If there\u2019s one impression that Michael Shuman, the first of three keynote speakers at this year\u2019s Innovation Summit, left with his audience, it\u2019s the importance of local businesses.<\/p>\n
Each year the annual summit, hosted by the Juneau Economic Development Council, brings together business owners, policy makers and other movers and shakers in economic development to discuss the future of the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all love economic development, but we all have different opinions about how to make it happen, and Alaska has a number of challenges when it comes to economic development,\u201d Shuman, an economist, author and entrepreneur, told a crowd of a couple hundred people in the main room of Centennial Hall.<\/p>\n
Among those challenges, he said, is the fact that Southeast Alaska\u2019s economy is not very diverse. Nearly one third of all wages paid in Juneau are state government wages, according to the JEDC\u2019s most recent Economic Indicators report. Also problematic is the state\u2019s current budget crisis. According to Shuman, neither of these problems are insurmountable so long as the region shifts its focus to helping local businesses.<\/p>\n
First on Shuman\u2019s to-do list for communities in need of economic development, which is arguably all of them, is to maximize local ownership. Shuman listed several reasons why this is important. Local businesses boost tourism by offering more community-specific attractions, he said. They also put about two-and-a-half times more money back into the communities in which they are based. <\/p>\n
Shuman hit this point home by emphasizing that local businesses allow for more local control, a point he made by reopening Juneau\u2019s fresh Walmart wound.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we put our fate into the hands of a business that is not well connected to the community, stuff happens; stuff happens that is beyond your control,\u201d he said, adding that the city should look to fill the hole left by Walmart\u2019s closure last week with locally owned businesses. <\/p>\n
Luckily, given the state\u2019s budget problems, Shuman\u2019s all-local prescription doesn\u2019t include a lot of public investment. In fact, he advised policy makers to \u201cstop discriminating against local businesses; let them thrive and they will do great,\u201d he said. Going beyond his initial advice to policy makers to look local to replace Walmart, he cautioned policy makers from spending resources attracting outside businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, I do believe, that most economic development has to be driven through the private sector,\u201d he said, discouraging entrepreneurs from seeking publicly funded grants. Instead, he proposed the need for more \u201cpollinator businesses\u201d that he said will offer private-sector solutions for new businesses.<\/p>\n
Shuman likened some members of the business community to bees that pollinate a field. They do work that is beneficial to everybody within the community without seeking reimbursement, at least in the traditional sense. Shuman gave more than a dozen examples of these pollinator businesses, such as Main Street Genome. Based in Washington D.C., Main Street Genome helps businesses save money by diving into data and looking for potential savings. Both businesses then split the savings so Main Street Genome is able to help businesses without taking money from their bottom line. <\/p>\n
\u201cPollinators set in place infrastructure that helps support multiple businesses,\u201d Shuman said, comparing them to the Genie from Aladdin<\/em>. \u201cThey allow us to wish for more wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If there\u2019s one impression that Michael Shuman, the first of three keynote speakers at this year\u2019s Innovation Summit, left with his audience, it\u2019s the importance of local businesses. Each year the annual summit, hosted by the Juneau Economic Development Council, brings together business<\/a> owners, policy makers and other movers and shakers in economic development to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":12112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12111"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}