Earlier this year, Powell’s Books made national headlines by eliminating 31 jobs in Portland, stirring up familiar questions about the future of independent booksellers in the age of e-readers and smart phones. But a quick study of the latest numbers from Oregon’s top private companies shows that Powell’s actually survived the recession in a stronger position than many of its peers.
After only five years, Felicia Thornton, CEO of Knowledge Universe/U.S. Operations, has resigned for personal reasons. Knowledge Universe, which has its headquarters in Portland, is one of Oregon’s largest employers.
The news that Google is launching a new coupon service in Portland isn’t news.
It is PR.
This is, by almost any measure, the worst economic recession since the great depression. The recession has hit Oregon public schools particularly hard, given their dependence on the state’s general fund and the general fund’s dependence on income taxes. Because of the volatile nature of education funding in the state, the Education Stability Fund (ESF) was created to help cushion the blow to schools from economic downturns.
In other states, being part of the 100 Best Green Companies would be a cakewalk. But in Oregon it takes a lot more to be top ranked since it’s almost a requirement to use sustainable practices if you want to do business here.
Economic uncertainty is only one significant issue facing the telecom industry now, but it intertwines with the technological changes and social changes that are causing so much turmoil in the industry. Once the path for consumer and business spending is defined, the other changes affecting the industry will fall into clearer focus.
The 140 Characters Conference NW focuses on the changing ways people are communicating now thanks to social media. A wide variety of speakers, from business and nonprofit leaders to government officials, spoke on the way social media helps them engage a wider audience and connect with people in ways never before possible.
Oregon Business magazine has won 12 awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, including first place in the General Excellence category.
How do leaders become leaders? By attracting or creating followers. (As Steve Balzac likes to say, “A leader without followers is just a guy taking a walk.”) How can you reliably build a following? You do it by being a follower — by following a set of values, and modeling followership to others.
Greg Cole and his growing team at Windward Performance recently sawed a hole in the wall of one of the seven hangars they occupy at Bend Municipal Airport to make room for their newest project: a non-motorized glider designed to soar to 90,000 feet above sea level. That would set a new world record for manned, wing borne, sustained level flight.