Please use the unexpected benefits of “pay it foreword philosophy” as the South Metro Regional Chamber of Commerce builds member business to business benefits.

Carry the torch for each other by referring member business to each other and encourage Chamber memberships to your colleagues.

After all the best endorsement is experiencing the results that only come from member ship in the South Metro Regional Chamber of Commerce!

Also, decide on a business service that you can offer to fellow members and call Julia Maxton 433– 2032 x 103.

We are all in this together!

And ……. Always….. “Thank You”!

“My Side Of The Conversation” From Julia
2009 Chamber Golf Outing BIG announcement

I firmly believe timing is an important initiative in most decisions.   So with that thought in mind and after a lot of research, here is the decision!

We will not be holding our famous Women’s golf scramble or the eighteen hole event on September 14th this year!

I personally feel it is inappropriate and a stretch of commitment to expect committee time, prize donations from stressed businesses and golfers to spend business dollars for a brief day of golf.

We have a better idea!

Mark your calendar and save the date!

Instead, on September 14th 2009 Sycamore Creek Country Club will be the location of the South Metro Regional Chamber of Commerce first and only Recession Rejection Event!

Watch for details soon!  And you will see why this Chamber sets the bar the highest in member satisfaction and innovation!!

P.S.- Golf in 2010 at Sycamore Creek Country Club is scheduled for September 13th !! next year!!

“My Side of the Conversation”

I am posting this very thoughtful article with the permission of the author because it represents an out of state business person’s opinion about our area.

Perhaps this outsider’s vision of our dilemma is to the point?

Julia

Eye on the Pie
Morton J. Marcus

Watch your pocket; someone is trying to pick it

This is a cautionary tale. Beware of your best commercial friends, your most trusted business allies, your most generous corporate supporters. They may abandon you when you need them most.
Let’s fill in the details. NCR (National Cash Register) was founded in Dayton (OH) in 1884. It became one of the great innovative companies in American business history. Now NCR is moving from Dayton to Duluth (GA), an Atlanta suburb.
The company has been part of your life since your birth. Your commercial activities have been rung up on its cash registers or point-of-sale terminals. In the past week alone you probably used one of its ATMs at your bank. Your utility payments may have cleared through its check processing systems. NCR barcode scanners have followed your packages and purchases across the nation.
NCR was a respected member of the Dayton community. It was to that western Ohio city what Cummins Engine is to Columbus (IN) — home grown, internationally prominent, and locally responsible.
Now NCR is moving its corporate headquarters and over one thousand jobs from the Buckeye to the Peach state. The leaders of Dayton and Ohio are outraged. They claim they had no warning of this impeding move.
If those political and business leaders had looked the signs were there.
In 1991, NCR was bought by AT&T, a conglomerate engaged in agonized restructuring and unable to define itself in a new environment. Within five years, NCR’s worldwide workforce shrank from 53,800 to 41,100. By 1996 AT&T was ready to spin-off NCR. The damage, however, was done. NCR had spent half a decade as a foster child in a dysfunctional family. From that time forward NCR has been a different company, buying and selling companies rather than innovating, and its worldwide workforce has declined to 22,000.
After AT&T, NCR shipped its voluminous corporate records to the Montgomery County Historical Society. A nice civic gesture or a weighty good-bye?
NCR was a company with a history of promoting from within and whose executives held office for decades. Yet in 2005, the top executive position at NCR was given to Bill Nuti, a 41-year old with no ties to NCR or Dayton. Soon many NCR executives were working and living in New York. The company said its world headquarters were in Dayton, but decisions flowed from NYC.
Among those decisions were new customer service and manufacturing facilities in Georgia. The corporate headquarters’ move, announced on June 2, 2009, should not have been a surprise if anyone wanted to pay attention.
NCR denies that the $60 million in tax breaks from Georgia has any bearing on its move. Ohio was ready to offer only half that amount. But NCR and Georgia agree that there is a highly skilled workforce available in the home of the Braves. The education institutions of the state are becoming among the best in the nation. The Atlanta airport offers direct flights to everywhere. The Art Museum, the Symphony, the sports teams, ………..
Now that Atlanta has lured NCR, what about Dayton? The answer depends on what Dayton did in the past ten years to provide for the future. No doubt there will be a sudden interest in economic development, many committees, taskforces, and fingers pointed, all of little consequence.
The best economic development work keeps an eye on the present and builds for the future. It cannot undo the neglect of the past.

Mr. Marcus is an independent economist, speaker, and writer formerly with IU’s Kelley School of Business.