Sunday, May 29, 2011

Sunday snippets.

Finally saw Fast Five.

I liked it, but it was slightly less believable than Thor.

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"Initiatives Look to Create a Business-Friendly Bend."

This sounds good, except I'm not sure the way the article is phrased as to whether they are actually making Bend more business-friendly or looking for ways to make Bend SEEM more business-friendly.

It's like everyone thinks that all problems can be solved by public relations.

"...revamp it's image..." "...no longer wants to be perceived..." "...wants to appear more friendly to businesses..." "...create more jobs...in part by marketing it as a good place to do business..."

But the substance of the changes seem pretty minimal. Hiring yet another consultant. Changing the format of an 'advisory' board.

Somehow it doesn't seem to add up to real change.

Just more spending or spending differently.

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The sun shines -- until I put on my gardening clothes. I gotta stop doing that!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to agree on the article about the city becoming more business friendly. It sounded more like changing the color of lipstick on a pig and calling it more friendly. In the end you still have a pig.

The $1000 for a pre-application planning meeting seems absurdly high but then the city is shelling out $1800 per month in health care benefits per employee.

The new business advocate mentions putting together a database of businesses in Bend to identify clusters. Um. That was part of the reason Bend added a city business license tax. They mainly wanted the $50 per year but they also end up with data that the new guy wants to tap. Hopefully he uses the business license data and doesn't go out and recreate the wheel.

Anonymous said...

'business friendly' ?
Blow jobs by Reho's ? City-hall brown nosing?

Nothing friendly about biz in orygun in fact its one of the worst places to do biz in usa. Yes dunc pr&marketing cannot fix but money can be had by consultants. Capitalism in the usa is benddead(tm). The thought of investing a nickel in orygun makes me to vomit.

So the blood suckers want more blood-cows in Bend. Good fucking luck.

I know we can give millions to the BULL & HOLLERN. That always worked in the past.

H. Bruce Miller said...

They might as well focus on PR because the real obstacles to a diversified, prosperous economy in Bend -- the remoteness, the lack of an Interstate connection, the absence of a four-year university, the shitty climate -- are things they can do little or nothing about.