After a six-month sabbatical due to the sheer "busy-ness" of business in Logan County and beyond, I am pleased to return to the Opinion Page of the News-Democrat & Leader with this column about our community's economic development initiatives and issues.
Thanks again to Publisher Randy Fuqua and Editor Jim Turner for their continued support in making this information resource available through the pages of our local newspaper!
One of the major projects that kept me busy over the last few months was the launch of LEAD's new website at www.loganLEADs.com in February. Recent surveys in the January 2007 edition of Area Development magazine show that 59% of corporate executives and 88% of site selection consultants utilize the Internet as their primary source of information about local communities to analyze and determine a site for an existing business expansion or a new business location project.
Our new website is designed to demonstrate to a global web audience that Logan County, Ky., is the best LEAD for their business!
Over the course of a year previous to unveiling the new website, I worked diligently with LEAD's communications consultant, Ann Hilliard-Scott, and LEAD's website designer, Ashley Jackson of Cornerstone Information Systems, to research and to develop an attractive, informative, user-friendly website that showcases Logan County, Ky., on the worldwide web.
I offer my deep appreciation to Ann and Ashley for their patience and persistence in helping LEAD to create a more effective presence for our community on the Internet.
The new www.loganLEADs.com offers a treasure trove of information about Logan County and conducting business in our community.
The website was broadened in its scope to include information of interest not only to new business prospects, but also to existing businesses, entrepreneurs, small or minority-owned businesses, retail or commercial enterprises, and the public at large. At the click of a mouse, a web visitor to Logan County can quickly find these features, among many others:
A display of specifications and maps for Sites and Buildings that are available for lease or purchase for business development;
A Community Profile with quick, basic facts about features of Logan County that are important to the business sector;
A Data Center that houses a host of linked resources and downloadable documents with more detailed information about our community and its business environment, including "how-tos" about starting or financing a business here as well as a searchable Business & Industry Guide of our local industries and industrial service businesses with maps of and directions to their office locations; and
A Map Room with a variety of downloadable maps and links to online mapping resources, featuring our very own Logan County Geographic Information System (GIS).
The new LEAD website is integrated into the www.logancountyky.com family of community websites, which includes the Logan County Chamber of Commerce, the Logan County Tourist & Convention Commission, and the Logan County GIS Corporation. Not only do all these partner organizations have websites with a similar template and design, they all may be easily navigated through the new "Logan County, KY" logo and color-coded links that appear on the right-hand sidebar that appears on all their webpages.
The "Logan County, KY" logo is a common thread through all the websites, and provides an appealing new marketing logo for our community.
I like to call www.logancountyky.com Logan County's "virtual front porch" on the worldwide web. By joining the websites of our primary community development organizations through this domain, anyone visiting our community through the Internet can use www.logancountyky.com as a gateway to a wealth of information about Logan County.
This portal provides one-stop shopping for community event and quality of life information from the Chamber of Commerce, travel destinations from the Tourist & Convention Commission, user-defined maps from the Logan GIS Corp., or economic development data from LEAD. In the future, I hope that we can add a government services component to www.logancountyky.com with a joint website for all of Logan County's local governments and their services.
Please take the opportunity today to surf over to www.logancountyky.com and www.loganLEADs.com. As you peruse the LEAD website, I think you will understand why we chose the slogan "Logan LEADs" as a clever take on our organization's acronym that projects two positive messages about Logan County, Ky: Not only are Logan LEADs the best tips for new and existing business growth in our region, but we also believe that Logan LEADs the way as an aggressive partner for business development in South Central Kentucky!
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