Recent Articles from Neil McKenzie
Best of CoBiz: Five simple steps to grow your creative business
When working with creative businesses, I find that most don't use one of the easiest tools to take a pulse of the market, check up on their competition and grow their business: Talking to their customers! Good organizations are in continuous contact with their customers, not just a "Hello or how a...
Best of CoBiz: Building with the arts
As we move our state ahead in developing our economy, one of the most crucial problems we must solve is how to finance our existing companies and provide funds for the many entrepreneurial organizations just waiting to take off. This challenge is just not a Colorado problem but a national one as well. Banks don’t […]
Best of CoBiz: The creative class
Richard Florida became well-known with his book The Rise Of The Creative Class, which paints a picture of changes in the makeup of our society that are having profound effects on the way we work and live. He divides our society into three main sectors: manufacturing, service and the creative. Each sector is experiencing changes […]
Best of CoBiz: Selling to birds of a feather
We are fortunate in Colorado to have a highly entrepreneurial population. It is these companies and individuals that are going to lead our future growth and prosperity. They need the support from our business community and government to make sure that they have the proper resources, an educated wo...
Best of CoBiz: Top 10 questions to bolster your brand experience
Your business does not exist in a competitive vacuum! Your customers and prospects have a multitude of choices when it comes to parting with their money. As the world becomes a flatter place (a term coined by Thomas Friedman in his book, The World is Flat) not only will your competition come from...
Best of CoBiz: One great picture is worth a bunch of business
As a photographer who helps people with their brand images, I recommend that everyone who is concerned about their personal brand have a really good profile image - one that supports your brand and portrays you in an authentic manner.
Best of CoBiz: Getting business to support the arts
On a visit to Winston-Salem, I discovered that this city of 230,000 is known as the “City of the Arts.” Like most cities in America, Winston-Salem has felt the impact of the economic downturn and probably a bit more. The city was founded on tobacco, textiles and furniture – all of which have been subjected […]
Putting the “creative” in creative districts
Today, many towns and municipalities have efforts to grow their creative areas and in many instances to build them from scratch by attracting creative businesses. The growth of many creative districts has been the result of creative professionals being priced out of other areas and somehow findin...
Carbondale’s creative secret sauce
rbondale seems to have found the right ingredients for a successful arts/creative district. To use a baking analogy, it takes more than just ingredients to make a great cake. It takes the right ingredients in the right amounts coupled with experience and skill - Carbondale’s recipe is no differen...
Building the creative economy from the ground up
The importance of the creative economy in economic development is a hot topic these days in the governmental, educational, nonprofit and private sectors. The creative sector is usually defined as professions in science, engineering, education, design and the arts to name just a few. The general ap...
Economic development from the bottom up
The “bottom-up” economic development plan initiated by Gov. John Hickenlooper is beginning to take shape. The idea was to consolidate the state’s 64 counties into 14 regions which would prepare regional economic development plans. These regional plans would be then in turn rolled up into an overall state blueprint. The regional plans have been prepared […]
Colorado’s creative sector creates … jobs
In November 2010, the Colorado unemployment rate rose to 8.6 percent versus 7.4 percent in the prior year. While the unemployment rate increased, 3,800 new jobs were added to our State’s economy, the third consecutive month of adding more jobs. As more people return to the labor market and look for jobs, it is projected […]