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StartWest focuses on technology-based, entrepreneurial companies. This site reports on events, news and topics that occur in the Sheridan area and beyond that are technology and business related. In addition, the site provides resources for starting a technology-based company in Sheridan or supporting and growing a company that is already here and established.
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Bresnan Communications, Bloomberg Television and the Wyoming Entrepreneur.Biz network have joined together to present two free luncheon programs featuring author and business expert, Jane Applegate. ‘Clear the Way to Unlimited Success’ will be held at the Commons in Powell on October 7. The program begins at 11:30 a.m. Jane Applegate is the author of The Entrepreneur’s Desk Reference and 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business. For 12 years she wrote a weekly syndicated column, Succeeding in Small Business, for the Los Angeles Times and hundreds of newspapers around the world. Applegate was named ‘National Media Advocate of the Year’ by the U.S. Small Business Administration in 1994. In 2000 she founded SBTV.com (Small Business TV). Currently, Jane is a columnist for Forbes.com and Success magazine. Free admission includes program, lunch and copy of Jane’s book. Pre-registration required by October 1. Go to www.wyomingentrepreneur.biz to register.
Wyoming businesses of all sizes will come together in Cheyenne this October at a conference to inspire innovation within Wyoming companies and build a business community Wyoming residents want.
The 2nd annual Business-to-Business Idea Expo is set to take place Oct. 9-10 at the Little America in Cheyenne.
Registration for the event is $100 for the first participant and $75 for each additional attendee. A networking after-hours event is included in the conference registration and is open to the public for $10. Additionally, a trade show featuring business-to-business vendors and government business services is free and open to the public from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. each day.
The conference will cover a wide array of business-related topics regarding finance, marketing, people management, and entrepreneurship in two days of breakout sessions. Sessions include seminars and discussions on how happy employees make productive workplaces, what it really takes to get grant funding, and how New Media can help keep businesses relevant to a new generation of consumers, among other topics.
The expo also encourages businesses to intermingle and share ideas with the hope of providing contacts and fostering growth for Wyoming companies.
Building the Wyoming We Want Director Jeff Fuller will be the closing keynote speaker on Oct. 10 at 12 p.m. The Building the Wyoming We Want effort was started in January 2008 by Gov. Freudenthal to help Wyoming citizens and communities determine their vision for the future.
In addition to presentations by Wyoming business leaders, the expo will feature keynote speaker Doug Hall, founder and CEO of Eureka! Ranch, a company that teaches businesses how to better create ideas, select ideas that have a higher probability of success, and implement an action plan to get products or services to market more efficiently. Hall is the author of award-winning “Jumpstart Your Business Brain,” which landed on National and Amazon bestseller lists and will be given to Idea Expo attendees.
To register, visitwww.wyomingideaexpo.com or call Brandon Marshall at 307.777.2820. To reserve booth space at the trade show contact Annie Wood at 307.777.2844 or visit the Idea Expo website atwww.wyomingideaexpo.com.
The Idea Expo is hosted by the Wyoming Business Council and its partners at the University of Wyoming: Gro-Biz, Manufacturing Works, WyomingEntrepreneur.biz, the Wyoming Market Research Center, Wyoming Research Products Center, and the Wyoming SBIR/STTR Initiative.
The conference is sponsored by Bresnan Communications, First Interstate Bank, Rocky Mountain Power, U.S. Bank, Wyoming Business Council, Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, and the Wyoming Rural Development Council.
The mission of the Wyoming Business Council is to facilitate the economic growth of Wyoming. For more information, please visit www.wyomingbusiness.org.
The latest web site recommended by the James J. Hill Reference Library in the weekly email I get from them is the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) Small Business Economic Trend Report. If you do business with small businesses, this might be worth a quick look once a month
Here’s what Hill has to say about it:
How small business owners view the economy affects all sorts of operational decisions. Will they go ahead with that PR initiative? Hire that new employee? Outsource some aspect of their business?
The NFIB Small Business Economic Trend report can provide insight into the mindset of your entrepreneurial peers and/or potential B2B customers. This monthly report looks at small business optimism levels, earnings, sales, inventories, employment, and much more. It then compares current numbers to historical data to provide a relative snapshot of small business thinking.
Currently, that thinking is a little dark. Optimism is flagging, inflation fears are rampant, and expected earnings are down. That’s this month. Check back next month, and the month after, for what will hopefully be a heroic and speedy turnaround.
It’s a 23 page report with lots of cool tables and charts but it looks as if most of the info can be digested by reading the few pages of commentary at the front.
We in Wyoming certainly have enough of those environments: mining, drilling, logging, and farming certainly have to rank among the nation’s most dangerous occupations.
