Local businesses aid family with fund-raiser for medical costs

Dickie's BBQ, Snake River Landing have volunteered to help the Aaron Webb family with a fund-raiser to help cover his medical costs. Webb, a self-employed entrepreneur, lacks health insurance but urgently needs a bone-marrow transplant. For more information on the plight of him and his family, visit www.aaronraywebb.blogspot.com.

BizMojo wants to hear from you; here are some tips for telling your story

Given the number of press releases I have seen in my lifetime, I can offer a few suggestions on how to write one that's effective.

Why am I addressing this topic? Because, in order that I may keep this blog as current and full of information as possible, I want to see press releases. Although I can whittle a pageful of words down to three, two or even one paragraph, I'd prefer what comes into my in-box to be well-written and to the point.

Here are a few tips:

Proofread your work before you send it in. I have corrected plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes, but extra care in this department means you really care about your cause or business. Go over what you’ve written a few times, and then let someone else read it. 

(Note: There are a lot of people less tolerant of this than I am.)

Don't try to load your copy with keywords. I know a lot of people are obsessed with search engine optimization, but a story loaded with verbiage is more likely to get tossed. My dad used to have a card above his Olympia typewriter that said "Omit That Fat!" Great advice for any writer. Also, you might be interested to know that Google is far more likely to reward something that reads like it was written by a literate human than something that's trying to push its buttons.

Keep the sales language to a minimum. Commercials and ads are designed to sell. The purpose of a press release is to inform.

Keep your quantity in check. Familiarity breeds contempt, so if you send too many releases you're going to be dismissed out of hand. If someone gets a promotion, if there's a new hire or someone receives an award, we want to know about it. If someone has done an exceptional job of keeping his desk clean, it's not news. Unless of course it's me.

Keep it newsy. Who, what, when, where and how.

Avoid jargon. When was the last time you turned to the dictionary while you were reading a paper or browsing the Web? Do you think anyone else is?

Focus on your headline. If you've got something unique to relate, make your headline reflect it.

Anything you have to send should be sent to bizmojoidaho@gmail.com.

Bonneville County makes CNN Money "Where the Jobs Are" list

It's been a while since the area made one of the "Best Places to Live" lists, but here's Bonneville County ranking No. 15 in a national "Where the Jobs Are" rundown, between Houston County, Georgia and Cass County, North Dakota.

The article cites nuclear energy, medicine, tourism and retail as the top economic drivers.

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/jobs/2012/08/20/best-places-job-growth.moneymag/15.html

Notes from my summer vacation

When it comes to search engine optimization, this photo seems to have mysteriously strong powers. I don't understand it at all, not even a tiny bit.

As I survey the BizMojo Idaho stats (which I do every day), I've noticed that some of the posts from last year are climbing back into visibility. That leads me to suppose that there are new readers who are digging through "the vaults." This I find gratifying, because I'm on the East Coast this week and limited in my ability (or desire) to stay up on the latest business news.

This week the most-read post is http://www.bizmojoidaho.com/2011/10/two-idaho-falls-drive-in-theaters-for.html, from last October.

A little squib I wrote later that month about Idaho Falls needing an In-N-Out burger http://www.bizmojoidaho.com/2011/10/in-n-out-burger-possible-if-not.html, has racked up 132 pageviews.

Two posts about Carl's Jr., one from December and another from Februray (both now out of date), got 228 pageviews. Because a lot of traffic comes to this blog from organic search, and because one of the main search terms bringing eyeballs to this page is "juicy burger," I have to assume this is why Carl's Jr. continues to reign supreme on the BizMojo Idaho Hit Parade.

Without a doubt there's someone who knows more about this and could explain it in detail, but it would probably cost a lot of money. Not gonna happen, since the Google Gods dropped the dime on me after this smart-alecky post, http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1127161227049840947#editor/target=post;postID=7734341763842076838, which I later adapted to Idaho Falls Magazine.

With our first anniversary approaching (Sept. 5), I'm happy this blog has gotten the acceptance it has. There's been a learning curve, which I never get tired of talking about. It has been an interesting ride -- so much like what I did in newspapers (producing fresh, engaging content nearly every day), yet totally different (when it comes to social media, the reader is way more involved in deciding what is news).

People have asked me, "Why don't you write a book?" What's interesting is that if you were to count the words I've posted in the past year there would probably be enough to fill one. If you've got the time to do that or (better yet) a computer program that will allow you to do it instantly, I'd love to know when I might be in a position to pass "War and Peace" (560,000 words) or "Atlas Shrugged (645,000 words). By the way, I actually waded through Ayn Rand's tome in 1975, mainly in an effort to impress a young woman at the University of Delaware (whose name I will not reveal).

Georgia steel company plans fabrication plant near Ucon

Cives Steel Co.'s One Lincoln Street project in Boston. The Georgia-based fabricator is hoping to have permits in place by this fall to build a 54,000-square-foot plant near Ucon, its first west of the Mississippi.

This scoop came first from our friends at http://idahofallsprojects.wordpress.com, who posted it last Thursday after looking through permit applications in the Bonneville County Planning and Zoning office.

A Georgia-based steel company called Cives Steel Co., intends to build a new fabrication plant in the Idaho Falls area. A 54,000-square-foot building will house its fabrication area and offices, and there will also be five more outbuildings, just under 5,000 square feet between them. The project will be completed in three stages.

It is estimated that the project could add up to 175 new local jobs. Cives Steel says it will be the company's first plant west of the Mississippi.

Cives Vice President John Donovan told Marissa Bodnar of Local News 8 that after nearly three years of scouting out locations in the Northwest and Southwest, they settled on Idaho Falls, largely because of the local work force and its reputation.



Cives Steel Company created the steel that supports the Hearst building in New York City and the Boston Red Sox training field in Fort Myers. For a look at all the projects they have been involved in, follow this link: http://www.civessteel.com/portfolio.

Donovan said told Bodnar the new plant will most likely go up on Yellowstone Highway near the Ucon city limit. Initially he said they expect to hire about 75 people. He said Cives is hoping to have land and permit approvals by mid-September and the foundation poured by mid-October. If the weather cooperates, they could be producing steel by the first of the year, he said.

Here is a link to the video from Local News 8: http://www.localnews8.com/news/Steel-plant-to-bring-150-plus-jobs-to-eastern-Idaho/-/308662/16203446/-/13kcsbs/-/index.html