Tennessee's Self-Employment Numbers Surge

The Washington, D.C.-based Office of Advocacy released its annual Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories Thursday, with the study showing Tennessee’s self-employment numbers having surged during the past decade.

Following are highlights from the Office of Advocacy small business profile of Tennessee:

• There were approximately 545,000 small businesses in Tennessee in 2009. Of these, about 96,000 were employers and they accounted for 44.8 percent of private sector jobs in the state. Small firms comprised 97 percent of the state’s employers.

• Throughout 2010, the number of establishments that opened was lower than those that closed, but the net employment change from this turnover was positive.

• Tennessee’s real gross state product decreased 1.6 percent and private-sector employment decreased 0.5 percent percent in 2010. By comparison, real GDP in the United States decreased 1.3 percent and private sector employment declined by 0.8 percent.

• Self-employment in Tennessee surged over the last decade. Male self-employment fared better than female self-employment during the decade.

Brown said the self-employment findings show Tennessee is an entrepreneurial state.

“But our members believe we have opportunities to make it better,” he said. “We think the governor and his team are zero-ing in on those areas of opportunity, for which we are certainly grateful.”

Full article from the Nashville Post is available here.

Branding Chattanooga: Creating a Font to Tell Your Story

How does a city successfully build a name for itself and make a lasting impact on the public's perceptions?

Successful branding can turn a city into a place where people want to live, work and visit. A strong identity is vital if you are vying with other places for attention in tourism and business or relaunching an area after a regeneration initiative.

The re-branding efforts of one Tennessee city, Chattanooga, have been receiving some press recently. Two Chattanooga-based professionals, D.J. Trischler, a brand consultant and typeface designer Jeremy Dooley, have embarked on an ambitious project to distill the city's artistic and entrepreneurial spirit into a font called Chatype. The goal is to help the city and its businesses forge a distinct and cohesive identity through custom typeface, sending a visual message to the world that Chattanooga—a rapidly growing city in the midst of a creative renaissance—is “more than just your average Southern town.”

They pulled from a diverse set of local visual references including the Cherokee writing system, Coca-Cola's first bottling plant, and, of course, that city's "choo choo," immortalized by the 1940s big band song. Dooley calls the final style a "geometric slab serif." The "slabs are inspired by the industrial past. The geometric aspect is to add a sense of futurism," playing to the city's aspirations of becoming the "Silicon Valley of the East Coast" with an economy fueled by technology and startups.

While the designers still have more work to do to finalize the typeface, if all goes according to plan Chattanoogans will soon begin to see Chatype popping up on signage, business cards, emails, and websites published by the city government. The new font helps give the city an updated image, one that better tells the story of their environmental, economic, and artistic growth over the past few decades.

More at GOOD Magazine.

Making the Commonplace Special

In every city and town there is at least one barbershop or salon. These businesses are commonplace, often compete for clients, and often have short lifespans. But, those that stand out can offer interesting insights for your business.

How do you make the commonplace special?

Is it a focus on personal services? Is it unique product offerings that highlight local specialties? Or is it some else, something that is completely unexpected and outside of the box?

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to this question. But, the following video provides an interesting look into four barbershops and salons from around the globe and how they have managed to stand out from the pack. Take note, as there are certainly lessons that can apply to your business - wherever you are and whatever you do - that can be gained.

WATCH THE VIDEO NOW