Duke fans have been celebrating since Tuesday's historic NCAA Championship Men's Basketball win and now the community is invited to Durham to celebrate.
Music and pre-event festivities will start at 4:30 p.m. with the Duke pep band and Duke cheerleaders. At 5 p.m. the team will be welcomed by Durham Chamber President Casey Steinbacher and then recognized by Durham Mayor Bill Bell and Durham County Board of Commissioners Chairman Michael Page. The team will be presented and Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski will give remarks.
The celebration is presented by the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau, Downtown Durham Inc., The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, The City of Durham, and Durham County to recognize and thank the team for bringing such tremendous honor to Durham through their excellence as a team.
The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and its Transportation Committee will host N. C. Department of Transportation Secretary Tony Tata on Tuesday, September 24 from noon to 1:30 at the Durham Convention Center. This event is open to Chamber members and the public. Seating is limited and registration is required.
Secretary Tony Tata will discuss the future of transportation in North Carolina along with infrastructure development, multimodal transport, the impact of transit on economic development initiatives and how we as a State continue to prioritize transit issues during a time when budgets are being cut.
Tata was appointed Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation by Governor Pat McCrory in January 2013. Tata, who retired from the U.S. Army as a brigadier general, brings to his position more than three decades of public service as a military officer and public school system leader. He has a history of successfully leading and transforming large, complex organizations with vast responsibilities. Most recently, he served as the Superintendent of Wake County Public School System, leading the state’s largest school district of 18,000 employees and 150,000 students.
Registration is available at online (select the Calendar of Events). For questions, please contact Sheena Johnson Cooper at 919.328.8722 or email.
Learn more about why Durham is a great place to live, work, and play.
Durham, NC is no stranger to big ideas. The place is home to companies and thought leaders who have changed the world with things like technology, medicine, and scholarship.
Now, a new effort to make a big mark is taking shape.
The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce will attempt to beat the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest networking event during ‘The Big’ on Thursday, September 26 from 5 to 7 p.m. The Big will be held on the plaza of the Durham Centre building in downtown Durham. The entire Durham community is invited to participate.
“It’s not just about setting a new world record,” said Casey Steinbacher, president & CEO of the Durham Chamber. “We wanted to create an environment in which people can make as many connections as possible to help them growth their businesses. We understand the value of referral marketing and feel that it is the Chamber’s role to help facilitate that. Being the world record holder would be an added bonus.”
The current record stands at 357 and is held by KCSourceLink in Kansas City, MO, and was set on November 12, 2012.
In addition to networking, the event will feature an exclusive tabletop expo for Chamber members along with food vendors from throughout Durham. Following the networking, there will be The Big Deck Party with entertainment provided by The Art of Cool Project.
The Big is free and open to all who would like to attend. Registration and additional information about The Big is available online or by calling the Chamber at 919.328.8700.
A walk down Main Street in Durham, NC will take one past many great restaurants, bars, and shops, as well as office and residential space. One such place is Beyu Caffe, and there, in the window on the right, if one looks closely, is The Smoffice.
Durham Wins! Casey Steinbacher, Matthew Coppedge and
Adam Klein with $3,000 check and plaque.
Photo from Downtown Durham, Inc.
Such a cool idea this was, that it got national media attention, and applicants to occupy the space came from around the world. The idea had undeniable panache, and people loved it.
The tenants of The Smoffice have since moved out, but the idea was entered into a contest to determine The World's Most Unconventional Economic Development Project.
Guess what. It won. At 25 square feet, The Smoffice bested contenders from around the globe at The World Chambers Competition at which chambers of commerce competed with their economic development projects. Some of these were executed at the national level with massive budgets. Despite the long odds and imposing competition, Durham did what Durham does...it roared. Again.
The competition was held in Doha, Qatar where Casey Steinbacher, Matthew Coppedge, and Adam Klein represented Durham. Steinbacher is President of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, Coppedge is Chief Operating Officer for Downtown Durham, Inc, and Klein, formerly with the Chamber, is now with American Underground.
