News-Record.com

I just returned from the furniture rival out west. I was not checking out convention space. But I was checking out the city scene during a weekend bachelorette fiesta.

It was my first trip to Las Vegas. Far from mesmerizing, I found it deafening. Sort of like being in Times Square to the 500th degree. Dinging slot machines inside. Pop music blaring outside mixed with a cacophony of people filled with fake compliments trying to lure you into their casinos; to their "girls"; to their "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" t-shirts; and whatever other commercial detritus they were hawking.

For me it seemed more like seven layers of Hell with great food, algae body wraps and a number of alluring shows thrown in to make you forget you were in a moral vacuum.

But at $125 a night at the Tropicana, it was affordable to stay. For $250 we could have been at the much swanker Mandalay Bay or Bellagio. We didn't need a car. The Grand Canyon is a couple hours drive. And the mystique of the Wild West, even the crass version where cleavage is currency and drinking out of a brown paper bag on the street is de riguer, lends it a post-modern coolness.

High Point has exhibition space, southern charm with a jacked up price tag during market and ...lots of furniture. I couldn't help but think that Vegas wasn't even thinking about High Point. Doesn't need to. Furniture would be a small piece of an almost infinite number of ways the city detaches money from its visitors.

Fifty business, civic, education and government leaders from the Triad are spending three days in Indianapolis this week to learn how to duplicate that city's economic success here. The leaders will visit the home of the Indy 500 from Tuesday through Thursday.

According to a news release from the Triad's three chambers of commerce, Indianapolis was selected for this week's field trip because it shares some common traits with the Triad. Indianapolis has about as many residents as Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point combined.

Indianapolis has also created partnerships with local universities to help grow the biotech industry, a field also near and dear to the hearts of Triad leaders.

And Indianapolis also has a FedEx hub. I seem to recall reading a story or twelve about a FedEx hub coming to the Triad.

The Second Annual Women in Banking Conference meets Thursday, May 5, at the Greensboro-High Point Marriott.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue will talk about "how women are rising in the ranks in the business world."

Whew. You mean women aren't just secretaries anymore? Isn't there a fresher topic?

Other speakers include Susan Thigpen, director of The Financial Institutions Group for SunTrust, and Marla Knutson, president of TransFirst's Agent Bank Services division.

The North Carolina Bankers Association is sponsoring the event.

I've read Richard Florida's new book, "The Flight of the Creative Class", and I can say that he's right on the money. He seems to be a little late with his new thoughts. But on target.

Florida's first book, "The Rise of the Creative Class", was used almost as a manifesto by economic developers and community volunteers, some in this community, looking for ways to jazz up downtowns, and to pump new jobs and new prosperity into their cities.

His assertion: That people who work in the "Creative Class", which includes writers, artists, even lawyers and top managers, bring energy, excitement, and a capacity for innovation that helps a community generate its own prosperity without having to rely on big corporations.

But some here objected to his narrow definition of "Creative Class", which implied a class structure and neglected to address approximately 80 percent of the Triad's workforce. That's why Action Greensboro chose a different name for its look at the subject: Creative Character.

And since Florida's first book, my reporting has shown that many more of this region's jobs have a creative component, even if they're not in Florida's creative classifications. (More to come in our print edition on this issue.)

So Florida's new book does a little back-tracking, and a little further explaining.

He's eager to address his critics. And he's emphatic that he didn't intend to exclude anybody in his first book. That he believes that for the nation's economy to survive, all jobs must become creative.

And he introduces a new concern -- that with international mobility and restrictive immigration here in the United States, the most creative people may choose to leave or avoid this country altogether.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. immigration has grown much more difficult.

Think about the computer workers from India that have, for years, supplemented this country's tech fields. Those numbers may wane as people choose to stay in their home countries or go to work in other nations where entry policies are not so restrictive.

It seems that Florida's trying in his second book to be all things to all people. And while he's dead on with many of his assertions, I can't help but wonder if he's appealing to popular sentiment rather than following his own unique research.

The rich can wrap themselves in bigger homes, fancy cars and trendy clothes. Some economists say they mark their territory with names, too.

See which names, by income and education, are most popular for white babies in the June Atlantic.

Fifty Triad business leaders are in Indianapolis today to learn what that city's doing to keep its economy booming.

This morning, they're learning about creating growth in the life sciences business sector, according to a news release from the High Point, Greensboro and Winston-Salem chambers of commerce.

They'll hear a panel discussion dealing with ways to harness venture capital (something we need more of badly in the Triad), improve the workforce, market a region and nurture startup companies.

They'll also learn about education and the economy at a luncheon.

Tonight, it's off to the FedEx sorting hub for a tour during its peak operating hours. The hub is similar to the one now being built at Piedmont Triad International Airport, and will give the leaders a chance to see how the Triad hub might fit into an economic development strategy.

