The Main Street Entrepreneurship report shows that small businesses activity in the United States was on the rise in 2015, reversing a six-year downward trend. Though small businesses activity is increasing, activity has just surpassed pre-recession levels on some measures and collectively remains just above the historical norm. Metro Phoenix [Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale] was -2 change in rank in the metropolitan standings from the year before. Go here for Metropolitan Area Rankings for Startup Activity >> http://www.kauffman.org/microsites/kauffman-index/rankings/metropolitan-area
The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship is a new series from the Kauffman Foundation bringing together the latest data available on entrepreneurial trends nationally, at the state level, and for the forty largest metropolitan areas of the United States. The latest report in the series, the Kauffman Index: Main Street Entrepreneurship, focuses on established small businesses and has two components:
Rate of Business Owners: a measure of business ownership in the population
Established Small Business Density: the number of established small businesses divided by the total population of a place
Media inquiries about the Kauffman Index can be directed to bpruitt@kauffman.org. All other questions about the Kauffman Index can be directed to Arnobio Morelix at amorelix@kauffman.org.
Phoenix New Times has picked up the ball to advance the accelerating momentum for Mesa to join the three other largest cities in Arizona that have passed ordinances to guarantee the rights of all protected classes for equality and inclusion by the force of law. In a report by Elizabeth Stewart yesterday January 11, 2015 Best and Worst Arizona Cities for LGBT Rights It's the same information in a post here on December 12, 2015 about the Human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index [MEI] that rated Phoenix, Tempe, and Tucson with a perfect score of 100. Mesa at 50.
Of the nine cities included, only Phoenix, Tempe, and Tucson have laws protecting LGBT residents from discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodation.
Equality and inclusion are not just concerns for the LGBT community - they are for everyone and all protected classes.
Half of the Mesa City Council and the seat of the Mayor will be up for grabs in this year's general election - not much diversity or inclusion there: "too vanilla' white guys mostly Mormon from the good-olé-boys crony entrenched political machine that has dominated local government for decades, no women, and the first elected Hispanic/Latino in over 135 years . . . and they say all say Mesa is diverse and all-inclusive?
Why are city laws important? Here's an excerpt from yesterday's report: "City laws are especially important, . . . because Arizona doesn’t have a statewide policy protecting against discrimination based on gender identity."
At least one city councilmember commented on what he interpreted as a "castigating tone" about the strong words used in the post here on 20 December. With all due respect, he seemed to have the fear that guaranteeing the rights of all protected classes by the force of law with no religious exemption would interfere with his expression or freedom to practice his religion. That's fine in private practice, but you cannot impose your religious beliefs while holding public office.
If public pressure and action is not enough to change local policy here in Mesa, businesses and corporations can take action, like the NFL and Emily's List did in a city in Indiana last year using their popular and economic clout to cancel events or expansion plans. Arizona's economy took a big hit when it held out approving Martin Luther King Day as a holiday for civil rights recognition. In a crossposting with World Economic Forum The Human Rights Campaign published an article by Chad Griffin on January 07, 2016 How Businesses Are Standing Up for LGBT Rights http://www.hrc.org/blog/how-businesses-are-standing-up-for-lgbt-rights Chad Griffin, the leader of the United States’ largest LGBT civil rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), has witnessed the strength that private sector leaders can have in advancing equality. In advance of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling establishing nationwide marriage equality for America’s same-sex couples, hundreds of businesses signed and submitted amicus, or friend of the court, briefs affirming their support for marriage equality. The progress has been staggering. . . The results show that major businesses are not merely ensuring basic workplace fairness to LGBT employees in select locales, but are increasingly upholding LGBT-inclusive policies of non-discrimination wherever they do business: 95 percent of global CEI businesses have fully inclusive, globally applicable non-discrimination policies and/or codes of conduct that include both sexual orientation and gender identity. He affirmatively asserts: As we move forward in the new, rapid economy of tomorrow, it is increasingly apparent that equality is more than “good” for business – it is absolutely essential Businesses and global leaders who ignore LGBT equality do so at their own peril. No executive wants to lose the next brilliant employee to a competitor simply because the business has not caught up with the times in terms of inclusive policies. No executive wants to have to ask, “What if?” when assessing the loss of talent.
Around the world and here in the United States businesses have far outpaced lawmakers in embracing the basic premise that the hard work and talents of all their employees – regardless of who they are or whom they love – are rewarded fairly in their workplaces.
Taking Time-Out from posting to honor David Bowie and his wife Iman, having had the pleasures of mixing and mingling [and catering] to both on more than a few occasions: For David Bowie at the opening party for his being on Broadway appearing in "Elephant Man" and for Iman at a birthday party in the townhouse on East 62nd Street and apartment in London Terrace Towers.
