How ‘bout them Broncs?! Super Bowl Champs, the top of the football world!
A couple of us from the Chamber staff were in San Francisco last week just prior to the Super Bowl. No, we weren’t there for the big game. We were attending the Annual Conference of the Western Association of Chamber Executives at the nearby San Francisco Airport Marriott. But the buzz of anticipation was palpable, and there were some suspiciously big guys wandering around the lobby, probably current or past NFL pla...
You know, as a loyal reader of mine, that my interests tend to range widely. While I mostly stick to topics relevant to business, free enterprise and the local community, I’ll occasionally throw in a topic that catches my eye.
I recently came across this fascinating map on BusinessInsider.com. It was published in 1931 and is a 5-foot long depiction of 4,000 years of world history. The creator was John B. Sparks. He attempted to show the history of seven different civilizations. Perhaps the ...
As you know from the update in today’s Chamber SmartBrief e-Weekly, the Chamber’s annual Moving Fort Collins Forward! campaign is over and was very successful. When the residual pledges and numbers finish coming in, campaign volunteers will have raised over $700,000 and recruited 100 new members in just 11 weeks. Very impressive!
But while we measure progress with numbers, what do they really mean?
First of all, as I’ve said in this space before, we don’t raise money for the sake o...
What an interesting time we live in. The 24-hour news cycle propelled forward by competing political agendas adds an emotional froth to everyday life. Below all of the contrived angst are significant technological and economic changes that are as confusing as they are profound.
Last week I heard Salim Ismail talk about exponential disruption. Ismail is a former VP of Yahoo! and is now the executive director of Singularity University. Here are some of the notes I captured:
Christmas is two days away and the seasonal buzz is at a fevered pitch. Just yesterday I had breakfast in downtown Fort Collins with a friend at the Silver Grill. When we left at 9:00 customers were lined up waiting for a table. Over the noon hour I was back in Old Town and parking places were hard to find. On Saturday the College and Harmony corridors had lots of traffic and the stores my wife and I went into were busy.
Of course, busy-ness doesn’t automatically translate into g...
By my recollection, this is letter #54 that I've sent over the years!
In all that time we've only met once. Do you remember? You were stacking gifts against the back door since our house didn’t have a chimney. After having to climb down from the roof, your low-grade cursing – you called it ‘murmuring’ – woke me up. When you asked to use the bathroom I escorted you to our outhouse whereupon your ‘murmuring’ increased! There’s nothing quite...
The Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce’s recently completed Moving Fort Collins Forward! campaign was a huge success. How big? Well, against a goal of $550,000 Chamber volunteers raised $600,912! Additionally, against a goal of 100 new members by the end of the year, we are currently at 96.As a reminder, this annual campaign is used to raise about half of the money the Chamber will need in the following year. The money goes toward programs, events and key strategic initiatives. An ex...
This is Denver-centric but applies to Colorado in general, including Northern Colorado. Where do visitors originate from? According to a big data dump by Visit Denver last week, the top 12 states for visitors are:
California Texas Illinois Nebraska Florida New Mexico Kansas Minnesota Arizona Wyoming Maryland New York The top cities from outside of Colorado sending visitors were: Los Angeles Chicago Albuquerque-Santa Fe Houston San Diego Phoenix Dallas-Ft. Worth Minneapo...
Father's Day was this past Sunday. I spent some time thinking about my dad who passed away in 2010. He was one of the smartest, most capable people I've ever known. All that with a 10th grade education and blue-collar railroad carman work history.I won't regale you with a bunch of personal dad stories except for one that illustrates the point I want to make, which is that wisdom is not a monopoly for people with big titles and formal education. In 1990 I was a young chamber ...
We are charging ahead on big projects this year at the Chamber. Here's a quick update on some of them:
Legislative session. Gratefully, the 2014 session of the Colorado General Assembly is complete. Business fared better this year than last. We have a wrap-up doc that we'll be sending out in the near future. I-25 funding. As reported previously, we are creating a two-county alliance to lobby for $965M to widen the interstate to 3 lanes each way between Highway 14 and Hi...
