Dickinson Young Professional’s Christmas Party

Mark your calendars to kick off the Holiday Season with Dickinson Young Professionals!

The Dickinson Young Professionals (DYP) is having the yearly Christmas Party. DYP is bringing Scott Wild’s Wild Trivia Tour to Dickinson on December 10! The party will start at 5:30 with a social followed by food, fun, and hoggers (come to find out exactly what that entails!)! You could even win a few door prizes!

The party will be at the Strom Center (located right behind Herbergers). Member costs will be $10.00 and nonmembers will be $20.00. We look forward to kicking off the holiday season with you!

Please contact Amanda Moser! by December 8 for more information on Dickinson YP and/or the Christmas Party!

Kim Goldsmith
Web & Social Media Manager

Ladies Night Out: Rediscover Hometown Shopping

Dickinson State University’s Strom Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Small Business Development Center is hosting a “Ladies Night Out Shopping Celebration”, on December 1, 2009, from 5:00-9:00pm, in Downtown Dickinson.

Featuring Downtown businesses, Ladies Night Out offers an eventful evening for all ages. Over twenty downtown stores will be offering a special discount/promotion during this event. A majority of the stores will be hosting refreshments and food sampling. Various downtown professional businesses are sponsoring the event to make the night spectacular. Downtown bars and restaurants will be offering different specials to complete the night.

The shopping celebration will began at 5 p.m. continuing till 9 p.m. on December 1, 2009. Wish lists will be handed out at the beginning of the event to be mailed to your loved ones. There will be chances to win multiple door prizes throughout the evening. Santa will be present for pictures and to receive your wish list. There is no participation fee to take part in the magical event.

For a map of the event and business specials, please visit
the Ladies Night Out webpage.

For more information, or to sponsor Ladies Night Out,
call 701- 483- 2756 or email Amanda Moser

Usborne Holiday Show

There will be an Usborne Holiday Show on Saturday, November 21, 2009 (10 am to 1 pm), hosted by Hollie Dearduff-Kuntz. The show will be held at the Strom Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, located at 1679 6th Avenue West in Dickinson, ND.

The Usborne Holiday Show is a great opportunity to meet some interesting characters! It is an event focused on sharing and selling Usborne Books. Usborne Books are children’s books designed graphically to draw students in, to make them want to learn, and to help them retain what they have read. There are awesome new and exciting titles to offer! Hollie will have some books on hand and for sale or you can put in an order, just in time for the Holidays. If you are interested but can’t make it to the show, you can contact Hollie for a catalog or visit her website and click on the link for the Holiday Show.

Feel free to brings some friends!

Kim Goldsmith
Social Network Community Manager
Strom Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Small Business Profiles Reflect Small Firms’ Contribution to Employment

The following article came from the November 2009 edition of The Small Business Advocate. It it be Senior Editor, Kathryn Tobias.

The 2009 edition of the Office of Advocacy’s annual state profiles shows details galore about the small businesses in your state. The data cover the overall state picture, including the total number of businesses, business turnover, workforce characteristics, and bank lending. They also provide information on industry distribution of small and large businesses and their role in the state’s job base. And the data also reveal the impact of small and large firms on job creation and losses at the state level. The profiles are based on the latest available data. The 2007 data showing the number of small and large employers will be added when they become available in early 2010.

Many of the states with the largest shares of their 2008 employment in small firms also generated the largest increases in jobs on the eve of the economic decline in 2008 (see table). Of the 25 states with the largest shares of private sector employment in small firms—ranging between 51.6 percent and 69.8 percent—more than half saw employment increases in 2008. The highest percentage of job gains—more than 3 percent—were in North Dakota and Wyoming, with 66.2 percent and 63.3 percent of their employment in small firms.

Of the other half—the 25 states (and the District of Columbia)—with less than 51.5 percent of their employment in small firms, just four had employment increases, and 10 had employment declines of more than 1 percent. The largest employment decline was in the state with the smallest share of small business employment, Florida.

Of course, many factors are likely to have influenced the employment picture in 2008. Exceptions to these patterns—states with lower shares of small business employment that saw job gains in 2008—included Texas, the District of Columbia, and Massachusetts. States with higher shares of small business employment that had employment losses of more than 1 percent in 2008 were Michigan, Hawaii, California, Rhode Island, Idaho, and Oregon.

The profiles were compiled by Advocacy economists Victoria Williams and Brian Headd. To view them all, visit www.sba.gov/advo/research/profiles.

Kim Goldsmith
Social Network Community Manager

Community Field Day Successes

We held Community Field Day on October 20, 2009 on the Dickinson State University Campus. The day consisted of 4 panels—leadership, resources for development, entrepreneurship, and youth. These topics opened doors for communicating and networking on issues that relate to sustaining strategies for communities.

What are people saying about the day?

The Strom Center’s Community Field Day was a terrific way to connect some of North Dakota’s greatest community resources and dedicated leaders. Community Field Day offered a multi-dimensional look at issues facing our communities. The shared stories of trials, collaboration and success were both instructional and inspirational. It was great to interact with active leaders who walk the walk. We all know success in our communities is dependent upon the collaboration of the many parts…….and you provided a forum that truly adhered to this concept I’ll be back next year.
Shannon Schweigert
GivingPoint/Giving Magazine– Principal
Fargo, ND

Community Field Day was a fun and educational day. The panel discussions were a smorgasbord of projects and ideas to absorb. Hearing individual testimonies about how each entity approached their challenges and overcame difficulties really gave each of us encouragement and new exuberance towards our own community projects. The enthusiasm for each person’s community or personal project was contagious.
Kathy Miller
North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame –Manager
Medora, ND

Community Field Day was a great venue for sharing and celebrating the stories in our communities. A day of learning from one another, sharing resources and networking. For me, the day reaffirmed the importance of networking and collaborating as rural communities. We heard testimony on a variety of community successes, issues and concerns and through that discussion discovered a continued positive spirit in our communities, who- though often faced with some rather interesting barriers – continue to press on.
I watched in amazement as the Leadership Panel opened the floor for questions, addressed some delicate issues happening in one of our small towns, determined our local leadership was often unprepared for public conflict, and immediately began implementing additional education for RLND participants in conflict management skills! A whole room conversation between panelists, facilitator and attendees. Wow – problem identification – discussion – solution – implementation – all in one morning!!
Ray Ann Kilen
Small Business Development Center–Regional Director
Dickinson, ND

These successful conversations happened because of the panelists and attendees that came to talk about building social capital and community.

Watch for other stories that we were able to capture at Community Field Day!

Amanda Lynn Moser
Community Development Project Coordinator
Strom Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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