Let's take a look at both the visual graphic/logo produced for the mayor's campaign-in-office and the website for Mesa Mayor John Giles mesamayor.com while in office. This was the last entry more than four months ago on August 26, 2015 headlined [in case you missed it] ICYMI – Mesa’s Momentum Continues! "The last couple of weeks have been a blast in Mesa! . . ." What happened to writing and publishing anything about the city on the mayor's website the last four months?? Too busy with selfie-posing on social media or what?
On Instagram there's this:
Mayor John Giles
Elected Mayor of Mesa in Aug. 2014. Please join me in taking Mesa to the next level.www.mesaaz.gov/mayor
Here are the stats as of today from the mayor's Instagram account:
263 posts
815 followers
45 following
Is this an effective strategy for engaging the pubic/people who vote in local government or keeping them informed?
Go to that link for the mayor's office and you see no entries for the last four months.
How are voters supposed to make an informed decision about whether to make the choice to re-elect the mayor when details are sketchy about what he's started or accomplished in his part-term in that seat for the last year riding on the tailwinds of the previous mayor who chose to make a run for higher office as governor and lost?
There was a previous post on this site looking back at John Giles in his first State-of-the-City Speech for 2015 after five months in office.
Whether accidental or not there's a shadow in the image looming larger than the mayor.
In looking at the NextMesa logo, please take a look at the slope and direction of the first trapezoid outlined - those tailwinds might have blown John Giles uphill to a flat-line performance and then on a downhill slope.
Here's a link to the mayor - again on social media - in a 1:05 video uploaded to You Tube on December 8, 2015 from John Giles For Mayor. As of today it's had 721 views with 13 Likes. It's called "Keep Climbing" with some cautious words about "downhill coasting"
Watch it . . . it starts off with the words spoken by John Giles "I've been dealt a great hand ".
Having met the mayor and talked with him in-person on a few occasions, he didn't give me the impression that he gambles on anything - he's risk-aversive and prefers to under-promise and over-deliver to use one of his favorite phrases.
Yet with those opening words in a re-election campaign social media video, ya gotta wonder Who was "dealing the hand" and other questions like was John Giles recruited to run for office after leaving the Mesa City Council in 2000 after only one four-year term [14 years out-of-office] and why?
Is there another candidate not entrenched or embedded in the Ole' Boys Political Machine who's going to enter the race?
In taking another look at the NextMesa logo readers might notice each flat-top mesa image has a different color and is not connected to the next - there's a gap and a change and a disconnect in the overlap.
A report in Bloomberg Business by Michelle Jamrisko and Wei Lu on 07 January Here Are the Most Innovative States in America The two reporters start off by making this point about the Bloomberg Index: Bloomberg's ranking of the most innovative states in the U.S. illustrates how universities can juice local economies. To provide some context, Arizona's overall ranking in higher education leaves a lot of room for improvement while the thinking patterns in conservative politics that dominate the state might not be the most fertile ground for innovation. Shocking report on KJZZ today about the state of STEM education in Arizona - hope that readers listen to that . . .
Arizona ranks #19 overall with a score of 59 on the index while the states of Massachusetts and California come out on top with scores of 93. [Yours truly lived in both of those states.] The Bloomberg U.S. Innovation Index scored each of the 50 states on a 0-100 scale across six equally weighted metrics with these rate-rankings for Arizona: - #17 Research & Design (R&D) intensity - #42 Productivity - #08 High-tech density - #11 Concentration of STEM employment - #29 Science and engineering degree holders - #13 Patent activity The data also show the limits of measuring healthy innovation. For example, the migration of talent across state lines can be difficult to measure and often captured only on delay, such as through U.S. Census bureau figures. [subject of an earlier post on this site] On May 27, 2015 Ruth Simon published in the Wall Street Journal an articleheadlined Immigrants, Latinos Helped Drive Business Creation Last Year
On the way to run errands on the light rail yesterday by taking a diagonal shortcut through Mesa Arts Center, usually a vast hot spot for performance and visual arts, stumbled on this [image to the left] on the stone walkways.
It stopped me fast in my tracks > turning into a revelation for the future. WtFark is this? Like most residents and visitors I've seen the dinosaur footprints on the sidewalks of Main Street [and a few dinosaurs in the windows at Milano Music] but this? Some kind of homing beacon for aliens from outer space giving them a signal to attract their return landing back on Planet Earth like the Nazca Lines in South America? No. Landing here in Mesa was a gathering of bright and brilliant minds ...
It happened yesterday from 9-5 inside the Piper Theater, attracting more than a 100 engaged in connecting everything to everything > The Internet of Things
The published Schedule Give the people what they want.
Playing Host : Mike Wolfson [image to right]
Starting off with:
Chris Mattieu (9:05am - 9:30am) Greg Gorman (9:35am - 10:00am) Stewart Christie (10:05am - 10:30am) Co-Hoots (10:35a - 10:40a)
Luis Montes (10:50am - 11:15am)
