Collins Center Undertakes Initiative to Help Massachusetts Cities Preserve and Expand Base of Businesses
 The most recent edition of MassBenchmarks, the journal of the Massachusetts economy published by the University of Massachusetts and the Federal Reserve Bank, offers some hope that the economic malaise gripping Massachusetts may be nearing a turning point. It reported that the Massachusetts economy expanded more than twice as fast as the nation's during the second quarter of this year.
At the same time, however, the slow pace and fragility of the economic recovery are squeezing the small and mid-sized businesses that most Massachusetts cities rely upon for jobs and revenue. Additionally, lingering fiscal pressures will greatly limit what cities can do to help their local businesses.
The Collins Center intends to change that equation for Massachusetts cities with the C2B (City-to-Business) Initiative. This initiative will help cities preserve and expand their business bases by changing the way they deliver services to their existing small and mid-sized firms. The Center will assist Massachusetts cities in adopting practices, procedures, and systems that will allow them to more effectively serve, regulate and engage local businesses.
Steve Adams, a Collins Center Associate and the former New England Small Business Advocate for the U.S. Small Business Administration, is leading this new project. Adams has over 25 years of experience in government management and entrepreneurship policy.
The heart of the C2B Initiative will be changing the way city governments relate to their small and mid-sized businesses. With the help of commonplace information technology, cities can adopt practices that make conducting business with the city more convenient for local businesses and more efficient for the city.
For example, with social networking technology, city departments can reach out to their smaller firms and gain insights into how proposed city actions, from bus route changes to health code amendments to zoning rules, will affect them. Similarly, Internet technology can ease the process of applying for permits and licenses, scheduling inspections and the filing of required reports. Effective use of these technologies will make doing business with the city more convenient while improving the processing of applications and other routine paper work by city departments.
The Collins Center is reaching out to private and philanthropic sector stakeholders to help make C2B a reality. Through the Collins Center C2B Initiative, all city departments can become partners in creating a more competitive environment for small and mid-sized businesses, who, in turn, will be better positioned to contribute to the economic vitality of the Commonwealth's municipalities.
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Massachusetts Municipal Affairs Survey
 The Collins Center is in the midst of collecting responses from its first annual Massachusetts Municipal Affairs Survey. The survey questionnaire was sent to the chief executive officer of each of the Commonwealth's municipalities. The information gained from this survey will be important in making sure the Center's programs and projects match city and town needs as closely as possible. The Collins Center will also release the overall data from the survey to provide insight to city and town officials regarding the state of affairs in Massachusetts municipal government today. If you are a Massachusetts municipal CEO and haven't completed this survey, please do so. Thank you for your help in making this survey as successful as it can be.
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Center Hosts Naval Lieutenant as Public Policy Intern
|  Lieutenant Courtney Thraen, USN, took advantage of her summer break from teaching Naval History and running a commissioning program at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy to work on several research projects at the Collins Center. Lt. Thraen is also a candidate for a Master's Degree in Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and commented on her Collins Center experience, "The Collins Center enabled me to not only engage in public policy research on substantial projects, but it also provided opportunities to participate in meetings between key business and city management leaders. The insight gleaned from these projects and meetings widened my perspective regarding the complex relationship between business development and municipal affairs while heightening my application of public policy."
A native of Illinois and a Journalism major at Ohio State University, Lt. Thraen brought a varied and unusual background to the Center. She has been a reporter, a military public affairs officer, an anti-submarine warfare officer, an anti-terrorism watch officer and a professor. The daughter of a woman who served in the Navy in the 1960's and was prohibited from even serving on a ship, Lt. Thraen rose rapidly through the ranks to become the navigator on a destroyer carrying guided missiles. She was the highest ranked junior officer aboard that destroyer, the USS Monsen, two years in a row.
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Online Performance Management Course To Be Offered in October
 Does your organization value setting and achieving goals? How do you know if you
are successful? The Collins Center's online course on Performance Management can
provide a public or non-profit sector employee with the tools necessary to
identify appropriate measurements to gauge your effectiveness in reaching those
goals. In addition, the course will teach you how to identify your target
audiences and convey meaningful results.
This course is appropriate for
individuals in government or non-profit settings who wish to enhance their
organization's performance as well as for entire staffs who wish to work
together to increase their organization's effectiveness.
Online
professional development uses emerging technology to engage employees where they
work. This educational delivery model recognizes the increasing demands on the
government and non-profit workforce and aims to provide an alternative to
on-site programs which require travel and predetermined meeting times. If you
haven't tried online courses, now is the time to see how efficiently they are
delivered; if you have taken online courses, you know how you can make them work
to your advantage. Our six module course offers valuable information,
flexibility and an opportunity to improve your value to your
organization.
Sign up today for our fall offering, October 4, 2010 -
November 20, 2010. Now is the time to continue your own professional
development!
For more information, check out these links.
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The Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125
Phone: (617) 287- 4824
FAX: (617) 287- 5566
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About Ed Collins
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Throughout his outstanding public career, Edward J. Collins, Jr. epitomized the spirit and goals of the Center that now bears his name. We at the Collins Center are proud to continue the work of Ed's life - helping governments work effectively and productively for the benefit of their citizens.More about Ed |
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