The Observation Deck

It was mentioned somewhere on this forum, that we, as a city, should probably not expect much in the way of attracting big business to our city, and to expand the possibilities of home based businesses.

Given the lack of open land for huge super-stores, and mega-factories, I would have to agree.

So, what can we do to assist people in developing home based businesses?

In my opinion, if we, as a city, developed a reputation for this type of thing, it would also be heading more toward a Utopian direction, where "Joe Average" might still see and have a chance at doing more than just surviving financially. There are a lot of people that fall between the cracks of the world, who might not have much of a choice. Example single mothers, people with other drawbacks etc. It would seem to me, that might be a great part of the jigsaw puzzle in the quest to draw many more people INTO our city, and increase it's tax base, rather than them consider other locations.

Just an opinion.

Mark Allan (Crnolatas)
"A society or group of people exist soley in it's ability to maintain an atmosphere of peace and civility. It's failure is directly relative to the degree of the lack of these conditions".

Why not some type of group that would research, suggest, advise, sort of like a COSE of Lakewood, but focused on development of home based businesses?

Anyone up for this?

Mark Allan (Crnolatas)
"A society or group of people exist soley in it's ability to maintain an atmosphere of peace and civility. It's failure is directly relative to the degree of the lack of these conditions".

This would be a good idea. I have been self-employed for almost 10 years. Before I went solo, I worked for a company that developed organizational learning tools. Most of the learning objectives centered around economic literacy, process understanding and customer competency. These tools were used to help employees, middle managers, and senior executives get a better understanding of "the big picture".

At one of our conferences in 1995, an executive from Boeing raised the question of what happens when everyone in the US needs to be self-employed. She was addressing the trends that could replace manufacturing jobs with many small businesses and what it would take to re-educate these middle-class to be more self sufficient. But in 1995 the economy was starting to rage and the discussion didn't go too much further. I was 21 and I didn't fully grasp the reasons for such a shift and when I quit a year later I didn't have any type of foresight other than I wanted to be with my family more (when I got around to having one).

The first few years on my own were a complete disaster (I went to art school - not business school). I sought out a lot of help from my former co-workers (some of which who had started their own businesses) and anyone I could find to fill in the gaps.

Ken Warren explored the advantages of Lakewood for home-based businesses in his article about re-purposing doubles. I didn't decide to move to Lakewood because of those advantages but I lucked out in many ways. Lakewood is in a position to take a lead in this trend and it also fits with the needs addressed by the Grow Lakewood report. A Lakewood COSE could address different issues than the national/regional groups like NASE or COSE.

But the biggest instant benefit to Lakewood could simply be to exist. If we had a "LCOSE" that would certainly show we were home to a lot of small businesses and self employed. I would bet that a lot of people could really use something like that now.