The NDDC’s Communication Committee held their monthly meeting yesterday at Tiny’s Dogs All Day. It’s the only corporate meeting site in town where Elvis observes the proceedings. Seated from left to right are Dan Bergeson, Carleton College, Greg Kneser, St. Olaf College, and Mark Quinnell, State Farm Insurance.

The group quickly reviewed our current efforts. On-going projects include the fine-graining of the database, the Downtown Business Network, the Retail Trade Analysis update, the Tapestry Contract, the “Virtual Division Street” project, and, based on my eye-opening experience at the Main Street Conference, tweaking, if not revamping, the NDDC website.

The group praised the Tapestry Contract as an exciting opportunity for further collaboration with the economic development partners. They gently but clearly told me that my priorities were off on the Virtual Division Street project. Finally, they suggested phasing the work on the NDDC website but moving forward quickly on simple changes.

The committee’s work plan for ’09 is quite ambitious. However, the members are extremely talented. We look forward to significant accomplishments this year.