January 2006, Volume: 9, Issue: e/1, ISBN 1527-5175

~~~International Council of Shopping Centers... ICSC's Dictionary of Shopping Center Terms includes translations into French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. Their programs are diverse, from management, leasing and law to financing and peripheral land. Professional courses are held throughout the U.S. and in Istanbul, Dubai, Kiev, Lima, Bangkok, Mexico City and Mumbai, India. Additional information is available at www.icsc.org

~~~The general business population in the Asia Pacific... is not familiar with the dial telephone, or with telephone lines. The average business person has two cell phones on his possession, one for business, one for personal. When traveling in China, many executives now travel in security cars possibly with guards. One executive states that a familiar pattern of doing business is to connect with a partner, not a government representative, to expedite business ventures.

~~~Observations from a U.S. production manager in Brazil... Workers with moderate skills are every bit as good as ours, are very hard working, put in long hours, and display strong loyalty. They are self starters, every bit as creative and are willing to take more risk to get the product out.

~~~"Move Over, India... "Romania looms as the next offshore tech powerhouse with its low costs, language proficiency, burgeoning infrastructure, and engineering skills." Although you might have an existing business interview program underway, the reality is that you'll probably lose competitive edge to more and more developing countries. Most Romanians speak English and also speak French, German, Swedish, Finnish, Greek or Danish. Oracle's European Development Center in Bucharest employs 300. Add to that base 45,000 software developers. Business and technology executives from 26 Romanian companies recently exhibited at the outsourcing expo in New York. They are a power house percolating just under the scope. Where's your true competition? Source: InformationWeek, Nov. 14, 2005

~~~Among 975 non-manufacturing industries defined by NAICS... 410 are showing gains in revenues. 275 of these are "new" industries that were not officially recognized prior to 1998. Source: CALED, Sept. 20, 2005

~~~Funny how quickly new words come and go... for instance, "outsourcing". Forrester Research stated that 3.3 million U.S. jobs will be outsourced by 2015. Brookings Institution re-defines this as 250,000 per year according to Brainard and Litan. Good politics translates these estimates into 112 bills being presented in 40 or more states early in 2006, many to set up commissions for further study. Source: InfoWorld 12/05/05

~~~We read with keen interest... about an IT symposium and the 10 reasons to attend. It presents a good list for you to use in controlling your expenses: productivity, relevance, trust, value, talent, advice, depth, solutions, leadership, and connection. Faster ROI? You bet! Source: Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2005

~~~Synchronist Version 3.1 released... at the 6th Annual Synchronist Users' Forum held in Chicago in Oct. Version 3.1 includes major upgrades resulting from User input and our ongoing R&D. New features include: Synchronist xTool, Technology Orientation Analysis (patent pending), Data Quality Index, Interview Scheduler, as well as a variety of new reports. Synchronist Users can upgrade on request. For upgrades or questions call Eric or Andrew at 630-462-9222.

~~~Blane, Canada Ltd.'s next "Advanced Business" seminar... April 20-21 in Chicago. Sign up now for one of the 25 seats! http://www.blanecanada.com/BCL_retention.html

~~~KITs... Taking a competitive intelligence view of economic development requires ED professionals to identify Key Intelligence Topics (KITs). Consider three different levels: senior management, management processes and procedures, and operations (market and competitors). Everyone does each of these semi-consciously. However, it is important to move this activity to the conscious level as a preamble to your strategic planning process. It will help you identify different sources of information important to your organization. It also sensitizes staff to the importance of sharing their observations gathered in the course of doing business. Source: Competitive Intelligence Magazine, Oct. 5, 2005

~~~The goal of marketing is to stand out... not to blend in with the crowd... How do you compete? Excellence? Responsiveness? Creativity?

~~~"Many companies don't know where they are most vulnerable to knowledge loss"... according to David DeLong, author of 'Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce'. Source: CIO magazine, January 15, 2006

~~~Here's some interesting info... One-half of all US patents are owned by overseas companies and one-quarter by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Sweden, Finland, Israel, Japan, and South Korea each spend more on R&D as a share of their GDP than the US. Innovation is critical for sustained competitiveness. Thanks, Greg King, Georgia Tech.

~~~S-U-C-C-E-S-S... That's the way to spell "Success", right? Indianapolis spells 2005 as a successful year: 37 completed projects, 1,890 new jobs, and nearly 5,000 jobs and commitments of new capital investments worth more than $161 million. Perhaps the most important factor was the average wage of newly committed jobs was $18.90 hourly in 2005, quite above the citywide average.

Blane, Canada Ltd.
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Wheaton, IL 60187-7380
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