This is the first time the US has ever won this competition.
More details will be shared as they are available. Some back story on the project is at the links below.
Have you seen The Smoffice in the front of Beyu? It's that window on the right. It made some big news when it launched, and it's making more news now.
At 25 square feet, The Smoffice has been chosen as one of 5 finalists for Best Unconventional Chamber Project in the World. Yep - the entire big blue marble.
The Smoffice will be competing for the worldwide title this April at the World Chambers Congress, a gathering of the global community of more than 12,000 chambers of commerce, their presidents and CEOs, business members, and influential world leaders.
The 2013 Meeting will be held in Doha, Qatar, where Durham will be competing against 4 others Chambers, three of which are national chambers:
The Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia
Korea Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of Commerce of Nuremberg, Germany
The Chamber of Commerce of Finland
For those who aren’t “in the know" The Smoffice was a national contest to give away the World’s Smallest Office Space. The goal of The Smoffice was to begin to create greater national awareness of Durham as an entrepreneurial hub with the intent to significantly increase the density of startups in downtown.
The Smoffice received press on an international scale in 2012, being featured in TechCrunch, Startup Smart, WRAL Tech Wire, New York Times, Fast Company, Tech Journal South, Triangle Tech Talk and Smart Planet. The chosen company, The Makery Project launched during their time in The Smoffice and continue to grow in Downtown Durham.
The creators of the Bull City Startup Stampede are back at it with a new project. It's a really big deal and a great opportunity for the winner. The exposure will be massive and the financial value is big. It's just that the space is, well, small.
Really small.
The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Durham, Inc. are partnering once again to bring entrepreneurs to downtown Durham, this time through an initiative called The Smoffice. A national competition, The Smoffice will provide one startup with six months of free space in “The World’s Smallest Office” as well as a free six-month lease on a downtown condo.
The Smoffice will be located in the storefront window of Beyu Caffe, a prominent coffee shop on Main Street. “We are excited to be working with Dorian (owner of Beyu) as we think entrepreneurship and coffee make a great pair,” said Adam Klein, Startup Strategist at the Durham Chamber. “We like the energy of the crowd that spends time at Beyu Caffe and think this location will give the winning entrepreneur an easy opportunity to meet and mingle with fellow entrepreneurs and Durham’s business leaders.”
The Smoffice design was created by Center Studio Architecture and constructed by McDonald York. The winning entrepreneur will enjoy a custom built desk as well as free furniture from CBi and a tablet. In addition to the commercial space, the winner will get to enjoy downtown Durham around the clock with a free condo at Mangum 506.
“Downtown Durham powers startups and we want to give The Smoffice winner as much exposure and time in Durham as possible,” said Downtown Durham Inc.’s Director of Marketing Matthew Coppedge. “We are quickly becoming a significant startup hub and The Smoffice gives us a great chance to continue to feature entrepreneurs and the kind of energy and creativity they drive in a downtown environment. This initiative will show that one does not need the best or fanciest space to launch a successful company, but rather be surrounded by a stimulating environment and people.”
The Smoffice winner will also receive technical assistance from startup experts in legal, accounting and marketing. Perhaps most important, the winner will be networked with the 70 other startups that call downtown Durham home.
Applications for The Smoffice open on Leap Day, February 29 and close Friday, March 30. Interested applicants can learn more at www.thesmoffice.com or on Twitter @thesmoffice. Applications should include a one page business plan along with a 60 second You Tube video detailing why the startup should win The Smoffice space. The Smoffice winner will be announced on Friday, April 13 and the winner will arrive in Durham and open The Smoffice on Monday, April 30. Website design for The Smoffice was provided by Kompleks Creative.
Durham is a great place for big ideas, big personalities and big businesses...but they all started someplace (ugh.) small.
The Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau (DCVB) is pleased to announce the availability of the 2012 Official Durham Visitor & Relocation Guide starting today. The 100 page publication, produced in conjunction with the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce (GDCC), is the most widely-distributed resource for visitors, residents and those considering relocation to Durham.
“This guide is by far the most complete and the best distributed of any such publication about Durham,” said Shelly Green, President and CEO of DCVB. "It is indispensible for people visiting or planning to relocate here."
DCVB has won awards over the past 21 years for its annual visitor guides citing innovation, design and content. This year’s publication is a departure from years past in that new features have been added to enhance the overall usefulness of the publication including scan codes to launch directly to websites, more images that communicate Durham’s unique sense of place, and expanded coverage and new coverage of many of Durham's visitor attributes. Additionally, there is much greater support from community businesses.
Those interested are welcome to pick up a copy at the Visitor Information Center at 101 E. Morgan Street on the Downtown Loop. The 130,000 copies printed will be distributed for a 13-month period. Additionally, a fully linked electronic version is being prepared for placement on the official Durham visitor website, www.Durham-NC.com, and should be accessible soon.
Businesses interested in participating in next year’s publication should email ads@durham-cvb.com. Those intersted in having copies for distribution should email visitorinfo@durham-cvb.com.
Centerfest has been a landmark event in Durham for dozens of years. Having changed in format over the years, the event is now taking a one year hiatus to be envisioned anew - a process into which the public's commentary is welcomed.
"We're excited to help with this process because Centerfest, historically, has been such a major visitor draw," said Shelly Green, DCVB's President and CEO. "We're looking forward to working with peer organizations and the general public's input to refashion this event into one with national appeal and one that will garner a lot of visitation," she added.
The focus groups are open to the public. Since Durham owns a reputation as being a place with great community involvement, it is hoped that people will come out and voice their opinions and share their input and ideas. Six different focus groups, each with a different emphasis, will be held and details are available on the web.
Imagine a community welcoming to people
with ideas, passion and the desire to start a business; a place where when
people hear the ideas of others they respond with “How can I help?” instead of
“Good luck;” a place where even failure is ok as long as the road there is
lined with integrity.
Durham, a city with deep
entrepreneurial roots, has been garnering national attention for its
progressive and innovative nature for hundreds of years. Durham is home to
Research Triangle Park (RTP), the largest high-tech research and science park
in North America. In addition, Downtown Durham is home to over 60 startup companies employing more than 500 people.
The startup culture is hardly new.
Durham has always been a hotbed of entrepreneurialism - the Great American
Indian Trading Path ran through here; a route that was an early manifestation
of entrepreneurial activity. In the 1860s,
Washington Duke started what grew into the mega-giant American Tobacco Company from
pocket change. Businesses like Durham-based
Cree and Quintiles grew from a handful of employees 25 years ago to their
current status as multinational companies with thousands of employees.
More recently, in 2011, Durham was the
first stop on the US Small Business Administration’s national tour of
roundtable discussions called Startup America: Reducing Barriers. In other
words, entrepreneurism is an essential part of Durham’s DNA.
With the startup landscape flourishing
in Durham, the future looks brighter every day.
An influx of small business incubators and accelerators has drawn
entrepreneurs to Durham from around the world, all of whom have a dream and the
drive to succeed. Organizations like JoyStick Labs, LaunchBox Digital and Bull City Forward, to name a few.
Much of the success of these small
businesses can be traced to organizations and programs that help entrepreneurs
thrive. The Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Durham Inc. have hosted The Bull City Start-up Stampede,
a competitive initiative matching start-up companies with free office space and
technical assistance. CED, the regional council for entrepreneurial development located in Downtown Durham also provides
entrepreneurs with the necessary resources and tools to start and grow their
businesses.
Duke University recently launched a
major campus-wide initiative in innovation and entrepreneurship led by Kimberly
Jenkins. A Duke alumna, Jenkins’ resume
includes working with Microsoft’s Bill Gates back when it was a start-up company,
leading the marketing department for Steve Jobs at NeXT, as well as stints
advising companies such as Sun, Oracle and Cisco. This effort will help keep bright graduates
close by and further expand the societal impact of Duke innovations.
