Technology Futures

New Mexico's long term vision to dominate commercial space activities in the U.S. continues to mature. The New Mexico legislature has approved $30 million to fund further development of Spaceport America, and the venture already has a $27 million lease signed with Virgin Atlantic. Virgin plans to base its U.S. commercial space operations there, with tourist flights starting before the end of this decade.

It is an instructive lesson for other communities with tough economic challenges. By almost every measure, New Mexico has had a tough time. But the state worked with what it has in abundance--empty land--and turned it into an asset. It was not money or Federal grants that got this done. It was a clearly articulated vision and the determination and grit to stick with it.

Want to be part of the Space Economy? Move to New Mexico. Some of the best high tech jobs in the country are already beginning to move there: composite materials manufacturing for space craft, space avionics, space and air traffic control, advanced air and spacecraft manufacturing, flight testing, and ground support operations and maintenance, to name a few.

The Internet has not made travel obsolete. Despite the eventual ability to make high quality video "phone" calls as often as we make voice calls today, the need to travel for business is not going away.

Three trends are converging that could be very good news for rural regions that are far-sighted enough to take advantage of them.

• Trend One: The hub and spoke design of our current airline industry is at capacity, and the horrendous but now common travel delays are not going to go away. New major airports are horribly expensive, and would solve only part of the problem. Air travel is awful, and the airlines' own incompetence is part of the problem.
• Trend Two: Businesspeople, entrepreneurs, and families continue to want to leave traffic-clogged urban areas and move to smaller communities with better quality of life.
• Trend Three: A new generation of small, less expensive commuter planes (four to ten seats) are going to make travel from smaller airports much more affordable and convenient. Air taxi service, using these new planes, will become much more accessible, and will become a viable alternative to driving to a major airport and flying a commercial flight.

Rural regions of the country that have invested in smaller, regional airports (smaller than what the commercial airlines will use) will have a key economic development advantage in the Knowledge Economy. Commercial flights are beginning to nudge $800 to $1000 for business travel, because it is usually difficult to schedule travel weeks in advance to take advantage of bargain fares.

At those price points, air taxi service begins to look attractive, especially if you can save a full day of meals and an overnight stay. Time is also money, and point to point nonstop air taxi flights can save many wasted hours of travel time. Rural regions that have both affordable broadband AND a well run and well maintained small airport with air taxi service will have a hard to beat competitive advantage.

Here in the New River Valley, communities are debating whether we need one or two small, local airports (they are located about 30 minutes apart). Both serve important business and economic development needs, and both should be maintained and improved. In the end, it is all about attracting new businesses and keeping the ones you have. Small airports are going to become more important than excess water and sewer capacity, and at least as important as high performance, open access digital road systems.

I have heard from a couple of people that IE 7 does not display the pages correctly, so I have switched to a different theme. If you are having problems, please drop me a note and let me know what browser you are using.

Thanks,
Andrew

cohill -at- designnine.com

Stuart Mease of the City of Roanoke and Roanoke Biz2Biz organized a terrific workshop on bloggers and blogging yesterday. I was invited to speak there, along with folks like Pat Matthews, Tom Markiewicz, and Keith Clinton. Many of the attendees were people trying to learn more about blogging and whether or not it would be something useful for their business or organization. The workshop was exactly the kind of thing that every economic development organization in the country ought to be doing for local businesses, and Biz2Biz and Mease get kudos for getting it done.

Biz2Biz has started a terrific blog on local business and community activities. One of the things they will do is help distribute press releases from local companies, which are often ignored by traditional media outlets, who don't have a way to put much business news into traditional radio, TV, and print formats. Not everyone will read them, but by creating a central location online for them, they get indexed by the search engines more effectively if someone is looking for something specific.

Most interesting fact to come out of the meeting: a local blogger, who started blogging while a full time mom, has leveraged her writing into a full time job with Yahoo! Roanoke's Sleepy Blogger learned the tools of this new medium and turned it into a job. And while it is just one data point, there are many more like it. And no, these kinds of folks and business opportunities never show up on the radar of most economic development organizations. New jobs are being created and filled every day, and most economic developers don't know.