Category Archives: Winston-Salem

Befuddled by Social Media? Never Fear, Digital Marketing Boot Camp is Here

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I don't know how they originally sent me the info, but the folks at Wildfire weren't taking any chances and they sent me info about the Digital Marketing Boot Camp via email, Twitter and I believe carrier pigeon.  Anyway, if you're a small business person, a.k.a. an entrepreneur, then you might be interested in the event Wildfire is running October 24, 2009 at NC A&T:

Industry leaders at Wildfire will collaborate with North Carolina A&T State University’s Continuing Education Program to implement a program titled, Digital Marketing Boot Camp. The Digital Marketing Boot Camp is intended for interested CEO’s, managers and those involved with marketing processes to participate in an in-depth crash course on marketing, across the digital landscape. The program is offered to the public in efforts to help professionals in the region utilize digital media to build better businesses. “The need to upgrade and continuously improve interactive digital skills is essential to compete in today’s economy,” according to Will Spivey Managing Partner, Trone.  
 
Two options will be offered: a Boot Camp Jumpstart crash course and a more in depth Boot Camp Plus. The Boot Camp Jumpstart will provide an overview covering the basics in a one half-day session on Saturday, October 24, 2009, 9 am – 12 pm.  Boot Camp Plus will provide an in depth examination of marketing across the digital landscape and the role of a website vs. social networking vs. search marketing. It will also cover everything from basic terminology to more comprehensive applications in the digital marketing space and much more. Boot Camp Plus will consist of seven three hour sessions beginning with the Jumpstart on Saturday, October 24, followed by six classes on Wednesdays, October 28 – December 9, 2009, 6-9 pm. All classes will be held on the campus of NC A&T State University. Tuition for Boot Camp Plus is $299 or $249 if registered by September 30. The fee for the Boot Camp Jumpstart is $99, or $49 if registered by September 30 (the Jumpstart fee is included in the Boot Camp Plus tuition).

Here's the link to the Boot Camp website.  FYI, Wildfire's the group doing some pretty cool digital marketing for Noble's Grille and Dewey's Bakery among others.

Dell Hell, NC Version

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**Update** If you'd like to see a really good discussion about the Dell situation then head over to Cone's blog and check out the comments.  No shouting and lots of thought behind the comments.  Really good stuff. 

A couple of years back Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?, blogged about a very negative experience he had with Dell and he dubbed it Dell Hell.  After yesterday's news that Dell is closing down their desktop plant here in Winston-Salem I'd say we're having our own version of Dell Hell.

Yesterday I wrote that Dell's move couldn't possibly have been a surprise to anyone who's been awake the last 18 months.  Ed Cone quoted me on his blog and since at least one of his commenters suggested that it is a surprise to a lot of people I felt compelled to explain myself in the comments:

The reason I wrote that it shouldn't be a surprise was really an observation that given the overall economic environment of the last 18 months, the fact that the plant was built to produce desktops, that the market has been moving strongly towards laptops and Dell didn't seem to be interested in re-tooling the plant to produce laptops and that Dell has been reducing it's workforce at the plant, then it shouldn't really be seen as very surprising that this has happened. Abrupt? Sure, but these things tend to be.

As for Winston-Salem getting back its incentive money I heard an interview on WXII this morning in which the Dell rep said that the incentives were based on job creation and the Dell had met those conditions, so maybe Dell is planning on fighting the return of those incentive dollars.

In addition to my points in that comment I'd also like to put forward the following thoughts:

  • I remain convinced that subsidies stink. I also remain convinced that if subsidies are a part of the economic development competition between states then state and local officials are pretty much forced to use them. 
  • Hopefully Mayor Joines is right when he says "The city, the county and the community will get reimbursed every dollar we put into the project." What worries me is that Dell might go to court to fight the reimbursements. Even if Dell is wrong they probably have less to lose in taking the issue to court and working for a settlement than they do in ponying up the reimbursements without a fight.
  • Even if we get our money back we still have over 900 people being added to the unemployment rolls by January. That's a heck of a hit for an already overburdened unemployment system, not to mention a potentially chatastrophic impact on the employees.
  • Some leaders have pointed out that the silver lining here is that we have a relatively new manufacturing facility that can now be marketed to another company. I guess that's a good long term view, but short term I wouldn't hold my breath. From the Fed's September 9 Beige Book report for the fifth district, which includes North Carolina:

    "Vacancy rates climbed higher across office, industrial, and retail space in most District markets, while the amount of available office sublease space remained fairly steady since our last report. On the sales side, very little activity was reported in recent weeks."

    Maybe we can re-purpose it as a fabulous new indoor soccer park.

  • I've read some comments on other blogs and news stories that essentially say, "Hindsight is 20/20" or "It's easy to criticize the deal now, but no one could have known this was going to happen at the time the deal was struck." Those folks are right, and at this point I don't think it's appropriate to criticize the folks who put the deal together. I truly believe they were doing what they thought was best for the community and given that incentives are a tool that most state and local governments are using to attract business it's hard to criticize them for trying to compete. (We could argue that the price tag was too high, but that horse is out of the barn).  What we should be focusing on is how we protect ourselves in the future. Winston-Salem is in the unfortunate position of having two deals (the downtown baseball stadium and Dell) go squirrelly on them in very short order and I think it's clear that we have to go into these deals with eyes wide open and assume that the worst can happen.
  • Any which way you slice it, this situation stinks.

