDI Board is now going to be revising the cluster groups we met with
several years ago to talk with them about their needs for growth. I think
that your ideas are outstanding and make much sense for Santa Fe's small
businesses. We definitely need to talk further.
Cathie

Catherine E. Zacher, President
Santa Fe Economic Development, Inc.
624 Agua Fria (87501) P.O. Box 8184 (87504-8184)
505.984.2842 505.989.8614 (fax)
www.sfedi.org <http://www.sfedi.org> [hidden email]
<mailto:[hidden email]>

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world....indeed it's the only thing that ever has!

-----Original Message-----
From: Owen Densmore [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:37 AM
To: cez; [hidden email]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee
Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Financing Economic Development in New Mexico

Cathie: Thank you for the clear and considered response.

My interest was sparked by a SF New Mexican article a while back that
focused on the disappearing local small business. At the time, it
occurred to me that the disparity between the large chains and local
businesses, both newly starting and old and struggling, could be eased
by some fairly simple local shared facilities.

The large businesses have advantages brought about by sharing
infrastructure costs among a large number of stores. Their phone costs
can be negotiated, getting discounts for their large volumes. Their
use of a common IT infrastructure, from cash registers to credit card
validation machinery/accounts to web presence to networks .. all are
volume sensitive and thus costs per store reduced. And when you factor
in newly emerging technologies such as RFID tagging and supply chain
optimization, you can see the small guy is going to continue to suffer
significant cost disadvantage.

So, what to do? Well, I'd like to see how we could structure some sort
of infrastructure support for local businesses, again both old and new.
Think "IT Co-op" so to speak. (I suspect there is some attempt at
this already, but I don't know of specifics.) So for example, if a
large number of businesses could pool their access to credit card
validation, they could bring themselves to within cost parity of the
corporate stores in that area. Ditto for the others. An obvious
example would be very low cost web presence using shared servers with
help from local technologists to reduce cost of managing the sites.
Many folks are surprised to see, for example, that RedFish pays only
$9.00/month for their web site!

Owen

On Jan 27, 2004, at 2:29 PM, cez wrote:

Owen Densmore 908 Camino Santander Santa Fe, NM 87505
[hidden email] Cell: 505-570-0168 Home: 505-988-3787
AIM:owendensmore http://complexityworkshop.com http://backspaces.net

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org

====================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9AM @ Jane's Cafe
Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
http://www.friam.org