The CED is currently taking applications from stage two companies (6-99 employees) looking for intensive business research assistance, marketing assistance, marketing mapping and competitor profiling. This is your last chance to get involved in this USDA Rural Development Program and there are still three spots available. Don't wait any longer as the final three spots will be given out on a first come first serve basis. To apply for assistance or for more information please contact Michael Suplita at (530) 898-3855. We highly encourage you to contact your local SBDC for business consulting services to accompany this market information.

Current clients are working with the Center to help their market penetration using the following strategies: market/trade area mapping, customer targeting via economic and demographic reports, competitor data, business lists, customer counts and mailing lists, industry trend research, search engine optimization, social media training, and web site analytics. In addition to helping businesses with their market penetration, the CED's services also allow businesses to make revenue predictions when evaluating new product lines, new markets, and new businesses. Sales estimates are an integral part of any business plan, especially when seeking funding.
Through this program, the Center is offering thousands of dollars in market analysis and requiring only a $200 commitment from each business. The $200 commitment demonstrates to the funders that you, as a business, are dedicated to doing what is necessary for your own growth. As a bonus, when a business enrolls in the program they will be given the option of having a no-cost Web site/search engine optimization (SEO) audit done on their site. It is crucial to have an unbiased third party assess your site prior to making changes. The Center has a proven track record of being that third party; let our experts assist you.

My name is Amy Lippus and I will be a senior at Chico State University in the fall, studying physical and environmental geography with a certificate in Geographic Information Systems. Working as a research assistant at the Center for Economic Development has been a wonderful learning experience. Not only am I able to apply concepts I have learned in my classes at Chico State, but I also learn many new skills every day that will help me with my career within the field of geography later on. I also hope to gain general skills and experience that can assist me later in the professional world. Currently, I am working on the Broadband Deployment Project, which focuses on addressing and resolving the lack of high-speed Internet in remote, rural areas of northern California. Every day we have a new and exciting task, ensuring much diversity within the workweek. In addition to working on interesting topics, I feel welcomed by the light atmosphere of the CED, and friendly faces that I get to work with every day. 

 

For broadband planning consortia update, please see our 2Q2012 newsletters, Northeastern California Connect Consortia, NECCC and Upstate California Connect Consortia, UCCC.
For an updated map of our conceptual design, click here and our NCBP Framework click here.

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

The good news? The Obama Administration Announces $9 Million Investment in Rural Communities to Foster Job Creation and Innovation.

The bad news? To date, no projects have been funded in rural California.

We think rural California is the victim of stereotypes regarding the Golden State. Images of movie stats, technology CEOs, and "sunbirds" spending the winter here in expensive motor homes dominate these stereotypes. Urban Los Angeles may get plenty of press about social and health problems in its poorer districts, and we're certainly proud to be playing a role in helping community development in that part of the state, but our message is this: rural California is often left out, and we think that is unfair.

Rural California may enjoy some remarkable advantages shared by few other areas, among these is outdoor recreation (including world-class fishing, hiking, and skiing), but we have our development challenges, too. We are plagued by a lack of job opportunities to keep our residents employed with decent wages, resulting in poverty that taxes our social welfare organizations.

To put the issue into perspective, we prepared a map that shows median income in California by Census Tract. Yellow shows the state's median income, green is significantly better, and red is significantly worse. We can see patches of green (higher median incomes) in our urban areas around San Francisco Bay, in much of the LA Basin, in suburban San Diego and Sacramento, and even around Fresno and Bakersfield. That said, much of the state's land area is rural, and that rural area is mostly red (lower median incomes). Many of our more rural counties still have median incomes below $40,000 - that means that more than half of the county's households earn less than that income.

We think we can do better, but it takes investment.  We need infrastructure (including broadband), we need messaging (branding/marketing), and we need workforce development. Yes, we have all of these things, but they're all severely underfunded to meet the challenges of rural California. An EDA Challenge Grant like that funded above, invested in California, would have gone a long way to keeping jobs in the U.S. and developing our rural communities to ease land development burdens in our more urban areas.

It's a shame rural California was not funded.

 Click on the map below to see full-size

 

Median Household Income - Census Tracts 

2010 American Community Survey 

 

      

    

 

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