Outdoor Pool Community Forum

The Outdoor Pool Committee, headed by Stepheny Reger, will be having it’s 2nd Community Forum on Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 7:00 pm. The forum will be held at the Dickinson City Hall in the City Commission Room in Dickinson, North Dakota.

For more information about this forum or about the Outdoor Pool Committee, contact Stepheny Reger via email or by phone at (701) 483-3209.

Kim Goldsmith
Web & Social Media Manager

Free Resources

If you are looking for funding for you business, I have a couple of free resources that may be of value to you.

The first resource is Grants.Gov. Here, you can get a grant application packet and figure out which grants fit your needs.

The second resource is a different type of resource. It is actually the North Dakota Economic Development 2020 Target Goals, which were compiled by ND EDND/Commerce. This document allows you to see what the projected year 2020 looks like, which will help you better figure out which areas to focus your efforts on now. It will also help you figure out what type of grants to apply for. On top of that, it’s just a really good way to get an idea of what the year 2020 might look like

For more information about either of these resources, please contact me.

Kim Goldsmith
Web & Social Media Manager

Chamber Looking for Nominees

The Dickinson Area Chamber of Commerce is currently looking for nominees for the following:

Outstanding CHAMBER Volunteer Nomination
How has this individual given of their time to help the Chamber achieve its goals this past year?

Outstanding COMMUNITY Volunteer Nomination
How has this individual made our city a better place to live through the unselfish giving of their time to community wide projects?

AG Business Nomination
How has this business created a better arena for producers through managment through sharing of information & acting as an advocate for production of agriculture?

AG Family of the Year Nomination
How has the family helped in agriculture to create a better environment through technology, equipment, or services?.

The deadline to enter nomination is October 15. Please send all nominations and reason for nomination to team@dickinsonchamber.org or for more information call (701) 225-5115. All winners will be announced at the Annual Chamber Banquet, which will be held October 26 at 6:00 pm at Lady J’s Club & Catering in Dickinson, North Dakota. Tickets for the event will be sold in October.

Kim Goldsmith
Web & Social Media Manager

Dickinson’s New Flight

Starting last week, the Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt Airport is now offering a new flight schedule, with Dickinson, North Dakota having it’s own flight. The morning departure used to have another community linked with Dickinson, but now it’s just Dickinson. This new flight schedule will allow for an additional 100 seats per week. All of the flights are direct flight to Denver, Colorado, provided by Great Lakes Airlines.

New Flight Schedule

Kim Goldsmith
Web & Social Media Manager

Does technology really help?

One battle we sometimes see at the Strom Center is people trying to understand how technology can help their business. You may be surprised that in some parts of southwest North Dakota there is only one option for internet access, and it’s via very slow satellite with penalties if you use too much bandwidth. With online technology like that, it’s no wonder people can be skeptical about its usefulness.

Another argument is that technology is making us dumber because we don’t have time to think and are constantly distracted by our Blackberries and interruptions — that no one knows how to concentrate for more than five minutes anymore. Some argue that it’s not the technology that makes us dumb, it’s how we use that technology (one point of view can be found here).

CNN did a story recently about neuroscientists that left their technology behind for several days while they explored the great outdoors. They wanted to see what not using technology for a while would do to their thought processes (video is here).

Through all these debates, it seems like technology is equated with online activity, email, cell phones, and maybe high definition video. But those are just communication methods – the means to get to the real technology: accounting packages, credit processing systems, inventory management, CRM systems, data analysis, process management – tools that can make a business prosper.

So yes, technology does make a difference – both the technology that helps us run our businesses and the technology that helps us access that other technology.

Susan Miller
Strom Center
Business Technology

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