So whose job is it to attract new business to Robeson County? The truth is that it’s everyone’s job to sell ourselves. If the people of our county want new businesses then we need to say we want them, speak out at the commissioners and council meetings. Support small local businesses as much as humanly possible so that our community thrives and our citizens thrive.
That being said, there is a whole county department dedicated to bringing new business to the county. This is the Office of Economic Development. This is pulled directly from their website to explain what they are and do exactly: (http://www.robesoncountyoed.org/edc.htm)
“The Robeson County Economic Development Commission is a non-profit organization utilizing public funds to promote Robeson County’s economic growth. The Economic Development Commission works with new and existing industries for the creation of new jobs, an expanded tax base in the county and a stronger local economy through the business retention and expansion program.”
Alrighty then! This office has been in the public eye recently with the unveiling of a new brochure and website. I explored this website and found it to be rather pretty on the front page (if you don’t mind a photo that has a scroll bar in it that does not scroll), but somewhat lacking in continuity on the other pages. That is neither here nor there however. I looked to see who designed this site but couldn’t find any indication. So I just continued to explore a bit.
There is a good deal of info on the site and if you’re looking at relocating a business here it seems this would be very helpful. They have an extensive ‘Links’ page as well. I read the article posted on the links page and was impressed that their brochure won an award! And the website is mirrored after the brochure… but something seemed a bit odd.
Wait!
This is the Office of Economic Development (Hereby known as OED because I am too lazy to keep typing the full name), right? For Robeson County, right? Why did they hire a firm from Raleigh to design the brochure when we have talented local designers for hire right here in this county, AS well as a community college (RCC has a computer science course that touches on web pages and design software) and a University (UNCP has a computer graphics course)? You mean to say that students couldn’t have been used to do this as a project? Come on now! I can’t imagine an instructor refusing the opportunity to let their graphics students design such a visible project for a county department. The students would get the experience and the OED would have a FREE design! How cool would that be? They could have run a contest among the students, giving the winner an article in the paper and a pat on the back and a decent start on a portfolio. But they didn’t do that at all. They paid god only knows what to have a marketing and advertising firm do it for them. This from a piss poor county that is supposedly in dire straights in every department! Of course how many advertising and design firms does our county have? I can only say that I’ve looked and I can see a couple of places that show up under graphics and advertising on the Lumberton Chambers website. So it is possible they may have had to go out of town to hire a marketing firm, but for the whole thing? I think not.
But wait! It gets even better!
So I look a bit further on this links page (by god that site is full of information if you know where to look!) and start clicking on some of the listed links. Lo and behold I see that ‘CoreVantage’ is still listed on there. Does anyone remember the promises made when that company was rolling into town? They promised a couple hundred jobs then applied for and got a huge grant… that they ultimately had to pay back. Seems to me it was a train wreck from the get-go. Yet it’s still there. But I digress. This is not about CoreVantage, rather about the link at the bottom of their home page. It says web development by. So I click the link there and am taken to a web design company that is located in Wisconsin. Wisconsin people. That’s alright though, because CoreVantage can hire whoever they want, from where ever to design and maintain their website! It is a free country after all!
But wait! There’s more to it!
I click on the ‘Clients sites’ link on the Wisconsin web design site. And guess what I see? Did you guess right? The OED website is listed as a client. The OED paid a web designer that is not only out of town and out of county BUT is out of state, to do the new site. I won’t repeat myself about the many local designers who do this for a living that would have given them a wonderful site at good prices, OR the two institutions of higher learning that could have done it all for free. I’ll just say this: WTF?
The organization that is supposedly working to bring more business to the county and to help retain business and industry goes out of county and out of state to contract things which could have either been done totally free OR could have put much needed monies back into our local economy. I would say I’m speechless but you’d never buy that. I’m outraged. I can’t stress how easy it would have been to get quality work from within our own county, possibly at no cost to tax payers at all. But then again the article does say: (and I quote from their website links page)
“Our goal was to present our assets, which include our great location along the Interstate 95 and Interstate 74 corridors, in a professional brochure, which will help brand our county and make a memorable impression on our prospects.”
I suppose this means that they had to go out of our own county to get a professionally done brochure. I take that as there is no one qualified to provide that in Robeson County. The very county this organization is trying to promote. I’m insulted.
You be the judge of what this means. I know what I think.
P.S. If you’re a local to Robeson County web designer, graphics designer or the like send me a link to your website and I’ll link you here and on our message board. Heck if you own a small business period send me a link or if you don’t have a website send me the complete info for your business and I’ll post it here and on the message board. A bit of advertisement never hurts! Send links to any blogs that are local and I’ll link them as well..might as well go for the whole shebang, eh? This county needs more networking!
P.P.S- I just had to add this in response to the last quote from the OED website concering ‘branding’ our county. PLEASE! This county has been ‘branded’ over and over again. You don’t think the corrupt sheriffs department branded us? Hell everytime it’s reported on we get seared a bit darker. But lets also not forget how our own children have branded this county: How about RobCo? Think that nickname is a good one? Think again the next time you hear a younger person snickering about how backwoods RobCo is and how they’re never coming back to this hole. A perfect example of the branding of our county is the nickname the kids have for Lumberton; Lumberdump. Don’t believe me? Do a google search for “lumberdump”…we’re already branded. 
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