Our boss, John Robinson, has weighed in on anonymous postings on our blogs:

We've had some good discussions about anonymity, pen names, civil discussion and defamation on this site and on Allen's. After reading, talking and thinking some more about it, we've decided to require you to enter a name and e-mail address to post a comment on our blogs. It doesn't address everything, but it's a start.

We really do want your comments, so keep posting. Thanks.

The Policy Committee of GTCC's board of trustees voted to allow illegal immigrants to attend the school on Thursday.
The unanimous vote of approval paves the way for the question to be considered by the full board on June 16.
The decision comes 10 days after Forsyth Tech's board of trustees voted to allow illegal immigrants to attend the school. It also comes amid state and national debate about the amount of access undocumented students should have to higher education.
"Undocumented immigrants are not going home," said Don Cameron, president of GTCC. "I would certainly put my money on providing people with a better education. It makes them better able to contribute to society, more productive, more able to pay taxes."
The board has been researching this issue for six months, said Cameron.
Current state policy dictates that undocumented students must pay out of state tuition to attend.
The proposed conditions for enrolling as an illegal student are:
• He or she must have attended high school in the United States for at least three years and graduated;
• No state or financial aid will be available; and
• GTCC will take into account that federal law prohibits states from granting professional licenses to undocumented students.
For example, students would not be able to receive medical licenses upon graduation.
A recent poll by Elon University found that 49 percent of those surveyed said they support a state legislative proposal that would allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state universities and community colleges.
Forty-one percent said they were opposed or strongly opposed.

A long-standing tenant of north High Point's Mendenhall Business Park plans to stick around, said commercial real estate officials.
Aetna, a Hartford, Conn.-based healthcare insurance provider, renewed its lease on a 108,028 square-foot customer service and claims processing facility in north High Point.
"Locally, Aetna is a staple in Mendenhall Business Park and we are thrilled that the company has renewed their commitment and will remain a tenant of our park," said Massie Flippin, vice-president and city manager for Liberty Property Trust, a commercial real estate company with 2.6 million square-feet of office and industrial space in North Carolina.
The north High Point facility employs about 850 people. Located at the intersection of Highway 68 and Piedmont Parkway, the office park is also home to TransTech Pharma, MWG Biotech, Cigna Medicare, Newell Rubbermaid Levolor, American Express Financial, and Banner Pharmacaps.

I think the Greensboro Public Library is already pretty cool. It's sunny and cheery and provides a free space to practice my very stilted Spanish with my tutor on Saturday mornings. But if it hosted something like this it would be way cool.

The Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network handed out money last night to three companies in one of its business plan competitions.

The winners of the "Fuel" contest:

A High Point maker of lightweight panels for the trucking industry, Transportation Systems Solutions, took home the top prize: $50,000.

Second place and $20,000 went to SourceHorizon, a supply chain company that helps manufacturers find and assess suppliers.

Third place and $10,000 went to C Change Surgical, a medical device company.

"We are thrilled with the business ideas presented by the winning companies," said Lisa Blakley, the CEO of PTEN. "Our plan is to foster their ideas and concepts, through mentoring, networking and EntreConnect events, into high-growth Triad businesses."

Today's story about the Notion music notation software developed and marketed by a Greensboro company has an interesting back story that we couldn't publish because of space limits.

When Lori and Jack Jarrett had trouble finding venture capital to bankroll VirtuosoWorks, their company, they turned to Lori's husband's native country.

Rahm Sethuraman is a native of India. Through his brother, they found investors in India who would support the company.

So Lori and Jack moved to India to do early development on the software. They even had to teach their programmers Western style music notation from scratch.

When they moved back to Greensboro a couple of years ago, they brought five Indian programmers with them. It's unusual to see this kind of "in-sourcing" when we're used to seeing jobs exported to other countries.

It's also an indication of Lori, Jack and Rahm's commitment to succeeding with this new product.

While doing research on Internet scams and spam, we ran across this site (registration required).

Looks like a good source of information.

Its owners are based in Boone, N.C., although real place matters little in the virtual world.

Dump your old computers with Dell on June 25.

The computer giant wants you to bring your outdated laptops and desktops (any brand) to a recycling event at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Televisions, stereo equipment, cell phones and other electronic appliances won't be accepted.

You may be a music fan and never have time to think about what goes on in the concert ticket business. GoTriad this week takes a look at how we may have reached a limit for what some acts can charge for their tickets.

That doesn't stop the Rolling Stones from asking as much as $450 for premium seats at some of their shows. But it could be that a lot of their market is 60-year-old empty nesters with lots of spare cash.

There's also a column by yours truly in the print edition (not posted) about problems that some venues are having with high-tech ticket brokers. It seems that some brokers have expensive software that allows them to defeat all of the safeguards of Ticketmaster or some other primary outlet, so they can buy up hundreds of tickets before fans know what hit them.

Then tickets magically find their way to eBay almost immediately at much higher prices. The New Jersey attorney general is already looking into this practice.

See this national report on the practice.