
{"id":20210,"date":"2011-08-11T14:45:15","date_gmt":"2011-08-11T18:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=20210"},"modified":"2011-08-11T14:45:40","modified_gmt":"2011-08-11T18:45:40","slug":"carrboro-technology-business-mecca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/08\/11\/carrboro-technology-business-mecca\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrboro: technology-business mecca"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_20211\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20211\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2011\/08\/11\/carrboro-technology-business-mecca\/techbiz11\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-20211\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/TechBiz11.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"TechBiz11\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20211\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20211\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO BY ALEX MANESS. Joel Sutherland (front), Wally and the rest of the New Media Campaigns crew  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>By Susan Dickson<\/strong><em><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As the economy reels and local businesses suffer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with several forced to close their doors in recent weeks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c business for Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hidden economy is quietly booming. <\/p>\n<p>Unbeknownst to many, Carrboro has become something of a mini technology-business mecca in recent years, with Internet businesses like Newfangled Web Developers, Blogads, Schmap! and Caktus Consulting headquartering their companies here. <\/p>\n<p>Mark O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien, co-owner of Newfangled Web Developers, said he moved his business \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a web-development company serving clients across North America \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from Providence, R.I., to Carrboro for the quality of life here, but has discovered hidden benefits. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s local to the university, so there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great employee pool. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s central to lots of places,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Having other Internet businesses nearby hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hurt either, O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien said. Newfangled is located in the same building as Blogads, a company that connects national advertisers with blog readers through its network of 3,500 blogs. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made a lot of connections with them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They speak our language.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Overall, Newfangled has been doing very well and just published a book targeted toward companies looking to do more with their websites. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re planning on staying here for many years to come,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrboro is a great base of operation for us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Carrboro Creative Coworking owner Brian Russell, who has worked with a number of technology businessesthat got their start in shared spaces at his coworking facility, said because Internet-based businesses have more choice in where their companies are located, owners often base their decisions on quality of life and values \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which has led many of them to Carrboro. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It really boils down to quality of life,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Russell said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think a lot of these folks want to live in communities that are thinking about being sustainable and global climate change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Internet businesses springing up in Carrboro has helped other businesses \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including those not focused on the web \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that sometimes need their services. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Being in physical proximity to people makes it easier for them to do business with each other. It lowers barriers. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 It makes trust greater,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Russell said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Small-town trust and knowledge is very desirable to people who are used to a high-tech lack of trust.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Joel Sutherland, one of the founders of full-service web agency New Media Campaigns, said Carrboro has been the right choice for his company. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Carrboro has been a wonderful place to do business as the creative industry is really booming here, and the Triangle in general has become a center for innovation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. <\/p>\n<p>The company launched in 2006, when its three founders won UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s business-plan challenge as undergraduates. Though NMC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first office was located in RTP, the founders quickly moved it to Chapel Hill and then to Carrboro in 2007, drawn to the independent culture, affordable rent and great restaurants. <\/p>\n<p>Russell, who recently announced that he would close Carrboro Creative Coworking at the end of September, said he believes that local businesses will need to follow the lead of local Internet businesses and utilize the web in order to bounce back. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It comes down to embracing the Internet and sales online,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m all about local business and local ideas to support that \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no reason we should be ignoring global markets.\u00e2\u20ac\u009dTechnology businesses \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0both local and non-local \u00e2\u20ac\u201c are thriving right now, and Carrboro should focus its energy on that, Russell added.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t increase the amount of wealth being invested in Carrboro in that industry \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the harder it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be for us as a community to benefit from it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. <\/p>\n<p><em>Staff writer Vicky Dickson contributed reporting for this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the economy reels and local businesses suffer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with several forced to close their doors in recent weeks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c business for Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hidden economy is quietly booming. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20210"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20247,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20210\/revisions\/20247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}