About Those Incentives

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News that cannot possibly be a surprise to anyone who's been conscious for the last 18 months:

Dell Inc. announced today that it will close its plant in Forsyth County by the end of January, cutting 905 jobs overall, including 600 in November.

Just in time for the holidays.  Nice.

The Wake Forest Connection to the David Letterman Affair

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Local blogger Ken Ashford writes that one of the women who had a sexual relationship with David Letterman is a graduate of Wake Forest:

UPDATE:  One of the female employees Letterman had a sexual affair with was named Stephanie Burkitt.  She's a New Hampshire native and a Wake Forest graduate (she's following me!).  That relationship ended in 2003, before David's child was born (and before David married the child's mother).  Burkitt later became involved with the Halderman, who apparently accessed Burkitt's diary, and got the goods on Letterman.  Burkitt is apparently "mortified" that Halderman would have done something like that.

An Open Letter to Those Whacky Winston-Salem Artists

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Dear Winston-Salem Creative Types,

If you're going to promote your projects using mannequins and other lifelike displays around the city you might want to let folks know what you're doing.  That's especially true if you put a mannequin on a billboard.  If you don't and concerned citizens call 911, which in turn leads to police and EMS responding, then you should be prepared to pay a nice little fine.  It's the least you could do for all the "free" publicity.

Best regards,

Jon

Will Winston-Salem City Council Pull the Plug on Prim?

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I don't think the Winston-Salem City Council can afford to be too tough with Billy Prim and the other investors in the downtown stadium project so it will be interesting to see what happens if Prim misses the Council's deadline on getting the financing done on the deal as this article in the Journal hints might happen.  I really don't think there's much the Council can do other than a little screamin' and hollerin'.

How Youth Was Served in East Winston

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Yesterday I wrote about the 21 year old Winston-Salem State University student Derwin Montgomery who won the Democratic primary and likely the council seat the East Ward of Winston-Salem since there's no Republican candidate.  The Winston-Salem Journal has an article about how he did it.  Please note that he didn't just do this on a whim and that some real strategy and planning went into his effort:

Montgomery, who had been running his campaign more or less alone, started delegating responsibility to fellow students. He had a "director of compliance" who helped WSSU students register to vote in Forsyth County. He had a "director of transportation" who organized vehicles to drive students to the board of elections so they could cast early ballots. He had two administrative assistants.

It paid off in a big way. A total of 440 people cast ballots for Montgomery in early voting, including 211 students at Winston-Salem State who were newly registered. That's more than the total number of people who voted in three of the other six primary races.

Youth is Served in Winston-Salem

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Looks like the east side of Winston-Salem is going to have a city council member who's barely old enough to drink legally:

Derwin Montgomery, a 21-year-old Winston-Salem State University senior, defeated Democratic incumbent Joycelyn Johnson for the East Ward seat on the Winston-Salem City Council during the Democratic primary Tuesday.

Montgomery garnered 530 votes or 57 percent of the votes cast in the East Ward. Johnson received 228 votes or 24 percent of the votes cast in the municipal primary. With no Republican challenger, Montgomery becomes one of the youngest city council members in recent history.

Montgomery attributed his success to the more than 400 Winston-Salem State students who supported his candidacy and participated in early voting, which concluded on Saturday, Sept. 12.

He sounds like an impressive young man: Deans Scholar, Youth Minister at Calvary Baptist, first VP for NAACP's Youth & College Division and he's planning on enrolling at Wake Forest U next fall in the dual degree program for law school and divinity school. 

Let's see, what was I doing at 21?  Well, on any given day I could find the best happy hour in town based on the criteria that buying one beer for $1 could get you access to an all you can eat taco bar.  That's huge when you're 21 and broke, or 23 and broke for that matter.  Other than that I was pretty much worthless.

Congrats to Mr. Montgomery and here's hoping he lives up to his potential.

Helping Mrs. C’s Class

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A friend of ours teaches special needs children in a high poverty school here in Winston-Salem.  She's signed up on DonorsChoose.org to raise a couple of hundred dollars for some equipment she needs for her class.  Here's the description:

"I teach middle school students with moderate intellectual cognitive disabilities, mild physical disabilities and/or mild to moderate autistic tendencies. My 30 students are unable to read grade leveled materials but LOVE to read. My program's number one goal is to get my students to become readers and writers and most importantly to LOVE SCHOOL!

We graduated to middle school but all of our technology was left behind!!! I moved up to the middle school with my students, however, with budget cuts there is no money for my "new classroom". During their elementary years, my students had daily access to specialized computer programs, adaptive hardware and the opportunity to learn computer applications in a small group setting. This year, we have are not so lucky. My goal is to have my students write, edit and publish self created books weekly. Due to the numerous physical and cognitive limitations of my students, they need to write books at a pre-K level and read books presented in a variety of formats, ranging from paper to computer. I am in need of materials to save and print student created PowerPoint books. Some of my students are capable of paper copies, however, others will need to read their books on their home computers and will need a way of "bringing home" their published work. Once home, my students will be able to share their love of books with their families.

I am in need of paper, computer ink, book binding combs and several thumb drives. With these materials, my students will be able to participate in a weekly literacy lesson which will produce a book that is not only accessible, but interesting and appropriate for all of my students with moderate cognitive delays.

MY STUDENTS NEED YOU!! With your support, you will give my students access to the world of literature.

My students need two reams of paper, computer ink, book binding combs, and four memory sticks. The cost of this proposal is $256, which includes shipping for any materials requested and fulfillment ."

You can contribute here.