Growth is in the service business marketplace. What do service businesses look like?

Health Services

• Physician Services
• Medical Services
• Hospital Services

Professional and Business Services

• Information Technology Services
• Financial Services
• Architectural / Engineering Services
• Marketing / Communications Services

What do the businesses in these growth areas look like? Increasingly, they are made up of individual knowledge workers. People who may be employees, partners, contractors, or service providers. One may well provide a core function of an organization, yet be self-employed and also involved in other projects/endeavors.

So, how does this affective Economic Development? Well, we need grassroots economic development. We need to bring folk here one at a time, but have a groundswell, that allows each of them to, in turn, bring folk as well.

The 300-500 employee business is still out there and still should be sought and approached for sure, but as we hunt the white whale, we should be roiling the sea below us and battling marlin, tuna, and mahi. And shrimping, too.

Not that we don’t need focus. We do need to focus. But we can focus on niches in multiple categories. And we can encourage a grassroots, ground swell of energy from a small but growing group of individuals.