14th Annual Women in Business Conference 

Riding the Waves of Social Media  

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Registration & Check-In: 8:00 am to 8:30 am

Conference: 8:30 am to 2:30 pm

Chico Masonic Family Center

1110 West East Avenue · Chico, California  

Contact  the Small Business Development Center at Butte College

(530) 895-9017

 Click on the maps below to see full-size 

 

In honor of our current Native American community development projects; broadband deployment and economic development planning, we thought we'd share with you something you might find interesting about Native Americans in our state. The first map on the left shows people with Native American ancestry, as reported in Census 2010, as a percentage of zip code population. As expected the higher percentages are mostly in rural, mountainous north and east.

 

The second map shows raw Native American population concentration. Notice how population is concentrated in California cities rather than the rural areas. This means that despite representing a small percentage of our population (1.9%), most Native Americans are integrated with and a vital part of our communities. Indeed, most Native Americans do not live in highly concentrated rural Native American communities. They are also our neighbors, co-workers, and friends. Therefore, we see helping Native American communities as helping all of our communities throughout California and we are honored to play a role.  

 

Call us at (530) 898-4598 and let us know how we can help with your community and neighborhood economic and social data needs.  

 

  

Exploring the idea of "Made in America, Again"!  

Sneak Preview to the 2013 Economic Forecast Conference 

 

Will China's cost advantage for manufacturing consumer goods become a thing of the past? Will the reallocation of global manufacturing rest on the shoulders of countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico? The 2013 Economic Forecast Conference will help to provide answers to these questions and provide insight how the global, national and state economies affect the North Valley.

 

The 2012 Conference focused on the theme of building collaboration to grow the economy of the North Valley. With the addition of afternoon breakout sessions, issues and next steps for collaboration were explored on how we can move forward and work with each other on community and economic developments. The 2013 Economic Forecast Conference will build on the 2012 theme of collaboration but will take collaboration to the next level: How our collaborative efforts can provide a platform ripe for the reshoring of manufacturing in the North Valley. (Click on the links for additional reshoring information and white papers.)

 

The 2013 Economic Forecast Conference will include afternoon breakout sessions to foster innovative ideas and identify issues on topics you have indicted as important to you---scheduled are breakout session topics such as: manufacturing, transportation, workforce development and healthcare, and collaboration with chambers of commerce.

 

This conference could not happen without the support from sponsors! As a non-profit organization, we depend on sponsors to help us continue presenting this annual event. Please consider this event when planning your marketing and sponsorship efforts. Affordable sponsorship levels are available to fit any budget. Click here for sponsorship information. 

 

Do you have a collaboration success story? We would love to hear about it and include it in our annual report of collaborative efforts in the North Valley. Please contact Sandy Linville at 530.898.3857 or by email at sllinville@csuchico.edu

Are you able to access the Internet from a laptop, mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA)?  We are working on a very large 16-county initiative to close the gaps in existing infrastructure to make sure everyone in northern California has access to high speed Internet (Broadband). For these 16 counties, 5 separate organizations were awarded Regional Consortia Broadband Planning grants from the CA Advanced Services Fund (CASF), two among them awarded to CENIC and CED, CSU, Chico: Northeastern CA Connect Consortium (NECCC) and Upstate CA Connect Consortium (UCCC). We are pursuing an infrastructure deployment grant (also from CASF, applications due Oct. 1, 2012), for which our plan identifies existing as well as proposed new infrastructure sites throughout the northern counties, building in redundant fiber loops and diversity, increasing access to greater backhaul. Our project areas are flanked by the Redwood Coast Connect Consortium (Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity); Gold Country Broadband Consortium (eastern Alpine, El Dorado, Nevada, Placerville and Sierra counties); and Connected Capitol Broadband Consortium (Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba counties).

In the meantime, get out of the heat and mark your calendars for July 19th. We are hosting the 1st Semi-Annual Regional Consortium Meeting for the seven counties in the Northeastern California Connect Consortium (NECCC). This meeting will accommodate in-person attendance and be simulcast live from the Offices of Education departments' conference rooms in Butte, Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties. Please click here for meeting locations.

For more information please check our websites at necalbroadband and upcalbroadband.

It is July and that means the research staff of the Business and Industry Assistance Program (BIAP) is celebrating the birth of our great nation. It is our belief that one of the best things in our power to help this country is to work with locally owned businesses and help the national economy from the ground up. By serving the local business community, CED is dedicated to increasing employment and the quality of life for everyone in our region and country.

 

Over the past several years the BIAP has taken on a role of intensive one on one market research counseling for small businesses in Northern California. The BIAP actively partners with local economic developers, lenders, and small business consultants to stress the importance of market research for loan applications, business plans, marketing strategies and most importantly to allow small businesses to make informed decisions when allocating scarce resources. We all know that capital is difficult to come by in this economy so it is important that businesses have all the necessary information to make sound decisions about opening, expanding or investing. Thanks to our funders, USDA Rural Development, SBA, and EDA, CED's BIAP is able to provide intensive market research assistance to businesses free of charge on a regional basis. Programs like BIAP, Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), your local Economic Development Corporations (EDC), and the Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) located at your local community college are all federally subsidized programs proving that the Federal Government is dedicated to the growth and health of the small business community. The members of the BIAP team as well as the employees of the other programs mentioned will assist small businesses in your communities in any way possible, and we are all working together to make U.S. companies globally competitive.

 

If you or any one you know is in need of these services or would like referrals to any of the programs listed above please contact Michael Suplita at (530) 898-3855 or  msuplita@csuchico.edu.