April, 2003

As this is written, CNN is on across the room.  Real-time images of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M-1, A-1 Abrams tanks move across the television screen, as they traverse the Iraqi desert toward Baghdad.  Earlier today, at the moment I applied mayo to my Lebanon bologna sandwich, I watched Saddam's palace blow up in Baghdad, live on the TV in my kitchen.  If, after September 11th, 2001 we needed another reminder of how tightly interconnected we are to the rest of the world, today provided it.  Today's war coverage is the ultimate reality TV. 

Decisions about spring break trips are tempered with considerations of potential terrorist risk.  Is that trip to Washington DC advisable now?  Should I put my daughter on a plane to Raleigh?  Our world is a changed place-if only because we know so much more about it, so much more quickly than we ever have before.

Instant accessibility can have dramatic effects on business decisions and cycles as well.  On a recent trip to Chicago, I spoke with dozens of company reps and officers at the National Manufacturing Week trade show.  The effects of a slow economy and impending war were obvious.  Very few attendees had plans to expand their operations.  Most were in a wait-and-see mode.  They were waiting to see what "the economy" was going to do, as if, somehow, they and their companies were separate and apart from it.  Yet, viewed in the aggregate, it becomes apparent that the mass of people at the McCormick Center was the economy-at least a significant part of it.  Each of those people wandering the aisles was making decisions, or not, about buying or selling or expanding.  Most of those I spoke to voiced some version of "If we're going to have a war, let's have it and get it over with."

Yet, now that the action in Iraq is underway and an element of doubt is being removed, there are signs that the economy is ready to rebound.  Local officials involved with the trucking industry are seeing projections showing a significant rebound.  Multi-million dollar expansion decisions are being made so they'll be ready when the rebound occurs.  Within the last three weeks, we helped a Scottsdale, Arizona based company locate their eastern operation at the Marion Industrial Center.  Brand Imports provides product and vending machines to companies who maintain what we used to call bubble gum machines.  Today, they dispense capsules loaded with toys, stickers, rings and bracelets.  They will keep dozens of workers at the Marca workshop busy preparing the capsules for sale.

We recently showed officers of an automotive supplier company three buildings in Marion.  They are planning a major expansion of their operation.  We're hopeful they land in Marion. 

All of these individual actions seem to indicate that companies are positioning themselves for an impending economic expansion.  Our challenge as a community is the same as that facing companies-to make sure we are positioned to take advantage of a national economic growth cycle. 

The same technology that allows us to watch instant action in Iraq also allows companies to buy and sell in global markets instantly.  Markets are developed more quickly. 

Trends are discerned at a mouse click.  The communities that will capture the jobs and investment that comes with growth are those who are ready ahead of time.  The old days of stable markets and guaranteed employment are gone.  Information is instant.  Companies respond quickly or die.  Communities who can respond with them will prosper.  Those who stay firmly planted in nostalgia will, like an old photograph, slowly fade away.  This is not to say that values like honesty, integrity, and a job well done are passé.  They endure and are more important than ever.  But they are being applied in an economy that works in real-time.  Our job is to make sure we're nimble enough to take advantage of today's plugged-in economy.