Becoming Entrepreneur-Ready

Becoming Entrepreneur-Ready

One metro suburban town, one rolling hills country: Holly Springs and Amherst County are on their way to becoming Certified Entrepreneurial Communities® What do Amherst County and Holly Springs have in common? At least three things: 1. Holly Springs, NC and Amherst...

I’ve never seen anything like Cleveland County

After 19 months of work, Cleveland County was officially designated a Certified Entrepreneurial Community on Thursday. Creative EDC oversees the Certified Entrepreneurial Community program, which is an aggressive economic development program aimed at advancing...
Three Keys to Local Economic Success

Three Keys to Local Economic Success

I borrowed most of this from Don Macke’s 10 Keys to Local Success (with related thoughts from me). First key is Local Responsibility. There are federal, state and private resources and initiatives that can be most helpful but the decision to act or not act on economic...
Growing Small Ideas Into Big Business

Growing Small Ideas Into Big Business

Abbeville County, SC, (pop. 25,000) is a small, rural county without an interstate. What Abbeville County does have is a creative and innovative local economic developer. After being in economic development almost 20 years, I’ll take that over an interstate any day....
We Walk What We Talk

We Walk What We Talk

We talk about investing in communities, creating a sense of place, revitalizing downtown, redevelopment, and entrepreneurship – and we walk it. Creative EDC was formed in 2012 and headquartered in Elkin, NC, hometown of Crystal Morphis. We didn’t locate here because...
Social Media – It’s All About Strategy

Social Media – It’s All About Strategy

If you don’t have a social media strategy, it will fail as a marketing tool. “Social media isn’t a toolbox of silver bullets given to us by aliens, it’s just a new set of technologies and concepts that we need to integrate into our existing marketing strategy” (Lon...