Comments on: Share Your Thoughts on Corvallis Job Creation with the Mayor

By: chrisnordyke

chrisnordyke — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:45:26 +0000

John,
I think it comes down to what someone considers “thriving”. There are a number of trade-offs to embracing the declining economy and going with the flow.
Many of us have become accustomed to a lifestyle that includes riding on well-maintained bike paths, swimming at Osborne, taking our kids to play in the fountain at the Riverfront or having a picnic at MLK park. All of those community resources require an ever-increasing stream of funding (growth).

By: John Morris

John Morris — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:34:22 +0000

There seems to be an unspoken assumption in the original post and the responses… “growth is good.” As Americans we are familiar with growth and we have developed some fabulous ways of exploiting and profiting from growth.

Recent events in the news — global war, global warming, peak oil, financial crisis, housing crisis, etc. — beg the question, “can we thrive in a declining economy?” As we come face-to-face with a shift of global economic leadership, H1N1 pandemic, overuse of natural resources and unsustainable global population growth, is it time to change the questions we are asking? If the community of Corvallis can find a viable answer to this question, won’t we be ahead of the next curve?

By: Todd Washington

Todd Washington — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:41:02 +0000

Community input is the doubled edge sword of Corvallis. On one hand it brings many ideas, concerns, questions, and yes opinions to the table. On the other hand you get so much discourse that our current City Council doesn’t even want to stay involved. I noticed in the GT that the make up of our upcoming Council is going to have a much different look due to quite a few Councilors not running for their position again. One of the reasons was frustration caused from the community (ie Urban Renewal and other programs that got shot down).
Corvallis has a lot of people that want to whine about growth but don’t give stratigies on how to prevent job loss. They want Corvallis to stay the way it is. Well I’m sorry, that is impossible. A city is a living thing, if it is not growing it is dying. Growth is not always measured with numbers and size. Sometimes growth is just simply maturing with new ideas, new systems, new projects. These are things that some people fight hard against because it is change. To me this like the twenty-something year old that doesn’t want to move out of their parent’s house because they will actually have to change some of their ways. We cannot allow these people to keep us stuck!

By: Katherine Cleland

Katherine Cleland — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:00:44 +0000

Through the Chamber Coalition’s economic development committee we also have the opportunity to meet with the State economic development team and tell them what we think we need as a community to start, grow and recruit businesses. Can this group help with a list of support that we would like to see from the state to make new jobs happen here?

By: chrisnordyke

chrisnordyke — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:37:14 +0000

Corvallis is silo’d and we could probably take some notes from the recent best seller Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan.

In particular, the concept of building “Triads” I think is relevant to Corvallis getting some of these disparate groups and events that Jason mentioned, more interactive and interconnected.

Corvallis, and more specifically, the business community is probably somewhere between a stage 2 and stage 3 culture.

If our business community could move toward a stage 4 and then stage 5 culture (as our goal) that would be an enormous win for Corvallis.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/951543/Tribal-Leadership—The-keys-to-leveraging-groups

Pay particular attention to page 4 of the viewer- it describes the stages.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:46:38 +0000

I agree that getting different kinds of people mixing and see what happens is a big potential win.

In my mind, that is the answer to “Why should I go to SAO, Beer&Blog, Young Pros, BeaverBarCamp, StartupWeekend, Ignite, Smartups, Willamette Angle Conference, etc?” for people who work at traded sector companies are large organizations that don’t sell directly to Corvallis residents. I.e. people from OSU, HP, IGT, ViewPlus, Korvis, and all of the other mid to large traded sector and manufacturing companies and in Corvallis.

There’s are other reasons as well such as:

* People in Corvallis are surprisingly well connected (Sechrest, Investor types, etc)

* It helps improve your community which in turn helps it grow, thus making it a better place to live for everyone.

Just my 2 cents.