"Stronger Economies Together" (SET) is intended to help Tri County Economic Development District (TEDD) discover new approaches to enhance our regional economic development plan. Our regional economic plan is an outline of who we are, what industries, demographics, resources, sectors, etc. we will focus on to grow our regional economy over the next few years and how we intend to do so.
The SET program is intended to provide interested parties with the latest tools, training, and technical assistance to help the Tri-County region move forward. The next session is June 14th, 2012 in Cusick.
Who is Invited? If you live in the Tri-County area (Pend Oreille, Ferry and Stevens) and want to hear about and/or give input into our economic development priorities for the future, you should attend. Private business owners and interested citizens of all ages are welcome.
 99designs conducted a survey of 1,500 respondents from March 2012 to May 2012, who were evenly split between 99designs customers and non-customers holding design decision-making roles within their companies. This is a snippet of what they learned ...Blue = success. Purple and orange = flailing. According to most small business owners, that is. (57% of respondents picked blue as being the color they most associated with success, followed by green (35%), white (32%), black (29%) and red (21%). Purple was the color male respondents least often associate with success, while women were least likely to select orange. Apple dominated for best logo and best website, while Wal-Mart was in dead last. Interestingly, Facebook made the list of best and worst websites ... at least they generate a strong response! Are you taking your graphic design seriously? You should be! And it doesn't need to break your bank. First impressions count, so be sure yours is up to par!
 If this sounds too good to be true, we understand. We didn't think it was possible either. Who hasn't heard of all these app building services or developers who charge you a ton to create an app for you - and that's just for one platform. Appsbar has changed all that. With their platform, you can easily and intuitively create an app for your business, event, organization, yourself, etc. and have it published for use across all platforms - iPhone, Android, Google Play, etc. - all completely for free! And yes you can personalize it with your own logo, photos, videos, content - absolutely. The interface is as simple as Weebly is for websites. They just came out of beta testing in May and we can't get enough of them. But don't take our word for it - try them out! (And then come back to tell us what you think!). Link here.
 Weebly just keeps getting better. Last month they rolled out a few new features, such as social media icons, action buttons, and a mobile app. All of which we love and were able to use right away. But it just got a lot better as today they publicly unveiled 25 new themes - hooray! And to make things even better, there's a great site, Weebly Forums, that has a ton of tips not only on how to navigate Weebly but also how to easily customize some features that most non-coders would shy away from. They make it so easy, you almost feel like a programmer. Almost. Anyhow, if you're looking to publish a slick website quickly and for free, Weebly is a definite must!
 It's in Spokane, at various times on June 21st, 2012, and it's FREE. Over the course of 1 1/2 hours you will create and publish a website for your business using Intuit Sitebuilder. Organizers provide laptops or a place to plug-in if you bring your own. You can also register for the Grow Your Business online 1 hour seminar where you'll be shown how other people find your business online, with methods like search engine optimization (SEO), web analytics, etc. and then how to run your business more efficiently with a variety of free online tools. WA GYBO is offered by Washington SBDC and Greater Spokane Inc., using Google tools and platforms. For more information and to register, go here.
 You have 60 seconds to pitch your idea for the next greatest thing. If the diverse crowd of entrepreneurs, programmers, designers, marketers, advisers, students and more likes where you're headed, you then have 54 hours to recruit your team, develop your idea into something tangible and finally ... 5 minutes to present it to the judges.
 Join us at Newport High School from 6-8pm on Monday, October 24th, 2011 as we co-sponsor, along with Pend Oreille Valley Network, a seminar " All about Websites (& a little Facebook)". We'll cover the why, what, how, how much, where and who ... from Do It Yourself to fully customized - what's involved, what are the benefits and costs & what do you need to be thinking about? FOR ALL WHO ATTENDED:Please help us improve by taking a quick 10 question survey here. Should only take you a minute and we really appreciate your feedback!
If we sound a bit like a broken record when it comes to social media, it's because it is such a dominant force in today's market. And, it's free to use! Yes, it takes a little time to learn and even more time (and thought and creativity) to master, but it's not like you have to go hire someone to build a website for you or pay huge bucks to advertisers, etc. right out of the gate. It's something that even you can do, from the comfort of your own home. Still not convinced that social media is where it's at? Well, even Nielsen is convinced - and that should speak volumes. They just released a new report on Social Media for Q3 2011 with some incredibly compelling data points - read more to find out what they've found.
We're heading to Seattle next weekend to check out the Washington Small Business Fair. Held Saturday, September 24, 2011 at Renton Technical College from 8am-3:30pm, it's a jam-packed FREE business fair with tons of break out seminars that cover almost every topic imaginable for all stages of business ownership. Not only do you get to learn from a variety of business experts leading the seminars, you can also visit the Resource Center between seminars to get the info and help you need from federal, state and local government agencies and business and trade associations. Sound interesting? Join us! For more info, visit www.bizfair.org.
This infographic showing the growth of online social media is nothing short of astounding. Just check out how steep the growth curve is for users across all age ranges and demographics. Social networking is clearly here to stay in every facet of our work, play and day-to-day life. But don't take our word for it ... click on "Read More" to check it out ...
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