Turns out, Durham is also a great
place to be to work on stepping away from a business that has grown to great
success, too. Two of Durham’s
entrepreneurs, Jess Eberdt and Doug Townsend, did exactly this and maneuvered away
from the daily operations of their hugely successful business Parata Systems. They started Tempus Durham, a firm that helps
successful entrepreneurs do exactly as they have done, devise an exit strategy
from a successful business to have freedom to pursue other things.
Durham has myriad stories of dreams
that became ideas that became realities that grew into great successes. It’s really a city to be reckoned with when
it comes to starting a business, routinely being named in the same breath as
Silicon Valley.
Considering that more than 80% of
relocating executives visit a location first before deciding to move their
companies, the success of Durham as a visitor destination can only further encourage
the natural evolution and current momentum that made Durham such a highly
sought-after business climates in the U.S.
Well, it was quite a year for the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau's Local Favorites Survey. A record number of people perused the questions, the answers were quite varied and, in some cases, rather entertaining. DCVB would like to thank its respondents for their generous sharing of preferences.
Visitors are always in pursuit of information about what residents think. For years, DCVB has conducted this survey to deliver exactly that sort of feedback, and this year's list is a great example of why Durham is where great food and dining happen.
"Coming out on top in this survey is pretty important to some of the local restaurants," said Shelly Green, DCVB's President and CEO. "We promote Local Favorites on our website and in the Official Visitors & Relocation Guide, our highest volume print piece that is dispensed to both those considering visitation and relocation."
"Given the impact of our distribution channels, and sheer visitation traffic, a place on this list is worth more than just bragging rights," added Sam Poley, DCVB's Director of Marketing and Communications. "Past winners are also listed on a dedicated web page, so the value continues over time. This is not a very perishable ranking - that's one of the reasons those on the list get a plaque to accompany their victory. We've seen folks post those for years...they consider it quite an honor."
Durham is a now a three-time winner of America's Promise Alliance 100 Best Communities for Young People. In an event in Washington, DC, Durham was lauded for its progress in helping young people achieve their potential, by working collaboratively to keep kids healthy, safe and better prepared for the future.
One of only two counties in North Carolina to be honored, Durham was selected from a pool of more than 300 communities in all 50 states.
The Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce are pleased to announce they are joining forces to promote Durham to visitors and people relocating, by creating by creating a single joint visitor and relocation guide.
Called the Official Visitor and Relocation Guide to Durham, the magazine will be published in January of 2012. By combining three existing vehicles (DCVB’s Visitor Guide, the Chamber's Membership Directory and the Chamber’s Make It Durham Relocation Guide,) local businesses will save advertising dollars and hassle, plus reach a larger audience at the same time. More than 100,000 copies will be printed and distributed directly to 130 venues throughout Durham as well as to those requesting a copy through DCVB's marketing and advertising.
Last year there were three publications produced, all with similar and overlapping information. “This collaboration is a no-brainer,” said Shelly Green, President and Chief Executive Officer of DCVB. “It makes sense because we are the organizations with the most direct access to the request stream. The Chamber and DCVB distribute directly to visitors, and people and businesses in the process of relocating."
The Chamber and DCVB are the recognized organizations in Durham charged with the responsibility of attracting and serving visitors, relocating businesses and new residents. This will be the only Guide used by DCVB and by the Chamber in their visitor and relocation efforts including the Make It Durham program.
“Durham’s star has been on the rise for many years, with the last few years seeing a meteoric ascent in attention. The timing for this move simply could not be better as the world has literally taken notice of Durham,” said Casey Steinbacher, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber.
The production of the guide is already underway. Businesses and organizations desiring information about advertising opportunities should contact Greg Craft at ads@durham-cvb.com.
